INTRODUCTION. xiii 



group of Mr. Lowell s essays dealing with American persons 

 and things, and is one of the most characteristic. Thomas 

 Quincy, &quot; the great public character,&quot; belongs to a type in one 

 sense almost extinct in the United States, in another, it is to 

 be hoped, multiplying. The vast development of population, 

 industry, and foreign immigration, leaves no room for the 

 quasi-aristocracy represented by Mr. Quincy. The old patri- 

 cianship of Massachusetts and Virginia, worthy in many 

 respects of the best days of the Roman Republic, cannot exist 

 in so numerous and so thoroughly democratised a community, 

 any more than the Roman Senate could retain its influence 

 when the franchise had been extended to all the citizens of the 

 empire. But democracy has not proved incapable of producing 

 honest men and bearing them to office, and the new type of 

 homely, practical citizen, like the present Chief Magistrate, if 

 less imposing than that expressed by the stately Quincy, 

 appears to reproduce its virtues. In an essay of kindred sub 

 ject and spirit, Mr. Lowell sketches, with singular felicity, the 

 character of a great man who in a measure united the type of 

 Quincy and the type of Cleveland. Any less aristocratic per 

 sonality than Abraham Lincoln s could not, indeed, well be 

 conceived ; but the dignity of his nature, once recognised, 

 produced much the same effect as dignity of birth or bearing, 

 while his homely good sense won him the confidence which 

 might have failed to accompany mere respect. The whole 

 character is peculiarly and intensely American, and Mr. Lowell s 

 faithful and sympathetic analysis, rising to eloquence at the 

 close, is a most valuable contribution to the understanding of 

 American affairs, and a most dignified rebuke to the narrow- 

 minded stupidity of average foreign critics. It is more profitable 

 reading every way than the remonstrance, &quot; On a certain 

 condescension in Foreigners,&quot; worthy as this is of attention 

 on the part of all travellers who would refrain from wantonly 

 or inadvertently wounding a hospitable people. But it shows 

 temper to a degree unusual with Mr. Lowell, and it does not do 

 justice to the foreigner s case. Belonging to the most cultivated 

 circles of New England, Mr. Lowell has perhaps hardly realised 



