"Judged by his works, as a poet in the end must be, he is one who might gain by revision and compression. But think, as is his due, upon the high-water marks of his abundant tide, and see how enviable the record of a poet who is our most brilliant and learned critic, and who has given us our best native idyl, our best and most complete work in dialectic verse, and the noblest heroic ode that America has produced, - each and all ranking with the first of their kind in English literature of the modern time."

Scudder's Criticism. In speaking of The Biglow Papers Scudder gives us a bit of charming criticism:

"It was when he [Lowell] came to the close of the six numbers which he appears to have agreed to write, that he gave himself up to the luxury of that bobolink song which always swelled in his throat when spring melted into summer. Sunthin' in the Pastoral Line, like the opening notes of The Vision of Sir Launfal, like Under the Willows, Al Fresco, and similar poems, is the insistent call of nature which is perhaps the most unmistakable witness in Lowell of a voice most his own because least subject to his own volition. To be sure, Lowell had a truth to press, the need of crushing the rattlesnake in its head of slavery; but he must needs first clear his throat by a long sweet draught of nature, and the mingling of pure delight in out of doors with the perplexities of the hour renders this number of The Biglow Papers one that goes very straight to the reader's heart."

SUGGESTIONS FOR READING

POETRY: The Vision of Sir Launfal, To the Dandelion, The First Snow-Fall, The Courtin', Sunthin' in the Pastoral Line, The Present Crisis, The Commemoration Ode, Under the Willows, The Changeling, Pictures from Appledore, The Shepherd of King Admetus, Al Fresco. PROSE: My Garden Acquaintance, Selections from the Critical Essays.

HELPFUL BOOKS

H. E. Scudder's James Russell Lowell.

Edward Everett Hale's Lowell and his Friends.

F. H. Underwood's Lowell.

C. E. Norton's Letters of James Russell Lowell.

CHRONOLOGY

1817, July 12. Born in Concord, Massachusetts.

At Harvard University.

Taught in Concord Academy.

Trip up the Concord River.

Tutor on Staten Island.

1845-1847

At Walden Pond.

Νο

In the little group that gathered about Emerson in Concord none stood in more intimate relationship with him than Henry David Thoreau. one occupies a more unique place in American literature than this poet-naturalist, the ardent disciple of the Concord sage.

Youth. Thoreau was born in Concord, July 12, 1817. His father, John Thoreau, was of Huguenot origin, quiet and unobtrusive in his nature. He was a pencil-maker by trade. His mother was witty, animated, and socially inclined. Shortly after Henry's birth his parents moved to Chelmsford and later to Boston, but in 1823 they returned to Concord, where their son lived the rest of his life. In his early years he was fond of hunting and fishing, and grew up in that New England village in perfect freedom and in close touch with nature. He went to school at the Concord Academy and prepared for Harvard.

Education. In 1833 he entered the freshman

class at Harvard, paying his expenses partly by teaching in a district school and by private tutoring. He also received some financial aid from the college. He acquired a good knowledge of the classics, devoting much of his time to Greek literature. He translated some of the Greek tragedies, and this helped to form his own English style. He did not indulge in sports or amusements of any sort, nor was he

very companionable.

In a letter to his class

secretary he makes this frank confession:

"Though bodily I have been a member of Harvard University, heart and soul I have been far away among the scenes of my boyhood. Those hours that should have been devoted to study have been spent in scouring the woods and exploring the lakes and streams of my native village."

Never did a man care more for his native village than he.

After Years. After his graduation Thoreau and his brother took charge of the village academy, but he gave this up in 1838 and began his career as a lecturer. In 1839 he and this same brother, John, of whom he was very fond and whose death he deeply mourned three years later, made a trip up the Concord and Merrimac rivers. in a boat which they themselves had made. The following year he helped his father in the pencil business, but lost interest in the trade, once he had mastered it. During the publication of the Dial, from 1840 to 1844, Thoreau contributed many essays and poems for its pages, acting part of the time as an assistant editor.

Thoreau could not only make pencils well, but he was a skillful surveyor, being often employed in surveying the land of his neighbors. The greater part of his time, however, he spent in