certain triumph of Christianity over the tottering idols of Paganism, we must naturally expect the ripest, as it was the last, composition of the Gospel history, for the edification of the Christian Church in all ages.

The Gospel of John is the Gospel of Gospels, as the Epistle to the Romans is the Epistle of Epistles. It is the most remarkable as well as the most important literary production ever composed by man. It is a marvel even in the marvellous Book of books. All the literature of the world could not replace it. It is the most spiritual and ideal of Gospels. It introduces us into the Holy of Holies in the history of our Lord; it brings us, as it were, into His immediate presence, so that we behold face to face the true Shekinah, "the glory of the Only Begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth." It presents, in fairest harmony, the highest knowledge, and the deepest love, of Christ. It gives us the clearest view of His incarnate Divinity and His perfect Humanity. It sets Him forth as the Eternal Word, who was the source of life from the beginning, and the organ of all the revelations of God to man; as the Fountain of living water that quenches the thirst of the soul; as the Light of the world that illuminates the darkness of sin and error; as the Resurrection and the Life that destroys the terror of death. It reflects the lustre of the Transfiguration on the Mount, yet subdued by the holy sadness of Gethsemane. It abounds in festive joy and gladness over the amazing love of God, but mixed with grief over the ingratitude and obtuseness of unbelieving men. It breathes the air of peace, and yet sounds at times like the peal of thunder from the other world. It soars boldly and majestically like the eagle towards the uncreated source of light, and yet hovers as gentle as a dove over the earth; it is sublime as a seraph and simple as a child; high and serene as the heaven,"deep and unfathomable as the sea. It is the plainest in speech and the profoundest in meaning. To it more than to any portion of the Scripture applies the familiar comparison of a river deep enough for the elephant to swim, with shallows for the lamb to wade. It is the Gospel of love, life, and light, the Gospel of the heart taken from the very heart of Christ, on which the beloved disciple leaned at the Last Supper. It is the type of the purest forms of mysticism. It has an irresistible charm for speculative and contemplative minds, and furnishes inexhaustible food for meditation and devotion. It is the Gospel of peace and Christian union, and a prophecy of that blessed future when all the discords of the Church militant on earth shall be solved in the harmony of the Church triumphant in heaven.

JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL

Is the descendant of an old New England family, which has long held important stations in Massachusetts. His ancestor, Percival Lowell, settled in the town of Newbury in 1639. His grandfather, John Lowell, was an eminent lawyer, a member of Congress and of the convention which formed the first constitution of Massachusetts. His father is Charles Lowell, the venerable pastor of the West Church in Boston; his mother was a native of New Hampshire, a sister of the late Capt. Robert T. Spence of the U. S. Navy, and is spoken of as of remarkable powers of mind and

He

James Russell Lowell, who is named after his father's maternal grandfather, Judge James Russell, of Charlestown, was born at the country-seat of Elmwood, the present residence of the family, at Cambridge, Mass., February 22, 1819. was educated in the town, and in 1838 received his degree at Harvard. His first production in print, a class poem, appeared at this time. This was succeeded, in 1841, by a collection of poems -A Year's Life. It was marked by a youthful delicacy and sensibility, with a leaning to transcendental expression, but teeming with proofs of the poetic nature, particularly in a certain vein of tenderness. In January, 1843, he commenced, in conjunction with his friend Mr. Robert Carter, the publication of The Pioneer, a Literary and Critical Magazine, which, though published in the form of a fashionable illustrated magazine, was of too fine a cast to be successful. But three monthly numbers were issued: they contained choice articles from Poe, Neal, Hawthorne, Parsons, Dwight, and others, including the editors. This unsuccessful speculation was an episode in a brief career at the bar, which Mr. Lowell soon relinquished for a literary life. The reception of Mr. Lowell's first poetic volume had been favorable, and encouraged the author's next adventure, a volume containing the Legend of Brittany, Miscellaneous Poems and Sonnets, in 1844. There was a rapid advance in art in these pages, and a profounder study of passion. The leading poem is such a story as would have engaged the heart

*This faculty is inherited by her daughter, Mrs. Putnam, whose controversy with Mr. Bowen, editor of the North American Review, respecting the late war in Hungary, brought her name prominently before the public. Mrs. Putnam converses readily in French, Italian, German, Polish, Swedish, and Hungarian, and is familiar with twenty modern dialects, besides the Greek, Latin, Hebrew, Persic, and Arabic. Mrs. Putnam made the first translation into English of Frederica Bremer's novel of the Neighbors, from the Swedish. The translation by Mary Howitt was made from the German.-Homes of American Authors-Art. LOWELL.

of Shelley or Keats. A country maiden is betrayed and murdered by a knightly lover. Her corpse is concealed behind the church altar, and the guilty presence made known on a festival day by a voice demanding baptism for the unborn babe in its embrace. The murderer is struck with remorse, and ends his days in repentance. The story thus outlined is delicately told, and its repulsiveness overcome by the graces of poetry and feeling with which it is invested in the character of the heroine Margaret. The poem in blank verse entitled Prometheus, which followed the legend in the volume, afforded new proof of the author's ability. It is mature in thought and expression, and instinct with a lofty imagination. The prophecy of the triumph of love, humanity, and civilization, over the brute and sensual power of Jove, is a fine modern improvement of the old fable. The apologue of Rhacus is also in a delicate, classical spirit.

