Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
file which includes the original illustrations.
See 48311-h.htm or 48311-h.zip:
(https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/48311/pg48311-images.html)
or
(https://www.gutenberg.org/files/48311/48311-h.zip)
Images of the original pages are available through
Internet Archive. See
https://archive.org/details/lowellandfriends00halerich
Transcriber’s note:
Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_).
A carat character is used to denote superscription. A
single character following the carat is superscripted
(example: Rev^d).
Words in mixed case using small capital letters are
rendered in uppercase.
Footnotes appear sparingly. The ten instances have been
moved to the end of the text.
Please see the transcriber’s note at the end of this
text for details regarding the handling of any textual
issues encountered during its preparation.
[Illustration:
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
_From the crayon by S.W. Rowse in the possession of Professor Charles
Eliot Norton_]
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL AND HIS FRIENDS
by
EDWARD EVERETT HALE
With Portraits, Facsimiles, and Other Illustrations
[Illustration]
Boston and New York
Houghton Mifflin Company
The Riverside Press Cambridge
Copyright, 1898 and 1899, by the Outlook Company
All Rights Reserved
-----------------------
PREFACE
When my friend Mr. Howland, of the “Outlook” magazine, asked me if I
could write for that magazine a Life of James Russell Lowell, I said at
once that I could not. While there were certain periods of our lives
when we met almost daily, for other periods we were parted, so that for
many years I never saw him. I said that the materials for any Life of
him were in the hands of others, who would probably use them at the
proper time.
Then Mr. Howland suggested that, without attempting anything which
should be called a Life of Mr. Lowell, I might write for the “Outlook”
a review, as it were, of the last sixty years among literary and
scientific people in Boston and its neighborhood. I do not think he
wanted my autobiography, nor had I any thought of preparing it for him;
but he suggested the book which is in the reader’s hands. This was in
April, 1897. I began my preparation for the book with great pleasure. I
was cordially helped by friends of Lowell, who opened to me their
stores of memories and papers and pictures; and on the 1st of January,
1898, the first number of a series of twelve was published in the
“Outlook.” This series is now collected, with such additions as seemed
desirable, and such corrections as were suggested by kind and courteous
readers.
I should like to acknowledge here personally the courtesy and kindness
of the different friends of Mr. Lowell who have rendered such cordial
assistance; but really there are too many of them. In trying to prepare
a list, I found that I was running up far into the hundreds, and I will
not therefore name any one here. On another page the reader will see
how largely we are indebted to friends of Mr. Lowell who have furnished
us with pictures. To the friends who have loaned us letters or
memoranda from diaries or other recollections of him, I must express in
general my cordial thanks.
EDWARD E. HALE.
ROXBURY, _April, 1899_.
-----------------------
CONTENTS
CHAP. PAGE
I. HIS BOYHOOD AND EARLY LIFE 1
II. HARVARD COLLEGE 15
III. LITERARY WORK IN COLLEGE 25
IV. CONCORD 43
V. BOSTON IN THE FORTIES 55
VI. THE BROTHERS AND SISTERS 70
VII. A MAN OF LETTERS 78
VIII. LOWELL AS A PUBLIC SPEAKER 102
IX. HARVARD REVISITED 125
X. LOWELL’S EXPERIENCE AS AN EDITOR 147
XI. POLITICS AND THE WAR 170
XII. TWENTY YEARS OF HARVARD 192
XIII. MR. LOWELL IN SPAIN 215
XIV. MINISTER TO ENGLAND 237
XV. HOME AGAIN 262
INDEX 287
-----------------------
ILLUSTRATIONS
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL _Frontispiece_
From the crayon by S.W. Rowse in the possession Page
of Professor Charles Eliot Norton.
ENTRANCE TO ELMWOOD _facing_ 4
From a photograph by Pach Brothers.
REV. CHARLES LOWELL 8
From a painting in the possession of Charles
Lowell, Boston.
THE PASTURE, ELMWOOD _facing_ 12
From a photograph by Pach Brothers.
EDWARD TYRREL CHANNING _facing_ 18
From the painting by Healy in Memorial Hall,
Harvard University.
NATHAN HALE _facing_ 36
From a photograph by Black.
LOWELL’S POEM TO HIS COLLEGE CLASS _facing_ 50
From a printed copy lent by Mrs. Elizabeth
Scates Beck, Germantown, Pa.
