chivalric ages "2 when her renown was at its greatest, and the importance of plans he may have thwarted, and the her favorite city at its height.

at all, it is likely his repute even as a man of letters and a man of wit would, among his countrymen, be higher than it now is. One cannot easily admire either the shaft of ridicule hurled against oneself or the person who hurls it. Now he is dead, much that is good will be said of him as a man of affairs; but while he was yet a living force in American politics he had not that measure of honor in his own country which we, who look quietly on, feeling none of the friction, think was rightfully his due.

not chary of pointing out their faults to his own people; but when the occasion came was prompt to back America against the world. For heroism anywhere he had a keen instinct, but of the American hero he could speak only in superlatives. Abraham Lincoln was a man worthy of every one's admiration for his honesty, which was invariable if not always for sagacity; but if Abraham Lincoln had not been an American, he could hardly have appeared to Mr. Lowell's eyes, not simply a great man or a very great man, but as one "whom Appreciated or not, this attitude of posterity will recognize as the wisest Mr. Lowell did much to purify the po- and most bravely human of modern litical atmosphere of the United States. times." And if Benjamin Franklin He was always on the right side, by had not been an American, it is not which is meant, not that his "isms "likely Mr. Lowell would have failed to - and he had many- were always cor- prick the popular superstition about one rect, for as to that opinions differ, but who, setting aside his other demerits, that the spirit which actuated him, in was the father of that corrupt political advocacy and in antagonism alike, was system of "spoils to the victor," which, a good and true spirit. He was one of when practised by the modern politithose who converted the great Civil cian, Mr. Lowell has been the foremost War from a war of faction to a war of to denounce. principles, and during the progress of The same intensity of American that war, he was constant in his en- spirit shows itself in the second series deavor to keep the true issues that were of "The Biglow Papers." at stake well to the front. More re-pers were written during the Civil War, cently he helped to break the long ascendency of the Republican party, when that ascendency had become corrupt. His was the broad view and the high aim. No petty intrigue for private gain could bias him. He took his stand on principle, and his single purpose was to secure its triumph. He was a man who felt strongly. He had prejudices of his own, difficult to shake. Men as good and wise as himself were often ranged against him. But withal he was one of those "men of character" of whom Emerson said they are the conscience of the society to which they belong." Herein is the special service he was able to render to his own country.

These pa

when the relations between America and England were so severely strained. In particular, it will be remembered, the seizure of two Confederate commissioners on board a British steamer, by a Federal war-vessel, caused much excitement and the demand was promptly and resolutely made by the British government that the men should be given up. England's known or alleged sympathy with the rebellion was taken to explain her action, which, however, was quite lawful and, as was afterwards admitted, justified. Meantime, preparations for war were actually in progress before the government at Washington yielded. The event gave Thackeray occasion for one of his "Roundabout Papers," in which he reviewed the occurrence, and approved the result. His may have been the British standpoint, but even if so, his statement was made with dignity and a judicial recognition of the merits and the provocation on both sides. In contrast is the Amer

ican view, as set forth by Mr. Lowell, in | Wordsworth he does, indeed, pass into the name of Hosea Biglow:

:

I tell you, England's law on sea an' land, Has ollers ben I've got the heaviest hand; and this in spite of the fact that in the particular matter under discussion, England not only claimed the right, but had her claim allowed by America. Hosea Biglow himself admits, although as ungraciously as possible :

We giv' the critters back, John,

'Cos Abram thought 'twas right; It warn't your bullyin' clack, John,

Provokin' us to fight.

No doubt there was "bullyin' clack" on both sides of the ocean just then; but the point to be noted is that while our own broad-minded Thackeray could, even in the heat of the moment, rise superior to it here, Mr. Lowell who, as a man of letters and of culture might be fairly classed with Thackeray, became, where the interests of his own country were opposed to those of another, a fiery partisan.

a phase of English literature which is not American, but Wordsworth, if British born, belongs to the world. Unless an American student limits himself to the extremely modern literature of his country, to such authors as Washington Irving, Fenimore Cooper, Emerson, Hawthorne, and Howells, he is of necessity on the same ground as the British student. Consequently, if Mr.

Lowell the man of letters is not distinctively American, it is because he is cosmopolitan, not because he is British. When we read his essays closely, we certainly do find that what he has written even of Chaucer, Spenser, Shakespeare, and Milton, has a touch and tone essentially American. That is to say, a British writer as nearly his parallel as possible, would not have said the same things, or, saying them, would have said them in a different way. But then an essay written under pine-trees would no doubt absorb some flavor different from an essay written under the light imparted by the "midnight oil." If nowhere else, Mr. Lowell's turns of expression, and the illustrations he uses, must have been determined by his American environment.

