LIBRARY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. 
 
 Class 
 
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 
 
I 
 
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL 
 
 Biographical 
 
 BY 
 
 FRANCIS H. UNDERWOOD 
 
 BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
 HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 
 
 1899 
 
 Of THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF 
 
Copyright, 1881, 
 BY FRANCIS H. UNDERWOOD. 
 
ps a 
 
 - 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 PARENTAGE AND FAMILY 4 
 
 BIRTHPLACE AND SURROUNDINGS 8 
 
 EDUCATION 15 
 
 His FIRST BOOK 18 
 
 HE BECOMES AN EDITOR 20 
 
 A SECOND VOLUME OF POEMS 22 
 
 THE ANTI-SLAVERY REVOLUTION 28 
 
 A LITERARY RETROSPECT . . 30 
 
 THE ANTI-SLAVERY REVOLUTION MOVES ON ... 34 
 
 HOSEA BIGLOW 38 
 
 CAMBRIDGE FIFTY YEARS AGO 49 
 
 MARRIAGE AND DOMESTIC LIFE 54 
 
 THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL 59 
 
 HE ATTEMPTS SATIRE 63 
 
 COLLECTED POEMS. UNIVERSITY LECTURES ... 71 
 
 CONVERSATIONS ON THE POETS 75 
 
 FIRESIDE TRAVELS 77 
 
 His SECOND MARRIAGE. THE "ATLANTIC" . . 80 
 
 HOSEA BIGLOW AGAIN 85 
 
 JONATHAN TO JOHN 87 
 
 FAME t QI 
 
 INSIDE VIEW OF SECESSION 93 
 
 HOSEA BECOMES PASTORAL AND IDYLLIC 95 
 
\i CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 PARSON WILBUR 97 
 
 YANKEE HUMOR AND PATHOS 100 
 
 HOSEA AS AN ORATOR 103 
 
 "THE ARGYMUNT " 104 
 
 RECONSTRUCTION 106 
 
 THE DECAY OF THE YANKEE DIALECT 107 
 
 CHAUCER-BOCCACCIO Ill 
 
 THE PROFESSOR SUPPLANTS THE POET 114 
 
 UNDER THE WILLOWS 116 
 
 VILLA FRANCA 118 
 
 FOR AN AUTOGRAPH 119 
 
 METAPHYSICAL SUBTILTY IN POETRY 120 
 
 COMMEMORATION ODE 123 
 
 Two FRIENDS 125 
 
 THE CATHEDRAL. CONSERVATISM 126 
 
 CONCORD, CAMBRIDGE, VIRGINIA 133 
 
 CLASSICISM 133 
 
 THE PROSE OF POETS 137 
 
 LOWELL S PROSE 140 
 
 GOLD IN QUARTZ 144 
 
 PERSONAL TRAITS AND ANECDOTES 150 
 
 THE WHIST CLUB 154 
 
 HINTS OF FRIENDSHIPS 158 
 
 A CHARACTER 162 
 
 EDMUND QUINCY 164 
 
 BEGINS PUBLIC LIFE AT THE TOP 166 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL Frontispiece 
 
 ELMWOOD See page 10 
 
 ELM WOOD (REAR VIEW) " "11 
 
 BEAVER BROOK " "61 
 
 THE MILL WHEEL " "62 
 
 THE WAVERLEY OAKS . " " 63 
 
OF THC 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF 
 
 JAMES EUSSELL LOWELL, 
 
 A BIOGKAPHICAL SKETCH. 
 
 THE essence of poetry eludes analysis, and 
 like some of the forces of nature is known 
 only by its effects. These effects are so va 
 rious that any uniform standard is impossible. 
 At times poetry lurks in satire and in images 
 of the grotesque ; sometimes it swells in the 
 fervor of religion or of patriotism ; sometimes 
 it creates for itself an interior world, as the 
 Inferno or the Paradise Lost; sometimes it 
 expresses emotion in view of the beautiful 
 or the sublime in nature ; again it shines in 
 pictures of human life, as in the Canterbury 
 Tales or the Arthuriad ; or it unfolds the 
 mysteries of the soul and touches the uni 
 versal analogies, as in Shakespeare. 
 
 i 
 
2 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 
 
 Since the time of Wordsworth, poets of the 
 English race have been strongly influenced 
 by natural scenery. The poets of old made 
 man the subject of verse. Virgil wrote like 
 a modern of woods and fountains, but in this 
 respect he is alone. Homer knew the blue 
 Olympus and the wooded Ida, and Horace 
 could behold the snowy summit of Soracte 
 from his Sabine farm; but all the " scenery" 
 in the classical poems of antiquity (excepting 
 the ^Eneid) would not make a page of a 
 modern magazine. We have been having in 
 our time a surfeit of landscape art, as in 
 Wordsworth himself and in his followers, in 
 cluding Bryant and other Americans. Many 
 modern poets have been scarcely more than 
 literal scene-painters, and have neglected to 
 put human figures in the foreground. 
 
 Poetry reaches the soul through the in 
 tellect and through the emotions. Purely 
 intellectual poetry may be in a sense " clas 
 sic," but it has no life. Poetry makes men 
 feel, rather than understand, and it suggests 
 
A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 3 
 
 thoughts and emotions not expressed in words. 
 As History is only ceremony and costume un 
 til genius connects it with the vital interests 
 of the race, so the most artistic landscape is 
 only a vapid picture of still-life until man ap 
 pears in it, informing it with his own hopes 
 and fears. 
 
 Poetry, in its essential quality, is disengaged 
 from the products of the ordinary mental facul 
 ties. It is something wholly apart, not a sum 
 mary nor an epigram. It never expounds, 
 comments, nor exhorts. It teaches, if it 
 teaches at all, by what it suggests, by sub 
 tile hints, and by apt parables. It is only a 
 truism to say that poetry is the highest and 
 rarest of the productions of mind. But few 
 poets are wholly poetical, or " of imagination 
 all compact." Some dross is fused with their 
 gold. The temptation to discuss is very strong 
 with men who live and bear their part in the 
 world. And it has generally happened that 
 great poetical conceptions have been born in 
 loneliness or in darkness. 
 
4 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 
 
 The subject of this sketch is one of the 
 most favorable examples of English descent 
 and American culture. As he was born in a 
 time of ferment, both as to literary and theo- 
 logic dogmas, he was naturally influenced by 
 the revival which the early part of this cen 
 tury witnessed. He has profited by the liter 
 atures of all nations, but he has been the 
 disciple of no one literary master. His suc 
 cess in verse is fairly matched by his brilliant 
 and poetical prose ; and while he is eminent 
 among scholars, he is at the same time capa 
 ble, discreet, and distinguished among pub 
 lic men. The events of the times in which 
 he has lived, and the changes that have taken 
 place in his own sphere, as will be seen here 
 after, have affected in various ways the pro 
 ductions of his pen. 
 
 PARENTAGE AND FAMILY. 
 
 The Lowells are descended from Percival 
 Lowell of Bristol, England, who settled in 
 Newbury, Mass., in 1639. In the ancient 
 
A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 5 
 
 records of the colony the name is written 
 Lowle. The family has been distinguished 
 in every generation. Francis Cabot Lowell 
 (1775-1817) was among the first to perceive 
 that the wealth of New England was to come 
 from manufactures, and it was for him that 
 the city of Lowell was named. John Lowell 
 (1743-1802), an eminent judge, was the au 
 thor of the section in the Bill of Rights, by 
 which slavery was abolished in Massachu 
 setts. John Lowell, Jr. (1799-1836), was 
 the founder of the Lowell Institute in Boston. 
 This great public benefaction, which provides 
 annual courses of free lectures, was estab 
 lished by a bequest of $250,000 in the testa 
 tor s will, written by him while on the summit 
 of the great pyramid. He was travelling in 
 the East, and died not long after at Bombay. 
 Another John Lowell is at present a judge 
 of the District Court of the United States. 
 Charles Lowell (1782-1861), a distinguished 
 divine, was the father of the poet.) 
 
 The Russells have also an honorable name 
 
6 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 
 
 in the colony. Richard Russell, from Here 
 fordshire, settled at Charlestown in 1 640, and 
 became a prominent man. His son James 
 bore a manful part in the trying times of 
 1688-9, and was all his life in positions of 
 trust. 
 
 The Lowells have been men of solid char 
 acter, earnest, high-minded, philanthropic, and 
 possessed of strong practical abilities. The 
 genius for poetry, manifested by the subject 
 of this sketch and by his brother Robert, was 
 apparently derived from the maternal line. 
 Dr. Charles Lowell married Harriet Spence, 
 a native of Portsmouth, N. H., belonging to 
 a Scotch family, descended perhaps from Sir 
 Patrick Spens, celebrated in the old ballad. 
 A dim tradition to this effect exists, but of 
 course without the possibility of verification. 
 The mother of Harriet Spence was named 
 Traill, a native of one of the Orkneys. 1 
 Mrs. Harriet Spence Lowell had a great 
 
 1 The reader remembers Magnus Troil in Scott s novel, 
 " The Pirate." Troil and Traill are the same. 
 
8 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 
 
 while the appreciation of the beautiful came 
 to them through the other.) Mary Lowell 
 Putnam, born in 1810, is a lady of sin 
 gular mental vigor and of unusual acquire 
 ments, and is the author of several important 
 works. The other daughter, Rebecca, died 
 in middle age, unmarried. Charles, who died 
 at Washington about ten years ago, was a 
 man of superior attainments, and the father 
 of two brilliant young men, Colonel Charles 
 Russell Lowell and Lieutenant James Jack 
 son Lowell, both killed in our late civil war. 
 Mrs. Putnam s only son, Captain William 
 Lowell Putnam, was killed also in the disas 
 trous affair of Ball s Bluff, in the early part 
 of the war. 
 
 BIKTHPLACE AND SURROUNDINGS. 
 
 It seldom happens in this country that a 
 lifetime passes without change of residence; 
 but, except during his visits abroad, the poet 
 has always lived in the house in which he 
 was born. 
 
*% 
 
A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 9 
 
 Elmwood, though not very ancient, has an 
 interesting history. The house was built by 
 Peter Oliver, who was stamp distributer just 
 before the outbreak of the Revolution. It 
 will be remembered that, being waited upon 
 by a Boston committee " of about four thou 
 sand," and requested to resign his obnoxious 
 office, Oliver hurriedly complied, and shortly 
 after left the country. The house was next 
 occupied by Elbridge Gerry, an eminent 
 man in his day, from whose crooked plan of 
 districting, the political term " gerrymander 
 ing " was derived. After his death it became 
 the property of Dr. Lowell, about a year 
 before the birth of the poet. It is of wood, 
 three stories high, and stands on the base 
 line of a triangle, of which the apex reaches 
 nearly to the gate of Mount Auburn Ceme 
 tery. The ample grounds have an abundant 
 growth of trees, most of them planted by 
 the prudent Doctor as a screen from the 
 winds. There are a few native elms ; but 
 those which give the name to the estate are 
 
10 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 
 
 English, sturdy as oaks, standing in front of 
 the house. In front, also, are large and 
 beautiful ash trees. 
 
 \ In the deep space at the rear, in the old 
 days, there was perfect seclusion ; it used to 
 seem like the stillness of the woods. The 
 slopes of Mount Auburn, beautiful with na 
 tive growths, and not then covered by fan 
 tastic caprices in marble, are separated only 
 by a narrow street. Dwellings were not 
 numerous or near. /All around the enclosure 
 a gigantic hedge stands like a jagged silhov- 
 ette against the sky.) This lofty hedge is 
 made up of a great variety of trees ; it 
 bristles with points of tufted pines ; it is set 
 at mid-height with thrifty and elbowing wil 
 lows and dense horse-chestnuts ; and beneath 
 it is filled in with masses of shrubs, f In the 
 area are broad grassy levels, with a few 
 pear and apple trees, and nearer the house 
 are younger pines, elms, firs, clumps of 
 lilacs, syringas, fleurs-de-lis, gorgeous rugs of 
 striped grass, and other ornamental growths, 
 
A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. H 
 
 disdained by modern gardeners, but immortal 
 in the calendars of poets. \ 
 
 ( Elmwood is full of birds, robins and 
 their homelier cousins, the brown thrushes, 
 swallows, blue-birds, flaming orioles, yellow- 
 birds, wrens, and sparrows. The leafy cov 
 erts are inviolate, and some of the tenants, 
 even the migratory robins, keep house the 
 year round. All are perfectly at home, and 
 they appear to sing all day. On summer 
 evenings, after the chatter of the sparrows 
 has ceased and the robins have sung for cur 
 few, you may hear the pee-ad of night-hawks, 
 and the hoarse voices of herons and other 
 aquatic birds, as they fly over from Fresh 
 Pond or the neighboring marshes. N 
 
 ( During the lifetime of his father the poet 
 occupied as a study the south front room in 
 the upper story. 
 
 Many years have passed since that period, 
 and many changes have occurred in the 
 landscape (and in the beholder!). Perhaps 
 the description which follows may be far 
 
12 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 
 
 from true to-day. Hills have been dug 
 down, and their gravelly sides left bare. 
 Straggling groups of houses have here and 
 there crept out on the wet marsh. The 
 horse-cars have frightened away most of the 
 birds, and almost put to flight the poetical 
 associations. But still faithful memory re 
 calls the prospect, and in her tablets it shines 
 now as it did so long ago. In those treas 
 ured pictures we see the distant view from 
 the study windows in their varying aspects. 
 The view is broad and panoramic, compris 
 ing portions of Brighton, Brookline, and 
 Roxbury, and ending on the left with the 
 dome of the State House in Boston. The 
 nearer view, over the neighboring lawns, 
 includes the Charles and the marshes. The 
 sluggish river winds through tracts of salt 
 meadow, now approaching camps of medita 
 tive willows, now creeping under " cater 
 pillar bridges," and now turning away from 
 terraced villas and turfy promontories. In 
 summer the long coils of silver are set in a 
 
A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 13 
 
 ground of green that is vivid and tremulous 
 like watered silk ; in autumn the grasses are 
 richly mottled purple, sage, and brown ; and 
 the play of sunlight and shadow, while the 
 winds are brushing the velvet this way and 
 that, gives an inimitable life to the picture. 
 \ The study contained about a thousand 
 volumes of books, a few classic engravings, 
 water-color paintings by Stillman, Roman 
 photographs, a table with papers and letters 
 in confusion, and a choice collection of pipes.) 
 Over the mantel was a panel, venerable and 
 smoky, that had been brought from the 
 house of one of the ancient Lowells in New- 
 bury, on which was painted a group of 
 clergymen in their robes, wigs, and bands, 
 seated about a table, each enjoying a long 
 clay pipe. On an arch above an alcove was 
 this legend in Latin : "In essentials, unity ; 
 in iion -essentials, liberty ; in all things, 
 charity." 
 
 This picture, though scarcely a work of 
 art, is interesting for the light it throws upon 
 
14 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 
 
 the social customs of the clergy of the last 
 century. 
 
 This room was for many years the delight 
 ful resort of a few friends, especially on 
 Sunday afternoons. 
 
 After the death of Dr. Lowell, the libraries 
 were brought together in two connected 
 rooms on the lower floor. The new study 
 was more spacious and convenient ; but the 
 precious and undying associations, and the 
 beautiful outlook, belonged to the upper 
 chamber. 
 
 The house throughout is an example of the 
 picturesque.) In the hall are ancestral por 
 traits (one bearing the date of 1582); busts 
 of Dr. Charles Lowell and his father; a 
 stately Dutch clock; and Page s Titianesque 
 portraits of the poet and his wife in their 
 youthful days. { The prevailing tone of the 
 rooms is sombre, but the furniture is antique 
 and solid, such as would make a covetous 
 virtuoso unhappy for life. Books are every 
 where, mostly well chosen standard works in 
 
A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 15 
 
 various languages, including a liberal pro 
 portion of plays and romances, j 
 
 EDUCATION. 
 
 [ The nearest neighbor to Elmwood in 1825 
 was William Wells, who kept a boys 7 school, 
 and from him the poet got most of his early 
 education. \ He was for a time, however, pupil 
 of Mr. Daniel G. Ingraham, who had a highly 
 successful classical school in Boston. Mr. 
 Wells was a thoroughly educated English 
 man, who had been a member of a publish 
 ing house in Boston, Wells & Lilly. They 
 published excellent books ; among them, well 
 edited Latin classics. At that time, when 
 Lieut. -governor Armstrong was making his 
 fortune out of the " Life of Harriet Newell" 
 and "Scott s Family Bible," the Wells & 
 Lilly classics were neglected, and were sold 
 for trunk linings. The disheartened pub 
 lisher went to Cambridge to diffuse classical 
 learning in a humbler way. ( Many distin- 
 
16 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 
 
 guished men were indebted to Mr. Wells for 
 their early training. He was a teacher of 
 the old school, erudite, formal, and severe ; 
 and it is said that the use of the cane, upon 
 refractory or idle pupils, was not then one of 
 the lost arts.^ 
 
 fMr. Lowell entered Harvard College in 
 his sixteenth year, and was graduated in 
 1838. Among his classmates and friends 
 were Charles Devens, a general in our late 
 war, afterwards a judge of the Supreme 
 Court of Massachusetts, and lately the Attor 
 ney General of the United States ; the Eev. 
 Rufus Ellis ; the late Professor Nathan Hale ; 
 the Hon. George B. Loring, M. C. ; William 
 W. Story, the sculptor and poet; Professor 
 H. L. Eustis; the Rev. J. I. T. Coolidge ; 
 Professor W. P. Atkinson; and others less 
 known to fame. The Rev. E. E. Hale was 
 in the class following.^ 
 
 His rank in scholarship was not a matter 
 of pride. He has been used to say that he 
 read almost everything, except the text- 
 
A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 17 
 
 books prescribed by the faculty. To certain 
 branches of study, especially to mathematics, 
 he had an invincible repugnance. His wide 
 and multifarious reading was the efficient 
 fertilization of his mind. s Learning, in its 
 higher sense, came later. (The voyages, 
 travels, romances, poems, and plays he de 
 voured were a better aliment for a poet than 
 the regulation diet of Harvard. ; !His was 
 a nurture such as Cervantes, Spenser, and 
 Shakespeare received. Though eminent and 
 able in many ways, Lowell remains abso 
 lutely a poet in feeling. His native genius 
 was fostered by the associations of a singu 
 larly beautiful home ; it was nourished by 
 the works of the dramatists, masters of 
 emotion and expression, by the ideal pic 
 tures of poets and novelists, and by the 
 tender solemnity of the discourses of his 
 father and of Channing, and others of his 
 father s friends. Nature and the early sur 
 roundings had been alike favorable; and 
 though he was not a rhyming prodigy like 
 
 OF THF 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 Of 
 
18 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 
 
 Pope, lisping in numbers, his first effusions 
 as he came to manhood were in poetic form. .- 
 After leaving College, Lowell entered the 
 Law School, and having finished the pre 
 scribed course, took his degree of LL.B. in 
 1840. He opened an office in Boston, but 
 it does not appear that he ever seriously 
 engaged in the practice of law. It is true he 
 wrote a story for the "Boston Miscellany" 
 entitled " My First Client," but that may have 
 been a mythical person. N ; The Rev. Mr. Hale 
 says that his brilliant future was prefigured 
 in his youth, that his original genius was 
 evident from the first. 
 
 HIS FIRST BOOK. 
 
 (A little before his twenty-second birthday 
 he published a small volume of poems, en 
 titled " A Year s Life." The motto was from 
 Schiller : Ich habe gelebt und geliebet ; concern 
 ing which it may be said that most young 
 men appear to have reached the maturity of 
 
A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 19 
 
 having " lived and loved " at a comparatively 
 early period. The poems are naturally upon 
 the subject that inspires youths of one-and- 
 twenty -^ and though they do not, many of 
 them, appear in the author s " complete" col 
 lection, they are by no means unworthy of 
 consideration. They bear a favorable com 
 parison with the " Hours of Idleness" and 
 other first-fruits of genius. The reader is re 
 ferred to " Irene," "With a Pressed Flower," 
 and "The Beggar." (The unnamed lady 
 who is celebrated in the poet s verse, and 
 who afterwards became his wife, was Miss 
 Maria White, a person of delicate and spirit 
 ual beauty, refined in taste, sympathetic in 
 nature, and the author of several exquisite 
 poems, j Although most of the pieces in "A 
 Year s Life" have been set aside by the 
 severer judgment of the poet, the student 
 will discover in them many intimations of 
 the genius that shone out more clearly in 
 later days. But contemporaries seldom have 
 the interpretation which comes later with full- 
 
20 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 
 
 blown success. Margaret Fuller, in " The 
 Dial," wrote disparagingly of the verses, say 
 ing that neither their imagery nor their music 
 was the author s own. 
 
 HE BECOMES AN EDITOR/ 
 
 In the landscape of letters, dead magazines 
 are the ruins, often more pathetic than pic 
 turesque. Many a young author has felt a 
 shock at the downfall of his castle, and fortu 
 nate is he who is not crushed under it/ In 
 January, 1843, appeared the first number of 
 the " Pioneer," a magazine of moderate size, 
 handsomely printed, and illustrated, after the 
 fashion of the time, with steel engravings. 
 " J. R Lowell and Robert Carter " were 
 announced as " Editors and Proprietors." 
 Three numbers only were issued before the 
 publishers failed. The magazine was too 
 purely literary to be successful. The num 
 bers are now exceedingly scarce, and would 
 bring an almost fabulous price. Imagine a 
 magazine with articles by Byron, Shelley, 
 
A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 21 
 
 Coleridge, De Quincey, and Vathek-Beck- 
 ford! v )In these three numbers are two of 
 Hawthorne s incomparable stories, " The 
 Birthmark" and "The Hall of Fantasy;" 
 essays upon Beethoven, by John S. Dwight ; 
 able articles by John Neal ; an Oriental tale 
 by Carter; and articles by Lowell on old 
 plays, and the song writers. But the wealth 
 of the magazine was in its poetry ; so many 
 famous people were never enlisted in any 
 one enterprise before or since. Besides the 
 numerous and beautiful contributions of the 
 editor, there were poems by Miss E. B. Bar 
 rett (afterwards Mrs. Browning), Edgar A. 
 Poe, Whittier, W. W. Story, T. W. Parsons 
 (a name that is to endure), Jones Very (dain 
 tiest of sonneteers), and George S. Burleigh. 
 Poe s poems were " The Telltale Heart" and 
 the well-known " Lenore." Whittier s was 
 entitled "Lines Written in the Book of a 
 Friend:"- 
 
 " On page of thine I cannot trace 
 The cold and heartless commonplace, 
 A statue s fixed and marble grace," etc. 
 
22 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 
 
 Parsons contributed poems upon "The Hud 
 son River," " The Shadow of the Obelisk," 
 and "The Tower of Pisa." Story was like 
 Mercutio, a loyal and brilliant second, writing 
 both in prose and verse, and furnishing de 
 signs for the engraver. 
 
 On the whole, the "Pioneer" was a re 
 markable periodical, and its only fault was 
 that it was far above the comprehension of 
 the general public of forty years ago. 
 
 Before this, Lowell had written some very 
 striking literary essays for the " Boston Mis 
 cellany," conducted by his classmate and in 
 timate friend, Nathan Hale. 
 
 A SECOND VOLUME OF POEMS. 
 
 About three years after the publication of 
 "A Year s Life" appeared another volume 
 of poems well known to readers of to-day. 
 "The Legend of Brittany" and " Prometheus" 
 are the longest ; but the most popular are 
 "Rhoecus," "The Shepherd of King Ad- 
 
A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 
 
 nietus," " To Perdita Singing," " The For 
 lorn," " The Heritage," " A Parable," etc. 
 
 The matter and the manner of this volume 
 were new and not wholly pleasing to the 
 American public of 1844. As we look back 
 and consider the taste of that public, we can 
 not indulge in any great pride. There were 
 undoubtedly literary circles in each of the 
 principal cities, in which authors and works 
 were estimated with conscientious care ; but 
 the general tone was low. The Tityrus of 
 the herds, as Lowell afterwards styled him, 
 was Doctor Griswold. An hour s study of 
 his volumes is better than a sermon on the 
 vanity of human wishes, or a lament over the 
 perishable nature of literary fame. 
 
 There were a few names held in honor 
 then that are still more honored now. Long 
 fellow was in the first flush of well- won fame : 
 men had begun to name him in the same 
 breath with Bryant, the recognized chief of 
 the bards. Willis was the Count D Orsay 
 of letters, the arbiter elegantiamm. Holmes 
 
24 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 
 
 was thought to be a bright and witty young 
 man of considerable promise. Whittier was 
 talked of, but people said he was prostituting 
 his muse in the service of fanatics. His lyrics, 
 they thought, had some fire, but an abolition 
 ist, of course, could not be a poet. The re 
 tributive tar-kettle would befit him rather 
 than the exhilarating tripod. The first genius 
 of our time at least among romancers 
 was absolutely unknown. The " Twice-Told 
 Tales" had been published (1837, 1842), and 
 scarcely a thousand copies had been sold. 
 Pierpont s odes were shouted by schoolboys, 
 and the din of the rhymes on Public Satur 
 days was like the riveting of steam-boilers. 
 Poe s " Raven" was just about making its 
 sequacious and tantalizing lament. Halleck 
 was the American Campbell. John Neal and 
 Richard H. Dana were great poets, and were 
 sure some day to produce something 
 worthy of their fame. " Woodman, Spare 
 that Tree!" "The Old Oaken Bucket," and 
 " Home, Sweet Home," had filled the cup of 
 
A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 25 
 
 national glory full. Mrs. Sigourney, Mrs. 
 Hale, Miss G-ould, and Mrs. Welby were 
 quoted with Mrs. Barbauld and Mrs. Hemans. 
 Editors then seemed perched on loftier 
 heights than now. The Philadelphia maga 
 zines, in particular, were thought to be won 
 derful works of genius and art. Those 
 magazines in which music strove with milli 
 nery, and poetry was entangled with worsted 
 patterns, and whose plates were fine enough 
 for perfumery labels, represented a power and 
 influence with the ingenuous youths of 1844, 
 which the sober " Atlantic " and the versatile 
 " Harper" have never since wielded. Poems 
 admitted into those elegant repositories of the 
 arts were already classic. To be sure, the 
 admiring reader at times had some qualms ; 
 as when, for instance, he learned that a spring 
 gushed " like a fountain of soda," and then 
 saw that the hard-pressed poet was forced to 
 lug in " Godey " for a rhyme. But then, this 
 might be playful. 
 
 The revolution in letters has scarcely be- 
 
26 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 
 
 gun. Pope was still greater than Homer; 
 Byron was grander than Milton s Satan; 
 Scott was the only romancer of the ages; 
 Wordsworth was a dull proser, who took a 
 pedler for his hero and an idiot for the sub 
 ject of his pathos. Tennyson was an airy 
 and effeminate stripling, who had a pleasing 
 trick of rhyme, and who was properly casti 
 gated by Bulwer as 
 
 " Out-babying Wordsworth and out-glittering Keats." 
 
 In Lowell s verse there was something of 
 Wordsworth s simplicity, something of Ten 
 nyson s sweetness and musical flow, and some 
 thing more of the manly earnestness of the 
 Elizabethan poets ; but the resemblances were 
 external ; the individuality of the poet was 
 clear. The obvious characteristic of the 
 poems is their high religious spirit. It is 
 not a mild and passive morality that we per 
 ceive, but the aggressive force of primitive 
 Christianity. The vivid conception of the 
 law of love and of the duties of brotherhood 
 
A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 27 
 
 reminds us of the time when such thoughts 
 were new and startling, and before their vital 
 power had been lost in chanted creeds and 
 iterated forms. 
 
 There are several of the poems in this col 
 lection which now seem prophetic. They 
 were bold utterances at the time, and were 
 doubtless considered as the rhapsodies of a 
 harmless enthusiast. The ode beginning 
 
 " In the old days of awe and keen-eyed wonder 
 The poet s song with blood-warm truth was rife," 
 
 may be regarded in one aspect as a confession 
 of faith. In force of thought and depth of 
 feeling, and in the energy of its rhythmic 
 movement, it is a remarkable production, 
 whether for a poet of twenty-five or older. 
 Perhaps it is more rhetorical in its energy 
 than maturer taste would approve. It is so 
 compact that a summary is impossible ; but 
 it announces in sonorous strains that the mis 
 sion of the poet, like that of God s prophets, 
 is to attack wrong and oppression, to raise 
 up the weak and reclaim the erring, and to 
 
28 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 
 
 bring heaven to men. He decries the bards 
 who seek merely to amuse, and deplores their 
 indifference to human welfare. 
 
 " Proprieties our silken bards environ : 
 
 He who would be the tongue of this wide land 
 Must string his harp with chords of sturdy iron, 
 And strike it with a toil-embrowned hand." 
 
 This stirring ode was a fit prelude to the 
 part our poet was to perform. If there were 
 any doubt as to the application, the grand 
 sonnet to Wendell Phillips, in the same vol 
 ume, gives it emphasis. 
 
 THE ANTI-SLAVERY REVOLUTION. 
 
 There are poets whose verse has no re 
 lation to time. " Drink to me only with 
 thine eyes" might have been sung by any 
 lyrist from Anacreon to Algernon Swin 
 burne. Others, like Dante, Milton, Marvell, 
 and Dry den, who live in times when strong 
 tides of feeling are surging to and fro, when 
 vital principles are in controversy, and the 
 
A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 29 
 
 fate of a people hangs upon the sharp deci 
 sion of the hour, find themselves, whether 
 they would or no, in the place of actors, at 
 once causes and products of the turmoil in 
 which they are born. 
 
 Probably there were never greater changes 
 in the ideas, habits, and welfare of any civil 
 ized people in any half century than were 
 brought about in the Northern States during 
 the fifty years from the date of the poef s 
 birth. This may appear to be an unnec 
 essarily strong statement, but it will bear 
 scrutiny. That half-century witnessed the 
 astounding changes which followed the ap 
 plication of steam, electricity, and the arts 
 to practical affairs. In the same period the 
 bulk of our literature was produced ; and the 
 press, too, became a power before unknown 
 in this or any country. Legislation and juris 
 prudence were lifted into the light of morals. 
 Organized benevolence, taking upon itself 
 the burdens of society, began to make the 
 Golden Rule an active principle in human 
 
30 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 
 
 affairs. In fifty years, the United States had 
 outrun the usual progress of centuries. 
 
 Europe, too, witnessed great changes in 
 the same period, but they chiefly related to 
 material things. England and France had lit 
 eratures, arts, societies, and traditions. The 
 United States, as a nation, had none. 
 
 Somewhere in our account of the author 
 we should glance at his intellectual lineage, 
 and trace his relations to the thinkers and 
 thoughts of his age. 
 
 A LITERARY RETROSPECT. 
 
 It is sometimes said of a neglected genius 
 that he is born out of time. But this can 
 never be. As the fauna of any epoch find 
 the fit conditions of sustenance, so the intel 
 lectual conditions of any period are the ones 
 appointed for the growth of mind in that 
 time. As the poet embodies in his verse, not 
 only his love of nature and religious feeling, 
 but also the results of philosophy and art, 
 
A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 31 
 
 he must be considered in connection with the 
 dominant ideas of his time. The English, 
 who say we have no poetry, are disappointed, 
 probably, in not finding some flavor of 
 strangeness, like that of a wild duck, or some 
 daring novelty of form, as in the prophecies 
 of Walt Whitman; forgetting that for the 
 most part we are still British, though under 
 new conditions, and that, with our heritage 
 and traditions, there could be expected from 
 New World singers only slight variations 
 from ancestral strains. Our colonists repre 
 sented a high average of English ability and 
 cultivation. Their history shows their blood 
 to have been of the best. Yet in the wilder 
 ness literary art languished, and taste was 
 perverted. There was no poetry on the 
 manifest of the " Mayflower" or of the " Ar- 
 bella;" it had been left behind with Eng 
 land s larks and daisies. A century passed 
 before the savage forests had lost their ter 
 rors and the homes of the settlers began 
 to bloom in beauty. Neither prose nor 
 
32 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 
 
 verse flourished until after the revolutionary 
 war. j 
 
 Our recognized literature began with Bry 
 ant and Irving; but its real sources were 
 in Channing, his associates and disciples, or 
 rather in the intellectual movement that fol 
 lowed the decline of ecclesiastical rule. 
 
 Channing, so far as he was a conscious 
 agent, was a mild-tempered agitator, remark 
 able for nobility of character and for a spiritu 
 ality that was almost angelic. The revolution 
 he led was against the dominant theology, 
 but the influence was felt by millions who 
 never accepted the new doctrines. Clerical 
 limitations became obsolete. People redis 
 covered Shakespeare, as amateur astrono 
 mers discover Jupiter ; for the works of the 
 chief of poets had before this been unknown 
 to Puritan libraries. It was found that there 
 were writers and thinkers who were not 
 wearers of Geneva bands. Channing him 
 self was no longer shut up in a remote 
 corner, but was welcomed into the fraternity 
 
A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 
 
 of lettered men. Until his essays on Milton, 
 Fenelon, and Napoleon appeared, European 
 scholars had never thought of America ex 
 cept in connection with savages, fish, furs, 
 and rebellion. The breadth and force of 
 this movement can scarcely be overesti 
 mated. Excepting Irving, Cooper, and Poe, 
 there has not been an American author of 
 high rank in this century whose intellectual 
 lineage is not traceable, directly or indirectly, 
 to Channing and Emerson. 
 
 ( A new light emanated from Nature ; or 
 rather the hills, rivers, and lakes were seen 
 with anointed eyes. Religion, as well as 
 literature, was secularized, though the spirit _ 
 of Christianity was still supreme. In the 
 course of time, Christianity got new applica 
 tions, and later, democracy had new and 
 startling definitions. The contest had be 
 gun, which in due time was to wash out the 
 color line with blood. Story and poem, 
 history and essay, national in tone and 
 
 with vital characteristics, gave new life to 
 
 3 
 
34 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 
 
 society and new lustre to the American 
 name. N : 
 
 It was in the springtime of the new 
 thought that our poet was born. 
 
 THE ANTI-SLAVERY REVOLUTION MOVES ON 
 
 The function of the critic, as Mr. Stedman 
 has pointed out, is to anticipate the solid and 
 dispassionate judgment of posterity upon the 
 works of to-day, a task sufficiently diffi 
 cult, for the critic himself may be enslaved 
 by the literary fashions which he ought to 
 resist and deplore. No one can say what 
 may be the standard of taste a century 
 hence ; for it cannot be known what direc 
 tion it will receive from some unborn master 
 spirit, who will dominate his age. But in 
 regard to the fundamental laws of ethics 
 there cannot be any retrogressive movement- 
 So much is sure. 
 
 And to a man in the twentieth century, 
 looking back, what will appear the great fact 
 
A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 35 
 
 of our time? Indubitably the fulfilment 
 of the democratic idea in the abolition of 
 African slavery. It is the most important 
 event since the discovery of America. The 
 schemes of Bismarck, Gortschakoff, and Bea- 
 consfield, or even the gigantic crimes of 
 Napoleon, are mere games of chess in com 
 parison. Yet the time has been when such 
 an opinion would not have been tolerated in 
 polite society. The evil was intrenched in 
 law, defended by statesmen and political 
 economists, apologized for by clergymen, 
 and made respectable by custom. Like its 
 kindred oppressions, absolutism and caste, 
 (for which we trust Fate has an end at once 
 effectual and peaceful), slavery was adorned 
 by the fictile graces of romance and the false 
 glamour of poesy. The anti-slavery move 
 ment has been lately classed with isms by 
 those who see no deeper than the surface 
 of things, as if it were a fashion, like that 
 of bran bread; but it was such an ism as 
 Christianity, or Democracy, or International 
 Peace, or Human Brotherhood. 
 
36 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 
 
 The position of Lowell was fixed from the 
 beginning. The teachings of Channing and 
 of his father, the doctrines of the New Tes 
 tament, and the example of his grandfather 
 (author of the liberty clause in our Bill of 
 Rights), all pointed in one direction. He 
 became an abolitionist when the name signi 
 fied a fanatic and fool. He did not, however, 
 continue long with the theorists who believed 
 the road to universal freedom must be laid 
 over the ruins of the Constitution, but joined 
 with those who meant to extirpate the evil 
 by legal means. 
 
 The sincerity and the unflinching zeal of 
 trie anti-slavery leaders are not to be ques 
 tioned, but in the nature of things they were 
 scarcely entertaining. Their discourses were 
 seldom enlivened by wit or humor. It was 
 an awful "burden" they bore. One would 
 as soon expect a joke from Jeremiah, j Of lit 
 eral sarcasm and downright blows there were 
 plenty. It is noticeable, also, that in the 
 first two volumes of Lowell s poems there is 
 
A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 37 
 
 not a single witticism, nor a hint of the comic 
 power that was to place him among the first 
 of humorists and satirists. In his " Conver 
 sations on the Poets," now out of print and 
 scarce, there are many keen strokes and ludi 
 crous comparisons, like those in later books 
 with which the public has become familiar. 
 In the " Conversations" we see more of the 
 natural man ; in the early poems we see the 
 decorous bard in the proprieties of cere 
 monial robes. One might believe that the 
 brilliant raillery which Lowell afterwards 
 turned upon the supporters of slavery had 
 its origin in a reaction from the monotonous 
 oratory of some of his associates. The pub 
 lic, which could bear a great deal of argu 
 ment upon the national sin, unmoved, was 
 found to be keenly sensitive to the corus 
 cations of wit, and sorely vulnerable to the 
 arrows of ridicule. 
 
 In the summer of 1846, the Mexican war 
 was in progress, and the abolitionists were 
 urging (what is now accepted as the truth of 
 
38 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 
 
 history) that it was waged to obtain new 
 territory for the extension of slavery, and 
 thereby to counterbalance the growing power 
 of the Northern States. President Polk had 
 been elected to carry out the scheme. The 
 appeal was to Congress, through the con 
 science of the nation, to stop the supplies. 
 
 HOSEA BIGLOW. 
 
 Mr. Lowell wrote a letter in June to the 
 " Boston Courier/ purporting to come from 
 Ezekiel Biglow, enclosing a poem in the 
 Yankee dialect, written by his son Hosea, 
 in which the efforts to raise volunteers in 
 Boston were held up to scorn. 
 
 " Thrash away, you 11 hev to rattle 
 
 On them kittle-drums o yourn, 
 T aint a knowin kind o cattle 
 Thet is ketched with mouldy corn." 
 
 Society was puzzled. Critics turned the 
 homely quatrains over w r ith their talons as 
 kittens do beetles, shook their wise ears, and 
 doubted. Politicians thought them flat or 
 
40 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 
 
 were no protection. The unanswerable ar 
 guments of Garrison and the magnificent 
 invectives which Wendell Phillips had hurled 
 at well-dressed mobs were now supplemented 
 by the homeliest of proverbial phrases, set to 
 the airiest, lilting rhythm, adorned with the 
 choicest and most effective slang, and ting 
 ling with the free spirit that had animated 
 a line of fighting Puritans since the time of 
 Naseby. The anti-slavery music was in the 
 air, and everybody had to hear it. 
 
 The more cultivated of the abolitionists 
 were in ecstasies. Some, however, did not 
 quite understand it. The levity of tone 
 hardly accorded with the prophetic burdens 
 they had been used to. When Charles 
 Sumner saw the first Biglow poem in the 
 " Courier," he exclaimed to a friend, " This 
 Yankee poet has the true spirit. He puts 
 the case admirably. I wish, however, he 
 could have used good English ! " 
 
 Hosea Biglow kept up the warfare, and 
 each poem was furnished with a preface and 
 
A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 41 
 
 notes by an imaginary Parson Wilbur. 
 First, a Mexican- war recruit gave his amus 
 ing experiences from the field. Then came 
 " What Mr. Robinson Thinks." This tickled 
 the public amazingly, and 
 
 "John P. 
 
 Robinson he 
 Sez he wunt vote fer Guvener B.," 
 
 was in every one s mouth, like the " What, 
 never ? " of " Pinafore." Mr. Robinson was 
 a refined and studious man, unhappily on the 
 wrong side of a moral question, and was not 
 a little annoyed by his " bad eminence ; " but 
 he is preserved in the. Biglow amber, like 
 an ante-Pharaonic fly. There is a ludicrous, 
 though perhaps mythical story, that he went 
 abroad, to get out of hearing the sound of his 
 own name. As soon as he landed at Liver 
 pool, however, and got to his hotel, he heard 
 a child in an adjoining room idly singing. 
 He listened. Yes, it was true ; the detested 
 refrain had got across the ocean. It was 
 
 "John P. 
 Robinson he " 
 
42 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 
 
 that the baby-ruffian was trolling. He sailed 
 to the Mediterranean, and stopped at Malta. 
 While looking at the ruins of the works of 
 the Templars he observed a party of English 
 not far distant, and presently another infan 
 tile voice sang 
 
 " But John P. 
 Robinson he 
 Sez they did n t know everythin down in Judee." 
 
 About this time the late Dr. Palfrey, the 
 historian, then an able and eloquent member 
 of Congress, had refused to vote for Mr. 
 Winthrop, the Whig candidate for speaker. 
 Hosea Biglow gave expression to the party 
 wrath in a burlesque version of a speech sup 
 posed to have been delivered at an indigna 
 tion meeting in State Street. This was the 
 opening : 
 
 " No ? Hez he 1 He haint, though 1 Wut 1 Voted agin him? 
 Ef the bird of our country could ketch him, she d skin him ! " 
 
 "A Debate in the Sennit, sot to a Nusry 
 Rhyme" followed; then "The Pious Editor s 
 Creed," and a burlesque of General Taylor s 
 
A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 43 
 
 letter accepting the nomination for the presi 
 dency. The first letter from Birdofredum 
 Sawin, the Mexican volunteer, created great 
 merriment on account of its local hits, espe 
 cially those relating to Caleb Gushing, the 
 eminent publicist, who was at that time a 
 general in command. Many of the finest 
 touches are lost upon readers of to-day. The 
 second letter of the series is probably the 
 most fluent, adroit, and effective. The writer 
 had been sadly mutilated, ill-treated, and dis 
 illusioned. He had imagined Mexico as a 
 country 
 
 " Ware propaty growed up like time, without no cultivation, 
 An gold wuz dug ez taters be among our Yankee nation, 
 Ware nateral advantages were pufficly amazin , 
 Ware every rock there wuz about with precious stuns wuz 
 
 blazin , 
 Ware mill- sites filled the country up ez thick ez you could 
 
 cram em 
 An desput rivers run about a beggin folks to dam em." 
 
 The temptation to quote is strong, but there 
 must be a limit. Every couplet contains 
 some felicitous absurdity or hard hit. The 
 
44 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 
 
 volunteer finally descants upon his own mer 
 its and available qualities, and offers himself 
 as a candidate for President under the sobri 
 quet of " The One-eyed Slarterer." In a third 
 letter, the last of the first series, Mr. Sawin 
 withdraws in favor of " 01 Zack" (General 
 Taylor). 
 
 The poems were finally gathered into a 
 volume, which in comic completeness is with 
 out a parallel. The "work" begins with 
 "Notices of the Press," which are delightful 
 travesties of the perfunctory style both of 
 "soft-soaping" and of "cutting up." There 
 happening to be a vacant page, the space was 
 filled off-hand by the first sketch of " Zekle s 
 Courtship : " 
 
 " Zekle crep up, quite unbeknown, 
 An peeked in thru the winder, 
 An there sot Huldy all alone, 
 ith no one nigh to bender." 
 
 This is the most genuine of our native idyls. 
 It affects one like coming upon a new and 
 quaint blossoming orchid, or hearing Schu- 
 
A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 45 
 
 mamrs Einsame Blume. Its appearance in 
 the "Biglow Papers" was purely an acci 
 dent ; but it had the air of being an extract, 
 and it was so greatly admired that the poet 
 afterwards added stanzas from time to time 
 to fill out the picture. In the original sketch 
 there were six stanzas ; there are now twenty- 
 four. Some of the added stanzas are fully 
 as picturesque and striking as those in the 
 original improvisation. This is the first : 
 
 " God makes sech nights, all white an still 
 
 Fur z you can look or listen, 
 Moonshine an snow on field an hill, 
 All silence an all glisten." 
 
 Of the progress of Zekle s passion he says : 
 
 " But long o her his veins ould run 
 
 All crinkly like curled maple, 
 The side she breshed felt full o sun 
 Ez a south slope in Ap il." 
 
 Of Huldy s nature : 
 
 " For she was jes the quiet kind 
 
 Whose naturs never vary, 
 Like streams that keep a summer mind 
 Snow hid in Jenooary." 
 
46 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 
 
 There is a burlesque advertisement in Latin 
 of one of Mr. Wilbur s projected works pre 
 ceding the titlepage. The title itself is a 
 travesty reminding one of the days of black- 
 letter quartos. The head-line is " MELIBOEUS 
 HIPPONAX," as much as to say, " This is a 
 horse-eclogue." A note informs us of the po 
 sition of Mr. Wilbur in the learned world, 
 and refers us to some scores of (imaginary) 
 societies to which he belongs. The Introduc 
 tion gives some account of the poet, Hosea 
 Biglow, and quotes specimens of his serious 
 verse ; and it may be said here that these 
 supposititious fragments are equal to the best 
 descriptive poetry of our time. The editor 
 goes on to discuss the Yankee dialect and its 
 pronunciation, and at length loses himself in 
 a maze of genealogical notes and queries. 
 
 The notes and comments of the grave and 
 erudite parson are difficult to characterize. 
 One sees that he is professionally solemn and 
 pedantic, and often ridiculous in adhering to 
 obsolete modes of spelling and to old-fash- 
 
A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 47 
 
 ioned ways. In every page there are striking 
 thoughts, as well as a profusion of imagery 
 and an affluence of learning; but there is 
 also a quaint flavor of antiquity, as if the 
 honey of his periods had been gathered from 
 the flowers of Jeremy Taylor, Sir Thomas 
 Browne, and holy George Herbert. Noth 
 ing finer or more characteristic is to be found 
 in any of Lowell s varied and splendid writ 
 ings. 
 
 Look, for example, at the episodical sketch 
 of the newspaper, as graphic as the best 
 of Carlyle s, or at the picture of the army 
 recruit, who is enlisted the morning after a 
 debauch. 
 
 In the course of the volume the parson de 
 lineates himself, until he becomes a charac 
 ter as real and as charming as the most 
 enduring creations of English fiction. To 
 parody one of the poet s own couplets : 
 
 And " Wilbur " won t go to oblivion quicker 
 Than Adams the parson, or Primrose the vicar. 
 
 Which of the dear and stately black-robed 
 
48 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 
 
 visitors of Elmwood sat for this unrivalled 
 picture it may not be wise to inquire ; but 
 all the lettered folk above fifty, in Boston 
 and Cambridge, think they have known him. 
 The creations of genius, like Colonel New- 
 come and Don Quixote, are entities ; while 
 historical characters, such as George IV. and 
 Philip II., may be only shadows. 
 
 The " Biglow Papers " end appropriately 
 with a comic glossary and index. It must be 
 repeated, by way of emphasis, that, from the 
 .first fly-leaf to the colophon, this is the only 
 complete and perfect piece of grotesque com 
 edy in existence. 
 
 In time, historical notes will be needed, as 
 they are now for Hudibras. That the Yankee 
 satire is to be enduring, there can be no doubt. 
 Its total merits greatly outweigh those of 
 Hudibras ; it has far more humor, and more 
 quotable lines ; and it has a great advantage 
 in its unique concomitants. 
 
A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 49 
 
 CAMBRIDGE FIFTY YEARS AGO. 
 
 As the Yankee peculiarities of the " Biglow 
 Papers " are evidently fresh studies, it might 
 appear strange that they could be wrought 
 out by a resident of Cambridge. The vis 
 itor to-day sees magnificent college buildings, 
 broad streets filled with carriages and trav 
 ersed by horse-cars, and comfortable resi 
 dences that testify to wealth and luxury. 
 There is still space for gardens and trees, and 
 for open squares and trim lawns ; but the tone 
 is urban. If Cambridge is in any respect 
 rural, it is not in the least rustic. The prime 
 val Yankee has become scarce everywhere ; 
 he is hardly obtainable as a rare specimen ; 
 he is a tradition, like the aurochs or the great 
 bustard. He and his bucolic manners and 
 speech are utterly gone. There is not the 
 echo of a haow in any of the pretentious 
 Italian villas, nor even in the heavy-tim 
 bered mansions, like that of Lowell s friend, 
 G. N., dating from 1656. The " W. I. Goods " 
 
 4 
 
50 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 
 
 store, with clusters of farmers teams in front, 
 has yielded to the " march of improvement. 
 Oxen are as strange as camels, and if there 
 were a milkmaid to be found, her hands would 
 smell of mitte-fleurs or patchouli. As soon 
 expect the return of Jacob and Rachel as to 
 see again the originals of the poet s Zekle and 
 Huldy. 
 
 The old town as it was in Lowell s boy 
 hood is sketched with rare humor and fine 
 touches in an article by him, published in 
 " Putnam s Monthly" in 1853, entitled " Cam 
 bridge Thirty Years Ago." It is in the form 
 of a letter addressed to the " Edelmann 
 Storg ; " namely, to W. W. Story, the sculp 
 tor, Lowell s classmate and intimate friend, 
 whose name a Swiss innkeeper had once so 
 misread. 
 
 This charming essay, brimming with feel 
 ing and full of the graces that delight culti 
 vated readers, shows Lowell himself in his 
 early maturity in the most striking way. 
 Later essays may be more profound, but 
 
A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 51 
 
 none of them are so full of the sunshine of 
 the heart. In this masterly picture we see a 
 country village, silent and rural. There are 
 old houses around the bare common, " and 
 old women, capped and spectacled, still 
 peered through the same windows from 
 which they had watched Lord Percy s ar 
 tillery rumble by to Lexington." One coach 
 sufficed for the travel to Boston. It was 
 " Sweet Auburn" then, a beautiful woodland, 
 and not a great cemetery. The " Old Road " 
 from the Square led to it, bending past Elm- 
 wood. Cambridgeport was then a " huckle 
 berry pastur ," having a large settlement of 
 old-fashioned taverns, with vast barns and 
 yards, on the eastern verge.- " Great, white- 
 topped wagons, each drawn by double files 
 of six or eight horses, with its dusty bucket 
 swinging from the hinder axle, and its grim 
 bull-dog trotting silent underneath, . . . 
 brought all the wares and products of the 
 country to Boston. These filled the inn- 
 yards, or were ranged side by side under 
 
52 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 
 
 broad-roofed sheds ; and far into the night the 
 mirth of the lusty drivers clamored from the 
 red-curtained bar-room, while the single lan 
 tern, swaying to and fro in the black cavern 
 of the stables, made a Eembrandt of the group 
 of ostlers and horses below." 
 
 Commencement was the great day, to 
 which the Governor came in state, with 
 military escort. The annual muster of the 
 militia, which took place sometimes at Cam 
 bridge and sometimes in other neighboring 
 towns, brought together all the boys of the 
 county to see the various shows and the 
 hilarious sport called a " Cornwallis." 
 
 If you look at the people, you ob 
 serve strongly- marked social distinctions. 
 The humbler classes toiled, and were not 
 ashamed of it. They did not ape the man 
 ners of the college circle, nor the luxury ot 
 the wealthy. 
 
 The provincial tone was evident. You 
 have only to talk with an old Bostonian 
 even now to see how it was. The old 
 
A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 53 
 
 leaders of society had a little of the mock 
 majesty of Beranger s Eoi d Yvetot. But the 
 main thing was, that, up to 1830, the manners 
 and speech of ordinary folk were those of 
 the seventeenth century. The rustic Yankee 
 was then a fact. In fifty years, by the aid 
 of steam and electricity, Boston became a 
 modern city, on equal terms with the Old 
 World, a centre of itself, and Cambridge was 
 developed into a highly cultivated suburb. 
 The rusticity, leisure, humor, and homespun 
 naturalness were gone. The changes of two 
 hundred years went by in a lifetime. 
 
 Recalling old Cambridge by the aid of 
 Lowell s reminiscences, we see how the ver 
 nacular idioms and the humorous peculiarities 
 of the people are so naturally reproduced in 
 his comic verse. No poet of a later day 
 could have evolved such creations, so perfect 
 in nature and dress, so thoroughly identi 
 fied with the antique world. The acquaint 
 ance with the primeval Yankee, begun in the 
 old town, was extended afterwards by visits 
 
54 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 
 
 to the Adirondacks and to Moosehead Lake ; 
 and though many artists have made striking 
 and effective sketches of this vanished origi 
 nal, notably Mrs. Stowe and Mrs. Rose 
 Terry Cooke, it is the belief of the writer, 
 whose boyhood was passed among the most 
 perfect native specimens of the race, that 
 Lowell has surpassed all rivals in depicting 
 him. This opinion is not based upon the 
 " Biglow Papers " alone. " Fitz Adam s 
 Story," of which something will be said 
 hereafter, is the flowering of Yankee humor 
 and the visible soul of " Down East." 
 
 MARRIAGE AND DOMESTIC LIFE. 
 
 Mr. Lowell was married, December 26, 
 1844, to Miss Maria White of Watertown, 
 near Cambridge. His domestic life at Elm- 
 wood, like the "peace that passeth under 
 standing," could be described only in simile. 
 It was ideally beautiful, and nothing was 
 wanting to perfect happiness but the sense of 
 
A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 55 
 
 permanence. Mrs. Lowell was a lovely and 
 accomplished woman, but was never very 
 strong, and her ethereal beauty seemed too 
 delicate for the climate of New England. 
 Children were born to them, but all died 
 in infancy, excepting a daughter (now Mrs. 
 Edward Burnett). Friends of the poet, who 
 were admitted to the study in the upper 
 chamber, remember the pairs of baby shoes 
 that hung over a picture-frame. From the 
 shoes out through the southwest window to 
 the resting-place of the dear little feet in 
 Mount Auburn there was but a glance, a 
 tender, mournful association, full of unavail 
 ing grief, but never expressed in words. 
 Poems written in this period show the depth 
 of parental feeling. Readers remember " The 
 Changeling" and " She Came and Went." 
 
 " As a twig trembles, which a bird 
 
 Lights on to sing, then leaves unbent, 
 So is my memory thrilled and stirred; 
 I only know she came and went." 
 
 Mrs. Lowell was a writer of sweet and 
 
56 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 
 
 beautiful verse. One of her poems, "The 
 Alpine Sheep," addressed to a sorrowful 
 mother, was suggested by her own bereave 
 ment. 
 
 " They in the valley s sheltering care 
 
 Soon crop the meadow s tender prime, 
 And when the sod grows brown and bare 
 The shepherd strives to make them climb 
 
 " To airy shelves of pasture green 
 
 That hang along the mountain s side, 
 Where grass and flowers together lean, 
 
 And down through mist the sunbeams slide. 
 
 "But nought can tempt the timid things 
 
 The steep and rugged paths to try, 
 Though sweet the shepherd calls and sings, 
 And seared below the pastures lie, 
 
 " Till in his arms their lambs he takes 
 
 Along the dizzy verge to go : 
 Then, heedless of the rifts and breaks, 
 They follow on, o er rock and snow. 
 
 " And in those pastures, lifted fair, 
 
 More dewy-soft than lowland mead, 
 The shepherd drops his tender care, 
 And sheep and lambs together feed." 
 
A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 57 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. Lowell went to Europe in 
 a sailing vessel in the summer of 1851, and 
 spent a year, visiting Switzerland, France, 
 and England, but living for the most part 
 in Italy. They returned in the autumn of 
 1852. Mrs. Lowell was slowly, almost im 
 perceptibly, declining. Her fine powers were 
 almost spiritualized, and the loveliness of her 
 nature suffered no change by disease. 
 
 " A blissful vision through the night 
 Would all my happy senses sway 
 Of the good Shepherd on the height, 
 Or climbing up the starry way, 
 
 " Holding our little lamb asleep, 
 
 While, like the murmur of the sea, 
 Sounded that voice along the" deep, 
 Saying, * Arise and follow me! " 
 
 The end came in October, 1853, when like 
 a breath her soul was exhaled. 
 
 Nine years of wedded life had passed, with 
 loss and sorrow, and often clouded with 
 apprehension, but blessed also by the ten- 
 derest joys permitted to mortals. 
 
58 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 
 
 On the day of Mrs. Lowell s death a child 
 was born to Mr. Longfellow, and his poem, 
 "The Two Angels," perhaps as perfect a 
 specimen of his genius as can be cited, will 
 remain forever as a most touching expression 
 of sympathy. 
 
 " ; T was at thy door, friend ! and not at mine, 
 
 The angel with the amaranthine wreath, 
 Pausing, descended, and with voice divine 
 Whispered a word that had a sound like Death. 
 
 " Then fell upon the house a sudden gloom, 
 
 A shadow on those features fair and thin; 
 And softly, from that hushed and darkened room, 
 Two angels issued, where but one went in." 
 
 Mrs. Lowell s poems were collected and 
 privately printed in a memorial volume, with 
 a photograph from Page s portrait ; but many 
 of them have been widely copied and be 
 come a part of our literature. 
 
A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 59 
 
 THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL. 
 
 After the brilliant success of the "Biglow 
 Papers," it might have been supposed that 
 Lowell would have continued to produce 
 comic verses ; but it would seem that he had 
 not been satisfied with his early serious 
 poetry, and was conscious of the power of 
 accomplishing better results. His next im 
 portant effort was " The Vision of Sir Laun- 
 fal," a noble poem, full of natural beauty and 
 animated by high Christian feeling. This 
 was composed in a kind of fury, substantially 
 as it now appears, in the space of about forty- 
 eight hours, during which time the poet 
 scarcely ate or slept. It was almost an im 
 provisation, and its effect upon the reader is 
 like that of the outburst of an inspired singer. 
 The effect upon the public was immediate 
 and powerful; the poem needed no herald 
 nor interpreter. In later poems we may ob 
 serve more highly wrought imagery, more 
 
60 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 
 
 Dantesque suggestion, and more philosophic 
 depth ; but " Sir Launfal " is still the poem 
 most admired by general readers, and it is 
 the one that best shows the poet s fresh and 
 exuberant feeling, his native piety, and his 
 glowing sense of beauty. Every summer 
 the newspapers remind us how " rare " is 
 "a day in June," and every winter we read 
 how 
 
 " Down swept the chill wind from the mountain peak, 
 From the snow five thousand summers old." 
 
 The preludes of the two movements of the 
 poem have become typical in the minds of 
 our generation. 
 
 About the same period came " The Pre 
 sent Crisis," an ardent poem, in a high, 
 prophetic . strain, and in strongly sonorous 
 measure. This has been often quoted by 
 public-speakers, and many of its lines are 
 as familiar as the most trenchant of the 
 Proverbs : 
 
A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 61 
 
 " By the light of burning heretics l Christ s bleeding feet I 
 
 track." 
 " Truth forever on the scaffold, Wrong forever on the throne." 
 
 " Then to side with Truth is noble when we share her wretched 
 
 crust." 
 " For Humanity sweeps onward : where to-day the martyr 
 
 stands, 
 On the morrow crouches Judas with the silver in his hands." 
 
 But the whole poem is a Gianfs-Cause- 
 way group of columnar verses. It is a pity 
 to pry out specimens ; they stand better to 
 gether. 
 
 Mention should be made of " Ambrose," 
 a beautiful legend, with a lesson of tolera 
 tion; of "The Dandelion" and " The Birch 
 Tree," both charming pictures, and already 
 hung in the gallery of fame; and of "An 
 Interview with Miles Standish," a strong 
 piece of portraiture, with a political moral. 
 But of the poems of this period, the most 
 artistic is "Beaver Brook." There is no 
 finer specimen of an ideal landscape in mod- 
 
 1 Observe that Thomas Hughes has not quoted this cor 
 rectly, but has printed "martyrs" for "heretics." 
 
62 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 
 
 ern verse, a specimen rich enough in its 
 suggestions to serve as an object-lesson upon 
 the poetic art. Beaver Brook, whose valley 
 was a favorite haunt of the poet, is a small 
 stream in the present limits of the town of 
 Belmont, a few miles from Elmwood, not 
 far from Waverley Station. The mill exists 
 no longer, but one of the foundation walls 
 makes a frame on one side for the pretty cas 
 cade of 
 
 " Armfuls of diamond and of pearl," 
 
 that descends into the " valley s cup." Not 
 far below is a pasture, in which are the 
 well-known Waverley Oaks, one of the few 
 groups of aboriginal trees now standing near 
 the Massachusetts coast. If a bull be per 
 mitted, the largest of the oaks is an elm, now 
 unhappily dying at the roots. This tree has 
 a straight-out spread of one hundred and 
 twenty feet, sixty feet from the giant trunk 
 each way The oaks are seven or eight in 
 number, as like as so many stout brothers, 
 planted on sloping dunes west of the brook. 
 
A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 63 
 
 They have a human, resolute air. Their 
 great arms look as if ready to " hit out 
 from the shoulder." Elms have their grace 
 ful ways, willows their pensive attitudes, firs 
 their loneliness, but the aboriginal oaks ex 
 press the strength and the rugged endurance 
 of nature. The oaks have been often painted, 
 but there are many ways of looking at them, 
 all equally charming. 
 
 HE ATTEMPTS SATIRE. 
 
 Mr. Lowell s next venture was again in 
 the field of satire. " A Fable for Critics," 
 
 " A Glance at a Few of our Literary Progenies 
 (Mrs. Malaprop s word) from the Tub of Diogenes," 
 
 was 
 
 " Set forth in October, the 31st day, 
 In the year 48, G. P. Putnam, Broadway." 
 
 As one looks back, for 1848, though 
 it seems but yesterday to some of us, was 
 really a great while ago, one hardly knows 
 whether to be more amazed at the audacity 
 
64 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 
 
 or the brilliancy of this elaborate jeu d esprit. 
 The preface declares : 
 
 "I began it, intending a Fable, a frail, slender 
 thing, rhymey- winged, with a sting in his tail." 
 
 There was no doubt about the sting in 
 the minds of those who felt it ; but private 
 grievances have been forgotten, except per 
 haps by the friends of a celebrated woman 
 between whose renown and whose works 
 there remains an unaccountable discrepancy. 
 To bring up the representative authors of a 
 vain and touchy people for censure (using 
 the word in its broad original meaning) was 
 an undertaking of some difficulty and deli 
 cacy. But when allowance is made for the 
 humorous and sportive tone of the Fable, 
 and we get at the real critical opinions, 
 either singly or in mass, it is surprising to 
 see how the poet anticipated the taste of 
 the coming generation, and how sound and 
 appreciative, according to present standards, 
 his judgments are. Naturally there may be 
 
BEAVER BROOK. 
 
 Sec page 61. 
 
A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 65 
 
 undue warmth here and a shade of coolness 
 there, but there is a general equity and candor. 
 And we must remember that, by and by, the 
 honeyed compliments that are exchanged be 
 tween living writers are to be forgotten, 
 that poems and histories are to be scrutinized 
 like coins by money-changers, and reckoned 
 at their just value and no more, and that 
 then will begin the havoc with reputations 
 now fortified behind friendly reviews and 
 journals, and fostered by social, political, 
 and religious cliques. Not <me in ten of the 
 popular writers of an epoch can hope to be 
 remembered and read by the next ; and it 
 will be found hereafter that Lowell s Apollo 
 was perhaps more generous than severe in 
 his comments upon the literary procession. 
 
 The Fable is as full of puns as a pudding 
 of plums. The good ones are the best of 
 their kind, strung together like beads, and 
 the bad ones are so " atrocious" as to be 
 quite as amusing. Materials for any number 
 of Hoods exist in it. Verbal sparkles catch 
 
66 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 
 
 the eyes of youth ; but those who see deeper 
 find vigorous good sense, power of analysis 
 and illustration, as well as manly indepen 
 dence and just national pride, such as few 
 comic poets possess. The successive pages 
 seem like a series of portraits, done by an 
 artist who knows how to seize upon the 
 strong points of likeness and avoid carica 
 ture ; and that is to produce living pictures 
 in the style of the masters. 
 
 The reader who has had his volume by 
 him since that thirty-first of October knows 
 it by heart ; the judgments are established, 
 and their curious felicity of phrase always 
 haunts the memory. Emerson, for example, 
 is the subject of a keen and almost per 
 fect characterization. If the satirist laughs 
 (as he may), the reader hesitates to join in 
 the mirth ; for he feels the resistless force, and 
 sees that the gayety is only the myrtle bough 
 that covers a sword. Similar praise may be 
 given to the powerful sketch of Theodore 
 Parker, although that great preacher was 
 
A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 67 
 
 more tender and more profoundly religious 
 than he appears in Lowell s verse. Alcott, 
 " calm as a cloud," and the graceful Willis 
 are happy specimens. To Bryant the satirist 
 is perhaps scarcely just, although the cold 
 ness of that great poet s passive muse, and 
 the want of elasticity and sympathy in his 
 nature, must be acknowledged. There is 
 more enthusiasm in the picture of 
 
 " Whittier, whose swelling and vehement heart 
 Strains the strait-breasted drab of the Quaker apart." 
 
 The lyrical fervor of the verses harmonizes 
 with the conception of the beloved and ven 
 erated bard. 
 
 Hawthorne is limned with touches so fine 
 and aerial that one scarcely sees how it is 
 done ; yet the likeness and the style are in 
 imitable. It is a delicate tribute from one of 
 the first of poets to the most original and 
 imaginative of romancers. The estimate of 
 Cooper, if not wholly complimentary, is mag 
 nificently wrought. The lines are imbedded 
 in thought, and resist change and time. 
 
68 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 
 
 One of the most charming of these (appar 
 ently) off-hand descriptions is that of Philo- 
 thea, Mrs. Lydia Maria Child, the ablest 
 woman in America in her prime. There is 
 an airy lightness in the treatment of this 
 author that has the effect of wit in action. 
 The tale of the " marvellous aloe " is a suffi 
 cient instance of the genius of the author. 
 Imagine a commonplace writer attempting to 
 fashion such an illusory legend ! 
 
 For Irving and for Poe perhaps Lowell s 
 Apollo is no more than just; and as for 
 Judd, although his (neglected) " Margaret" 
 is a work of genius, probably our author 
 means to assert what his fame should have 
 been, rather than what it is. Holmes and 
 Longfellow are generously mentioned, and 
 Lowell s own verse comes in for ironical com 
 pliment. 
 
 The character of " Miranda" has been sup 
 posed by some to be intended as a caricature 
 of Margaret Fuller. If this were true, it 
 would be an instance of unusual severity, for 
 
A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 69 
 
 the passages in which " Miranda" figures, 
 though among the most amusing, are terribly 
 sarcastic. Such a woman as the Minerva of 
 the Fable, if there were one, might fully 
 deserve the treatment. Miss Fuller never 
 minced her words, and she always scorned 
 the shelter of sex ; but, though she had some 
 traits that drew upon her as much censure as 
 compliment, it is not at all probable that 
 " Miranda " was drawn for her, any more 
 than the sketch of the dull and pedantic 
 reviewer was intended for a well-known 
 Harvard professor. "Miranda" is undoubt 
 edly an imaginary female literary bore. 
 
 Of the various episodes there is no room 
 to write. Readers will see that the poet was 
 still zealous for human rights, strongly op 
 posed to the horrors of capital punishment, 
 and energetic in upholding the honor of the 
 republic of letters. And all who trace their 
 origin from Pilgrim or Puritan ancestry will 
 feel a new thrill of pride in the glowing 
 apostrophe to Massachusetts with which the 
 poem ends. 
 
70 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 
 
 The Fable appeared anonymously, but 
 such a secret could not be kept. When 
 people had time to think about it, it was 
 evident that no other American could have 
 written it. No poem of the kind in the lan 
 guage equals it in the two aspects of vivid 
 genius and riotous fun. The Fable careers 
 like an ice-boat. Breezes fill the light sails, 
 as if toying with them ; but the course is like 
 lightning, and every movement answers to 
 the touch of the helm. 
 
 No British poet has equalled it. Think of 
 the dirt of the Duntiad and the whooping 
 savagery of the English Bards and Scotch 
 Reviewers! Yet " Eraser s Magazine" consid 
 ered the Fable as " clever doggerel." 
 
 But when the Fable is calmly surveyed, 
 though we admit the fervid genius that ani 
 mates it, and though we are sure that no 
 other poet could have written it, or ap 
 proached it in comic or serious power and 
 swiftness, still we must see that it carries 
 along like a flood a considerable burden of 
 
A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 71 
 
 " inconsidered trifles." There is a lack of 
 proportion and of just treatment here and 
 there which might have been remedied by the 
 labor of revision. It seems like an off-hand 
 sketch, with all the brilliant points and some 
 of the defects that characterize first thoughts 
 hurriedly set down. 
 
 COLLECTED POEMS. UNIVERSITY LECTURES. 
 
 In 1849 Mr. Lowell s poems were collected 
 in two volumes ; the " Biglow Papers/ " A 
 Fable for Critics," and " A Year s Life " were 
 not included. In 1853, and for some years 
 afterwards, he was a frequent contributor to 
 " Putnam s Monthly," conducted by George 
 William Curtis and Charles F. Briggs. Some 
 of his finest productions, both in prose and 
 verse, appeared in that brilliant periodical. 
 In the winter of 1854-55 he delivered a course 
 of twelve lectures on English poetry, in the 
 Lowell Institute. The lectures made a deep 
 impression upon cultivated auditors, and full 
 
72 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 
 
 reports of them were printed in the Boston 
 " Advertiser." Their success was due to their 
 intrinsic merits. The popular lecturer is often 
 led to imitate the vehement action of a stump 
 orator and the drollery of a comedian by 
 turns. Mr. Lowell s pronunciation is clear 
 and precise, and the modulations of his voice 
 unstudied and agreeable ; but he seldom, if 
 ever, raised a hand for gesticulation, and his 
 voice was kept in its natural compass. He 
 read like one who had something of impor 
 tance to utter, and the just emphasis was felt 
 in the penetrating tone. There were no 
 oratorical climaxes, and no pitfalls set for 
 applause. But the weighty thoughts, the ear 
 nest feeling, and the brilliant poetical images 
 gave to every discourse an indescribable 
 charm. The younger portion of the audi 
 ence, especially, enjoyed a feast for which 
 all the study of their lives had been a prepa 
 ration. 
 
 It is probable that by this time our poet 
 had begun to think of some connection with 
 
A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 73 
 
 the University. The illustrious professor of 
 belles lettreSj it was known, desired to retire 
 from the chair, and public opinion pointed to 
 Lowell as a proper person for his successor. 
 In the summer of 1854 Mr. Longfellow re 
 signed, and Mr. Lowell was appointed in his 
 place, with leave of absence for two years. 
 He went to Europe to pursue his studies, and 
 remained abroad, chiefly in Dresden, until 
 the spring of 1857, when he returned arid 
 began his courses of lectures. No profes 
 sor was ever more popular with his classes. 
 Students speak of him always in terms of 
 admiration and love. His lectures upon 
 Dante, Chaucer, Shakespeare, and Cervantes, 
 in particular, have made an ineffaceable im 
 pression upon the scholars of Harvard. 
 
 In the two years of residence abroad, he 
 had time for much methodical reading, par 
 ticularly in the literatures of modern Europe ; 
 but, in truth, the studies which made him a 
 distinguished scholar had been begun long 
 before, and have been pursued ever since. 
 
74 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 
 
 His power of assimilation has been even 
 more remarkable than his facility of acqui 
 sition. The best things in all tongues natu 
 rally gravitated to him ; and it was difficult 
 for any but the most curiously learned to say 
 whether he seemed more at home with the 
 philosophic authors of Germany, the great 
 poet of Italy, the immortal romancer of 
 Spain, the brilliant wit and classic finish of 
 the French, or with the long line of poets, 
 chroniclers, and thinkers of our old home. 
 His resources were ample for almost any un 
 dertaking. His characteristics as a writer of 
 prose will be considered in the proper place ; 
 but it may be observed here that, along with 
 his varied studies, he had early cultivated, 
 unconsciously perhaps, a learned, rich, and 
 allusive style, singularly apt and forcible, 
 and teeming with poetic illustrations. 
 
A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 75 
 
 CONVEKSATIONS ON THE POETS. 
 
 The germs of his literary criticism are 
 to be found in his " Conversations on the 
 Poets," published in his twenty-fifth year. 
 The book is a valuable part of his literary 
 biography. The sentences give an impres 
 sion of prolixity at first, not so much of words 
 as of teeming, struggling thought. They at 
 test the yet untrained luxuriance of genius. 
 The doctrines are of the modern school, in 
 opposition to the formal antithesis and the 
 superficial glitter of Pope and his French 
 masters, and in favor of the simplicity 
 and vigor of the Elizabethan authors, and 
 of Chaucer. A good part of the volume 
 is devoted to the modernization of pas 
 sages from Chaucer, and to comments upon 
 Spenser, Shakespeare, Chapman, Drayton, 
 Ford, Marlowe, and other dramatic poets. 
 Marvell is also a favorite, and Jeremy Tay 
 lor is dwelt upon with a poet s enthusiasm. 
 Of the moderns, he appears to hold Keats 
 
76 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 
 
 and Tennyson in highest esteem, though the 
 strength and naturalness of Wordsworth are 
 admitted. We make room for a few sen 
 tences : 
 
 " You may claim for Pope the merit of an envi 
 ous eye, which could turn the least scratch upon 
 the character of a friend into a fester, of a 
 nimble and adroit fancy, and of an ear so nig 
 gardly that it could afford but one invariable 
 caesura to his verse ; but when you call him 
 poet, you insult the buried majesty of all earth s 
 noblest and choicest spirits. Nature should lead 
 a true poet by the hand, and he has far better 
 things to do than to busy himself in counting the 
 warts upon it, as Pope did." 
 
 " Pope treated the English language as the 
 image -man has served the bust of Shakespeare 
 yonder. To rid it of some external soils he has 
 rubbed it down till there is no muscular expres 
 sion left." 
 
 " A poet could not write the c Dunciad, nor 
 read it." 
 
 The citations are given for the opinions, 
 not as specimens of the style. 
 
A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 77 
 
 From the time of the Conversations (1845) 
 to that of the first lectures (1855) there was 
 a marked change, but only the change from 
 adolescence to manhood. It was the normal 
 development of an active, original, and poetic 
 mind. Even the matter of the lectures un 
 derwent a change before being presented to 
 the public, fifteen years later. Only a small 
 part of the critical labors has been printed, 
 but the most important subjects have been 
 elaborated into the stately essays which form 
 the last three volumes of prose. 
 
 FIRESIDE TRAVELS. 
 
 The volume of " Fireside Travels," con 
 taining the sketch of old Cambridge already 
 mentioned, was published in 1864. The ar 
 ticles were written when Lowell was thirty- 
 four, a mature young man, chastened and 
 thoughtful, but still joyously young. It was 
 the period when fresh feeling was in the 
 ascendant, and when the poet had no in- 
 
78 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 
 
 clination to exchange the creative pencil 
 for the scalpel of the critic. There is a tide 
 in the soul of man, and it comes neither too 
 early nor too late in life, a time when the 
 poet or artist is at his best, hand and 
 brain and heart at one. The youth con 
 ceives, but often fails adequately to embody 
 the creation. The veteran would gladly ful 
 fil his soul s behest, but the feeling has gone 
 with the visions of his morning. The en 
 thusiasm and creative power belong to young 
 blood. What the ardent youth achieves may 
 lack the maturer graces, but it will be in his 
 springtime, if ever, that he will put his ideas 
 of beauty into enduring forms. 
 
 " Fireside Travels," among prose works, is 
 the product of Lowell s best days. It is ex 
 uberant, but not in the least crude. In fact, 
 the art is quite as remarkable as the fertility. 
 Pages appear like the soil of hot-house beds, 
 with thoughts, serious, jocose, learned, allu 
 sive, sprouting everywhere. It does not 
 matter where the reader opens, for every 
 
A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 79 
 
 sentence has some salient or recondite charm. 
 The Italian journals, the life in the Maine 
 woods, and the reminiscences of Cambridge 
 are equally fascinating. As mere studies of 
 a highly ornamented style they are perfect. 
 It is true that in graver essays Lowell has 
 displayed more profundity, more learning, 
 and more grand figures; but those who 
 know the earlier volume well will surely 
 turn to it oftener. The sketches of President 
 Kirkland, Professors Popkin and Sales, and 
 of Allston the painter, and others, all too 
 brief, are not only delightful in style, but 
 are full of warm and generous feeling that 
 knits author and reader henceforth in an 
 indissoluble bond. One often wonders, after 
 reading of the Cambridge dons for the twen 
 tieth time, where there is to be found another 
 essay like it. In Thackeray s essays there 
 are points of resemblance. The " Rounda 
 bout Papers," " The Four Georges," and the 
 " English Humorists," though totally differ 
 ent in matter and in style, give a similar 
 
80 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 
 
 inward satisfaction. A comfortable feeling 
 remains long after the verbal felicities have 
 been enjoyed and passed out of remem 
 brance. 
 
 HIS SECOND MARRIAGE. THE "ATLANTIC." 
 
 Two important events in his life occurred 
 in 1857. Mr. Lowell was married in Septem 
 ber to Miss Frances Dunlap, of Portland, 
 Maine, who had had charge of the education 
 of his only daughter during his residence 
 abroad. For a time he resided in Oxford 
 Street, Cambridge, with Dr. Estes Howe, 
 who had married a sister of Maria White 
 Lowell ; but not long after he returned to 
 Elmwood. 
 
 In November, " The Atlantic Monthly" 
 was started under the auspices of the chief 
 authors of New England, with Mr. Lowell as 
 editor-in-chief. One purpose of the maga 
 zine was to give the active support of letters 
 to the anti-slavery cause, and in this respect 
 its position was decided. Before this there 
 
THE MILL-WHEEL. 
 
 Sec page 62. 
 
A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 81 
 
 was no popular magazine with positive opin 
 ions. The editor s contributions were both 
 in prose and verse, and were conspicuous for 
 their force, and often for their pungent wit. 
 At the beginning, the political articles were 
 written by an eminent author of New York, 
 but after a time the department was managed 
 by the editor alone. 
 
 In less than two years from the time the 
 " Atlantic" was started, both the senior mem 
 bers of the publishing, house, Messrs. Phillips, 
 Sampson, & Co., died^ and the magazine 
 passed into the hands of Messrs. Ticknor & 
 Fields. Mr. Lowell continued as editor until 
 1862. when he was succeeded by Mr. Fields. 
 
 In the first three volumes there are a few 
 notable articles from Lowell, including two 
 of a political character, entitled "A Pocket 
 Celebration of the Fourth," and " A Sample 
 of Consistency." Among the poems may be 
 mentioned "The Dead House," one that 
 no reader ever forgets. It appears to have 
 haunted the memory of some poets also. 
 
82 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 
 
 " The Origin of Didactic Poetry," in the first 
 number, is an amusing fable, in the poet s 
 happiest vein. Several fine poems appeared 
 in the first volume, among them " The Nest," 
 which does not appear in the "complete" 
 collection. 
 
 As Lowell was never given to the pro 
 duction of merely fanciful verses, the very 
 lightest of his thistledowns having some seed 
 in them, and as his mind always moved to 
 the tides in the ocean of human thought and 
 feeling, it will not appear strange that the 
 great events following the election of Presi 
 dent Lincoln gave a new direction to his ac 
 tive faculties. In feeling, as before observed, 
 he is primarily a poet; but he is also, like 
 Milton, a thinker, with a fund of uncommon 
 practical sense, and as much of a man of 
 action as any retired scholar can be. The 
 topsails may fill or flutter in celestial airs 
 while the hull struggles in the heaving sea. 
 
 In earlier days there were dreams of the 
 peaceful solution of all controversies ; swords 
 
A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 83 
 
 were to be beaten into ploughshares ; kings 
 and nobles were to be submerged in the ris 
 ing tide of humanity. " Round the earth s 
 electric circle" went the flash of sympathy. 
 The young Victor Hugos of Heidelberg and 
 Jena, Paris and Bologna, Berlin and London, 
 were in accord. Conservatism was fright 
 ened : the millennium was coming ; the doc 
 trines of American democracy were to have 
 a generous, practical illustration in the gov 
 ernments of enlightened nations. Literature 
 was animated by a high philanthropic spirit. 
 
 The poetry of the new school was as pure 
 as the Gospels, and as uncompromising as the 
 early church. Brook Farm, with its aesthetic 
 communism, had been one of the signs of the 
 times, a precursor, it was hoped, of Arca 
 dian days to come. Plainness in dress pre 
 vailed, even among the rich and delicately 
 bred. Lowell s youthful portrait, by Page, 
 represents him in a coarse brown coat, with 
 his broad shirt-collar turned down, and with 
 long hair, parted at the centre of the forehead, 
 
84 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 
 
 and hanging in careless grace upon ruddy 
 and wind-tanned cheeks. The poetry of the 
 picture is in the calm and dreamy eyes, look 
 ing out of a shadow of bronze mist. 
 
 But the time of boundless hope for human 
 ity went by, and after the reaction the con 
 servatives were stronger than ever before. 
 In this country the passage of the Fugitive 
 Slave Bill was the answer to the efforts of 
 the abolitionists. When the contest between 
 North and South was settled, as far as bal 
 lots could do it, by the election of Lincoln, 
 the struggle was immediately transferred to 
 the field, and for four years the power and 
 endurance of the two sections were tried to 
 the uttermost. The rebellion surprised most 
 people, but wise observers had long seen its 
 approaching shadow. A Massachusetts gov 
 ernor procured military overcoats months 
 before the rattle of drums was heard. 
 
A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 85 
 
 HOSEA BIGLOW AGAIN. 
 
 The " Atlantic " had a number of vigorous 
 political articles in prose, and, a few months 
 after the outbreak, Lowell again set up the 
 simple Biglow stage with the old dramatis 
 persona to ridicule secession. The first at 
 tempt was an epistle in rhyme from the 
 veteran Birdofredum Sawin to Hosea. The 
 hero of the Mexican war had become a 
 Southerner, had been tarred and feath 
 ered (perhaps by way of acclimatization), 
 had been in the State s Prison on a ground 
 less charge, and on his release had married 
 a widow, the owner of slaves. He had 
 therefore reached an eminence from which 
 he could look down on the " mudsills" of 
 his native State. 
 
 " Nough said, thet, arter lookin roun , I liked the place so wal, 
 Where niggers doos a double good, with us atop to stiddy ern, 
 By bein proofs o prophecy an suckleatin medium, 
 Where a man s sunthin coz he s white, an whiskey s cheap 
 
 ez fleas, 
 An the financial pollercy jes sooted my idees, 
 
86 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 
 
 Thet I friz down right where I wuz, merried the Wiclder 
 Shennon, 
 
 (Her thirds wuz part in cotton-land, part in the curse o 
 
 Canaan,) 
 
 An here I be ez lively ez a chipmunk on a wall, 
 With nothin to feel riled about much later 11 Eddam s fall." 
 
 The correspondent desires that Hosea 
 should break the news of his Southern mar- 
 riage to the wife he had left behind. 
 
 " I want thet you should grad lly break my merriage to Jerushy, 
 An there s a heap of argynmnts thet s emple to indooce ye \ 
 Fust place, State s Prison, - wal, it s true it warn t for 
 
 crime, o course, 
 
 But then it s jest the same fer her in gittin a disvorce ; 
 Nex place, my State s secedin out hez leg lly lef me free 
 To merry any one I please, pervidin it s a she ; 
 Fin lly, I never wun t corne back ; she need n t hev no fear 
 on t, 
 
 But then it s wal to fix things right, fer fear Miss S. should 
 
 hear on t ; 
 
 Lastly, I ve gut religion South, an Eushy she s a pagan 
 Thet sets by th graven imiges o the gret Nothun Dagon ; 
 
 An ef J. wants a stronger pint than them thet I hev stated, 
 Wy, she s an aliun in my now, an I ve been cornfiscated." 
 
 The light and mocking tone of this epistle 
 is in strong contrast with the deep and 
 
A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 87 
 
 almost passionate feeling that breathes in 
 the later poems of the series. In the sum 
 mer and autumn of 1861 people thought the 
 campaign was to be something like a picnic 
 excursion. 
 
 JONATHAN TO JOHN. 
 
 The capture of the rebel commissioners, 
 Mason and Slidell, by Commodore Wilkes, 
 a resolute and truly British proceeding, 
 though in violation of the law of nations, 
 will forever endear his name to the American 
 people. None but lawyers will consider the 
 persons of those emissaries more sacred than 
 spies or munitions of war. Still we must 
 approve the cautious policy, or the magna 
 nimity of Lincoln, whichever it was, that 
 decided upon returning the two white ele 
 phants. The surrender, however, was a 
 great trial to pride, particularly in the East 
 ern States, where the memory of England s 
 arrogant assumption of sovereignty on the 
 seas was still rankling. Lowell has, prob- 
 
88 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 
 
 ably, better than any one, expressed this 
 mingled feeling in his famous " Yankee 
 Idyll." The preface by the Rev. Mr. Wil 
 bur shows that gentleman at his best. It 
 is worth all the starched formality of the 
 State papers on the subject ; for it puts the 
 case to the British ministry in a way that 
 leaves its unfriendliness, in recognizing the 
 rebels as belligerents and in fitting out priva 
 teers, without even the rags of hypocrisy to 
 cover it. In this unaccredited despatch Earl 
 Russell might read the sentiments of the 
 indignant Northern people. The style of 
 the preface is curiously apt. The Latin 
 quotations are numerous, as usual, and the 
 pungent phrases have an unstudied air, as 
 if pugnacity were as natural as breathing. 
 But under the equable flow of discourse one 
 feels there is a patriotic fire that burns un- 
 quenchably. 
 
 International law has gained by the con 
 troversy. The English ministers were right 
 and the Commodore was wrong ; but Wilkes 
 
A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 89 
 
 is a hero forevermore, and Earl Eussell and 
 his associates are accomplices in a national 
 crime. 
 
 In the stern Idyl that follows, the talk 
 between .Concord Bridge and Bunker Hill 
 Monument sounds like the click between 
 flint and steel. Concord expresses the natu 
 ral wrath of the nation ; Bunker Hill its 
 calm reason and wise policy. The Bridge 
 calls up old grievances : 
 
 " I recollect how sailors rights was won, 
 Yard locked in yard, hot gun-lip kissin gun. 
 
 Better thet all our ships an all their crews 
 Should sink to rot in ocean s dreamless ooze. 
 
 Than seek sech peace ez only cowards crave : 
 Give me the peace of dead men or of brave ! " 
 
 Hosea, we see, grows oratorical, but the 
 heart forgives the swelling tone when such 
 a feeling inspires it. 
 
 The Bridge keeps a little ahead in the dis 
 cussion, as anger generally outruns prudence ; 
 and there follows a terrible arraignment of 
 
90 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 
 
 the English before the tribunal of the nations. 
 Those who lived as mature men and women 
 in those times well remember the thrilling 
 apostrophe with which the poem concludes. 
 The dialect is unchanged, but it flows with 
 resistless energy. The poet has transmuted 
 each rustic phrase into a fiery symbol, and 
 the images loom up, majestic as the home 
 spun heroes he celebrates. 
 
 " O strange New World, thet yit wast never young, 
 Whose youth from thee by gripin need was wrung, 
 Brown foundlin o the woods, whose baby-bed 
 Was prowled roun by the Injun s cracklin tread, 
 An who grew st strong thru shifts an wants an pains, 
 Nussed by stern men with empires in their brains, 
 
 Thou, skilled by Freedom an by gret events 
 
 To pitch new States ez Old- World men pitch tents, 
 
 Thou, taught by Fate to know Jehovah s plan 
 
 Thet man s devices can t unmake a man, 
 
 An whose free latch-string never was drawed in 
 
 Against the poorest child of Adam s kin, 
 
 The grave s not dug where traitor hands shall lay 
 
 In fearful haste thy murdered corse away ! " 
 
 Then came the impressive ballad, in which 
 all the force of the preceding argument was 
 fused into a passionate deprecation. 
 
A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 91 
 
 " It don t seem hardly right, John, 
 "When both my hands was full, 
 To stump me to a fight, John, 
 Your cousin, tu, John Bull ! 
 Ole Uncle S. sez he, * I guess 
 We know it now, sez he, 
 The lion s paw is all the law, 
 Accordin to J. B., 
 Thet s fit for you an me ! 
 
 " Shall it be love, or hate, John ? 
 
 It s you thet s to decide ; 
 Ain t your bonds held by Fate, John, 
 Like all the world s beside ? 
 Ole Uncle S. sez he, I guess 
 Wise men forgive, sez he, 
 But not forget ; an some time yet 
 Thet truth may strike J. B., 
 Ez wal ez you an me. " 
 
 FAME. 
 
 The satires of Hosea Biglow had been 
 appreciated by anti-slavery men and by 
 judges of poetic art, a very select com 
 pany in any age, but the ballad " Jona 
 than to John," appealing to a natural patriotic 
 pride, became immediately popular. Party 
 
92 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 
 
 dissensions were stilled during the awful 
 struggle for national existence, and though 
 England was knit to us by ties of kindred 
 and by a community of letters and laws, 
 there was no one to defend her course in 
 any Northern State. The statement of our 
 country s case against the " mistress of the 
 seas " was received with universal applause. 
 
 The author who had patiently waited for 
 recognition could now be satisfied, if fame 
 had been his desire. Many literary reputa 
 tions have been built up with as much fore 
 thought and tact as go to the making of 
 fortunes. Lowell would not be human if 
 he did not relish a good word better than 
 an ill one ; but he never asked for the one 
 or deprecated the other. His fame came as 
 slowly as if it had been extorted from an 
 unwilling public, as if it had been weighed 
 out to him, ounce by ounce, from an inex 
 orable balance. When unjustly criticised, 
 if a friend proposed to take the field, he 
 would say, " Don t bother yourself with any 
 
A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 93 
 
 sympathy for me under my supposed suffer 
 ings from critics. I don t need it in the 
 least. If a man does anything good, the 
 world always finds it out, sooner or later; 
 and if he does n t, why the world finds that 
 out, too, and ought." 
 
 There is a similar consolation in a couplet 
 from the " Fable for Critics : " 
 
 " All the critics on earth cannot crush with their ban 
 One word that s in tune with the nature of man." 
 
 INSIDE VIEW OF SECESSION. 
 
 Mr. Sawin was next heard from in a letter 
 to Hosea, detailing his " conversion," des 
 canting upon the superior strain of South 
 ern blood, and anticipating the creation of 
 a batch of nobles as soon as Secession 
 should be established. His new wife, he 
 says, was a Higgs, the " first fem ly" in that 
 region, 
 
 " On her Ma s side all Juggernot, on Pa s all Cavileer." 
 
 After some ridicule of "Normal" blood and 
 
94 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 
 
 Huguenot descent, we have an inside view 
 of Secession, salt selling by the ounce, 
 whiskey getting "skurce," and sugar not to 
 be had. Meantime the corner-stone of the 
 new State is a powder-cask, and Jeff. Davis 
 is " cairn the Constitooshun roun in his hat." 
 The ironical compliments of Mr. Sawin to 
 the national Congress conclude the letter. 
 
 A burlesque message of Davis to the Con 
 federate Congress and a speech of a South 
 ern sympathizer in a secret (Northern) caucus 
 followed, and then came one of the most 
 justly celebrated of the series, entitled, 
 " Sunthin in the Pastoral Line." One other, 
 soon to be mentioned, rises to a higher key ; 
 but this Pastoral is the perfection of descrip 
 tive poetry. It is wonderful to see how the 
 dialect is moulded by the thought. When 
 the sights and sounds and odors of spring 
 come to mind, the crabbed speech becomes 
 poetical, as a plain face glows into beauty 
 on the sudden impulse of the heart. There 
 have been many serious and comic descrip- 
 
A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 95 
 
 tions of the waywardness and coquetry of 
 a New England spring, but this may serve 
 as a resume, like a cyclopaedia. Every line 
 suggests a picture, neither stately nor jocose, 
 but like nature itself. 
 
 There are ancient musical " modes" that 
 are neither major nor minor, in which the 
 movement from grave to joyous chords is 
 made without modulation and without shock. 
 So in this unique Pastoral we pause over the 
 loveliest images and hints of tantalizing like 
 ness ; and, while the pleasure still lingers, we 
 find that Hosea has gone on, whittling away at 
 some problem, and using his mother-wit with 
 unconscious and aphoristic art. To give in 
 stances would be to quote the poem. Sooner 
 quote any one of the thousand clumps of rosy 
 mist from Mr. Sargent s acre of azaleas. 
 
 HOSEA BECOMES PASTORAL AND IDYLLIC. 
 
 After a while, Hosea, declaring himself 
 "unsoshle as a stone," because his "innard 
 vane" has been "pintin east" for weeks 
 
96 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 
 
 together, starts off to lose himself in the 
 pine woods. He comes to a small deserted 
 "school usV a favorite resort when in a 
 bluish revery, and, sitting down, he falls 
 asleep. Here comes a passage that must be 
 quoted : 
 
 " Our lives in sleep are some like streams thet glide 
 Twixt flesh an sperrit boundin on each side, 
 Where both shores shadders kind o mix and mingle 
 In sunthin thet ain t jes like either single; 
 An when you cast off moorin s from To-day, 
 An down towards To-morrer drift away, 
 The imiges thet tengle on the stream 
 Make a new upside-down ard world o dream." 
 
 A Pilgrim Father appears. 
 
 " He wore a steeple-hat, tall boots, an spurs 
 With rowels to em big ez ches nut burrs." 
 
 This was Hosea s remote ancestor, once a 
 colonel in the parliamentary army. He 
 makes himself known, and tells his descend 
 ant that he had 
 
 " worked round at sperrit-rappin some, 
 An danced the tables till their legs wuz gone, 
 In hopes o larnin wut wuz goin on. 
 But me] urns lie so like all-split 
 Thet I concluded it wuz best to quit." 
 
A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 97 
 
 In his youth, he tells Hosea, he had youth s 
 pride of opinion : 
 
 " Nothin from Adam s fall to Huldy s bonnet, 
 Thet I warn t full-cocked with my jedgment on it." 
 
 He makes a parallel between the cause of the 
 loyal North and that of the Commonwealth 
 against King Charles, and exclaims : 
 
 " Slav ry s your Charles, the Lord hez gin the exe 
 * Our Charles/ sez I, * hez gut eight million necks. " 
 
 He likens the rebellion to the rattle of the 
 snake, and adds : 
 
 " It s Slavery thet s the fangs an thinkin head, 
 An , ef you want selvation, cresh it dead ! " 
 
 PAESON WILBUR. 
 
 In the preface to the next poem the death 
 of the Rev. Mr. Wilbur is announced, and, 
 shadow though he be, the reader feels his 
 loss like that of a friend. 
 
 The thought of grief for the death of an 
 imaginary person is not qiiite so absurd as 
 it might appear. One day, while the great 
 
98 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 
 
 novel of "The Newcomes" was in course of 
 publication, Lowell, who was then in Lon 
 don, met Thackeray on the street. The 
 novelist was serious in manner, and his looks 
 and voice told of weariness and affliction. 
 He saw the kindly inquiry in the poet s eyes, 
 and said, "Come in to Evans s, and I ll tell 
 you all about it. I have killed the Colonel" 
 So they walked in and took a table in a 
 remote corner, and then Thackeray, draw 
 ing the fresh sheets of manuscript from his 
 breast pocket, read through that exquisitely 
 touching chapter which records the death of 
 Colonel Newcome. When he came to the 
 final Adsum, the tears which had been swell 
 ing his lids for some time trickled down 
 upon his face, and the last word was almost 
 an inarticulate sob. 
 
 Let us go on with Mr. Wilbur. In the 
 letter which gives the news of his death, the 
 writer declares that the good clergyman s 
 life was shortened by our unhappy civil 
 war. 
 
A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 99 
 
 The train of thought which follows proba 
 bly represents the state of the poet s own 
 mind. Mr. Wilbur, in an unfinished letter, 
 left behind, says: "It has been my habit, 
 as you know, on every recurrence of this 
 blessed anniversary (Christmas), to read Mil 
 ton s Hymn of the Nativity, till its sublime 
 harmonies so dilated my soul and quickened 
 its spiritual sense, that I seemed to hear that 
 oilier song which gave assurance to the shep 
 herds that there was One who would lead 
 them also in green pastures and beside the 
 still waters. But to-day I have been unable 
 to think of anything but that mournful text, 
 1 1 came not to bring peace, but a sword. " 
 
 The poem sent with the good parson s last 
 letter is a vigorous appeal for ending the 
 warj a protest against vacillation and half- 
 heartedness. The prelude shows the heart s 
 desire : 
 
 "Ef la song or two could make 
 
 Like rockets druv by their own burnin , 
 All leap an light, to leave a wake 
 
 Men s hearts an faces skyward turnin !" 
 
100 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 
 
 The key-note of the poem is in the last coup 
 let of the first stanza : 
 
 " Wut s wanted now s the silent rhyme 
 
 Twixt upright Will an downright Action." 
 
 Truly the struggle had been long and 
 agonizing. 
 
 YANKEE HUMOR AND PATHOS. 
 
 If the test of poetry be in its power over 
 hearts, the tenth in this series must be placed 
 in the highest rank. The beginning is quaint, 
 simple, and even humorous, but with a sub 
 dued tone; there is no intimation of the 
 coming pathos ; nor are we conscious of the 
 slow steps by which we are led, stanza by 
 stanza, to the heights where thought and 
 feeling become one. 
 
 Admirers of the great actor, William War 
 ren, who is called a comedian, but who is 
 possessed of the rarest pathetic power, have 
 often been indignant when rural auditors, 
 imagining that everything uttered by the 
 
A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 101 
 
 favorite must be funny, giggle and clap at 
 the marvellous accents and action which 
 move all thinking people to sudden tears. 
 It is with some kindred apprehension that 
 the present writer ventures to quote a stanza 
 in the native dialect ; though full of delicate 
 feeling, expressed with the inimitable art of 
 a great poet, the unlettered style suggests 
 only what is ridiculous " to the general," 
 who can see nothing touching in the senti 
 ment of a rustic, and are not softened by 
 tears unless shed into a broidered handker 
 chief. 
 
 " Sence I begun to scribble rhyme, 
 
 I tell ye wut, I hain t ben foolin ; 
 The parson s books, life, death, an time 
 
 Hev took some trouble with my schoolin ; 
 Nor th airth don t git put out with me, 
 
 Thet love her z though she wuz a woman; 
 Why, th* ain t a bird upon the tree 
 
 But half forgives my beiri human" 
 
 The poet goes on recalling 
 
 " Sights innercent ez babes on knee, 
 Peaceful ez eyes o pastur d cattle ; " 
 
102 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 
 
 The "yaller pines," 
 
 "When sunshine makes em all sweet-scented, 
 An hear among their furry boughs 
 
 The baskin west-wind purr contented " 
 
 Then 
 
 " The farm-smokes, sweetes sight on airth, 
 
 Slow thru the winter air a-shrinkin 
 Seem kin o sad, an roun the hearth 
 Of empty places set me thinkin ." 
 
 This brings to mind the poet s slain nephews 
 
 " Why, hain t I held em on my knee ? 
 
 Did n t I love to see em growin , 
 Three likely lads ez wal could be, 
 Hahnsome an brave an not tu knowin ? " 
 
 " Wut s words to them whose faith an truth 
 
 On War s red techstone rang true metal, 
 Who ventered life an love an youth 
 
 For the gret prize o death in battle ? 
 To him who, deadly hurt, agen 
 
 Flashed on afore the charge s thunder, 
 Tippin with fire the bolt of men 
 
 Thet rived the Rebel line asunder? " 
 
 In this last stanza the direct, weighty 
 words, the intensity of feeling, and the force 
 of the bold images create a sensation that 
 
A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 103 
 
 is nothing less than sublime. It refers, as 
 readers perhaps know, to the poet s nephew, 
 General Charles Russell Lowell, at the battle 
 of Winchester, who, thougii he had received 
 a wound which he knew to be mortal, 
 mounted his horse, and led his troops in a 
 brilliant charge, was again mortally wounded, 
 and shortly after expired. 
 
 Here the sorrowing Hosea exclaims : 
 
 " T ain t right to hev the young go fust, 
 All throbbin full o gifts an graces." 
 
 But the lines are palpitant like naked nerves, 
 and every word is like the branch plucked 
 by Dante, which trickled blood. We must 
 leave the poem with its aching burden, and 
 forbear to copy even its noble conclusion. 
 
 HOSEA AS AN ORATOR. 
 
 The last of the " Biglow Papers" is a 
 speech of Hosea in the March town meeting. 
 The preface is by the Meliboeus-Hipponax 
 himself, and is a delightful ragout of Yankee 
 
104 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 
 
 phrases, peppered with pungent wit. His 
 summary or "argymunt" of a popular 
 speech has been often copied, and has done 
 service in many comic readings; but its 
 irresistible drollery keeps it fresh. 
 
 Those who know the real sources of cur 
 rent proverbial slang, and of much of the 
 wit of Yankeeland, need not be told that the 
 " Biglow Papers" have furnished enough for 
 the stock in trade of a dozen professional 
 humorists. 
 
 " THE ARGYMUNT. 
 
