Twenty-Eight Additions to the Canon of
Lowell's Criticism
F. DeWolfe Miller
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL'S extensive critical works cover the
period between Dante and the mid-Victorian era so much
more systematically than those of any other
nineteenth-century American critic, that the
identification of twenty-eight additional critical notices
in the North American Review would
scarcely be worth publication were it not for a continuing
and lively controversial interest in his critical
accomplishment. Upon Lowell's death in 1891, Stedman,
himself a very active critic, unhesitantly pronounced that
Lowell was thus far the greatest of American critics.
Doubters and detractors quickly appeared; but despite the
attacks which have been made on Lowell's superficiality,
he has continued to the present day to find notable
defenders. The addition of a number of critical notices
and reviews will therefore have some significance: it will
increase our knowledge of his reading habits; and, as the
bulk of his known criticism deals with major authors of
the past, these new pieces will enlarge our knowledge of
his opinions of current literature.
Horace E. Scudder's James Russell
Lowell (1901) contained such a careful
calendar of first publications—whether in
newspapers, periodicals, or in separate volumes or
pamphlets—that George Willis Cooke, when he prepared
a book-length bibliography in 1906 managed to introduce
more typographical errors than he did new items. Both
Scudder and Cooke used, among other materials, the large
mass of manuscripts and other literary remains which
Lowell left with C. E. Norton. Why they did not use, or
made such poor use of, the 1878 index to the North American Review remains
unexplained, unless, depending on Lowell's papers, they
merely overlooked it. The index was prepared by a Harvard
librarian, William Cushing, and was published quite
separately from the Review itself.
Thus it may have escaped their notice just as it escaped
the notice of a more recent distinguished scholar who was
attempting a complete bibliography of his subject.
The North American had begun to emerge
from anonymity in 1868, ten years before the index was
prepared, but even after the index appeared, the current
critical notices (as distinguished from the articles)
remained unsigned. Cushing, then, had the dual task of
making an analytical index and of determining the
authorship of articles some of which had been published
over sixty years before. In his Preface he said, "The
fullest sources of information, in regard to past and
present writers, have been opened to me by the past and
present editors . . . except Dr. Palfrey, . . . who is too
infirm to give me any information."[1] Since some of the past editors were
already dead, the statement is
ambiguous. Nevertheless, as Lowell's editorship was later
than Palfrey's, Cushing obviously means that Lowell, among
others, aided him in determining the authorship of
anonymous articles and reviews.
No matter how accurate or inaccurate the information Cushing
received concerning other contributors, Lowell's list of
his own materials must have been fairly trustworthy. As he
had contributed at least eighty-five items, he could not,
five years after the close of his editorship, have relied
on memory. It would seem that, barring clerical and
typographical errors in indexing, the provenance of the
twenty-nine additions to the canon (in the first list
below) is fairly clear.
There can be only a slight doubt about the seventeen items
which are listed without the comment, "In author index
only." Each of them appears at least twice in the index,
and is attributed to Lowell in each entry.
The authenticity of the remaining twelve, the notices which
are indicated as appearing in the author index only, must
be examined more closely. The index is divided into two
sections, subject and author. The analytical subject index
is much the longer, for some articles and notices are
listed under several headings. However, the author index
is more nearly complete, since Cushing has throughout the
subject index omitted certain critical notices which
appear in the author index. He ineffectually explains in
his Preface that the listing of some of the notices could
serve no purpose. His choices for omission are quite
arbitrary, for he includes some trivial materials and
omits what today at least would be considered far more
important.
In the author index there appears under the name of each
author a chronological list of his contributions,
designated by short title and a numerical reference,
except for the fact that in the case of Lowell and a few
other frequent contributors, some, though not all, of the
critical notices (never any of the "articles") are
gathered at the end of the list where they appear under
the heading "Critical Notices" and are designated only by
issue number and notice number. Here an undetectable
typographical error in one figure would result in the
attribution to Lowell of a piece not his. However, a
reindexing of the sixteen volumes edited by Lowell reveals
in 1600 entries in Cushing's index four typographical
errors in numerical reference, or only one to every 400
entries. The chance of a typographical error, then, in
twelve items is very small. Even if an error occurred, it
would have little chance of escaping detection. Any
reference out of sequence would obviously be wrong;
moreover, all but ten of 500 critical notices are indexed,
and an incorrect attribution of a notice to Lowell would
conflict with one or more entries elsewhere in the index.
There are two errors in page composition affecting the 190
entries of Lowell's contributions, but they are
immediately obvious, and do not concern the new items
listed.
