LOVELACE, RICHARD(1618-1658), English poet, was born at Woolwich in 1618. He was a scion of a Kentish family, and inherited a tradition of military distinction, maintained by successive generations from the time of Edward III. His father, Sir William Lovelace, had served in the Low Countries, received the honour of knighthood from James I., and was killed at Grolle in 1628. His brother, Francis Lovelace, the “Colonel Francis” ofLucasta, served on the side of Charles I., and defended Caermarthen in 1644. His mother’s family was legal; her grandfather had been chief baron of the exchequer. Richard was educated at the Charterhouse and at Gloucester Hall, Oxford, where he matriculated in 1634. Through the request of one of the queen’s ladies on the royal visit to Oxford he was made M.A., though only in his second year at the university. Lovelace’s fame has been kept alive by a few songs and the romance of his career, and his poems are commonly spoken of as careless improvisations, and merely the amusements of an active soldier. But the unhappy course of his life gave him more leisure for verse-making than opportunity of soldiering. Before the outbreak of the civil war in 1642 his only active service was in the bloodless expedition which ended in the Pacification of Berwick in 1640. On the conclusion of peace he entered into possession of the family estates at Bethersden, Canterbury, Chart and Halden in Kent. By that time he was one of the most distinguished of the company of courtly poets gathered round Queen Henrietta, who were influenced as a school by contemporary French writers ofvers de société. He wrote a comedy,The Scholar, when he was sixteen, and a tragedy,The Soldier, when he was twenty-one. From what he says of Fletcher, it would seem that this dramatist was his model, but only the prologue and epilogue to his comedy have been preserved. When the rupture between king and parliament took place, Lovelace was committed to the Gatehouse at Westminster for presenting to the Commons in 1642 a petition from Kentish royalists in the king’s favour. It was then that he wrote his most famous song, “To Althea from Prison.” He was liberated, says Wood, on bail of £40,000 (more probably £4000), and throughout the civil war was a prisoner on parole, with this security in the hands of his enemies. He contrived, however, to render considerable service to the king’s cause. He provided his two brothers with money to raise men for the Royalist army, and befriended many of the king’s adherents. He was especially generous to scholars and musicians, and among his associates in London were Henry Lawes and John Gamble, the Cottons, Sir Peter Lely, Andrew Marvell and probably Sir John Suckling. He joined the king at Oxford in 1645, and after the surrender of the city in 1646 he raised a regiment for the service of the French king. He was wounded at the siege of Dunkirk, and with his brother Dudley, who had acted as captain in his brother’s command, returned to England in 1648. It is not known whether the brothers took any part in the disturbances in Kent of that year, but both were imprisoned at Petre House in Aldersgate. During this second imprisonment he collected and revised for the press a volume of occasional poems, many if not most of which had previously appeared in various publications. The volume was published in 1649 under the title ofLucasta, his poetical name—contracted fromLux Casta—for a lady rashly identified by Wood as Lucy Sacheverell, who, it is said, married another during his absence in France, on a report that he had died of his wounds at Dunkirk. The last ten years of Lovelace’s life were passed in obscurity. His fortune had been exhausted in the king’s interest, and he is said to have been supported by the generosity of friends. He died in 1658 “in a cellar in Longacre,” according to Aubrey, who, however, possibly exaggerates his poverty. A volume of Lovelace’sPosthume Poemswas published in 1659 by his brother Dudley. They are of inferior merit to his own collection.
The world has done no injustice to Lovelace in neglecting all but a few of his modest offerings to literature. But critics often do him injustice in dismissing him as a gay cavalier, who dashed off his verses hastily and cared little what became of them. It is a mistake to class him with Suckling; he has neither Suckling’s easy grace nor his reckless spontaneity. We have only to compare the version of any of his poems inLucastawith the form in which it originally appeared to see how fastidious was his revision. In many places it takes time to decipher his meaning. The expression is often elliptical, the syntax inverted and tortuous, the train of thought intricate and discontinuous. These faults—they are not of course to be found in his two or three popular lyrics, “Going to the Wars,” “To Althea from Prison,” “The Scrutiny”—are, however, as in the case of his poetical master, Donne, the faults not of haste but of over-elaboration. His thoughts are not the first thoughts of an improvisatore, but thoughts ten or twenty stages removed from the first, and they are generally as closely packed as they are far-fetched.His poems were edited by W. C. Hazlitt in 1864.
The world has done no injustice to Lovelace in neglecting all but a few of his modest offerings to literature. But critics often do him injustice in dismissing him as a gay cavalier, who dashed off his verses hastily and cared little what became of them. It is a mistake to class him with Suckling; he has neither Suckling’s easy grace nor his reckless spontaneity. We have only to compare the version of any of his poems inLucastawith the form in which it originally appeared to see how fastidious was his revision. In many places it takes time to decipher his meaning. The expression is often elliptical, the syntax inverted and tortuous, the train of thought intricate and discontinuous. These faults—they are not of course to be found in his two or three popular lyrics, “Going to the Wars,” “To Althea from Prison,” “The Scrutiny”—are, however, as in the case of his poetical master, Donne, the faults not of haste but of over-elaboration. His thoughts are not the first thoughts of an improvisatore, but thoughts ten or twenty stages removed from the first, and they are generally as closely packed as they are far-fetched.
