HIS BREEDING. 307 This catholicity is rare among poets and artists, whose dearest failing is a lack of concern for people or things not associated with their own pursuits. On the Musa other hand, poetry is the choicest expression of hu- Regina. man life, and the poet who does not revere his art and believe in its sovereignty is not born to wear the purple. Lowell, in fortunate seasons, goes back from life to song with new vigor and wisdom, and with a loyalty strengthened by experiences. After all, the man dies, while his imaginative works may survive even the record of his name. Therefore the work is the essential thing; and Lowell's work, above all, is so imbued with his individuality, that none can overlook the relations of the one to the other, or fail, in comprehending his poetry, to enter into the make and spirit of the poet himself. II. a home not want Russell born in Cambridge, Feb. 22, 1819. MR. UNDERWOOD has given some account of Low- James ell's ancestry, and of the conditions which led to the Lowell: birth and breeding of a poet. We have a picture of the Cambridge manor, Elmwood, ing in the relics of an old-time family, — portraits, Mass., books, and things of art. Lowell's father, and his father's father, were clergymen, well-read, bearing honored names; his mother, a gifted woman, the mistress of various languages, and loving the old English songs and ballads, -no wonder that three of her children came to be authors, and this one, the youngest, a famous citizen and poet. It is not hard to fill in these outlines with something of the circumstance that, as I pointed out in the case of Mrs. Browning, fore-ordains torian the training of a genius; that supplies, I repeat, the p. 118. means of its self-training, since the imagination de Cp. "Vic Poets": Entered in 1834. Bent. rives its sustenance like a plant, selecting and assimilating for itself. All it needs is food, atmosphere, a place to grow. In these Lowell was exceptionally favored, under the influence of local and family traditions, the home-culture, the method of his father, and the taste of the mother from whom he inherited his bent toward letters and song. His college course made little change in this way of growth. He might fail of advantages to be gained from drill and drudgery; but was sure to extend his reading in the direction of his natural tastes, until acquainted with many literatures. His subsequent study of the law probably added the logical discipline that enables one to formulate ideas. But any voice that would restrict him to his profession must have fallen "vainlier than the hen's to her false chickens in the pool." Instinct, judgment, everything, pointed to letSurround-ters as his calling. The period of his start, and his ings. father's literary tastes, are indicated by his avowal that he was brought up "in the old superstition" that Pope was the greatest poet that ever lived." This would account for his escape to the school of beauty and romance; just as the repression of a clerical surrounding may have had much to do with his early liberalism in politics and theology. Old Style vs. New. 66 It seems that the light-hearted Cambridge student was eager for all books except those of the curriculum, and troubled himself little as to mathematics and other prosaic branches. This was quite in accordance with precedent, teste Landor or Shelley, yet I doubt not that he was more than once sorry for it in after years. One may assume, however, that he passed for what he was, or promised to be, with the Faculty, and became something of an oracle among his mates. There was more eagerness then, at Harvard, than now; 'A YEAR'S LIFE.' the young fellows were not ashamed to wear their hearts upon their sleeves. The gospel of indifferentism had not been preached. The words "clever" and 66 well-equipped" now seem to express our highest good; we avoid sentimentalism, but nourish less that genius which thrives in youth upon hopefully garnished food. 309 recited at Cam Lowell wrote the Class Poem, and took leave to "A Poem print it, being under discipline at the time appointed for its delivery. Mr. Sanborn neatly points out that bridge," it abounded in conventional satire of the new-fangled 1839. reformers whom the poet was soon to join. As a law graduate, he shortly clouded his professional chances by writing for the Boston "Miscellany," and issuing a little book of verse. A writer's first venture is apt to be a novel or poem. Should he grow in station, it be comes rare, or valued for its indications. The thin, pretty volume, A Year's Life, does show traits of its author's after-work, but not so distinctly as many books of the kind. Three years later he termed its con tents, "the firstlings of my muse, Poor windfalls of unripe experience." "A Year's Life," 1841. White. But three years are a long time in the twenties. There are a few ideal passages in this book, and some that suggest his forming tendencies. It was inscribed to Maria "Una," whom he aptly might have called Egeria, for she was already both the inspirer and the sharer of his best imaginings. A few well-chosen pieces are retained in the opening division of Mr. Lowell's standard collection. Of these, "Threnodia" is a good specimen of his early manner. The simple and natural lines "With a Pressed Flower" are in contrast with vaguer portions of the first book, and have a characteristic thought in the closing stanza, where he says. of flowers, that Early range and tendencies. "Nature, ever kind to love, Hath granted them the same sweet tongue, Or here our granite rocks among." The cullings from "A Year's Life," with various and riper odes, lyrics, and sonnets, make up the "Early Poems" of his latest edition; showing his range at the date of their production. 66 Some of the longer pieces lack compactness, and betray an imagination still somewhat nebulous. "The Sirens," "Irené," "My Love," "Rosaline," are like the first poems of Tennyson, then a risen star. There is a trace of Shelley in the lines "To Perdita, Singing," and "The Moon." "Allegra" is sweet, direct, original. The sonnets upon reading Wordsworth, a sonnet to Spenser (in "A Year's Life"), and one to Keats, afford hints of the poet's healthy tastes. Those to Phillips and Giddings prove that he was no laggard in the unpopular antislavery movement. As to other reforms, it is plain that he began to have convictions, or, at least, to have a conviction that he had convictions. "The Heritage" and A Rich Man's Son" were taken up by the press, and are still found in our school-readers. Lowell's voice was for independence, human rights, the dignity of labor. Some of the lovepoetry is exquisite. Its serenity declares that no other word than happiness is needed for the history of the time between the dates of his first and second books. To be sure, he set himself to edit The Pioneer, the Pioneer": conditions being so adverse that poets and essayists who now should make the fortune of a magazine could not prolong its short existence. But we think of Lowell as enjoying to the full those three zestful years, a briefless barrister, perhaps, yet guarded by the Muse, and having the refined companionship of the girl "The ed. by Lowell and Robert Carter. MATURER VERSE. whose love he sought and won. In the year of his marriage to Maria White, he published a second volume, whose contents, with other verse composed before "Sir Launfal," exhibit his poetic genius in its fresh maturity. 66 311 "Rhæcus," compared The "Legend of Brittany," an artistic and legen- "Poems," dary poem, was, for that time, quite a significant pro- 1844duction, so much so that Poe said it was the noblest "A Lepoem yet written by an American." It commended gend of Brittany." itself to him because, unlike some of Lowell's verse, it was designed for poetry and nothing else - it is not in the least didactic. And that Poe said this, and meant it, shows how few were the longer poems of merit we then had produced. The Legend is a sweet, flowing tale, in the ottava rima, after the mode of Keats and up to the standard of Leigh Hunt. It needs dramatic force in the climax, but is simple and delicately finished. A still better piece of art-work is "Rhocus," that Greek legend of the wood-nymph and the bee. The poet by chance subjected himself, and not discreditably, to the test of a comparison with the most bewitching of Landor's Hellenics, "The Hamadryad." Much might be said, in view of these two idyls, upon the antique and modern handlings of a theme. Landor worked as a Grecian might, giving the tale in chiselled verse, with no curious regard for its teachings. Its beauty is enough for him, and there it stands a Periclean vase. His instinct became a conscious method. In a letter to Forster he begs him to amend the poem by striking out a bit of "reflection which a true hamadryad should "cut across ": Why should the beautiful (And thou art beautiful) disturb the source with Lan dor's "The Hama dryad." |