am
Page in 1842, owned by Mrs. Charles F. Briggs,
Brooklyn, N. Y.) _Frontispiece_

ELMWOOD, MR. LOWELL'S HOME IN CAMBRIDGE

AS SIR LAUNFAL MADE MORN THROUGH THE DARKSOME GATE

SO HE MUSED, AS HE SAT, OF A SUNNIER CLIME

THE SEAL OF HARVARD UNIVERSITY

A SKETCH OF THE LIFE OF JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL

I.

ELMWOOD.

About half a mile from the Craigie House in Cambridge, Massachusetts,
on the road leading to the old town of Watertown, is Elmwood, a
spacious square house set amongst lilac and syringa bushes, and
overtopped by elms. Pleasant fields are on either side, and from the
windows one may look out on the Charles River winding its way among
the marshes. The house itself is one of a group which before the war
for independence belonged to Boston merchants and officers of the
crown who refused to take the side of the revolutionary party. Tory
Row was the name given to the broad winding road on which the houses
stood. Great farms and gardens were attached to them, and some sign of
their roomy ease still remains. The estates fell into the hands of
various persons after the war, and in process of time Longfellow came
to occupy Craigie House. Elmwood at that time was the property of the
Reverend Charles Lowell, minister of the West Church in Boston, and
when Longfellow thus became his neighbor, James Russell Lowell was a
junior in Harvard College. He was born at Elmwood, February 22, 1819.
Any one who will read _An Indian Summer Reverie_ will discover how
affectionately Lowell dwelt on the scenes of nature and life amidst
which he grew up. Indeed, it would be a pleasant task to draw from the
full storehouse of his poetry the golden phrases with which he
characterizes the trees, meadows, brooks, flowers, birds, and human
companions that were so near to him in his youth and so vivid in his
recollection. In his prose works also a lively paper, _Cambridge
Thirty Years Ago_, contains many reminiscences of his early life.

To know any one well it is needful to inquire into his ancestry, and
two or three hints may be given of the currents that met in this poet.
On his father's side he came from a succession of New England men who
for the previous three generations had been in professional life. The
Lowells traced their descent from Percival Lowell,--a name which
survives in the family,--of Bristol, England, who settled in Newbury,
Massachusetts, in 1639. The great-grandfather was a minister in
Newburyport, one