more important than Italian,--and the poet was always largely influenced
by this afterwards; that Henry did not find Paris particularly
attractive, and on the whole preferred the Spanish character to the
French on account of its deeper under-currents; that he did not seem to
realize the danger that menaced him from Spanish brigands, in spite of
the black crosses by the roadside; and that he was not vividly impressed
by the famous works of art in the Louvre gallery. He only notices that
one of Correggio's figures resembles a young lady in Portland.

Longfellow would seem to have been always the same in regard to his
appreciation of art. When he was in Italy, in 1869, he visited all the
picture galleries and evidently enjoyed doing so; but it was easy to see
that his brother, Rev. Samuel Longfellow, felt a much livelier interest
in the subject than he did; and injured frescos or mutilated statues,
like the Torso of the Belvidere, were objects of aversion to him. Poets
and musical composers see more with their ears than they do with their
eyes.

The single work of art that attracted him strongly at this time was a
statue of Venus, by Canova, which he compares to the Venus de' Medici,
and his brother Samuel remarks that he was always more attracted by
sculpture than painting. Canova was a genius very similar to Longfellow
himself, as nearly as an Italian could be made to match an American, and
he was then at the height of his reputation.

In 1829 Longfellow returned to Portland and was immediately chosen a
professor at Bowdoin College, where he remained for the next seven years.
When, in 1836, Professor Ticknor retired from his position as instructor
of modern languages at Harvard, his place was offered to Longfellow and
accepted. This brought him into the literary centre of New England, and