424 JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. 



specially honorable names : Francis Cabot Lowell, who gave a great 

 impetus to New England manufactures, from whom the city of Lowell 

 took its name ; Judge John Lowell, the author of the section in the 

 Bill of Rights which wrote the death warrant of slavery in Massa- 

 chusetts ; and John Lowell, Jr., whose wise and far-sighted provision 

 gave his native city that powerful centre of intellectual influence, the 

 Lowell Institute. 



Mrs. Harriet Spence Lowell, a native of Portsmouth, New Hamp- 

 shire, was of Scotch origin. She is described as having "a great 

 memory, an extraordinary aptitude for language, and a passionate 

 fondness for ancient songs and ballads." It pleased her to fancy her- 

 self descended from the hero of one of the most famous ballads, Sir 

 Patrick .Spens, and at any rate she made a genuine link in the Poetic 

 Succession. In a letter to his mother, written in 1837, Lowell says: 

 " I am engaged in several poetical effusions, one of which I have 

 dedicated to you, who have always been the patron and encourager of 

 my youthful muse." 



Elmwood in the days of Lowell's boyhood was in a more distinctly 

 rural neighborhood than now, but it never has wholly lost its charm of 

 seclusion. In his paper, "My Garden Acquaintance," in many of his 

 poems, such as " An Indian Summer Reverie," " To the Dandelion," 

 " Under the Willows," " Al Fresco," and in many passages in his let- 

 ters, he bears witness to the intimacy which he enjoyed with that phase 

 of nature which we may call homely and friendly. He once expressed 

 to me his delight in Poussin's landscapes, and in his descriptive poetry 

 it is noticeable that the large, solemn, or expansive scenes of nature 

 make no such appeal to his interest as those nearer vistas which come 

 close to human life and connect themselves with the familiar experience 

 of honie-keeping wits. 



Lowell's school days were spent in his own neighborhood. Mr. 

 William Wells, an Englishman and unsuccessful publisher, opened a 

 classical school in one of the spacious Tory Row houses near Elm- 

 wood, and, bringing with him English public school thoroughness and 

 severity, gave the boy a drilling in Latin which his quick appropria- 

 tion of strong influences turned into a familiar possession. Possibly 

 the heavy hand of the schoolmaster, by its repression, gave greater 

 buoyancy to the spirit of the student when the comparative freedom of 

 college followed. Lowell was sixteen when he entered Harvard 

 College with the ciass which graduated in 1838. In "An Indian 

 Summer Reverie," he says : 



