Other poems show his scholar’s love for the past. They express the natural longing felt by an inhabitant of a crude new land for countries where romance lies thick because history is ancient. ‘The Belfry of Bruges’ and ‘Nuremberg’ are examples. Moreover Longfellow’s ballads have genuine quality. ‘The Skeleton in Armor’ illustrates his study of Scandinavian literature. ‘The Wreck of the Hesperus’ is based on an actual incident which came under his notice. The criticism reflecting on this ballad because the poet had never seen the reef of Norman’s Woe, is superfine. Longfellow was born and reared almost within a stone’s throw of the Atlantic. His knowledge of the ocean began with his first lessons in life. His sea poems are distinctive. ‘The Building of the Ship,’ ‘The Fire of Driftwood,’ ‘Sir Humphrey Gilbert,’ ‘The Secret of the Sea,’ ‘The Lighthouse,’ ‘Chrysaor,’ and ‘Seaweed,’ whether or not they deserve the praise Henley gives them, will always be accounted among Longfellow’s characteristic pieces. Two other works may be noted in this section: the _Poems on Slavery_ and a play, _The Spanish Student_. The first of these, though academic, shows how early Longfellow took his rank with the unpopular minority. _The Spanish Student_, a play based on _La Gitanilla_ of Cervantes, was written _con amore_, and ‘with a celerity of which I did not think myself capable.’ Longfellow had great hopes of its success, though he seems not to have been ambitious for a dramatic presentation. The success was to come through the reader. _The Spanish Student_ shows that Longfellow could have written good acting plays had he chosen to submit to the irritations and rebuffs which are the inevitable preliminary to dramatic good fortune. VI _EVANGELINE, HIAWATHA, MILES STANDISH, TALES OF A WAYSIDE INN_ _Evangeline_ and _Hiawatha_ mark the climax of Longfellow’s contemporary popularity and may be regarded as the principal bulwarks of his fame. There is an anecdote to the effect that Hawthorne, to whom the subject of Evangeline was proposed, was not attracted by it, while Longfellow seized on it eagerly. Such was the divergence of their genius. Longfellow’s mind always sought the fair uplands of thought, checkered with alternate sunshine and shadow; it did not willingly traverse deep ravines, gloomy and mysterious, or haunted groves such as those about which Hawthorne’s spirit loved to keep. The instinct which led the one poet to reject the narrative was as infallible as that which led the other to appropriate it.