'
"Well, bad win to the bit of it he'd gi' me, and the ould
chap begins bowin' and scrapin', and said something or other
about long tongs.
"Well, bad win to the bit of it he'd gi' me, and the ould
chap begins bowin' and scrapin', and said something or other
about long tongs.
Warner - World's Best Literature - v16 to v20 - Phi to Qui
9217 (#229) ###########################################
SAMUEL LOVER
9217
his own composing; he could draw caricatures of an entire dinner-
company; he could recite in the richest brogue, Irish stories of his
own writing: and every social assemblage welcomed him.
In 1832 he had the good fortune to paint an admirable miniature
of Paganini, which the best critics pronounced a study worthy of
Gerard Dow. The admiration it excited in London led in time to his
removal thither. His gift for friendship soon attracted to his fireside
clever personages like Talfourd, Campbell, Jerrold, Mahony, Barham,
Mrs. Jamieson, Allan Cunningham, Lady Blessington, Sydney Smith,
Maclise, and Wilkie. Moore was already an old friend. The beauti-
ful Malibran and the clever Madame Vestris became his patrons, and
his work was soon the fashion.
He had already published illustrated by his own etchings—a
successful series of Irish sketches, containing that delightful absurdity
'The Gridiron,' and 'Paddy the Piper. ' After settling in London he
brought out a second volume of the 'Legends and Tales,' and became
a contributor to the new Bentley's Miscellany. His three-volume
novel of 'Rory O'More' appeared in 1836. Of the title character
Mahony wrote: "Hearty, honest, comic, sensible, tender, faithful, and
courageous, Rory is the true ideal of the Irish peasant,—the humble
hero who embodies so much of the best of the national character,
and almost lifts simple emotion to the same height as ripened mind. "
This novel Lover dramatized with immense success; which encouraged
him to write The White Horse of the Peppers,' three or four other
plays, two or three operettas for Madame Vestris, and both the words
and music of Il Paddy Whack in Italia,' a capital whimsicality.
His portrait was included in Maclise's 'Gallery of Celebrities'; and
Blackwood "discovered" him as "a new poet who is also musician,
painter, and novelist, and therefore quadruply worth wondering at. »
It was his clever countrywoman, Lady Morgan, who first prompted
him to the writing of Irish songs. His 'Rory O'More' took the gen-
eral fancy. To its strains the Queen at her coronation was escorted
to Buckingham Palace. To its strains the peasant baby in its box
cradle fell asleep. To its strains Phelim O'Shea footed the reel. at
Limerick Fair, and the ladies at Dublin Castle trod their quadrille.
'Molly Carew,' a better piece of work, would doubtless have at-
tracted equal favor, had not the music been more difficult. 'Widow
Machree,' written for the whimsical tale of 'Handy Andy,' is full of
Irish character. What Will Ye Do, Love? ' written also for 'Handy
Andy,' fairly sings itself; and 'How to Ask and Have' is as pretty a
piece of coquetry as any gray-eyed and barefooted beauty ever devised.
'The Road of Life,' which is the song of the Irish post-boy, was
Lover's own favorite, because of its note of unobtrusive pathos. In
another group are included the laughing 'Low-Backed Car,' 'The Girl
I Left Behind Me,' 'Mary of Tipperary,' 'Molly Bawn,' and 'The
XVI-577
―
## p. 9218 (#230) ###########################################
9218
SAMUEL LOVER
Bowld Sojer Boy. ' In all, Lover published two hundred and sixty-
three songs, for more than two hundred of which he wrote or adapted
the music.
'Handy Andy,' his best novel, was published in 1842. It is almost
without a plot; but unrivaled as a sketch of the blundering, stupid,
inconsequent peasant, whose heart is as kind as his head is dense.
In 1844 appeared Lover's most elaborate novel, Treasure Trove';
not so good a piece of work as its predecessors. His eyesight had
begun to fail, and his purse was light. He therefore invented an
entertainment called "Irish Evenings," in which he read his own
stories and sang his own songs. Successful in England and Ireland,
he decided in 1846 to try his fortune in the United States, where he
traveled from Boston to New Orleans and back to Montreal, appear-
ing before delighted audiences. On his return to England in 1848 he
produced "American Evenings," whose Yankee songs and backwoods
stories met with great favor.
During the last years of his life he wrote songs and magazine
papers, and painted pictures; but attempted no continuous literary
work. His health was delicate; and the need of constant labor, hap-
pily, was over. He removed to the soft climate of St. Helier's, on
the Isle of Jersey; and there the kindly gentleman and accomplished.
artist faded gently out of life. He died in the midsummer of 1868,
and was buried at Kensal Green Cemetery. He loved his race with
an affection not the less fond that it was not uncritical; and it is
his merit to have written the best Irish peasant sketches and the
best Irish peasant songs in the language.
THE LOW-BACKED CAR
HEN first I saw sweet Peggy,
'Twas on a market day;
WH
A low-backed car she drove, and sat
Upon a truss of hay;
But when that hay was blooming grass,
And decked with flowers of spring,
No flower was there
That could compare
To the blooming girl I sing.
As she sat in her low-backed car,
The man at the turnpike bar
Never asked for the toll-
But just rubbed his owld poll,
And looked after the low-backed car!
## p. 9219 (#231) ###########################################
SAMUEL LOVER
9219
In battle's wild commotion,
The proud and mighty Mars
With hostile scythes demands his tithes
Of Death, in warlike cars!
But Peggy-peaceful goddess-
Has darts in her bright eye
That knock men down
In the market town,
As right and left they fly!
While she sits in her low-backed car,
Than battle more dangerous far;
For the doctor's art
Cannot cure the heart
That is hit from that low-backed car.
Sweet Peggy round her car, sir,
Has strings of ducks and geese,
But the scores of hearts she slaughters
By far outnumber these;
While she among her poultry sits,
Just like a turtle dove,—
Well worth the cage,
I do engage,
Of the blooming god of Love.
While she sits in her low-backed car,
The lovers come near and far,
And envy the chicken
That Peggy is pickin'
While she sits in the low-backed car.
I'd rather own that car, sir,
With Peggy by my side,
Than a coach and four, and gold galore,
And a lady for my bride;
For the lady would sit forninst me,
On a cushion made with taste,
While Peggy would be beside me,
With my arm around her waist,
As we drove in the low-backed car
To be married by Father Maher.
Oh, my heart would beat high,
At her glance and her sigh,
Though it beat in a low-backed car.
## p. 9220 (#232) ###########################################
9220
SAMUEL LOVER
WIDOW MACHREE
ow machree, it's no wonder you frown,
Och hone! widow machree:
WIDOW
Faith, it ruins your looks, that same dirty black gown.
Och hone! widow machree.
How altered your air,
With that close cap you wear
'Tis destroying your hair,
—
Which should be flowing free:
Be no longer a churl
Of its black silken curl,
Och hone! widow machree!
Widow machree, now the summer is come,-
Och hone! widow machree,—
When everything smiles, should a beauty look glum?
Och hone! widow machree!
See, the birds go in pairs,
And the rabbits and hares.
Why, even the bears
Now in couples agree.
And the mute little fish,
Though they can't spake, they wish,-
Och hone! widow machree!
-
Widow machree, and when winter comes in,
Och hone! widow machree,
To be poking the fire all alone is a sin,
Och hone! widow machree!
Sure the shovel and tongs
To each other belongs,
And the kettle sings songs
Full of family glee;
While alone with your cup,
Like a hermit you sup,
Och hone! widow machree!
And how do you know, with the comforts I've towld,
Och hone! widow machree,
But you're keeping some poor fellow out in the cowld?
Och hone! widow machree!
With such sins on your head,
Sure your peace would be fled.
Could you sleep in your bed,
Without thinking to see
## p. 9221 (#233) ###########################################
SAMUEL LOVER
9221
Some ghost or some sprite,
That would wake you each night,
Crying, "Och hone! widow machree! »
Then take my advice, darling widow machree,
Och hone! widow machree;
And with my advice, faith, I wish you'd take me,
Och hone! widow machree!
You'd have me to desire
Then to stir up the fire;
And sure Hope is no liar
In whispering to me
That the ghosts would depart
When you'd me near your heart,
Och hone! widow machree!
HOW TO ASK AND HAVE
H, 'TIS time I should talk to your mother,
"O" Sweet Mary," says I.
"Oh, don't talk to my mother," says Mary,
Beginning to cry:
"For my mother says men are deceivers,
And never, I know, will consent;
She says girls in a hurry who marry
At leisure repent. "
"Then suppose I would talk to your father,
Sweet Mary," says I.
"Oh, don't talk to my father," says Mary,
Beginning to cry:
"For my father, he loves me so dearly,
He'll never consent I should go-
If you talk to my father," says Mary,
"He'll surely say 'No. '»
"Then how shall I get you, my jewel?
Sweet Mary," says I:
"If your father and mother's so cruel,
Most surely I'll die! "
"Oh, never say die, dear," says Mary;
"A way now to save you I see:
Since my parents are both so contrary-
You'd better ask me. "
## p. 9222 (#234) ###########################################
SAMUEL LOVER
9222
THE GRIDIRON
OR, PADDY MULLOWNEY'S TRAVELS IN FRANCE
"B
Y-THE-BY, Sir John," said the master, addressing a distin-
guished guest, "Pat has a very curious story which some-
thing you told me to-day reminds me of. You remember,
Pat" (turning to the man, evidently pleased at the notice thus
paid to himself), "you remember that queer adventure you had
in France? "
"Throth I do, sir," grins forth Pat.
"What! " exclaims Sir John, in feigned surprise, "was Pat
ever in France ? »
"Indeed he was," cries mine host; and Pat adds, "Ay, and
farther, plaze your Honor. "
"I assure you, Sir John," continues my host, "Pat told me a
story once that surprised me very much respecting the ignorance
of the French. "
"Indeed! " rejoins the baronet; "really, I always supposed the
French to be a most accomplished people. "
"Throth then, they're not, sir," interrupts Pat.
"Oh, by no means," adds mine host, shaking his head emphati-
cally.
"I believe, Pat, 'twas when you were crossing the Atlantic? "
says the master, turning to Pat with a seductive air, and leading
into the "full and true account" (for Pat had thought fit to visit
North Amerikay, for "a raison he had," in the autumn of the
year 'ninety-eight).
"Yes, sir," says Pat, "the broad Atlantic";- a favorite phrase
of his, which he gave with a brogue as broad, almost, as the
Atlantic itself. "It was the time I was lost in crassin' the broad
Atlantic, a-comin' home," began Pat, decoyed into the recital;
"whin the winds began to blow, and the sae to rowl, that you'd
think the Colleen Dhas (that was her name) would not have a
mast left but what would rowl out of her.
"Well, sure enough, the masts went by the boord at last, and
the pumps were choaked (divil choak them for that same), and
av coorse the wather gained an us; and throth, to be filled with
wather is neither good for man or baste; and she was sinkin'
fast, settlin' down, as the sailors calls it; and faith, I never was
good at settlin' down in my life, and I liked it then less nor
ever: accordingly we prepared for the worst, and put out the
## p. 9223 (#235) ###########################################
SAMUEL LOVER
9223
boat, and got a sack o' bishkits, and a cashk o' pork, and a kag
o' wather, and a thrifle o' rum aboord, and any other little mat-
thers we could think iv in the mortial hurry we wor in-and
faith, there was no time to be lost, for my darlint, the Colleen
Dhas went down like a lump o' lead afore we wor many sthrokes
o' the oar away from her.
