562 EDWARD JACKSON LOWELL. 



of his genius, the fact that it was not the genius of dissimilarity, but 

 the more uncommon one of supreme comprehensiveness of his kind. 

 And this word is touchstone to more, since in its other sense as well 

 it was so fully what he was, — whose like, like as he was to others, 

 we shall never look upon again, — our own Holmes, witty, genial, 

 kind. 



1895. Percival Lowell. 



EDWARD JACKSON LOWELL. 



Edward Jackson Lowell was born in Boston on October 18, 

 1845. His father was Francis Cabot Lowell, one of a family note- 

 worthy among the founders of the cotton-manufacturing industry of 

 this country, and distinguished for acts of public beneficence. His 

 mother was Mary, daughter of Samuel P. Gardner, of Boston. The 

 youngest of five children, and having lost his mother before he was 

 nine years old, he was placed, in accordance with her wish, at an 

 excellent private school in Switzerland. The three years there spent, 

 and the knowledge of the French and German languages there 

 acquired, had doubtless a controlling influence upon the subsequent 

 occupations of his lifetime. After completing his preparation at a 

 private school in Boston, he entered Harvard College, and graduated 

 with the Class of 1867. At college he gained some distinction as a 

 writer of verse, both for the college paper and as occasional poet of 

 society anniversaries, and upon graduation was selected to write the 

 Class Ode. After spending some months in travel in Eui'ope, he 

 was married, on January 14, 1868, to Mary, daughter of Samuel G. 

 Goodrich, whose writings, under the name of Peter Parley, were the 

 delight of children of the last generation. 



Mr. Lowell at first turned his attention to business, which he soon 

 abandoned for the study of law, and was admitted to the bar in Boston 

 in 1872. But having been so unfortunate as to lose his wife early in 

 1874, he thereupon determined to devote himrelf completely to the 

 care and education of his three young children, a daughter and two 

 sons, and to literary culture in general. 



On June 19, 1877, he was married a second time, to Elizabeth, 

 daughter of George Jones, of New York, one of the founders and 

 principal directors of the New York Times, who survives him. Carry- 

 ing out his educational plans, in 1879 he took his family to Europe, 

 and passed two winters in Dresden and two in Paris, travelling exten- 

 sively in the summer. 



