_The Courtship of Miles Standish_ (1858), in the same meter as _Evangeline_, is a romantic tale, the scene of which is laid "In the Old Colony days, in Plymouth, the land of the Pilgrims." We see Miles Standish, the incarnation of the Puritan church militant, as he "... wistfully gazed on the landscape, Washed with a cold gray mist, the vapory breath of the east-wind, Forest and meadow and hill, and the steel-blue rim of the ocean, Lying silent and sad in the afternoon shadows and sunshine." Priscilla Mullins, the heroine of the poem, is a general favorite. Longfellow and Bryant were both proud to trace their descent from her. This poem introduces her "Seated beside her wheel, and the carded wool like a snow-drift Piled at her knee, her white hands feeding the ravenous spindle, While with her foot on the treadle she guided the wheel in its motion. * * * * * She, the Puritan girl, in the solitude of the forest, Making the humble house and the modest apparel of homespun Beautiful with her beauty, and rich with the wealth of her being!" This story has more touches of humor than either _Evangeline_ or _Hiawatha_. Longfellow uses with fine effect the contradiction between the preaching of the bluff old captain, that you must do a thing yourself if you want it well done, and his practice in sending by John Alden an offer of marriage to Priscilla. Her reply has become classic: "Why don't you speak for yourself, John?" Longfellow's _Christus, a Mystery_, was the title finally given by him to three apparently separate poems, published under the titles, _The Golden Legend_ (1851), _The Divine Tragedy_ (1871), and _The New England Tragedies_ (1868). His idea was to represent the origin, the medieval aspect, and the Puritan conception of Christianity--a task not well suited to Longfellow's genius. _The Golden Legend_ is the most poetic, but _The New England Tragedies_ is the most likely to be read in future years, not for its poetic charms, but because it presents two phases of New England's colonial history, the persecution of the Quakers and the Salem witchcraft delusion. GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS.--An eminent Scotch educator says that Longfellow has probably taught more people to love poetry than any other nineteenth-century poet, English or American. He is America's best and most widely read story-teller in verse. Success in long narrative poems is rare in any literature. Probably the majority of critics would find it difficult to agree on any English poet since Chaucer who has surpassed Longfellow in this field.