Chapter James Russell Lowell of Index by Simonds History of American Literature

reforms. Their engagement began in 1840. Before the twelvemonth ended, Lowell published his first volume, a collection of poems with the title A Year's Life. During the next three years he wrote busily, finding a ready market for his poems and sketches in leading periodicals like the Boston Miscellany, the Dial, the United States Magazine, and Graham's, then edited by Poe. Between Poe and Lowell there was at this time an interesting correspondence, Poe referring to Lowell's work in terms most appreciative. Meanwhile the young lawyer had not found the legal profession much to his taste; and after three years' waiting for the "First Client," of whom he wrote humorously, Lowell abandoned law and elected literature. In January, 1843, he started a magazine of his own.

The Literary Life.

The new magazine was an ambitious enterprise. The first number contained contributions by Lowell, Poe, Hawthorne, and Elizabeth Barrett (afterward Mrs. Browning). Had it not been for a serious difficulty with his eyes, which compelled him to go to New York for treatment, Lowell's first editorial experience might have been longer; as it was, the venture came to an untimely close. With its third issue, the Pioneer expired, and its editor was left eighteen hundred dollars in debt. At the end of the year, Lowell published a volume of Poems which included two or three of marked excellence, The Shepherd of King Admetus, An Incident in a Railway Car, and Rhoecus being among the number. In December, 1844, Lowell was married. For a few months thereafter, he was employed in Philadelphia as an editorial writer on the Pennsylvania Freeman, the paper edited by Whittier a few years earlier. In the spring of 1845, the Lowells returned to Cambridge. Passing through New York, Lowell stopped to call upon Poe, but the visit proved one of embarrassment; he found Poe (as recorded by Mrs. Clemm) "not quite himself." Life at Elmwood was now delightfully idyllic, despite the limitations of a small and somewhat uncertain income. Longfellow, although twelve years the senior, was already a congenial friend; and the social circle of the college community was enlarged through the easy nearness of Boston. The poet himself was fairly embarked on his career as a man of letters, and his reputation as a writer was firmly established. At the close of 1844, Lowell published a volume of essays entitled Conversations on Some of the Old Poets. This volume and also the Poems of the previous year were republished in London.

The Abolitionist.

The ardor of Lowell in the political movement of these pregnant years must not be overlooked, for it is vitally connected with an important phase of his literary work. The interest of his wife in some of the reform enterprises so numerous in the early forties had enlisted the interest of the poet in these same reforms; but definite inspiration came with the development of his own democratic instincts and his own humanitarian sympathies. In 1843, he became an abolitionist, and an ardent supporter of that movement which had won Whittier as its champion ten years before. In 1843, Lowell wrote and published the Stanzas on Freedom and the sonnet Wendell Phillips. The Present Crisis, that superb climax of lyric eloquence, came in 1845; "for twenty years the solemn monitory music of this poem never ceased to reëcho in public halls."¹ Its thrilling lines served as texts for the leading orators of the North. Phillips and Sumner quoted its stanzas in their impassioned addresses. Its resonant call to action was voiced with the prophetic note of authority.

"New occasions teach new duties; Time makes ancient good uncouth;
They must upward still, and onward, who would keep abreast of
Truth;
Lo, before us gleam her camp-fires! we ourselves must Pilgrims be,
Launch our Mayflower, and steer boldly through the desperate win-
ter sea,
Nor attempt the Future's portal with the Past's blood-rusted key."

Henceforth, throughout that epoch of stormy debate, the young Cambridge poet stood side by side with Whittier, one of the two great champions of the cause in verse.

Satirist and Humorist.

In 1846, Lowell's genius was revealed in a new and thoroughly original vein. The Boston Courier began the publication of a series of poems in genuine Yankee dialect, purporting to be the work of one Hosea