When we turn from Lowell the man of affairs to Lowell the man of letters, there is still some of the same American bias, but it is much subdued. Every mother thinks her own child has at least some slight superiority over all other children. As a writer on literary subjects, Men and women possessed of the patri- whether as student or critic, Mr. Lowotic spirit in far less abundance than ell had an immense advantage in his Mr. Lowell, are disposed to thank God way of putting things. His wit, his fine for their nationality, whatever it may style, vigorous and direct, like the man be; to think gratefully sometimes, himself, his genius for happy phrases, "This is my own, my native land." display his ideas in the best manner. After allowing for such a natural bent, When one has a good thing to say, it is Mr. Lowell proved himself to be, in the surely a great gain to be able to say it in sphere of letters, less a citizen of Amer- an attractive way. There would doubtica than a citizen of the world. It has less be fewer "mute inglorious Milbeen said of him that he was more Brit- tons " but for difficulties in the way of ish than American, by persons who clear and emphatic expression which no think American literature to be genuine external circumstance of birth and trainmust have its peculiar and distinctive ing can account for. On the other hand, flavor strongly indicated, forgetting that a smart style, with little or nothing American literature as a separate thing behind it, has made some men's reputahas existed for scarcely a hundred tions. The parable of "that blessed years, and that it and British literature word Mesopotamia," has an extended have their ancestry in common. Mr. significance. Mr. Lowell knew well Lowell is as well entitled as Mr. Furni- the value of a fine style. His references vall to claim Shakespeare; Professor to the subject are frequent. Thus, Masson has no rights in Milton which speaking of Chaucer, he says, "It is he may not share. When he discusses not merely what he has to say, but even

more the agreeable way he has of saying it, that captivates our attention ; " and in another place he affirms that "to make beautiful conceptions immortal by exquisiteness of phrase is to be a poet." Without style, wit is impossible and wisdom seriously handicapped; but in this particular the wit and wisdom of Mr. Lowell were well equipped. Here are a few specimens:

Truth, after all, wears a different face to everybody, and it would be too tedious to wait till all were agreed. She is said to be

at the bottom of a well, for the very reason, perhaps, that whoever looks down in search of her sees his own image at the bottom, and is persuaded not only that he has seen the goddess, but that she is far better looking than he had imagined.

Let us be of good cheer, however, remembering that the misfortunes hardest to bear are those which never come.

This reads like, and was probably a prose rendering of Emerson's quatrain: Some of your hurts you have cured,

And the sharpest you still have survived;
But what torments of grief you endured
For evils which never arrived.
Compromise makes a good umbrella, but
a poor roof.

That vindictive love of virtue which spreads the stool of repentance with thistleburrs before they invite the erring to seat themselves therein.

He was essentially an observer and artist, and incapable of partisanship. The passions, actions, sentiments, whose character and results he delighted to watch and reproduce, are those of man in society as it existed; and it no more occurred to him to question the right of that society to exist than to criticise the divine ordination of the seasons. His business was with men as they were, not with man as he ought to be. Mr. Lowell could not rest satisfied to contemplate the world after this man

ner.

The inquiry continually present in his mind was that with which Shakespeare did not concern himself- what man ought to be. The spirit of the reformer permeated him in all he did; and it was his keen sense of humor and his abundance of animal spirits which prevented him from being a reformer as stern and solemn as any of his ancestral Puritans.

As a literary critic, Mr. Lowell was at his best excellent, but he was liable to serious lapses. According to Thoreau :

We are enabled to criticise others only when we are different from and in a given particular superior to them ourselves. By our aloofness from men and their affairs we are enabled to overlook and criticise them. There are but few men who stand on the hills by the roadside.

