HOLMES, Oliver Wendell, American poet, essayist and physician: b. Cambridge, Mass., 29 Aug. 1809; d. Boston, Mass.. 8 Oct. 1894. He was the son of Rev. Abiel Holmes (q.v.), minister of the first parish in Cambridge, and on the maternal side was a descendant of Anne Bradstreet (q.v.) and related to the orator, Wendell Phillips, the poet, Richard Henry Dana, and the theologian, Dr. Charming. He was educated at Phillips Academy, Andover, and at Harvard, and was graduated from the latter in 1829 in a class which contained several who afterward became famous. In the next year he became well known through his poem Ironsides.' first published in the Boston Adver Nor, and which prevented the breaking up of the famous frigate Constitution. He spent a year in the Harvard Law School but soon turned his attention to medicine and after studying in Paris three years returned to Amer ica where he received his degree of M.D. in 1836, the same year in which his first volume of poems appeared. He was professor of anatomy and physiology at Dartmouth College 1839-40. He married in the last-named year, and estab lished a practice in Boston, becoming in 1847 professor of anatomy and physiology in the Harvard Medical School, a post which he re signed in 1882, when he was at once made pro fessor emeritus. In 1849, and for several suc ceeding years, he made his summer home at Pittsfield, Mass., the scene of his novel 'Elsie He was one of the first contributors to the Atlantic Monthly when it was established in 1857. the opening chapter of his 'Autocrat of the Breakfast Table> appearing in the first issue. It is this work, which has found in numerable readers both at home and abroad, by which he will be longest remembered. These brilliant conversational papers were followed in 1859 by a similar series, The Professor at the Breakfast Table,' and these in 1872, by 'The Poet at the Breakfast Table.) Many of his best poems were scattered through these volumes.
In 1861 appeared his novel 'Elsie Venner: a Romance of and in 1868 'The Guard ian Angel,) a less striking fiction than its prede cessor, but like that exhibiting a remarkable series of studies of character. 'A Mortal An tipathy) (1885) was his only other essay in fiction. His volumes of verse, 'Urania) (1846) and 'Astrea' (1850), had made him well known as a poet ere he appeared before the public as the kindly breakfast table autocrat, and he con tinued to write poetry at frequent intervals for the rest of his life. He was especially happy as the poet of occasions, but much of his verse, witty and sparkling as it is, is ephemeral from its very nature and not destined to endure. In such serious poems, however, as 'The Cham bered 'The 'The Last Leaf' ; 'The Iron Gate' ; and one or two hymns, he takes high rank among the poets of his time, while such poems as 'The One Hoss Shav); 'Evening, By a Tailor,' and 'Parson Turrell's Legacy,) to name no others, are inimitable ex amples of humorous verse. His later collections of poems comprise 'Songs in Many Keys) (1861); 'Songs of Many (1875) ; 'The Iron Gate) (1880) ; and 'Before the Curfew' (1887). As a physician and medical lecturer
he was very successful, and among his purely professional works may be named 'Lectures on Homeopathy and Its Kindred Delusions) (1842) ; 'Currents and Counter Currents in Medical Science' (1861) ; 'Border Lines in some Provinces of Medical Science' (1862) ; 'Medical Essays,) a reissue of some of his earlier work (1883). Still other volumes by Dr. Holmes are 'Soundings from the Atlantic' (1864), a series of essays originally contributed to the Atlantic Monthly, where the bulk of his writing first appeared; 'Mechanism in Thought and Morals' (1871) ; lives of 'John Lothrop Motley' (1879) ; and 'Ralph Waldo Emerson' (18134) ; 'Our Hundred Days in Europe' (1888), a sprightly record of a short visit to England in 1886, on which occasion honorary degrees were conferred upon him by the uni versifies of Cambridge, Oxford and Edinburgh; and 'Over the Teacups' (1891). His 70th birthday was celebrated by a breakfast given in his honor by the publishers of the. Atlantic Monthly, and on this occasion the poet read his poem 'The Iron Gate,' which many persons have considered even finer than 'The Chambered Nautilus' which Holmes himself preferred to any other verses of his. At its best Holmes's prose style is admirable, character ized as it is by an unerring sense of the value of words and their fitness for conveying a de sired impression, and illumined by the interfused play of a delicate fancy and the most sparkling humor. Next to 'The Autocrat' must be ranked 'The Guardian Angel' among his prose works, the same kindly tolerant spirit being dominant in both, and the same shrewd, wholesome per ception of character. In much of his earlier poetry, excepting in his lyrics, Holmes uses the formal 10-syllabled iambic pentameter of the 18th century, but in his hands the measure seems at times more flexible than when used by Pope and his school, and it is at all events relieved from solemnity by his ever-present humor. 'Urania' is the best known of his earlier efforts in this manner, and 'The School boy' (1878) his most notable later one, this latter having been written for the centennial anniversary of Phillips Academy at Andover. Holmes's special characteristic was kindliness, which found its expression as well in his verse as in his prose, and in his ordinary living. He could be keenly satirical on occasion but he never became in the least cynical. Of slight physique and charming personality, Holmes en deared himself to all his acquaintances, while his literary fame is secure beside that of Long fellow, Lowell and Whittier. Holmes's gentle, tolerant writing did not a little toward softening the asperities of controversy and liberalizing unconsciously the heart of Puritan New Eng land. Consult Morse, 'Life and Letters of Oliver Wendell Holmes> (18%) ; and lives by Kennedy (1883) ; E. E. Brown (1884); Howell, 'Literary Friends and Acquaintances> (1899).
See ELSIE VENNER.