James Russell Lowell Biography and Selections

LOW ELL J A MES RUSSELL , — 1819 1891 . J A M ES R U S S E LL LOW E LL . It may justlybe said of Lowell that he always . is remained a boy It true that the years came , UBRARY U . O'I - . 'Ram m flama —380 his hair turned gray , and his step grew less sprightly , but he kept always the heart of youth and foun d it easy to see things from the point of view of the boy . He n ever lost his interest f s in the af air of everyday life , and there was always something new for him to see and to n enjoy . It was this quality of youthful ess of spirit that with others made him inte resting as a boy and charming as a man . to The ancestors of Lowell had been Neyv j n g landers for alm ost two centuries before he was v born . The first one of his relati es who cam e to this country was Percival Lowell , a merchant inR oxbur from Bristol , England , who settled yh 16 9 ’ 8 . Massachusetts , in The Lowell s became known at once for their intelligence , for their l n interest in education , and for their activity i1 i n all d ect o s. They trained their sons rigidly to labor , and when they were old enough they sent them to Harvard College from whence they entered the professions of the ministry or of the law . John Lowell , the grandfather of James Rus a offi sell , was graduate of Harvard College , an cer of the m ili tia at the time of the Revolution ary War , and a delegate to the convention that framed the constitution of Massachusetts . It was he who suggested the phrase “ all men are born free and equal ” which he hoped would be instrumental in doing away with slavery in the 1789 state . He was , in , made United States - 381 s Judge of the District of Mas achusetts , yet with all his legal duties he found time to give his aid in the founding of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences , and occasionally to write a r poem o to give a public address . All of his sons graduated from Harvard C ollegef John became a writer of some note ; Francis was a successful merchant who founded , and for ’ M W O O D O W S H O M . EL , L ELL E whom was named , the city of Lowell , Massa chusetts ; Charles , the father of James Russell , after his graduation , travelled for some time and then was settled over the West Unitarian w Church of Boston , here he remained as pastor until his death as a very old man . ’ Lowell s genius , however , cannot be wholly —382 attri buted to the fact that he had a good anoes ’ on . m try his father s side His other , too , came ” t from good s ock , and was a sister of Robert 1s Traill Spence of the United States Navy . It from her that her son is said to have inherited his v iyid imagination and his strong sense of humor . Not many men are so fortunate in their ancestors as was Lowell . ”fl 22d Lowell was born on the of February , 1819 w , a day of the month which another ell kno wn and celebrated American claimed as his birthday . The house in which Lowell first saw the light was a large frame structure standing n then on the outskirts of Cambridge and know , Elm the as wood . then and now , h It was in ‘ midst of a large cultivated field , at that time , an d un i s was overh g by huge elm trees , as it - to day . Nearly half a m ile away was Fresh l Pond , a small lake on which as a boy Lowe l W o on e skated in inter , and beyond the h use h could catc a view of the Charles River . Just \ on the edge of the village and some distance S away the Craigie House could be een , famous in the Revolutionary War as the headquarters as of Washington , and famous later the home B ut of the poet Longfellow . the village has t o come out meet the house long since , and the meadows in which Lowell played as a boy have been cut up into building lots and are dotted b e with houses . The old mansion , built long of fore Lowell was born , looks sadly out date —383 n ow , in comparison with its more modern neigh b s the ors , and the visitor who see it for first time wonders question in glyw hy it is not kept in better repair , as it should be , being the birth place of so great a man . Lowell w as t he youngest of afam ily of seven ‘ children and was naturally petted a great deal . He did n ot develop mentally with any unusual d rapidity , but he was an attractive , han some s n boy , whose alertness and ympathetic ature won for him the love of everyone . He was a u w as . real boy , too , for tho gh he quick to learn , yet he liked to play out of doors rather than be s . shut up in the house to tudy Like Holmes , he e n joyed as a boy the long drives which he often took with his father when the elder Low ell wen t into some of the surrounding village s un to exchange S day services with other pastors . an d u The little boy was a keen observer , no do bt the impression s he received of the plain country folk who came out to hear his father preach helped him in later years when he characterized so well the dwellers in New England . w Lo ell had always been fond of reading , and w the Rev . Charles Lo ell had a good many books in his library , some of which his son learned to read very early . He was a wide reader always , and this habit is perhaps responsible for much v o f his ease and vi acity in conversation . Some of the first money which he earned he spent fo r books . —384 m d At an early age Lowell , like most Ca bri ge ’ boys , was sent to a dame s school . He did not was stay here long , however , for when he h eig t or nine years of age , he entered a board ing school kept by a Mr . Wells , who lived near Elmwood . Mr . Wells was an educated Englishman who thought that it did boys n o harm to teach them to obey and who was not T H H O U I N H I H I D H I A T H R R E S E W C LO W ELL L V E W LE A V A D . averse to using the rod , if necessary , to bring a about this end . After he h d taught his boys to obey, he taught them Latin , and Lowell profited by both lessons . The letters which he wrote to his brother soon after entering this school are very much like those we should ex ect p a boy to write , for they showed a great deal of carelessness both in pun ctuation and h spelling , and they revealed the fact t at he —385 thought much more of play than of study , as perhaps a healthy boy should do . ’ t o W hen Lowell was fifteen years old he was able to pass the freshman examinations for entrance to Harvard College . He was a bashful be boy , but he formed friends easily and soon came well known in college . There were few students then to know , however , for the total n ot enrollment did exceed two hundred . There n ot a i were m ny nstructors either , but some of them were men of great ability . Two years after Lowell entered college Lon gfellow became professor of modern languages . Lowell en j oyed the life which he lived at col e l ge ; he was not a close student , but he liked to a d read , n he enjoyed spending his money for , books . Poetry attracted him perhaps more than other things , and he says of himself that he was fondest of the poetry of Spenser . He began to show some poetic ability soon after he entered college ; among the first things he did ' l m was to tran s ate so e odes of Horace . Occa sion all y he wrote for the college paper , but he did little really worthy of publication until after hi his graduation . At the beginning of s junior year he was elected a member of the Hasty n Pudding Club , a society still existi g at Har vard University which young men feel proud to become members of , and he at once was made secretary of the society . He said this honor m ca e to him because he could write poetry , and - 386 had the records of the society to be kept in verse . He made up his mind while in college to study law and said j okingly that if he did he should be chief justice of the United States . He was i H arv ardian a elected one of the ed tors of the , the college magazine at that tim e , a fact which he said flattered his v apgty sm ce he was one of the youngest men in his class .

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