have quoted? Not one. Not even Shakespeare, or Victor Hugo, or
Homer."{1}

One has merely to glance at any detailed catalogue of the translations
from Longfellow's works--as for instance that given in the appendix to
this volume--to measure the vast extent of his fame. The list includes
thirty-five versions of whole books or detached poems in German, twelve
in Italian, nine each in French and Dutch, seven in Swedish, six in
Danish, five in Polish, three in Portuguese, two each in Spanish,
Russian, Hungarian, and Bohemian, with single translations in Latin,
Hebrew, Chinese, Sanskrit, Marathi, and Judea-German--yielding one
hundred versions altogether, extending into eighteen languages, apart
from the original English. There is no evidence that any other
English-speaking poet of the last century has been so widely
appreciated.

Especially is this relative superiority noticeable in that wonderful
literary cyclopaedia, the vast and many-volumed catalogue of the British
Museum. There, under each author's name, is found not merely the record
of his works in every successive edition, but every secondary or
relative book, be it memoir, criticism, attack, parody, or translation;
and it is always curious to consider the relative standing of American
and English authors under this severe and inexorable test. The entries
or items appearing in the interleaved catalogue under the name of
Tennyson, for instance, up to September, 1901, were 487; under
Longfellow, 357; then follow, among English-writing poets, Browning
(179), Emerson (158), Arnold (140), Holmes (135), Morris (117), Lowell
(114), Whittier (104), Poe (103), Swinburne (99), Whitman (64). The
nearest approach to a similar test of appreciation in the poet's own
country is to be found in the balloting for the new Hall of Fame,
established by an unknown donor on the grounds of the New York
University with the avowed object of creating an American Westminster
Abbey. The names of those who were to appear in it were selected by a
board of one hundred judges carefully chosen from men of all occupations
and distributed over every State in the Union; and these balloted for
the first hundred occupants of the Hall of Fame. Only thirty-nine names
obtained a majority of votes, these being taken, of course, from men of
all pursuits; and among these Longfellow ranked tenth, having
eighty-five votes, and being preceded only by Washington, Lincoln,
Webster, Franklin, Grant, Marshall, Jef