attention with the vernacular applied to public affairs. Major Jack
Downing and Sam Slick had been notable examples, and they had many
imitators; but the reader who laughed over the racy narrative of the
unlettered Ezekiel, and then took up Hosea's poem and caught the gust
of Yankee wrath and humor blown fresh in his face, knew that he was in
at the appearance of something new in American literature. The force
which Lowell displayed in these satires made his book at once a
powerful ally of an anti-slavery sentiment, which heretofore had been
ridiculed.




IV.

VERSE AND PROSE.


A year in Europe, 1851-1852, with his wife, whose health was then
precarious, stimulated his scholarly interests, and gave substance to
his study of Dante and Italian literature. In October, 1853, his wife
died; she had borne him three children: the first-born, Blanche, died
in infancy; the second, Walter, also died young; the third, a
daughter, Mrs. Burnett, survived her parents. In 1855 he was chosen
successor to Longfellow as Smith Professor of the French and Spanish
Languages and Literature, and Professor of Belles Lettres in Harvard
College. He spent two years in Europe in further preparation for the
duties of his office, and in 1857 was again established in Cambridge,
and installed in his academic chair. He married, also, at this time
Miss Frances Dunlap, of Portland, Maine.