Clerical errors are more numerous in the index. Among 1600
entries covering about 800 articles, reviews and notices
published during Lowell's tenure, six critical notices are
attributed to different authors in different parts of the
index. Two of these affect the Lowell canon.[2] They appear in the "Doubtful
Authorship" list below, where it is noted that one of them
previously ascribed to Lowell is almost certainly the work
of Norton, the very active associate editor.
A file of the North American Review
built up at the time of publication by the Widener Library
at Harvard contains penciled notations of authorship. The
inscriptions covering Lowell's editorship are primarily in
two hands, with one item marked by a third hand. It is
apparently unknown who made these notations or to what
extent Cushing relied on them. They confirm the additions
to the Lowell canon listed below, with the exception of
the review of Hale's If, Yes, and
Perhaps, which is not
marked.[3]
Yet another record—Norton's memorandum book, which is
owned by the Houghton Library—mentions a few of the
items. On a left-hand sheet in the notebook he recorded
the plans for a future issue; later he recorded the actual
contents on the opposite sheet, giving the authors and the
amount they were paid. Norton, in this somewhat sketchy
record, attributes a significant review of Howells' Venetian Life to Lowell, while
Cushing in both sections of his index gives it to Norton
himself. The contradictions concerning this short notice
(the Widener copy gives it to Norton, Scudder does not
include it in his list of Lowell's works, and Cooke gives
it to Lowell) indicate that no published records of
Lowell's unsigned and uncollected writings can be trusted
absolutely.
Cooke, though he gathered much valuable bibliographical
information in the field of New England letters, can never
be trusted where he cannot be checked. Compared with
Cushing's index of the Lowell material Cooke's
bibliography is virtually corrupt. While there are only
four typographical, clerical, and composition errors in
Cushing's 190 entries for Lowell, Cooke, in fifty-eight
entries from the North American,
makes eleven errors, or proportionally nine times as many.
The errors include wrong page, wrong volume, wrong year,
wrong spelling of names, and the misspelling and
alphabetization of Chaucer as Church, not to mention the
listing in two different places of a review by Lowell as a review of one of Lowell's works. He
omits without explanation five reviews (listed below)
attributed to
Lowell by both Cushing and
Scudder. Judging by Cooke's other work, these omissions
were oversights. Certainly the failure to include the
review of Ward's life of Percival was careless, for Lowell
had already collected it himself.
Internal-external evidence will support Cushing's attributions
of several of the notices. This evidence cannot be
analyzed here, but the student of Lowell will recognize
references to previous criticisms definitely known to be
by Lowell, and he will note numerous links such as that in
the review of Froude's History of
England in which Lowell repeats very closely
the phraseology of his judgment of Froude's sympathetic
handling of Henry VIII, which he had used two years before
as an example in "The Rebellion: Its Causes and
Consequences."[4]
Critical Notices by Lowell Published in the North American Review but not
heretofore Included in Bibliographies of his
Works
(Unless otherwise indicated, each item
below is credited to Lowell at least twice in
Cushing's index. The first two numbers are the
references as given by Cushing to the issue and
notice number respectively.)
- 150 3 H[enry] W[ebster] Parker, Poems, LXXII (Jan., 1851), 254-257.
- 205 15[5] Carlyle, The History of Frederick the
Great, Vol. IV, XCIX (Oct. 1864), 628.
- 205 16 George Bemis, Precedents of
American Neutrality, XCIX (Oct., 1864),
629.
- 206 4 Memoirs of
Lieut.-General [Winfield] Scott, LL.D.,
Written by Himself, C (Jan., 1865),
242-244.
- 206 20 George T. Rider, ed., Lyra
Anglicana, C. (Jan., 1865), 303-304. [In
author index only.]
- 206 21 [John] Doran, "Their
Majesties' Servants," C (Jan., 1865), 304.
[In author index only.]
- 206 22 M[ary] E[lizabeth Mapes] Dodge, The Irvington Stories, C (Jan.,
1865), 304. [In author index only.]
- 209 18 Richard Grant White, The
Works of William Shakespeare, Vol. I, CI
(Oct., 1865), 629-631. [In author index
only.]
- 211 18 E. Foxton [Sarah Hammond Palfrey], Herman, or Young Knighthood,
CII (April, 1866), 632-634.
- 211 19 Edmund Burke, Works,
Vols. IV and V, CII (April, 1866), 634-637.
- 211 24 R. H. Stoddard, ed., Melodies and Madrigals, CII (April, 1866),
644. [In author index only.]
- 213 13 Froude, The History of
England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of
Elizabeth, Vols. I-VI, CIII (Oct., 1866),
606-607. [In author index only, but confirmed by
Norton's memorandum.]
- 214 13 Bayard Taylor, The Picture
of St. John, CIV (Jan., 1867),
294-297.
