The letter thus sent purported to be by one Matthew Trueman, a country cousin to a supposed Member of Congress, scalping him for his vote on the question of the annexation of Texas. It was intended to be the first of a series in which the whole question of annexation was to be argued. It was addressed to no one in particular, but only to some hypothetical scoundrel. It will be remembered that annexation was the all-absorbing topic of political discussion during the winter of 1844-1845. Lowell could not do otherwise from his anti-slavery principles than bitterly condemn the action of Congress, and this letter was an outburst of satire and invective; but it did not see the light, and it was not followed by others in the same vein.
The editor of The Broadway Journal began fencing with the author. He wondered to whom it was addressed. He thought perhaps it would be best not to print the whole. “Your satire,” he wrote, “bruises instead of cutting the flesh, and makes a confounded sore place without letting out any of the patient’s bad blood. I will make as full a selection as I can; but there are certain expressions that could not be safely used in public.” He regrets that his friend should have lost so much time over the letter, but thinks it must have done him good by drawing off his superfluous zeal. “I shall think better of you myself for knowing that you can feel so strongly and write so harshly,” he adds: “it justifies the opinion that I expressed of you in my notice of your ‘Conversations;’” and after a further discussion of abolitionism in principle and practice, he begs him to write something about Philadelphia, or art, the academy, the abominable white doors, the poor watery oysters, everything and anything. “Put all your abolitionism into rhyme,” he concludes: “everybody will read it in that shape, and it will do good. Don’t forget that you are a poet and go to writing newspaper articles.”
The letter was shrewd, kind, reasonable to an uninterested reader, but must have been exacerbating to Lowell. Mr. Briggs could not conceal the final ground of his refusal, that to publish this and similar letters would be to jeopard the fortunes of The Broadway Journal, and in the sensitive condition of the mind of the out and out abolitionist, this was arrant cowardice. A good deal of correspondence followed, and Lowell lost his interest in the Journal, though he retained his strong affection for his friend and sent him, as well as a few poems, a slashing criticism of the exhibition in the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, and a review of Halleck’s “Alnwick Castle, with other Poems,” but The Broadway Journal itself died out of existence shortly, Mr. Briggs parting company with it at the end of a half year.[48] In sending the former of the two prose articles mentioned above, Lowell wrote:—
Philadelphia, Feb’y 15.
My dear Friend,—I send you something which will help you fill up, and will show my willingness to help till I can send something better. I am so continually interrupted here, and have been so long used to having all my time to myself, that I have not been able yet to acquire the habit of using anything but the very titbits of my time. I have begun several articles for you, but failed in satisfying myself, but before long hope to send you something to your taste. I will send a poem at any rate. Halleck, I see, is about to publish a new edition, which I should like to write a notice of if you have made no other arrangement.
This notice of the “Academy” I have written, you see, as editorial, and you can modify it as you please.
It is hard to write when one is first married. The Jews gave a man a year’s vacation. I hope to serve you sooner, and meanwhile remain
Your loving friend,
J. R. L.
P. S. Maria and I both like the Journal exceedingly.
The other vehicle for Lowell’s more exclusively literary work during the winter of 1845 was Graham’s Magazine, published in Philadelphia. He had been a contributor since the spring of 1841, when he used the signature “H. Perceval,” which he had been employing in initial form in the Southern Literary Messenger. His contributions were all poems, some of which he had preserved in the two volumes already published, but in the number for February, 1845, there appeared his biographical and critical sketch of Poe in the series “Our Contributors,” which ran for a score of numbers and was accompanied by steel portraits. Graham was desirous of including Lowell in the series with a portrait by Page, but for some reason the plan fell through. In this sketch of Poe, Lowell used a discursive manner, giving expression in a lively fashion to his judgments of other poets in the past, but not hesitating to speak emphatically of the genius of Poe, whom he did not know personally.