THE VISION OF SIR LAUNFAL

In Cambridge there are two literary shrines to which visitors are

sure to find their way soon after passing the Harvard gates, "Craigie

House," the home of Longfellow and "Elmwood," the home of

Lowell. Though their hallowed retirement has been profaned by the

encroachments of the growing city, yet in their simple dignity these

fine old colonial mansions still bespeak the noble associations of the

past, and stand as memorials of the finest products of American

culture.

Elmwood was built before the Revolution by Thomas Oliver, the

Tory governor, who signed his abdication at the invitation of a

committee of "about four thousand people" who surrounded his

house at Cambridge. The property was confiscated by the

Commonwealth and used by the American army during the war. In

1818 it was purchased by the Rev. Charles Lowell, pastor of the

West Congregational Church in Boston, and after ninety years it is

still the family home. Here was born, February 22, 1819, James

Russell Lowell, with surroundings most propitious for the nurturing

of a poet-soul. Within the stately home there was a refined family

life; the father had profited by the unusual privilege of three years'

study abroad, and his library of some four thousand volumes was

not limited to theology; the mother, whose maiden name was

Spence and who traced her Scotch ancestry back to the hero of the

ballad of Sir Patrick Spens, taught her children the good old

ballads and the romantic stories in the Fairie Queen, and it was one

of the poet's earliest delights to recount the adventures of Spenser's

heroes and heroines to his playmates.