- 218 17 Octavius Pickering, The
Life of Timothy Pickering, Vol. I, CVI (Jan.,
1868), 346-347.
- 218 18 Edmund Quincy, The Life of
Josiah Quincy of Massachusetts, CVI (Jan.,
1868), 348.
- 218 19 T. W. Parsons, translator, The . . . Inferno . . . of Dante, CVI (Jan.,
1868), 348-349. [In author index only.]
- 221 8 Charles Nordhoff, Cape Cod
and All Along Shore: Stories, CVII (Oct.,
1868), 674. [In author index only.]
- 221 9 [Charles Godfrey Leland,] Hans Breitmann's Party. And Other Ballads,
CVII (Oct., 1868), 675. [In author index
only.]
- 221 10 E. E. Hale, If, Yes, and
Perhaps. Four Possibilities and Six Exaggerations,
with Some Bits of Fact, CVII (Oct., 1868),
675-676. [In author index only.]
- 222 16 Passages from the American
Note-Books of Nathaniel Hawthorne, CVIII
(Jan., 1869), 323-325. [In author index
only.]
- 222 17 Howells, No Love Lost,
CVIII (Jan., 1869), 325-326. [In author index
only.]
- 222 18 [Henry Warren Torrey,] Lecture on the Uses of the Study of History,
CVIII (Jan., 1869), 326-327. [In author index
only.]
- 222 19 Life and Letters of Wilder
Dwight, CVIII (Jan., 1869), 327-328. [In
author index only.]
- 224 11 Dana, Two Years before the
Mast, New Edition, CIX (July, 1869),
298-299.
- 224 12 Goldwin Smith, The
Relations between America and England, CIX
(July, 1869), 299-301.
- 224 13 E. C. Stedman, The
Blameless Prince, and Other Poems, CIX (July,
1869), 301.
- 230 3 Bret Harte, Poems, CXII
(Jan., 1871), 234-235.
- 230 5 Howells, Suburban
Sketches, CXII (Jan., 1871), 236-237.
Omissions by Cooke of Critical Notices Published by
Lowell in the North American
Review and Attributed to him by Cushing and
Scudder
- [Article VII] "New Translations of the Writings of
Miss Bremer," LVIII (April, 1844), 480-508.
- 203 16 Adam Gurowski, Diary,
Vol. II, XCVIII (April, 1864), 618-619.
- 203 21 Jean Ingelow, Poems,
XCVIII (April, 1864), 628-629.
- 203 22 William Barnes, Poems in
the Dorset Dialect, XCVIII (April, 1864),
629.
- 214 10 J. H. Ward, The Life and
Letters of James Gates Percival, CIV (Jan.,
1867), 278-297.
Reviews of Doubtful Authorship
- 205 11 H. T. Tuckerman, America
and Her Commentators, XCIX (Oct., 1864),
624-626. [Attributed to Norton in Cushing's subject
index, but to Lowell in the Critical Notices
section of his author index; Norton in his
memorandum book lists it as his; omitted by
Scudder; attributed to Lowell by Cooke.]
- 205 12 Tennyson, Enoch Arden,
XCIX (Oct., 1864), 626. [Attributed to Lowell in
Cushing's subject index and in the Critical Notices
section of his author index; in the marked Widener
copy; and by Cooke. However, Norton in the pay
schedule of his memorandum book lists it by number
alone as his. Listing by numbr makes an error
possible, but his schedule is neat and systematic,
and should be better authority than any of the
others above.]
- 205 17 Horace E. Scuder, Life and
Letters of David Coit Scudder, XCIX (Oct.,
1864), 629-630. [Attributed to Lowell in Cushing's
subject index, but to Norton in the critical
notices section of his author index; omitted by
Scudder and Cooke.]
- 213 14 [Richard Congreve and others.] International Policy, CIII
(Oct., 1866), 608-609. [Attributed by Cushing to
Norton. Norton's memorandum book gives it to
Lowell. A comparison with 224 12 would seem to
point to Lowell as author. Omitted by Scudder and
Cooke.]
- 213 15 Charles Carleton Coffin, Four Years of Fighting, CIII (Oct., 1866),
609-610. [Attributed to Lowell in the Critical
Notices section; and to Lowell in the marked
Widener copy. Nevertheless, Norton, who in his pay
schedule for this issue lists each item by the name
of the author reviewed (thus reducing the
possibility of error), lists this notice as
his.]
- 213 16 Howells, Venetian
Life, CIII (Oct., 1866), 610-613. [Attributed
to Norton in both of Cushing's indexes and in the
marked Widener copy; omitted by Scudder; attributed
to Lowell by Norton in his memorandum book; and
listed by Cooke as Lowell's.][6]
Notes
