HOLMES. 153 HOLMES. fchc was born in Brooklicld, Mass.. but moved at her marriage to Versailles. Ky.. and afterwards lirookport. X. Y. She was at first a district schixd teacher, and the didactie tendency is per- ce|itible throughout her works, which were favor- ites of the young person of a past generation. Her tirst novel. Timiicst ami S^iinshinc (1854), was followed by a l>ook almost every year, and the circulation of her books has exceeded two mil- lions. HOLMES. N'ATiiANiF.i.(lSl,-)-inni). An . ier- ican jurist and autlior. born in Peterboro, X. 11. He graduated at Harvard, began legal practice in 1839 at Saint Louis, and was judge of the Missouri Supreme Court from lSfi.5 to 1868. From that time until 1872 he was law professor at Harvard, but he retired altogether from public life in 1883. In The Aiilliorshii) of f^hakcspcare { 18('ifi) he credits t'raneis Bacon with the dramas, and he published also Realistic Idealism in Phi- kiKiiiihii Ilsilf (2 vols., 1888), and an Historical Aihlnss ( 18n0). HOLMES, Oliver Wendell (1809-94). An .American man of letters, born at Cambridge, Mass.. August 29. 1809, son of the Rev. Abiel Holmes (q.v. ). Holmes was brought up in the orthodox faith, was sent to Phillips Academy, Audover. Mass.. for his preliminary education, and graduated from Harard College in 1829. He at once entered the Law School of that insti- tution, but, finding the law uncongenial, he gave it up for medicine. While a law student he wrote and publislicd in the Boston Advertiser, in 1830. his well-known and stirring verses. "Old Ironsides." which were an effective and ]iiipular jirotest against the proposed breaking up of the famous frigate Constitution. After three years in the Harvard iledical School, Holmes, in 1833, sailed for Europe, where he studied two years, chiell.v in Paris, and on his return began the practice of medicine in Boston in 1836. The same year witnessed the publication of his first volume of poems. In 1838 he was appointed to the professorship of anatomy at Dartmouth Col- lege, a post which he held for two years. Thence- forth he passed his life almost wholly in Boston, with which city liis name became very iiitiinatcly associated. On June 15. 1840, he married Miss Amelia Lee .Jackson of Boston. His only impor- tant eontribiition to medical science was made in 1843, when he published his essay on the Coh- tufiioiisness of Puerperal Fever, though he wrote mimerons other scientific papers. From 1847 to 1882 he was Parkman professor of anatomy and physiology in the Harsard .Medical School. He was, however, not really eminent in his pro- fession. His literary gift was marked, and he was less renowned in Boston as a practitioner than as a writer of very facile, witty verse, col- lections of which appeared in 1836.' 1840. 1849, 1850. and later. Until 1857. however, his reputation was almost wholly local. The establishment in that year of the Allanlir Monlhhi. under the editorship of Lowell, hroucrht him a national and almost world- wide vogue through the serial publication in that magazine of the Autocrat of the Breakfast Table, which appeared in book form in 1858. These de- lightfully egotistical talks, full of brilliant wit and buoyant seriousness, essentially of Xew Eng- land and Boston, had had their origin in two forgotten essays by Holmes in the Xew England Magazine in 1833. The success of The Autocrat was remarkable, and Holmes has been likened to almost every famous essayist from Montaigne to Lamb. Among orthodox Calvinists the sketches met with disfavor, since the ideas and the manner were those of an essential rationalist. They were followed in the next year by a series scarcely less delightful. The Proftssor ill the llrrnhfust Tabic ( pib. IHOO in book form), and after a lapse of more than a decade, in 1871-72, by the third and last volume of the series. The Pod at the Breakfast Tabic. The .iutocral, however, is the best, most original, and most popular of the works of Holmes, who is often called 'The Autocrat.' In 1861 Holmes pid)lished his first novel. KIsie ^'cnncr. Though rather formless and uneven in quality, and inartistic in method, it is interest- ing, and full of power. More eonuuonplace in idea than IJlme TciiHcr.but equally interesting in its delineation, often rather contemptuous, of Xew Kngland character, wa.s The tluardian Angel (1867). In the interval between these two nov- els appeared Songs in Manii Kei/s (1861) and Humorous Poems (1865). and a volume of prose, Soundings from the .itianlie (1863). His re- maining literary work conlainiMl nothing very new or striking. The chief titles arc: Mech- anism in Thought and Monils (18711 ; Songs of Mam/ Seasons (1874) : John l.otUrop Mollcif (1878), a memoir; The School-Bog (1878) ; The Iron Gale, and Other Poems (1880) ; Pages from an Old Volume of Life (1883) : Medical Essays (1883); lialph M'aldo Emerson (1884), a life; .1 Mortal .inlipatlni (1885), his last novel, in- ferior to the two former: The ric Portfolio (1885-86) in the Atlantic: Our Hundred Days in Europe (1887), an account of a voyage taken with his wife and daughter: Before the Curfew, and Other Poems 1 18H81 : and Over the Tea-Cups (1890), in the vein of The Autocrat. His death occurred in his eighty-sixth vear, in Boston, October 7, 1894. Dr. Holmes was slight in stature and fastidi- ous as to his personal appearance. In temper he was humane and kindly, particularly gracious to his numerous correspondents when confident of their sincerity, and genial in^ll his writing. His social accomplishments were unusual: he is said to have been the best talker in Boston. His style, at its best, is the style of spoken discourse — light, intimate, and winning, but not fiippant. His verse, which is almost wholly of an occasional character, such as poems read at reunions of his college class or .scattered throughout the pages of The Autocrat, is. like that prose work, spark- ling with wit, or a graceful compound of gravity ami humor. He is a prince among writers of rcrs de .%ociH( Among the best known of hi« ])oems are "Old Ironsides." "The Chambered Xautilus," "The Last Leaf," "Dorothy Q.," "The Voiceless." "The Deacon's 3Iasterpiece; or, the Wonderful One-Hoss .Shay." a satire against the doctrines of .Jonathan Edwards. BinMooRAPiiY. Consult Morse. Life and Let- ters of Holmes, vols. xiv. and xv. of the Collected Works. Sketches are to lie found in Higginson, Old Cambridge (Xew York. 1900). and Howells, lAterary Friends and .cquiiintanee (Xew Y'ork, 1899). The literary historians, as Stedman, Bichardson. and Wendell, discuss at some length his general position in the history of American