FACSIMILE OF PROGRAMME OF VALEDICTORY EXERCISES OF _facing_ 52
THE HARVARD CLASS OF 1838
Lent by Mrs. Elizabeth Scates Beck, Germantown,
Pa.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL _facing_ 74
From the crayon by William Page in the
possession of Mrs. Charles F. Briggs, Brooklyn,
N.Y.
MARIA LOWELL _facing_ 78
From the crayon by S. W. Rowse in the
possession of Miss Georgina Lowell Putnam, Boston.
CHARLES F. BRIGGS _facing_ 84
From an ambrotype by Brady lent by Mrs. Charles
F. Briggs, Brooklyn, N.Y.
FACSIMILE CONTENTS PAGE OF THE BOSTON MISCELLANY. _facing_ 86
(The Authors’ names are in the handwriting of
Nathan Hale)
FACSIMILE OF LOWELL’S LIST OF FRIENDS to whom he _facing_ 92
presented copies of Conversations on the Old
Poets. “The Don” was Robert Carter
From the original MS. owned by General James
Lowell Carter, Boston.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL _facing_ 96
From a daguerreotype, taken in Philadelphia in
1844, owned by E.A. Pennock, Boston.
JOHN LOWELL, JR. _facing_ 112
From a painting by Chester Harding in the
possession of Augustus Lowell, Boston.
JOHN HOLMES, ESTES HOWE, ROBERT CARTER, AND JAMES _facing_ 114
RUSSELL LOWELL
From a photograph by Black owned by General
James Lowell Carter, Boston.
CORNELIUS CONWAY FELTON _facing_ 134
From a photograph lent by Miss Mary Sargent, Worcester,
Mass.
ELMWOOD _facing_ 138
From a photograph.
JAMES T. FIELDS _facing_ 150
From the photograph by Mrs. Cameron.
MOSES DRESSER PHILLIPS _facing_ 154
From a daguerreotype kindly lent by his
daughter, Miss Sarah F. Phillips, West Medford,
Mass.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES _facing_ 158
From a photograph taken in 1862.
FACSIMILE OF A FABLE FOR CRITICS PROOF-SHEET WITH _facing_ 162
LOWELL’S CORRECTIONS
Kindly lent by Mrs. Charles F. Briggs,
Brooklyn, N.Y.
WILLIAM WETMORE STORY _facing_ 164
From a photograph by Waldo Story lent by Miss
Ellen Eldredge, Boston.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL _facing_ 168
From a photograph taken by Dr. Holmes in 1864. The
print is signed by both Holmes and Lowell, and is
kindly lent by Charles Akers, New York, N.Y.
SYDNEY HOWARD GAY _facing_ 178
From a photograph lent by Francis J. Garrison,
Boston.
ELMWOOD _facing_ 182
From a photograph by Miss C.E. Peabody,
Cambridge, Mass.
ROBERT GOULD SHAW _facing_ 184
From a photograph lent by Francis J. Garrison,
Boston.
WILLIAM LOWELL PUTNAM _facing_ 184
From the crayon by S.W. Rowse in the possession
of Miss Georgina Lowell Putnam, Boston.
CHARLES RUSSELL LOWELL _facing_ 184
From the crayon by S.W. Rowse in the possession
of Miss Georgina Lowell Putnam, Boston.
JAMES JACKSON LOWELL _facing_ 184
From a photograph kindly lent by Miss Georgina
Lowell Putnam, Boston.
FRANCIS JAMES CHILD _facing_ 186
From a photograph lent by Mrs. Child.
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW _facing_ 188
From a photograph, taken in 1860, lent by Miss
Longfellow.
ASA GRAY _facing_ 196
From the bronze tablet by Augustus St. Gaudens
in Harvard University.
LOUIS AGASSIZ _facing_ 198
From a photograph lent by Francis J. Garrison,
Boston.
CHARLES ELIOT NORTON _facing_ 202
From a photograph taken in 1870.
THE HALL AT ELMWOOD _facing_ 210
From a photograph by Mrs. J.H. Thurston,
Cambridge.
WHITBY _facing_ 240
From a photograph kindly lent by The Outlook
Company.
THOMAS HUGHES _facing_ 258
From a photograph.
WILLIAM PAGE _facing_ 266
From a photograph kindly lent by Mrs. Charles
F. Briggs, Brooklyn, N.Y.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL IN HIS STUDY AT ELMWOOD _facing_ 268
From a copyrighted photograph taken in the
spring of 1891 by Mrs. J.H. Thurston, Cambridge.
This is probably the last picture of Mr. Lowell.
