Frank Preston Stearns, Cambridge Sketches

“ [104] did not know who had constituted Mr. Lowell my censor, and I carried the verses to Miss Caroline Hoar, who read them and said, that she considered those four lines the best in the piece.” He permitted Lowell, however, to publish the poem without them, as may be seen by examining the pages of the Atlantic, and afterwards published the original copy in his “May day.”

Lowell's editorship of the North American Review, which followed after this, was not so successful. It was chiefly a political magazine at that time, and to understand politics in a large way — that is, sufficiently to write on the subject-one must not only be a close observer of public affairs, but also a profound student of history; and Lowell was neither. He was not acquainted with prominent men in public life, and depended too much on information derived at dinner-parties, or similar occasions. During the war period Sumner, Wilson, and Andrew were almost omnipotent in Massachusetts, for the three worked together in a common cause; but power always engenders envy and so an inside opposition grew up within the Republican party to which Lowell lent his assistance without being aware of its true character. His articles in the North American on public affairs were severely criticised by Andrew and Wilson, while Frank W. Bird frankly called