His poems were edited by W. C. Hazlitt in 1864.
LOVELL, FRANCIS LOVELL,Viscount(1454-1487), supporter of Richard III., was son of John, 8th Baron Lovell. As a young man he served under Richard of Gloucester in the expedition to Scotland in 1480. After the death of Edward IV. he became one of his patron’s strongest supporters. He had been created a viscount on the 4th of January 1483, and whilst still Protector Richard made him Chief Butler. As soon as Richard became king, Lovell was promoted to be Lord Chamberlain. Lovell helped in the suppression of Buckingham’s rebellion, and as one of Richard’s most trusted ministers was gibbeted in Collingbourne’s couplet with Catesby and Ratcliffe:—
“The catte, the ratte and Lovell our doggeRulyth all England under a hogge.”
“The catte, the ratte and Lovell our dogge
Rulyth all England under a hogge.”
He had command of the fleet which was to have stopped Henry Tudor’s landing in 1485, but fought for Richard at Bosworth and after the battle fled to sanctuary at Colchester. Thence he escaped next year to organize a dangerous revolt in Yorkshire. When that failed he fled to Margaret of Burgundy in Flanders. As a chief leader of the Yorkist party he had a foremost part in Lambert Simnel’s enterprise. With John de la Pole, earl of Lincoln, he accompanied the pretender to Ireland and fought for him at Stoke on the 16th of June 1487. He was seen escaping from the battle, but was never afterwards heard of; Bacon relates that according to one report he lived long after in a cave or vault (Henry VII., p. 37, ed. Lumby). More than 200 years later, in 1708, the skeleton of a man was found in a secret chamber in the family mansion at Minster Lovell in Oxfordshire. It is supposed that Francis Lovell had hidden himself there and died of starvation.
Collingbourne’s couplet is preserved by Fabyan,Chronicle, p. 672. For the discovery at Minster Lovell seeNotes and Queries, 2nd ser. i. and 5th ser. x.
Collingbourne’s couplet is preserved by Fabyan,Chronicle, p. 672. For the discovery at Minster Lovell seeNotes and Queries, 2nd ser. i. and 5th ser. x.
(C. L. K.)
LOVER, SAMUEL(1797-1868), Irish novelist, artist, songwriter and musician, was born in Dublin on the 24th of February 1797. His father was a stockbroker. Lover began life as an artist, and was elected in 1828 a member of the Royal Hibernian Academy—a body of which two years afterwards he became secretary. He acquired repute as a miniature painter, and a number of the local aristocracy sat to him for their portraits. His love for music showed itself at an early age. At a dinner given to the poet Tom Moore in 1818 Lover sang one of his own songs, which elicited special praise from Moore. One of his best-known portraits was that of Paganini, which was exhibited at the Royal Academy. He attracted attention as an author by hisLegends and Stories of Ireland(1832), and was one of the first writers for theDublin University Magazine. He went to London about 1835, where, among others, he painted Lord Brougham in his robes as lord chancellor. His gifts rendered him popular in society; and he appeared often at Lady Blessington’s evening receptions. There he sang several of his songs, which were so well received that he published them (Songs and Ballads, 1839). Some of them illustrated Irish superstitions, among these being “Rory O’More,” “The Angel’s Whisper,” “The May Dew” and “The Four-leaved Shamrock.” In 1837 appearedRory O’More, a National Romance, which at once made him a reputation as a novelist; he afterwards dramatized it for the Adelphi Theatre, London. In 1842 was published his best-known work,Handy Andy, an Irish Tale. Meanwhile his pursuits hadaffected his health; and in 1844 he gave up writing for some time, substituting instead public entertainments, called by him “Irish Evenings,” illustrative of his own works. These were successful both in Great Britain and in America. In addition to publishing numerous songs of his own, Lover edited a collection entitledThe Lyrics of Ireland, which appeared in 1858. He died on the 6th of July 1868. Besides the novels already mentioned he wroteTreasure Trove(1844), andMetrical Tales and Other Poems(1860).
HisLifewas written in 1874 by Bayle Bernard.
HisLifewas written in 1874 by Bayle Bernard.
LOVERE,a town of Lombardy, Italy, in the province of Bergamo, at the north-west end of the Lago d’Iseo, 522 ft. above sea-level. Pop. (1901) 3306. It is a picturesque town, the houses having the overhanging wooden roofs of Switzerland united with the heavy stone arcades of Italy, while the situation is beautiful, with the lake in front and the semicircle of bold mountains behind. The church of Santa Maria in Valvendra, built in 1473, has frescoes by Floriano Ferramola of Brescia (d. 1528). The Palazzo Tadini contains a gallery of old pictures, some sculptures by Benzoni and Canova, and a zoological collection. Lovere possesses a silk-spinning factory, and the Stablimento Metallurgico Gregorini, a large iron-work and cannon foundry, employs 1600 workmen. Lovere is reached by steamer from Sarnico at the south end of the lake, and there is a steam tramway through the Val Camonica, which is highly cultivated, and contains iron- and silk-works. From Cividate, the terminus, the road goes on to Edolo (2290 ft.), whence passes lead into Tirol and the Valtellina.
