The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1891-08-13

sneere0 az as OF vulgar ana mODOcrdtic
origin from the day that Wendell Phillips
| and James Russell Lowell Joined it. Both
were born to the New England purple;
that is, they came of old colonial stock;
whose members had always been children
| OF Harvard college, and distinguished In
| public life. When Phillips, rich, scholarly,
handsome, cultivated, the son Of q former
mayor of Boston, joined Garrison, all the
Bourbonese '.silver tops" of Beacon street
shuddered with apprehension Of coming
social woe, but when the brilliant son OF
the Rev. DR.. Lowell began to write and
dings, good society no longer sneered. but
few into towering passion. Phillips
| peerless eloquence on the platform rang
| like silver firebell during all the night OF
the dark days, but it is questionable
| whether Lowell's pen did not work more
| service for the cause than the voice of
| Phillips-when from 1874 to 1913
Lowell, through the public press,
| to which he contributed the "Biglow
| Papers" assailed the pro-slayery party
with the versatile wit and humor of the
most brilliant political satirist in the whole
range of American literature. Everybody
read these wonderful dialect poems; and
everybody laughed save the politicians
whom Lowell gibbeted or roasted in this
| anti-slayery Dunciad. To the vitupera-
| tive invectives, the eloquent appeals OF
| Phillips, the thick-skinned politicians were
| morally insensible but their rhinoceros
hides were not proof against blasting sat
| ire and ridicule so keen that both Europe
| and America rippled with laughter. A
knave alwa Us trembles when reformer
rises who can make the people laugh at
| him. Tweed cared nothing for the ordi-
nary newspaper attack. but when the
| genius of caricature began to make even
| illiteracy laugh at him as thief caught
with his hand in the public purse, he grew
dyspeptic and melancholy. Too conserva-
tive; perhaps too worldly wise to hold
Phillips hat on the platform, Lowell
did enormous service to the anti
slavery cause with his pen from 1874 10
1850. Many of his poems up to 1850 seemed
fairly charged with moral electricity in
their lofty eloquence of invective and emo
tional appeal; their whitening satire and
thrilling fervor of moral indignation. Be-
tween 1850 and 1861 Lowell's muse seems
| to have sought retirement, quiet and
| brooding silence; he had lost his first wife
and a favorite child, and his years between
| 30 and 40 were something too much tinged
with the melancholy of bereavement and
al - l. L.
ship to make them fruitful season of po-
| etic production. Had it not been for the
| trumpet blast of war that made us all start
| to our feet in 1861 it is not likely that Low
| ell would have added much TO the high
| fame as poet he had reached as early as
1s4s. but the thrilling sights and sounds of
that great uprising lifted Lowell out of his
| chronic mood of pensive content with his
clustered life and touched his genius to
some of its finest notes.
Three Of his nephews fell in the war
| Lieut.. VIM. Lowell Putnam at Balls
Bluff, Va, October II, 1851; Lieut.. James
| Jackson Lowell at Glendale, Va, June 80
1862. and General Charles Lowell at Cedar
| Creek, October 10, 1864. Lowell's heart
went out to war with these boys, and while
| the struggle lasted his great power as po
| litical satirist and as writer of magnifi
| cent war lyrics that stirred the blood like
| bugles blowing the charge in great battle
were never so splendidly displayed. Blu
with his "Commemoration Ode" of Jul,
| q. 1865, Lowell's genius reached its highes
fight. Since that date he has written com
paratively- little poetry; nothing that ha,
touched his high-water mark of 1866; no
much that has nearly approached it. Hi
poetic genius played its finest musi
under the inspiration of some presen
emotional appeal. In his youth from
1910 to 1850 love for his beautiful wifi
taught him that passionate hate 70
slavery and reverence for freedom tina
swept the strings of his harp, but witt
youth gone, his wife dead and slavery be
come the stale appeal of despairin
cause, for ten years he was silent
until at AZ the voice of war an,
music and sentiment of his eloquen
youth; be flung aside the feeble Dorian
flute OF the scholarly recluse, and ex
changed it for great organ upon which b
played grandly, in victory or defeat, be
hind the armies of the Union the thrillini
airs of freedoms battle from its thousan,
pipes of various melody. When tn
armies of the Union struck thei
tents and furled their flags, Lowell
muse fingered for little time, tn
flush of recent battle on her brow an
the Joy of recent victory in her eye, bu
her cheek soon faded and her eye lost it
light. and the last twenty years have see
Lowell degenerate from an eloquent poe
and exultant patriot into pulling pessi
mist in politics and fulsome worshiper @
Grover Cleveland. Eight years of diplo
matte life in Europe put Lowell somewha
out of touch with the American people
and he has talked at times since his re
turn as if he was suffering from
mild type of Anglomania. His poeti
work has been small since 1877
and the best of it shows that the old-tim
fire is fled from the poets eye and the old
time ringing voice with ringing thought.
within it is silent. Ill health; the loss O
second wife; the advance of old age ar
sufficient TO explain this deterioration
which is more or less evident in all men O
poetic genius after they cross fifty years
The memory his grateful countrymen viii
hold of their greatest poet viii not be o