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Vol. II. No. 4. Five cents. 
 
 Per Year, Fifty cents 
 
 \i 
 
Xittle 3ourne^0 
 
 SERIES FOR 1896 
 
 Xittle Journeys to tbe f)ome6 ol 
 American Butbors 
 
 The papers below specified, were, with the 
 exception of that contributed by the editor, 
 Mr. Hubbard, originally issued by the late 
 G. P. Putnam, in 1853, in a series entitled 
 Homes of American Authors, It is now 
 nearly half a century since this series (which 
 won for itself at the time a very noteworthy 
 prestige) was brought before the public ; and 
 the present publishers feel that no apology is 
 needed in presenting to a new generation of 
 American readers papers of such distinctive 
 biographical interest and literary value. 
 
 No. 1, Emerson, by Geo. "W. Curtis, 
 
 ** 2, Bryant, by Caroline M. Kirkland. 
 
 *' 3, Prescott, by Geo. S. Hillard. 
 
 ** 4, Lowell, by Charles F. Briggs, 
 
 *' 5, Simms, by Wm. Cullen Bryant. 
 
 ** 6, Walt Whitman, by Elbert Hubbard. 
 
 ** 7, Hawthorne, by Geo. \Vm. Curtis. 
 
 *' 8, Audubon, by Parke Godwin. 
 
 *• 9, Irving, by H. T. Tuckerman. 
 
 *• 10, Longfellow by Geo. "Wm. Curtis. 
 
 ** II, Everett, by Geo. S. Hillard. 
 
 " 12, Bancroft, by Geo. W. Greene. 
 
 The above papers, which will form the 
 series of Little Journeys for the year 1896, 
 will be issued monthly, beginning January, 
 in the same general style as the series of 
 1895, at socts. a year. Single copies, 5 cts., 
 postage paid. 
 
 Entered at the Post Office, New Rochelle, N. Y., 
 as second class matter 
 
 Copyright, 1896, by 
 
 G. P. Putnam's sons 
 
 27 * 29 West 23D Street, New York 
 
 24 Bedford Street, Strand, London 
 
 The Knickerbocker Press, New Rochellk, N. Y. 
 
 ^c/-/^7^ 
 
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL 
 
 123 
 
To Charles F. Briggs, 
 
 Elm WOOD, Aug., 21, 1845. 
 My sorrows are not literary ones, but those 
 of daily life. I pass through the world and meet 
 with scarcely a response to the affectionateness 
 of my nature. Brought up in a very reserved 
 and conventional family, I cannot in society ap- 
 pear what I really am. I go out sometimes with 
 my heart so full of yearning towards my fellows 
 that the indifferent look with which even entire 
 strangers pass me brings tears into my eyes. 
 And then to be looked upon by those who do 
 know me (externally) as"I/Dwell the poet "it 
 makes me sick. Why not as I^owell the man— 
 the boy rather,— as Jemmy I^owell ? 
 
 James R. Indwell. 
 
 124 
 
FOREWORD 
 
 How it strikes a contemporary is al- 
 ways interesting ; and inadvertence, like 
 irrelevance, has its charm. These things 
 being true, this essay written forty-three 
 years ago is valuable. The author tells 
 with a poorly masked boast that the 
 grandfather of Mr. I^owell was a Mem- 
 ber of Congress. For the grandson no 
 such leap into greatness was prophesied 
 — it was too much ! And as for the Court 
 of St. James, Mr. Briggs had n't imagina- 
 tion enough to dream of it. Yet I re- 
 member when the papers announced that 
 our plain Harvard professor had been 
 appointed Minister to England we boys 
 thought of the big shaggy dog that tagged 
 him through the street, of the briar-wood 
 pipe, and the dusty suit of gray, and we 
 were struck dumb with amazement. 
 
 Then, when Mr. Briggs quotes The 
 Courtin\ and gives his idea of *^true 
 poetry '* and **art,'* we bethink us that 
 we have a few ideas in this line ourselves, 
 and pass on. 
 
 125 
 
jforeworD 
 
 The reference to Maria White brings to 
 mind The Letters^ and we remember the 
 poet's various references to this splendid 
 woman. 
 