"Well, we dhrifted away all that night, and next mornin' we
put up a blanket an the ind av a pole as well as we could, and
then we sailed iligant; for we darn't show a stitch o' canvas the
night before, bekase it was blowin' like bloody murther, savin'
your presence, and sure it's the wondher of the world we worn't
swally'd alive by the ragin' sae.
―
"Well, away we wint for more nor a week, and nothin'
before our two good-lookin' eyes but the canophy iv heaven and
the wide ocean, - the broad Atlantic; not a thing was to be seen
but the sae and the sky: and though the sae and the sky is
mighty purty things in themselves, throth they're no great things
when you've nothin' else to look at for a week together; and the
barest rock in the world, so it was land, would be more welkim.
And then soon enough, throth-our provisions began to run
low; the bishkits, and the wather, and the rum,-throth that was
gone first of all,- God help uz: and oh! it was thin that starva-
tion began to stare us in the face. 'Oh, murther, murther,
captain darlint,' says I, 'I wish we could see land anywhere,'
says I.
"More power to your elbow, Paddy, my boy,' says he, 'for
sich a good wish; and throth it's myself wishes the same. '
"Oh,' says I, 'that it may plaze you, sweet queen iv heaven,
supposing it was only a dissolute island,' says I, 'inhabited wid
Turks, sure they wouldn't be such bad Christians as to refuse us
a bit and a sup. '
"Whisht, whisht, Paddy,' says the captain, 'don't be talkin'
bad of any one,' says he; 'you don't know how soon you may
want a good word put in for yourself, if you should be called to
quarters in th' other world all of a suddint,' says he.
"Thrue for you, captain darlint,' says I,-I called him darlint
and made free wid him, you see, bekase disthress makes uz all
equal,—'thrue for you, captain jewel: God betune uz and harm,
I owe no man any spite;'-and throth that was only thruth.
Well, the last bishkit was sarved out, and by gor, the wather
itself was all gone at last, and we passed the night mighty cowld.
## p. 9224 (#236) ###########################################
9224
SAMUEL LOVER
Well, at the break o' day the sun riz most beautiful out o' the
waves that was as bright as silver and as clear as chrysthal. But
it was only the more cruel upon us, for we wor beginnin' to feel
terrible hungry; when all at wanst I thought I spied the land.
By gor I thought I felt my heart up in my throat in a minnit,
and 'Thunder an turf, captain,' says I, 'look to leeward,' says I.
"What for? ' says he.
<<<I think I see the land,' says I.
"So he ups with his bring-'m-near (that's what the sailors call
a spy-glass, sir), and looks out, and sure enough it was.
«Hurrah! ' says he, 'we're all right now: pull away, my
boys,' says he.
"Take care you're not mistaken,' says I; 'maybe it's only a
fog-bank, captain darlint,' says I.
"Oh no,' says he, 'it's the land in airnest. '
"Oh then, whereabouts in the wide world are we, captain? '
says I: 'maybe it id be in Roosia, or Proosia, or the Jarman
Oceant? ' says I.
"Tut, you fool,' says he,- for he had that consaited way
wid him, thinkin' himself cleverer nor any one else, 'tut, you
fool,' says he, 'that's France,' says he.
"Tare an ouns,' says I, 'do you tell me so? and how do
you know it's France it is, captain dear? ' says I.
«Bekase this is the Bay o' Bishky we're in now,' says he.
"Throth I was thinkin' so myself,' says I, 'by the rowl it
has; for I often heerd av it in regard of that same:' and throth
the likes av it I never seen before nor since, and with the help
o' God, never will.
-
"Well, with that my heart began to grow light: and when I
seen my life was safe I began to grow twice hungrier nor ever;
so says I, 'Captain jewel, I wish we had a gridiron. '
"Why, then,' says he, 'thunder and turf,' says he, 'what
puts a gridiron into your head? '
«Bekase I'm starvin' with the hunger,' says I.
"And sure, bad luck to you,' says he, 'you couldn't ate a
gridiron,' says he, 'barrin you wor a pelican o' the wildherness,'
says he.
"Ate a gridiron! ' says I; 'och, in throth I'm not sich a
gommoch all out as that, anyhow. But sure if we had a grid-
iron we could dress a beefsteak,' says I.
"Arrah! but where's the beefsteak? ' says he.
## p. 9225 (#237) ###########################################
SAMUEL LOVER
9225
"Sure, couldn't we cut a slice aff the pork? ' says I.
"Be gor, I never thought o' that,' says the captain. "You're
a clever fellow, Paddy,' says he, laughin'.
"Oh, there's many a thrue word said in joke,' says I.
"Thrue for you, Paddy,' says he.
"Well, then,' says I, 'if you put me ashore there beyant'
(for we were nearing the land all the time), 'and sure I can ax
thim for to lind me the loan of a gridiron,' says I.
"Oh, by gor, the butther's comin' out o' the stirabout in
airnest now,' says he: 'you gommoch,' says he, 'sure I towld
you before that's France, and sure they're all furriners there,'
says the captain.
"'Well,' says I, 'and how do you know but I'm as good a
furriner myself as any o' thim? '
"What do you mane? ' says he.
"I mane,' says I, 'what I towld you: that I'm as good a fur-
riner myself as any o' thim. ’
"Make me sinsible,' says he.
"By dad, maybe that's more nor me, or greater nor me,
could do,' says I;- and we all began to laugh at him, for I
thought I'd pay him off for his bit o' consait about the Jarman
Oceant.
"Lave aff your humbuggin',' says he, 'I bid you; and tell
me what it is you mane, at all at all. '
"Parly voo frongsay? ' says I.
"Oh, your humble sarvant,' says he: 'why, by gor, you're a
scholar, Paddy. '
like.
«<<Throth, you may say that,' says I.
"Why, you're a clever fellow, Paddy,' says the captain, jeerin'
"You're not the first that said that,' says I, 'whether you
joke or no. '
"Oh, but I'm in airnest,' says the captain; 'and do you tell
me, Paddy,' says he, 'that you spake Frinch? '
"Parly voo frongsay? ' says I.
"By gor, that bangs Banagher; and all the world knows
Banagher bangs the divil. I never met the likes o' you, Paddy,'
says he: 'pull away, boys, and put Paddy ashore, and maybe we
won't get a good bellyful before long. '
"So with that it was no sooner said nor done; they pulled
away and got close into shore in less than no time, and run the
## p. 9226 (#238) ###########################################
9226
SAMUEL LOVER
boat up in a little creek, and a beautiful creek it was, with a
lovely white sthrand,—an iligant place for ladies to bathe in the
summer, and out I got: and it's stiff enough in my limbs I was,
afther bein' cramped up in the boat, and perished with the cowld
and hunger; but I conthrived to scramble on, one way or t'other,
towards a little bit iv a wood that was close to the shore, and the
smoke curlin' out of it, quite timptin' like.
« ་
"By the powdhers o' war, I'm all right,' says I,-'there's a
house there;' and sure enough there was, and a parcel of men,
women, and childher ating their dinner round a table quite con-
vaynient. And so I wint up to the door, and I thought I'd be
very civil to thim, as I heerd the Frinch was always mighty
p'lite intirely — and I thought I'd show them I knew what good
manners was.
"So I took aff my hat, and making a low bow, says I, ‘God
save all here,' says I.
"Well, to be sure, they all stopped ating at wanst, and begun
to stare at me; and faith they almost looked me out of counte-
nance; and I thought to myself it was not good manners at all—
more betoken from furriners, which they call so mighty p'lite:
but I never minded that, in regard o' wantin' the gridiron; and
so says I, I beg your pardon,' says I, 'for the liberty I take,
but it's only bein' in disthress in regard of ating,' says I, 'that
I make bowld to throuble yez, and if you could lind me the loan
of a gridiron,' says I, 'I'd be entirely obleeged to ye. '
"By gor, they all stared at me twice worse nor before; and
with that says I (knowin' what was in their minds), 'indeed, it's
thrue for you,' says I, 'I'm tatthered to pieces, and God knows
I look quare enough; but it's by raison of the storm,' says I,
'which dhruv us ashore here below, and we're all starvin',' says I.
"So then they began to look at each other agin; and myself,
seeing at wanst dirty thoughts was in their heads, and that they
tuk me for a poor beggar comin' to crave charity, -with that
says I, 'Oh! not at all,' says I, 'by no manes: we have plenty
o' mate ourselves there below, and we'll dhress it,' says I, 'if
you would be pleased to lind us the loan of a gridiron,' says I,
makin' a low bow.
«< Well, sir, with that, throth they stared at me twice worse
nor ever: and faith, I began to think that maybe the captain was
wrong, and that it was not France at all at all; and so says I,
'I beg pardon, sir,' says I, to a fine ould man with a head of
## p. 9227 (#239) ###########################################
SAMUEL LOVER
9227
hair as white as silver,-'maybe I'm undher a mistake,' says I,
'but I thought I was in France, sir: aren't you furriners? ' says
I. Parly voo frongsay? '
"We, munseer,' says he.
"Then would you lind me the loan of a gridiron,' says I, 'if
you plase? '
"Oh, it was thin that they stared at me as if I had seven
heads: and faith, myself began to feel flusthered like, and onaisy;
and so says I, makin' a bow and scrape agin, 'I know it's a lib-
erty I take, sir,' says I, 'but it's only in the regard of bein' cast
away; and if you plase, sir,' says I, Parly voo frongsay?
"We, munseer,' says he, mighty sharp.
"Then would you lind me the loan of a gridiron? ' says I,
'and you'll obleege me. '
"Well, sir, the ould chap began to 'munseer' me; but the
divil a bit of a gridiron he'd gi' me: and so I began to think
they wor all neygars, for all their fine manners; and throth my
blood begun to rise, and says I, 'By my sowl, if it was you was
in disthriss,' says I, 'and if it was to ould Ireland you kem, it's
not only the gridiron they'd give you, if you axed it, but some-
thing to put an it too, and the dhrop o' drink into the bargain,
and cead mile failte. '
"Well, the words cead mile failte seemed to sthreck his heart,
and the ould chap cocked his ear: and so I thought I'd give an-
other offer, and make him sinsible at last; and so says I wanst
more, quite slow, that he might understand, 'Parly-voo-frong-
say, munseer? ›
"We, munseer,' says he.
«Then lind me the loan of a gridiron,' says I, 'and bad
scram to you.
'
"Well, bad win to the bit of it he'd gi' me, and the ould
chap begins bowin' and scrapin', and said something or other
about long tongs.
«Phoo! the divil sweep yourself and your tongs,' says I: 'I
don't want a tongs at all at all; but can't you listen to raison? '
says I: 'Parly voo frongsay? '
«་ 'We, munseer. '
"Then lind me the loan of a gridiron,' says I, 'and howld
your prate. '
"Well, what would you think but he shook his owld noddle
as much as to say he wouldn't; and so says I, 'Bad cess to the
## p. 9228 (#240) ###########################################
9228
SAMUEL LOVER
likes o' that I ever seen,-throth if you wor in my country it's
not that-a-way they'd use you: the curse o' the crows an you,
you owld sinner,' says I, 'the divil a longer I'll darken your
door. '
"So he seen I was vexed; and I thought, as I was turnin'
away, I seen him begin to relint, and that his conscience throub-
led him; and says I, turnin' back, 'Well, I'll give you one chance
more, you ould thief,- are you a Chrishthan at all at all? are
you a furriner? ' says I, 'that all the world calls so p'lite. Bad
luck to you, do you undherstand your own language? -parly voo
frongsay? ' says I.