ROOM ADJOINING THE LIBRARY AT ELMWOOD _facing_ 270
From a photograph by Mrs. J.H. Thurston,
Cambridge.
FACSIMILE OF LETTER FROM MR. LOWELL TO DR. HALE, _facing_ 274
November 11, 1890
FIRST TWO AND LAST TWO STANZAS OF MR. LOWELL’S _facing_ 284
POEM MY BROOK
From the original MS. in the possession of the
Rev. Minot J. Savage, New York, N.Y.
-----------------------
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
AND HIS FRIENDS
-----------------------
CHAPTER I
HIS BOYHOOD AND EARLY LIFE
One cannot conceive more fortunate or charming conditions than those of
the boyhood and early education of James Russell Lowell. You may study
the babyhood and boyhood of a hundred poets and not find one home like
his. His father, the Rev. Charles Lowell, was the minister of a large
parish in Boston for more than fifty years. Before James was born, Dr.
Lowell had moved his residence from Boston to Cambridge, to the home
which his children afterwards called Elmwood. So much of Mr. Lowell’s
poetry refers to this beautiful place, as beautiful now as it was then,
that even far-away readers will feel a personal interest in it.
The house, not much changed in the last century, was one of the
Cambridge houses deserted by the Tory refugees at the time of the
Revolution. On the steps of this house Thomas Oliver, who lived there
in 1774, stood and heard the demand of the freeholders of Middlesex
County when they came to bid him resign George the Third’s commission.
The king had appointed him lieutenant-governor of Massachusetts and
president of the council. But by the charter of the province councilors
were to be elected. Thomas Oliver became, therefore, an object of
public resentment. A committee of gentlemen of the county waited on him
on the morning of September 2, 1774, at this house, not then called
Elmwood. At their request he waited at once on General Gage in Boston,
to prevent the coming of any troops out from town to meet the Middlesex
yeomanry. And he was able to report to them in the afternoon that no
troops had been ordered, “and, from the account I had given his
Excellency, none would be ordered.” The same afternoon, however, four
or five thousand men appeared, not from the town but from the
country—“a quarter part in arms.” For in truth this was a rehearsal for
the minute-men’s gathering of the next spring, on the morning of the
battle of Lexington. They insisted on Oliver’s resignation of his
commission from the crown, and he at last signed the resignation they
had prepared, with this addition: “My house at Cambridge being
surrounded by five thousand people, in compliance with their command, I
sign my name.”
But for Thomas Oliver’s intercession with General Gage and the Admiral
of the English fleet, the English troops would have marched to
Cambridge that day, and Elmwood would have been the battleground of the
First Encounter.
The state confiscated his house after Governor Oliver left for England.
Elbridge Gerry, one of the signers of the Declaration, occupied it
afterward.
Readers must remember that in Cambridge were Washington’s headquarters,
and that the centre of the American army lay in Cambridge. During this
time the large, airy rooms of Elmwood were used for the hospital
service of the centre. Three or four acres of land belonged to the
estate. Since those early days a shorter road than the old road from
Watertown to Cambridge has been cut through on the south of the house,
which stands, therefore, in the midst of a triangle of garden and
meadow. But it was and is well screened from observation by high lilac
hedges and by trees, mostly elms and pines. It is better worth while to
say all this than it might be were we speaking of some other life, for,
as the reader will see, the method of education which was followed out
with James Russell Lowell and his brothers and sisters made a little
world for them within the confines, not too narrow, of the garden and
meadow of Elmwood.
In this home James Russell Lowell was born, on the 22d of February,
1819. There is more than one reference in his letters to his being born
on Washington’s birthday. His father, as has been said, was the Rev.
Charles Lowell. His mother before her marriage was Harriet Spence,
daughter of Mary Traill, who was the daughter of Robert Traill, of
Orkney. They were of the same family to which Minna Troil, of Scott’s
novel of “The Pirate,” belongs. Some of us like to think that the
second-sight and the weird fancies without which a poet’s life is not
fully rounded came to the child of Elmwood direct by the blood and
traditions of Norna and the Fitful Head. Anyway, Mrs. Lowell was a
person of remarkable nature and accomplishments. In the very close of
her life her health failed, from difficulties brought on by the bad
food and other exposure of desert travel in the East with her husband.
Those were the prehistoric days when travelers in Elijah’s deserts did
not carry with them a cook from the Palais Royal. But such delicate
health was not a condition of the early days of the poet’s life.
