Page 80 - Four Famous American Writers: Washington Irving, Edgar Allan Poe, James Russell Lowell, Bayard Taylor

part of the winter of 1842-43 in New York to undergo treatment. Here he
made many new literary acquaintances, among others that of Charles F.

Briggs, who started the Broadway Journal with the assistance of Poe. In the
meantime, he kept on writing poetry with more vigor than ever, and in 1843

published a second volume of verse, containing his best work since "A
Year's Life" appeared.

His contributions to the periodicals included much prose as well as poetry.
Among other things, he wrote a series of "Conversations on some of the

Old Poets," which was published in a volume the same year that the second
book of poems came out. It consisted mainly of essays on Chaucer,
Chapman, Ford, and the old dramatists. He never cared to reprint this first

excursion into the realm of literary criticism; but it opened up a field which
he was to work with distinction in after years.

Lowell's prose is delicate, airy, and fanciful, but at the same time keenly
critical and sharp in its thought. "Fireside Travels" and "From My Study

Window" are books which are known all over the world and which are
everywhere voted "delightful".

CHAPTER VII

HOSEA BIGLOW, YANKEE HUMORIST

In December, 1844, Lowell felt that his income from his literary work,
though very small and precarious, was sufficient to justify him in marrying,

and accordingly he was united to Miss White. She was delicate in health,
and after their marriage the couple went to Philadelphia, where they spent
the winter in lodgings. Lowell became a regular contributor to the

Freeman, an antislavery paper once edited by Whittier. From this he
derived a very small but steady income; and the next year he was engaged

to write every week for the _Anti-Slavery Standard_ on a yearly salary of
five hundred dollars. This connection he maintained for the next four years.