"We, munseer,' says he.
"Then thunder an turf,' says I, will you lind me the loan
of a gridiron ? ›
"Well, sir, the divil resave the bit of it he'd gi' me: and so
with that, 'the curse o' the hungry an you, you ould negarly
villian,' says I; 'the back o' my hand and the sowl o' my fut to
you, that you may want a gridiron yourself yit,' says I; 'and
wherever I go, high and low, rich and poor, shall hear o' you,'
says I and with that I left them there, sir, and kem away-and
in throth it's often sence that I thought that it was remarkable. ”
-
## p. 9228 (#241) ###########################################
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## p. 9228 (#244) ###########################################
#
41
## p. 9229 (#245) ###########################################
9229
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
(1819-1891)
BY HENRY JAMES
塞
HE formula would not be hard to find which would best, at
the outset, introduce to readers the author of the following
extracts and specimens. With a certain close propriety that
seems to give him, among Americans of his time, the supreme right,
James Russell Lowell wears the title of a man of letters. He was a
master of verse and a political disputant; he was to some extent a
journalist, and in a high degree an orator; he administered learning
in a great university; he was concerned, in his later years, with pub-
lic affairs, and represented in two foreign countries the interests
of the United States. Yet there is only one term to which, in an
appreciation, we can without a sense of injustice give precedence over
the others. He was the American of his time most saturated with
literature and most directed to criticism; the American also whose
character and endowment were such as to give this saturation and
this direction-this intellectual experience, in short-most value.
He added to the love of learning the love of expression; and his
attachment to these things-to poetry, to history, to language, form,
and style was such as to make him, the greater part of his life,
more than anything a man of study: but his temperament was proof
against the dryness of the air of knowledge, and he remained to the
end the least pale, the least passionless of scholars.
He was born at Cambridge, Massachusetts, on February 22, 1819,
and died in the same house on August 12th, 1891. His inheritance of
every kind contributed to the easy play of his gifts and the rich uni-
formity of his life. He was of the best and oldest New England –
of partly clerical-stock; a stock robust and supple, and which has
given to its name many a fruit-bearing branch. We read him but
dimly in not reading into him, as it were, everything that was pres-
ent, around him, in race and place; and perhaps also in not seeing
him in relation to some of the things that were absent. He is one
more instance of the way in which the poet's message is almost
always, as to what it contains or omits, a testimony to personal
circumstance, a communication of the savor of the mother soil. He
as New
figures to us thus more handsomely than any competitor -
-
## p. 9230 (#246) ###########################################
9230
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
England conscious of its powers and its standards, New England
accomplished and articulate. He grew up in clerical and collegiate
air, at half an hour's walk from the cluster of homely halls that
are lost to-day in the architectural parade of the modernized Harvard.
He spent fifty years of his life in the shade, or the sunshine, of Alma
Mater; a connection which was to give his spirit just enough of the
unrest of responsibility, and his style just too much perhaps of the
authority of the pedagogue. His early years unfolded with a secur-
ity and a simplicity that the middle ones enriched without disturbing;
and the long presence of which, with its implications of leisure, of
quietude, of reflection and concentration, supplies in all his work an
element of agreeable relish not lessened by the suggestion of a cer-
tain meagreness of personal experience. He took his degree in 1838;
he married young, in 1844, then again in 1857; he inherited, on the
death of his father in 1861, the commodious old house of Elmwood
(in those days more embowered and more remote), in which his life
was virtually to be spent. With a small family — a single daughter —
but also a small patrimony, and a deep indifference — his abiding char-
acteristic to any question of profit or fortune, the material con-
dition he had from an early time to meet was the rather blank face
turned to the young American who in that age, and in the consecrated
phrase, embraced literature as a profession. The embrace, on Lowell's
part as on that of most such aspirants, was at first more tender than
coercive; and he was no exception to the immemorial rule of pro-
pitiating the idol with verse. This verse took in 1841 the form of his
first book; a collection of poems elsewhere printed and unprinted, but
not afterwards republished.
His history from this time, at least for many years, would be
difficult to write save as a record of stages, phases, dates too particu-
lar for a summary. The general complexion of the period is best
presented in the simple statement that he was able to surrender on
the spot to his talent and his taste. There is something that fairly
charms, as we look at his life, in the almost complete elimination of
interference or deviation: it makes a picture exempt from all shadow
of the usual image of genius hindered or inclination blighted. Drama
and disaster could spring as little from within as from without; and
no one in the country probably led a life-certainly for so long a
time-of intellectual amenity so great in proportion to its intensity.
There was more intensity perhaps for such a spirit as Emerson's: but
there was, if only by that fact, more of moral ravage and upheaval;
there was less of applied knowledge and successful form, less of the
peace of art.
Emerson's utterance, his opinions, seem to-day to give
us a series, equally full of beauty and void of order, of noble exper-
iments and fragments. Washington Irving and Longfellow, on the
## p. 9231 (#247) ###########################################
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
9231
other hand, if they show us the amenity, show us also, in their
greater abundance and diffusion, a looseness, an exposure; they sit as
it were with open doors, more or less in the social draught. Haw-
thorne had further to wander and longer to wait; and if he too, in
the workshop of art, kept tapping his silver hammer, it was never
exactly the nail of thought that he strove to hit on the head. What
is true of Hawthorne is truer still of Poe; who, if he had the peace
of art, had little of any other. Lowell's evolution was all in what I
have called his saturation, in the generous scale on which he was
able to gather in and to store up impressions. The three terms of
his life for most of the middle time were a quiet fireside, a quiet
library, a singularly quiet community. The personal stillness of the
world in which for the most part he lived, seems to abide in the
delightful paper-originally included in 'Fireside Travels' on 'Cam-
bridge Thirty Years Ago. ' It gives the impression of conditions.
in which literature might well become an alternate world, and old
books, old authors, old names, old stories, constitute in daily com-
merce the better half of one's company. Complications and dis-
tractions were not, even so far as they occurred, appreciably his own
portion; except indeed for their being-some of them, in their degree
- of the general essence of the life of letters. If books have their
destinies, they have also their antecedents; and in the face of the
difficulty of trying for perfection with a rough instrument, it cannot
of course be said that even concentration shuts the door upon pain.
If Lowell had all the joys of the scholar and the poet, he was also,
and in just that degree, not a stranger to the pangs and the weari-
ness that accompany the sense of exactitude, of proportion, and of
beauty; that feeling for intrinsic success, which in the long run
becomes a grievous burden for shoulders that have in the rash con-
fidence of youth accepted it,- becomes indeed in the artist's breast
the incurable, intolerable ache.
But such drama as could not mainly, after all, be played out
within the walls of his library, came to him, on the whole, during
half a century, only in two or three other forms. I mention first the
subordinate, which were all, as well, in the day's work: the long
grind of teaching the promiscuous and preoccupied young, and those.
initiations of periodical editorship which, either as worries or as tri-
umphs, may never perhaps be said to strike very deep. In 1855 he
entered, at Harvard College, upon the chair just quitted by Longfel
low: a comprehensive professorship in literature, that of France and
that of Spain in particular. He conducted on its foundation, for four
years, the Atlantic Monthly; and carried on from 1862, in conjunc-
tion with Mr. Charles Eliot Norton, the North American Review, in
which his best critical essays appeared. There were published the
## p. 9232 (#248) ###########################################
9232
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
admirable article on Lessing, that on 'Rousseau and the Sentiment-
alists,' that on Carlyle's 'Frederick the Great,' the rich, replete paper
on Witchcraft,' the beautiful studies (1872-1875) of Dante, Spenser,
and Wordsworth; and the brilliant jeux d'esprit, as their overflow of
critical wit warrants our calling them, on such subjects as (1866)
sundry infirmities of the poetical temper of Swinburne, or such occas-
ions as were offered (1865) by the collected writings of Thoreau, or
(1867) by the 'Life and Letters' of James Gates Percival,- occasions
mainly to run to earth a certain shade of the provincial spirit. Of
his career from early manhood to the date of his going in 1877 as
minister to Spain, the two volumes of his correspondence published
in 1893 by Mr. Norton give a picture reducible to a presentment of
study in happy conditions, and of opinions on "moral" questions; an
image subsequently thrown somewhat into the shade, but still keep-
ing distinctness and dignity for those who at the time had something
of a near view of it.
Lowell's great good fortune was to believe for
so long that opinions and study sufficed him. There came in time
a day when he lent himself to more satisfactions than he literally
desired; but it is difficult to imagine a case in which the literary life
should have been a preparation for the life of the world. There was
so much in him of the man and the citizen, as well as of the poet
and the professor, that with the full reach of curiosities and sympa-
thies, his imagination found even in narrow walls, windows of long
range. It was during these years, at any rate, that his poetical and
critical spirit were formed; and I speak of him as our prime man of
letters precisely on account of the unhurried and unhindered process
of the formation. Literature was enough, without being too much,
his trade: it made of his life a reservoir never condemned, by too
much tapping, to show low water. We have had critics much more
frequent, but none more abundant; we have had poets more abund-
ant, but none more acquainted with poetry. This acquaintance with
poetry bore fruits of a quality to which I shall presently allude;
his critical activity, meantime, was the result of the impulse given
by the responsibilities of instructorship to the innermost turn of his
mind. His studies could deepen and widen at their ease. The uni-
versity air soothed, but never smothered; Europe was near enough
to touch, but not tormentingly to overlap; the intimate friends were
more excellent than numerous, the college feasts just recurrent
enough to keep wit in exercise, and the country walks not so blank
as to be unsweetened by a close poetic notation of every aspect and
secret of nature. He absorbed and lectured and wrote, talked and
edited and published; and had, the while, struck early in the day
the note from which, for a long time, his main public identity was
to spring.
## p. 9233 (#249) ###########################################
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
9233
This note, the first of the 'Biglow Papers,' was sounded in the
summer of 1846, the moment of the outbreak of the Mexican War.
It presented not quite as yet so much an "American humorist" the
more, as the very possibility or fact of the largest expressiveness in
American humor. If he was the first of the dialectic and colloquial
group in the order of time, so he was to remain, on this ground, the
master and the real authority. The 'Biglow Papers' were an acci-
dent, begun without plan or forecast: but by the accident the author
was, in a sense, determined and prompted; he himself caught from
them and from their success a fuller idea of the "Yankee » character,
lighted up by every advantage that wit and erudition could lend it.
Lowell found himself, on the spot, committed to giving it such aid
to literary existence as it could never have had without him. His
conception of all the fine things of the mind-of intelligence, hon-
esty, judgment, knowledge—was placed straight at the service of the
kind of American spirit that he was conscious of in himself, and that
he sought in his three or four typical figures to make ironic and
racy.