 Mr. Briggs admits that his subject is 
 an abolitionist — 't were vain to deny it — 
 but he is not an unreasonable fanatical 
 abolitionist, for, mark you, even South- 
 erners read his poetry. Well, I guess so ! 
 And, thus Mr. Briggs saves Mr. Lowell's 
 reputation and his own — forsooth, for 
 wise men trim ship ; and a list to star- 
 board is as bad as a list to port if you are 
 an all *round literary man with manu- 
 script to market. So we think no more of 
 Lowell on account of the Briggs' apology 
 and no less of Briggs. A shifty loyalty is 
 ever entertaining when viewed across the 
 intervening years. And we smile, but the 
 smile turns to a sigh when we remember 
 that Briggs, like his fears, is now dust ; 
 and that in Mt. Auburn where three 
 weeping willows stand guard, sleeps a 
 beloved nephew of Lowell given to the 
 cause that ** raised such a commotion.'* 
 A step away are simple little slate slabs 
 that mark the graves of ** James Russell 
 Lowell, and Maria White, his wife," 
 
 126 
 
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL 
 
 BY CHAS. F. BRIGGS.* 
 
 CAMBRIDGE is one of the very few 
 towns in New England that is 
 worth visiting for the sake of 
 its old houses. It has its full share of 
 turreted and bedomed cottages, of pie- 
 crust battlements, and Athenian temples ; 
 but its chief glory, besides its elms, 
 and ** muses' factories,'* are the fine old 
 wooden mansions, which seem to be in- 
 digenous to the soil on which they stand, 
 like the stately trees that surround them. 
 These well-preserved relics of our ante- 
 revolutionary splendor are not calculated 
 
 * written in 1853 for VuinsLm^sHomeso/Amen'" 
 can A uthors. 
 
 127 
 
James IRussell Xowell 
 
 to make us feel proud of our advance- 
 ment in architectiural taste, since we 
 achieved our independence ; and we can- 
 not help thinking that men who are fond 
 of building make-believe baronial castles, 
 never could have had the spirit to dream 
 of asserting their independence of the 
 old world. People who are afraid to trust 
 their own invention in so simple a thing 
 as house-building, could never have 
 trusted themselves in the more impor- 
 tant business of government-making. Yet 
 some of these fine old houses, that have 
 so manly and independent a look, were 
 built by stanch, conservative tories, who 
 feared republicanism, and had no faith at 
 all in the possibility of a state without a 
 king. 
 
 The stately old mansion in which the 
 poet Lowell was bom, one of the finest 
 in the neighborhood of Boston, was built 
 by Thomas Oliver, the last royal lyieuten- 
 ant-Govemor of the province of Massa- 
 chusetts, who remained true to his 
 allegiance, and after the Declaration of 
 128 
 
5ame0 TRuasell Xowell 
 
 Independence removed to !^ngland, where 
 lie died. In Eliot's Biographical Dic- 
 tionary of the first settlers in New Eng- 
 land, is the following brief account of 
 this sturdy royalist : 
 
 *^ Thomas Oliver was the last Ivieuten- 
 ant-Govemor under the crown. He was 
 a man of letters, and possessed of much 
 good nature and good breeding ; he was 
 aflfable, courteous, a complete gentleman 
 in his manners, and the delight of his 
 acquaintance. He graduated at Harvard 
 College in 1753. He built an elegant 
 mansion in Cambridge, and enjoyed a 
 plentiful fortune. When he left America 
 it was with extreme regret. He lived in 
 the shades of retirement while in Eu- 
 rope, and very lately (1809) his death was 
 announced in the public papers." 
 
 The character of the man might easily 
 have been told from examining his house ; 
 it bears the marks of a generous and ami- 
 able nature, as unerringly as such quali- 
 ties are denoted by the shape of the head. 
 Mean men do not build themselves such 
 129 
 
5ame0 IRueeell Xowell 
 
 habitations. Much good nature is plainly 
 traceable in its fine large rooms, and its 
 capacious chimneys, which might well 
 be called 
 
 The wind-pipe of good hospitalite. 
 
