James Russell Lowell

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James Russell Lowell (February 22, 1819 – August 12, 1891) was an American Romantic poet, critic, editor, and diplomat.

He is affiliated with the Fireside Poets, a group of New England writers whose debuts were among the first American poets to rival British poets' fame.

These writers used traditional forms and meters in their poetry, making them suitable for families entertaining at their fireside. Lowell earned a law degree from Harvard Law School in 1838, despite his fame as a troublemaker.

In 1841, he published his first collection of poetry and married Maria White in 1844.

The couple had many children, but only one of them lived beyond childhood.

They soon became involved in the fight against slavery, with Lowell using poetry to represent his anti-slavery sentiments and taking jobs in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, as the editor of an abolitionist newspaper.

Lowell, who migrated back to Cambridge, was one of the pioneers of The Pioneer Journal, which had only three issues.

With the publication of A Fable for Critics, a book-length poem mocking contemporary writers and writers, he came to notoriety in 1848.

He also published The Biglow Papers in the same year, which increased his fame.

Throughout his literary career, he continued to publish many other poetry collections and essay collections. Maria died in 1853, and Lowell accepted a professorship of languages at Harvard in 1854; he continued to teach there for 20 years.

He came to Europe before officially taking up his teaching duties in 1856, and then married Frances Dunlap shortly afterwards in 1857.

Lowell was also editor of The Atlantic Monthly in that year.

He did not receive his first political appointment, the ambassadorship to Spain's Kingdom, 20 years ago.

He was later named ambassador to the Court of St. James.

He lived in Cambridge for his last years, and died in 1891 in the same area where he was born. Lowell believed that the poet served a pivotal role as a prophet and critic of society.

He used poetry for change, especially in abolitionism.

However, his service to the anti-slavery movement changed over the years, as did his view of African-Americans.

In the dialogue of his characters, he tried to imitate the authentic Yankee accent, particularly in The Biglow Papers.

This characterization of the dialect, as well as his scores of satires, was a source of inspiration for writers such as Mark Twain and H. L. Mencken.

Early life

Russell Lowell was born on February 22, 1819, and he died on February 22, 1819. He was born in Newbury, Massachusetts, in the eighth generation of the Lowell family, Perpetual Lowle's ancestors. Reverend Charles Lowell (1782–1861), a minister at a Unitarian church in Boston who had previously studied theology at Edinburgh, and Harriett Brackett Spence Lowell (1782–1861) were both his parents. The family owned a large house in Cambridge called Elmwood by the time James was born. He was the youngest of six children; his siblings were Charles, Rebecca, Mary, William, and Robert. Lowell's mother instills in him a love for literature at an early age, particularly in poetry, ballads, and tales from her native Orkney. He attended school under Sophia Dana, who later married George Ripley; later, he attended a school run by a particularly tough disciplinarian, where one of his classmates was Richard Henry Dana Jr.

Lowell's grandfather, John Lowell, began attending Harvard College in 1834 at the age of 15, but he wasn't a good student and often got into trouble. He was absent from mandatory chapel attendance 14 times and from classes 56 times in his sophomore year. "I did nothing during Freshman year, I did nothing," he wrote during Sophomore year, I did nothing, and I did nothing during junior year, and I have so far done nothing in the way of college education during senior year." He served as one of the editors of Harvardiana literary magazine in his senior year, contributing prose and poetry that he said was of poor quality. "I was as brilliant an assassinated & thought it was singing," he said later. Lowell, aspired to be both a secretary and poet during his undergraduate years, was a member of Hasty Pudding and served as both a secretary and poet.

Lowell was named the poet of the class of 1838, but the day before Commencement on July 17, 1838, he was asked to recite an original poem. However, he was banned from participating and he was not allowed to participate. Rather, his poem was published and made available as a result of subscriptions paid by his classmates. He had written the poem in Concord, where he had been banished by Harvard's faculty to the Rev.'s care. Barzallai Frost has been unable to attend his studies due to his neglect of his studies. During his stay in Concord, Ralph Waldo Emerson became a friend of his and learned about the other Transcendentalists. Thomas Carlyle, Emerson, and the Transcendentalists were satirized in his Class Day poem; abolitionists, Thomas Carlyle, Emerson, and Transcendentalists were portrayed.