The 'Biglow Papers' are in this relation an extraordinary perform.
ance and a rare work of art: in what case, on the part of an artist,
has the national consciousness, passionately acute, arrived at a form
more independent, more objective? If they were a disclosure of this
particular artist's humor, and of the kind of passion that could most
possess him, they represent as well the element that for years gave
his life its main enlargement, and as may be said its main agitation,
-the element that preserved him from dryness, from the danger of
the dilettante. This safeguard was his care for public things and
national questions; those to which, even in his class-rooms and
polishings of verse, all others were subordinate. He was politically
an ardent liberal, and had from the first engaged with all the force
of his imagination on the side that has figured at all historical
moments as the cause of reform. Reform, in his younger time, meant
above all resistance to the extension of slavery; then it came to
mean- and by so doing, to give occasion during the Civil War to a
fresh and still finer Biglow' series-resistance to the pretension of
the Southern States to set up a rival republic. The two great im-
pulses he received from without were given him by the outbreak of
the war, and-after these full years and wild waves had gradually
ebbed by his being appointed minister to Spain. The latter event
began a wholly new period, though serving as a channel for much,
for even more perhaps, of the old current; meanwhile, at all events,
no account of his most productive phases at least can afford not to
touch on the large part, the supreme part, played in his life by the
intensity, and perhaps I may go so far as to say the simplicity, of
XVI-578
<
-
## p. 9234 (#250) ###########################################
9234
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
his patriotism. Patriotism had been the keynote of an infinite quan-
tity of more or less felicitous behavior; but perhaps it had never been
so much as in Lowell the keynote of reflection and of the moral
tone, of imagination and conversation. Action, in this case, could
mainly be but to feel as American as possible,—with an inevitable
overflow of course into whatever was the expression of the moment.
It might often have seemed to those who often- -or even to those
who occasionally-saw him, that his case was almost unique, and
that the national consciousness had never elsewhere been so culti-
vated save under the stress of national frustration or servitude. It
was in fact, in a manner, as if he had been aware of certain forces
that made for oppression; of some league of the nations and the arts,
some consensus of tradition and patronage, to treat as still in tutelage
or on its trial the particular connection of which he happened most
to be proud.
The secret of the situation was that he could only, could actively,
"cultivate" as a retort to cultivation. There were American phe-
nomena that, as he gathered about the world, cultivation in general
deemed vulgar; and on this all his genius rose within him to show
what his cultivation could make of them. It enabled him to make
so much that all the positive passion in his work is for the direct
benefit of patriotism. That, beyond any other irritation of the lyric
temperament, is what makes him ardent. In nothing, moreover, is
he more interesting than in the very nature of his vision of this
humorous "Yankeeism" of type. He meant something it was at that
time comparatively easy, as well as perhaps a trifle more directly
inspiring, to mean; for his life opened out backward into Puritan
solidities and dignities. However this be, at any rate, his main care
for the New England—or, as may almost be said, for the Cambridge
consciousness, as he embodied it, was that it could be fed from
as many sources as any other in the world, and assimilate them with
an ingenuity all its own: literature, life, poetry, art, wit, all the
growing experience of human intercourse. His great honor is that in
this direction he led it to high success; and if the 'Biglow Papers'
express supremely his range of imagination about it, they render the
American tone the service of placing it in the best literary company,
- that of all his other affinities and echoes, his love of the older
English and the older French, of all classics and romantics and
originals, of Dante and Goethe, of Cervantes and the Elizabethans;
his love, in particular, of the history of language and of the com-
plex questions of poetic form. If they had no other distinction, they
would have that of one of the acutest of all studies in linguistics.
They are more literary, in short, than they at first appear; which
is at once the strength and the weakness of his poetry in general,
-
## p. 9235 (#251) ###########################################
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
9235
literary indeed as most of it is at sight. The chords of his lyre were
of the precious metal, but not perhaps always of the last lyric tenu-
ity. He struck them with a hand not idle enough for mere moods,
and yet not impulsive enough for the great reverberations. He was
sometimes too ingenious, as well as too reasonable and responsible;
this leaves him, on occasion, too much in the grasp of a certain mor-
ally conservative humor,- a side on which he touches the authors of
"society" verse,- or else mixes with his emotion an intellectual sub-
stance, a something alien, that tends to stiffen and retard it. Per-
haps I only mean indeed that he had always something to say, and
his sturdiness as well as his "cleverness" about the way it should
be said. It is congruous, no doubt, with his poetic solidity that his
highest point in verse is reached by his 'Harvard Commemoration
Ode,' a poem for an occasion at once public and intimate; a sustained
lament for young lives, in the most vividly sacrificed of which he
could divide with the academic mother something of the sentiment of
proud ownership. It is unfair to speak of lines so splendid as these
as not warmed by the noble thought with which they are charged;
-even if it be of the very nature of the English ode to show us
always, at its best, something of the chill of the poetic Exercise.
-
I may refer, however, as little to the detail of his verse as to
that of the robust body of his prose. The latter consists of richly
accomplished literary criticism, and of a small group of public ad-
dresses; and would obviously be much more abundant were we in
possession of all the wrought material of Harvard lectures and pro-
fessorial talks. If we are not, it is because Lowell recognized no
material as wrought till it had passed often through the mill. He
embarked on no magnum opus, historical, biographical, critical; he
contented himself with uttering thought that had great works in its
blood. It was for the great works and the great figures he cared; he
was a critic of a pattern mainly among ourselves superseded — super-
seded so completely that he seems already to have receded into
time, and to belong to an age of vulgarity less blatant. If he was in
educated appreciation the most distinct voice that the United States
had produced, this is partly, no doubt, because the chatter of the
day and the triumph of the trivial could even then still permit him
to be audible, permit him to show his office as supported on knowl-
edge and on a view of the subject. He represented so well the use
of a view of the subject that he may be said to have represented
best what at present strikes us as most urgent; the circumstance,
namely, that so far from being a chamber surrendering itself
from the threshold to the ignorant young of either sex, criticism is
positively and miraculously not the simplest and most immediate, but
the most postponed and complicated of the arts, the last qualified
-
## p. 9236 (#252) ###########################################
9236
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
for and arrived at, the one requiring behind it most maturity, most
power to understand and compare.
One is disposed to say of him, in spite of his limited production,
that he belonged to the massive race, and even has for the present
the air of one of the last of it. The two volumes of his 'Letters'
help, in default of a biography, the rest of his work in testifying to
this; and would do so still more if the collection had comprised more
letters of the time of his last period in Europe. His diplomatic
years he was appointed in 1880 minister to England-form a chap-
ter by themselves; they gave a new turn to his career, and made a
different thing of what was to remain of it. They checked, save
here and there for an irrepressible poem, his literary production;
but they opened a new field-in the mother-land of "occasional »
oratory for his beautiful command of the spoken word. He spoke
often from this moment, and always with his admirable mixture of
breadth and wit; with so happy a surrender indeed to this gift that
his two finest addresses, that on 'Democracy' (Birmingham, 1884)
and that on the Harvard Anniversary of 1886, connect themselves
with the reconsecration, late in life, of his eloquence. It was a sin-
gular fortune, and possible for an American alone, that such a want
of peculiarly professional, of technical training, should have been
consistent with a degree of success that appeared to reduce train-
ing to unimportance. Nothing was more striking, in fact, than that
what Lowell had most in England to show was simply all the air
and all the effect of preparedness. If I have alluded to the best
name we can give him and the best niche we can make for him, let
this be partly because letters exactly met in him a more distin-
guished recognition than usually falls to their lot. It was they that
had prepared him really; prepared him-such is the subtlety of
their operation-even for the things from which they are most di-
vorced. He reached thus the phase in which he took from them as
much as he had given; represented them in a new, insidious way.
It was of course in his various speeches that his preparedness came
out most; most enjoyed the superlative chance of becoming, by the
very fact of its exercise, one of the safeguards of an international
relation that he would have blushed not to have done his utmost to
keep inviolable. He had the immense advantage that the very voice
in which he could speak so much at once that of his masculine,
pugnacious intellect, and that of the best side of the race— - was a
plea for everything the millions of English stock have in common.
This voice, as I may call it, that sounds equally in every form of
his utterance, was his great gift to his time. In poetry, in satire, in
prose, and on his lips, it was from beginning to end the manliest,
the most ringing, to be heard. He was essentially a fighter: he could
## p. 9237 (#253) ###########################################
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
9237
always begin the attack; could always, in criticism as in talk, sound
the charge and open the fire. The old Puritan conscience was deep
in him, with its strong and simple vision, even in æsthetic things, of
evil and of good, of wrong and of right; and his magnificent wit
was all at its special service. He armed it, for vindication and per-
suasion, with all the amenities, the "humanities"—with weapons as
sharp and bright as it has ever carried.
Hey Jammer
[All the poems here quoted are copyrighted, and they are reprinted by
permission of Houghton, Mifflin & Co. , publishers. ]
SI DESCENDERO IN INFERNUM, ADES
WANDERING dim on the extremest edge
O
Of God's bright providence, whose spirits sigh
Drearily in you, like the winter sedge
That shivers o'er the dead pool stiff and dry,—
A thin, sad voice, when the bold wind roars by
From the clear North of Duty,-
Still by cracked arch and broken shaft I trace
That here was once a shrine and holy place
Of the supernal beauty,
-
A child's play-altar reared of stones and moss,
With wilted flowers for offering laid across,
Mute recognition of the all-ruling Grace.
How far are ye from the innocent, from those
Whose hearts are as a little lane serene,
Smooth-heaped from wall to wall with unbroke snows,
Or in the summer blithe with lamb-cropped green,
Save the one track, where naught more rude is seen
Than the plump wain at even
Bringing home four months' sunshine bound in sheaves!
How far are ye from those! yet who believes
That ye can shut out heaven?
Your souls partake its influence, not in vain
Nor all unconscious, as that silent lane
Its drift of noiseless apple blooms receives.
## p. 9238 (#254) ###########################################
9238
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
Looking within myself, I note how thin
A plank of station, chance, or prosperous fate,
Doth fence me from the clutching waves of sin;
In my own heart I find the worst man's mate,
And see not dimly the smooth-hinged gate
That opes to those abysses
Where ye grope darkly,-ye who never knew
On your young hearts love's consecrating dew,
Or felt a mother's kisses,
Or home's restraining tendrils round you curled:
Ah,. side by side with heart's-ease in this world
The fatal nightshade grows, and bitter rue!
One band ye cannot break,- the force that clips
And grasps your circles to the central light;
Yours is the prodigal comet's long ellipse,
Self-exiled to the farthest verge of night:
Yet strives with you no less that inward might
No sin hath e'er imbruted;
The god in you the creed-dimmed eye eludes;
The Law brooks not to have its solitudes
By bigot feet polluted:
Yet they who watch your God-compelled return
May see your happy perihelion burn.
Where the calm sun his unfledged planets broods.
HEBE
SAW the twinkle of white feet,
I
I saw the flash of robes descending;
Before her ran an influence fleet,
That bowed my heart like barley bending.
As, in bare fields, the searching bees
Pilot to blooms beyond our finding,
It led me on, by sweet degrees
Joy's simple honey-cells unbinding.
Those Graces were, that seemed grim Fates;
With nearer love the sky leaned o'er me;
The long-sought Secret's golden gates
On musical hinges swung before me.
I saw the brimmed bowl in her grasp
Thrilling with godhood; like a lover
## p. 9239 (#255) ###########################################
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
9239
I sprang the proffered life to clasp;-
The beaker fell; the luck was over.
-
The earth has drunk the vintage up:
What boots it patch the goblet's splinters?
Can summer fill the icy cup,
Whose treacherous crystal is but winter's ?
O spendthrift haste! Await the gods;
The nectar crowns the lips of patience;
Haste scatters on unthankful sods
The immortal gift in vain libations.