 It has a broad staircase with easy land- 
 ings, and a hall wide enough for a tradi- 
 tionary duel to have been fought in it, 
 when, like many of the neighboring 
 mansions, it was occupied by revolution- 
 ary soldiers. Washington, too, was once 
 entertained under its roof, and after the 
 war it became the property of Blbridge 
 Gerry, one of the signers of the Declara- 
 tion of Independence, who lived in it, 
 while he was Vice-President of the United 
 States, At his death it was purchased 
 from the widow of Gerry by its present 
 owner, the Rev. Charles Lowell, father of 
 the Poet, by whom it was beautified and 
 improved. Dr. Lowell planted the greater 
 part of the noble trees which now sur- 
 round it, conspicuous among them being 
 the superb elms from which it derives its 
 130 
 
Sames IRussell Xowell 
 
 name. The grounds of Elmwood are 
 about thirteen acres in extent, and adjoin 
 on one side the cemetery of Mount Au- 
 bmn, where two of the Poet's children, 
 Blanche and Rose, are buried. It was on 
 the grave of his firstborn that the beau- 
 tiful poem, full of heartfelt tenderness, 
 called The First Snow-fall^ was written. 
 Some of Lo weirs finest poems have 
 trees for their themes, and he appears to 
 entertain a strong affection for the leafy 
 patriarchs beneath whose branches he 
 had played in his boyhood. In one of 
 the many poems which have overflowed 
 from his prodigal genius into the columns 
 of obscure monthly and weekly periodi- 
 cals, and have not yet been published in 
 a volume, is one called A Day in June, 
 in which occurs an exquisitely touching 
 apostrophe to the ** tall elm '' that forms 
 so conspicuous an object in the view of 
 Blmwood drawn by our artist : 
 
 Snap, chord of manhood's tenser strain ; 
 To-day I will be a boy again ; 
 The mind's pursuing element, 
 I<ike a bow slackened and unbent, 
 
 131 
 
5amc0 IRuaaell Xowcll 
 
 In some dark comer shall be leant ; 
 
 The robin sings, as of old, from the limb, 
 
 The cat-bird crows in the lilac bush ; 
 
 Through the dim arbor, himself more dim. 
 
 Silently hops the hermit-thrush, 
 
 The withered leaves keep dumb for him ; 
 
 The irreverent buccaneering bee 
 
 Hath stormed and rifled the nunnery 
 
 Of the lily, and scattered the sacred floor 
 
 With haste-dropt gold from shrine to door : 
 
 There, as of yore, 
 
 The rich milk-tinging buttercup, 
 
 Its tiny polished urn holds up. 
 
 Filled with ripe summer to the edge, 
 
 The sun in his own wine to pledge ; 
 
 And one tall elm, this hundredth year 
 
 Doge of our leafy Venice here, 
 
 Who with an annual ring doth wed 
 
 The blue Adriatic overhead, 
 
 Shadows with his palatial mass 
 
 The deep canals of flowing grass, 
 
 Where grow the dandelions sparse 
 
 For shadows of Italian stars. 
 
 I/Owell has studied in the life-school 
 of poetry, and all the pictures which he 
 has woven into the texture of his verse 
 have been drawn directly from nature. 
 His descriptions of scenery are full of 
 local coloring, and, in his Indian Sum- 
 mer Reverie y there are so many accurate 
 and vivid pictures of Elmwood and its 
 neighborhood, of the '^silver Charles,'* 
 132 
 
Jamee IRueaell 3towell 
 
 the meadows, the trees, the distant hills, 
 the colleges, *'the glimmering farms," 
 and ** Coptic tombs," that we need hardly 
 do more than transfer them to our pages 
 to give a vivid picture of his home and 
 its associations. 
 
 There gleams my native village, dear to me, 
 Though higher change's waves each day are 
 
 seen, 
 Whelming fields famed in boyhood's history, 
 Sanding v^ith houses the diminished green ; 
 There, in the red brick, vp^hich softening time 
 
 defies, 
 Stand square and stifi* the Muses' factories ; 
 How with my life knit up in every well-known 
 
 scene ! 
 
 Beyond that hillock's house-bespotted swell, 
 Where Gothic chapels house the horse and chaise, 
 Where quiet cits in Grecian temples dwell, 
 Where Coptic tombs resound with prayer and 
 
 praise 
 Where dust and mud the equal year divide. 
 There gentle Alston lived, and wrought and died. 
 Transfiguring street and shop with his illumined 
 
 gaze. 
 
