THE BIGLOW PAPERS of 184648 immortalized Lowell. Those who admire most his later work in the upper walks of literary criticism have not demonstrated to the satisfaction of the public at largewhich in every such case is the court of last resortthat Lowell did not surpass himself for a lifetime in them. He was transported out of himself by the events of the decade of the Mexican War, and his hot indignation at the manner in which that weak republic was overrun drove him to humor in simple despair of doing the subject justice by serious denunciation. When he makes Mr. Biglow quote the patriotic editor of the time, we can see the white heat of Lowells indignation under the pretense of humor in such lines as these:
I du believe wutever trash | |
ll keep the people in blindness, | |
Thet we the Mexicuns can thrash | |
Right inter brotherly kindness, | |
Thet bombshells, grape, an powder n ball | |
Air good-wills strongest magnets, | |
Thet peace, to make it stick at all, | |
Must be druv in with bagnets. |
Lowell was born at Cambridge, Massachusetts, February 22d, 1819. Graduating at Harvard College in 1838, he published three years later A Years Life, and followed it up in 1844 with a second book of verse. Others followed in 1848, and at intervals until 1876. The Vision of Sir Launfal in 1845, A Fable for Critics in 1848, and the Biglow Papers in 184648, had given him full assurance of an enduring reputation, and when Longfellow resigned his professorship at Harvard, Lowell became his successor. From 1857 to 1862 he edited the Atlantic Monthly, and from 1863 to 1872 the North American Review. From 1877 to 1885 he remained abroad as minister to Spain and to Great Britain. After his return he delivered a course of lectures on the English Dramatists at the Lowell Institute. Besides lecturing and speaking on subjects of popular interest, he continued to take the most active interest in politics until his death, August 12th, 1891. With George William Curtis and William Cullen Bryant, he gives the best illustration we have had in the United States of the power of the Scholar in Politics. From the time he wrote the Biglow Papers until his death, he carried at the point of his single pen at least as much power as the greatest newspaper in the country. He made as many mistakes in using it as most men make in learning to realize their capacities and responsibilities; but it is his chief glory, as it must be of every efficient man, that he did not allow the dread of mistakes or the shame of failure to prevent him from doing his best to the top of his bent. He was essentially a New Englander, and a great New Englander. When continental America produces a man representing to itself Lowells relation to New England, we shall certainly have a man indeed.