INTRODUCTION. xi 



and of the old North American Review in general ; a school 

 consciously under the influence of the old country. There is 

 also a younger school consciously aiming at originality, at 

 evolving a national type, and occupying a position in criticism 

 akin to Bret Harte s in production. This is undoubtedly the 

 school of the future, destined to prevail more and more as 

 America becomes more and more differentiated from Europe. 

 It embodies all the specifically American characteristics, which 

 are, however, precisely such as require to be kept in check by 

 the refinement and moderation of the older school, and it will 

 be ill for it if, in effacing its predecessor, it fails to absorb the 

 latter s qualities. 



Mr. Russell Lowell is, in a sense, the most perfect represent 

 ative of American criticism to be found, for he occupies a 

 central position between the old school and the new. An 

 exemplar of the highest New England culture, his poetry either 

 emulated English models, or attained a classic finish, admir 

 able as such, but excluding any marked individuality of style. 

 Suddenly, as it were at a bound, he became the leader of a new 

 departure, and placed himself in the first rank of native 

 humorists. There had seemed neither the &quot; promise &quot; nor the 

 &quot; potency &quot; of the Fable for Critics or the Biglow Papers in Sir 

 Launfal ; but circumstances had given him something to say 

 which the ordinary style was incapable of expressing : with 

 true insight he discerned the fact, and with happy flexibility 

 created a new literary form to meet the demand. The Fable 

 for Critics, indeed, is rather the revelation of an unsuspected 

 talent than of a novel style. But the Biglow Papers is a That 

 in Worten. It not merely struck a new vein of humour which 

 has ever since gushed like a Virginian oil-spring : but it was a 

 revelation to European readers of the sound healthy instincts of 

 the American people, when not perverted by speculation or 

 misguided by professional politicians. It showed there was a 

 love of righteousness to which the high-minded statesman 

 might confidently appeal, and it foreshadowed the sacrifices 

 and triumphs of the great civil war. It was the more effective 

 as being itself the product of a deep moral indignation, stung 