 In this brilliant descriptive poem he 
 
 exhibits his native town in a series of 
 
 changing pictures that bring the scenes 
 
 perfectly before us under all the varying 
 
 133 
 
James IRngeell Xowell 
 
 phases of the year. What landscape 
 painter has given us such pictures as these 
 of the approaches of a New England 
 winter ? 
 
 Or come when sunset gives its freshened zest, 
 I^ean o'er the bridge and let the ruddy thrill, 
 While the shorn sun swells down the hazy 
 west, 
 Clow opposite ;— the marshes drink their fill 
 And swoon with purple veins, then slowly fade 
 Through pink to brown, as eastward moves the 
 shade 
 lengthening with stealthy creep, of Simond's 
 darkening hill. 
 
 I^ater, and yet ere winter wholly shuts, 
 Kre through the first dry snow the runner grates, 
 And the loath cart-wheel screams in slippery 
 ruts. 
 While firmer ice the boy eager awaits. 
 Trying each buckle and strap beside the fire, 
 And until bed-time plays with his desire, 
 Twenty times putting on and off his new-bought 
 skates. 
 
 Our poet was born at Klmwood on the 
 22d of February, 1819 — the youngling of 
 the flock, received his early education in 
 Cambridge, and in 1838 graduated at 
 Harvard, where his father and grandfather 
 had graduated before him. After his 
 134 
 
5ame6 IRuesell Xowell 
 
 ** colleging " he studied law, and was ad- 
 mitted to the bar ; but he had opened an 
 office in Boston, to lure clients, a very 
 little while, when he discovered that he 
 and the legal profession were not de- 
 signed for each other. There could not 
 have been a more uncongenial and un- 
 profitable pursuit than that of the law for 
 a nature so frank and generous as that of 
 Ivoweirs ; and, happily for him, necessity, 
 which knows no law, did not compel him, 
 as it has many others, to stick to the law, 
 for a living, against his inclinations. So 
 he abandoned all thoughts of the ermine, 
 and of figuring in sheepskin volumes, if 
 he had ever indulged in any such fancies, 
 which is hardly probable, and, turning 
 his back on a profession which is fitly 
 typified by a woman with a bandage over 
 her eyes, he turned to his books and trees 
 at Blmwood, determined on making lit- 
 erature his reliance for fame and fortune. 
 His first start in literature, as a business, 
 ended disastrously. In company with 
 his friend Robert Carter, he established 
 135 
 
Same0 IRuseell Xowell 
 
 a monthly magazine called the Pioneer^ 
 which, owing to the failure of his pub- 
 lishers, did not last longer than the third 
 number ; but it was admirably well con- 
 ducted, and made a decided impression 
 on the literary public by the elevated 
 tone of its criticisms, and the superiority 
 of its essays to the ordinary class of maga- 
 zine literature. Soon after the failure of 
 the Pioneer he was married to Miss Maria 
 White, of Watertown, a lady of congenial 
 tastes, and as remarkable for her wom- 
 anly graces and accomplishments, as for 
 her elevated intellectual qualities. The 
 Morning Glory ^ published in the last 
 edition of his poems, was written by her. 
 They have resided at Klmwood since their 
 marriage, with the exception of a year 
 and a half spent in Italy. 
 
 The ancestors of lyowell were among 
 the earliest and most eminent settlers of 
 New Kngland, and there are but few 
 Americans who could boast of a more 
 honorable or distinguished descent. He 
 was named after his father's maternal 
 136 
 
James Uuagell Xowell 
 
 grandfather, Judge James Russell, of 
 Charlestown, an eminent person in the 
 colony of Massachusetts, one of whose 
 descendants, Lechmere Russell, a general 
 in the British army, recently died at his 
 seat of Ashford Hall in Shropshire. The 
 founder of the Lowell family in Massachu- 
 setts was Percival Lowell, who settled in 
 the town of Newbury in the year 1639. 
 The Hon. John Lowell, the Poet's grand- 
 father, was one of the most eminent 
 lawyers in Massachusetts ; he was a repre- 
 sentative in Congress, and being a mem- 
 ber of the convention which framed the 
 first constitution of his native State, he 
 introduced the provision into the Bill of 
 Rights which abolished slavery in Mass- 
 achusetts. 
 
