he was a freshman.}

CHAPTER III

FIRST FLIGHTS IN AUTHORSHIP

It is interesting to know that twice, during his college days,
Longfellow had occasion to show his essentially American feeling; first,
in his plea for the Indians on an Exhibition Day, and again, more fully
and deliberately, in his Commencement Oration on "Our Native Writers."
On Exhibition Day,--a sort of minor Commencement,--he represented, in
debate, an American Indian, while his opponent, James W. Bradbury, took
the part of an English emigrant. The conclusion of the exercise summed
up the whole, being as follows:--

"_Emigrant._--Is it thus you should spurn all our offers of kindness,
and glut your appetite with the blood of our countrymen, with no excuse
but the mere pretence of retaliation? Shall the viper sting us and we
not bruise his head? Shall we not only let your robberies and murders
pass unpunished, but give you the possession of our very fireside, while
the only arguments you offer are insolence and slaughter? Know ye, the
land is ours until you will improve it. Go, tell your ungrateful
comrades the world declares the spread of the white people at the
expense of the red is the triumph of peace over violence. Tell them to
cease their outrages upon the civilized world or but a few days and they
shall be swept from the earth.

"_Savage._--Alas! the sky is overcast with dark and blustering clouds.
The rivers run with blood, but never, never will we suffer the grass to
grow upon our war-path. And now I do remember that the Initiate prophet,
in my earlier years, told from his dreams that all our race should fall
like withered leaves when autumn strips the forest! Lo! I hear sighing
and sobbing: 'tis the death-song of a mighty nation, the last requiem
over the grave of the fallen."{3}

It is fair to conjecture that we may have in this boyish performance the
very germ of "Hiawatha," and also to recall the still more youthful
verses which appeared in the Portland "Gazette." He wrote in college not
merely such verses, but some prose articles for the "American Monthly
Magazine," edited in Philadelphia, by Dr. James McHenry, who in his
letters praised the taste and talent shown in the article upon "Youth
and Age." More important to the young poet, however, was his connection
with a new semi-monthly periodical called the "United States Literary
Gazette." This was published in Boston and New York simultaneously,
having been founded by the la