Lowell had no idea what to do after graduating, and he vacillated between industry, medicine, and law. He graduated from Harvard Law School in 1840 and was admitted to the bar two years later. He wrote poetry and prose papers to several magazines while focusing on education, but also contributed to various magazines. He was unashamedly depressed and had frequent suicidal thoughts during this period. He once confided to a friend that he held a cocked pistol to his forehead and considered killing himself at the age of 20.

Lowell met Maria White in late 1839 through her brother William, a Harvard classmate, and the two became engaged in 1840's fall. Maria's father, Abijah White, a wealthy Watertown business, insisted that their wedding be postponed until Lowell had gainful employment. They were married on December 26, 1844, just after the groom announced Conversations on Some of the Old Poets, a collection of his earlier published essays. Their relationship was described as "the true picture of a True Marriage," a friend told them. Lowell claimed that she was made up "half of the earth and more than half of Heaven." Lowell's life was greatly influenced by her fame, and the next twelve years of her life were also influenced by her poetry. "She owes all its beauty to her," he said of his first book of poetry, A Year's Life (1841), although it only sold 300 copies.

Maria's personality and convictions led her to join the resistance movements against intemperance and slavery. She belonged to the Boston Female Anti-Slavery Society and persuaded her husband not to become an abolitionist. James had previously voiced antislavery sentiments, but Maria led him to more vocality and involvement. Miscellaneous Poems' second volume of poems included these antislavery sentiments, and its 1,500 copies were well-received.

Maria was in poor health, and the couple moved to Philadelphia soon after their wedding, hoping that her lungs would heal there. He became a contributing editor for the Pennsylvania Freeman, an abolitionist newspaper in Philadelphia. The Lowells returned to Cambridge in the spring of 1845 to build their home at Elmwood. They had four children but only one (Mabel, 1847), survived past infancy. Blanche was born in 1845 but died in 1852; Rose, born in 1849, survived only a few months; their only son Walter was born in 1849 but died in 1852. Lowell was greatly affected by the loss of almost all of his children. In his poem "The First Snowfall" (1847), he expressed his deep sadness over the death of his first daughter in particular. He considered suicide again, telling a friend that "of my razors and throat, and that I am a fool and a coward not to end it all at once."

In 1840, Lowell's earliest poems were published in the Southern Literary Messenger without compensation. He was inspired by self-help and joined Robert Carter in founding The Pioneer, a literary journal. The periodical was distinguished by the fact that the majority of its content was new rather than content that had been previously published elsewhere, as well as the inclusion of a large amount of critical writing, not only literature but also art and music. It would, according to Lowell, "furnish the educated and reflecting portion of the Reading Public with a simple substitute for the tidy-diluted garbage" in the form of namby-pamby love stories and sketches, which are monthly delivered to them by several of our popular magazines. "It took some stand & appealed to a higher intellectual level than our puerile milk or watery namby Mags, which we are overrun," William Wetmore wrote about the journal's high-end taste. Edgar Allan Poe's first appearance of "The Tell-Tale Heart" appeared in the journal's first issue. Lowell was diagnosed with eye disease in New York immediately after the first issue, and Carter did a poor job of directing the journal in his absence. After three monthly numbers, beginning in January 1843, Lowell's debt stood at $1,800. Poe mourned the journal's demise, calling it "the most damaging blow to the cause" — the cause of a Pure Taste.

Despite The Pioneer's demise, Lowell retained his literary passion. For the Daily News, he wrote a series on "Anti-Slavery in the United States," but the editors cut it after four articles in May 1846. He had written these articles anonymously, implying that they would have more impact if they were not known to be the work of a committed abolitionist. In the spring of 1848, he formed a link with the National Anti-Slavery Standard of New York, agreeing to publish either a poem or a prose weekly. After only one year, he was asked to contribute half as often to the Standard in order to make room for contributions from Edmund Quincy, another writer and reformer.

A Fable for Critics was one of Lowell's most popular works, which appeared anonymously in 1848. It was a huge hit at the time, and the first 3,000 copies sold out quickly. He took good-natured jabs at his younger poets and commentators in this book, but not all of the subjects were delighted. Edgar Allan Poe was described as part genius and "two-fifths pure fudge"; he wrote about the work in the Southern Literary Messenger and dubbed it "loose," both in terms of detail and general —and we're surprised at him putting forth such unpolished art." Despite his own financial constraints, Lowell offered Charles Frederick Briggs, the book's success, (which was modest).

