The Original of "Mary Ashburton."

"Hyperion" was the first of Longfellow's works written in his Cambridge home--in the very "Washington chamber," indeed, of the Craigie House, where he resided from 1836 until his death, March 24th, 1882. "Hyperion" in some respects gives us a glimpse of the inner life of our beloved poet; the hero, Paul Fleming, is a portraiture of himself. Paul Fleming begins his tour under the shadow of a great sorrow,--the wife of his youth, with her infant, lies in the churchyard. This reference is to Mary Storer Potter, of Portland, whom Longfellow married in 1831. She was a most charming character and exceptionally accomplished. During their sojourn abroad, in 1835, she died, at Rotterdam. It is this lovely woman who is commemorated in the touching poem entitled "The Footsteps of Angels":--

It is by such glimpses as this that we know of the tender and beautiful domestic life of the poet, and the character of the wife of his youth is more lastingly portrayed in these few stanzas than it would have been in a more labored eulogy. In the midst of his grief, Paul meets a lady called Mary Ashburton, and, becoming at first only interested in her, is in the end passionately devoted to her. She soon becomes a real person to the reader, as in fact she was. The original of this brilliant portrait, Miss Francis Elizabeth Appleton, was the daughter of Nathan Appleton, a distinguished citizen of Boston. She indeed possessed every grace of mind and person that could charm the soul of a poet. The precise time when Longfellow met Miss Appleton is not known; the romance "Hyperion" was published in 1839, so that the meeting must have been an antecedent experience. The rejection of Paul Fleming's suit was possibly real; but it is well-known that whatever decision Mary Ashburton may have come to in the story, Miss Appleton cherished a deep regard for the poet, which gradually ripened into love. Their marriage took place in 1843, when our poet was in his thirty-sixth year. Five children blessed this union, two sons and three daughters. Ernest W. Longfellow is an eminent artist. Charles Appleton Longfellow served for two years as a captain of cavalry in our late war. A picture of the three daughters, Alice, Edith and Anna, was painted when they were children, by the late T. Buchanan Read, artist and poet, and it is well-known by the many engravings and photographs copied from it. Edith married Mr. Richard H. Dana, of Boston; Alice and Anna remained unmarried at the time of their father's death. One of them has since married Joseph G. Thorpe, from Madison, Wis., whose sister is the widow of Ole Bull, the world-famous violinist.

It may be pleasant here to quote from a letter of Charles Sumner, an intimate friend of Longfellow's. Writing to John Jay, at New York, May 25th, 1843, Mr. Sumner says: "You will probably find Longfellow a married man, for he is now engaged to Miss Fannie Appleton, the Mary Ashburton of 'Hyperion,' a lady of the greatest sweetness, imagination, and elevation of character, with striking personal charms." A biographical sketch of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, by Francis H. Underwood, from which the foregoing facts have been taken, gives us an account of the tragedy which closed the life of the lovely "Mary Ashburton."

"It is impossible to exaggerate his devoted love for this noble woman, the mother of his children, who had made his home little less than paradise. On the 4th of July, 1861, she was burned to death in his presence. She was dressed in ample, flowing muslin, and by some mischance her garments took fire from a lighted match. The flame spread almost with a flash; the startled husband, seeing no other means at hand, seized a large rug or mat, and attempted to roll it about her to extinguish it, but in vain. In a moment she received injuries which were mortal. His hands were severely burned in the sharp struggle. Nothing was left but the undying sense of his irreparable loss, and the image of a glorious soul to be treasured forever." There is not, so far as can be ascertained, a single reference to this terrible event in Longfellow's published poems. The world moved on, and the poet in time resumed his studies and labors, but there must often have come to him a thought like that of Tennyson's: