JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. MIRRORED in the pages of James Russell Lowell, as the forests and headlands are mirrored in some far-stretching lake, are the deepest and strongest thoughts and emotions of the Transatlantic mind. Yet his name is, in the minds of many Englishmen, associated chiefly with one form of literary effort, and that not the highest, though in its way unsurpassed. We propose, therefore, to draw attention, not only to The Biglow Papers, which have made for their author a name sui generis, but to those writings of graver import by which he would probably prefer to be ultimately judged. 6 Mr. Lowell comes of an old Massachusetts family. His grandfather, the Hon. John Lowell, was one of the greatest lawyers of that State, and was described by Mr. Everett as among those who enjoyed the public trust and confidence in the times which tried men's souls.' He was a member of the Convention which framed the Constitution of Massachusetts, and introduced the clause in the Bill of Rights which effected the abolition of slavery in that State. Washington appointed him the first judge of the United States' District Court, and at his death he was Chief Justice of the Circuit Court of the United States. The father of the poet, the Rev. Charles Lowell, was for some fifty years pastor of the West Church of Boston. He graduated at Harvard College, matriculated at the University of Edinburgh, and studied divinity under Hunter, and moral philosophy under Dugald Stewart. He was the author of several works, chiefly of a theological character. The maternal ancestors of Mr. Lowell were of Danish origin, but emigrated to America from Kirkwall, in the Orkneys. Mr. Lowell was born at Cambridge, Massachusetts, in the stately old mansion of Elmwood, which once had the honour of sheltering Washington, and was afterwards the property of Elbridge Gerry, one of the Signers of the Declaration of Independence, and Vice-President of the United States. There are abundant allusions in his works proving his deep attachment to the picturesque home of his childhood. We can linger but to quote one such passage, from A Day in June': One tall elm, this hundredth year Doge of our leafy Venice here, The blue Adriatic overhead, Shadows, with his palatial mass, Mr. Lowell graduated at Harvard in 1838, being then in his twentieth year. First drawn towards the law, he was admitted to the bar, after the usual preliminary studies, but the love of letters had already become a formidable passion with him, and he surrendered the profession of the law for the more attractive, if less remunerative, one of literature. In January 1843 he began, in conjunction with Mr. Robert Carter, a literary and critical magazine, called The Pioneer. Three numbers appeared, and then the periodical was committed to the waters of Lethe, not from any inherent fault of its own, for it was admirably conducted, and greatly impressed the reading public of America by the able and independent tone of its criticisms. But from a business point of view it proved unremunerative. In the year following this venture, Mr. Lowell was married to Miss Maria White, of Watertown, Massachusetts. Besides being the author of many excellent translations from the German, Mrs. Lowell was a writer of poems of original merit. It was her death in 1853 which led to the publication of Mr. Longfellow's beautiful poem 'The Two Angels.' The poet pictured two angels, those of Life and Death, the former of whom knocked at his own door, and the latter at that of his bereaved friend. In 1854 Mr. Lowell delivered a course of lectures before the Lowell Institute on English poetry, beginning with Chaucer and the old ballad-writers, then dealing with Pope and others, and finally coming down to Wordsworth and Tennyson. He was appointed in 1855 to the muchcoveted post of Professor of Belles Lettres in Harvard College, which had been vacated by Mr. Longfellow. This appointment carries with it the privilege of a year's preliminary study and travel in Europe before entering upon its duties. Like his predecessor, Mr. Lowell made the most of this twelvemonth's sojourn in Europe. In 1856 he returned to the United States, and in the year following married Miss Frances Dunlop, niece of ex-Governor Dunlop, of Portland, Maine, whose loss also he has been just called upon to mourn. In 1863 he undertook, in conjunction with Mr. Charles Eliot Norton, the editorial supervision of the North American Review. Long after he ceased to be connected with the direction of this able periodical, Mr. Lowell was a frequent and easily recognised contributor to its pages. Of our author, in the personal sense, nothing more remains to be said than that, after serving his country in a subordinate capacity, he was appointed to the important post of Minister to Great Britain, an appointment he now relinquishes to the sincere regret of his many English friends. With regard to the VOL. XVII.-No. 100. 3 T United States, it is now no uncommon, though a very creditable, thing for literary men to be advanced to high diplomatic appointments. At the opening of his career a comparison was instituted between Mr. Lowell and his fellow-poet Whittier. But while both can touch a high note in the martial strains of freedom, and both possess descriptive powers of no common order, here, it seems to us, the comparison ends. Lowell is an energetic genius, Whittier a contemplative: not that the former is devoid of the other's noble contemplative moods, but he is at his best as the poet of action. Even when dealing with pacific subjects there is an air of pugnacity about him. He is in the realm of poetry what Mr. Bright is in that of politics. For men of peace, both are the hardest hitters of all the public men of our time. Given the same conditions, and Mr. Lowell might have been the Bright of the American Senate. His knowledge of human nature is very profound, his English is most rich and flexible, while