All the customary honors with which literary achievement may be recognized were bestowed on Longfellow. Some were formal and academic, scholastic tributes to scholastic achievement. Others were spontaneous and popular, an expression of the heart. Two illustrations will suffice to show the range of the poet’s influence. In 1869, during Longfellow’s last journey in Europe, the degree of D. C. L. was conferred on him by the University of Oxford. In 1879, when the tree which overhung ‘the village smithy’ was felled, an armchair was made of the wood, and given to the poet by the school-children of Cambridge. Both these tributes were necessary. Each is the complement of the other. Taken together, they symbolize the characteristics of the man and the artist. Of all American poets Longfellow reached the widest audience. And it was with a feeling of personal bereavement that every member of that vast audience heard the news of his death at Cambridge, on March 24, 1882. II LONGFELLOW’S CHARACTER As a young man Longfellow was pretty much like other young men, fond of society and fond of dress. At Cambridge the sober-minded were a little disturbed by the brilliancy of his waistcoats. In the Thirties it was permitted men, if they would, to array themselves like birds of paradise. Longfellow appears in some degree to have availed himself of the privilege. After a visit to Dickens in London in 1842 the novelist wrote Longfellow that boot-maker, hosier, trousers-maker, and coat-cutter had all been at the point of death. ‘The medical gentlemen agreed that it was exhaustion occasioned by early rising--to wait upon you at those unholy hours!’ An English visitor who saw Longfellow in 1850 thought him too fashionably dressed with his ‘blue frock-coat of Parisian cut, a handsome waistcoat, faultless pantaloons, and primrose colored “kids.”’ In middle age his social instinct was as strong as ever, but he cared less for ‘society.’ He restricted himself to the companionship of his friends, holding always in reserve time for his dependants, of whom he had more than a fair share. Longfellow was large-hearted. He liked people if they were likable and sympathized with them if they were unattractive or unfortunate. He was open-handed, a liberal giver. Adventurers preyed upon him. He endured them with patient strength. When their exactions became outrageous, he made an effort to be rid of them. If unsuccessful, he laughed at his own want of skill and resigned himself to be imposed on a little longer. A weaker man would have sent these bores and parasites about their business at once. Incapable of giving pain to any living creature, he could not understand the temper which prompts another to do so. Fortunately the violence or malignity of criticism had little effect on him. He could even be amused by it. Of Margaret Fuller’s ‘furious onslaught’ on him in the ‘New York Tribune,’ Longfellow said, ‘It is what ‘might be called a bilious attack.’