Chapter I: His Life

The Lowells of New England are descendants of Percival Lowell, a prosperous Bristol merchant who came to America in 1639 and settled at Newbury, Massachusetts. The family has been distinguished through its various representatives for public spirit and business acumen as well as for a devotion to letters. The grandfather of the poet, Judge John Lowell, was author of the clause in the Bill of Rights abolishing slavery in Massachusetts. One of his sons was founder of the great manufacturing city on the Merrimac which bears his name. A grandson established the Lowell Institute, a system of popular instruction by free courses of lectures,--a system unique, in that it aims to bring to its audiences representative scholars, chosen less for their skill in the graceful but often specious art of public speaking than for solid attainments.

James Russell Lowell, the youngest son of the Reverend Charles Lowell, minister of the West Church in Boston, was born at Cambridge, Massachusetts, in the colonial mansion known as ‘Elmwood,’ on February 22, 1819. His mother, Harriet (Spence) Lowell, was a daughter of Keith Spence, of Portsmouth, New Hampshire.[63]

Under William Wells (an English pedagogue of the old school) Lowell prepared for college, entered Harvard, and after some disciplinary tribulations was graduated with his class (1838). He studied law and was admitted to the bar (August, 1840), but remained briefless during the few months of his efforts to begin a practice.

While waiting for clients, he busied himself with literature. He was early a rhymer. At twelve years of age his skill in making verse had astonished his schoolfellows, one of whom rushed home in great excitement to announce that ‘Jemmy Lowell thought he was going to be a poet.’

With the fearlessness of youth and in the hope of bettering himself financially, Lowell, aided by his friend Robert Carter, started a magazine, ‘The Pioneer.’ According to the prospectus, dated October 15, 1842, the editors proposed to supply ‘the intelligent and reflecting portion of the Reading Public with a substitute for the enormous quantity of thrice diluted trash, in the shape of namby-pamby love tales and sketches, which is monthly poured out to them....’ Only three numbers of ‘The Pioneer’ were issued.[64] The ‘Reading Public’ was joined to its idols and declined to encourage ‘a healthy and manly Periodical Literature.’

In 1841 was published _A Year’s Life_, Lowell’s first volume of verse; it was followed by _Poems_ (1844), by a volume of prose, _Conversations on Some of the Old Poets_ (1845), and by Poems, ‘second series’ (1848).

The ‘Ianthe’ of _A Year’s Life_ was easily identified with Maria White, the gifted and beautiful girl who, in December, 1844, became the poet’s wife. The first year of their married life was passed in Philadelphia, whither Lowell had taken his bride to protect her from the harsh New England winter. Their financial resources were few, but of gayety and courage there was no lack. Lowell aspired to live by his pen. What with the small sums paid him (rather against his will) for editorial work on ‘The Pennsylvania Freeman,’ what with the hardly larger sums for contributions to ‘Graham’s Magazine’ and ‘The Broadway Journal,’ he managed to subsist.

Nevertheless, it seemed best for a number of reasons that the young people return to Cambridge and make a common home at ‘Elmwood’ with Lowell’s parents. In June of this year (1846) appeared ‘A Letter from Mr. Ezekiel Biglow of Jaalam to the Hon. Joseph T. Buckingham, editor of the Boston Courier, inclosing a poem of his son, Mr. Hosea Biglow.’ This was the first of _The Biglow Papers_, the initial attack of many attacks Lowell was to make on slavery with the weapons of satire and ridicule. During 1847 three more ‘papers’ were printed in the ‘Courier;’ the remaining five appeared in ‘The National Anti-Slavery Standard.’

When the ‘Standard’ passed from the control of a board of editors into the hands of Sydney Howard Gay, Lowell became a salaried contributor, and for a time his name appeared as corresponding editor. He was allowed a free hand. Abolitionist though he was, his abolitionism was tempered with a deal of sympathy for slaveholders. And he had interests which most reformers of the time lacked, a passionate love of letters, for example. Hence it was that in the midst of leader-writing he was penning _A Fable for Critics_ and _The Vision of Sir Launfal_.

The winter of 1851–52 Lowell spent with his family in Italy, and the following spring and summer in journeyings through France, England, Scotland, and Wales. In October he sailed for home, having as ship companions Thackeray and Arthur Hugh Clough. Just a year later Mrs. Lowell died (October 27, 1853). For months afterward Lowell was in ‘great agony of mind, and he had to force himself into those laborious hours which one instinctively feels contain a wise restorative.’[65]

He abounded in literary plans, some of which (and among them a novel) were never carried out, whereas others, his papers in ‘Putnam’s Magazine’ and his lectures on English Poetry, before the Lowell Institute, were in a high degree successful. Each lecture of the Institute course had to be given twice, so great was the demand for tickets. Lowell was very nervous over his first platform experience, and not a little pleased when he found that he could hold the audience an hour and a quarter (‘they are in the habit of going out at the end of the hour’). The singular merit of the lectures led to his being appointed to the chair of belles-lettres at Harvard, just resigned by Longfellow. After a year’s study abroad the new professor entered on his academic duties (September, 1856).