His mother had the sense, the courage, and exquisite foresight which
placed the little boy, almost from his birth, under the personal charge
of a sister eight years older. Mrs. Putnam died on the 1st of June,
1898, loving and beloved, after showing the world in a thousand ways
how well she was fitted for the privileges and duties of the nurse,
playmate, companion, philosopher, and friend of a poet. She entered
into this charge, I do not know how early—I suppose from his birth. I
hope that we shall hear that she left in such form that they may be
printed her notes on James’s childhood and her care of it.
[Illustration: ENTRANCE TO ELMWOOD]
Certain general instructions were given by father and mother, and under
these the young Mentor was largely left to her own genius and
inspiration. A daily element in the business was the little boy’s nap.
He was to lie in his cradle for three hours every morning. His little
nurse, eleven or twelve years old, might sing to him if she chose, but
she generally preferred to read to him from the poets who interested
her. The cadences of verse were soothing, and so the little boy fell
asleep every day quieted by the rhythm of Shakespeare or Spenser. By
the time a boy is three years old he does not feel much like sleeping
three hours in the forenoon. Also, by that time this little James began
to be interested in the stories in Spenser, and Mrs. Putnam once gave
me a most amusing account of the struggle of this little blue-eyed
fellow to resist the coming of sleep and to preserve his consciousness
so that he might not lose any of the poem.
Of course the older sister had to determine, in doubtful cases, whether
this or that pastime or occupation conflicted with the general rules
which had been laid down for them. In all the years of this tender
intimacy they never had but one misunderstanding. He was quite clear
that he had a right to do this; she was equally sure that he must do
that. For a minute it seemed as if there were a parting of the ways.
There was no assertion of authority on her part; there could be none.
But he saw the dejection of sorrow on her face. And this was enough. He
rushed back to her, yielded the whole point, and their one dispute was
at an end. The story is worth telling, if only as an early and
exquisite exhibition of the profound affection for others which is at
the basis of Lowell’s life. If to this loving-kindness you add an
extraordinary self-control, you have the leading characteristics of his
nature as it appears to those who knew him earliest and best, and who
have such right to know where the motives of his life are to be found.
I am eager to go on in some reminiscences of the little Arcadia of
Elmwood. But I must not do this till I have said something of the noble
characteristics of the boy’s father. Indeed, I must speak of the blood
which was in the veins of father and son, that readers at a distance
from Boston may be reminded of a certain responsibility which attaches
in Massachusetts to any one who bears the Lowell name.
I will go back only four generations, when the Rev. John Lowell was the
Congregational minister of Newburyport, and so became a leader of
opinion in Essex County. This man’s son, James Lowell’s grandfather,
the second John Lowell, is the Lowell who as early as 1772 satisfied
himself that, at the common law, slavery could not stand in
Massachusetts. It is believed that he offered to a negro, while
Massachusetts was still a province of the Crown, to try if the courts
could not be made to liberate him as entitled to the rights of
Englishmen. This motion of his may have been suggested by Lord
Mansfield’s decision in 1772, in the Somerset case, which determined,
from that day to this day, that—
“Slaves cannot breathe in England; if their lungs
Receive our air, that moment they are free!
They touch our country, and their shackles fall!”
But in that year John Lowell lost his chance. In 1779, however, he
introduced the clause in our Massachusetts Bill of Rights under which
the Supreme Court of Massachusetts freed every slave in the state who
sought his freedom. Let me say in passing that some verses of his,
written when he was quite a young man, are preserved in the “Pietas et
Gratulatio.” This was an elegant volume which Harvard College prepared
and sent to George III. in 1760 on his accession to the crown. They are
written with the exaggeration of a young man’s verse; but they show,
not only that he had the ear for rhythm and something of what I call
the “lyric swing,” but also that he had the rare art of putting things.
There is snap and epigram in the lines. Here they differ by the whole
sky from the verses of James Russell, who was also a great-grandfather
of our poet Lowell. This gentleman, a resident of Charlestown, printed
a volume of poems, which is now very rare. I am, very probably, the
only person in the world who has ever read it, and I can testify that
there is not one line in the book which is worth remembering, if,
indeed, any one could remember a line of it.
John Lowell, the emancipator, became a judge. He had three sons,—John
Lowell, who, without office, for many years led Massachusetts in her
political trials; Francis Cabot Lowell, the founder of the city of
Lowell; and Charles Lowell, the father of the poet. It is Francis
Lowell’s son who founded the Lowell Institute, the great popular
university of Boston. It is Judge John Lowell’s grandson who directs
that institution with wonderful wisdom; and it is his son who gives us
from day to day the last intelligence about the crops in Mars, or
reverses the opinions of centuries as to the daily duties of Mercury
and Venus. I say all this by way of illustration as to what we have a
right to expect of a Lowell, and, if you please, of what James Russell
Lowell demanded of himself as soon as he knew what blood ran in his
veins.
