Lowell did not join the Free-soilers, who were now bearing the brunt of
the anti-slavery conflict, but attached himself to the more aristocratic
wing of the old abolitionists, which was led by Edmund Quincy, Maria
Chapman, and L. Maria Child. Lowell was far from being a non-resistant.
In fact, he might be called a fighting-man, although he disapproved of
duelling; and this served to keep him at a distance from Garrison, of
whom he wisely remarked that "the nearer public opinion approached to him
the further he retreated into the isolation of his own private opinions."
He wrote regularly for the _Anti-Slavery Standard_ until 1851, when
the death of his father-in-law supplied the long-desired means for a
journey to Italy,--more desired perhaps for his wife's health than for
his own gratification. It may be the fault of his biographers, but I
cannot discover that Lowell took any share in the opposition to the
Fugitive Slave bill, or in the election of Sumner, which was the signal
event that followed it. In his whole life Lowell never made the
acquaintance of a practical statesman, while Whittier was in constant
communication with prominent members of the Free-soil and Republican
parties. Sumner went to hear Lowell's lecture on Milton, and praised it
as a work of genius.

I have heard the "Vision of Sir Launfal" spoken of more frequently than
any other of Lowell's poems. Some of the descriptive passages in it would
seem to have flowed from his pen as readily as ink from a quill; and
there are others which appear to have been evolved with much thought and
ingenuity. One cannot help feeling the sudden change from a June morning
at Elmwood to a mediaeval castle in Europe as somewhat abrupt; but when
we think of it subjectively as a poetic vision which came to Lowell
himself seated on his own door-step, this disillusion vanishes, and we
sympathize heartily with the writer. There is no place in the world where
June seems so beautiful as in New England, on account of the dismal,