Coy Hebe flies from those that woo,
And shuns the hands would seize upon her:
Follow thy life, and she will sue
To pour for thee the cup of honor.
SAMUEL LOVER
9217
his own composing; he could draw caricatures of an entire dinner-
company; he could recite in the richest brogue, Irish stories of his
own writing: and every social assemblage welcomed him.
In 1832 he had the good fortune to paint an admirable miniature
of Paganini, which the best critics pronounced a study worthy of
Gerard Dow. The admiration it excited in London led in time to his
removal thither. His gift for friendship soon attracted to his fireside
clever personages like Talfourd, Campbell, Jerrold, Mahony, Barham,
Mrs. Jamieson, Allan Cunningham, Lady Blessington, Sydney Smith,
Maclise, and Wilkie. Moore was already an old friend. The beauti-
ful Malibran and the clever Madame Vestris became his patrons, and
his work was soon the fashion.
He had already published illustrated by his own etchings—a
successful series of Irish sketches, containing that delightful absurdity
'The Gridiron,' and 'Paddy the Piper. ' After settling in London he
brought out a second volume of the 'Legends and Tales,' and became
a contributor to the new Bentley's Miscellany. His three-volume
novel of 'Rory O'More' appeared in 1836. Of the title character
Mahony wrote: "Hearty, honest, comic, sensible, tender, faithful, and
courageous, Rory is the true ideal of the Irish peasant,—the humble
hero who embodies so much of the best of the national character,
and almost lifts simple emotion to the same height as ripened mind. "
This novel Lover dramatized with immense success; which encouraged
him to write The White Horse of the Peppers,' three or four other
plays, two or three operettas for Madame Vestris, and both the words
and music of Il Paddy Whack in Italia,' a capital whimsicality.
His portrait was included in Maclise's 'Gallery of Celebrities'; and
Blackwood "discovered" him as "a new poet who is also musician,
painter, and novelist, and therefore quadruply worth wondering at. »
It was his clever countrywoman, Lady Morgan, who first prompted
him to the writing of Irish songs. His 'Rory O'More' took the gen-
eral fancy. To its strains the Queen at her coronation was escorted
to Buckingham Palace. To its strains the peasant baby in its box
cradle fell asleep. To its strains Phelim O'Shea footed the reel. at
Limerick Fair, and the ladies at Dublin Castle trod their quadrille.
'Molly Carew,' a better piece of work, would doubtless have at-
tracted equal favor, had not the music been more difficult. 'Widow
Machree,' written for the whimsical tale of 'Handy Andy,' is full of
Irish character. What Will Ye Do, Love? ' written also for 'Handy
Andy,' fairly sings itself; and 'How to Ask and Have' is as pretty a
piece of coquetry as any gray-eyed and barefooted beauty ever devised.
'The Road of Life,' which is the song of the Irish post-boy, was
Lover's own favorite, because of its note of unobtrusive pathos. In
another group are included the laughing 'Low-Backed Car,' 'The Girl
I Left Behind Me,' 'Mary of Tipperary,' 'Molly Bawn,' and 'The
XVI-577
―
## p. 9218 (#230) ###########################################
9218
SAMUEL LOVER
Bowld Sojer Boy. ' In all, Lover published two hundred and sixty-
three songs, for more than two hundred of which he wrote or adapted
the music.
'Handy Andy,' his best novel, was published in 1842. It is almost
without a plot; but unrivaled as a sketch of the blundering, stupid,
inconsequent peasant, whose heart is as kind as his head is dense.
In 1844 appeared Lover's most elaborate novel, Treasure Trove';
not so good a piece of work as its predecessors. His eyesight had
begun to fail, and his purse was light. He therefore invented an
entertainment called "Irish Evenings," in which he read his own
stories and sang his own songs. Successful in England and Ireland,
he decided in 1846 to try his fortune in the United States, where he
traveled from Boston to New Orleans and back to Montreal, appear-
ing before delighted audiences. On his return to England in 1848 he
produced "American Evenings," whose Yankee songs and backwoods
stories met with great favor.
During the last years of his life he wrote songs and magazine
papers, and painted pictures; but attempted no continuous literary
work. His health was delicate; and the need of constant labor, hap-
pily, was over. He removed to the soft climate of St. Helier's, on
the Isle of Jersey; and there the kindly gentleman and accomplished.
artist faded gently out of life. He died in the midsummer of 1868,
and was buried at Kensal Green Cemetery. He loved his race with
an affection not the less fond that it was not uncritical; and it is
his merit to have written the best Irish peasant sketches and the
best Irish peasant songs in the language.
THE LOW-BACKED CAR
HEN first I saw sweet Peggy,
'Twas on a market day;
WH
A low-backed car she drove, and sat
Upon a truss of hay;
But when that hay was blooming grass,
And decked with flowers of spring,
No flower was there
That could compare
To the blooming girl I sing.
As she sat in her low-backed car,
The man at the turnpike bar
Never asked for the toll-
But just rubbed his owld poll,
And looked after the low-backed car!
## p. 9219 (#231) ###########################################
SAMUEL LOVER
9219
In battle's wild commotion,
The proud and mighty Mars
With hostile scythes demands his tithes
Of Death, in warlike cars!
But Peggy-peaceful goddess-
Has darts in her bright eye
That knock men down
In the market town,
As right and left they fly!
While she sits in her low-backed car,
Than battle more dangerous far;
For the doctor's art
Cannot cure the heart
That is hit from that low-backed car.
Sweet Peggy round her car, sir,
Has strings of ducks and geese,
But the scores of hearts she slaughters
By far outnumber these;
While she among her poultry sits,
Just like a turtle dove,—
Well worth the cage,
I do engage,
Of the blooming god of Love.
While she sits in her low-backed car,
The lovers come near and far,
And envy the chicken
That Peggy is pickin'
While she sits in the low-backed car.
I'd rather own that car, sir,
With Peggy by my side,
Than a coach and four, and gold galore,
And a lady for my bride;
For the lady would sit forninst me,
On a cushion made with taste,
While Peggy would be beside me,
With my arm around her waist,
As we drove in the low-backed car
To be married by Father Maher.
Oh, my heart would beat high,
At her glance and her sigh,
Though it beat in a low-backed car.
## p. 9220 (#232) ###########################################
9220
SAMUEL LOVER
WIDOW MACHREE
ow machree, it's no wonder you frown,
Och hone! widow machree:
WIDOW
Faith, it ruins your looks, that same dirty black gown.
Och hone! widow machree.
How altered your air,
With that close cap you wear
'Tis destroying your hair,
—
Which should be flowing free:
Be no longer a churl
Of its black silken curl,
Och hone! widow machree!
Widow machree, now the summer is come,-
Och hone! widow machree,—
When everything smiles, should a beauty look glum?
Och hone! widow machree!
See, the birds go in pairs,
And the rabbits and hares.
Why, even the bears
Now in couples agree.
And the mute little fish,
Though they can't spake, they wish,-
Och hone! widow machree!
-
Widow machree, and when winter comes in,
Och hone! widow machree,
To be poking the fire all alone is a sin,
Och hone! widow machree!
Sure the shovel and tongs
To each other belongs,
And the kettle sings songs
Full of family glee;
While alone with your cup,
Like a hermit you sup,
Och hone! widow machree!
And how do you know, with the comforts I've towld,
Och hone! widow machree,
But you're keeping some poor fellow out in the cowld?
Och hone! widow machree!
With such sins on your head,
Sure your peace would be fled.
Could you sleep in your bed,
Without thinking to see
## p. 9221 (#233) ###########################################
SAMUEL LOVER
9221
Some ghost or some sprite,
That would wake you each night,
Crying, "Och hone! widow machree! »
Then take my advice, darling widow machree,
Och hone! widow machree;
And with my advice, faith, I wish you'd take me,
Och hone! widow machree!
You'd have me to desire
Then to stir up the fire;
And sure Hope is no liar
In whispering to me
That the ghosts would depart
When you'd me near your heart,
Och hone! widow machree!
HOW TO ASK AND HAVE
H, 'TIS time I should talk to your mother,
"O" Sweet Mary," says I.
"Oh, don't talk to my mother," says Mary,
Beginning to cry:
"For my mother says men are deceivers,
And never, I know, will consent;
She says girls in a hurry who marry
At leisure repent. "
"Then suppose I would talk to your father,
Sweet Mary," says I.
"Oh, don't talk to my father," says Mary,
Beginning to cry:
"For my father, he loves me so dearly,
He'll never consent I should go-
If you talk to my father," says Mary,
"He'll surely say 'No. '»
"Then how shall I get you, my jewel?
Sweet Mary," says I:
"If your father and mother's so cruel,
Most surely I'll die! "
"Oh, never say die, dear," says Mary;
"A way now to save you I see:
Since my parents are both so contrary-
You'd better ask me. "
## p. 9222 (#234) ###########################################
SAMUEL LOVER
9222
THE GRIDIRON
OR, PADDY MULLOWNEY'S TRAVELS IN FRANCE
"B
Y-THE-BY, Sir John," said the master, addressing a distin-
guished guest, "Pat has a very curious story which some-
thing you told me to-day reminds me of. You remember,
Pat" (turning to the man, evidently pleased at the notice thus
paid to himself), "you remember that queer adventure you had
in France? "
"Throth I do, sir," grins forth Pat.
"What! " exclaims Sir John, in feigned surprise, "was Pat
ever in France ? »
"Indeed he was," cries mine host; and Pat adds, "Ay, and
farther, plaze your Honor. "
"I assure you, Sir John," continues my host, "Pat told me a
story once that surprised me very much respecting the ignorance
of the French. "
"Indeed! " rejoins the baronet; "really, I always supposed the
French to be a most accomplished people. "
"Throth then, they're not, sir," interrupts Pat.
"Oh, by no means," adds mine host, shaking his head emphati-
cally.
"I believe, Pat, 'twas when you were crossing the Atlantic? "
says the master, turning to Pat with a seductive air, and leading
into the "full and true account" (for Pat had thought fit to visit
North Amerikay, for "a raison he had," in the autumn of the
year 'ninety-eight).
"Yes, sir," says Pat, "the broad Atlantic";- a favorite phrase
of his, which he gave with a brogue as broad, almost, as the
Atlantic itself. "It was the time I was lost in crassin' the broad
Atlantic, a-comin' home," began Pat, decoyed into the recital;
"whin the winds began to blow, and the sae to rowl, that you'd
think the Colleen Dhas (that was her name) would not have a
mast left but what would rowl out of her.
"Well, sure enough, the masts went by the boord at last, and
the pumps were choaked (divil choak them for that same), and
av coorse the wather gained an us; and throth, to be filled with
wather is neither good for man or baste; and she was sinkin'
fast, settlin' down, as the sailors calls it; and faith, I never was
good at settlin' down in my life, and I liked it then less nor
ever: accordingly we prepared for the worst, and put out the
## p. 9223 (#235) ###########################################
SAMUEL LOVER
9223
boat, and got a sack o' bishkits, and a cashk o' pork, and a kag
o' wather, and a thrifle o' rum aboord, and any other little mat-
thers we could think iv in the mortial hurry we wor in-and
faith, there was no time to be lost, for my darlint, the Colleen
Dhas went down like a lump o' lead afore we wor many sthrokes
o' the oar away from her.
