The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1895-12-17
Brilliant Address by M. j. Savage Of
Boston.

~ "0A iouhceu Inc BEST type the
Thoroughly American Citizen, and the
First of American Poets.
| Those who attended the First Parish
| lecture course last evening, listened to
brilliant address delivered by Rev. M ].
Savage of Boston. 1t was a loving
tribute to the life and work of James
Russell Lowell.
He said that Lowell was great deal
more than poet. He was the finest wit
Of the country, and fine as was the
critical work of Whipple and Steadm an,
he was the first Of American critics.
His prose was, if possible, too rich. He
was one of the best scholars in America,
one of the best of our public speakers,
and as diplomat was success, and
was perhaps the best tpye of an American
citi zen.
1t is the habit of some politicians to
speak sneeringly Of them literary
1 fellers' but it puzzle anyone to name
more brilliant and successful group Of
American diplomats than that composed
Of Irving, Bancroft Motley, Taylor and
Lowell.
Mr.. Savage gave rapid but very in
the poet. ElmWood was the ideal birth
place for poet. but then it is the soul,
and not the nest that is the seat of the
song During his college course Lowell
was not the pride of his parents or any
one else IS to scholarship AS he said he
read everything except the text books. 1t
is said that Lowell's father was alarmed
when his son began to write poetry, and
no wonder, for when young man thinks
he lssa poet, musician or an artist,
therekisn't much hope for him unless he
happens to be right. There was time
when Lowell was in some danger of be-
ing nothing but lawyer. He had an
office, and even went SO far as to write a
story my First Client" but it was
probably a story, for if he ever had a first
client he had no second, and in 1913, he
started literary magazine, the Pioneer,
but it lived only three months although
among its contributors were men like
Lowell, Hawthorne, John G. Whittier,
q John Neal and Edgar Allen Poe. Eyen
Boston could not keep it alive.
MIR. Savage said that there were two
great periods IN Lowell's life, his poems
and that unique work the Bigelow
q Papers.
Before the days of Bryant, there had
been but little real American literature,
but Bryant was true poet within a
somewhat limited range. The Puritans
were too busy fighting tie devil and the
Indians to write books, and all the
ability of the country plunged into the
War Of the Revolution, and in 1910, men
i like DIR. Griswoid and N. P. Willis were
first class literary stars. John Neal and
Richard Ii Dana ranked high, and
PierponJ. DIR. Holmes was then bright
young man about town, with perhaps
something in him, and John g. Whittier
was spoken of, but coupled with the
praise of his work was the suggestion
that he had killed himself by his devotion
to fanatical anti-slavery movements. 1t
was at this time that Lowell appeared.
Lowell's nature was such that he could
not sit apart and sing. He was obliged
! to enter into the political life of his time
Mr.. Savage spoke eloouently of the events
which filled so years betweenLowell's
book Zone Years Work" and his death.
The Bigelnw Papers is simply part of
| other work was in the interest of
humanity. He did not and he could not
take for his motto Art, for Arts Sake ),
Mr.. Savage quoted from Lowell's
Fables for Critics." the poets own
opinion of his DIRK, and his confession
of its impelling cause. And yet as poet
he was of the first rank. His pictures of
nature are we'll nigh matchless. He sang
| of the eternal search Of the soul for The
highest.
Then came LowelPs magnificent cbal-
lenge to the manhood of the age, sThe
Present Crisis. He saw right on the
scaffold, and wrong on the throne, and
his voice woke the hearts of. men TO
action.
Too much could not be said of the
Bigelow Papers. There is nothing like
them in any other literature, and the
second series was better than the first.
Lowell did great thing. He created
person, for he made Hosea Bigelow walk
out of the book and live and move with
other people. He gave us the best speci
men we have of the real live Yankee at
/ his best, shrewd but noble, quaint but
/ true. We have had but few good speoi-
meus of the Yankee; on the stage but
one, Dsnman Thompson's "Uncle Josh
Whitcomb,' and in literature "Major
Jack Downing The "Americanismu
of the Bigelow Papers. is simply old
English preserved in the country towns.
When they were written Garrison and
Phillips were magnifiioently hated.
Garrison was solemnly earnest prophet,
little likely to joke as the prophet
jeremiah. Phillips could draw blood.
but he could not move to laughter, and