Los Angeles herald., 1891-09-04

JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.
He spent this vacation at Concord, which
was just then the center of great effer-
vescence. The Transcendentalists were
manifesting themselves, Carlyle was be-
ginning to be read, Ralph Waldo Emerson
to be talked of, Dana and others were pro
jecting all sorts of social and industrial re-
forms, the outcome of which a little later
was the Brook Farm community. Haw-
thorne was cultivating the occult. The
abolitionists were creating a slight stir,
and as they were greatly abused the usual
results followed-the most radical of them
became wildly enthusiastic, gloried in per-
secution and went beyond the bounds of
common sense.
All this was nightly amusing to young
Lowell, and he satirized it in that once
famous "Class Poem," in which he at
tackled impartially Carlyle and Emerson,
the social innovators and the abolitionists
1t Is reported that the writer was long
sorry he had ever written such satire.
He became warm friend of Emerson and
the Brook Farm people, and the public
kindly obliged him by forgetting his poem
after they had had their laugh. So far as
the general public is concerned, Mr.. Low
eight years. He was doing some of his
very finest work, too, but it was very schol-
arly and did not deal with themes Of popu-
lar interest.
In 1ez6 he blazed forth again, far more
brilliant than before in the popular estima-
tion, in the immortal "Biglow Papers"
The first appeared in June, 1S46, in the
Boston Courier, and the last (of the first
nN fr,1 l,o
They must be read to be appreciated, and
already there is some lack of appreciation
because the conditions of that time cannot
be reproduced. The most learned and the
most simple readers enjoyed them equally,
and those who could not or did not read
soon felt their effect. They worked one
important revolution. Down to that time
the public had laughed at the extrava-
gances of reformers, abolitionists especial
ly. "Hosea Biglow" set the world to laugh
ing at the other side. The abolitionists
especially had furnished much fine sport
to the wits, now they had the scoffers on
the hip, and many can remember how joy
fully they rubbed it in," how they quoted
and shouted, and even tried to sing the
peculiar dialect lines. The fun with the
abolitionists was over; after 1s48 they were
discussed with an awful seriousness.
The great object of attack was, of
course, the Mexican war and extension of
slavery, but incidentally all sorts of polit-
icsl trickery, hypocrisy and cant are as
sailed, as in the famous opinions of Mr..
John p. Robinson:
We were gittin on nicely up here to our VII
lage,
With good old idees o. wut's right and wut
amt;
We kind O. thought Christ went agin war an
pil1age,
An thet eppylets worn't the best mark of a
saint;
But, John P.
Robinson, he
Sea this kind o. things an exploded idee.
Parson Wilbur sez he never heard in his life
Thet tn apostles rigged out in their swaller-
tail coats
To git some on 'em ofice an some on 'em
votes;
But, John P.
Robinson, he
Gex they didn't know everythin down in Judee.
It would be extremely interesting to
compare this with the college poem in
which he satirized the abolitionists, but
that is by common consent omitted from
his collected poems as published today
When the civil war came "Hosea Biglow"
revived, but the general public did not
appreciate him as in 1886 In fact it was
only those lines aimed at England which
seemed to please almost every one, as in
stance those in the poem on the Mason
and Slidell affair:
OF all the sarse thet can call to mind
England does make the most unpleasant kind;
It's you're the sinner oilers, she's the saint,
Wut's good 8 all English, all thet isn't amt;
Wut profits her is oilers right an just,
An Of you don't read Scripture SO, you must;
She's praised herself ontil she fairly thinks
There amt no light in Natur when she winks
Hain't she the Ten Commandments in, her pus?
Gould the world stir 'thout she went, tu, as
nus2
She amt like other mortals, thet's fact,
She never stopped the habus corpus act;
She don't put down rebellions, let's em breed,
Ans oilers willin Ireland should secede.
Strange to say, the English laughed at
this, and when Mr. Lowell was minister at
the court of st. flames he was almost the
most popular man in Great Britain. His
Legend of Brittany" and "Vision of Sir
Launfal" were written before the first
"Biglow Papers," but came into general
notice vary slowly. Almost to the last he
was an Industrious magazine contributor,
and If he had not been poet his prose writ
ings would have secured him high rank.
But his greatest mission was to make false
hood and folly ridiculous, to make wrong
aRd injustice the objects of popular satire
and to rebuke the common tendency to con-
demn any reform or indeed any movement,
because many of it's promoters are wild
and eccentric. j. H. BEADLE.