"Well, we dhrifted away all that night, and next mornin' we
put up a blanket an the ind av a pole as well as we could, and
then we sailed iligant; for we darn't show a stitch o' canvas the
night before, bekase it was blowin' like bloody murther, savin'
your presence, and sure it's the wondher of the world we worn't
swally'd alive by the ragin' sae.
―
"Well, away we wint for more nor a week, and nothin'
before our two good-lookin' eyes but the canophy iv heaven and
the wide ocean, - the broad Atlantic; not a thing was to be seen
but the sae and the sky: and though the sae and the sky is
mighty purty things in themselves, throth they're no great things
when you've nothin' else to look at for a week together; and the
barest rock in the world, so it was land, would be more welkim.
And then soon enough, throth-our provisions began to run
low; the bishkits, and the wather, and the rum,-throth that was
gone first of all,- God help uz: and oh! it was thin that starva-
tion began to stare us in the face. 'Oh, murther, murther,
captain darlint,' says I, 'I wish we could see land anywhere,'
says I.
"More power to your elbow, Paddy, my boy,' says he, 'for
sich a good wish; and throth it's myself wishes the same. '
"Oh,' says I, 'that it may plaze you, sweet queen iv heaven,
supposing it was only a dissolute island,' says I, 'inhabited wid
Turks, sure they wouldn't be such bad Christians as to refuse us
a bit and a sup. '
"Whisht, whisht, Paddy,' says the captain, 'don't be talkin'
bad of any one,' says he; 'you don't know how soon you may
want a good word put in for yourself, if you should be called to
quarters in th' other world all of a suddint,' says he.
"Thrue for you, captain darlint,' says I,-I called him darlint
and made free wid him, you see, bekase disthress makes uz all
equal,—'thrue for you, captain jewel: God betune uz and harm,
I owe no man any spite;'-and throth that was only thruth.
Well, the last bishkit was sarved out, and by gor, the wather
itself was all gone at last, and we passed the night mighty cowld.
## p. 9224 (#236) ###########################################
9224
SAMUEL LOVER
Well, at the break o' day the sun riz most beautiful out o' the
waves that was as bright as silver and as clear as chrysthal. But
it was only the more cruel upon us, for we wor beginnin' to feel
terrible hungry; when all at wanst I thought I spied the land.
By gor I thought I felt my heart up in my throat in a minnit,
and 'Thunder an turf, captain,' says I, 'look to leeward,' says I.
"What for? ' says he.
<<<I think I see the land,' says I.
"So he ups with his bring-'m-near (that's what the sailors call
a spy-glass, sir), and looks out, and sure enough it was.
«Hurrah! ' says he, 'we're all right now: pull away, my
boys,' says he.
"Take care you're not mistaken,' says I; 'maybe it's only a
fog-bank, captain darlint,' says I.
"Oh no,' says he, 'it's the land in airnest. '
"Oh then, whereabouts in the wide world are we, captain? '
says I: 'maybe it id be in Roosia, or Proosia, or the Jarman
Oceant? ' says I.
"Tut, you fool,' says he,- for he had that consaited way
wid him, thinkin' himself cleverer nor any one else, 'tut, you
fool,' says he, 'that's France,' says he.
"Tare an ouns,' says I, 'do you tell me so? and how do
you know it's France it is, captain dear? ' says I.
«Bekase this is the Bay o' Bishky we're in now,' says he.
"Throth I was thinkin' so myself,' says I, 'by the rowl it
has; for I often heerd av it in regard of that same:' and throth
the likes av it I never seen before nor since, and with the help
o' God, never will.
-
"Well, with that my heart began to grow light: and when I
seen my life was safe I began to grow twice hungrier nor ever;
so says I, 'Captain jewel, I wish we had a gridiron. '
"Why, then,' says he, 'thunder and turf,' says he, 'what
puts a gridiron into your head? '
«Bekase I'm starvin' with the hunger,' says I.
"And sure, bad luck to you,' says he, 'you couldn't ate a
gridiron,' says he, 'barrin you wor a pelican o' the wildherness,'
says he.
"Ate a gridiron! ' says I; 'och, in throth I'm not sich a
gommoch all out as that, anyhow. But sure if we had a grid-
iron we could dress a beefsteak,' says I.
"Arrah! but where's the beefsteak? ' says he.
## p. 9225 (#237) ###########################################
SAMUEL LOVER
9225
"Sure, couldn't we cut a slice aff the pork? ' says I.
"Be gor, I never thought o' that,' says the captain. "You're
a clever fellow, Paddy,' says he, laughin'.
"Oh, there's many a thrue word said in joke,' says I.
"Thrue for you, Paddy,' says he.
"Well, then,' says I, 'if you put me ashore there beyant'
(for we were nearing the land all the time), 'and sure I can ax
thim for to lind me the loan of a gridiron,' says I.
"Oh, by gor, the butther's comin' out o' the stirabout in
airnest now,' says he: 'you gommoch,' says he, 'sure I towld
you before that's France, and sure they're all furriners there,'
says the captain.
"'Well,' says I, 'and how do you know but I'm as good a
furriner myself as any o' thim? '
"What do you mane? ' says he.
"I mane,' says I, 'what I towld you: that I'm as good a fur-
riner myself as any o' thim. ’
"Make me sinsible,' says he.
"By dad, maybe that's more nor me, or greater nor me,
could do,' says I;- and we all began to laugh at him, for I
thought I'd pay him off for his bit o' consait about the Jarman
Oceant.
"Lave aff your humbuggin',' says he, 'I bid you; and tell
me what it is you mane, at all at all. '
"Parly voo frongsay? ' says I.
"Oh, your humble sarvant,' says he: 'why, by gor, you're a
scholar, Paddy. '
like.
«<<Throth, you may say that,' says I.
"Why, you're a clever fellow, Paddy,' says the captain, jeerin'
"You're not the first that said that,' says I, 'whether you
joke or no. '
"Oh, but I'm in airnest,' says the captain; 'and do you tell
me, Paddy,' says he, 'that you spake Frinch? '
"Parly voo frongsay? ' says I.
"By gor, that bangs Banagher; and all the world knows
Banagher bangs the divil. I never met the likes o' you, Paddy,'
says he: 'pull away, boys, and put Paddy ashore, and maybe we
won't get a good bellyful before long. '
"So with that it was no sooner said nor done; they pulled
away and got close into shore in less than no time, and run the
## p. 9226 (#238) ###########################################
9226
SAMUEL LOVER
boat up in a little creek, and a beautiful creek it was, with a
lovely white sthrand,—an iligant place for ladies to bathe in the
summer, and out I got: and it's stiff enough in my limbs I was,
afther bein' cramped up in the boat, and perished with the cowld
and hunger; but I conthrived to scramble on, one way or t'other,
towards a little bit iv a wood that was close to the shore, and the
smoke curlin' out of it, quite timptin' like.
« ་
"By the powdhers o' war, I'm all right,' says I,-'there's a
house there;' and sure enough there was, and a parcel of men,
women, and childher ating their dinner round a table quite con-
vaynient. And so I wint up to the door, and I thought I'd be
very civil to thim, as I heerd the Frinch was always mighty
p'lite intirely — and I thought I'd show them I knew what good
manners was.
"So I took aff my hat, and making a low bow, says I, ‘God
save all here,' says I.
"Well, to be sure, they all stopped ating at wanst, and begun
to stare at me; and faith they almost looked me out of counte-
nance; and I thought to myself it was not good manners at all—
more betoken from furriners, which they call so mighty p'lite:
but I never minded that, in regard o' wantin' the gridiron; and
so says I, I beg your pardon,' says I, 'for the liberty I take,
but it's only bein' in disthress in regard of ating,' says I, 'that
I make bowld to throuble yez, and if you could lind me the loan
of a gridiron,' says I, 'I'd be entirely obleeged to ye. '
"By gor, they all stared at me twice worse nor before; and
with that says I (knowin' what was in their minds), 'indeed, it's
thrue for you,' says I, 'I'm tatthered to pieces, and God knows
I look quare enough; but it's by raison of the storm,' says I,
'which dhruv us ashore here below, and we're all starvin',' says I.
"So then they began to look at each other agin; and myself,
seeing at wanst dirty thoughts was in their heads, and that they
tuk me for a poor beggar comin' to crave charity, -with that
says I, 'Oh! not at all,' says I, 'by no manes: we have plenty
o' mate ourselves there below, and we'll dhress it,' says I, 'if
you would be pleased to lind us the loan of a gridiron,' says I,
makin' a low bow.
«< Well, sir, with that, throth they stared at me twice worse
nor ever: and faith, I began to think that maybe the captain was
wrong, and that it was not France at all at all; and so says I,
'I beg pardon, sir,' says I, to a fine ould man with a head of
## p. 9227 (#239) ###########################################
SAMUEL LOVER
9227
hair as white as silver,-'maybe I'm undher a mistake,' says I,
'but I thought I was in France, sir: aren't you furriners? ' says
I. Parly voo frongsay? '
"We, munseer,' says he.
"Then would you lind me the loan of a gridiron,' says I, 'if
you plase? '
"Oh, it was thin that they stared at me as if I had seven
heads: and faith, myself began to feel flusthered like, and onaisy;
and so says I, makin' a bow and scrape agin, 'I know it's a lib-
erty I take, sir,' says I, 'but it's only in the regard of bein' cast
away; and if you plase, sir,' says I, Parly voo frongsay?
"We, munseer,' says he, mighty sharp.
"Then would you lind me the loan of a gridiron? ' says I,
'and you'll obleege me. '
"Well, sir, the ould chap began to 'munseer' me; but the
divil a bit of a gridiron he'd gi' me: and so I began to think
they wor all neygars, for all their fine manners; and throth my
blood begun to rise, and says I, 'By my sowl, if it was you was
in disthriss,' says I, 'and if it was to ould Ireland you kem, it's
not only the gridiron they'd give you, if you axed it, but some-
thing to put an it too, and the dhrop o' drink into the bargain,
and cead mile failte. '
"Well, the words cead mile failte seemed to sthreck his heart,
and the ould chap cocked his ear: and so I thought I'd give an-
other offer, and make him sinsible at last; and so says I wanst
more, quite slow, that he might understand, 'Parly-voo-frong-
say, munseer? ›
"We, munseer,' says he.
«Then lind me the loan of a gridiron,' says I, 'and bad
scram to you.
'
"Well, bad win to the bit of it he'd gi' me, and the ould
chap begins bowin' and scrapin', and said something or other
about long tongs.
«Phoo! the divil sweep yourself and your tongs,' says I: 'I
don't want a tongs at all at all; but can't you listen to raison? '
says I: 'Parly voo frongsay? '
«་ 'We, munseer. '
"Then lind me the loan of a gridiron,' says I, 'and howld
your prate. '
"Well, what would you think but he shook his owld noddle
as much as to say he wouldn't; and so says I, 'Bad cess to the
## p. 9228 (#240) ###########################################
9228
SAMUEL LOVER
likes o' that I ever seen,-throth if you wor in my country it's
not that-a-way they'd use you: the curse o' the crows an you,
you owld sinner,' says I, 'the divil a longer I'll darken your
door. '
"So he seen I was vexed; and I thought, as I was turnin'
away, I seen him begin to relint, and that his conscience throub-
led him; and says I, turnin' back, 'Well, I'll give you one chance
more, you ould thief,- are you a Chrishthan at all at all? are
you a furriner? ' says I, 'that all the world calls so p'lite. Bad
luck to you, do you undherstand your own language? -parly voo
frongsay? ' says I.