 The father of Mr. Lowell is a distin- 
 guished Congregational clergyman, who 
 has been pastor of the West Church of 
 Boston nearly fifty years, and is the 
 author of several works of a religious 
 character ; he graduated at Harvard, and 
 was an intimate friend and class-mate of 
 137 
 
5ame6 1Ru66ell Xowell 
 
 Washington Alston. He afterwards "went 
 to Edinburgh, where he studied divinity, 
 and matriculated at the University there 
 at the same time with Sir David Brewster, 
 who was also a divinity student. 
 
 A few years ago, when Dr. lyowell was 
 in Scotland with his wife and daughter, 
 he paid a visit to Melrose Abbey, and 
 while there heard a man tell another that 
 Sir David Brewster would be with him 
 directly. He had not met the eminent 
 philosopher since they were students to- 
 gether, and did not know that he was in 
 the neighborhood of his old friend's 
 house, which he learned, on inquiry, was 
 the fact. When the philosopher appeared, 
 Dr. Lowell made himself known, and 
 found, from the heartiness of the embrace 
 he received, that an interval of forty 
 years had not diminished the attachment 
 of his early friend and companion. 
 
 The mother of the Poet was a native of 
 
 New Hampshire, and a sister of the late 
 
 Captain Robert T. Spence, of the U. S. 
 
 Navy. She was a woman of remarkable 
 
 138 
 
Jamee 1Ru60ell Xowell 
 
 mind, and possessed in an eminent de- 
 gree the power of acquiring languages, a 
 faculty which is inherited by her daugh- 
 ter, Mrs. Putnam, whose controversy with 
 Mr. Bowen, editor oit\iQ North American 
 Review^ respecting the late war in Hun- 
 gary, brought her name so prominently 
 before the public that there can be no 
 impropriety in alluding to her here. Mrs. 
 Putnam is probably one of the most re- 
 markable of linguists, and there have 
 been but few scholars whose philological 
 learning has been greater than hers. She 
 converses readily in French, Italian, Ger- 
 man, Polish, Swedish, and Hungarian, 
 and is familiar with twenty modern dia- 
 lects, besides Greek, I^atin, Hebrew, 
 Persic, and Arabic. Mrs. Putnam made 
 the first translation into English of 
 Frederica Bremer's novel of The Neigh- 
 bors^ from the Swedish. The translation 
 by Mary Howitt was made from the 
 German. 
 
 The maternal ancestors of Lowell were 
 of Danish origin, and emigrated to Amer- 
 139 
 
5ame6 IRnescli lowell 
 
 ica from Kirkwall, in the Orkneys. 
 While Dr. Ivowell was in Scotland with 
 his family, they went to the Orkneys to 
 visit the burial-place of his wife's fore- 
 fathers, and while there they met a cousin, 
 a native of England, whom Mrs. I^owell 
 had never before seen, who had been 
 many years in India, and on his return 
 to his native land, had gone, like her, on 
 a pious pilgrimage to visit the graves of 
 his ancestors. 
 
 Among all the authors whose homes 
 are noticed in this series, I^owell is the 
 only one who has the fortune to reside 
 in the house in which he was born. It 
 is a happiness which few Americans of 
 mature age can know. But Lowell has 
 been peculiarly happy in his domestic 
 relations ; Nature has endowed him with 
 a vigorous constitution and a healthy and 
 happy temperament ; and, but for the 
 loss of his three children, the youngest 
 of whom, his only boy, died recently in 
 Rome, there would have been fewer shad- 
 ows on his path than have fallen to the 
 140 
 
Jamea IRuseell Xowell 
 
 lot of most other poets. A nature like 
 his can make its own sunshine, and find 
 an oasis in every desert; yet it was a 
 rare fortune that he found himself in such 
 a home as his imagination would have 
 created for him, if he had been cast 
 homeless upon the world. He loves to 
 throw a purple light over the familiar 
 scene, and to invest it with a superflu- 
 ousness of grateful gilding. The large- 
 hearted love to give, whether their gifts 
 be needed or not. The lovely landscape 
 around ^Imwood looks still lovelier in 
 his verse than to the unaided vision ; and 
 the *^ dear marshes'* through which the 
 briny Charles ebbs and flows, are pleas- 
 anter for being seen through the golden 
 haze of the Poet's affection : 
 