In this connection one thing must be said with a certain emphasis; for
the impression has been given that James Russell Lowell took up his
anti-slavery sentiment from lessons which he learned from the outside
after he left college.
The truth is that Wilberforce’s portrait hung opposite his father’s
face in the dining-room. And it was not likely that in that house
people had forgotten who wrote the anti-slavery clauses in the
Massachusetts Bill of Rights only forty years before Lowell was born.
Before he was a year old the Missouri Compromise passed Congress. The
only outburst of rage remembered in that household was when Charles
Lowell, the father, lost his self-control, on the morning when he read
his newspaper announcing that capitulation of the North to its Southern
masters. It took more than forty years before that same household had
to send its noblest offering to the war which should undo that
capitulation. It was forty-five years before Lowell delivered the
Harvard Commemoration Ode under the college elms.
[Illustration:
REV. CHARLES LOWELL
_From a painting in the possession of Charles Lowell, Boston_]
We are permitted to publish for the first time a beautiful portrait of
the Rev. Charles Lowell when he was at his prime. The picture does more
than I can do to give an impression of what manner of man he was, and
to account for the regard, which amounts to reverence, with which
people who knew him speak of him to this hour. The reader at a distance
must try to imagine what we mean when we speak of a Congregational
minister in New England at the end of the last century and at the
beginning of this. We mean a man who had been chosen by a congregation
of men to be their spiritual teacher for his life through, and, at the
same time, the director of sundry important functions in the
administration of public affairs. When one speaks of the choice of
Charles Lowell to be a minister in Boston, it is meant that the
selection was made by men who were his seniors, perhaps twice his age,
among whom were statesmen, men of science, leaders at the bar, and
merchants whose sails whitened all the ocean. Such men made the
selection of their minister from the young men best educated, from the
most distinguished families of the State.
In 1805 Charles Lowell returned from professional study in Edinburgh.
He had been traveling that summer with Mr. John Lowell, his oldest
brother. In London he had seen Wilberforce, who introduced him into the
House of Commons, where he heard Fox and Sheridan. Soon after he
arrived in Boston he was invited to preach at the West Church.
This church was the church of Mayhew, who was the Theodore Parker of
his time. Mayhew was in the advance in the Revolutionary sentiment of
his day, and Samuel Adams gave to him the credit of having first
suggested the federation of the Colonies: “Adams, we have a communion
of churches; why do we not make a communion of states?” This he said
after leaving the communion table. In such a parish young Charles
Lowell preached in 1805, from the text, “Rejoice in the Lord alway.”
Soon after, he was unanimously invited to settle as its minister, and
in that important charge he remained until he died, on the 20th of
January, 1861.
Mr. Lowell was always one of those who interpreted most broadly and
liberally the history and principles of the Christian religion. But he
was never willing to join in the unfortunate schism which divided the
Congregational churches between Orthodox and Unitarian. He and Dr. John
Pierce, of Brookline, to their very death, succeeded in maintaining a
certain nominal connection with the Evangelical part of the
Congregational body.
The following note, written thirty-six years after James Lowell was
born, describes his position in the disputes of “denominationalists”:—
MY DEAR SIR: You must allow me to say that, whilst I am most happy to
have my name announced as a contributor toward any fund that may aid
in securing freedom and religious instruction to Kansas, I do not
consent to its being announced as the minister of a Unitarian or
Trinitarian church, in the common acceptation of those terms. If
there is anything which I have uniformly, distinctly, and
emphatically declared, it is that I have adopted no other religious
creed than the Bible, and no other name than Christian as denoting my
religious faith.
Very affectionately your friend and brother,
CHA. LOWELL.
ELMWOOD, CAMBRIDGE,
December 19, 1855.
It may be said that he was more known as a minister than as a preacher.
There was no branch of ministerial duty in which he did not practically
engage. His relations with his people, from the beginning to the end,
were those of entire confidence. But it must be understood, while this
is said, that he was a highly popular preacher everywhere, and every
congregation, as well as that of the West Church, was glad if by any
accident of courtesy or of duty he appeared in the pulpit.
