'You give the poet a great advantage,' I said, 'in quoting his very finest production, and picking out the choicest stanzas. Beside, his theme here is one of so general a nature, and so familiar to philosophy, that it would be hard for any one to moralize upon it in verse without accidentally hitting upon some sublimity. The commonest intellect has lofty and awful thoughts whenever it gives way to serious meditation upon our mortality.' SEATSFIELD: 'That is partly true; but LONGFELLOW is not only great upon that ground. His realm is very extensive. No man has the power (had he only the will) of depicting the simplicity of every-day life and objects with more grace or comprehensiveness. There are some touches in his 'Village Blacksmith' inexpressibly beautiful, and worthy of BURNS' 'Cotter's Saturday Night:' 'His hair is crisp and black and long, His face is like the tan; His brow is wet with honest sweat, He earns whate'er he can,' etc. And then again: 'He goes on Sunday to the Church, And sits among the boys; He hears the parson pray and preach, He hears his daughter's voice Singing in the gallery, And it makes his heart rejoice.' SEATSFIELD repeated these verses with much emotion; and I observed that a tear stood upon his lids. I therefore turned the conversation upon hydropathy, and introduced a quotation from PINDAR: [Greek: ariston men hydôr], _etc._ SEATSFIELD: 'PINDAR, Sir, has expressed a great truth; but I think that PIERPONT has expressed it better. In his exquisite 'Ode on the Opening of the Marlborough Temperance-House' how beautifully he says, after speaking in regard to the virtues of cold water: 'Oh! had EVE'S hair Been dressed in gin, Would she have been Reflected fair?' 'And then, after describing the beauty of Eden, with its rills and pellucid brooks bubbling through the fresh meads, he goes on: 'Are not pure springs And chrystal wells The very things For our Hotels?' 'That, Sir, is excellent, and the somewhat homely imagery only enhances in my mind the truth of the sentiment. PIERPONT, Sir, is a very great man.' 'As great as LONGFELLOW?' SEATSFIELD: 'No, Sir, perhaps not; there is a considerable difference of calibre between them. I should say now that LONGFELLOW was a first-rate artist with a second-rate imagination, and that PIERPONT was only a second-rate artist with a first-rate fancy. There is no mistake in PIERPONT.' I smiled at SEATSFIELD'S affectation of Americanisms, as if out of compliment to myself, or in honor of the day; and I rejoined: 'There may be no mistake in PIERPONT, but there is one or two in LONGFELLOW.' SEATSFIELD: 'Grammatical or prosodiacal?' 'Neither; but in the beginning of his 'Psalm of Life,' he says: 'Tell me not in mournful numbers Life is but an empty dream; For the soul is dead that slumbers, And things are not what they seem.'