Lowell wrote The Biglow Papers in 1848, which were later regarded by the Grolier Club as the most influential book of 1848. Within a week, the first 1,500 copies sold out, and a second edition was soon released, but Lowell didn't profit because he had to pay the bill himself. There were three main characters in the book, each portraying particular aspects of American life and using authentic American dialects in their dialogue. The Biglow Papers was also a declaration of the Mexican–American War and general war.

Lowell's mother died unexpectedly in 1850, as did his third daughter, Rose. Despite the birth of his son Walter by the year's end, Lowell's death left him depressed and reclusive for six months. "Is death, not a private tutor," he told a friend. We have no fellow scholars and must learn our lessons from heart alone." Lowell was inspired by his personal tragedies, as well as the Compromise of 1850, to spend a winter in Italy. Lowell sold land around Elmwood, intending to sell off more acres of the estate as time to add to his income, eventually selling off 25 percent of the original 30 acres (120,000 m2). Walter died in Rome during the cholera, and Lowell and his mother Mabel, as well as their daughter Mabel, returned to the United States in October 1852. Lowell published recollections of his travel in various magazines, some of which will be published years later as Fireside Travels (1867). He also edited volumes of biographical sketches for a collection of British Poets.

Maria, his wife, who had been suffering from poor health for many years, became seriously sick in the spring of 1853 and died of tuberculosis on October 27. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and his wife were present at his funeral, opening her coffin so that her daughter Mabel would see her face. Lowell oversaw the publication of a commemorative volume of his wife's poetry in 1855, although only fifty copies were available for private circulation. Despite Lowell's self-described "naturally joyful" temperament, his son's stay in Elmwood was more difficult due to his father's deafension in his old age and his sister Rebecca's declining mental health, who went for weeks without speaking. He separated himself from others, becoming reclusive at Elmwood, and his private diaries from this time period are stuffed with the initials of his wife. For example, he wrote: "Dark without a roof, within" on March 10, 1854. M.L. M.L. M.L. "M.L." Longfellow, a friend and neighbor, referred to Lowell as "lonely and desolate."

James Russell Lowell was invited to speak at the prestigious Lowell Institute by his cousin John Amory Lowell. Any of his friends argued that the chance was due to the family's family history, which was cited as a way to help him get him out of his depression. Lowell wrote on "The English Poets" and told his friend Briggs that he would revenge on dead poets "for the injuries suffered by one who is not allowed to live." The first of the twelve-part lecture series was supposed to be published on January 9, 1855, but Lowell had only completed five of them by December, hoping for last-minute inspiration. John Milton's first lecture was on John Milton and the auditorium was oversold; Lowell was forced to give a repeat performance the next afternoon. Lowell, who had never spoken out in public before, was lauded for these lectures. Lowell, whom he described as "perverse," was able to "persist in being serious contrary to his feelings and his abilities," according to Francis James Child. Lowell's series was still in progress, but he was given the Smith Professorship of Modern Languages at Harvard, a position that Longfellow had vacated, earning him $1,200 per year, though he never applied for it. Since Longfellow, the job description was changed; rather than teaching languages explicitly, Lowell will direct the department and offer two lecture courses per year on topics of his own choice. Lowell accepted the appointment, with the caveat that he should have a year of study in another country. He set sail on June 4th of this year, leaving his daughter Mabel in the custody of a governess named Frances Dunlap. He spent time in Le Havre, Paris, and London, visiting friends including Story, Robert Browning, and Leigh Hunting. Lowell spent his time in the United States, particularly German, which he found difficult.

He complained: "The confounding genders!

I die, I would have inscribed on my tombstone that I died of der, not because I saw them but because I couldn't."

In the summer of 1856, he returned to the United States and began his college studies. Lowell seemed to have "no natural inclination" to teach toward the end of his professorship, according to Harvard's William Eliot, who accepted Lowell's appointment for 20 years. Rather than emphasizing on etymology, he concentrated on teaching literature, hoping that his students would learn to love the tone, rhythm, and flow of poetry rather than simply word processing. "True scholarship involves knowing not what things exist but what they mean," he explained. Lowell was still mourning the death of his wife during this time and instead lived on Kirkland Street in Cambridge, which is also known as Professors' Row. He and his son Mabel, as well as her governess Frances Dunlap, stayed in the Dunlap family until January 1861.