"We, munseer,' says he.
"Then thunder an turf,' says I, will you lind me the loan
of a gridiron ? ›
"Well, sir, the divil resave the bit of it he'd gi' me: and so
with that, 'the curse o' the hungry an you, you ould negarly
villian,' says I; 'the back o' my hand and the sowl o' my fut to
you, that you may want a gridiron yourself yit,' says I; 'and
wherever I go, high and low, rich and poor, shall hear o' you,'
says I and with that I left them there, sir, and kem away-and
in throth it's often sence that I thought that it was remarkable. ”
-
## p. 9228 (#241) ###########################################
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## p. 9229 (#245) ###########################################
9229
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
(1819-1891)
BY HENRY JAMES
塞
HE formula would not be hard to find which would best, at
the outset, introduce to readers the author of the following
extracts and specimens. With a certain close propriety that
seems to give him, among Americans of his time, the supreme right,
James Russell Lowell wears the title of a man of letters. He was a
master of verse and a political disputant; he was to some extent a
journalist, and in a high degree an orator; he administered learning
in a great university; he was concerned, in his later years, with pub-
lic affairs, and represented in two foreign countries the interests
of the United States. Yet there is only one term to which, in an
appreciation, we can without a sense of injustice give precedence over
the others. He was the American of his time most saturated with
literature and most directed to criticism; the American also whose
character and endowment were such as to give this saturation and
this direction-this intellectual experience, in short-most value.
He added to the love of learning the love of expression; and his
attachment to these things-to poetry, to history, to language, form,
and style was such as to make him, the greater part of his life,
more than anything a man of study: but his temperament was proof
against the dryness of the air of knowledge, and he remained to the
end the least pale, the least passionless of scholars.
He was born at Cambridge, Massachusetts, on February 22, 1819,
and died in the same house on August 12th, 1891. His inheritance of
every kind contributed to the easy play of his gifts and the rich uni-
formity of his life. He was of the best and oldest New England –
of partly clerical-stock; a stock robust and supple, and which has
given to its name many a fruit-bearing branch. We read him but
dimly in not reading into him, as it were, everything that was pres-
ent, around him, in race and place; and perhaps also in not seeing
him in relation to some of the things that were absent. He is one
more instance of the way in which the poet's message is almost
always, as to what it contains or omits, a testimony to personal
circumstance, a communication of the savor of the mother soil. He
as New
figures to us thus more handsomely than any competitor -
-
## p. 9230 (#246) ###########################################
9230
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
England conscious of its powers and its standards, New England
accomplished and articulate. He grew up in clerical and collegiate
air, at half an hour's walk from the cluster of homely halls that
are lost to-day in the architectural parade of the modernized Harvard.
He spent fifty years of his life in the shade, or the sunshine, of Alma
Mater; a connection which was to give his spirit just enough of the
unrest of responsibility, and his style just too much perhaps of the
authority of the pedagogue. His early years unfolded with a secur-
ity and a simplicity that the middle ones enriched without disturbing;
and the long presence of which, with its implications of leisure, of
quietude, of reflection and concentration, supplies in all his work an
element of agreeable relish not lessened by the suggestion of a cer-
tain meagreness of personal experience. He took his degree in 1838;
he married young, in 1844, then again in 1857; he inherited, on the
death of his father in 1861, the commodious old house of Elmwood
(in those days more embowered and more remote), in which his life
was virtually to be spent. With a small family — a single daughter —
but also a small patrimony, and a deep indifference — his abiding char-
acteristic to any question of profit or fortune, the material con-
dition he had from an early time to meet was the rather blank face
turned to the young American who in that age, and in the consecrated
phrase, embraced literature as a profession. The embrace, on Lowell's
part as on that of most such aspirants, was at first more tender than
coercive; and he was no exception to the immemorial rule of pro-
pitiating the idol with verse. This verse took in 1841 the form of his
first book; a collection of poems elsewhere printed and unprinted, but
not afterwards republished.
His history from this time, at least for many years, would be
difficult to write save as a record of stages, phases, dates too particu-
lar for a summary. The general complexion of the period is best
presented in the simple statement that he was able to surrender on
the spot to his talent and his taste. There is something that fairly
charms, as we look at his life, in the almost complete elimination of
interference or deviation: it makes a picture exempt from all shadow
of the usual image of genius hindered or inclination blighted. Drama
and disaster could spring as little from within as from without; and
no one in the country probably led a life-certainly for so long a
time-of intellectual amenity so great in proportion to its intensity.
There was more intensity perhaps for such a spirit as Emerson's: but
there was, if only by that fact, more of moral ravage and upheaval;
there was less of applied knowledge and successful form, less of the
peace of art.
Emerson's utterance, his opinions, seem to-day to give
us a series, equally full of beauty and void of order, of noble exper-
iments and fragments. Washington Irving and Longfellow, on the
## p. 9231 (#247) ###########################################
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
9231
other hand, if they show us the amenity, show us also, in their
greater abundance and diffusion, a looseness, an exposure; they sit as
it were with open doors, more or less in the social draught. Haw-
thorne had further to wander and longer to wait; and if he too, in
the workshop of art, kept tapping his silver hammer, it was never
exactly the nail of thought that he strove to hit on the head. What
is true of Hawthorne is truer still of Poe; who, if he had the peace
of art, had little of any other. Lowell's evolution was all in what I
have called his saturation, in the generous scale on which he was
able to gather in and to store up impressions. The three terms of
his life for most of the middle time were a quiet fireside, a quiet
library, a singularly quiet community. The personal stillness of the
world in which for the most part he lived, seems to abide in the
delightful paper-originally included in 'Fireside Travels' on 'Cam-
bridge Thirty Years Ago. ' It gives the impression of conditions.
in which literature might well become an alternate world, and old
books, old authors, old names, old stories, constitute in daily com-
merce the better half of one's company. Complications and dis-
tractions were not, even so far as they occurred, appreciably his own
portion; except indeed for their being-some of them, in their degree
- of the general essence of the life of letters. If books have their
destinies, they have also their antecedents; and in the face of the
difficulty of trying for perfection with a rough instrument, it cannot
of course be said that even concentration shuts the door upon pain.
If Lowell had all the joys of the scholar and the poet, he was also,
and in just that degree, not a stranger to the pangs and the weari-
ness that accompany the sense of exactitude, of proportion, and of
beauty; that feeling for intrinsic success, which in the long run
becomes a grievous burden for shoulders that have in the rash con-
fidence of youth accepted it,- becomes indeed in the artist's breast
the incurable, intolerable ache.
But such drama as could not mainly, after all, be played out
within the walls of his library, came to him, on the whole, during
half a century, only in two or three other forms. I mention first the
subordinate, which were all, as well, in the day's work: the long
grind of teaching the promiscuous and preoccupied young, and those.
initiations of periodical editorship which, either as worries or as tri-
umphs, may never perhaps be said to strike very deep. In 1855 he
entered, at Harvard College, upon the chair just quitted by Longfel
low: a comprehensive professorship in literature, that of France and
that of Spain in particular. He conducted on its foundation, for four
years, the Atlantic Monthly; and carried on from 1862, in conjunc-
tion with Mr. Charles Eliot Norton, the North American Review, in
which his best critical essays appeared. There were published the
## p. 9232 (#248) ###########################################
9232
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
admirable article on Lessing, that on 'Rousseau and the Sentiment-
alists,' that on Carlyle's 'Frederick the Great,' the rich, replete paper
on Witchcraft,' the beautiful studies (1872-1875) of Dante, Spenser,
and Wordsworth; and the brilliant jeux d'esprit, as their overflow of
critical wit warrants our calling them, on such subjects as (1866)
sundry infirmities of the poetical temper of Swinburne, or such occas-
ions as were offered (1865) by the collected writings of Thoreau, or
(1867) by the 'Life and Letters' of James Gates Percival,- occasions
mainly to run to earth a certain shade of the provincial spirit. Of
his career from early manhood to the date of his going in 1877 as
minister to Spain, the two volumes of his correspondence published
in 1893 by Mr. Norton give a picture reducible to a presentment of
study in happy conditions, and of opinions on "moral" questions; an
image subsequently thrown somewhat into the shade, but still keep-
ing distinctness and dignity for those who at the time had something
of a near view of it.
Lowell's great good fortune was to believe for
so long that opinions and study sufficed him. There came in time
a day when he lent himself to more satisfactions than he literally
desired; but it is difficult to imagine a case in which the literary life
should have been a preparation for the life of the world. There was
so much in him of the man and the citizen, as well as of the poet
and the professor, that with the full reach of curiosities and sympa-
thies, his imagination found even in narrow walls, windows of long
range. It was during these years, at any rate, that his poetical and
critical spirit were formed; and I speak of him as our prime man of
letters precisely on account of the unhurried and unhindered process
of the formation. Literature was enough, without being too much,
his trade: it made of his life a reservoir never condemned, by too
much tapping, to show low water. We have had critics much more
frequent, but none more abundant; we have had poets more abund-
ant, but none more acquainted with poetry. This acquaintance with
poetry bore fruits of a quality to which I shall presently allude;
his critical activity, meantime, was the result of the impulse given
by the responsibilities of instructorship to the innermost turn of his
mind. His studies could deepen and widen at their ease. The uni-
versity air soothed, but never smothered; Europe was near enough
to touch, but not tormentingly to overlap; the intimate friends were
more excellent than numerous, the college feasts just recurrent
enough to keep wit in exercise, and the country walks not so blank
as to be unsweetened by a close poetic notation of every aspect and
secret of nature. He absorbed and lectured and wrote, talked and
edited and published; and had, the while, struck early in the day
the note from which, for a long time, his main public identity was
to spring.
## p. 9233 (#249) ###########################################
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
9233
This note, the first of the 'Biglow Papers,' was sounded in the
summer of 1846, the moment of the outbreak of the Mexican War.
It presented not quite as yet so much an "American humorist" the
more, as the very possibility or fact of the largest expressiveness in
American humor. If he was the first of the dialectic and colloquial
group in the order of time, so he was to remain, on this ground, the
master and the real authority. The 'Biglow Papers' were an acci-
dent, begun without plan or forecast: but by the accident the author
was, in a sense, determined and prompted; he himself caught from
them and from their success a fuller idea of the "Yankee » character,
lighted up by every advantage that wit and erudition could lend it.
Lowell found himself, on the spot, committed to giving it such aid
to literary existence as it could never have had without him. His
conception of all the fine things of the mind-of intelligence, hon-
esty, judgment, knowledge—was placed straight at the service of the
kind of American spirit that he was conscious of in himself, and that
he sought in his three or four typical figures to make ironic and
racy.
