Thus the successive issues of Longfellow’s verse were all hailed with kindly appreciation. When “Ballads and Other Poems” appeared, Bryant praised (Jan. 10, 1842) the “grace and melody” with which the author handled hexameters in a translation from Tegner, and the “noble and affecting simplicity” of the result, while he pronounced the miscellaneous poems beautiful. “Evangeline,” four years later, inspired the publication in the _Post_ of an anonymous burlesque imitation, next the editorial columns, which it is almost certain is Bryant’s. He wrote such humorous trifles till his latest years, and he accompanied this with some remarks upon German hexametric verse, with which he was thoroughly familiar. Dated “in the ante-temperance period of our history,” it showed old Tom Robinson seated in his elbow chair:
Red was the old man’s nose, with frequent potations of cider, Made still redder by walking that day in the teeth of the north wind. Warmth from the blazing fire had heightened the tinge of its scarlet; While at each broad red flash from the hearth it seemed to grow redder.
“Jemmy, my boy,” he said, and turned to a tow-headed urchin, “Bring your poor uncle a mug of cider up from the cellar.” Straightway rose from the chimney nook the obedient Jemmy ... Took from the cupboard shelves a mug of mighty dimensions, Opened the cellar door, and down the cellarway vanished. Soon he came back with the mighty vessel brimming and sparkling, Full and fresh, the old man took it and raised it with both hands, Drained the whole at a draught, and handed it, dripping and empty, Back to the boy, and winking hard with both eyes as he did it, Stretched out his legs to the fire, while his nose grew redder and redder.
When “The Seaside and the Fireside” was published in 1850, Bryant gave especial praise to “The Building of the Ship,” in many ways the best poem Longfellow ever wrote. An unpoetical subject; but “the author treats it with as much grace of imagery as if it were a fairy tale, and finds in it ample matter suggestive of beautiful trains of thought.” He quoted the fervent closing apostrophe to the nation threatened by civil war, “Sail on, O Union, strong and great!”; and by accident, in the adjoining column, part of the _Post’s_ Washington correspondence, lay a paragraph describing the sensation aroused by the secessionist manifesto of Clingman, a fire-eating North Carolina Congressman. Of “Hiawatha” in 1855 Bryant said: