Lowell is a remarkable man and poet. That he is one of the first poets of this age, no man will deny. He is sincerely a reformer; his sympathies are entirely with the oppressed and down-trodden. Some of his poems are exceedingly beautiful, while others are full of grand thoughts which strike upon the ear and heart like the booming cannon-shot, which tells that an ardently desired conflict has commenced.—David W. Bartlett.
The most characteristic and most essential happens to be the most salient quality of Mr. Lowell’s style. It is a wit that is as omnipresent and as tireless as electricity itself. The effect is quite indescribable. We are sure that no other equal amount of literature could be produced that would yield to a competent assay a larger net result of pure wit. Generally the spirit of the wit is humane and gracious.—W. C. Wilkinson.
Mr. Lowell says somewhere that the art of writing consists largely in knowing what to leave in the ink-pot. How many volumes of Lowell’s prose works if not in the waste-basket are almost as effectually buried in papers and magazines? What his working life has given to the world will give the reader some notion of what the world has not got, and will serve to call attention to the condensed wealth contained in “Among my Books” and “My Study Windows.”—Rev. H. R. Haweis.