4. +Longfellow’s Style.+-- In one of his prose works, Longfellow himself says, “In character, in manners, in style, in all things, the supreme excellence is simplicity.” This simplicity he steadily aimed at, and in almost all his writings reached; and the result is the sweet lucidity which is manifest in his best poems. His verse has been characterised as “simple, musical, sincere, sympathetic, clear as crystal, and pure as snow.” He has written in a great variety of measures-- in more, perhaps, than have been employed by Tennyson himself. His “Evangeline” is written in a kind of dactylic hexameter, which does not always scan, but which is almost always musical and impressive-- “Fair was she and young, when in hope began the long journey; Faded was she and old, when in disappointment it ended.” The “Hiawatha,” again, is written in a trochaic measure-- each verse containing four trochees-- “‘Farewell!’ said he, ‘Minnehaha, Farewell, O my laughing water! All my heart is buried with you, All´ my | thou´ghts go | on´ward | wi´th you!’” He is always careful and painstaking with his rhythm and with the cadence of his verse. It may be said with truth that Longfellow has taught more people to love poetry than any other English writer, however great. 5. ALFRED TENNYSON, a great English poet, who has written beautiful poetry for more than fifty years, was born at Somersby, in Lincolnshire, in the year 1809. He is the youngest of three brothers, all of whom are poets. He was educated at Cambridge, and some of his poems have shown, in a striking light, the forgotten beauty of the fens and flats of Cambridge and Lincolnshire. In 1829 he obtained the Chancellor’s medal for a poem on “Timbuctoo.” In 1830 he published his first volume, with the title of +Poems chiefly Lyrical+-- a volume which contained, among other beautiful verses, the “Recollections of the Arabian Nights” and “The Dying Swan.” In 1833 he issued another volume, called simply +Poems+; and this contained the exquisite poems entitled “The Miller’s Daughter” and “The Lotos-Eaters.” +The Princess+, a poem as remarkable for its striking thoughts as for its perfection of language, appeared in 1847. The +In Memoriam+, a long series of short poems in memory of his dear friend, Arthur Henry Hallam, the son of Hallam the historian, was published in the year 1850. When Wordsworth died in 1850, Tennyson was appointed to the office of Poet-Laureate. This office, from the time when Dryden was forced to resign it in 1689, to the time when Southey accepted it in 1813, had always been held by third or fourth rate writers; in the present day it is held by the man who has done the largest amount of the best poetical work. +The Idylls of the King+ appeared in 1859. This series of poems-- perhaps his greatest-- contains the stories of “Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table.” Many other volumes of poems have been given by him to the world. In his old age he