LOWELL, JAMES RUSSI'I.I. 





no v'ii'i- hod nech a 

 K/. his'n in ih i-hiiir; 



.Nhi-ii In- iiuuli' Olc Iliiiidi-ril riii;,', 

 Slu- itK'H,,/ tin' l.cinl MU* higher. 



Slu- hi'i-ivd a r.it, an' kiioui-.l it tu, 



A-niKpin' on tin- McrupiT 

 Al 1 wa\> !) on,',- )i, r frrliiiM' ll.'w 



Like sparks in liunit up paper. 



Ilf kin' <' 1'itrivd mi tin' mat, 



SollH- d.'lllltlll' o' till' 



I 



His lii'iirt krp' L'.'iii' pity pat, 

 But hcr'n unit pity-Zekle. 



An' yit sin' i:in her rhei-r a jerk 

 Kz tlnniifii .sh,. wished Jiiin turdor, 



An' on IHT ai>|'li'.s krp' to work, 

 I'ariu' away like murder. 



lie stood a spell on one foot fust, 



Then stood a spi-ll (.11 t'othrr, 



An' on which one he felt the wust 



lie couldu't hu 1 told ye uuther. 



Says he, " I'd better call agin" ; 



bays she, ' Think likely, mister" 

 Tlii-t last \\m-il prirki'd him like a pin, 



An' wal, he up an' kist her. 



When ma bimeby upon 'em slips, 



Huldy sot i>ale a/ as-lus, 

 All kin' o' sinily roun' the lips 



An' teary rouu' the lashes. 



These stanzas are from the first communica- 

 tion from Ilosea Biglow : 



Ez fer war, I call it murder 



There you hev it plain an' flat; 

 I don't want to go no furdur 



Than my Testyment fer that ; 

 God haw said so plump and fairly, 



It's as long as it is broad, 

 An' you've gut to git up airly 



Ef you want to take in God. 



'Tain't your cppylctts an' feathers 



Make the thing a grain more right ; 

 'Tain't a follerin' your bell-wethers 



Will excuse ye in his sight; 

 Ef you take a sword an' dror it, 



An' go stick a feller thru, 

 Gov'ment ain't to answer for it, 



God Ml send the bill to you. 



In regard to the linos that close these two 

 stanzas, Mr Lowell says in answer to a criticism 

 that they were profane: "In the first place, I 

 was writing under an assumed character, and 

 must talk as a person would whose mouth-piece 

 I made myself. Will any one familiar with the 

 New England countryman venture to tell me 

 that he does not sneak of sacred things famil- 

 iarly f that Biblical allusions (allusions, that, is. 

 to the single book with whose language, from 

 bis church-going habite, ta is intimate) are not 

 frequent on his lipsf If so. he can not have 

 pursued his studies of the character on so many 

 long-ago muster fields and cat tic shows as I. Hut 

 I scorn any such line of defense, and will con- 

 fess at once that one of the things I am proud 

 of in my countrymen is that they do not put 

 their Maker away far from them, or interpret the 

 fear of God into being afraid of him." Hird-of- 

 freedorn Sawin writes from the seat of war to 

 Ilosea: 



This kind o' sogerin 1 ain't a mite like our October 



trainin,' 

 A chap could clear right out from there of 't only 



looked like rainin', 



An' th' .mini.-., tu, could kiver up their nhappocM 



with ImiidatitiiTH, 

 An 1 MIL I tin' iiiMin-rt hkootin' to tho bar-room with 



tin ii Imlilu-rx 

 ( Ki-ur ..' (.'ittin' mi Vm spotted), an' a feller could cry 



quarter 

 Kl In tii rd away hu rain-rod artcr too much rum an* 



water. 



Afore I come away from hum I had a strong persua- 

 sion 



That Mexicans worn't human beans an ourang-out- 

 ang nation ; 



I'd an idee thet they were built arter tho darkic fash- 

 ion all, 



An' kickcn colored folks about, you know, 's a kind o' 

 national ; 



But wen I jined I worn't so wise ait that air queen o' 

 Shcby, 



Fer, come to look at 'em, they ain't much d iff rent 

 from wut we be, 



An' here we air a-scrougin 1 'em out <' their own 

 dominions, 



A-shelterin' 'em, cs Caleb sez, under our eagle's pin- 

 ions, 



Wich means to take a feller up jest by the slack o' ' 

 trow MS 



An' walk him Spanish clean right out o' all his homes 

 ail houses ; 



Wal, it doeK seem a curus way, but then hooraw for 

 Jackson ! 



It must be right, fer Caleb sez it's reg'lar Anglo- 

 Saxon. 



Turning his attention to home matters, Mr. 

 Biglow wrote as follows in regard to a State 

 political canvass : 



We were gittin' on nicely up here to our village, 

 With good old idees o' wut's right an' wut ain't, 

 We kin o' thought Christ went agin war an' pillage, 

 An' that eppyletto worn't the best mark of a saint ; 



But John P. 



Kobinson he 

 Sez this kind o' thing's an exploded idee . 



Parson Wilbur sez he never heerd in his life 



Thet th' apostles rigged out in their swaller-tail 



coats, 



An' marched round in front of a drum an' a fife, 

 To git some on 'em office, an' more on 'em votes 



But John P. 



Robinson lie 

 Sez they didn't know eveythin' down in Judee. 



Mr. Lowell's first prose writings were collected 

 under the title of "Conversations with tho Po- 

 ets," and they formed the basis of many of the 

 critical lectures that he delivered before the 

 Lowell Institute in 1854-'55, and at Harvard 

 during the professorship of Literature and Belles- 

 Lettres, to which he was appointed on tho resig- 

 nation of Mr. Longfellow. Mostof them appear 

 in revised forms, in the " Riverside Edition," but 

 of some he writes: "The dates attached wen- 

 those of publication, but the bulk of the material 

 was written many years earlier. I have refrained 

 from modifying what was written by one I 

 kiu.w not whether to say so much older or so 

 much younger Mian 1 but at any rate different, 

 in some important respects, and this, partly 

 from deference to him, partly from distrust of 

 myself." The earliest volume of the present 

 srrii's contains the " Moosehead Journal." " Cam- 

 bridge Thirty Years ago," ' Leaves from my 

 Journal in Italy and elsewhere," " Keats," " Li- 

 brary of Old A n thors,'' 4 - Emerson the Lecturer," 

 and " Thoreau." The quaint, delicate humor, 