After the death of his wife Maria White, Lowell was never to remarry. However, he became engaged to Frances Dunlap in 1857, surprising his relatives, who many described as simple and unattractive. Dunlap, niece of Maine governor Robert P. Dunlap, was a friend of Lowell's first wife and formerly wealthy, but she and her family were subjected to reduced circumstances. Lowell and Dunlap married on September 16, 1857, at a ceremony attended by his brother. "My second marriage was the most responsible act of my life," Lowell said, and "I can't afford to wait until my friends agree with me."

The Atlantic Monthly was founded in 1857, and Lowell was its first editor. He gave the magazine the stamp of high literature and a bold statement on public affairs with its first issue in November of this year. Lowell's father died of a heart attack in January 1861, prompting Lowell to relocate his family to Elmwood. "I am back to the place I love best," he told his friend Briggs. I'm sitting in my old garret, at my old desk, and happily inhaling my old pipe. I'm starting to feel more like myself than I have in these ten years. In May, he departed The Atlantic Monthly as editor when James T. Fields took over as editor; the magazine had been purchased by Ticknor and Fields for $10,000 two years before. Lowell returned to Elmwood in January 1861 but maintained an amicable association with the journal's new owners, who continued to submit his poetry and prose for the remainder of his life. His prose, on the other hand, was more prominently displayed in the pages of the North American Review during the years 1862-1872. He was a coeditor on the book alongside Charles Eliot Norton. Lowell's journal covered a variety of literary debuts of the day, although he was writing fewer poems.

Lowell predicted that the discussion over slavery would lead to war, and as the Civil War broke out in the 1860s, Lowell praised Abraham Lincoln and his attempts to maintain the Union. During the war, Lowell lost three nephews, including Charles Russell Lowell Jr., who became a brigadier general and was wounded at the Battle of Cedar Creek. Lowell himself was largely a pacifist. "If the devastation of slavery is a result of the war, will we regret it?" he wrote. If it is vital to the war's successful trial, will anyone object to it? His involvement in the Civil War inspired him to pen a second series of The Biglow Papers, including one dedicated to the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, "Sunthin" in the Pastoral Line, 1862.

Lowell was asked to read a poem at Harvard shortly after Lincoln's assassination. "Commemoration Ode," his writer's book, "Commemoration Ode," cost him sleep and his appetite, but it was published on July 21, 1865, after a 48-hour writing binge. Lowell had high hopes for his career but was overshadowed by other well-known artists presenting works that day, including Ralph Waldo Emerson and Oliver Wendell Holmes. "I didn't make the hit I had hoped for," he wrote, and he's embarrassed for being tempted to write poetry again, a delusion from which I have been happily free these 12 years." Despite Lowell's personal review, colleagues and other writers wrote numerous letters congratulating him. Emerson referred to his poem's "high thought & sentiment" and James Freeman Clarke's "grandeur of tone" in the poem. Lowell later moved the Lincoln with a strophe.

Longfellow, Lowell's companion, spent several years translating Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy and regularly invited others to assist him on Wednesday evenings. Lowell, William Dean Howells, Charles Eliot Norton, and other regular visitors were among the "Dante Club's key players," as well as William Dean Howells, William Eugen Howells, and other occasional visitors. Lowell, a pallbearer at the funeral of friend and publisher Nathaniel Parker Willis on January 24, 1867, decided to produce a new collection of his poetry shortly. When Lowell first began to call it The Voyage to the Vinland and Other Poems was published in 1869, under the Willows and Other Poems. Lowell's first poetry collection since 1848, which was dedicated to Norton.

Lowell had intended to fly to Europe again. Lowell's mother, Mabel Burnett, the son of a successful businessman-farmer from Southborough, Massachusetts, sold more of Elmwood's acres and rented the house to Thomas Bailey Aldrich by this time; by this time, Lowell's daughter Mabel had moved into a new house. After taking a leave of absence from Harvard, Lowell and his wife set sail on July 8, 1872. They toured England, Paris, Switzerland, and Italy. He earned an honorary Doctorate of Law from the University of Oxford and another from Cambridge University while living in Oxford. In the summer of 1874, they returned to the United States.

