a stirring ballad, and _The Shepherd of King Admetus_,
embodying the myth of the coming of Apollo to King Admetus and his
gift of poesy to the world. The volume heralded the fame that Lowell
was afterward to attain as a poet.

In 1846 the Mexican war was the great political question of the day,
and the country was divided in opinion as to whether the Government
had undertaken the war in a spirit of justice, or merely for the sake
of acquiring new territory. The South mainly favored the war, while
a portion of the North opposed it on the principle that the new
territory would favor the extension of slavery. There was much talk
of glory, and the heroes of the day were the generals and soldiers who
were winning laurels on the Mexican battle-fields.

Lowell considered the war dishonorable and opposed to the principles
of liberty, and he took a firm stand against it. He did this, not,
as may be said, in his own way, for the way was new to him, but in a
manner that turned the vaunted heroism of the day into ridicule,
and appealed to the public conscience by its patriotism and honesty.
Keeping his own personality in the background, Lowell sent his wits
roving into the world of memory and brought from it a hero who was
destined to rival in fame the leader of the Mexican campaigns. This
hero possessed the old courage, fire, and enthusiasm which had braved
the British in Revolutionary days. His patriotism was a pure flame,
his wisdom that of the builders who had founded a commonwealth of
civil rights in the midst of the primeval forest; his common-sense
would have made him a king in Yankeedom, and his humor was as grim as
that of the old Puritans, who believed in fighting the devil with his
own weapons. He came on the scene dressed in homespun, and spoke the
homely dialect of New England, that singular speech so unlike any
other and which seems to have had grafted upon the original English
all the eccentricities which made the Puritans a peculiar people.

This singular figure which now attracted public attention was first
heard from in the columns of the Boston _Courier_, as the author of a
poem on the subject of the raising of volunteers for the Mexican War.
The poem was written in the Yankee dialect and, it was stated, had
been sent to the office by the poet's father, Ezekiel Biglow. The
verses rang with New England canniness, and the familiar dialect
acquired a dignity never before acknowledged. Scholars, statesmen,
critics