He was "Commemoration Ode," is a remarkable instance of just contemporary judgment. But Lowell's most characteristic prose work is found in his literary essays. one of the first Americans to appreciate Chaucer. He has discussed the comparatively unknown Elizabethan dramatists with fulness of knowledge and keenness of judgment. His wealth of allusion is remarkable. His pages are crowded with quotations and references, many of them drawn from obscure sources and pointing to little known writers. Yet he does not seem cumbered with the weight of his learning. One reads the allusions, references and quotations with the easy, though generally mistaken, feeling that it would be a slight matter to turn to these writers, and see for oneself what they say. Without any attempt at a formal, connected history of Literature, his works yet constitute a full body of comment on the course of English literary history. A careful reading of his essays with independent study of the works discussed would amount to a pretty thorough course of study in that subject. As an example of Lowell's work in this kind, and of critical writing in general, study a paragraph from his essay on Thoreau, in the volume called "My Study Windows." Solitary communion with nature does not seem to have been sanitary or sweetening in its influence on Thoreau's character. On the contrary, his letters show him more cynical as he grew older. While he studied with respect5 ful attention the minks and woodchucks, his neighbors, he looked with utter contempt on the august drama of destiny of which his country was the scene, and on which the curtain had already risen. He was converting us back. to a state of nature "so eloquently," as Voltaire said of 10 Rousseau, "that he almost persuaded us to go on all fours," while the wiser fates were making it possible for us to walk erect for the first time. Had he conversed more with his fellows, his sympathies would have widened with the assurance that his peculiar genius had more appreciation, and 15 his writings a larger circle of readers, or at least a warmer one, than he dreamed of. We have the highest testimony to the natural sweetness, sincerity, and nobleness of his temper, and in his books an equally irrefragable one to the rare quality of his mind. He was not a strong 20 thinker, but a sensitive feeler. Yet his mind strikes us as cold and wintry in its purity. A light snow has fallen everywhere in which he seems to come on the track of the shier sensations that would elsewhere leave no trace. We think greater compression would have done more for his 25 fame. A feeling of sameness comes over us as we read so much. Trifles are recorded with an over-minute punctuality and conscientiousness of detail. He records the state of his personal thermometer thirteen times a day. We cannot help thinking sometimes of the man who 30 "Watches, starves, freezes, and sweats To learn but catechisms and alphabets and sometimes of the saying of the Persian poet, that “when the owl would boast, he boasts of catching mice 35 at the edge of a hole." We could readily part with some of his affectations. It was well enough for Pythagoras to say, once for all, "When I was Euphorbus at the siege of Troy"; not so well for Thoreau to travesty it into "When I was a shepherd on the plains of Assyria.” 1 Emerson. 40 A naïve thing said over again is anything but naïve. But with every exception, there is no writing comparable with Thoreau's in kind, that is comparable with it in degree where it is best; where it disengages itself, that is, from the tangled roots and dead leaves of a second-hand Orient45 alism, and runs limpid and smooth and broadening as it runs, a mirror for whatever is grand and lovely in both worlds.1 Lowell's characteristic fulness of allusion is well illustrated by the fact that in this short paragraph there are references to French, Persian, and Greek writers, besides an English quotation which is far from familiar. The most serious defect in Thoreau's work is expressed in a powerful sentence at lines 4-8. One needs to appreciate the condition of the country in the Sixties, and the intense feeling of those who, like Lowell, were earnest patriots and enthusiastic antislavery men, to feel the force of this and the following sentence. But any one may appreciate the keen, forcible discrimination of the short antithetic sentence at lines 19-20. The metaphor in lines 21-24 is very forcible to one who knows anything about rabbit shooting. These passages illustrate a striking quality of Lowell's prose work in the mingling of scholarly allusion and quotation, homely commonplace references, and powerful, solemn appeals to the deepest feelings, without arousing a feeling of incongruity. As criticism, this paragraph happens to be for the most part depreciatory; but the high appreciation of the excellence of Thoreau's work is implied 1 Copyright, 1871, Houghton, Mifflin & Co. Boston. Oliver Wendell Holmes. throughout, and is eloquently stated at the close. The point to be noted is that there is no general praise and no general blame; but each is specific and helps us to a real comprehension of the characteristic qualities of the author criticised. The first issue of the "Atlantic Monthly," in November, 1857, contained an article called "The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table." Its opening words, "I was just going to say, when I was interrupted," suggest the method of this and of the papers which followed under the same name. It was not the fashion then to print the names of the authors of magazine articles. But the sparkling wit and humor of these papers, and the bright and often beautiful bits of verse which appeared occasionally in them, revealed the author to discerning minds; and readers began soon to watch eagerly for the appearance of this, perhaps the most characteristic work of Oliver Wendell Holmes. "The Autocrat" is a book by itself. There is nothing else in exactly the same vein. There is keen character drawing in it. The reader easily forms a mental picture of the boarding-house company. The "Landlady's Daughter," "The Young Man of the Name of John," and "The Old Gentleman" are particularly well drawn pictures. There is a tender little love story running through it; very unobtrusive, scarcely appearing at first, but giving a sweet human interest to the whole. And the talk of the "Autocrat" is like the talk of Dr. Holmes as it has been described by those who knew him, a constantly bubbling fountain. He avoids politics and subjects of current interest; but his theories of life and conduct have free play. His warm sympathy, keen sarcasm, and speculative tendencies come out in a whimsical, tentative fashion, which is extremely interesting. His conservative, aristocratic tastes are frankly acknowledged in his asserted preference for "the man with the family portraits" over "the man with the daguerrotypes"; though he admits that the first may be himself a worthless creature, in which case he would prefer the second. But one cares little for the peculiar opinions of the papers, in the delight one feels in the way they are expressed. Two volumes succeeded "The Autocrat," called, respectively, "The Professor at the Breakfast Table," and "The Poet at the Breakfast Table.” They have many of the same characteristics, "The Professor" being a little more controversial in its tone on religious questions, and "The Poet" containing a larger proportion of verse. They hardly maintain the high level of bright humor that distinguished "The Autocrat." These three volumes appeared in 1858, 1860, and 1862. Other volumes of essays were Currents and Countercurrents," 1861; "Soundings from the Atlantic," 1863; and "Mechanism and Morals," 1871. with other volumes, discuss a variety of topics, scientific, semi-scientific, social, literary, and moral, always with keen judgment and abundant wit. Just before his death, in 1890, the old charm of "The Autocrat" appeared afresh in the papers called "Over the Teacups." These, |