 Below, the Charles— a stripe of nether sky, 
 Now hid by rounded apple-trees between, 
 Whose gaps the misplaced sail sweeps bellying 
 by, 
 Now flickering golden through a woodland 
 screen, 
 Then spreading out, at his next turn beyond, 
 A silver casket, like an inland pond- 
 Slips seaward silently through marshes purple 
 and green. 
 
 141 
 
James 1?u06ell Xowell 
 
 Dear marshes ! vain to him the gift of sight 
 Who cannot in their various incomes share, 
 
 From every season drawn, of shade and light, 
 Who sees in them but levels brown and bare ; 
 
 Kach change of storm or sunshine scatters free 
 
 On them its largess of variety, 
 For nature with cheap means still works her 
 wonders rare. 
 
 Blmwood is half a mile or so beyond 
 the colleges, and lies off from the main 
 street; the approach to it is through a 
 pleasant green lane, or at least it was 
 green when we last saw it, the trees hav- 
 ing been freshly washed of their *' brown 
 dusf by a shower which was still falling, 
 and the muddy division of the year hav- 
 ing apparently just commenced. The 
 house is so surrounded with trees that 
 you catch but a glimpse of it until you 
 stand opposite to it. Though built of 
 wood, and nearly a century old, it shows 
 no signs of decay. It is most appropri- 
 ately furnished, and contains many in- 
 teresting relics, old family pictures, and 
 some choice works of art, among which 
 are two busts by Powers, and two or three 
 portraits by Page, among the finest he 
 142 
 
5ame6 IRusaell Xowell 
 
 has painted. Perhaps it may be gratify- 
 ing to the reader to know that the Poet's 
 study, in which nearly all of his poems 
 have been written, is on the third floor, 
 in that far corner of the house on which, 
 in the engraving, the light falls so pleas- 
 antly. 
 
 I^owell is generally looked upon as a 
 serious poet, and, indeed, no one has a 
 better claim to be so regarded, for serious- 
 ness is one of the first essentials of all 
 genuine poetry. But seriousness is not 
 necessarily sadness. Much of his poetry 
 overflows with mirthful and jocund feel- 
 ings, and, in his most pungent satire 
 there is a constant bubbling up of a genial 
 and loving nature ; the brilliant flashes 
 of his wit are softened by an evident 
 gentleness of motive. He is the first of 
 our poets who has succeeded in making 
 our harsh and uncouth Yankee dialect 
 subservient to the uses of poetry ; this he 
 has done with entire success in that ad- 
 mirable piece of humorous satire. The 
 Bigelow Papers, No productions of a 
 143 
 
5ame0 tRixescll Xowell 
 
 similar character, in this country, were 
 ever held so popular as the pithy verses of 
 Hosea Bigelow, in spite of their being so 
 strongly imbued with a trenchant spirit of 
 opposition to the popular political views 
 of the multitude ; and many of them have 
 been widely circulated by the newspapers 
 without any intimation being given of 
 their origin. We were sitting one even- 
 ing in the bar-room of a hotel in Wash- 
 ington, just after the election of General 
 Taylor, when our poetical metropolis was 
 filled with office-seekers from all parts 
 of the country. The room was crowded 
 with rude men who were discussing 
 political matters, and the last thing we 
 could have looked for was a harangue 
 on American poetry. A roughly-dressed 
 down-easter, or at least he had the accent 
 and look of one, came into the bar-room, 
 and addressing himself to a knot of men 
 who appeared to know him, exclaimed, 
 *'Who says there are no American 
 poets?" And he looked around upon 
 the company, as though he would be 
 144 
 
James 1Ru6sell Xowell 
 
 rather pleased than otherwise to en- 
 counter an antagonist. 
 
