J. R. Lowell.

James Russel Lowell, author of the Indian Summer Reverie, Rosaline, and the Biglow Papers, is often classed among the American humorists and satirists, but it would be doing him scanty justice to treat him as nothing more. Besides the above-mentioned productions he published, in 1868, Under the Willows and other Poems; in 1870 Essays on Dryden, Shakespeare, Lessing, Rousseau, etc.; besides an interesting work on witchcraft in New-England, two centuries ago. Of his vigorous and pregnant style the following verses will give some idea:

THE RICH MAN'S SON AND THE POOR MAN'S

SON.

The rich man's son inherits lands,

And piles of brick, and stone, and gold;
And he inherits soft, white hands,
And tender flesh that fears the cold;
Nor dares to wear a garment old.
A heritage, it seems to me,
One would not care to hold in fee.

The rich man's son inherits cares;
The bank may break, the factory burn;
Some breath may burst his bubble shares,
And soft, white hands would hardly earn
A living that would suit his turn:

A heritage, it seems to me,

One would not care to hold in fee.

What does the poor man's son inherit?

Stout muscles and a sinewy heart;

A hardy frame, a hardier spirit;
King of two hands; he does his part,
In our useful toil and art:

A heritage, it seems to me,

A king might wish to hold in fee.

What does the poor man's son inherit?
Wishes o'erjoyed with humble things;
A rank adjudged by toil-worn merit;
Content that from employment springs;
A heart that in his labour sings;
A heritage, it seems to me,
A king might wish to hold în fee.

What does the poor man's son inherit?
A patience learned by being poor,
Courage, if sorrow come, to bear it,
A fellow feeling that is sure

To make the outcast bless his door:
A heritage, it seems to me,

A king might wish to hold in fee.

Oh, rich man's son, there is a toil
That with all others level stands:
Large charity doth never soil,
But only whitens soft, white hands:
This is the best crop from the lands:
A heritage, it seems to me,
Worth being rich to hold in fee.

1

Oh! poor man's son, scorn not thy state;
There is worse weariness than thine,
In merely being rich and great;
Work only makes the soul to shine,
And makes rest fragrant and benign:
A heritage, it seems to me,
Worth being poor to hold in fee.

Both heirs to some six feet of sod,

Are equal in the earth at last;

Both children of the same dear God;
Prove title to your heirship vast,
By record of a well-filled past:
A heritage, it seems to me,

Well worth a life to hold in fee.

The Biglow Papers consist of a series of humorous pieces in the American dialect and in rhyme, directed against the Mexican policy of the then existing Administration. Mr. Lowell is a native of Cambridge, Massachusetts, and was born in 1819. In 1879 he was appointed American Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary in London. Mrs. Maria Lowell (Miss White) born at Watertown, Massachusetts, married Mr. Lowell in 1844. She has published several translations, besides some original poems, among which the Morning Glory and the Maiden's Harvest have found many admirers. Mrs. Lowell died Feb. 19, 1885.

Mrs. Sigourney.

Miss Lydia Huntley, born in 1791 at Norwich, Connecticut, gave early proofs of genius, for she began to write verses, when only eight years of age. In 1819 she married Mr. Sigourney, a merchant in Hartford, Connecticut, and for that time forward devoted all her leisure hours to literary pursuits, in which she was encouraged by her husband. After producing several small works, in the summer of 1840 she visited England and Scotland, and passed the winter in Paris. While in London she published a volume of poems, and soon after her return to America in 1841, the most elaborate of her longer poems, Pocahontas, appeared in New York. In 1842 she gave, under the title: Pleasant Memories in Pleasant Lands, an account in prose and verse of her wanderings abroad. This was succeeded by Myrtis in 1846; and in 1848 appeared a volume of her poems, with beautiful illustrations. She died in 1865. Of Mrs. Sigourney's simpler style, the following may serve as a specimen:

THE THRIVING FAMILY.

