242
NOTES AND QUERIES. [io s. VIL MARCH so, 1907.
Pulton. Nowell Sotherton subsequently
became a Baron of the Exchequer.
WM. UNDERBILL.
170, Merton Road, Wimbledon.
[A parallel to the change from Nether Orton to Nether Worton is supplied in the note on ' Brothers bearing the same Christian Name,'jx>rt, p. 246, where the modern Stow-on-the-Wold appears in 1582 as Stowe-upon-the-Olde. PROF. SKEAT had a note on the pronunciation of initial w and o at 10 S. ii. 235.]
LONGFELLOW.
(See ante, pp. 201, 222.)
ON the 25th of February, 1859, we find in the poet's journal :
" The thought struck me this morning, that a very good poem might be written on the Saga of King Olaf, who converted the North to Christianity. Read the old Saga in the ' Heimskringla,' Laing's translation. It is very curious. ' The Challenge of Thor' will serve as a prelude." But it was not until November, 1860, that he took up the task in earnest, when he wrote fifteen of the lyrics in as many days ; and a few days afterwards he completed the whole of the Saga.
The framework of ' The Wayside Inn ' was determined later : the llth of October, 1862, is the first indication we have in his diary ; and on the 31st, on " a delicious Indian-summer day," he " drives with Fields to the old ' Ked Horse ' Tavern in Sudbury," which used to be a house of call for all travellers from Boston westward. The title he intended to give the book was ' The Sudbury Tales ' ; but when he saw it announced he disliked it. Sumner cried out against it, and persuaded him to come back to the title of ' The Wayside Inn.' All the characters in it are real. It was published on the 25th of November, 1863, by Ticknor & Fields with a first edition of fifteen thousand copies.
At this point of my notes it will be inter- esting to record the reception given to Long- fellow's works in the pages of The Athenceum.
As far back as the 13th of June, 1840, that journal, in its review of ' Voices of the Night,' had pointed out that there was " rising up in America a generation of poets and scholars nourished by the old world, but not scornful of the new " travellers, who have visited
the galleries of Italy and the libraries of Germany, and have drawn thence a refined spirit of appre- ciation and a fund of poetical associations which cast a mellower beauty upon all the objects with which nature has glorified their home empire."
For a long time The Athenceum had been urging " the poetical doctrine of America
for the Americans," and while the poets of"
that country had been " running off to
Marathon and the Seven Hills, to London
and the Black Forest, in search of poetic
ore," The Athenceum had pointed out to
them the rich lodes of fancy lying untouched
and virgin at their feet :
"Buried cities, vanishing races, forests, lakes, mountains, and waterfalls, all the mythical and pictorial elements in which imagination loves to- work, are there, in their own great country, as we have said again and again, waiting the artist's eye to see their beauty, and the singer's tongue to give them voice."
The Athenceum considered it to be a serious impeachment of the national genius that the American poets had neglected " the sad and tender chords of Indian story," " the poetic features of the Red man," " the tale of the white man in America," in favour of " legends of European goblins, European cities, and European literary fashions " ; and in reviewing ' Hiawatha ' on the 10th of November, 1855, it rejoices that Longfellow " has removed this literary reproach," and that in ' Hiawatha ' we have " at length an American song by an American singer " : " The tale itself is beautiful, fanciful, and new,
the measure is novel as well as the matter. It
is a rhymeless verse, with something of forest music in its rise and fall. In it we hear, as it were, the swaying of trees, the whirr of wings, the pattering of leaves, the trickling of water."
The Athenceum hopes to find Longfellow
"on a future day still working at this poetic mine. America has found a Pactolus within her border: why should not her poets endow her w r ith a new Parnassus ? "
A controversy speedily arose on the measure of the poem, as to whether it was from the Finns or Spaniards ; and on the 17th of November William Howitt writes :
"The measurewhich he [Longfellow] has adopted, and which you so justly praise, is the old national metre of Finland. Almost the whole of the Fin- landic poetry is written in it. It is the metre of the 'Kalevala,' the great national epic, and of the ' Kanteletar,' the collection of the Finlandic ballads and popular lyrics."
On the 7th of December Freiligrath writes to Longfellow :
"Are you not chuckling over the war which is waging in the (London) Athen<?Mm about the measure of 'Hiawatha'? Of course William Howitt is right, and your trochaic metre is taken from the Finns, and not from the Spaniards." Again on the 21st he writes :
" The controversy is still raging. After a month's itching of my writing fingers I shall break forth in to-morrow's Athenmim. I trust the way in which I do so may be liked and approved by you."
Freiligrath's letter appeared on Decem-