LOW, SETH(1850- ), American administrator and educationist, was born in Brooklyn, New York, on the 18th of January 1850. He studied in the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn and in Columbia University, where he graduated in 1870. He became a clerk (1870) and then a partner (1875) in his father’s tea and silk-importing house, A. A. Low & Brothers, which went out of business in 1888. In 1878 he organized, and became president of, the Brooklyn Bureau of Charities. In 1882-1886 he was mayor of the city of Brooklyn, being twice elected on an independent ticket; and by his administration of his office he demonstrated that a rigid “merit” civil-service system was practicable—in September 1884 the first municipal civil-service rules in the United Service were adopted in Brooklyn. He was president of Columbia University from 1890 to 1901, and did much for it by his business administration, his liberality (he gave $1,000,000 for the erection of a library) and his especial interest in the department of Political Science. In his term Columbia became a well-organized and closely-knit university. Its official name was changed from Columbia College to Columbia University. It was removed to a new site on Morningside Heights, New York City. The New York College for the Training of Teachers became its Teachers’ College of Columbia; a Faculty of Pure Science was added; the Medical School gave up its separate charter to become an integral part of the university; Barnard College became more closely allied with the university; relations were entered into between the university and the General, Union and Jewish theological seminaries of New York City and with Cooper Union, the Metropolitan Museum of Fine Arts and the American Museum of Natural History; and its faculty and student body became less local in character. Dr Low was a delegate to the Hague Peace Conference in 1899. He was prominent among those who brought about the chartering of Greater New York in 1897, and in this year was an unsuccessful candidate, on an independent ticket, for mayor of New York City; in 1900, on a fusion ticket, he was elected mayor and served in 1901-1903.
LOW, WILL HICOK(1853- ), American artist and writer on art, was born at Albany, New York, on the 31st of May 1853. In 1873 he entered the atelier of J. L. Gérôme in the École des Beaux Arts at Paris, subsequently joining the classes of Carolus-Duran, with whom he remained until 1877. Returning to New York, he became a member of the Society of American Artists in 1878 and of the National Academy of Design in 1890. His pictures of New England types, and illustrations of Keats, brought him into prominence. Subsequently he turned his attention to decoration, and executed panels and medallions for the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, New York, a panel for the Essex County Court House, Newark, New Jersey, panels for private residences and stained-glass windows for various churches, including St Paul’s Methodist Episcopal Church, Newark, N.J. He was an instructor in the schools of Cooper Union, New York, in 1882-1885, and in the school of the National Academy of Design in 1889-1892. Mr Low, who is known to a wider circle as the friend of R. L. Stevenson, published some reminiscences,A Chronicle of Friendships, 1873-1900(1908). In 1909 he married Mary (Fairchild), formerly the wife of the sculptor MacMonnies.
LOWBOY,a small table with one or two rows of drawers, so called in contradistinction to the tallboy, or double chest of drawers. Both were favourite pieces of the 18th century, both in England and America; the lowboy was most frequently used as a dressing-table, but sometimes as a side-table. It is usually made of oak, walnut or mahogany, with brass handles and escutcheons. The more elegant examples of the Chippendale period have cabriole legs, claw-and-ball feet and carved knees, and are sometimes sculptured with the favourite shell motive beneath the centre drawer.
LOW CHURCHMAN,a term applied to members of the Church of England or its daughter churches who, while accepting the hierarchical and sacramental system of the Church, do not consider episcopacy as essential to the constitution of the Church, reject the doctrine that the sacraments confer graceex opere operato(e.g.baptismal regeneration) and lay stress on the Bible as the sole source of authority in matters of faith. They thus differ little from orthodox Protestants of other denominations, and in general are prepared to co-operate with them on equal terms.
The name was used in the early part of the 18th century as the equivalent of “Latitudinarian,”i.e.one who was prepared to concede much latitude in matters of discipline and faith, in contradistinction to “High Churchman,” the term applied to those who took a high view of the exclusive authority of the Established Church, of episcopacy and of the sacramental system. It subsequently fell into disuse, but was revived in the 19th century when the Tractarian movement had brought the term “High Churchman” into vogue again in a modified sense,i.e.for those who exalted the idea of the Catholic Church and the sacramental system at the expense both of the Establishment and of the exclusive authority of Scripture. “Low Churchman” now became the equivalent of “Evangelical,” the designation of the movement, associated with the name of Simeon, which laid the chief stress on the necessity of personal “conversion.” “Latitudinarian” gave place at the same time to “Broad Churchman,” to designate those who lay stress on the ethical teaching of the Church and minimize the value of orthodoxy. The revival of pre-Reformation ritual by many of the High Church clergy led to the designation “ritualist” being applied to them in a somewhat contemptuous sense; and “High Churchman” and “Ritualist” have often been wrongly treated as convertible terms. Actually many High Churchmen are not Ritualists, though they tend to become so. The High Churchman of the “Catholic” type is further differentiated from the “old-fashioned High Churchman” of what is sometimes described as the “high and dry” type of the period anterior to the Oxford Movement.
