14 APRIL 1894, Page 23

The Poet and the Man. By Francis H. Underwood. (Lee

and Shepard, Boston, U.S.)—Dr. Underwood seems to have known Lowell intimately. He saw much of him in private life, and he was his colleague in the conduct of the Atlantic Monthly. Lowell was not a diligent student ; in fact, he was rusticated for idleness, having made a point, as he put it himself, of "reading all books except those prescribed." His profession was the law, but his relation to it was much the same as Ovid's. Literature was his real business in life ; about the way in which he followed it, Dr. Underwood has much that is curious and interesting to tell. The volume is illustrated with two good portraits. That which shows 1113 "Mr. Lowell in Later Middle-Life" gives him something of an Irish look.