In 1857 Lowell married Miss Frances Dunlap, of Portland, Maine. She was a woman of reserved though gracious manners and rare beauty, who through her serene temper and fine critical sagacity, together with a keen sense of the humorous, exerted a most beneficent influence on Lowell’s life.

The burdens of college work were not so heavy as to prevent Lowell’s assuming the editorship of ‘The Atlantic Monthly,’ a new literary magazine with an anti-slavery bias. He held this post from 1857 to 1861, and proved to be one of the best of editors, though routine was irksome to him, and the vagaries of contributors called for more patience than he could at all times command. Two years after leaving the ‘Atlantic’ he undertook to edit the ‘North American Review’ in company with Charles Eliot Norton, on whom fell the chief responsibilities. Lowell, for his part, contributed to the ‘Review’ many notable papers on politics and literature.

The Civil War called out much of Lowell’s most spirited prose and not a little of his best poetry. A second series of _Biglow Papers_ appeared in the ‘Atlantic,’ and for the commemoration of sons of Harvard who had fought for the Union, Lowell wrote his magnificent _Commemoration Ode_. This noble performance was literally an improvisation, written in a single night.

At this point we may take note of Lowell’s publications, subsequent to the _Poems_, ‘second series.’ They are: _A Fable for Critics_, 1848; _The Biglow Papers_, 1848; _Fireside Travels_, 1864; _The Biglow Papers_, ‘second series,’ 1866; _Under the Willows and Other Poems_, 1869; _The Cathedral_, 1870; _Among My Books_, 1870; _My Study Windows_, 1871; _Among My Books_, ‘second series,’ 1876; _Three Memorial Poems_, 1877; _Democracy and Other Addresses_, 1887; _Political Addresses_, 1888; _Heartsease and Rue_, 1888.

There appeared posthumously _Latest Literary Essays_, 1891; _The Old English Dramatists_, 1892; _Letters of James Russell Lowell, edited by C. E. Norton_, 1893; _Last Poems_, 1895; _The Anti-Slavery Papers of James Russell Lowell_, 1902.

Lowell resigned his professorship in 1872 and went abroad for two years. Oxford conferred on him the degree of D. C. L. and Cambridge that of LL. D.; it pleased him to regard the Cambridge degree ‘as in a measure a friendly recognition of the University’s daughter in the American Cambridge.’ In 1874 he returned home, and on the opening of college was persuaded to resume his lectures.

During the presidential campaign of 1876 Lowell became politically active in ways new to him. He was a delegate to the Republican National convention and a presidential elector. His fellow-townsmen had wished him to accept a nomination for representative in Congress; but Lowell refused, believing himself unqualified for the post.

Not long after his inauguration President Hayes, at the instance of W. D. Howells, offered Lowell the Austrian mission, an honor the poet felt impelled to decline; when, however, it was learned that he would be very willing to go to Spain, the appointment was made. He arrived in Madrid on August 14, 1878. Two years later he was transferred to England. Reappointed by President Garfield, he held this important charge until the close of President Arthur’s administration.

Few ministers have been as popular as he. And not the least factor of his popularity in England was his sturdy patriotism. Lowell was the author of the essay ‘On a Certain Condescension in Foreigners,’ an essay which an ingratiating Anglican clergyman[66] says was meant to be ‘overheard’ in England. It were more exact to say that the essay was meant to be heard, and heard distinctly. ‘They honor stoutness in each other,’ said Emerson, noting the traits of the English people. And it is not unreasonable to believe that they also admire the same virtue in others.

The summer of 1885 Lowell passed at Southborough, forty miles from Boston, the home of his daughter, Mrs. Burnett. He made a number of public addresses, gave a Lowell Institute course of lectures on the ‘Old English Dramatists,’ argued the question of International Copyright before a committee of the Senate, and is believed to have had real influence in persuading representatives of this great country that stealing is a sin. He found himself inveigled into an author’s reading, and humorously bewailed his weakness in ever having written a line of poetry. The demands upon him were enormous. It was now an effort for him to do things, and if the grasshopper had not yet become a burden, public occasions had, and more than once he was obliged to beg off from keeping a promise inconsiderately made.

He enjoyed being in England for the summer, and usually divided his time between London and Whitby. The last of these visits took place in 1889. The ensuing winter he gave to a careful revision of his writings. In the spring of 1890 he was ill for six weeks, and though he recovered enough to be able to move about a little and to welcome his friends, serious work was out of the question. He wrote two or three short papers, and had strong inducements held out to him to write more, but the time for writing was past, and he knew it.

His sufferings during his last illness were great, but he bore them like the man he was. Lowell died at ‘Elmwood,’ Cambridge, on August 12, 1891.