LOWE, SIR HUDSON(1769-1844), English general, was the son of an army surgeon, John Lowe, and was born at Galway on the 28th of July 1769. His mother was a native of that county. His childhood was spent in various garrison towns but he was educated chiefly at Salisbury grammar school. He obtained a post as ensign in the East Devon Militia before his twelfth year, and subsequently entered his father’s regiment, the 50th, then at Gibraltar (1787) under Governor-General O’Hara. After the outbreak of war with France early in 1793, Lowe saw active service successively in Corsica, Elba, Portugal and Minorca, where he was entrusted with the command of abattalion of Corsican exiles, called The Corsican Rangers. With these he did good work in Egypt in 1800-1801. After the peace of Amiens, Lowe, now a major, became assistant quartermaster-general; but on the renewal of war with France in 1803 he was charged, as lieutenant-colonel, to raise the Corsican battalion again and with it assisted in the defence of Sicily. On the capture of Capri he proceeded thither with his battalion and a Maltese regiment; but in October 1808 Murat organized an attack upon the island, and Lowe, owing to the unsteadiness of the Maltese troops and the want of succour by sea, had to agree to evacuate the island. The terms in which Sir William Napier and others have referred to Lowe’s defence of Capri are unfair. His garrison consisted of 1362 men, while the assailants numbered between 3000 and 4000. In the course of the year 1809 Lowe and his Corsicans helped in the capture of Ischia and Procida, as well as of Zante, Cephalonia and Cerigo. For some months he acted as governor of Cephalonia and Ithaca, and later on of Santa Maura. He returned to England in 1812, and in January 1813 was sent to inspect a Russo-German legion then being formed, and he accompanied the armies of the allies through the campaigns of 1813 and 1814, being present at thirteen important battles. He won praise from Blücher and Gneisenau for his gallantry and judgment. He was chosen to bear to London the news of the first abdication of Napoleon in April 1814. He was then knighted and became major-general; he also received decorations from the Russian and Prussian courts. Charged with the duties of quartermaster-general of the army in the Netherlands in 1814-1815, he was about to take part in the Belgian campaign when he was offered the command of the British troops at Genoa; but while still in the south of France he received (on the 1st of August 1815) news of his appointment to the position of custodian of Napoleon, who had surrendered to H.M.S. “Bellerophon” off Rochefort. Lowe was to be governor of St Helena, the place of the ex-emperor’s exile.
On his arrival there at Plantation House he found that Napoleon had already had scenes with Admiral Cockburn, of H.M.S. “Northumberland,” and that he had sought to induce the former governor, Colonel Wilks, to infringe the regulations prescribed by the British government (seeMonthly Review, January 1901). Napoleon and his followers at Longwood pressed for an extension of the limits within which he could move without surveillance, but it was not in Lowe’s power to grant this request. Various matters, in some of which Lowe did not evince much tact, produced friction between them. The news that rescue expeditions were being planned by the Bonapartists in the United States led to the enforcement of somewhat stricter regulations in October 1816, Lowe causing sentries to be posted round Longwood garden at sunset instead of at 9P.M.This was his great offence in the eyes of Napoleon and his followers. Hence their efforts to calumniate Lowe, which had a surprising success. O’Meara, the British surgeon, became Napoleon’s man, and lent himself to the campaign of calumny in which Las Cases and Montholon showed so much skill. In one of the suppressed passages of hisJournalLas Cases wrote that the exiles had to “reduce to a system our demeanour, our words, our sentiments, even our privations, in order that we might thereby excite a lively interest in a large portion of the population of Europe, and that the opposition in England might not fail to attack the ministry.” As to the privations, it may be noted that Lowe recommended that the government allowance of £8000 a year to the Longwood household should be increased by one-half. The charges of cruelty brought against the governor by O’Meara and others have been completely refuted; and the most that can be said against him is that he was occasionally too suspicious in the discharge of his duties. After the death of Napoleon in May 1821, Lowe returned to England and received the thanks of George IV. On the publication of O’Meara’s book he resolved to prosecute the author, but, owing to an unaccountable delay, the application was too late. This fact, together with the reserved behaviour of Lowe, prejudiced the public against him, and the government did nothing to clear his reputation. In 1825-1830 he commanded the forces in Ceylon, but was not appointed to the governorship when it fell vacant in 1830. In 1842 he became colonel of his old regiment, the 50th; he also received the G.C.M.G. He died in 1844.
See W. Forsyth,History of the Captivity of Napoleon at St Helena(3 vols., London, 1853); Gourgaud,Journal inédite de Sainte-Hélène(1815-1818; 2 vols., Paris, 1899); R. C. Seaton,Napoleon’s Captivity in relation to Sir Hudson Lowe(London, 1903); Lieut.-Col. Basil Jackson,Notes and Reminiscences of a Staff-Officer(London, 1903); the earl of Rosebery,Napoleon; the Last Phase(London 1900); J. H. Rose,Napoleonic Studies(London, 1904).
