Lowell is probably better known as a prose writer than is a poet. His prose groups itself mainly in the three elasses of critic al essays. deseriptive and reminiscent sketehes. and polit ical lectures and addresses. As a critic Lowell had in his day no serious rival among hi- coun trymen. He was a man of wide and thorough reading. and in the course of his life became acquainted with all that is best in the literatures of Europe. Ilis wide reading was supplemented by an excellent memory and by a genuine enthusiasm for literature. Ills work as a critic came at a time in the history of American letters when deeper interest was awakening in art and seholarship. Longfellow had previously done a great service to his country by arousing it to an appreeiation of the beauty and the traditions of Europe.
The work of Lowell, in a way, supplemented this. lie interpreted fur Ids public the spirit of authors then not widely read in America. His essays on Dante, Shakespeare, Chaucer, Dryden, and other poets, the main facts of whose lives and whose significance have now become literary common places, were a new and fresh handling of de lightful subjects. The temper in which these essays were written was not that of the contem porary accumulative study of literature, but of an enthusiastic attempt to enter into the spirit of these men and expound their significance. The personality of Lowell, though not obtrusive, is so constantly present that the essays may be called literature as justly as criticism. The specific ideas and details are often very elusive and are easily forgotten, there is little grasping of principles to be afterwards applied, but the impression of the author and his attitude re mains. indeed, it may probably be said that although Lowell is scarcely a great critic in the radical sense of that term, few writers have excelled him in conveying to readers a sense of the flavor of the best books and of the personality of their authors.
The sketches and political writings are of less importance. The former comprise such essays as A Moosehead Journal, Leaves from My Jour nal in Italy and Elsewhere, Cambridge Thirty rears Ago, My Garden Acquaintance, and A Good Word for Winter. On a Certain Conde scension in Foreigners is a dignified and em phatic protest against the attitude of Europeans toward the United States. The essay is per Imps the clearest expression of Lowell's patri otism. Its mood is that of a believer in his country. He was no blind worshiper of num
bers or of the power of the masses, but be had faith in the nobility of the founders of America and enthusiasm for institutions capable of pro ducing men of the temper and character of Lincoln and Emerson. Such also is the attitude underlying the political addresses and essays, published in the volumes entitled Democracy and Politiral Essays. His address on Democracy, de livered at Birmingham, England, in 1334, has scarcely been surpassed for lofty faith in man kind, combined with keen insight into the nature and functions of government.
The manner of Lowell, alike in poetry and prose, is difficult and uneven. his prose is often charged to the point. of turgidity with literary and historical allusion and reference. His early prose seems to be the outpouring of a full mind, often provokingly unaware of its superfluity. Toward the end of his life, as in The Old English Dramatists, his style became more terse, and these essays are much more simple and straight forward, and the superabundant brilliance of figure is much more restrained, but they are rather a series of interesting thoughts about the subject in hand cast into a semblance of unity. Consequently the essays are difficult to grasp as connected wholes, and are frequently more mem orable for their brilliancy of detail than for sus tained intellectual power. In the main, however, no American critic has had so much influence as he, and in occasional power and insight he may be placed with the most eminent of his critical contemporaries.
BramocnArnr. The best edition of the com plete works tif Lowell is the Riverside (11 vols., Boston, 1390-91). The letters have been edited in two volumes by Charles Eliot Norton (New York, 1894). There is a Biographical Study by F. 11. Underwood (Boston, 1893), and a life by Edward Everett Hale, entitled, James Russell Lowell and his Friends (Boston, 1899) ; and one by IL E. Scudder, entitled James Russell Lowell, a Biography (i1;., 1901). A short sketch, by E. E. hale, Jr., is to be found in the "Beacon Biographies Series." Personal reminiscences of Lowell occur in Howells's Literary Friends and Acquaintance (New York, 1900) ; critical esti mates in Stedman's Poets of America (Boston, 1385), and in the work of other literary his torians, as Richardson, American Literature (New York, IS87-33). and Wendell. A Literary History of America (New York, 1900).