--Selected from the _Contemporary Review_.
The London _Times_, sometimes nicknamed the _Thunderer_, was for many years the most influential paper in the world. Emerson in his _English Traits_ says, "No power in England is more felt, more feared, or more obeyed." In view of the high position of this paper it is a matter of interest to our American students of literature to read what this paper had to say on the death of Lowell.
Here follows the larger part of the editorial from the _Times_:
The death of Mr. Lowell will probably be more keenly and widely felt in England than would be that of any other American, or, indeed, of any other man who was not a fellow-countryman of our own. To very many in England it will be counted as a grave personal loss; and thousands more will miss in him one whom through his writings they had admired, felt with, laughed with, as with a friend. For a long time past, in fact ever since he quitted the Legation, his long annual visits to London have been regarded by a wide circle as one of the events of the year, and he himself as one of the most valued guests. We had hoped that this last June would again see him in his old London haunts, bright, genial, interesting as ever; but a cruel fate decided that this was not to be, and neither the Old World nor the New should know him more. Never a strong man, he has succumbed, at a ripe age, it is true, but prematurely, as all will think who knew how fresh his intelligence and his sympathies were to the last. With him there passes away one of the very few Americans who were the equals of any son of the Old World--of any Frenchman or any Englishman--in that indefinable mixture of qualities, which we sum up for want of a better word, under the name of culture. How did he arrive at it? The answer is, by natural gifts, by constant play of mind with mind in talk, and by reading. On those who casually met Mr. Lowell in society, he certainly did not make the impression of a book-worm, or of a man to whom books were indispensable; but none the less is it true that whenever official business was not too heavy, he invariably read for a _minimum_ of four hours a day. This did not include the time that he gave to ephemeral literature; it was the time that he spent in the serious reading of books, generally old books. How many of us, not professed students, can show a record as good, or half as good? He read quickly, too, in various languages, his favorites being the English of the Elizabethans, Spanish, old French, and modern French. His excellent memory and wonderful assimilative power built up this reading into the mental endowments that all the world admired.