See W. Forsyth,History of the Captivity of Napoleon at St Helena(3 vols., London, 1853); Gourgaud,Journal inédite de Sainte-Hélène(1815-1818; 2 vols., Paris, 1899); R. C. Seaton,Napoleon’s Captivity in relation to Sir Hudson Lowe(London, 1903); Lieut.-Col. Basil Jackson,Notes and Reminiscences of a Staff-Officer(London, 1903); the earl of Rosebery,Napoleon; the Last Phase(London 1900); J. H. Rose,Napoleonic Studies(London, 1904).
(J. Hl. R.)
LÖWE, JOHANN KARL GOTTFRIED(1796-1869), German composer, was born at Löbejün, near Halle, on the 30th of November 1796, and was a choir-boy at Köthen from 1807 to 1809, when he went to the Franke Institute at Halle, studying music with Türk. The beauty of Löwe’s voice brought him under the notice of Madame de Staël, who procured him a pension from Jérôme Bonaparte, then king of Westphalia; this stopped in 1813, on the flight of the king. He entered the University of Halle as a theological student, but was appointed cantor at Stettin in 1820, and director of the town music in 1821, in which year he married Julie von Jacob, who died in 1823. His second wife, Auguste Lange, was an accomplished singer, and they appeared together in his oratorio performances with great success. He retained his office at Stettin for 46 years, when, after a stroke of paralysis, he was somewhat summarily dismissed. He retired to Kiel, and died on the 20th of April 1869. He undertook many concert tours during his tenure of the post at Stettin, visiting Vienna, London, Sweden, Norway and Paris. His high soprano voice (he could sing the music of the “Queen of Night” inDie Zauberflöteas a boy) had developed into a fine tenor. Löwe was a voluminous composer, and wrote five operas, of which only one,Die drei Wünsche, was performed at Berlin in 1834, without much success; seventeen oratorios, many of them for male voices unaccompanied, or with short instrumental interludes only; choral ballads, cantatas, three string quartets, a pianoforte trio; a work for clarinet and piano, published posthumously; and some piano solos. But the branch of his art by which he is remembered, and in which he must be admitted to have attained perfection, is the solo ballad with pianoforte accompaniment. His treatment of long narrative poems, in a clever mixture of the dramatic and lyrical styles, was undoubtedly modelled on the ballads of Zumsteeg, and has been copied by many composers since his day. His settings of the “Erlkönig” (a very early example), “Archibald Douglas,” “Heinrich der Vogler,” “Edward” and “Die Verfallene Mühle,” are particularly fine.
LOWELL, ABBOTT LAWRENCE(1856- ), American educationalist, was born in Boston, Massachusetts on the 13th of December 1856, the great-grandson of John Lowell, the “Columella of New England,” and on his mother’s side, a grandson of Abbott Lawrence. He graduated at Harvard College in 1877, with highest honours in mathematics; graduated at the Harvard Law School in 1880; and practised law in 1880-1897 in partnership with his cousin, Francis Cabot Lowell (b. 1855), with whom he wroteTransfer of Stock in Corporations(1884). In 1897 he became lecturer and in 1898 professor of government at Harvard, and in 1909 succeeded Charles William Eliot as president of the university. In the same year he was president of the American Political Science Association. In 1900 he had succeeded his father, Augustus Lowell (1830-1901), as financial head of the Lowell Institute of Boston. He wroteEssays on Government(1889),Governments and Parties in Continental Europe(2 vols., 1896),Colonial Civil Service(1900; with an account by H. Morse Stephens of the East India College at Haileybury), andThe Government of England(2 vols., 1908).
His brother,Percival Lowell(1855- ), the well-known astronomer, graduated at Harvard in 1876, lived much in Japan between 1883 and 1893, and in 1894 established at Flagstaff, Arizona, the Lowell Observatory, of whoseAnnals(from 1898) he was editor. In 1902 he became non-resident professor of astronomy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He wrote several books on the Far East, includingChosön(1885),The Soul of the Far East(1886),Noto, an Unexplored Cornerof Japan(1891), andOccult Japan(1895), but he is best known for his studies of the planet Mars—he wroteMars(1895),Mars and Its Canals(1907), andMars, the Abode of Life(1908)—and his contention that the “canals” of Mars are a sign of life and civilization on that planet (seeMars). He publishedThe Evolution of Worldsin 1909.
LOWELL, CHARLES RUSSELL(1835-1864), American soldier, was born on the 2nd of January 1835 in Boston, Massachusetts. His mother, Anna Cabot Jackson Lowell (1819-1874), a daughter of Patrick Tracy Jackson, married Charles Russell Lowell, a brother of James Russell Lowell; she wrote verse and books on education. Her son graduated at Harvard in 1854, worked in an iron mill in Trenton, New Jersey, for a few months in 1855, spent two years abroad, and in 1858-1860 was local treasurer of the Burlington & Missouri river railroad. In 1860 he took charge of the Mount Savage Iron Works, in Cumberland, Maryland. He entered the Union army in June 1861 (commission May 14) as captain of the 3rd (afterwards 6th) U.S. cavalry; on the 15th of April 1863 he became colonel of the 2nd Massachusetts cavalry; he was wounded fatally at Cedar Creek on the 19th of October 1864, when he was promoted brigadier-general of U.S. Volunteers, and died on the next day at Middletown, Va. Lowell married in October 1863, Josephine Shaw (1843-1905), a sister of Colonel R. G. Shaw. Her home when she was married was on Staten Island, and she became deeply interested in the social problems of New York City. She was a member of the State Charities Aid Society, and from 1877 to 1889 was a member of the New York State Board of Charities, being the first woman appointed to that board. She founded the Charity Organization Society of New York City in 1882, and wrotePublic Relief and Private Charity(1884) andIndustrial Arbitration and Conciliation(1893).
