EDWARD JACKSON LOWELL. 565 



magistracy had been for more than a generation engaged in a contest 

 with the crown ; how the men of letters without exception had become 

 hostile to the government ; how the taxationj though not so absolutely 

 burdensome as has been assumed, was so manifestly unequal as to 

 excite the bitterest indignation at the odious privilege of exemption 

 enjoyed by the nobles and the ecclesiastics ; and minor sources of dis- 

 satisfaction are brought to light in abundance. The author's summing 

 up is that, " while France was great, prospeious, and growing, and a 

 model to her neighbors, she was deeply discontented. . . . She had be- 

 come conscious that her government did not correspond to her degree 

 of civilization. . . . The financial situation was not the. cause of the 

 Revolution, but its occasion. All the machinery of the state needed 

 to be inspected, repaired, or renewed. The people entei-ed into the 

 task with good will and the warmest interest. But tliey were entirely 

 without experience. ... In their ignorance of the working of popu- 

 lar assemblies, they supposed them to be inspired with wisdom and vir- 

 tue beyond that of the individuals who compose them. . . . They accom- 

 plished for France much that was good, tliey prepared the way for 

 much that was evil." 



For many years Mr. Lowell was a very efficient member of the 

 Board of Trustees of the Boston Athenajum, and. by his refined appre- 

 ciation and extended knowledge of art he was able to brino^ about a 

 most marked improvement and increase in the art collections of that 

 institution. In the winter of 1893 he again visited Europe, and passed 

 quite a long time in Athens in the congenial companionship of the 

 professors and students of the American School of Classical Studies, 

 to which he had given his services for several years as treasurer. 

 During this time he also procured additional treasures for the art col- 

 lection of the Athenaeum. 



He was called home by illness in his family, and not long after- 

 wards developed that mysterious sickness, arising from a tumor in the 

 brain, which resulted in his sudden and regretted death at Cotuit, Mass., 

 on May 11, 1894. 



Mr. Lowell was elected a member of this Academy on March 9, 

 1887. He rendered the writer valuable assistance upon the Library 

 Committee, and contributed to Volume XXVIII. of the Proceedings 

 of the Academy, in May, 1893, a Memoir of Lord Tennyson, the last 

 of his literary productions. Of these a chronological list is appended, 

 so far as known to me. 



1880-81. The Hessians. N. Y. Times. 

 1884. The Hessians; extended to a volume. 



