634 JOHN LOWELL. 



sixteenth are carefully considered. Then Napoleon's great and unusual 

 blunder in assuming an eastward retreat for the Prussians and acting 

 upon the assumption without verifying it, is properly characterized. Tlie 

 share wrought by the muddy roads and the rains is not forgotten, nor the 

 physical weaknesses which hampered the great general and allowed him 

 uow and then to be caught napping for a moment ; the masterly position 

 taken by Wellington ; the effects of the topography ; the extent to which 

 the Emperor's attention was diverted early in the afternoon in the direc- 

 tion of Planchenoit, — not one of these points is forgotten or slurred over. 

 It is this minute quantitative consideration of details that impresses upon 

 Ropes' historical writings their truly scientific character, and no theme 

 could have been better calculated to exhibit it in its perfection than the 

 campaign of Waterloo. One cannot read the book carefully without 

 feeling that for once in the world something has been done so exhaust- 

 ively that it will not need to be done again. It would seem almost 

 impossible for the most fertile mind to offer a suggestion of anything 

 actual, probable, or possible about W^aterloo that our author has not 

 already brought forward and considered. Those who write such books 

 are few, and to study them is a great and profitable stimulus. As this 

 monograph on Waterloo related to a subject already well understood in 

 Europe, it immediately gave Ropes a high reputation in European circles, 

 and I believe he is regarded by experts as one of the soundest military 



critics since the days of Jomini. 



John Fiske. 



JOHN LOWELL 



John Lowell, the fourth of that name in direct descent from the first 

 minister of Newbury port, who died in 1767, was born in Boston on the 

 18th of October, 1824. He was elected, in October, 1877, a Fellow of 

 this Academy, of which his great-grandfather had been one of the original 

 incorporators in 1780, and both his father and grandfather Fellows. 



At the time of his birth his father was living on the lower (southerly) 

 corner of what are now Bedford and Chauncy streets ; but at that time, 

 between Bedford and Summer streets, at the points where Cliauncy 

 Street now turns off, there was on Summer Street a place called Chauncy 

 Place, running about two-thirds of the way through, and then closed 

 by a brick wall with two openings for foot passengers, but none for 

 vehicles, and turning up from Bedford Street a similar place called 

 Bedford Place, on the upper side of which and next to the wall stood 

 the house of Judge Charles Jackson, having a large garden and pear 