The interesting and amusing life by which the children of the family
made a world of the gardens of Elmwood was in itself an education. The
garden and grounds, as measured by a surveyor, were only a few acres.
But for a circle of imaginative children, as well led as the Lowell
children were, this is a little world. One is reminded of that fine
passage in Miss Trimmers’s “Robins,” where, when the four little birds
have made their first flight from the nest into the orchard, Pecksy
says: “Mamma, what a large place the world is!” Practically, I think,
for the earlier years of James Lowell’s life, Elmwood furnished as
large a world as he wanted. Within its hedges and fences the young
people might do much what they chose. They were Mary, who was the
guardian; then came William; afterwards Robert, whose name is well
known in our literature; and then James. The four children were much
together; they found nothing difficult, for work or for pastime.
Another daughter, Rebecca, was the songstress of the home; with a sweet
flexible voice she sang, in her childhood, hymns, and afterwards the
Scotch melodies and the other popular music of the day.
The different parts of the grounds of Elmwood became to these children
different cities of the world, and they made journeys from one to
another. Their elder brother Charles, until he went to Exeter to
school, joined in this geographical play.
The father and mother differed from each other, but were allied in
essentials; they enjoyed the same tastes and followed the same pursuits
in literature and art. Dr. Lowell was intimate with Allston, the
artist, whose studio was not far away, and the progress of his work was
a matter of home conversation.
Mrs. Putnam told me that in “The First Snowfall” would be found a
reference to Lowell’s elder brother William, who died when the poet
himself was but five years old; another trace of this early memory
appears again in the poem “Music,” in “A Year’s Life.”
To such open-air life we may refer the pleasure he always took in the
study of birds, their seasons and habits, and the accuracy of his
knowledge with regard to trees and wild flowers.
[Illustration: THE PASTURE, ELMWOOD]
In the simple customs of those days, when one clergyman exchanged
pulpits with another, Dr. Lowell would drive in his own “chaise” to the
parsonage of his friend, would spend the day there, and return probably
on Monday morning. He soon found that James was a good companion in
such rides, and the little fellow had many reminiscences of these early
travels. It would be easy to quote hundreds of references in his poems
and essays to the simple Cambridge life of these days before college.
Thus here are some lines from the poem hardly known, on “The Power of
Music.”
“When, with feuds like Ghibelline and Guelf,
Each parish did its music for itself,
A parson’s son, through tree-arched country ways,
I rode exchanges oft in dear old days,
Ere yet the boys forgot, with reverent eye,
To doff their hats as the black coat went by,
Ere skirts expanding in their apogee
Turned girls to bells without the second e;
Still in my teens, I felt the varied woes
Of volunteers, each singing as he chose,
Till much experience left me no desire
To learn new species of the village choir.”
So soon as the boy was old enough he was sent to the school of Mr.
William Wells, an English gentleman who kept a classical school in
Cambridge, not far from Dr. Lowell’s house. Of this school Dr. Holmes
and Mr. Higginson have printed some of their memories. All the
Cambridge boys who were going to college were sent there. Mr. Wells was
a good Latin scholar, and on the shelves of old-fashioned men will
still be found his edition of Tacitus, printed under his own eye in
Cambridge, and one of the tokens of that “Renaissance” in which
Cambridge and Boston meant to show that they could push such things
with as much vigor and success as they showed in the fur trade or in
privateering. A very good piece of scholarly work it is. Mr. Wells was
a well-trained Latinist from the English schools, and his boys learned
their Latin well. And it is worth the while of young people to observe
that in the group of men of letters at Cambridge and Boston, before and
after James Lowell’s time, Samuel Eliot, William Orne White, James
Freeman Clarke, Charles and James Lowell, John and Wendell Holmes,
Charles Sumner, Wentworth Higginson, and other such men never speak
with contempt of the niceties of classical scholarship. You would not
catch one of them in a bad quantity, as you sometimes do catch to-day
even a college president, if you are away from Cambridge, in the
mechanical Latin of his Commencement duty.
But though the boys might become good Latinists and good Grecians, the
school has not a savory memory as to the personal relations between
master and pupils. James Lowell, however, knew but little of its
hardships, as he was but a day scholar. Dr. Samuel Eliot, who attended
the school as a little boy, tells me that Lowell delighted to tell the
boys imaginative tales, and the little fellows, or many of them, took
pleasure in listening to the more stirring stories. “I remember nothing
of them except one, which rejoiced in the central interest of a trap in
the playground, which opened to subterranean marvels of various kinds.”
-----------------------