essays on Italian art and literature and his eminence as a student and interpreter of Dante. In the autumn of 1852 he was again in America, and in October, 1853, he sustained the greatest sorrow of his life in the death of his wife, who had long been an invalid. In January, 1855, on Mr. Longfellow's resignation, Lowell was appointed his successor as professor of modern languages and belles-lettres in Harvard university, and after two years' study abroad, during which time he greatly extended his knowledge of Italian, French, and Spanish, and became one of the first authorities in old French and Provencal poetry, he assumed the duties of his professorship. From 1857 till 1862 he wrote many essays, not since re-published, for the “Atlantic Monthly,” and in 1863 he became, with Prof. Charles Eliot Norton, joint editor of the “North American Review,” a connection which he maintained till 1872. The “Atlantic Monthly,” founded in 1857, of which Lowell was the first editor, was set on foot by Holmes, Longfellow, Emerson, and Lowoll, and Emerson's study was the scene of the gathering of the great literary lights of Boston, when the enterprise was discussed and the character of the magazine settled upon.
The Kansas struggle, 1856-'8, enlisted Lowell's sympathies; he was in accord with the leading anti-slavery men, and at one time, says Frank B. Sanborn, contemplated transferring his Hosea Biglow to Kansas to report in the vernacular the doings there, but “the flighty purpose never was o'ertook.” The outbreak of the civil war caused a revival of the dramatis personæ of the “Biglow Papers,” in which the disunionists at home and their sympathizers in England were equally brought under the lash of his stinging satire. It went straight to the American heart. This second series of “Biglow Papers” first appeared in the “Atlantic,” and was published in a volume in 1867. The “Fireside Travels,” containing the pleasant gossip about “Cambridge Thirty Years Ago,” the delightful “Moosehead Journal,” and notes of travel on the Mediterranean and in Italy, had appeared in the mean time. The “Atlantic” for January, 1867, contained “Fitz Adam's Story,” a poem intended to form part of a longer one, “The Nooning,” which has been announced as about to be published as far back as 1851, but has never been completed. It was omitted from “Under the Willows, and other Poems” (Boston, 1869), with the following explanation: “ ‘Fitz Adam's Story,’ which some good friends will miss, is also left to stand over, because it belongs to a connected series, which it is hoped may be completed if the days should be propitious.” The volumes of prose, “Among my Books” and “My Study Windows,” issued in 1870, comprising the choicest of Lowell's literary essays, seemed to mark the close of his greatest literary activity; but the appearance recently of such a paper as that on the poet Grey shows that only opportunity is needed for the gathering of the maturest fruits of his critical genius. In 1872 he made another visit to Europe, and on his return the “Centennial” period called out his efforts in the production of three patriotic odes, the first at Concord, 19 April, 1875, the second under the Washington elm, 3 July of the same year, and the third for 4 July, 1876. He was a presidential elector in 1876.
In 1877 Mr. Lowell was appointed by President Hayes to the Spanish mission, from which he was transferred in 1880 to the court of St. James. His diplomatic career closed with his recall by President Cleveland in 1885. In Madrid, in an atmosphere congenial to him as a student, he sus- tained the honor of the American name, and received the confidence and admiration that had been formerly extended to Washington Irving. His residence in London, although clouded and saddened by the long illness and by the death in February, 1885, of his second wife, Miss Frances Dunlap, of Portland, Me., whom he had married in September, 1857, was as honorable to him as to the country he represented, an unbroken series of successes in the world of society and the world of letters. Called upon to settle no serious international differences, he bore himself with the tact and dignity that was to be desired in our representative to a great and friendly power, mindful always that his mission was to maintain cordial amity instead of seeking causes of alienation. And no man in our generation has done more than Lowell to raise American institutions and American character in the estimation of our English kin. His graceful and natural oratory was in demand on scores of public occasions. The most noteworthy of his public addresses was that on Coleridge, delivered at the unveiling of the bust of the poet in Westminster Abbey in May, 1885. The volume entitled “Democracy and other Addresses” (Boston, 1887) includes the foreign speeches, and those spoken at the dedication of the public library of Chelsea and at the Harvard anniversary. Mr. Lowell's political life is confined within the eight years of his terms of office at Madrid and London. His recall brought out expressions of deep regret in the English press, and he returned to the United States to receive the plaudits of his countrymen. Temporary political criticisms there were, but they were such as a man can afford to leave to the judgment of time, which will not fail to compare his own ideal of what the republic should be with the notions of his critics. Since his return to private life Mr. Lowell's home has been with his only child, the wife of Edward Burnett, at Southboro, Mass. He resumed his lectures at Cambridge, and in the winter of 1887 gave a course on the English dramatists before the Lowell institute. The same winter he read a paper before the Union league club of Chicago on the authorship of Richard III. In the summer of 1887 he again visited England, receiving everywhere the highest honors that could be paid to a private citizen. The degree of D. C. L. was conferred upon him by the University of Oxford in 1873, and that of LL. D. by the University of Cambridge, England, in 1874. During his residence in England as minister he was elected rector of the University of St. Andrews.
The following is a list of his works and their various editions: “Class Poem” (Boston, 1838); “A Year's Life” (1841); “Poems” (Cambridge, 1844); “The Vision of Sir Launfal” (Boston, 1845; 2d ed., 1848, and included in “Vest-Pocket Series”); “Conversations on Some of the Old Poets” (1845); “Poems” (1848); “The Biglow Papers” (1848); “A Fable for Critics” (1848); “Poems” (2 vols., 1849); “Life of Keats,” prefacing an edition of his works (1854); “Poems” (2 vols., 1854); “Poetical Works” (2 vols., 1858); “Mason and Slidell, a Yankee Idyl” (1862); “Fireside Travels” (1864); “The President's Policy” (1864); “Ode recited at the Commemoration of the Living and Dead Soldiers of Harvard University,” 21 July, 1865; “The Biglow Papers,” 2d series (1867); “Under the Willows, and other Poems” (1869); “Among my Books” (1870); “The Courtin’ ” (1874); “Three Memorial Poems” (1876); “Among my Books,” 2d series (1876); and “Democracy, and other Addresses” (1887). “The Literary World” (Boston) of 27 June, 1885,
