Page:Margaret Fuller by Howe, Julia Ward, Ed. (1883).djvu/146

Rh sympathy, was hung upon the outer wall. And all his further parley with the world was through the silver trumpet of peace.

According much praise to William Ellery Channing, and not a little to Cornelius Matthews, a now almost forgotten writer, Margaret declares Mr. Lowell to be “absolutely wanting in the true spirit and tone of poesy." She says further :

“Flis interest in the moral questions of the day has supplied the want of vitality in himself. His great facility at versification has cnabled him to fill the car with a copious stream of pleasant sound. But his verse is stereotyped, his thought sounds no depth, and posterity will not remember him."

The Biglow Papers were not yet "written, nor the “ Vision of Sir Launfal.” Still less was forescen the period of the struggle whose victorious close drew from Mr. Lowell a Commuemoration Ode," worthy to stand beside Emerson's "Boston Hymn."

In presenting a study of Margaret's thoughts and life, it seemed to us impossible to omit some consideration of her pronounced opinions concerning the most widely known of her American compeers in literature. Having brought these before the reader, we find it difficult to say the right word concerning them.

In accepting or rejecting a criticism, we should consider, first, its intention; secondly, its method; and, in the third place, its standard. If the first be honourable, the second legitimate, and the third substantial, we shall adopt the conclusion arrived at as a just result of analytic art.

In the judgments just quoted, we must believe the intention to have been a sincere one. But neither the method nor the standard satisfies us. The one is arbi-