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LOWELL, JAMES RUSSELL. 



artist whose studies can be seen and whose com- 

 pleted poems are compositions. As a tree here, 

 a rock there, and a cloud effect from another 

 sketch are made into many forms, so his thought 

 and feeling are set in different moods and meas- 

 ures, until each finds its happiest expression. 

 Certainly the " Day in June " we have all sung 

 in our hearts on a blissful summer's day, and 

 said, " It is enough." The whole poem is said 

 to have been com posed in about forty-eight hours 

 of almost continuous work. 



In June, 1846, appeared in the " Boston Cou- 

 rier" the first installment of the famous "Big- 

 low Papers." These are poems put into the 

 mouth of a Yankee farmer, whose work is some- 

 what edited and freely commented upon by an 

 imaginary New England parson, and of a New 

 England countryman who went to the seat of 

 war. Dr. Holmes, in an article published since 

 Lowell's death, says : " In the study of character, 

 especially as he observed it in New England, and 

 of dialect as one form of its expression, he was 

 as accurate as if the preservation of those traits 

 and idioms had been left to him as their sole de- 

 positary. His 'Yankee Idyls' are as true to 

 the native talk of the rustics of his early remem- 

 brance as Bonny Doone and Auld Lang Syne to 

 the language of the Scotch peasantry." Mr. 

 Lowell says of the origin of these papers : 



Thinking the Mexican War, as 1 think it still, a na- 

 tional crime committed in behoof of slavery, our com- 

 mon sin, and wishing to put the feeling of those who 

 thought as I did in a way that would tell, I imagined 

 myself such an up-country man as I had often seen at 

 antislavery gatherings. When I began to carry out 

 my conception, and to write in my assumed character, 

 I found myself in a strait between two perils. On the 

 one hand, I was in danger of being carried beyond 

 the limit of my own opinions, or, at least, of that tem- 

 per with which every man should speak his mind in 

 print ; and, on the other hand, I feared the risk of 

 seeming to vulgarize a deep and sacred conviction. I 

 needed on occasion to rise above the level of mere 

 patois, and for this purpose conceived the Kev. Mr. 

 Wilbur, who should express the more cautious element 

 of the New England character and its pedantry, as 

 Mr. Biglow should serve for its homely common sense, 

 vivified and heated by conscience. Finding soon 

 after that I needed some one as a mouth-piece of the 

 mere drollery, for I conceive that true humor is nev- 

 er divorced from moral conviction, I invented Mr. 

 Sawin for the clown of my little puppet show. I 

 meant to embody in him that half-conscious nmo- 

 rality which I had noticed as the recoil in gross natures 

 from a puritanism that still strove to keep in its creed 

 the intense savor which had long gone out of its faith 

 and life. In the three I thought I should find room 

 enough to express, as it was my plan to do, the pop- 

 ular feeling and opinion of the time. 



. In view of the instant and great success of the 

 venture, the author's account of his relation to 

 that success is interesting : 



Very far from being a popular author under my 

 own name so far, indeed, as to be almost unread I 

 found the verses of my pseudonym copied every- 

 where ; I saw them pinned up in work-shops ; I heard 

 them quoted and their authorship debated ; I once 

 even, when rumor had at length caught up my name 

 in one of its eddies, had the satisfaction of hearing it 

 demonstrated, in the pauses of a concert, that I was 

 utterly incompetent to have written anything of the 

 kind. 



Again he says : 



If I put on the cap and bells and made myself one 

 of the court fools of King Deinos, it was less to make 



his majesty laugh than to win a passage to his royal 

 ears for certain serious things which 1 had deeply at 

 heart. I say this because there is no imputation that 

 could be more galling to any man's self-respect than 

 that of being a mere jester. I endeavored, by gener- 

 alizing my satire, to give it what value 1 could beyond 

 the passing moment and the immediate application. 

 How far I have succeeded I can not tell, but 1 have 

 had better luck than I ever looked for in seeing my 

 verses survive to pass beyond their nonage. 



It is pleasant to remember that Mr. Lowell 

 lived long enough to realize that his countrymen 

 not only understood him as he would wish to 

 have been understood, but that his work had 

 become an American classic whose value will 

 increase with time, and whose delight is fresh 

 at every perusal. In the Rev. Homer Wil- 

 bur's notes to the first installment of Hosea 

 Biglow's contributions appeared the first draft 

 of "The Courtin'," in regard to which Mr. 

 Lowell says: "The only attempt I had ever 

 made at anything like a pastoral (if that may be 

 called an attempt which was the result almost 6f 

 pure accident) was in ' The Courtin'.' While the 

 introduction to the first series was going through 

 the press I received word from the printer that 

 there was a blank page left, which must be filled. 

 I sat down at once and improvised another ficti- 

 tious ' notice of the press,' in which, because 

 verse would fill up space more cheaply than 

 prose, I inserted an extract from a supposed bal- 

 lad of Mr. Biglow. I kept no copy of it, and 

 the printer, as directed, cut it off when the gap 

 was filled. Presently I began to receive letters 

 asking for the rest of it, sometimes for the bal- 

 ance of it. 1 had none, but to answer such de- 

 mands I patched a conclusion upon it in a later 

 addition. Afterward, being asked to write it 

 out as an autograph at the Baltimore Sanitary 

 Commission Fair, I added other verses, into some 

 of which I infused a little more sentiment in a 

 homely way, and after a fashion completed it by 

 sketching in the characters and making a con- 

 nected story. Most likely I have spoiled it." 

 Here is an extract from " The Courtin' " : 



God makes sech nights, all white an' still 



Fur 1 / you can look or listen, 

 Moonshine an' snow on field an' hill, 



All silence an' all glisten. 

 Zekle crep' up quite unbeknown 



An' peeKed in thru the winder, 

 An' there sot Huldy all alone, 



'ith no one nigh to hender. 



The very room, coz she was in, 



Seemed warm from floor to ceilin', 

 An' she looked full as rosy ag'in 



Ez the apples she was peelin'. 

 'Twas kin' o' kingdom-come to look 



On sech a blessed cretur, 

 A dogrose blushin' to a brook 



Ain't modester nor sweeter. 

 He was six foot o' man A 1, 



Clear grit and human natur', 

 None couldn't quicker pitch a ton 



Nor dror a furrer straighter. 

 He'd sparked it with full twenty gals, 



Hed squired 'em, danced 'em, druv 'em, 

 Fust this one, an' then thet, by spells 



All is, he couldn't love 'em. 

 But long o' her his veins 'ould ruu 



All crinkly like curled maple, 

 The side she brcshed felt full o' sun 



Ez a south slope in Ap'il. 