The 'Biglow Papers' are in this relation an extraordinary perform.
ance and a rare work of art: in what case, on the part of an artist,
has the national consciousness, passionately acute, arrived at a form
more independent, more objective? If they were a disclosure of this
particular artist's humor, and of the kind of passion that could most
possess him, they represent as well the element that for years gave
his life its main enlargement, and as may be said its main agitation,
-the element that preserved him from dryness, from the danger of
the dilettante. This safeguard was his care for public things and
national questions; those to which, even in his class-rooms and
polishings of verse, all others were subordinate. He was politically
an ardent liberal, and had from the first engaged with all the force
of his imagination on the side that has figured at all historical
moments as the cause of reform. Reform, in his younger time, meant
above all resistance to the extension of slavery; then it came to
mean- and by so doing, to give occasion during the Civil War to a
fresh and still finer Biglow' series-resistance to the pretension of
the Southern States to set up a rival republic. The two great im-
pulses he received from without were given him by the outbreak of
the war, and-after these full years and wild waves had gradually
ebbed by his being appointed minister to Spain. The latter event
began a wholly new period, though serving as a channel for much,
for even more perhaps, of the old current; meanwhile, at all events,
no account of his most productive phases at least can afford not to
touch on the large part, the supreme part, played in his life by the
intensity, and perhaps I may go so far as to say the simplicity, of
XVI-578
<
-
## p. 9234 (#250) ###########################################
9234
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
his patriotism. Patriotism had been the keynote of an infinite quan-
tity of more or less felicitous behavior; but perhaps it had never been
so much as in Lowell the keynote of reflection and of the moral
tone, of imagination and conversation. Action, in this case, could
mainly be but to feel as American as possible,—with an inevitable
overflow of course into whatever was the expression of the moment.
It might often have seemed to those who often- -or even to those
who occasionally-saw him, that his case was almost unique, and
that the national consciousness had never elsewhere been so culti-
vated save under the stress of national frustration or servitude. It
was in fact, in a manner, as if he had been aware of certain forces
that made for oppression; of some league of the nations and the arts,
some consensus of tradition and patronage, to treat as still in tutelage
or on its trial the particular connection of which he happened most
to be proud.
The secret of the situation was that he could only, could actively,
"cultivate" as a retort to cultivation. There were American phe-
nomena that, as he gathered about the world, cultivation in general
deemed vulgar; and on this all his genius rose within him to show
what his cultivation could make of them. It enabled him to make
so much that all the positive passion in his work is for the direct
benefit of patriotism. That, beyond any other irritation of the lyric
temperament, is what makes him ardent. In nothing, moreover, is
he more interesting than in the very nature of his vision of this
humorous "Yankeeism" of type. He meant something it was at that
time comparatively easy, as well as perhaps a trifle more directly
inspiring, to mean; for his life opened out backward into Puritan
solidities and dignities. However this be, at any rate, his main care
for the New England—or, as may almost be said, for the Cambridge
consciousness, as he embodied it, was that it could be fed from
as many sources as any other in the world, and assimilate them with
an ingenuity all its own: literature, life, poetry, art, wit, all the
growing experience of human intercourse. His great honor is that in
this direction he led it to high success; and if the 'Biglow Papers'
express supremely his range of imagination about it, they render the
American tone the service of placing it in the best literary company,
- that of all his other affinities and echoes, his love of the older
English and the older French, of all classics and romantics and
originals, of Dante and Goethe, of Cervantes and the Elizabethans;
his love, in particular, of the history of language and of the com-
plex questions of poetic form. If they had no other distinction, they
would have that of one of the acutest of all studies in linguistics.
They are more literary, in short, than they at first appear; which
is at once the strength and the weakness of his poetry in general,
-
## p. 9235 (#251) ###########################################
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
9235
literary indeed as most of it is at sight. The chords of his lyre were
of the precious metal, but not perhaps always of the last lyric tenu-
ity. He struck them with a hand not idle enough for mere moods,
and yet not impulsive enough for the great reverberations. He was
sometimes too ingenious, as well as too reasonable and responsible;
this leaves him, on occasion, too much in the grasp of a certain mor-
ally conservative humor,- a side on which he touches the authors of
"society" verse,- or else mixes with his emotion an intellectual sub-
stance, a something alien, that tends to stiffen and retard it. Per-
haps I only mean indeed that he had always something to say, and
his sturdiness as well as his "cleverness" about the way it should
be said. It is congruous, no doubt, with his poetic solidity that his
highest point in verse is reached by his 'Harvard Commemoration
Ode,' a poem for an occasion at once public and intimate; a sustained
lament for young lives, in the most vividly sacrificed of which he
could divide with the academic mother something of the sentiment of
proud ownership. It is unfair to speak of lines so splendid as these
as not warmed by the noble thought with which they are charged;
-even if it be of the very nature of the English ode to show us
always, at its best, something of the chill of the poetic Exercise.
-
I may refer, however, as little to the detail of his verse as to
that of the robust body of his prose. The latter consists of richly
accomplished literary criticism, and of a small group of public ad-
dresses; and would obviously be much more abundant were we in
possession of all the wrought material of Harvard lectures and pro-
fessorial talks. If we are not, it is because Lowell recognized no
material as wrought till it had passed often through the mill. He
embarked on no magnum opus, historical, biographical, critical; he
contented himself with uttering thought that had great works in its
blood. It was for the great works and the great figures he cared; he
was a critic of a pattern mainly among ourselves superseded — super-
seded so completely that he seems already to have receded into
time, and to belong to an age of vulgarity less blatant. If he was in
educated appreciation the most distinct voice that the United States
had produced, this is partly, no doubt, because the chatter of the
day and the triumph of the trivial could even then still permit him
to be audible, permit him to show his office as supported on knowl-
edge and on a view of the subject. He represented so well the use
of a view of the subject that he may be said to have represented
best what at present strikes us as most urgent; the circumstance,
namely, that so far from being a chamber surrendering itself
from the threshold to the ignorant young of either sex, criticism is
positively and miraculously not the simplest and most immediate, but
the most postponed and complicated of the arts, the last qualified
-
## p. 9236 (#252) ###########################################
9236
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
for and arrived at, the one requiring behind it most maturity, most
power to understand and compare.
One is disposed to say of him, in spite of his limited production,
that he belonged to the massive race, and even has for the present
the air of one of the last of it. The two volumes of his 'Letters'
help, in default of a biography, the rest of his work in testifying to
this; and would do so still more if the collection had comprised more
letters of the time of his last period in Europe. His diplomatic
years he was appointed in 1880 minister to England-form a chap-
ter by themselves; they gave a new turn to his career, and made a
different thing of what was to remain of it. They checked, save
here and there for an irrepressible poem, his literary production;
but they opened a new field-in the mother-land of "occasional »
oratory for his beautiful command of the spoken word. He spoke
often from this moment, and always with his admirable mixture of
breadth and wit; with so happy a surrender indeed to this gift that
his two finest addresses, that on 'Democracy' (Birmingham, 1884)
and that on the Harvard Anniversary of 1886, connect themselves
with the reconsecration, late in life, of his eloquence. It was a sin-
gular fortune, and possible for an American alone, that such a want
of peculiarly professional, of technical training, should have been
consistent with a degree of success that appeared to reduce train-
ing to unimportance. Nothing was more striking, in fact, than that
what Lowell had most in England to show was simply all the air
and all the effect of preparedness. If I have alluded to the best
name we can give him and the best niche we can make for him, let
this be partly because letters exactly met in him a more distin-
guished recognition than usually falls to their lot. It was they that
had prepared him really; prepared him-such is the subtlety of
their operation-even for the things from which they are most di-
vorced. He reached thus the phase in which he took from them as
much as he had given; represented them in a new, insidious way.
It was of course in his various speeches that his preparedness came
out most; most enjoyed the superlative chance of becoming, by the
very fact of its exercise, one of the safeguards of an international
relation that he would have blushed not to have done his utmost to
keep inviolable. He had the immense advantage that the very voice
in which he could speak so much at once that of his masculine,
pugnacious intellect, and that of the best side of the race— - was a
plea for everything the millions of English stock have in common.
This voice, as I may call it, that sounds equally in every form of
his utterance, was his great gift to his time. In poetry, in satire, in
prose, and on his lips, it was from beginning to end the manliest,
the most ringing, to be heard. He was essentially a fighter: he could
## p. 9237 (#253) ###########################################
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
9237
always begin the attack; could always, in criticism as in talk, sound
the charge and open the fire. The old Puritan conscience was deep
in him, with its strong and simple vision, even in æsthetic things, of
evil and of good, of wrong and of right; and his magnificent wit
was all at its special service. He armed it, for vindication and per-
suasion, with all the amenities, the "humanities"—with weapons as
sharp and bright as it has ever carried.
Hey Jammer
[All the poems here quoted are copyrighted, and they are reprinted by
permission of Houghton, Mifflin & Co. , publishers. ]
SI DESCENDERO IN INFERNUM, ADES
WANDERING dim on the extremest edge
O
Of God's bright providence, whose spirits sigh
Drearily in you, like the winter sedge
That shivers o'er the dead pool stiff and dry,—
A thin, sad voice, when the bold wind roars by
From the clear North of Duty,-
Still by cracked arch and broken shaft I trace
That here was once a shrine and holy place
Of the supernal beauty,
-
A child's play-altar reared of stones and moss,
With wilted flowers for offering laid across,
Mute recognition of the all-ruling Grace.
How far are ye from the innocent, from those
Whose hearts are as a little lane serene,
Smooth-heaped from wall to wall with unbroke snows,
Or in the summer blithe with lamb-cropped green,
Save the one track, where naught more rude is seen
Than the plump wain at even
Bringing home four months' sunshine bound in sheaves!
How far are ye from those! yet who believes
That ye can shut out heaven?
Your souls partake its influence, not in vain
Nor all unconscious, as that silent lane
Its drift of noiseless apple blooms receives.
## p. 9238 (#254) ###########################################
9238
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
Looking within myself, I note how thin
A plank of station, chance, or prosperous fate,
Doth fence me from the clutching waves of sin;
In my own heart I find the worst man's mate,
And see not dimly the smooth-hinged gate
That opes to those abysses
Where ye grope darkly,-ye who never knew
On your young hearts love's consecrating dew,
Or felt a mother's kisses,
Or home's restraining tendrils round you curled:
Ah,. side by side with heart's-ease in this world
The fatal nightshade grows, and bitter rue!
One band ye cannot break,- the force that clips
And grasps your circles to the central light;
Yours is the prodigal comet's long ellipse,
Self-exiled to the farthest verge of night:
Yet strives with you no less that inward might
No sin hath e'er imbruted;
The god in you the creed-dimmed eye eludes;
The Law brooks not to have its solitudes
By bigot feet polluted:
Yet they who watch your God-compelled return
May see your happy perihelion burn.
Where the calm sun his unfledged planets broods.
HEBE
SAW the twinkle of white feet,
I
I saw the flash of robes descending;
Before her ran an influence fleet,
That bowed my heart like barley bending.
As, in bare fields, the searching bees
Pilot to blooms beyond our finding,
It led me on, by sweet degrees
Joy's simple honey-cells unbinding.
Those Graces were, that seemed grim Fates;
With nearer love the sky leaned o'er me;
The long-sought Secret's golden gates
On musical hinges swung before me.
I saw the brimmed bowl in her grasp
Thrilling with godhood; like a lover
## p. 9239 (#255) ###########################################
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
9239
I sprang the proffered life to clasp;-
The beaker fell; the luck was over.
-
The earth has drunk the vintage up:
What boots it patch the goblet's splinters?
Can summer fill the icy cup,
Whose treacherous crystal is but winter's ?
O spendthrift haste! Await the gods;
The nectar crowns the lips of patience;
Haste scatters on unthankful sods
The immortal gift in vain libations.
Coy Hebe flies from those that woo,
And shuns the hands would seize upon her:
Follow thy life, and she will sue
To pour for thee the cup of honor.