See Edward E. Emerson (ed.),The Life and Letters of Charles Russell Lowell(Boston, 1907).
See Edward E. Emerson (ed.),The Life and Letters of Charles Russell Lowell(Boston, 1907).
LOWELL, JAMES RUSSELL(1819-1891), American author and diplomatist, was born at Elmwood, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on the 22nd of February 1819, the son of Charles Lowell (1782-1861).1On his mother’s side he was descended from the Spences and Traills, who made their home in the Orkney Islands, his great-grandfather, Robert Traill, returning to England on the breaking out of hostilities in 1775. He was brought up in a neighbourhood bordering on the open country, and from his earliest years he found a companion in nature; he was also early initiated into the reading of poetry and romance, hearing Spenser and Scott in childhood, and introduced to old ballads by his mother. He had for schoolmaster an Englishman who held by the traditions of English schools, so that before he entered Harvard College he had a more familiar acquaintance with Latin verse than most of his fellows—a familiarity which showed itself later in his mock-pedantic accompaniment toThe Biglow Papersand his macaronic poetry. He was a wide reader, but a somewhat indifferent student, graduating at Harvard without special honours in 1838. During his college course he wrote a number of trivial pieces for a college magazine, and shortly after graduating printed for private circulation the poem which his class asked him to write for their graduation festivities.
He was uncertain at first what vocation to choose, and vacillated between business, the ministry, medicine and law. He decided at last to practise law, and after a course at the Harvard law school, was admitted to the bar. While studying for his profession, however, he contributed poems and prose articles to various magazines. He cared little for the law, regarding it simply as a distasteful means of livelihood, yet his experiments in writing did not encourage him to trust to this for support. An unhappy adventure in love deepened his sense of failure, but he became betrothed to Maria White in the autumn of 1840, and the next twelve years of his life were deeply affected by her influence. She was a poet of delicate power, but also possessed a lofty enthusiasm, a high conception of purity and justice, and a practical temper which led her to concern herself in the movements directed against the evils of intemperance and slavery. Lowell was already looked upon by his companions as a man marked by wit and poetic sentiment; Miss White was admired for her beauty, her character and her intellectual gifts, and the two became thus the hero and heroine among a group of ardent young men and women. The first-fruits of this passion was a volume of poems, published in 1841, entitledA Year’s Life, which was inscribed by Lowell in a veiled dedication to his future wife, and was a record of his new emotions with a backward glance at the preceding period of depression and irresolution. The betrothal, moreover, stimulated Lowell to new efforts towards self-support, and though nominally maintaining his law office, he threw his energy into the establishment, in company with a friend, Robert Carter, of a literary journal, to which the young men gave the name ofThe Pioneer. It was to open the way to new ideals in literature and art, and the writers to whom Lowell turned for assistance—Hawthorne, Emerson, Whittier, Poe, Story and Parsons, none of them yet possessed of a wide reputation—indicate the acumen of the editor. Lowell himself had already turned his studies in dramatic and early poetic literature to account in another magazine, and continued the series inThe Pioneer, besides contributing poems; but after the issue of three monthly numbers, beginning in January 1843, the magazine came to an end, partly because of a sudden disaster which befell Lowell’s eyes, partly through the inexperience of the conductors and unfortunate business connexions.