Lowell resigned from his Harvard professorship in 1874, but he was still able to teach until 1877. Lowell was first introduced to politics in 1876. He appeared as a delegate to the Republican National Convention in Cincinnati, Ohio, speaking on behalf of presidential candidate Rutherford B. Hayes. Hayes received the nomination and, eventually, the presidency. President Hayes, a fan of The Biglow Papers, sent William Dean Howells, a handwritten note recommending an ambassadorship to Austria or Russia in May 1877; Lowell declined to study Spanish literature; Lowell expressed his admiration for Spanish literature. Lowell was then offered and accepted the position of Minister to the court of Spain at a monthly salary of $12,000. Lowell departed from Boston on July 14, 1877, but although he expected he would be away for a year or two, he did not return to the United States until 1885, with the violinist Ole Bull rented Elmwood for a part of the time. "José Bighlow" was a word used in Spanish media to describe him. Lowell was well prepared for his political career, having been educated in law as well as being able to read in several languages. During his stay in Spain, he had trouble socializing and amused himself by sending humourous dispatches to his political leaders in the United States, many of which were later collected and published posthumously in 1899 as Impressions of Spain. Lowell's social life was enriched when the Spanish Academy named him a corresponding member in late 1878, allowing him to assist in the creation of a new dictionary.

Lowell was notified of his appointment as Minister to England in January 1880, but he did not know it until June 1879. He was paid $17,500 plus $3,500 for expenses. He referred to an importation of allegedly diseased cattle and made suggestions that predated the Pure Food and Drug Act while serving in this capacity. Queen Victoria said she had never seen an ambassador who "created so much interest and gained so much esteem as Mr. Lowell." Despite his wife's declining health, Lowell continued to serve in this capacity until the end of Chester A. Arthur's presidency in 1885. Lowell was already well-known in England for his writing, and he befriended fellow author Henry James, who referred to him as "conspicuously American" during his stay there. Leslie Stephen was a mentor who helped his daughter, future author Virginia Woolf, many years ago and became the godfather to his daughter, a lifetime reader. After being recalled by President Grover Cleveland, Lowell was a hit so he was given a professorship at Oxford, but the offer was turned down. In 1883, he was elected as a member of the American Philosophical Society.

Frances, his second wife, died on February 19, 1885, while still in England.

He returned to the United States by June 1885, living with his daughter and her husband in Southboro, Massachusetts. He spent time in Boston with his sister before returning to Elmwood in November 1889. The majority of his friends were dead by this time, including Quincy, Longfellow, Dana, and Emerson, who had been depressed and considering suicide again. Lowell wrote several speeches in the 1880s, and his last published works were mainly essays, including Political Essays and a collection of his poems Heartsease and Rue, which were published in 1888. In the fall of 1889, Mabel returned to England on a daily basis, and she and her husband spent time in New York and New Jersey, while Mabel worked for clients. Lowell delivered an address on the centennial of George Washington's inauguration in 1991. Earlier this year, the Boston Critic published a special issue dedicated to Lowell's seventieth birthday to recollections and reminiscences by his colleagues, including former presidents Hayes and Benjamin Harrison, British Prime Minister William Ewart Gladstone, as well as Alfred, Lord Tennyson, and Francis Parkman.

Lowell's last few months of his life suffered with gout, sciatica in his left leg, and chronic vomiting; doctors suspected Lowell of cancer in his kidneys, liver, and lungs by the summer of 1891. He was given opium for the pain but was never fully aware for the pain during his last few months. He died in Elmwood on August 12, 1891. He was buried in Mount Auburn Cemetery after services in the Appleton Chapel. Norton died as his literary executor and published several collections of Lowell's works and letters after his death.

Source

Literary career

In 1840, Lowell's first poems were published in the Southern Literary Messenger without compensation. He was inspired by self-care and joined Robert Carter in the founding of the literary journal The Pioneer. The periodical was distinguished by the fact that the bulk of the book was new rather than content that had been previously published elsewhere, as well as the inclusion of a slew of serious commentary, which included not only literature but also art and music. It would "furnish the educated and reflecting portion of the Reading Public with a meaningful substitute for the slew of thrice-diluted garbage in the form of namby-pamby love stories and sketches," Lowell said. "It took some stand and appealed to a higher intellectual standard than our puerile milk or watery namby Mags, which we have outrun," William Wetmore wrote in the journal. Edgar Allan Poe's first appearance of "The Tell-Tale Heart" in the journal's first issue. Lowell was diagnosed with an eye disease in New York shortly after the first issue, and Carter did a poor job of directing the journal in his absence. The magazine ceased to be published in January 1843 after three monthly figures started in January 1843, leaving Lowell $1,800 in debt. Poe mourned the journal's demise, describing it as "the most damaging blow to the cause—the cause of a Pure Taste."