the principles he expounds are stern and unbending. Politically he has two great leading convictions, justice and freedom. He loves his country deeply, but even the threatened infringement of those principles has filled his soul with poignant anguish and regret. When his outraged spirit found relief in scathing sarcasm, as at the time of the Mexican war, and subsequently, those who observed him closely might see the tear welling up behind the fire-flash in his eye. In his earliest volume, A Year's Life, published in 1841, poems all written by the time he had reached his majority, there was more than enough to justify the prescience of those who heralded the appearance of a new poet. In the first place, there was evidence that the writer was not merely lisping numbers in an imitative sense, or because it was a pleasant thing to do. He had something to say, and he said it spontaneously. Said the critics, 'Our poet's conceptions are superior to his power of execution,' but even here the charge was somewhat unfairly pressed. It is difficult for every young Phoebus in poesy to manage his steeds. But in Lowell's case it was fortunate that the complaint was on the right side. It was not his imagination that was at fault, but his expression; consequently there was well-grounded hope of his oversetting the difficulty. His youngest work was full of noble qualities. In 'Irené' and the stanzas entitled Threnodia' there were passages which none but a true poet could have written. Take these lines from the latter poem : He seemed a cherub who had lost his way, And wandered hither, so, his stay With us was short, and 'twas most meet That he should be no delver in earth's clod, Nor need to pause and cleanse his feet To stand before his God. In the love-poems of this first volume there is a distinct impress of Wordsworth; though not in the ordinary way of verbal plagiarism. The lofty sentiments which both poets expressed concerning woman were natural to both, though Lowell had evidently revelled in the descriptions of his elder brother. Do not these stanzas, where the poet is describing his love, carry some reminiscences of the English Laureate ? Blessing she is: God made her so, She is most fair, and thereunto She is a woman: one in whom Though knowing well that life hath room For many blights and many tears. Besides the evidence of a delicate and graceful lyrical faculty which these early poems presented, the writer gave satisfactory hostages for the deep spirit of humanity by which he was imbued. For proof of this fine cosmopolitan spirit turn to his poem 'The Fatherland,' to the splendid tribute to Hampden and Cromwell in 'A Glance behind the Curtain,' and to the 'Stanzas on Freedom.' With unfaltering voice, and while still approaching manhood, Lowell nobly sang They are slaves who dare not be There was enough in these utterances to show that it is of such blood that real patriots are made. Poetically, a higher vein was struck in the next volume, Legend of Brittany, Miscellaneous Poems and Sonnets, published in 1844. Though there might have been still some little ground for the charge of redundancy, it was evident that the poet was rising to his capacity. Maturity of thought, a pruned imagination, and a greater swing and sweep of the verse, were the characteristics of this new volume. The leading poem, which relates how a country maiden is betrayed and murdered by a knightly lover, is treated with much beauty of language, and yet scrupulous delicacy. The portrait of the heroine Margaret is most lovingly and exquisitely drawn, and long remains upon the mind of the reader as an image of maidenly beauty. Her lover conceals the corpse behind the church altar, but the guilty presence is made known on a festival day by a voice demanding baptism for the unborn babe in its embrace. The murderer is so appalled by the incident that he becomes filled with remorse, and ends his days in repentance. So difficult a subject requires careful handling, but the most fastidious would find no reason to complain in this respect. In a wholly different vein are the two classical poems in this volume, Prometheus' and 'Rhæcus.' Mr. Lowell moralises 'admirably upon the world-touching story of Prometheus, and sees in his great heart but a type of what all lofty spirits endure,' men who would fain win back their fellows' to strength and peace through love.' All the memorial verses in this volume, to Channing, Lloyd Garrison, Kossuth, Lamartine, and others, are exceedingly fine; while the Incident in a Railroad Car'-relating how one spoke of Burns, and the poet deduced his general lessons for mankind therefrom-is now a cherished possession with English readers. Mr. Lowell next essayed the treatment of an Arthurian legend in 'The Vision of Sir Launfal.' It is founded on the search for the Holy Grail. The knight is led in a dream to the true discovery, viz. that charity to the miserable, the outcast, and the suffering is the holy cup. Whether intentionally or inadvertently, in these opening verses the writer closely reproduces an idea from Wordsworth's 'Ode on the Intimations of Immortality': Not only around our infancy Doth heaven with all its splendours lie; But how admirably Mr. Lowell thus enforces the lesson of the Holy Grail, in language addressed to Sir Launfal by one whom he had assisted as a leper, but who now stands before him glorified : In many climes without avail, Thou hast spent thy life for the Holy Grail; This water His blood that died on the tree; The Holy Supper is kept, indeed, In whatso we share with another's need; Not what we give, but what we share— For the gift without the giver is bare; Who gives himself with his alms feeds three,- By way of perfect contrast to this passage in regard to style, and also as illustrating Mr. Lowell's close observance of nature, we will now quote a portion of the prelude to the first part of the same poem. The poet is revelling in the advent of summer : |