 " Interducshin, w ich may be skipt. Begins by 
 talkin about himself : thet s jest natur an most 
 gin ally allus pleasin , I b leeve I ve notist, to one 
 of the cumpany, an thet s more than wut you can 
 say of most speshes of talkin . Nex comes the 
 gittin the goodwill of the orjunce by lettin em 
 gether from wut you kind of ex dentally let drop 
 thet they air about East, A one, an no mistaik, 
 skare em up an take em as they rise. Spring 
 interdooced with a flew approput flours. Speach 
 finally begins witch nobuddy need n t feel oboly- 
 gated to read as I never read em an never shell 
 
A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 105 
 
 this one ag in. Subjick stalled ; expanded ; de- 
 layted; extended. Pump lively. Subjick staited 
 ag in so s to avide all mistaiks. Ginnle remarks ; 
 continooed ; kerried on ; pushed furder ; kind o 
 gin out. Subjick re-staited ; dielooted ; stirred up 
 permiscoous. Pump ag in. Gits back to where 
 he sot out. Can t seem to stay thair. Ketches 
 into Mr. Seaward s hair. Breaks loose ag in an 
 staits his subjick ; stretches it ; turns it ; folds it ; 
 onfolds it ; folds it ag in so s t no one can t find it. 
 Argoos with an imedginary bean thet ain t aloud 
 to say nothin in repleye. Gives him a real good 
 dressin an is settysfide he s rite. Gits into John 
 son s hair. No use tryin to git into his head. 
 Gives it up. Hez to stait his subjick ag in ; doos 
 it back ards, sideways, eendways, criss-cross, bevel- 
 lin , noways. Gits finally red on it. Concloods. 
 Concloods more. Reads some xtrax. Sees his sub 
 jick a-nosin round arter him ag in. Tries to avide 
 it. Wun t du. Misstates it. Can t conjectur no 
 other plawsable way of staytin on it. Tries pump. 
 No fx. Finely concloods to conclood. Yeels the 
 flore." 
 
 In the course of the speech that follows, 
 Mr. Biglow observes : 
 
106 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 
 
 " N. B. Reporters gin lly git a hint 
 To make dull orjunces seem live in print, 
 An , ez I hev t report myself, I vum, 
 I 11 put th applauses where they d ough* to come!" 
 
 Little did the orator of Jaalam suppose 
 that his shrewd plan would be copied years 
 afterwards by a great lecturer. 
 
 RECONSTRUCTION. 
 
 The speech is supposed to have been made 
 in April, 1866, a year after the surrender of 
 Lee; and the "subjick" is naturally upon 
 what has since been called " reconstruction." 
 In the light of the history of the last dozen 
 years, the sound sense and almost prophetic 
 character of this speech are remarkable. It 
 is free from bitterness, but it states with un 
 flinching rigor the only conditions of national 
 unity. Of these the chief is 
 
 " the old Amerikin idee, 
 To make a man a Man an let him be." 
 
 The President, Andrew Johnson, comes in 
 for the hardest hits. 
 
A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 107 
 
 " Nobody ain t a Union man, sez he, 
 Thout he agrees, thru thick an thin, with me ;" 
 
 " Is this ere pop lar gov ment thet we run 
 A kin o sulky, made to kerry one ? " 
 
 "Who cares for the Resolves of 61, 
 Thet tried to coax an airthquake with a bun?" 
 
 " He thinks secession never took em out, 
 An mebby he s correc , but I misdoubt ; 
 Ef they war n t out, then why, n the name o sin, 
 Make all this row bout lettin of em in ? " 
 
 [Derisive cheers.] 
 
 " 0, did it seem z ef Providunce 
 Could ever send a second Tyler ? 
 To see the South all back to once, 
 Reapin the spiles o the Freesiler, 
 Is cute ez though an ingineer 
 Should claim th old iron for his sheer 
 Coz t was himself that bust the biler! " 
 
 [Gret laughter.] 
 
 THE DECAY OF THE YANKEE DIALECT. 
 
 From this comparatively long, but really 
 brief and inadequate, synopsis the reader 
 may infer the high aim and definite moral 
 
108 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 
 
 purpose of the "Big-low Papers," and their 
 intimate connection with our national his 
 tory. Poetry seldom needs comment ; the 
 lightning flash explains itself ; and, in truth, 
 comment rarely carries admiration along with 
 it into the mind of the reader. But the " Big- 
 low Papers " are in a foreign tongue for all 
 city folk ; and even in the country the patois 
 has for a long time been faithfully grubbed 
 up by school-ma ams, like the Canada thistle. 
 An appreciation of Burns comes after as much 
 study as the Provengal songs require, and it 
 is only one " native and to the manner born " 
 who is able to perceive and to convey by 
 vocal inflections the right effect of the eli 
 sions and contractions that make such thorny 
 thickets of Yankee verse. On the other hand, 
 few of those who have inherited knowledge 
 of the dialect have the cultivation and the 
 innate feeling for the essence of poetry, 
 which many of Lowell s productions ask of 
 the reader. Between the difficulties of the 
 dialect, and the high demands of all true 
 
A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 109 
 
 poetry upon the intelligence, the highest 
 qualities of the " Biglow Papers" are far 
 enough removed from popular apprehension. 
 But whoever will give them such a study as 
 will insure mastery, will be rewarded by the 
 knowledge of some of the most vigorous, 
 impassioned, humorous, dainty, quaint, and 
 glowing verse of our century. 
 
 As, at the beginning, Lowell was men 
 tioned as one of the forces and products of 
 the age, an actor and sympathizer in its 
 moral and political movements, it has been 
 deemed essential to dwell more upon the 
 works which have become a part of our his 
 tory. The usual topics of poetry nature 
 and man have been illustrated in many 
 graceful and noble poems by many loved 
 and honored poets : by Lowell also ; but in 
 the ordinary acceptation of the meaning and 
 use of poetry he is but one of several emi 
 nent masters, each having his own great 
 merits ; while in this new field he is wholly 
 without a rival, the sole laureate of the 
 
110 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 
 
 native, unlettered speech, and the exemplar 
 of the mother-wit of New England. The 
 few characters in his dramas are comple 
 mentary, or perhaps, as he himself sug 
 gests, " humorously identical under a seem 
 ing incongruity." The Rev. Mr. Wilbur 
 expresses " the more cautious element of the 
 New England character and its pedantry," 
 as Hosea Biglow does "its homely common- 
 sense vivified and heated by conscience. . . . 
 Finding that I needed some one as a mouth 
 piece of the mere drollery, ... I invented 
 Mr. Sawin for the clown of my little puppet 
 show." 
 
 The introduction to the series is a learned 
 and masterly account of the dialect, as a 
 legitimate derivative of the spoken English 
 of the Elizabethan age, and a protest 
 against the prevalent "fine writing," as tend 
 ing to weaken prose and stifle poetry. He 
 defends certain extravagances in speech (la 
 mented by purists) as being evidences of 
 " intensity and picturesqueness, symptoms of 
 
A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 
 
 the imaginative faculty in full health and 
 strength." He says, " The first postulate of 
 an original literature is that a people should 
 use their language instinctively and uncon 
 sciously. . . . Even Burns contrived to write 
 very poor verse and prose in English. Vul 
 garisms are often only poetry in the egg." 
 
 The whole essay is pervaded by the in 
 tense individuality of genius. After enduring 
 the petulance and assumption of philologists, 
 and the canal-water flow of conservators of 
 the purity of English, this fresh and original 
 discussion is as charming and exhilarating as 
 a day in the woods in spring. 
 
 CHAUCER-BOCCACCIO. 
 
 "Fitz Adam s Story" was printed in the 
 "Atlantic" for January, 1867, but has not 
 yet been included in any " complete" edi- 
 tion. A note informs us that it was intended 
 as a part of a longer poem to be called " The 
 Nooning." It stands like the wing of a pro 
 jected edifice, waiting for the main structure 
 to give it countenance. 
 
H2 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 
 
 This poem has many traits in common 
 with the best of the " Biglow Papers." Like 
 them, it is exuberant in feeling and secular 
 in tone ; and its movement is breezy, out-of- 
 doors, and natural, as different from the 
 precise, conscious, and scholastic manner as 
 the glowing energy of a sermon by Beecher is 
 from the marmorean elegance of Everett. The 
 poem is not wholly in a comic vein. The 
 portrait of Fitz Adam himself is a master 
 piece, an instantaneous view of a complexity 
 of character and motive, genius and whim 
 kneaded together and made real flesh and 
 blood. In fact, the author uses the whole 
 gamut, and has the ready chords for senti 
 ment and poetical description as well as for 
 the swift parlando of wit and the unrestrained 
 chorus of fun. 
 
 Fitz Adam tells us, 
 
 " Without a Past you lack that southern wall 
 O er which the vines of Poesy should crawl." 
 
 He pays his homage to our great ro 
 mancer : 
 
A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 113 
 
 " You have one story-teller worth a score 
 Of dead Boccaccios, nay, add twenty more, 
 A hawthorn asking spring s most southern breath, 
 And him you re freezing pretty well to death." 
 
 He takes us to Shebagog County, where 
 the summer idlers 
 
 " Dress to see Nature in a well-bred way, 
 As t were Italian opera, or play, 
 Encore the sunrise, (if they re out of bed,) 
 And pat the Mighty Mother on the head." 
 
 Fond of the frontiers-men and their natu 
 ral ways, he puts them in a line : 
 
 " The shy, wood- wandering brood of character." 
 
 He paints the landlord- of the rustic inn. 
 The picture seems as deep-lined and lasting 
 as one of Chaucer s. We see the tanned 
 cheeks and the "brambly breast," and how 
 
 " a hedge of gray 
 
 Upon his brawny throat leaned every way 
 About an Adam s apple that beneath 
 Bulged like a bowlder from a furzy heath." 
 
 The landlord gives an axiom for the kitchen, 
 for which the epicure will hold him in affec 
 tionate remembrance : 
 
 8 
 
114 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 
 
 " Nothin riles me (I pledge my fastin word), 
 Like cookin out the natur of a bird." 
 
 Fitz Adam describes the solemn parlor in 
 a way to raise a sympathetic chill in the 
 reader : 
 
 " Where the black sofa with its horse-hair pall 
 Gloomed like the bier for Comfort s funeral." 
 
 The bar is painted as if by Teniers, with its 
 great wood-fire, and the coals in which was 
 heating 
 
 " the loggerhead whose hissing dip, 
 Timed by nice instinct, creamed the mug, of flip." 
 
 Then follows the encounter of teamsters wits, 
 and the sketch of Deacon Bitters, a mean and 
 avaricious wretch whose tricks brought him 
 to a sulphureous end. The audacity of the 
 story is forgotten in its absurdly comic keep 
 ing. It is a modern Canterbury Tale. 
 
 THE PROFESSOR SUPPLANTS THE POET. 
 
 Though Harvard College and its succes 
 sive classes of students and the learned 
 world have been indebted to the critical 
 
A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. H5 
 
 labors of Lowell, yet mankind at large have 
 been more interested in the original creations 
 of his genius. The effect of his engrossing 
 and protracted studies has been to make 
 more prominent the philosophic tone in his 
 verse. To him who is day by day wrestling 
 with the stern problems of Dante, or con 
 templating the creations of Shakespeare, 
 there may come a high and noble mastery 
 of philosophy and art. But the period in 
 which the poet delights in outdoor life 
 when his soul feels God in nature, and floats 
 in the ocean of analogies between the real 
 and the ideal world is the period in which 
 his best poems are born. The work of the 
 great critic may imply the rarer power ; 
 but mankind cherishes more the pictures 
 of Beaver Brook and Appledore, the song of 
 bobolinks, the joy of spring, and the loves 
 of Huldys and Zekles. Lowell s mind un 
 derwent a change also in the loss of his 
 heroic nephews and other near relatives in 
 the war. This is painfully evident in the 
 
116 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 
 
 poem before quoted. There were to be 
 fewer birds and blossoms thenceforth. The 
 awful lessons of Divine Providence were 
 such as to sadden the most joyous or the 
 most religious of men. Under such afflic 
 tions, particularly after life has passed its 
 meridian, it is impossible to feel anew the 
 ecstatic thrills in the presence of nature ; 
 the mind grows introspective, ponders the 
 deep questions of Job and his friends, and 
 forgets the external world. 
 
 UNDER THE WILLOWS. 
 
 It will be seen that the period in which 
 Lowell s most popular works appeared ended 
 with the late war. They cannot be classified, 
 however, in a chronological order, because 
 he sometimes allowed a considerable period 
 to pass before giving a poem to the public. 
 The collection entitled " Under the Willows," 
 published in 1869, contains " A Winter-Even 
 ing Hymn to my Fire," printed originally 
 in " Putnam s Monthly" fifteen years before. 
 
A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 117 
 
 " Fitz Adam s Story," which has just been 
 considered, belongs to a similar period, as do 
 the gay and characteristic acknowledgment of 
 Mr. John Bartlett s trout, and the well-known 
 pathetic ballad, " The First Snow-Fail." In 
 the variety of subjects, the perfect keeping 
 of the style of each, the power of suggesting 
 a landscape or an image by a single phrase, 
 and in the mature and perfect art, this volume 
 has a rightful place among the chief intel 
 lectual works of the century. 
 
 It is difficult to convey an adequate im 
 pression of these poems, because it is seldom 
 that the striking paragraphs are separable. 
 The address " To the Muse " is the most 
 subtile and delicate in treatment ; and " Villa 
 Franca" and " The Washers of the Shroud" 
 are the strongest in thought. Two stanzas 
 are quoted from " Villa Franca" which show 
 a singular prophetic power. The poem was 
 written in 1859, at the time of the meeting 
 of the three emperors, when Napoleon III. 
 appeared to be as firmly established as his 
 great and long-descended compeers. 
 
118 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 
 
 VILLA FRANCA. 
 
 "We shall see him come and gone, 
 This second-hand Napoleon. 
 
 " We saw the elder Corsican, 
 And Clotho muttered as she span, 
 While crowned lackeys bore the train, 
 Of the pinchbeck Charlemagne : 
 * Sister, stint not length of thread ! 
 Sister, stay the scissors dread ! 
 On Saint Helen s granite bleak, 
 Hark, the vulture whets his beakl 
 
 Spin, spin, Clotho, spin! 
 
 Lachesis, twist ! and, Atropos, sever ! 
 
 In the shadow, year out, year in, 
 
 The silent headsman waits forever. 
 
 " The Bonapartes, we know their bees 
 That wade in honey red to the knees ; 
 Their patent reaper, its sheaves sleep sound 
 In dreamless garners underground : 
 We know false glory s spendthrift race 
 Pawning nations for feathers and lace ; 
 It may be short, it may be long, 
 T is reckoning-day! sneers unpaid Wrong, 
 
 Spin, spin, Clotho, spin ! 
 
 Lachesis, twist ! and, Atropos, sever ! 
 
 In the shadow, year out, year in, 
 
 The silent headsman waits forever." 
 
A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 119 
 
 One small poem is printed entire, as a rare 
 specimen of aphoristic art. 
 
 FOR AN AUTOGKAPH. 
 
 Though old the thought and oft exprest, 
 T is his at last who says it best, 
 I ; 11 try my fortune with the rest. 
 
 Life is a leaf of paper white 
 Whereon each one of us may write 
 His word or two, and then comes night. 
 
 " Lo, time and space enough," we cry, 
 " To write an epic ! " so we try 
 Our nibs upon the edge, and die. 
 
 Muse not which way the pen to hold, 
 Luck hates the slow and loves the bold, 
 Soon come the darkness and the cold. 
 
 Greatly begin ! though thou have time 
 But for a line, be that sublime, 
 Not failure, but low aim, is crime. 
 
 Ah, with what lofty hope we came ! 
 But we forget it, dream of fame, 
 And scrawl, as I do here, a name. 
 
120 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 
 
 As a critic, Lowell has been more unspar 
 ing upon his own productions than upon the 
 works of others. Genius and Taste are twin- 
 born ; the one creates, the other tests. Many 
 a day Genius produces nothing that Taste will 
 allow. Taste corrects or blots out, so as to 
 leave nothing that Time will destroy. Happy 
 is the Genius with whom Taste continues to 
 dwell as a friend and helper. Too often he 
 goes over to the enemy, and sits in judgment 
 with the reviewers. 
 
 Some of his later poems have, as in Emer 
 son s " Test," been hung in the wind and 
 smelted in a pot, 
 
 " Till the meaning was more white 
 Than July s meridian light. 
 Sunshine cannot bleach the snow, 
 Nor Time unmake what poets know." 
 
 METAPHYSICAL SUBTILTY IN POETRY. 
 
 The original traits of Lowell s genius are 
 unmistakable ; and, in spite of the gravity of 
 his later poems, the reader often comes upon 
 the turns of thought which marked his verse 
 
A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 121 
 
 twenty years before. But along with the 
 continued likeness there has been a slowly 
 growing divergence. In the development of 
 a scholar and poet we expect to see the evi 
 dences of maturing powers, varied experience, 
 and mastery of expression ; that is to say, 
 force, wisdom, and skill are the natural gains 
 of twenty years. This is true in the case 
 of Lowell ; but what is more remarkable is 
 the steady lifting of his intellectual horizon, 
 and the spiritualizing of thought, so that, 
 as in the celestial mechanics, words become 
 the symbols of ideas that reach towards the 
 infinite. This is considered to be in the 
 domain of Emerson, but Lowell is some 
 times more transcendental even than the 
 great poet-philosopher himself. 
 
 In "The Foot-Path" the. reader begins 
 with a view that is within his not infrequent 
 experience : 
 
 " It mounts athwart the windy hill 
 
 Through sallow slopes of upland bare, 
 And Fancy climbs with foot-fall still 
 Its narrowing curves that end in air." 
 
122 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 
 
 But the poet s aerial way only begins where 
 mortal vision ends. As stanza succeeds 
 musical stanza, the mind follows clews and 
 glimpses, conscious of sensations for which 
 there are no words, and of an upward motion 
 into a realm where ideas are as fluent as air, 
 and as impalpable. Read this exquisite but 
 tantalizing poem to any chance-gathering of 
 well-bred people, and observe their puzzled 
 expression ! To some it will appear a musi 
 cal stream, without ripple and without mean 
 ing. Few will climb the poet s stairway to 
 the heaven of thought ! 
 
 Humboldt said that the vegetation upon 
 the sides of Chimborazo exhibits at succes 
 sive elevations all the characteristic flora from 
 the equator to the arctic circle : the bound 
 less luxuriance of the tropics at the base, 
 and the eternal ice of the pole at the sum 
 mit. Poetry likewise comprehends many 
 zones. Its lower level is in scenes of lavish 
 beauty, and it concerns itself in the joy of 
 the senses in external nature. Higher up 
 
A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 123 
 
 there are fewer flowers and hardier growths, 
 but "purer air and broader view." Still 
 higher are the brown and lichened steeps 
 that tax strength and demand self-denial. 
 Above, and reaching into the infinite sky, is 
 the silent peak, inaccessible, eternal. 
 
 COMMEMORATION ODE. 
 
 The Commemoration Ode (July 21, 1865) 
 naturally succeeds the poignant grief of the 
 later " Biglow Papers." The dedication is 
 one that only a poet could have written : " To 
 the ever sweet and shining memory of the 
 ninety-three sons of Harvard College who 
 have died for their country in the war of 
 nationality." In the privately printed edi 
 tion of the poem the names of eight of the 
 poet s kindred are given. The nearest in 
 blood are his nephews, General Charles 
 Russell Lowell, killed at Winchester, Lieu 
 tenant James Jackson Lowell, at Seven 
 Pines, and Captain William Lowell Putnam, 
 
124 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 
 
 at Ball s Bluff. Another relative was the he 
 roic Colonel Robert G. Shaw, who fell in the 
 assault upon Fort Wagner. The Commemo 
 ration services took place in the open air, in 
 the presence of a great assembly. Promi 
 nent among the speakers were Major-General 
 Meade, the hero of Gettysburg, and Major- 
 General Devens. The wounds of the war 
 were still fresh and bleeding, and the interest 
 of the occasion was deep and thrilling. The 
 summer afternoon was drawing to its close 
 when the poet began the recital of the ode. 
 No living audience could for the first time 
 follow with intelligent appreciation the de 
 livery of such a poem. To be sure, it had 
 its obvious strong points and its sonorous 
 charms ; but, like all the later poems of the 
 author, it is full of condensed thought and 
 requires study. The reader to-day finds 
 many passages whose force and beauty es 
 caped him during the recital, yet the effect 
 of the poem at the time was overpowering. 
 The face of the poet, always singularly ex- 
 
A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 125 
 
 pressive, was on this occasion almost trans 
 figured, glowing, as if with an inward 
 light. It was impossible to look away from 
 it. Our age has furnished many great his 
 toric scenes, but this Commemoration com 
 bined the elements of grandeur and pathos, 
 and produced an impression as lasting as life. 
 Of the merits of the ode it is perhaps too 
 soon to speak. In nobility of sentiment and 
 sustained power it appears to take rank 
 among the first in the language. To us, 
 with the memories of the war in mind, it 
 seems more beautiful and of a finer quality 
 than the best of Dryden s. What the people 
 of the coming centuries will say, who knows ? 
 We only know that the auditors, scholars and 
 soldiers alike, were dissolved in admiration 
 and tears. 
 