Despite the failure of The Pioneer, Lowell maintained his interest in the literary world. For the Daily News, he wrote an article on "Anti-Slavery in the United States" but the editors cut it after four articles in May 1846. He had published these articles anonymously, fearing that they would have more effect if they were not intended to be the work of a committed abolitionist. In the spring of 1848, he established a connection with the National Anti-Slavery Standard of New York, promising to contribute either a poem or a prose column a week. He was asked to contribute half as often to the Standard in order to allow for contributions from Edmund Quincy, another writer and reformer, during only one year.

A Fable for Critics was one of Lowell's most popular works, which were published anonymously in 1848. It was a big hit, and the first 3,000 copies sold out quickly. In it, he took good-natured jabs at his contemporary writers and journalists, but not all the participants were happy. Edgar Allan Poe was referred to as both a genius and "two-fifths sheer fudge"; he reviewed the work in the Southern Literary Messenger and called it "loose"—ill-conceived and poorly executed, as well as general — "unpolished" a performance. Despite his own financial constraints, Lowell sold all the book's earnings to his New York friend Charles Frederick Briggs.

Lowell also published The Biglow Papers in 1848, which was later regarded by the Grolier Club as the most influential book of 1848. The first 1,500 copies sold out within a week, and a second edition was soon published, but Lowell lost no money as he had to pay the cost of stereotyping the book himself. Three main characters were included in the book, each representing specific aspects of American life and using authentic American dialects in their discussions. The Biglow Papers, on the surface, was also a declaration of the Mexican–American War and general war.

Lowell's mother died unexpectedly in 1850, as had his third daughter, Rose. Despite the birth of his son Walter by the year's end, Lowell was depressed and reclusive for six months. Death, he told a friend, is "a private tutor." We have no colleagues, and we must take our lessons by heart alone." Lowell was inspired by his personal struggles as well as the Compromise of 1850. Lowell sold property around Elmwood in the hopes of supplementing his income over time, eventually selling 25 of the original 30 acres (120,000 m2). Walter died in Rome during the cholera, and Lowell and his mother, Mabel, and their daughter Mabel returned to the US in October 1852. Lowell published recollections of his trip in several newspapers, some of which would be collected years later as Fireside Travels (1867). For a collection of British Poets, he also edited volumes with biographical sketches.

Maria, his wife who had been suffering from poor health for many years, became extremely ill in the spring of 1853 and died on October 27 of tuberculosis. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and his wife were in attendance just before her funeral, so that her daughter Mabel would see her face against a tree weeping." Lowell oversaw the publication of a commemorative volume of his wife's poetry in 1855, but only fifty copies were printed for private circulation. Despite Lowell's self-described "naturally joyful" appearance, his father became more complicated in his old age as a result of his brother's deafension in his old age and his sister Rebecca's declining mental health, who went weeks without speaking for nearly week. He separated himself from others, becoming cynical at Elmwood, and his personal diaries from this period are brimming with his wife's initials. For example, he wrote: "Dark without a & within" on March 10, 1854. M.L. M.L. M.L. Lowell was referred to as "lonely and desolate" by Longfellow, a friend and neighbor.

James Russell Lowell was invited to speak at the prestigious Lowell Institute at the invitation of his cousin John Amory Lowell. Some believed it was due to his family ties that had been attempting to bring him out of his depression. Lowell wrote on "The English Poets," telling Briggs that he would take revenge on deceased poets "for the injuries suffered by one whose livelihood would not allow among the living." The first of the twelve-part lecture series was supposed to be published on January 9, 1855, but Lowell had only finished writing five of them by December, wishing for last-minute inspiration. John Milton's first lecture was on John Milton and the auditorium was oversold; Lowell was forced to give a repeat performance the following afternoon. Lowell, who had never spoken in public before, was praised for these lectures. Lowell, who he described as "perverse," was able to "persist in being serious contrary to his feelings and abilities," according to Francis James Child. Lowell's series was still in progress, but he was given the Smith Professorship of Modern Languages at Harvard, a position that Longfellow had, at a monthly salary of $1,200, although he never applied for it. Longfellow's job description was changed; rather than teaching languages specifically, Lowell will lead the department and offer two lecture courses per year on topics of his own choice. Lowell accepted the appointment with the caveat that he should have a year of study in another country. On June 4 of that year, he set sail, leaving his daughter Mabel in the custody of a governess named Frances Dunlap. He spent time in Le Havre, Paris, and London with colleagues, including Story, Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Browning, and Leigh Hunting. Lowell spent his time abroad learning languages, especially German, which was particularly difficult.