 But nobody seemed disposed to venture 
 such an assertion ; the novelty of the 
 question, however, attracted the attention 
 of the people near him, which was prob- 
 ably all he wanted. **Well," continued 
 the speaker, with an air of defiant con- 
 fidence, **if anybody says so, I am pre- 
 pared to dispute him. I have found an 
 American poet. I don^t know who he is, 
 nor where he lives, but he is the author of 
 these lines, and he is a poet.** He took 
 a newspaper from his pocket, and read 
 what Parson Wilbur, in the Bigelow Pa- 
 pers y called a New England Pastoral ; 
 
 Zekle crep' up quite unbeknown, 
 
 An' peeked in thru the winder, 
 An' there sot Huldy all alone, 
 
 'ith no one nigh to hender. 
 
 Agin' the chimbly croonecks hung, 
 
 An' in amongst 'em rusted 
 The ole queen's arm that gran'ther Young 
 
 Fetched back from Concord busted. 
 
 The wannut logs shot sparkless out 
 Toward the pootiest, bless her ! 
 
 145 
 
James IRuseell Xowell 
 
 An' leetle fires danced all about 
 The chiny on the dresser. 
 
 The very room, coz she was in, 
 Looked warm frum floor to ceilin', 
 
 An' she looked full as rosy agin 
 Kz th' apples she wus peelin'. 
 
 She heerd a foot an' knowed it, tu, 
 
 Araspin' on the scraper,— 
 All ways to once her feelins flew 
 
 I,ike sparks in bumt-up paper. 
 
 He kin' o' I'itered on the mat, 
 Some doubtfle o' the seekle ; 
 
 His heart kep' goin' pitypat, 
 But hem went pity Zekle. 
 
 The Yankee read it with proper eta- 
 phasis and an unctuous twang, and all the 
 company agreed with him, that it was 
 genuine poetry '* and no mistake." 
 
 And so poetry makes its way in the 
 crowd. If it have the true spirit in it, it 
 will find a sure response in the great heart 
 of the multitude, who are, after all, the 
 only judges in art. There is no appeal 
 from their decisions. And, in the case 
 of Ivowell, the decision was unmistakably 
 in his favor. He is acknowledged as one 
 of the poets of the people. There are 
 Z46 
 
5ame0 IRussell iowell 
 
 none of our poets whose short pieces we 
 find more frequently in the comers of 
 newspapers, although they are but rarely 
 attributed to their author. 
 
 lyowelps prose writings are as remark- 
 able as his poetry ; the copiousness of his 
 illustrations, the richness of his imagery, 
 the easy flow of his sentences, the keen- 
 ness of his wit, and the force and clearness 
 of his reasoning, give to his reviews and 
 essays a fascinating charm that would 
 place him in the front rank of our prose 
 writers, if he did occupy a similar position 
 among our poets. He has written consid- 
 erably for the North American Review^ 
 and some other periodicals, but the only 
 volume of prose which he published, be- 
 sides the Bigelow Papers^ was the Con-- 
 versations on the Old Dramatists^ which 
 appeared in 1849. 
 
 Lowell is naturally a politician, but we 
 do not imagine he will ever be elected a 
 member of Congress, as his grandfather 
 was. He is such a politician as Milton 
 was, and will never narrow himself down 
 147 
 
5ame3 IRussell Xowell 
 
 to any other party than one which in- 
 cludes all mankind within its lines. But 
 he cannot shut his eyes to the great move- 
 ments of the day, and dally with his Muse, 
 when he can invoke her aid in the cause 
 of the oppressed and suffering. He has 
 to contend with the disadvantages of a 
 reputation for abolitionism, which is as 
 unfavorable to the prospects of a poet as 
 of a politician ; but his abolitionism is of 
 a very different type from that which has 
 made so great a commotion among us 
 during the last ten or fifteen years. Not- 
 withstanding the unpopular imputation 
 which rests upon his name, it does not 
 appear to have made him enemies in the 
 South. Some of his warmest and most 
 attached friends are residents of slave 
 States and are slave-holders ; and one of 
 the heartiest and most appreciative criti- 
 cisms on his writings that have appeared 
 in this country was published in a South- 
 em journal, a paper which can hardly be 
 suspected of giving aid and encourage- 
 ment to any enemy of the South. 
 143 
 
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