So with soft relentings and rude excuse,
Half scorn, half pity, they cut him loose,
And gave him a cloak to hide him in,
And left him alone with his shame and sin.
Poor Floyd Ireson, for his hard heart,
Tarred and feathered and carried in a cart
By the women of Marblehead!

CHAPTER XIII

JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL

The

More than a decade of years have gone by since James Russell Lowell, the foremost of American men of letters, passed away. His death naturally called forth numerous expressions of sincere appreciation, from writers on both sides of the Atlantic, both as to his character and as to his works. English were no less generous in their glowing tributes to his memory as a man and an author than were the Americans, whom he so strongly loved and who reciprocated that love. No doubt the personal element prompted and entered into the encomiums, written by those who, in the rude shock of death, could not but record their keen personal loss in the passing of a warm, true friend.

Time is needed to heal the wounds our friendship has to sustain in the death of those whom we have learned to love and to admire. The heart is too profoundly agitated at the death of a true friend for the intellect to weigh critically and pass judgment upon the literary merits of that friend. Time must intervene to heal our wounded affections and to separate us sufficiently far from his day, before we can trust our judgments to render an unbiased verdict upon his standing in the realm of letters. Moreover, in the words of an author there is generally something, often much, which is of an ephemeral character; and with the lapse of time all that is transient and of passing interest tends to be sifted and winnowed out, so that only what is of permanent value finally remains. Such being the

case, we may hope now, over a decade after Lowell has been in his grave, to consider dispassionately and to form something of a critical estimate of this gifted, versatile American as a man of letters.

It is not proposed here to give a detailed account of Lowell's life, or indeed to consider his life at all, except incidentally where it throws light upon his work as an author. It may be observed, however, that he was born at Cambridge in 1819, of good Puritan stock, and that the Puritan teachings were woven into the very fiber and tissue of his being. His life was pure and sweet. Nor did it, like the life of such a poet as Byron or Shelley, stand in need of any "biographical chemistry to bleach out any dark spots in his character." Lowell's father. and grandfather were both ministers of the gospel; and his mother was a gifted woman, well versed in English literature and acquainted with several foreign languages. From her, doubtless, young Lowell, like the great German poet Goethe, inherited his passion for song and letters. From his father he inherited his broad culture, his sturdy character, his moral fervor, and his Puritan love of righteousness. This combination of qualities which Lowell united in himself conspired to make him, as has been truly said, one of the prophets of the nineteenth century, the Milton of his times.

Lowell was a born scholar. Even while a student at Harvard he showed a decided penchant for literature. His subsequent career as the most brilliant critic that American scholarship has produced is but the fulfilment of the great promise of his early years. As a student, he preferred to follow the bent of his genius rather than the college curriculum which the Harvard authorities had prescribed; and so, at his graduation in 1838, he was under discipline for breach of order, when he delivered the

class poem. After graduation he studied law, but, like not a few other young lawyers, soon found it uncongenial to his literary taste: he therefore abandoned the law, and came shortly to be numbered among the votaries of the muses. His first offering upon their altar was a slender volume of poetry, published in 1841, which he entitled "A Year's Life." This graceful little volume was dedicated to "Una," who first awakened in him the gift of song and then became his companion. The author afterwards referred to these early poems as the "firstlings of his muse, the poor windfalls of unripe experience.' When he gave to the public the standard collection of his "Early Poems," the book was found to contain a few of the choicer songs, culled from "A Year's Life."

In these early poems the poet shows traces of the influence of Tennyson and Shelley. His sonnets to Wordsworth and Keats indicate also that he had been browsing on these high table-lands of poetry. It is especially interesting to note that, as a youth, Lowell was brought up on Pope, "in the old superstition," to quote his own words, "that he was the greatest poet that ever lived." But he early broke with Pope, and repudiated his claim to the primacy in the republic of letters. Conventional verse of the drawing-room type had lost its charm for young Lowell, who now turned to the fields of beauty and romance, to fresh outdoor subjects, for his inspiration. These early poems are immature, it is true, but they reveal the presence of a deep vein of poetic wealth which was destined to be improved and developed with increasing years. It is to be observed in passing that even in this early collection, "the first heir of his invention," Lowell sounded in his sonnets to Phillips and Giddings the anti-slavery note, which later swelled into a veritable trum

pet blast in the "Biglow Papers" and other patriotic poems of the author's. But of this more

anon.

Passing over Lowell's unsuccessful attempt to found The Pioneer, a literary journal of brilliant, though short-lived fame; and leaving out of consideration his poem of the "Legend of Brittany,' which Poe said was "the noblest poem yet written by an American," we come to his little idyl "Rhocus," as beautiful as it is artistic, and to the "Poems" of 1848, which established Lowell's reputation as a poet of original genius, both at home and abroad. All his former efforts, though by no means insignificant as indicating the rise of a new star in the poetic heavens, were eclipsed by the luster of this collection. This book was the logical outcome of the author's wholesome dread of dilettanteism and affectation, to which, as to a luring temptation, many a promising young author has fallen victim. No poet, perhaps, ever felt more sensibly the siren power of dilettanteism than did Lowell; and he resolved, if possible, to escape from it. To the execution of this purpose, on his part, the "Biglow Papers," the "Fable for Critics," and "Sir Launfal" stand to-day indebted for their existIn these poems Lowell made a distinct departure from the well-beaten path of current poetic fashion; and he achieved a notable triumph. Yea, he did more: he added something entirely unique and original to the literature of his day. For nothing like the "Biglow Papers" had ever been produced before in America, or anywhere else, for that matter. Lowell blazed out three new paths in American literature: first, political satire, as in the "Biglow Papers"; secondly, literary criticism, as in the "Fable for Critics"; and thirdly, romantic and religious sentiment, as in "Sir Launfal." And in

ence.