 TWO FRIENDS. 
 
 As the people were dispersing, a fresh- 
 looking, active, and graceful man of middle 
 age, in faultless attire, met the poet with an 
 
126 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 
 
 outstretched hand. There was a hearty 
 greeting on both sides, so hearty, that one 
 wonders how it could have happened be 
 tween two Bostonians, whose marble man 
 ners the public knows so well from our 
 recent fashionable novels. It was not the 
 formal touch of gloved hands, but an old- 
 fashioned energetic " shake;" and it was 
 accompanied by spontaneous, half-articulated 
 words (such as the heart translates without 
 a lexicon), while eager and misty eyes met 
 each other. The new-comer was William 
 W. Story, the sculptor and poet. "When 
 did you come over?" "I landed at Bos 
 ton this morning. I had heard you were to 
 read a poem ; there was just time to make 
 the trip, and here I am." " And so you 
 have come from Rome merely to hear me 
 recite an ode ? Well, it is just like you." 
 
 THE CATHEDRAL. CONSERVATISM. 
 
 "The Cathedral" is a profound medita 
 tion upon a great theme. A poet is riot 
 
A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 127 
 
 held to the literal meaning of the motto 
 he selects, but the lines prefixed to this 
 poem 1 are strongly significant of a grow 
 ing conservatism in thought. " Not at all 
 do we set our wits against the gods. 
 The traditions of the fathers, and those of 
 equal date which we possess, no reasoning 
 shall overthrow ; not even if through lofty 
 minds it discovers wisdom." This is perhaps 
 a fair indication of the feeling of the poem. 
 The incidents of the day at Chartres are 
 unimportant, except in connection with the 
 poet s admiration for Gothic architecture, and 
 his musings upon the associations of the 
 cathedral, the old worship, the old reverence, 
 and the old ways. 
 
 It would seem that the intellectual move 
 ment in which the poet had been borne on 
 for so many years was latterly becoming too 
 rapid and tumultuous, according to his think 
 ing, ready to plunge into an abyss, in fact. 
 In particular, it may be observed that, though 
 
 1 Euripides, Bacchae, 196-199. 
 
128 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 
 
 the physical aspect of evolution had engaged 
 his attention, as it has that of all intellectual 
 men, and had commanded, perhaps, a startled 
 and dubious assent, yet his strong spiritual 
 nature recoiled in horror from the material 
 istic application of the doctrine to the origin 
 of things. Force could never be to him the 
 equivalent of spirit, nor law the substitute for 
 God. In conversation once upon the " prom- 
 ise-and-potency " phrases of Tyndall, he ex 
 claimed with energy, " Let whoever wishes 
 to, believe that the idea of Hamlet or Lear 
 was developed from a clod ; I will not." 
 
 A couplet from " The Foot-Path " makes a 
 similar protest against the theory of the uni 
 verse which leaves out a Creator : 
 
 " And envy Science not her feat 
 
 To make a twice-told tale of God." 
 
 Intimations of the Berkeleyan theory ap 
 pear in " The Cathedral," not as matters of 
 belief, but of speculation. But the granitic 
 basis of the poem is the generally received 
 doctrine of the being of God, of His works 
 
A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 129 
 
 and His dealings with men. The clear pur 
 pose is seen by the attentive reader, although 
 at times through a haze of poetic diction. Its 
 strong points are in the simplicity and sug- 
 gestiveness of its illustrations, its firm hold 
 upon the past, and its tranquil repose in the 
 care of Divine Providence. The style is for 
 the most part scholastic, nervous, and keen- 
 edged. There are some lovely rural pictures 
 near the beginning, so characteristic that if 
 they were done in color we should not need 
 to look at the corner for the " J. R. L. pinxV 
 The episode of the two Englishmen at 
 Chartres, who, on account of the poet s full 
 and ruddy beard, mistook him for a French 
 man, and endeavored to engage him as a 
 guide, is a piece of drollery that one would 
 prefer to see in a sketch by Artemus Ward 
 or Mark Twain. 
 
 "My beard translated me to hostile French; 
 So they, desiring guidance in the town, 
 Half condescended to my baser sphere, 
 And, clubbing in one mess their lack of phrase, 
 Set their best man to grapple with the Gaul. 
 9 
 
130 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 
 
 1 Esker vous ate a nabitang ? he asked ; 
 
 I never ate one ; are they good 1 asked I ; 
 
 Whereat they stared, then laughed, and we were friends." 
 
 The wit is perhaps bright, but the passage 
 is painfully incongruous. It is true the 
 old cathedrals have carvings of grotesque 
 comedy, but they are in stone, and are not 
 obtrusive. This appears to be the single 
 thought out of place in the high serenity of 
 a philosophic poem. 
 
 Two instances of the harmony of sound 
 and sense are quite remarkable. One is 
 the description of the falling of an ash-leaf, 
 
 " Balancing softly earthward without wind," 
 
 an inimitably perfect line. The other sug 
 gests the swinging of a bell-blossom : 
 
 " As to a bee the new campanula s 
 Illuminate seclusion swung in air." 
 
 A few lines and passages may be quoted 
 with advantage : 
 
 " I found mine eyes 
 
 Confronted with the minster s vast repose. 
 Silent and gray as forest-leaguered cliff 
 Left inland by the ocean s slow retreat. 
 
A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 131 
 
 (Of Gothic Architecture. ) 
 
 But ah ! this other, this that never ends, 
 Still climbing, luring fancy still to climb, 
 As full of morals half-divined as life, 
 Graceful, grotesque, with ever new surprise 
 Of hazardous caprices sure to please, 
 Heavy as nightmare, airy-light as fern, 
 Imagination s very self in stone ! 
 
 Far up the great bells wallowed in delight, 
 Tossing their clangors o er the heedless town. 
 
 Use can make sweet the peach s shady side, 
 That only by reflection tastes of sun. 
 
 ... on the sliding Eure, 
 Whose listless leisure suits the quiet place, 
 Lisping among his shallows homelike sounds 
 At Concord and by Bankside heard before. 
 
 Blessed the natures shored on every side 
 With landmarks of hereditary thought ! 
 
 Now Calvin and Servetus at one board 
 Snuff in grave sympathy a milder roast, 
 And o er their claret settle Comte unread. 
 Fagot and stake were desperately sincere : 
 Our cooler martyrdoms are done in types. 
 
132 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 
 
 Thou beautiful Old Time, now hid away 
 
 In the Past s valley of Avilion, 
 
 Haply, like Arthur, till thy wound be healed, 
 
 Then to reclaim the sword and crown again ! 
 
 Thrice beautiful to us ; perchance less fair 
 
 To who possessed thee, as a mountain seems 
 
 To dwellers round its bases but a heap 
 
 Of barren obstacle that lairs the storm 
 
 And the avalanche s silent bolt holds back 
 
 Leashed with a hair, meanwhile some far-off clown, 
 
 Hereditary delver of the plain, 
 
 Sees it an unmoved vision of repose, 
 
 Nest of the morning, and conjectures there 
 
 The dance of streams to idle shepherds pipes, 
 
 And fairer habitations softly hung 
 
 On breezy slopes, or hid in valleys cool, 
 
 For happier men." 
 
 True to its name, " The Cathedral " is a 
 grand poem, at once solid and imaginative, 
 nobly ornate, but with a certain austerity of 
 design, uplifting and impressive. These edi 
 fices are perhaps the most wonderful produc 
 tions of mind ; but they are gloomy also, and 
 in some moods strike a chill to the very 
 marrow. 
 
A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 133 
 
 CONCORD, CAMBRIDGE, VIRGINIA. 
 
 Three odes have since appeared, written 
 for important occasions, all characterized by 
 a lofty tone of sentiment and stately poetic 
 diction. The first is one read at Concord, 
 April 19, 1875; the next is that read at 
 Cambridge, under the Washington Elm, July 
 3d in the same year; the third, an ode for 
 the Fourth of July, 1876. The Concord ode 
 contains the most exquisite music, and shows 
 the most evident inspiration. The Cam 
 bridge ode is remarkable for its noble tribute 
 to Washington and to the historic Common 
 wealth of Virginia. The last is beautiful 
 also, and strong, but scarcely so clear and 
 fortunate as the others. But these, with the 
 Commemoration Ode, are an Alpine group, 
 an undying part of our national literature. 
 
 CLASSICISM. 
 
 The poetry called classic in our time has 
 little vitality. The poems of Matthew Ar 
 nold, for instance, cold and correct as mort- 
 
134 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 
 
 uary tributes, differ from pensive prose only 
 in respect to metrical form. In this sense 
 Lowell s poems are not classic : they are in 
 stinct with life. They show marks of care ; 
 but the care has been bestowed less upon 
 melody than upon condensation and energy. 
 The earlier poems were more melodious. In 
 stances enough could be given, but two stan 
 zas from "The Dandelion" must serve : 
 
 " Then think I of deep shadows on the grass, 
 Of meadows where in sun the cattle graze, 
 
 Where, as the breezes pass, 
 The gleaming rushes lean a thousand ways, 
 
 Of leaves that slumber in a cloudy mass, 
 Or whiten in the wind, of waters blue 
 
 That from the distance sparkle through 
 Some woodland gap, and of a sky above, 
 Where one white cloud like a stray lamb doth move. 
 
 "My childhood s earliest thoughts are linked with thee ; 
 The sight of thee calls back the robin s song, 
 
 Who, from the dark old tree 
 Beside the door, sang clearly all day long, 
 
 And I, secure in childish piety, 
 Listened as if I heard an angel sing 
 
 With news from heaven, which he could bring 
 Fresh every day to my untainted ears 
 When birds and flowers and I were happy peers." 
 
A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 135 
 
 
 
 This devotion to the force and beauty of 
 ideas is everywhere to be seen. The poet 
 will not give up a harsh word, nor elide an 
 unmusical huddle of consonants, if any 
 strength would be lost thereby. A stanza 
 from "Beaver Brook 7 will illustrate this : 
 
 " Swift slips Undine along the race 
 Unheard, and then, with flashing bound, 
 Floods the dull wheel with light and grace, 
 And, laughing, hunts the loath drudge round." 
 
 Sibilants and gutturals may delay the fas 
 tidious reader, but when the lines are fin 
 ished he will think only of the immortal 
 beauty of the image. 
 
 Pure poetry, like the subtile essences of 
 the chemist, is rarely seen but in combina 
 tion. In itself it is thought sublimed, 
 remote from demonstration, persuasion, or 
 narration. The influences of the strong and 
 serviceable qualities of mind are apt to be 
 felt at times in the verse even of great poets, 
 - like stains of iron in marble ; so that the 
 wholly fortunate or perfect specimens are 
 
136 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 
 
 few. The common error is in lapsing into 
 philosophic discourse, or indulging in reflec 
 tive or hortatory asides. Something of this 
 tendency appears in parts of Lowell s odes, 
 dimming their lustre, and even tending to 
 obscurity. There is nothing in them obscure 
 to a well-trained mind; but unfortunately 
 not all minds are so trained as to dissolve 
 his thought from out the richly incrusted 
 diction. So it remains that the stronger 
 poems of Lowell are beyond the comprehen 
 sion of all but cultivated readers. 
 
 A wonderful sifter is Time. "Complete" 
 works will shrink. Stanzas or even whole 
 poems may drop out, but the best will be 
 preserved. And it is difficult to believe that 
 an intelligent reader, whether in the year 
 2000 or 3000, will come upon certain poems 
 of Lowell without a thrill of sympathy and 
 delight. 
 
A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 137 
 
 THE PROSE OF POETS. 
 
 The prose writings of poets are rarely 
 conspicuous for masculine qualities. The 
 Laureate has been heard only in numbers, as 
 if, like an operatic performer, he were theo 
 retically incapable of any but musical speech. 
 If his predecessor had similarly refrained 
 from prosaic utterances, he would have been 
 the gainer, and the world too. Byron 
 wrote natural and effective prose, but with 
 out either trained ratiocination, scholarly al 
 lusion, or finish. Cowper s letters are models 
 of ease and grace. Southey s prose is mag 
 nificent; his poetry? Really one questions 
 whether he was a poet at all. " Thalaba " 
 seems as unreal as a Wagnerian legend or 
 an Ossianic wraith. Milton alone holds a 
 fixed place among the greatest of poets and 
 the ablest of prose writers. 
 
 The prose works of Lowell consist of the 
 " Fireside Travels," already referred to, and 
 three volumes of essays, published in 1870, 
 
138 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 
 
 1871, and 1876. Of these, the one entitled 
 " My Study Windows "will be found most 
 interesting to general readers. The other 
 two are entitled " Among My Books," and 
 are of a purely literary character. A large 
 number of his essays have appeared in maga 
 zines and reviews, and have not been as yet 
 reprinted. 
 
 It is a common but baseless supposition 
 that the poetic faculty must exist singly ; as 
 if the cranium, like a flower-pot, could hold 
 but one plant. It is true that great poets are 
 rarely men of affairs ; but every genius is an 
 absolutely new combination of traits and 
 powers, and no one knows the possibilities. 
 Four arts owned Michelangelo master, and 
 he was almost equally great in all. /We have 
 seen that in the mind of Lowell there is an 
 unfailing spring of analogy and suggestion, 
 and a power of illustrating subtile and pro 
 found thoughts. And side by side with this 
 undeniable poetic power is to be seen the 
 solid understanding, the ready wit, and the 
 
A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 139 
 
 practical sagacity that are more commonly 
 the birthright of unpoetic men. It is as if 
 the souls of Shelley and Ben Franklin had 
 blended. The poet leads, but the man of 
 ethereal imagination and the man of sturdy 
 force are one. 
 
 The prose of a true poet, if one reflects 
 upon it, must have some marked peculiar 
 ities. That which is of the essence of poetry 
 is not in its musical cadence, not in its shin 
 ing adjectives and epithets: it is in substance 
 as well as in form different from the ordinary 
 productions of mind. And as the power of 
 appreciation is really rare, though often as 
 sumed, the distinctive prose of a poet is 
 necessarily quite removed from general ap 
 prehension. The difficulty lies in following 
 the movement of the poetic mind, which is 
 by nature erratic, if measured by prose stand 
 ards, taking many things for granted which 
 the slower-footed expect to see put down in 
 order, and often supplying the omission of 
 a premiss in a logical statement, or the want 
 
140 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 
 
 of a formal description, by a single flashing 
 word. Those people who need to have poe 
 try expounded to them, will require similar 
 help to understand the prose of poets. " Villa 
 Franca," "The Foot-Path," " The Washers 
 of the Shroud," and " The Cathedral " will 
 never be easy of comprehension ; such poems 
 make drafts upon the knowledge and the 
 insight of even superior minds. Certain 
 of Lowell s essays especially those upon 
 Shakespeare, Dante, and Milton will be 
 fully appreciated by only a limited num 
 ber of readers in any generation. 
 
 LOWELL S PEOSE. 
 
 It is not wonderful that this rich and im 
 aginative prose, permeated as it is with the 
 essence of poetry, should have called fortli 
 unfavorable comment and objurgation. Pro 
 fessor Wilkinson, some years ago, wrote a 
 series of labored articles in a popular mag 
 azine, which it was expected were to demol 
 ish our poet s reputation as an essayist. 
 
A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 141 
 
 Perhaps some characteristic sentences will 
 better illustrate our meaning as to the diver 
 gence between the poetic and the prosaic 
 mind. 
 
 Of Wordsworth, Lowell says : 
 " His longer poems are Egytian sand wastes, with 
 here and there an oasis of exquisite greenery, a 
 grand image, Sphynx-like, half buried in drifting 
 commonplaces, or the Pompey s Pillar of some 
 towering thought." 
 
 How absurd this is ! What has Words 
 worth to do with Egypt and the Sphynx and 
 Pompey s Pillar ? though, to be sure, one 
 sees what he would say. If it had been the 
 critical professor who had to give the opinion, 
 it might have been phrased like this : " His 
 longer poems are flat and dreary, with here 
 and there a spot of human interest, some 
 originally fine image, half covered with mean 
 ingless words, or some striking thought that 
 holds the attention." 
 
 This is plain sailing : no nonsense about it. 
 The idea is the same, and everybody can 
 
142 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 
 
 understand it. In a similar perspicuous man 
 ner the " practical" critic might tell us of 
 Milton s style : " Milton has a grand manner. 
 The sentences move slowly and with stateli- 
 ness. He borrowed phrases from poets and 
 writers of all times ; and these epithets are 
 continually coming in the way, obscuring 
 the clear thought." 
 
 This is the way Lowell has it : 
 
 " Milton s manner is very grand. It is slow, it 
 is stately, moving as in triumphal procession, with 
 music, with historic banners, with spoils from every 
 time and every region ; and captive epithets like 
 huge Sicambrians, 1 thrust their broad shoulders 
 between us and the pomp they decorate." 
 
 Of course this is all wrong. Burke, also, 
 ought to undergo revision. If a practical 
 person were to undertake it, it is probable 
 that the twelve volumes of Burke could be 
 compressed into three or four, simply leaving 
 
 1 " Te caede gaudentis Sicambri 
 Compositis venerantur armis." 
 
 Hor. Lib. IV. Carm. XIV. 
 
A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 143 
 
 out useless images, and the like. The staple 
 of "Modern Painters" could be printed in 
 one duodecimo. Following the same plan, 
 each of Hawthorne s romances could be got 
 into the limits of a magazine story ; and, by 
 eliminating the fine writing and metaphysics, 
 they would be as easily understood as Peter 
 Parley or the Rollo Books. 
 
 The prose essays of Lowell l cover a wide 
 range of thought and observation, but all 
 have the inevitable family likeness. Men 
 tion has been made of the delightful " Fire 
 side Travels." Of a similar tone are "My 
 Garden Acquaintance," " A Good Word for 
 Winter," and "On a Certain Condescen 
 sion in Foreigners." The last is a speci 
 men of pure irony, keen as a Damascus 
 blade, and finished to the utmost. It is 
 doubtful if there is another essay in modern 
 English superior in power, wit, and adroit 
 ness. The essay upon Lessing is a charming 
 
 1 " Among My Books," 2 vols. ; " My Study Windows," 
 1vol. 
 
144 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 
 
 piece of writing, full of bright passages, but 
 interesting mainly to scholars. " New Eng 
 land Two Centuries Ago " is an historical 
 article, in which the Puritans and Pilgrims 
 are boldly sketched, neither unduly flat 
 tered nor summarily condemned. 
 
 GOLD IN QUARTZ. 
 
 A few additional specimens of poetical 
 imagery are quoted : 
 
 " The commentary on Shakespeare by Gervinus 
 reminds one of the Roman Campagna, penetrated 
 underground in all directions by strange winding 
 caverns, the work of human borers in search of we 
 know not what. Above are the divine poet s larks 
 and daisies, his incommunicable skies, his broad 
 prospects of life and nature ; and meanwhile our 
 Teutonic teredo worms his way below, and offers to 
 be our guide into an obscurity of his own creating." 
 
 " The German Language has such a fatal genius 
 for going stern-foremost, for yawing, and for not 
 minding the helm without some ten minutes notice 
 in advance, that he must be a great sailor indeed 
 
A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 145 
 
 who can safely make it the vehicle for anything but 
 imperishable commodities." 
 
 " Wordsworth wrote too much to write always 
 well ; for it is not a great Xerxes-army of words, 
 but a compact Greek ten thousand that march 
 safely down to posterity." 
 
 " The best of Schiller s lyrical poems find no 
 match in modern verse for rapid energy, the 
 very axles of language kindling with swiftness." 
 
 " Chaucer s best tales run on like one of our 
 inland rivers, sometimes hastening a little and 
 turning upon themselves in eddies that dimple 
 without retarding the current ; sometimes loitering 
 smoothly, while here and there a quiet thought, a 
 tender feeling, a pleasant image, a golden-hearted 
 verse, opens quietly as a water-lily, to float on the 
 surface without breaking it into ripple." 
 