The venture confirmed Lowell in his bent towards literature. At the close of 1843 he published a collection of his poems, and a year later he gathered up certain material which he had printed, sifted and added to it, and producedConversations on some of the Old Poets. The dialogue form was used merely to secure an undress manner of approach to his subject; there was no attempt at the dramatic. The book reflects curiously Lowell’s mind at this time, for the conversations relate only partly to the poets and dramatists of the Elizabethan period; a slight suggestion sends the interlocutors off on the discussion of current reforms in church and state and society. Literature and reform were dividing the author’s mind, and continued to do so for the next decade. Just as this book appeared Lowell and Miss White were married, and spent the winter and early spring of 1845 in Philadelphia. Here, besides continuing his literary contributions to magazines, Lowell had a regular engagement as an editorial writer onThe Pennsylvania Freeman, a fortnightly journal devoted to the Anti-Slavery cause. In the spring of 1845 the Lowells returned to Cambridge and made their home at Elmwood. On the last day of the year their first child, Blanche, was born, but she lived only fifteen months. A second daughter, Mabel, was born six months after Blanche’s death, and lived to survive her father; a third, Rose, died an infant. Lowell’s mother meanwhile was living, sometimes at home, sometimes at a neighbouring hospital, with clouded mind, and his wife was in frail health. These troubles and a narrow income conspired to make Lowell almost a recluse in these days, but from the retirement of Elmwood he sent forth writings which show how large an interest he took in affairs. He contributed poems to the daily press, called out by the Slavery question; he was, early in 1846, a correspondent of the LondonDaily News, and in the spring of 1848 he formed a connexion with theNational Anti-Slavery Standardof New York, by which he agreed to furnish weekly either a poem or a prose article. The poems were most frequently works of art, occasionally they were tracts; but the prose was almost exclusively concerned with the public men and questions of the day, and forms a series of incisive, witty and sometimes prophetic diatribes. It was a period with him of great mental activity, and is represented by four of his books which stand as admirable witnesses to the Lowell of 1848, namely, the second series ofPoems, containing among others “Columbus,” “An Indian Summer Reverie,” “To the Dandelion,” “The Changeling”;A Fable for Critics, in which, after the manner of Leigh Hunt’sThe Feast of the Poets, he characterizes in witty verse and with good-natured satire Americancontemporary writers, and in which, the publication being anonymous, he included himself;The Vision of Sir Launfal, a romantic story suggested by the Arthurian legends—one of his most popular poems; and finallyThe Biglow Papers.
Lowell had acquired a reputation among men of letters and a cultivated class of readers, but this satire at once brought him a wider fame. The book was not premeditated; a single poem, called out by the recruiting for the abhorred Mexican war, couched in rustic phrase and sent to theBoston Courier, had the inspiriting dash and electrifying rat-tat-tat of this new recruiting sergeant in the little army of Anti-Slavery reformers. Lowell himself discovered what he had done at the same time that the public did, and he followed the poem with eight others either in theCourieror theAnti-Slavery Standard. He developed four well-defined characters in the process—a country farmer, Ezekiel Biglow, and his son Hosea; the Rev. Homer Wilbur, a shrewd old-fashioned country minister; and Birdofredum Sawin, a Northern renegade who enters the army, together with one or two subordinate characters; and his stinging satire and sly humour are so set forth in the vernacular of New England as to give at once a historic dignity to this form of speech. (Later he wrote an elaborate paper to show the survival in New England of the English of the early 17th century.) He embroidered his verse with an entertaining apparatus of notes and mock criticism. Even his index was spiced with wit. The book, a caustic arraignment of the course taken in connexion with the annexation of Texas and the war with Mexico, made a strong impression, and the political philosophy secreted in its lines became a part of household literature. It is curious to observe how repeatedly this arsenal was drawn upon in the discussions in America about the “Imperialistic” developments of 1900. The death of Lowell’s mother, and the fragility of his wife’s health, led Lowell, with his wife, their daughter Mabel and their infant son Walter, to go to Europe in 1851, and they went direct to Italy. The early months of their stay were saddened by the death of Walter in Rome, and by the news of the illness of Lowell’s father, who had a slight shock of paralysis. They returned in November 1852, and Lowell published some recollections of his journey in the magazines, collecting the sketches later in a prose volume,Fireside Travels. He took some part also in the editing of an American edition of theBritish Poets, but the low state of his wife’s health kept him in an uneasy condition, and when her death (27th October 1853) released him from the strain of anxiety, there came with the grief a readjustment of his nature and a new intellectual activity. At the invitation of his cousin, he delivered a course of lectures on English poets before the Lowell Institute in Boston in the winter of 1855. This first formal appearance as a critic and historian of literature at once gave him a new standing in the community, and was the occasion of his election to the Smith Professorship of Modern Languages in Harvard College, then vacant by the retirement of Longfellow. Lowell accepted the appointment, with the proviso that he should have a year of study abroad. He spent his time mainly in Germany, visiting Italy, and increasing his acquaintance with the French, German, Italian and Spanish tongues. He returned to America in the summer of 1856, and entered upon his college duties, retaining his position for twenty years. As a teacher he proved himself a quickener of thought amongst students, rather than a close and special instructor. His power lay in the interpretation of literature rather than in linguistic study, and his influence over his pupils was exercised by his own fireside as well as in the relation, always friendly and familiar, which he held to them in the classroom. In 1856 he married Miss Frances Dunlap, a lady who had since his wife’s death had charge of his daughter Mabel.
In the autumn of 1857The Atlantic Monthlywas established, and Lowell was its first editor. He at once gave the magazine the stamp of high literature and of bold speech on public affairs. He held this position only till the spring of 1861, but he continued to make the magazine the vehicle of his poetry and of some prose for the rest of his life; his prose, however, was more abundantly presented in the pages ofThe North American Reviewduring the years 1862-1872, when he was associated with Mr Charles Eliot Norton in its conduct. This magazine especially gave him the opportunity of expression of political views during the eventful years of the War of the Union. It was inThe Atlanticduring the same period that he published a second series ofThe Biglow Papers. Both his collegiate and editorial duties stimulated his critical powers, and the publication in the two magazines, followed by republication in book form, of a series of studies of great authors, gave him an important place as a critic. Shakespeare, Dryden, Lessing, Rousseau, Dante, Spenser, Wordsworth, Milton, Keats, Carlyle, Thoreau, Swinburne, Chaucer, Emerson, Pope, Gray—these are the principal subjects of his prose, and the range of topics indicates the catholicity of his taste. He wrote also a number of essays, such as “My Garden Acquaintance,” “A Good Word for Winter,” “On a Certain Condescension in Foreigners,” which were incursions into the field of nature and society. Although the great bulk of his writing was now in prose, he made after this date some of his most notable ventures in poetry. In 1868 he issued the next collection inUnder the Willows and other Poems, but in 1865 he had delivered his “Ode recited at the Harvard Commemoration,” and the successive centennial historical anniversaries drew from him a series of stately odes.
