The Queen of the West in her garden dressed,In the midst of this unrivalled prosperity, this distinction of genius, and public and private honor, on the ninth of July, 1861, there came one of the most harrowing tragedies that has ever befallen a man's domestic life. Longfellow was widowed for the second time, and five children were left without a mother. It seemed as if Providence had set a limit beyond which human happiness could not pass. It was after this calamity that Longfellow undertook his metrical translation of Dante's “Divina Commedia,” a much more difficult and laborious
By the banks of the beautiful river.
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him, and he finally said with a laugh: “If that is the case, we will give you and Charlie a commission to exterminate them.”
There was a story that when young Nicholas Longworth came to Harvard College in the autumn of 1862 and called on Mr. Longfellow, who had been entertained at his father's house in Cincinnati, the poet said to him: “It is worth that makes the man; the want of it the fellow” --a compliment that almost dumfounded his young acquaintance.
It is certain that Longfellow addressed a poem to Mrs. Longworth which will be found in the collection of his minor poems, and in which he speaks of her as-
1905. E. P. DUtton and Co. Boston,.
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