 As some stress has been laid upon the 
 poetical ornaments of the style, or rather, 
 it might be said, upon the diffusion of golden 
 grains of poetry through the quartz of prose, 
 it should be again stated more emphatically 
 
 that the literary essays are chiefly valuable 
 
 10 
 
146 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 
 
 !/ for their clear thought and their varied and 
 splendid learning. Let any student read the 
 essay on Chaucer, and then consider where 
 he can find its parallel! It is not merely 
 a specimen of magnificent writing: it is a 
 compact and lucid account of the origin and 
 growth of English poetry, with a series of 
 brilliant characterizations ; and it is such an 
 account as no historian or critic has made. 
 The antiquarian scholars have the literal 
 facts at command ; but no one possessed of 
 the necessary erudition has had at the same 
 time the power of raising literary annals into 
 aesthetic history. Taine s treatment of the 
 same period is characteristically pretentious, 
 sentimental, and shallow. 
 
 We can see evidences of the same thorough 
 preparation in the other essays. Lowell 
 has never trusted to " style" to carry him 
 through: not Dryasdust himself could have 
 had the details of the subject more at com 
 mand. So it may be asserted, in general, 
 that each essay contains the latest thought as 
 
A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 147 
 
 well as the most complete information. All 
 of them are redolent of learning, and all have 
 an incommunicable flavor. The treatment 
 of Dry den is able and masterly; albeit his 
 numerous apostasies are too leniently dealt 
 with. Spenser is the subject of an essay 
 scarcely inferior to that upon Chaucer, and 
 equally indispensable to students of English 
 literature. 
 
 Dante seems to be a literature in himself, 
 and none but devoted students have the right 
 to judge him, or the essays upon him. It 
 may be observed that most who have 
 studied Dante profoundly have become in 
 the end conservatives in religion, if not Cath 
 olics. The circle of his admirers is neces 
 sarily small. Lowell s essay is evidently 
 a tribute of affection ; and as the esti 
 mate of a poet, it is worthy of respectful 
 study. It exhibits the results of protracted 
 thought upon the highest themes which have 
 occupied the mind of man. 
 
 But of all the series, the one entitled 
 
148 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 
 
 " Shakespeare Once More " is doubtless the 
 best. There will always be some new light 
 radiating from the works of the greatest of 
 poets, and each succeeding generation will 
 be satisfied only with its own estimate ; but 
 the most comprehensive estimate of Shakes 
 peare to-day is Lowell s. 
 
 The essays of Lowell, it must be admitted, 
 have not the elements of general popularity. 
 Criticism in its highest form is not attractive 
 except to thinkers. The few essays that are 
 widely read like Macaulay s and Carlyle s 
 are studies of historical characters, or of 
 great epochs, with graphic personal descrip 
 tions and parallels, treated in a highly- 
 wrought style of rhetoric. In fact, the 
 ordinary critical essays, unless there is a 
 personal flavor in them, such as we perceive 
 in Montaigne and in the " Autocrat of the 
 Breakfast Table," are as short-lived as the 
 reign of a London beauty. The changes in 
 literary fashion soon make the critic obsolete. 
 Except as curiosities, who cares now for the 
 
A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 149 
 
 opinions of Lockhart, Jeffrey, Mackintosh, 
 Gifford, and the rest ? The tables are turned. 
 Byron, Keats, Shelley, Coleridge, and Words 
 worth now " compute " their reviewers. In 
 general, it may be said that the quality which 
 prevents the general appreciation of Lowell s 
 prose is its exceeding richness. It is like 
 cloth of gold, too splendid and too cum 
 brous for every-day wear. 
 
 It is upon his poems that the sure foun 
 dation of Lowell s fame will rest. Some of 
 them are the clear and fortunate expression 
 of the noblest modern thought, and others 
 are imbedded in the history of an eventful 
 time. When the relative perspective of his 
 tory is adjusted, Lincoln s proclamation of 
 freedom to the slave will tower in importance. 
 The elders are perhaps weary of the topic, 
 but the vindication of the anti-slavery agi 
 tators and poets may be safely left to Time. 
 
150 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 
 
 PERSONAL TRAITS AND ANECDOTES. 
 
 In person Lowell is of medium height, 
 rather slender, but sinewy and active. His 
 movements are deliberate rather than impul 
 sive, indicating what athletes call staying 
 qualities. His hair at maturity was dark 
 auburn or ruddy chestnut in color, and his 
 full beard rather lighter and more glowing in 
 tint. The eyes of men of genius are seldom 
 to be classified in ordinary terms, though it 
 is said their prevailing color is gray. Colonel 
 Higginson mentions Hawthorne s gray eyes ; 
 while the present writer, who once studied 
 them attentively, found them mottled gray 
 and brown, and at that time indescribably 
 soft and winning. That they were some 
 times accipitral we can readily believe. 
 Lowell s eyes in repose have clear blue and 
 gray tones, with minute dark mottlings. In 
 expression they are strongly indicative of his 
 moods. When fixed upon study, or while 
 listening to serious discourse, they are grave 
 
A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 151 
 
 and penetrating; in ordinary conversation 
 they are bright and cheery ; in moments of 
 excitement they have a wonderful lustre. 
 Nothing could be finer than his facial expres 
 sion while telling a story or tossing a repartee. 
 The features are alive with intelligence ; and 
 eyes, looks, and voice appear to be working 
 up dazzling effects in concert, like the finished 
 artists of the Comedie Frangaise. 
 
 The wit of Hosea Biglow is the native wit 
 of Lowell, instantaneous as lightning ; and 
 Hosea s common sense is Lowell s birthright, 
 too. When the same man, moreover, can 
 extemporize chuckling puns, or blow out a 
 breath of poetical reverie as naturally as the 
 smoke from his pipe, the combination be 
 comes almost marvellous. Other men may 
 have been as witty, though we recall but 
 three or four in our day ; some may have 
 had a similar fund of wisdom mellowed with 
 humor ; others have talked the staple of idyls, 
 and let off metaphors like soap-bubbles; but 
 Lowell combines in conversation the varied 
 
152 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 
 
 powers of all. His resources are inexhausti 
 ble. It is no wonder that he has been ad 
 mired ; for at his best he is one of the most 
 fascinating of men. There is but one com 
 peer, the immortal Autocrat, and it 
 would be difficult and perhaps impossible to 
 draw a parallel between them. 
 
 Steele said of a lady, that to have known 
 and loved her was a liberal education. More 
 than one man who enjoyed Lowell s society 
 found that the wise and witty converse of 
 years did much to supply lamented defects 
 in his own study and training, and perhaps 
 warmed even late-flowering plants into blos 
 som and fruitage. This also should be said, 
 that every man who has known Lowell well 
 considers him much greater than the aggre 
 gate of his works. He always gives the im 
 pression of power in reserve, and of the 
 probability of still higher achievement. 
 
 He used to enter upon the long walks 
 which have aided in making him one of the 
 poets of nature with the keenest zest. ) There 
 
A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 153 
 
 was no quicker eye for a bird or squirrel, a 
 rare flower or bush, and no more accurate 
 ear for the songs or the commoner sounds of 
 the forest. Evidences of this the reader will 
 find in the " Study Windows." But those 
 who have visited Fresh Pond, Clematis 
 Brook, Love Lane, or the Waverley Oaks 
 in his company remember an acuteness of 
 vision and a delight in every form of beauty 
 of which the essay gives no conception. 
 
 His habits have been scarcely methodical, 
 reading, correspondence, composition, ex 
 ercise, and social converse coming often hap 
 hazard, yet, being incapable of idleness, 
 he has accomplished much. His reading has 
 been enormous, covering the literature of 
 many countries and times : from Marco Polo 
 to Doctor Kane ; from Piers Plowman to 
 Swinburne ; from the Christian Fathers to 
 Channing; from Boccaccio and Cervantes 
 to Thackeray ; from Froissart to Motley ; 
 and this has given him the materials indis 
 pensable to a great writer. His works show 
 
154 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 
 
 the effective use he has made of the intel 
 lectual treasures of the world. 
 
 Mrs. Hawthorne relates that before her hus 
 band completed " The Scarlet Letter" there 
 was a visible knot in the muscles of his fore 
 head, caused by the intensity of thought. 
 When a great theme was in mind, Lowell 
 used always to go to his desk with all his 
 might. (Like Sir Walter Raleigh, he could 
 "toil terribly." It has been already men 
 tioned that "Sir Launfal" was written in 
 about two days. The production of a poem 
 like "The Cathedral" or the Commemoration 
 Ode taxed his faculties to the utmost, and 
 always left him exhausted in body and mind. 
 At such periods his wife and daughter, know 
 ing his nature and needs, used various arti 
 fices to divert him, and prevent the strain 
 becoming too tense. 
 
 THE WHIST CLUB. 
 
 Between 1850 and 1860, Lowell was not 
 much in society, in the present restricted 
 
A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 155 
 
 sense of the word. Dinner parties and recep 
 tions of the fashionable world appeared to 
 have little attraction for him. He never 
 enjoyed being lionized. In Cambridge there 
 were several men with whom he was on in 
 timate terms, and to them he gave his society 
 ungrudgingly. Chief among these was his 
 brother-in-law, Dr. Estes Howe, a man of 
 liberal education and delightful social quali 
 ties. He is " The Doctor" referred to in the 
 preface to the " Fable for Critics." "The 
 Don" was a pleasant nickname for Mr. Robert 
 Carter, formerly Lowell s coadjutor in the 
 short-lived " Pioneer," and employed at that 
 time as secretary by Mr. Prescott, the his 
 torian. Carter was a remarkable man, prin 
 cipally on account of his great reading and 
 retentive memory. He was an able writer 
 also, but he had read more out-of-the-way 
 things than any man living. Lowell used to 
 say that he would back Carter on a wager 
 to write off-hand an account of a journey 
 in the fifth century B. C. from Rome to 
 
156 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 
 
 Babylon or Pekin, with descriptions of all 
 the peoples on the way. Carter lived at first 
 in a modest house near the Willows (cele 
 brated in Lowell s verse), and afterwards in 
 Sparks Street, not far from the Riedesel 
 House. The Sparks Street house has asso 
 ciations such as belong to the tavern of 
 Kit North s friend Ambrose, lacking, how 
 ever, the overplus of toddy and the coarse 
 ness which smirched the discourse of the 
 Black wood coterie. Carter s house was often 
 a rendezvous for whist parties. But whist 
 was the least of the business or pleasure 
 of the evening. The new books, or old 
 ones, magazines, pictures, reminiscences, 
 and stories occupied the available intervals. 
 The silence and severity of Mrs. Battles was 
 unknown. Charles Lamb and his venerable 
 dame were often quoted by Lowell, but the 
 " rigor of the game " was a transparent joke. 
 When a story came to mind, or an epigram, 
 or double-shotted pun, the cards might wait ; 
 when the story was told, or the puns had cor- 
 
A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 157 
 
 ruscated amid roars of laughter, the professor 
 would blandly ask, " What are trumps I " 
 
 Other players must rest in shadow. Two 
 of them may be named in whom the reading 
 world has an interest. One was John Bart- 
 lett, author of the book of " Familiar Quota 
 tions," a charming companion, and a man of 
 refined taste. The other, who was the de 
 light of all companies, was John Holmes, 
 brother of the poet-professor. He was the 
 songless poet, the silent Autocrat. It is diffi 
 cult to say what he might have done if shut 
 up with pen, ink, and paper ; but he had the 
 rarest humor and a genius for the unexpected. 
 He always had the art of showing the other 
 side of a statement, and of bringing a joke 
 out of the impossible, like a conjurer. 
 
 Changes in the whist parties occurred, as 
 was natural, owing to illness or absence ; 
 but they continued for several years. The 
 members are all living except Carter, who 
 died in Cambridge about a year ago, univer 
 sally regretted. May he rest in peace ! The 
 
158 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 
 
 recollections of that period form a bond not 
 to be sundered while life and thought con 
 tinue. 
 
 Of the other friends of Lowell much might 
 be said if there were room. Some of them 
 are named in his books. 
 
 HINTS OF FRIENDSHIPS. 
 
 The edition of poems published in 1849 
 was affectionately dedicated to the eminent 
 painter, William Page. The second series 
 of the " Biglow Papers " was appropriately 
 inscribed to E. R. Hoar, who is 
 
 " the Jedge, who covers with his hat 
 More wit an gumption an shrewd Yankee sense 
 Than there is mosses on an ole stone fence." 
 
 " Fireside Travels " is a series of letters ad 
 dressed to Story, the sculptor. " Under the 
 Willows" bears the name of Charles Eliot 
 Norton, Professor of the History of Art at 
 Cambridge ; " The Cathedral " is inscribed 
 to Mr. James T. Fields ; " Three Memorial 
 
A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 159 
 
 Poems/ to Mr. E. L. Godkin, editor of the 
 "Nation;" " My Study Windows," to Francis 
 J. Child, Professor of English Literature; 
 " Among My Books," to the present Mrs. 
 Lowell ; the second volume of the same se 
 ries to the illustrious Emerson. The chief 
 honor appears to have been paid to George 
 William Curtis, to whom the complete edi 
 tion of poetical works is dedicated. 
 
 Arthur Hugh Clough, an English scholar 
 and poet, lived in Cambridge for about a 
 year (1855), and appears to have made a 
 deep impression upon Lowell. The un 
 learned public knows little of Clough; but 
 all poets know the author of "The Bothie" 
 and " Qua Cur sum Ventus" and cultivated 
 people know the charming memoir of the 
 author by Professor Norton. He had a 
 beautiful, spiritual face and delicate, shy 
 manners ; such a face and such manners as 
 are dimly seen in morning dreams. One 
 may be sure that such a rare being, if real 
 flesh and blood, would at some time be found 
 
160 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 
 
 at Elmwood. Clough strongly advised Low 
 ell to continue and develop the Yankee pas 
 torals. In the introduction to the " Biglow 
 Papers," Lowell says, apropos of the approval 
 of friends : " With a feeling too tender and 
 grateful to be mixed with any vanity, I men 
 tion as one of these the late A. H. Clough, 
 who more than any one of those I have 
 known (no longer living), except Hawthorne, 
 impressed me with the constant presence of 
 that indefinable thing we call genius." 
 
 The artists Stillman and Rowse were fre 
 quent visitors. Many of their pictures and 
 sketches adorn Lowell s house. 
 
 Crancli the poet and painter was a fre 
 quent and welcome visitor. President Felton 
 was a stanch friend, and had great delight 
 in Lowell s society. He and his brother-in- 
 law, Agassiz, were alike hearty and natural 
 men, fond of social pleasure, and manifesting 
 the unaffected simplicity of children. Few 
 men have won such deserved distinction in 
 science and letters, and retained the freshness 
 
A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 161 
 
 of youthful feeling. At the club, Agassiz 
 was generally the centre of interest ; for his 
 vast knowledge enabled him always to fur 
 nish some ready and pertinent analogue. 
 
 Longfellow s house is but a short distance 
 from Elmwood, perhaps a quarter of a mile ; 
 and the relations of the two poets have 
 always been intimate, as every observant 
 reader knows. Holmes lives in Boston ; but 
 he was a frequent visitor in Cambridge at 
 the old house near the college, especially 
 while his mother lived. Lowell always paid 
 tribute to the consummate art and finish of 
 his friendly rival s verses, and to the vigor 
 and freshness of his style. The father of 
 Dr. Holmes was a stout Orthodox clergyman ; 
 Lowell s father was a mild and conservative 
 Unitarian. The Autocrat has developed into 
 a liberal, and our poet has been growing 
 more conservative, until now the relative 
 positions of the sons are nearly the reverse 
 of those of their fathers. 
 
 11 
 
162 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 
 
 A CHARACTER. 
 
 Among the strange and remarkable people 
 that come to mind, Count Gurowski may 
 be mentioned. That brilliant and eccentric 
 man, in exile from his beloved Russia, was 
 engaged to deliver a course of lectures on 
 the civil law at the University. His habit 
 of unsparing censure soon got him into diffi 
 culty. The tongue which Russian nobles and 
 dames had dreaded would wag in Cambridge. 
 " Humbug" and " ass " were the mildest 
 terms he could find for some of the pro 
 fessors. His engagement was terminated, and 
 he shortly after disappeared. His singular 
 figure, his undaunted look, and his old-world 
 garments had made him a conspicuous object, 
 and he was missed. He was too proud to 
 ask for help, even for a sixpence. He pre 
 ferred to starve. The generous Carter un 
 dertook to look him up, and after a long 
 search found him digging in Hovey s nursery 
 grounds, at a dollar a day. He was wretched, 
 
A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 163 
 
 because old and unused to manual labor. 
 Carter took him to his house, and kept him 
 until some turn of fortune put the former 
 statesman and diplomatist on his feet again. 
 While he was at Carter s house a meeting of 
 the whist club occurred. Grurowski could 
 not say enough to Carter s friends of his 
 gratitude to the man who he declared had 
 saved his life. But in the course of the even 
 ing he said a great deal more. He attacked 
 everybody and everything. He combated 
 modern philosophy, scouted modern history, 
 and belittled modern poets. He was the 
 autocrat of all the Russias, and of mankind 
 in general. The lustre of his remaining eye 
 (its fellow had been quenched in a duel) was 
 fascinating, and held his audience like Cole 
 ridge s Ancient Mariner. He bore down upon 
 the company like a full-rigged ship in a trade 
 wind, with all sails set. He would have no 
 contradiction. Sic volo, sic juleo. Lowell 
 interposed now and then some bright and 
 apposite remarks, but Gurowski tolerated no 
 
164 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 
 
 criticism or qualification. In the conflict of 
 impetuous talk he was the Missouri bearing 
 the current of the clearer and gentler Mis 
 sissippi away to the opposite shore. His 
 command of English, like Kossuth s, was 
 miraculous, and the foreign accent was an 
 attraction rather than impediment. But, of 
 course, he was arbitrary and unjust to the last 
 degree ; and his triumph was not one of logic, 
 for he talked for victory only. Such an ex 
 hibition was an experience of a lifetime. To 
 be sure, it settled no facts nor principles, but 
 it gave one an idea of the vast resources of a 
 great mind under the guidance of a moody 
 and wayward temper. 
 
 EDMUND QUINCY. 
 
 Edmund Quincy, son of the eminent presi 
 dent of Harvard, a man of education, taste, 
 and wealth, was one of the foremost of the 
 early abolitionists, and a ready and indus 
 trious writer upon the great question of his 
 day. He was an early and intimate friend 
 
A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 165 
 
 of Lowell, and their visits were frequent. 
 Mr. Quincy had a large and comfortable 
 house, of the style of a century ago, at 
 Dedham, near the Charles. There was a 
 noble grove of pine-trees in the rear, ex 
 tending to the river s edge. The estate was 
 called Bankside. Mr. Quincy is commemo 
 rated in a fine poem under this title. There 
 is a reference to it, also, in " The Cathe 
 dral." Mr. Quincy took a warm interest 
 in the " Atlantic," having been one of the 
 original coterie of fourteen. He contrib 
 uted no long articles ; but several book 
 notices are still remembered for their pun 
 gent wit and epigrammatic force. He died 
 a few years ago, and it is permitted now 
 to say that few more elegant and accom 
 plished men have ever been reared in Mas 
 sachusetts. His manners were courtly and 
 refined, never cold or formal. His address 
 was graceful, and his courtesy unfailing. 
 Lowell used to say that, if we had an aris 
 tocracy, Quincy would be a duke. A visit 
 
166 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 
 
 to Bankside in the old days was something 
 to be remembered. 
 
 BEGINS PUBLIC LIFE AT THE TOP. 
 
 In the course of this sketch there has been 
 little attempt to follow order. The events of 
 Lowell s life since 1860 have been few. The 
 important dates are the dates of his books. 
 One year has been like another, passed at 
 the same residence, cheered by the same 
 friends, engrossed in the same studies and 
 pleasures. He visited Europe with Mrs. 
 Lowell in 1873. He had never held office, 
 not even that of justice of the peace ; and 
 though he has always had a warm interest 
 in public affairs, he has not been a politician. 
 It was therefore with some surprise as well 
 as gratification that his friends heard of his 
 appointment as Minister to Spain. He had 
 been offered the Austrian mission, and had 
 declined it ; but some good spirit, perhaps Mr. 
 Ho wells (a relative of President Hayes), sug- 
 
A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 167 
 
 gested that Vienna was perhaps not the place 
 to attract a scholar and poet, and that Ma 
 drid would be preferable, even with a smaller 
 salary. After the retirement of Mr. Welsh, 
 minister to England, Mr. Lowell was trans 
 ferred to London. His reception in the 
 metropolis of letters and of English-speaking 
 people has been in the highest degree cor 
 dial and honorable. 
 
 He still holds his rank as professor at 
 Cambridge, evidently expecting to resume 
 his duties there. Perhaps in the Indian sum 
 mer of his life he may put his heart into a 
 poem that will be even more worthy of his 
 genius than any he has yet written. 
 
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