Mr. Lowell fulfils the condition in many cases. He fulfils it when he discusses If Mr. Lowell used his keen wit for Wordsworth and Fielding; but hardly the amusement of the world, it was so effectually with, for example, Coleonly to further his main purpose of in- ridge. There was enough kinship bestructing or admonishing it. Exter- tween himself and Wordsworth to nally there may have been lightness, secure his sympathy, and enough aloofbut underneath lay a deep and seriousness for him to discern his defects and meaning. "The Biglow Papers" are give them their proper relation to the terribly in earnest; no external light- poet's character and performance. ness can hide that. Every joke in Wordsworth, says Mr. Lowell, "when "The Fable for Critics" is touched at his best startles and waylays as only with bitterness. At no time did Mr. genius can; and again, "His finest Lowell abandon himself to that light, utterances do not merely nestle in the rresponsible enjoyment which is the ear by virtue of their music, but in the charm of Oliver Wendell Holmes. He soul and life, by virtue of their meanlaughed at the follies of mankind, but ing." This is true and finely stated; there was sorrow in his laugh. It was none the less because Mr. Lowell wholly unlike Swift's laugh of scorn on plainly declares Wordsworth's limitathe one hand and Holmes's laugh of tions: "There is no admittedly great glee on the other. He could not in the poet, in placing whom we are forced to least degree assume Shakespeare's atti- acknowledge so many limitations, and tude as he described it: to make so many concessions."

The

final impression left on the mind by Mr. Lowell's criticism is entirely just, namely that Wordsworth "was not an artist in the strictest sense of the word; neither was Isaiah; but he had a rare gift, the capability of being greatly inspired."

not know what it was to falter when an arduous duty had to be done, could not, in the case of Coleridge, "stand on the hills by the roadside." He saw only failure, and missed the truth that whatever Coleridge's achievements might have been, even as he was, he had few equals. The wreck of the man, if wreck it was, formed a richer treasure than can be found in most of the vessels which sail taut and trim to their desired haven.

If Mr. Lowell could understand Wordsworth so well it might be supposed he would show an equal appreciation of Coleridge, who, as a poet, was so much more artistic, and, as a thinker, was surely a man after Mr. Lowell's The famous essay on Shakespeare is own heart, or at least was one of the better described as a study made by a inspirers of the philosophic school to critic than a criticism. Here, and in which Mr. Lowell belonged. Nor was the essays on Chaucer and Spenser, Mr. he without words of praise. He admit- Lowell is on neutral ground, and the ted that in criticism Coleridge "was a reformer vanishes-almost but not teacher and interpreter whose service quite in the scholar. Man as he is was incalculable," and that "many of and ought to be no longer obtrudes to his hints and suggestions are more disturb the serenity of the student and pregnant than whole treatises ;' but book-lover. Now, and when he is disthe total impression he leaves is pre-cussing "Books and Libraries," and cisely the reverse of that left in the case" A Library of Old Authors," or when, of Wordsworth; it is the impression, in bookish mood, he is saying "A Good not of a great man with certain limita- Word for Winter," he is at his pleastions, but of infinite possibilities hopelessly wrecked; and the discussion ends in a strain of moral platitudinizing, more like the utterance of one of Doctor Oliver Wendell Holmes's New England deacons, who say "haow," than of a broad-minded New England critic. Happily, in no other instance, so far as I know, has Mr. Lowell adopted such a tone.

antest. Personal allusion, sometimes
satirical, is not wanting, but coming
from the author in his literary mood, it
makes the discourse piquant while it
leaves no sting. Our author now is
not less wise, witty, and instructive
than when he is riding a hobby or pro-
moting an
"ism;
" and he is far more
gracious. He has himself told us that
The true artist in language is never
spotty, and needs no guide-board of ad-
miring italics, a critical method introduced
by Leigh Hunt, whose feminine nature
gave him acute perceptions at the expense
of judgment.

The truth seems to be that Coleridge's special weakness was just the one, above all others, with which Mr. Lowell could feel no sympathy and even no tolerance. Coleridge was, says Mr. Lowell, "the most striking example in He partly contradicts himself when, literature of a great genius given in on another occasion, he asks: "Is this, trust to a nerveless will and a fitful pur- then, what poets are good for, that we pose." The Puritan in Mr. Lowell may darken them with our elucidations, could tolerate Fielding's coarseness, or bury them out of sight under the perceiving that though "the woof of gathering silt of our comments?" and his nature was coarse and animal," his adds the opinion that "we should be books offend, "not because they would satisfied if poetry be delightful or helpcorrupt, but because they would shock." | ful or inspiring, or all these together,' But Mr. Lowell could not tolerate a without considering too nicely why it is weak will. Wordsworth was "almost so. Those of us who find delight in irritatingly respectable;" but that was Leigh Hunt's literary appreciations far better than Coleridge's want of must count it a merit and not a defect steadfastness. Mr. Lowell, who did in Mr. Lowell that he, too, on occasion,