The next year Mr. Lowell gave the public a volume of prose essays-a series of critical and aesthetic Conversations on some of the Old Poets, Chaucer and the dramatists Chapman and Ford being the vehicles for introducing a liberal stock of reflections on life and literature generally. It is a book of essays, displaying a subtle knowledge of English literature, to which the form of dialogue is rather an incumbrance.

Another series of Poems, containing the spirit of the author's previous volume, followed in 1848. About the same time appeared The Vision of Sir Launfal, founded on a legend of a search for the San Greal. The knight in his dream discovers charity to the suffering to be the holy cup.

As a diversion to the pursuit of sentimental poetry, Mr. Lowell at the close of the year sent forth a rhyming estimate of contemporaries in a Fuble for Critics, which, though not without some puerilities, contains a series of sharply drawn portraits in felicitous verse.

The Biglow Papers, edited with an Introduction, Notes, Glossary, and Copious Index, complete the record of this busy year. The book purports to be written by Homer Wilbur, A.M., Pastor of the First Church in Jaalam and (prospective) Member of many Literary, Learned, and Scientific Societies. It is cast in the Yankee dialect, and is quite an artistic product in that peculiar lingo. The subject is an exposure of the political pretences and shifts which accompanied the war with Mexico, the satire being directed against war and slavery. It is original in style and pungent in effect.

Mr. Lowell travelled abroad between July, 1851, and December, 1852. He published no other volume for some years, though he occasionally wrote for the North American Review, Putnam's Magazine, and other journals, and was for a time a stated contributor to the Antislavery Standard.

He was married in December, 1844, to Miss Maria White, of Watertown, a lady whose literary genius, as exhibited in a posthumous volume privately printed by her husband in 1855, deserves a record in these pages. She was born July 8, 1821, and died October 27, 1853. quote from the memorial volume alluded to, which is occupied with a few delicately simple

We

poems of her composition, chiefly divided between records of foreign travel and domestic pathos, this touching expression of resignation :

THE ALPINE SHEEP-ADDRESSED TO A FRIEND AFTER THE LOSS
OF A CHILD.

When on my ear your loss was knelled,
And tender sympathy upburst,

A little spring from memory welled,
Which once had quenched my bitter thirst,
And I was fain to bear to you

A portion of its mild relief,
That it might be a healing dew,
To steal some fever from your grief.
After our child's untroubled breath
Up to the Father took its way,
And on our home the shade of Death,
Like a long twilight haunting lay,
And friends came round, with us to weep
Her little spirit's swift remove,
The story of the Alpine sheep

Was told to us by one we love.
They, in the valley's sheltering care,

Soon crop the meadows' tender prime,
And when the sod grows brown and bare,
The Shepherd strives to make them climb
To airy shelves of pasture green,

That hang along the mountain's side,
Where grass and flowers together lean,
And down through mist the sunbeams slide.
But naught can tempt the timid things
The steep and rugged path to try,
Though sweet the shepherd calls and sings,
And seared below the pastures lie,
Till in his arms his lambs he takes,
Along the dizzy verge to go,
Then, heedless of the rifts and breaks,
They follow on o'er rock and snow.
And in those pastures, lifted fair,
More dewy-soft than lowland mead,
The shepherd drops his tender care,
And sheep and lambs together feed.

This parable, by Nature breathed,

Blew on me as the south-wind free
O'er frozen brooks, that flow unsheathed
From icy thraldom to the sea.

A blissful vision, through the night
Would all my happy senses sway
Of the Good Shepherd on the height,
Or climbing up the starry way,
Holding our little lamb asleep,
While, like the murmur of the sea,
Sounded that voice along the deep,
Saying, "Arise and follow me.

It is to the death of Maria Lowell, at Cambridge, that Mr. Longfellow alludes in his poem published in Putnam's Magazine in April, 1854, entitled

THE TWO ANGELS.

Two angels, one of Life, and one of Death,

Passed o'er the village as the morning broke; The dawn was on their faces, and beneath, The sombre houses hearsed with plumes of smoke. Their attitude and aspect were the same,

Alike their features and their robes of white But one was crowned with amaranth, as with flame, And one with asphodels,. like flakes of light.

