printed volume of Mrs. Lowell's poems appeared a year or
two after her death. Mr. Lowell's second wife was Miss Frances Dunlap,
of Portland, Maine, whom he married in September, 1857. She died in
February, 1885.

Mr. Lowell was ever pronounced in his hatred of wrong, and naturally
enough he was found on the side of Garrison, Wendell Phillips, and
Whittier, in their great battle against that huge blot on
civilization, slavery in America. He spoke and wrote in behalf of the
abolitionists at a time when the anti-slavery men were openly despised
as heartily in the North as they were feared and detested in the
South. He wrote with a pen which never faltered, and satire, irony,
and fierce invective accomplished their work with a will, and moved
many a heart, almost despairing, to renewed energy.

"The Vision of Sir Launfal" was published in 1848, and it will be read
as long as men and women admire tales of chivalry and the stirring
stories of King Arthur's court. Tennyson's "Idyls" will keep his fame
alive, and Lowell's Sir Launfal, which tells of the search for the
Holy Grail, the cup from which Christ drank when he partook of the
last supper with his disciples, will also have a place among the best
of the Arthurian legends. It is said that Mr. Lowell wrote this strong
poem in forty-eight hours, during which he hardly slept or ate.
Stedman calls it "a landscape poem," a term amply justified. It
contains many quotable extracts, such as, "And what is so rare as a
day in June," "Down swept the chill wind from the mountain peak, from
the snow five thousand summers old," and "Earth gets its price for
what earth gives us." We are constantly meeting these in the magazines
and in the newspapers. The vision did much to bring about a larger
recognition of the author's powers as a poet of the first order. He
had to wait some time to gain this, and in that respect he resembled
Robert Browning, at first so obscure, at last compelling approval
from all.

The field of American literature, as it existed in 1848, was surveyed
by Lowell in his happiest manner, as a satirist, in that clever
production, by a wonderful Quiz, A Fable for Critics, "Set forth in
October, the 31st day, in the year '48, G. P. Putnam, Broadway." For
some time the authorship remained a secret, though there were many
shrewd guesses as to the paternity of the biting shafts of wit and
delicately baited hooks. It was written mainly for the author's own
amusement, and w