A bust and memorial window to James Russell Lowell, the
author of the Biglow Papers, of various beautiful poems in a much more ideal and pathetic vein, and of a great number of remarkable criticisms, was unveiled in the Chapter House of Westminster by Mr. Leslie Stephen on Tuesday in the pre- sence of Mr. Bayard, the American Minister, who now fills the place which Mr. Lowell so long filled in the diplomatic body accredited to our Court. The Dean of Westminster presided, and gave an interesting account of the Chapter House, which was not only the scene of the regular ecclesi- astical gatherings of early days, but for a long period the place where the English House of Commons also assembled. Mr. Leslie Stephen's address did full justice to the great literary power and the fine literary insight of the former American Minister, whose lively and graphic letters we reviewed in these columns only last week ; and Mr. Bayard's reply on behalf of his American friends was as cordial as Mr. Stephen's address. The absence of Mr. Balfour, who was prevented by an attack of influenza from being present, and who had undertaken to unveil the memorial, was to some extent a disappointment, but even he could hardly have said better what was said by the Dean of Westminster and Mr. Leslie Stephen. The per- sonal note of the reminiscences was the exquisite combination in Lowell of wit and literary sympathy with patriotic purpose, and masculine courage in pursuing that purpose. He was a great man of letters, but he vas not a man of letters whose love of freedom and justice had been in any degree blunted by his love of intellectual epigram and delicate literary beauty.
Previous page