I saw them pause on their celestial way,
Then said I, with deep fear and doubt oppressed,
Beat not so loud, my heart, lest thou betray
The place where thy beloved are at rest!
And he who wore the crown of asphodels,
Descending, at my door began to knock,
And my soul sank within me, as in wells
The waters sink before an earthquake's shock.
I recognised the nameless agony,

The terror and the tremor and the pain,
That oft before had filled and haunted me,

And now returned with threefold strength again. The door I opened to my heavenly guest,

And listened, for I thought I heard God's voice, And knowing whatsoe'er he sent was best,

Dared neither to lament nor to rejoice.

Then with a smile that filled the house with light,
"My errand is not Death, but Life,” he said,
And ere I answered, passing out of sight
On his celestial embassy he sped.

"Twas at thy door, O friend! and not at mine,
The angel with the amaranthine wreath,
Pausing, descended, and with voice divine,
Whispered a word that had a sound like Death.
Then fell upon the house a sudden gloom,

A shadow on those features fair and thin,
And softly, from that hushed and darkened room,
Two angels issued, where but one went in.
All is of God! If he but wave his hand,
The mists collect, the rain falls thick and loud,
Till with a smile of light on sea and land,

Lo! he looks back from the departing cloud.
Angels of Life and Death alike are His;
Without his leave they pass no threshold o'er;
Who then would wish or dare, believing this,
Against his messengers to sliut the door?

In 1854 Mr. Lowell delivered a course of lectures before the Lowell Institute on English Poetry, including the old ballad writers Chaucer, Pope, and others, to Wordsworth and Tennyson. They were marked by an acute critical spirit and enlivened by wit and fancy.

Mr. Lowell has edited the poems of Andrew Marvell and Donne in the series of Messrs. Little & Brown's standard edition of the English poets.

Early in 1855 he was appointed to the Belles Lettres professorship lately held by Mr. Longfellow in Harvard College, with the privilege of passing a preliminary year in Europe before entering on its duties.

MARGARET-FROM THE LEGEND OF BRITTANY.

Fair as a summer dream was Margaret,-
Such dream as in a poet's soul might start
Musing of old loves while the moon doth set:

Her hair was not more sunny than her heart, Though like a natural golden coronet

It circled her dear head with careless art, Mocking the sunshine, that would fain have lent To its frank grace a richer ornament.

His loved-one's eyes could poet ever speak,

So kind, so dewy, and so deep were hers,But, while he strives, the choicest phrase too weak, Their glad reflection in his spirit blurs; As one may see a dream dissolve and break Out of his grasp when he to tell it stirs, Like that sad Dryad doomed no more to bless The mortal who revealed her loveliness.

She dwelt for ever in a region bright,

Peopled with living fancies of her own, Where nought could come but visions of delight, Far, far aloof from earth's eternal moan; A summer cloud thrilled through with rosy light, Floating beneath the blue sky all alone, Her spirit wandered by itself, and won A golden edge from some unsetting sun. The heart grows richer that its lot is poor,God blesses want with larger sympathies, Love enters gladliest at the humble door, And makes the cot a palace with his eyes;So Margaret's heart a softer beauty wore,

And grew in gentleness and patience wise, For she was but a simple herdsman's child, A lily chance-sown in the rugged wild. There was no beauty of the wood or field But she its fragrant bosom-secret knew, Nor any but to her would freely yield Some grace that in her soul took root and grew; Nature to her glowed ever new-revealed,

All rosy-fresh with innocent morning dew, And looked into her heart with dim, sweet eyes That left it full of sylvan memories.

O, what a face was hers to brighten light,

And give back sunshine with an added glow, To wile each moment with a fresh delight, And part of memory's best contentment grow O, how her voice, as with an inmate's right, Into the strangest heart would welcome go, And make it sweet, and ready to become Of white and gracious thoughts the chosen home! None looked upon her but he straightway thought Of all the greenest depths of country cheer, And into each one's heart was freshly brought What was to him the sweetest time of year So was her every look and motion fraught With out-of-door delights and forest lere; Not the first violet on a woodland lea Seemed a more visible gift of spring than she.

'AN INCIDENT IN A RAILROAD CAR.

He spoke of Burns: men rude and rough Pressed round to hear the praise of one Whose heart was made of manly, simple stuff As homespun as their own.

And, when he read, they forward leaned,
Drinking, with thirsty hearts and ears,
His brook-like songs whom glory never weaned
From humble smiles and tears.

Slowly there grew a tender awe,
Sun-like, o'er faces brown and hard,
As if in him who read they felt and saw
Some presence of the bard.

It was a sight for sin and wrong
And slavish tyranny to see,

A sight to make our faith more pure and strong
In high humanity.