Our father lives in Washington,
And has a world of cares,
But gives his children each a farm,
Enough for them and theirs.
Full thirty well-grown sons has he,
A numerous race indeed,
Married and settled all, you see,
With boys and girls to feed.
So, if we wisely till our lands,
We're sure to earn a living,
And have a penny too to spare
For spending or for giving.
A thriving family are we,

No lordling need deride us;
For we know how to use our hands,
And in our wits we pride us.

Hail, brothers, hail!

Let nought on earth divide us.

Some of us dare the sharp north-east,
Some clover-fields are mowing;
And others tend the cotton-plants
That keep the looms a-going;
Some build and steer the whitewing'd ships,
And few in speed can mate them,
While others rear the corn and wheat,
Or grind the corn to freight them.
And if our neighbours o'er the sea
Have e'er an empty larder,

To send a loaf their babes to cheer
Will work a little harder.

Hail, brothers, hail!

Let nought on earth divide us.

Some faults we have, we can't deny,
A foible here and there;

But other households have the same,
And so we won't despair

"Twill do no good to fume and frown,
And call hard names, you see,

And what a shame 'twould be to part
So fine a family!

"Tis but a waste of time to fret,
Since Nature made us one,
For every quarrel cuts a thread
That healthful Love has spun.
Then draw the cords of union fast,
Whatever may betide us,

And closer cling through every blast,
For many a storm has tried us.
Hail, brothers, hail!

Let nought on earth divide us.

Of course, the "Family" here means the American people; and the "full thirty well-grown sons" are the 38 states of the American Union.

The subjoined verses contain much beauty and sublimity:

NIAGARA.

Flow on for ever, in thy glorious robe
Of terror and of beauty! Yea, flow on
Unfathomed and resistless! God hath set
His rainbow on thy forehead: and the cloud
Mantled around thy feet. And he doth give
Thy voice of thunder, power to speak of Him
Eternally, bidding the lip of man
Keep silence, and upon thy rocky altar pour
Incense of awe-struck praise.

Ah! who can dare
To lift the insect trump of earthly hope,
Or love or sorrow, 'mid the peal sublime
Of thy tremendous hymn? Even Ocean shrinks
Back from thy brotherhood; and all his waves
Retire abashed. For he doth sometimes seem
To sleep like a spent labourer, and recall
His wearied billows from their vexing play
And lull them to a cradle calm, but thou
With everlasting, undecaying tide,
Dost rest not night or day. The morning stars,
When first they sang o'er young creation's birth,
Heard thy deep anthem; and those wrecking fires
That wait the archangel's signal to dissolve
This solid earth, shall find Jehovah's name
Graven as with a thousand diamond spears,
On thine unending volume.

Every leaf,

That lifts itself within thy wide domain,
Doth gather greenness from thy living spray
Yet tremble at the baptism. Lo!
yon birds
Do boldly venture near, and bathe their wing
Amid thy mist and foam. 'Tis meet for them
To touch thy garment's hem, and lightly stir
The snowy leaflets of thy vapour wreath,
For they may sport unharmed amid the cloud,
Or listen at the echoing gate of heaven
Without reproof. But, as for us, it seems
Scarce lawful, with our broken tones, to speak
Familiarly of thee. Methinks to tint

Thy glorious features with our pencil's point,
Or woo thee to the tablet of a song,
Were profanation.

Thou dost make the soul

A wondering witness of thy majesty;

But as it presses with delirious joy

To pierce thy vestibule, dost chain its step,

And tame its rapture with the humbling view

Of its own nothingness; bidding it stand

In the dread presence of the Invisible,

As if to answer to its God through thee.

In the verses, Indian Names, Mrs. Sigourney reveals her sympathy with a too often wronged and defamed race: INDIAN NAMES.

Ye say that all have passed away,
That noble race and brave;

That their light canoes have vanished
From off the crested wave;