In 1877 Lowell, who had mingled so little in party politics that the sole public office he had held was the nominal one of elector in the Presidential election of 1876, was appointed by President Hayes minister resident at the court of Spain. He had a good knowledge of Spanish language and literature, and his long-continued studies in history and his quick judgment enabled him speedily to adjust himself to these new relations. Some of his despatches to the home government were published in a posthumous volume—Impressions of Spain. In 1880 he was transferred to London as American minister, and remained there till the close of President Arthur’s administration in the spring of 1885. As a man of letters he was already well known in England, and he was in much demand as an orator on public occasions, especially of a literary nature; but he also proved himself a sagacious publicist, and made himself a wise interpreter of each country to the other. Shortly after his retirement from public life he publishedDemocracy and other Addresses, all of which had been delivered in England. The title address was an epigrammatic confession of political faith as hopeful as it was wise and keen. The close of his stay in England was saddened by the death of his second wife in 1885. After his return to America he made several visits to England. His public life had made him more of a figure in the world; he was decorated with the highest honours Harvard could pay officially, and with degrees of Oxford, Cambridge, St Andrews, Edinburgh and Bologna. He issued another collection of his poems,Heartsease and Rue, in 1888, and occupied himself with revising and rearranging his works, which were published in ten volumes in 1890. The last months of his life were attended by illness, and he died at Elmwood on the 12th of August 1891. After his death his literary executor, Charles Eliot Norton, published a brief collection of his poems, and two volumes of added prose, besides editing his letters.
The spontaneity of Lowell’s nature is delightfully disclosed in his personal letters. They are often brilliant, and sometimes very penetrating in their judgment of men and books; but the most constant element is a pervasive humour, and this humour, by turns playful and sentimental, is largely characteristic of his poetry, which sprang from a genial temper, quick in its sympathy with nature and humanity. The literary refinement which marks his essays in prose is not conspicuous in his verse, which is of a more simple character. There was an apparent conflict in him of the critic and the creator, but the conflict was superficial. The man behind both critical and creative work was so genuine, that through his writings and speech and action he impressed himself deeply upon his generation in America, especially upon the thoughtful and scholarly class who looked upon him as especially their representative. This is not to say that he wasa man of narrow sympathies. On the contrary, he was democratic in his thought, and outspoken in his rebuke of whatever seemed to him antagonistic to the highest freedom. Thus, without taking a very active part in political life, he was recognized as one of the leaders of independent political thought. He found expression in so many ways, and was apparently so inexhaustible in his resources, that his very versatility and the ease with which he gave expression to his thought sometimes stood in the way of a recognition of his large, simple political ideality and the singleness of his moral sight.
Writings.—TheWorks of James Russell Lowell, in ten volumes (Boston and New York, Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1890);édition de luxe, 61 vols. (1904);Latest Literary Essays and Addresses(1891);The Old English Dramatists(1892);Conversations on some of the Old Poets(Philadelphia, David M‘Kay; reprint of the volume published in 1843 and subsequently abandoned by its author, 1893);The Power of Sound: a Rhymed Lecture(New York, privately printed, 1896);Lectures on English Poets(Cleveland, The Rowfant Club, 1899).Memoirs.—Letters of James Russell Lowell, edited by Charles Eliot Norton, in two volumes (New York, Harper & Brothers, 1899);Life of James Russell Lowell(2 vols.), by Horace E. Scudder (Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1901);James Russell Lowell and his Friends(Boston, 1899), by Edward Everett Hale.
Writings.—TheWorks of James Russell Lowell, in ten volumes (Boston and New York, Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1890);édition de luxe, 61 vols. (1904);Latest Literary Essays and Addresses(1891);The Old English Dramatists(1892);Conversations on some of the Old Poets(Philadelphia, David M‘Kay; reprint of the volume published in 1843 and subsequently abandoned by its author, 1893);The Power of Sound: a Rhymed Lecture(New York, privately printed, 1896);Lectures on English Poets(Cleveland, The Rowfant Club, 1899).
Memoirs.—Letters of James Russell Lowell, edited by Charles Eliot Norton, in two volumes (New York, Harper & Brothers, 1899);Life of James Russell Lowell(2 vols.), by Horace E. Scudder (Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1901);James Russell Lowell and his Friends(Boston, 1899), by Edward Everett Hale.
(H. E. S.*)
1See underLowell, John.
1See underLowell, John.