MR. LOWELL is a native of Boston, where his father is an eminent Congregational clergyman. He completed his education at Harvard College when about twenty years of age, and subsequently studied the law, but I believe with no intention of entering the courts. His first appearance as an author was in 1839, when he printed a class poem recited at Cambridge. It was a composition in heroic verse, which, though it betrayed marks of haste, contained many strokes of vigorous satire, much sharp wit, and occasional bursts of feeling. Two years afterward he published a volume of miscellaneous poems, under the title of “ A Year's Life." This bore no relationship to his first production. It illustrated entirely different thoughts, feelings, and habits. It not only evinced a change of heart, but so entire a revolution in his mode of thinking as to seem the production of a different mind. The staple of one forms the satire of the other. Not more unlike are CARLYLE'S" Life of SCHILLER" and his "Sartor Resartus." Though "A Year's Life" was by no means deficient in merit, it had so many weak points as to be easily accessible to satirical criticism. The author's language was not pure. When he would "wreak his thoughts upon expression," in the absence of allowable words, he corrupted such as came nearest his meaning into terms which had an intelligible sound, but would not bear a close scrutiny. With all its faults, however, the book had gleams and flashes of genius, which justified warm praises and sanguine expectations. The new poet, it was evident, had an observing eye, and a suggestive imagination; he had caught the tone and spirit of the new and mystical philosophy; he had a large heart; and he aimed, not altogether unsuccessfully, to make Nature the representative and minister of his feelings and desires. If he failed in attempts to put thin abstractions and ever-fleeting shades of thought and emotion into palpable forms, the signs, in "A Year's Life," of the struggling of a larger nature than appeared in defined outlines, made for the author a watchful and hopeful audience.

In 1844 Mr. LowELL published a new volume, evincing very decided advancement in thought, and feeling, and execution. The longest of its contents, "A Legend of Brittany," is without any of the striking faults of his previous compositions, and in imagination and artistic finish is the best poem he has yet printed. A knight loves and betrays a maiden, and, to conceal his crime, murders her, and places her corpse for temporary concealment behind the altar of his church, whence he is prevented by a mysterious awe from removing it. Meanwhile a festival is held there, and when the

people are all assembled, and the organ sounds, the templar hears the voice of the wronged spirit, complaining that she has no rest in heaven because of the state of the unbaptized infant in her womb, for which she implores the sacrament. Her prayer is granted, and the repentant lover dies of remorse. The illustration of this story gives occasion for the finest of Mr. LOWELL'S exhibitions of love, and the poem is in all respects beautiful and complete. In the same volume appeared the author's Prometheus," "Rhocus," and some of his most admired shorter pieces. He put forth in it his best powers, and though it embraced occasional redundancies, and he was sometimes so illsatisfied with his poem as to give in its conclusion a versified exposition of its meaning in the form of a moral, it secured the general consent to his admission into the company of men of genius.

In 1845 appeared his " Conversations on some of the Old Poets," consisting of a series of criticisms and relevant discussions which evince careful study, delicate perception, and a generous catholicity of taste; but the book does not contain the best specimens of his criticism or of his prose diction.

He gave to the public a third collection of his poems in 1848. In this there is no improvement of versification, no finer fancy, or braver imagination, than in the preceding volume; but it illustrates a deeper interest in affairs, and a warm partisanship for the philanthropists and progressists of all classes. Among his subjects are "The Present Crisis," "Anti-Texas," "The Capture of Fugitive Slaves," "Hunger and Cold," "The Landlord," &c. He gives here the first examples of a peculiar humour, which he has since cultivated with success, and many passages of finished declamation and powerful invective. He had been married, in 1844, to Miss MARIA WHITE, whose abilities are shown in a graceful composition included in this volume, and by others which I have quoted in the "Female Poets of America."

In the same year Mr. LowELL published "A Fable for Critics, or a Glance at a Few of our Literary Progenies," a rhymed essay, critical and satirical, upon the principal living writers of the country. It abounds in ingenious turns of expression, and felicitous sketches of character; it is witty and humorous, and for the most part in a spirit of genial appreciation; but in a few instances the judgments indicate too narrow a range of sympathies, and the caustic severity of others has been attributed to desires of retaliation.