16. fend: defend.
24. boreal: northern.
80. behemoth: very large beast.
THE TITMOUSE
76. impregnably: so that it can resist attack.
97. wold: Rood, forest.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL (1819-1891)
"As political reformer, as editor, as teacher, above all as an example of the type of scholarly gentleman that the new world was able to produce, he perhaps did more than any of his contemporaries to dignify American literature at home and to win for it respect abroad."
—W. B. CAIRNS.
Born at Cambridge, Mass., he early showed a love of literature and says that while he was a student at Harvard he read everything except the prescribed textbooks. He opened a law office in Boston, but spent his time largely in reading and writing poetry. He became professor of literature at Harvard in 1854 and later edited the Atlantic Monthly. Later he was minister to Spain and to England. In 1885 he returned to his work at Harvard, where he remained until his death in the very house in which he was born.