I thought, these men will carry hence
Promptings their former life above,
And something of a finer reverence
For beauty, truth, and love.
God scatters love on every side,
Freely among his children all,
And always hearts are lying open wide,
Wherein some grains may fall.

There is no wind but soweth seeds

Of a more true and open life,

Which burst, unlooked-for, into high-souled deeds, With wayside beauty rife.

We find within these souls of ours
Some wild germs of a higher birth,
Which in the poet's tropic heart bear flowers
Whose fragrance fills the earth.

Within the hearts of all men lie
These promises of wider bliss.
Which blossom into hopes that cannot die,
In sunny hours like this.

All that hath been majestical
In life or death, since time began,
Is native in the simple heart of all,
The angel heart of man.

And thus, among the untaught poor,
Great deeds and feelings find a home,
That cast in shadow all the golden lore
Of classic Greece and Rome.

O, mighty brother-soul of man, Where'er thou art, in low or high, Thy skyey arches with exulting span O'er-roof infinity!

All thoughts that mould the age begin Deep down within the primitive soul, And from the many slowly upward win

To one who grasps the whole:

In his broad breast the feeling deep
That struggled on the many's tongue,
Swells to a tide of thought, whose surges leap
O'er the weak thrones of wrong.

All thought begins in feeling,-wide
In the great mass its base is hid,
And, narrowing up to thought, stands glorified
A moveless pyramid.

Nor is he far astray who deems

That every hope, which rises and grows broad In the world's heart, by ordered impulse streams From the great heart of God.

God wills, man hopes: in common souls
Hope is but vague and undefined,

Till from the poet's tongue the message rolls
A blessing to his kind.

Never did Poesy appear

So full of heaven to me, as when

I saw how it would pierce through pride and fear To the lives of coarsest men.

It may be glorious to write

Thoughts that shall glad the two or three

High souls, like those far stars that come in sight Once in a century ;

But better far it is to speak

One simple word, which now and then
Shall waken their free nature in the weak
And friendless sons of men;

To write some earnest verse or line,
Which, seeking not the praise of art,
Shall make a clearer faith and manhood shine
In the untutored heart.

He who doth this, in verse or prose,
May be forgotten in his day,

But surely shall be crowned at last with those
Who live and speak for aye.

THE FIRST SNOW FALL.

The show had begun in the gloaming,
And busily all the night
Had been heaping field and highway
With a silence deep and white.
Every pine and fir and hemlock

Wore ermine too dear for an earl,

And the poorest twig on the elm-tree
Was ridged inch-deep with pearl.
From sheds, new-roofed with Carrara,
Came chanticleer's muffled crow,
The stiff rails were softened to swan's-down,
And still fluttered down the snow.

I stood and watched by the window
The noiseless work of the sky,
And the sudden flurries of snow-birds
Like brown leaves whirling by.

I thought of a mound in sweet Auburn
Where a little headstone stood,
How the flakes were folding it gently,
As did robins the babes in the wood.

Up spoke our own little Mabel,
Saying, "Father, who makes it snow?"
And I told of the good Allfather

Who cares for us all below.

Again I looked at the snowfall,

And thought of the leaden sky
That arched o'er our first great sorrow,
When that mound was heaped so high

I remembered the gradual patience
That fell from that cloud like snow,
Flake by flake, healing and hiding.

The scar of that deep-stabbed woe.
And again to the child I whispered,
"The show that husheth all,
Darling, the merciful Father
Alone can make it fall?

Then, with eyes that saw not, I kissed her And she, kissing back, could not know That my kiss was given to her sister Folded close under deepening snow.

THE COURTIN'.

Zekle crep' up, quite unbeknown,
An' peeked in thru the winder.
An' there sot Huldy all alone,
'ith no one nigh to hender.

Agin' the chimbly crooknecks hung,
An' in amongst 'em rusted

The old queen's arm thet gran'ther Young
Fetched back from Concord busted.

The wannut logs shot sparkles out
Towards the pootiest, bless her!
An' leetle fires danced all about
The chiny on the dresser.
The very room, coz she was in,

Looked warm from floor to ceilin',
An' she looked full as rosy agin

Ez th' apples she was peelin'.
She heerd a foot an' knowed it, tu,
Araspin' on the scraper,-
All ways to once her feelins flew

Like sparks in burnt-up paper.
He kin' o' l'itered on the mat,

Some doubtfle o' the seekle; His heart kep' goin' pitypat,

But hern went pity Zekle.

In the winter of 1854-5, Mr. Lowell deliver, ed, in the course at the Lowell Institute, in Boston, a series of twelve lectures on the British Poets, which were received with enthusiasm by large audiences, and doubtless had their influence in the author's appointment the same