He complained: "The confounding genders!

If I die, I'll have inscribed on my tombstone that I died of der, e.g., die, not because I could have detected them but because I couldn't."

In the summer of 1856, he returned to the United States and resumed his college work. Lowell seemed to have "no natural inclination" to teach, despite his professorship's conclusion; Lowell agreed, but stayed his position for twenty years. He concentrated on literature rather than etymology, in the hopes that his students would learn to appreciate the sound, rhythm, and flow of poetry rather than the method of words. "True scholarship consists in knowing not what things are describing but what they mean," he explained. Lowell was still mourning his wife's death and instead lived on Kirkland Street in Cambridge, which is also known as Professors' Row. He stayed there, as did his mother Mabel and her governess Frances Dunlap, until January 1861.

Since his wife Maria White's death, Lowell had no intention to remarry. However, he became engaged to Frances Dunlap in 1857, surprising his family members. Dunlap, niece of Maine's former governor Robert P. Dunlap, was a lover of Lowell's first wife and formerly wealthy, but she and her family were in danger. Lowell and Dunlap married in 1857 at a funeral performed by his brother. "My second marriage was the bravest act of my life, and as long as I am aware of it," Lowell said.

The Atlantic Monthly was founded in 1857, and Lowell became the first editor. He gave the magazine the stamp of high literature and a bold statement on public affairs in its first issue in November of this year. Lowell's father died of a heart attack in January 1861, causing Lowell to move his family to Elmwood. "I am back to the place I love the most," he wrote to his friend Briggs. I am sitting in my old garret, at my old desk, and inhaling my old pipe. I start to feel more like myself than I have in the past ten years." He left The Atlantic Monthly in May when James T. Fields took over as editor; the journal had been purchased by Ticknor and Fields for $10,000 two years before. Lowell returned to Elmwood in January 1861, but maintained an amicable relationship with the journal's new owners, who continued to submit his poetry and prose for the remainder of his life. His prose, on the other hand, was more abundantly displayed in the North American Review's pages during the years 1862-1872. He served as a coeditor and coeditor of the Report alongside Charles Eliot Norton and Charles Eliot Norton. Lowell's journal covered a number of literary debuts of the day, though he was not writing any poetry at the time.

Lowell predicted that the debate over slavery would result in war, and as the Civil War broke out in the 1860s, Lowell praised Abraham Lincoln and his efforts to preserve the Union as early as 1845. During the war, Lowell lost three nephews, including Charles Russell Lowell Jr., who became a brigadier general and died at the Battle of Cedar Creek. Lowell was a pacifist. "If slavery's demise is a result of the war, will we regret it?" he wrote. Will anyone object to the war's successful prosecution? His involvement in the Civil War led him to write a second series of The Biglow Papers, one of which was dedicated to the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation named "Sunthin" in the Pastoral Line in 1862.

Lowell was asked to read a poem at Harvard shortly after Lincoln's assassination. He wrote "Commemoration Ode" for him sleep and hunger, but it was published on July 21, 1865, after a 48-hour writing binge. Lowell had high hopes for his appearance but was overshadowed by other notables on the day's show, including Ralph Waldo Emerson and Oliver Wendell Holmes. "I did not make the hit I expected," he wrote, "and am ashamed for being tempted to write poetry again, a delusion from which I have been tolerably free these dozen years." Despite Lowell's personal review, acquaintances and other writers wrote several letters congratulating him. Emerson referred to his poem's "high thought and sentiment" and James Freeman Clarke's "grandeur of tone" in the poem. Lowell's Lincolnshire Strophe was a major feat before it was extended with a strophe.

Longfellow, Lowell's companion, spent many years translating Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy and regularly invited others to assist him on Wednesday evenings. Lowell, William Dean Howells, Charles Eliot Norton, and other regular visitors were among the key participants of the so-called "Dante Club." Lowell decided to release another collection of his poetry shortly after being pallbearer at the funeral of friend and publisher Nathaniel Parker Willis on January 24, 1867. In 1869, the Willows and Other Poems was published, but Lowell intended to name it The Voyage to the Vinland and Other Poems. Lowell had written poetry in the last ten years, and this was his first poetry collection since 1848.

