Auburn, not far from Longfellow, and almost in sight of his study-window. He was mourned everywhere in America, and memorial services were held in Westminster Abbey, which gave token of the abiding impress he had made on the heart of England.

While Lowell had irrepressible humour, he does not appeal to so many young people as Longfellow. He is, perhaps, too profound; and he has a curious habit of shifting from the serious to the burlesque, and back again to the serious, that often puzzles the reader; and he did possess some impulsive oddities of temper. He was, however, as one has said:

The best of company in the best of company." He believed in his own opinions, and loved to talk while his admiring friends would sit about him and listen -and his letters to these friends are indeed delightful.

Surely we have found him a versatile man— this poet, critic, professor, lecturer, editor, essayist, diplomat, and speaker on occasion "; and this versatility may be well exemplified by adding some of his proverbial sayings, which, like those of Emerson, are fresh and vigorous to-day:

"He's been true to one party, an' thet is himself."

New times demand new measures and new men."

"A ginooine statesman must be on his guard

Ef he must hev beliefs not to b'leeve them tu hard."

"In general those who have nothing to say contrive to spend the longest time in doing it."

"Nothing takes longer in saying than anything else."

"Be a man among men, not a humbug among humbugs."

"They are slaves who dare not be

In the right with two or three."

"Greatly begin! though thou have time
But for a line, be that sublime,-
Not failure, but low aim, is crime."

ALADDIN

When I was a beggarly boy,
And lived in a cellar damp,
I had not a friend nor a toy,
But I had Aladdin's lamp;
When I could not sleep for cold,

I had fire enough in my brain,
And builded with roofs of gold
My beautiful castles in Spain!

Since then I have toiled day and night,
I have money and power good store,
But I'd give all my lamps of silver bright
For the one that is mine no more;
Take, Fortune, whatever you choose,
You gave, and may snatch again;
I have nothing 't would pain me to lose,
For I own no more castles in Spain!

THE FIRST SNOW-FALL

"The snow 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 All-father

Who cares for us here below.

Again I looked at the snow-fall,

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 our deep-plunged woe.

And again to the child I whispered,
'The snow 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."

XXVI

OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES (1809-1894)

EMERSON, the seer- Whittier, the patriotic bard - Hawthorne, the romancer-Lowell, the criticand Longfellow, laureate of the human heart-were leaders of the most gifted group of men of letters that has appeared in this country. About the middle of the nineteenth century, they immortalised Concord, made Boston, for a second time, "The Literary Hub," and did very much towards creating a literature that educated the people to a taste for the best. They were men of great variety of attainment — and how the libraries of the land expanded as they wrote! Just one more member and the group is complete. He must be a humourist to make the rest laugh -and an optimist, to teach them to pay proper tribute, one to the other and Oliver Wendell Holmes steps forth as the survivor of the grand old coterie.

-

He was born on August twenty-ninth, 1809, in a great gambrel-roofed house in Cambridge, Massachusetts a house haunted by four or five generations of gentlemen and gentlewomen. Among his ancestors was Anne Bradstreet, "The Tenth Muse "; and as he had very strong views about the necessity