Lowell was planning to fly to Europe for the second time. Mabel B. Lowell's daughter Mabel, the son of a wealthy businessman-farmer from Southborough, Massachusetts, had sold off more of Elmwood's acres and rented the house to Thomas Bailey Aldrich by this time; by this time, Lowell's daughter Mabel had moved to a new home with her husband Edward Burnett. After Lowell took a leave of absence from Harvard, he and his wife set sail on July 8, 1872. They toured England, Paris, Switzerland, and Italy. While in Oxford, he received an honorary Doctorate of Law from the University of Oxford and another from Cambridge University. In the summer of 1874, the settlers returned to the United States.

Lowell resigned from Harvard professorship in 1874, but he was encouraged to continue teaching until 1877. Lowell was the first politician to enter politics in 1876. He served as a delegate to the Republican National Convention in Cincinnati, Ohio, speaking on behalf of presidential candidate Rutherford B. Hayes. Hayes received the nomination and, eventually, the presidency. President Hayes, a fan of The Biglow Papers, sent William Dean Howells, a handwritten note, proposing an ambassadorship to Austria or Russia in May 1877; Lowell rejected this but expressed an interest in Spanish literature. Lowell was then invited and accepted the position of Minister to the Spanish judiciary at a monthly salary of $12,000. Lowell sailed from Boston on July 14, 1877, but although he expected he would be away for a year or two, he did not return to the United States until 1885, with the violinist Ole Bull rented Elmwood for a part of that time. He was dubbed "José Bighlow" by Spanish media. Lowell was well-prepared for his political career, having been educated in law as well as being able to read in a variety of languages. While in Spain, he had trouble socializing and amused himself by sending amusing dispatches to his political bosses in the United States, many of which were later collected and published in 1899 as Impressions of Spain. Lowell's social life changed in late 1878, when the Spanish Academy named him a corresponding member, allowing him to assist in the preparation of a new dictionary.

Lowell was informed of his appointment as Minister to England in January 1880, but his nomination was made without his knowledge as far back as June 1879. He was paid $17,500 for expenses. He addressed an importation of allegedly diseased cattle and made proposals that predate the Pure Food and Drug Act while serving in this capacity. Queen Victoria said she had never seen an ambassador who "created so much enthusiasm and gained so much esteem as Mr. Lowell." Despite his wife's declining health, Lowell continued his position until the end of Chester A. Arthur's presidency in the spring of 1885. Lowell was already well-known in England for his writing and befriended fellow author Henry James, who referred to him as "conspicuously American" during his stay there. Lowell befriended Leslie Stephen many years ago and became the godfather to his daughter, future writer Virginia Woolf. Lowell was recalled by President Grover Cleveland as a professor at Oxford after his recall by him, but the request was turned down. In 1883, he was elected as a member of the American Philosophical Society.

Frances, his second wife, died on February 19, 1885, while still in England.

By June 1885, he returned to the United States, where he and his daughter and her husband live in Southboro, Massachusetts. He and his sister spent time in Boston before returning to Elmwood in November 1889. Quincy, Longfellow, Dana, and Emerson were among his friends who died by this time, leaving him depressed and considering suicide. Lowell spent part of the 1880s giving various speeches, and his last published works were mainly collections of essays, including Political Essays and a collection of his poems Heartsease and Rue, 1888. He returned to England every year, and when he returned to the United States in the fall of 1889, he moved back to Elmwood with Mabel, though her husband worked for clients in New York and New Jersey. Lowell gave an address at the centennial of George Washington's inauguration in that year. Likewise this year, the Boston Critic dedicated a special issue to Lowell on his seventieth birthday to recollections and reminiscences by his colleagues, including former presidents Hayes and Benjamin Harrison and British Prime Minister William Ewart Gladstone, as well as Alfred, Lord Tennyson, and Francis Parkman.

Lowell's last few months of his life struggled with gout, sciatica in his left leg, and chronic diarrhea; doctors suspect Lowell had cancer in his kidneys, liver, and lungs by 1891. He was given opium for the pain but was not fully alert during his last few months. He died in Elmwood on August 12, 1891. He was buried in Mount Auburn Cemetery after services in the Appleton Chapel. Norton published several collections of Lowell's works and letters after his death.

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