ABSTRACT
In 1856, James Russell Lowell accepted the Harvard chair in modern literature, which he held until he developed a more active interest in politics during the 1870s. Lowell was appointed US minister to Spain in 1877 and, three years later, US minister to the Court of St. James, his tenure there lasting until the Democrat victory in 1885. It is clear that he finds opportunity also thoroughly to sift men and their deeds, winnowing away with the untired motion of his wings, monuments, families, as chaff. There is a confusion in men's minds upon this subject. Nationality and locality are not distinguished from one another; it would appear that there was a still farther confounding of truth to nature with fidelity of local coloring. Mr. Longfellow pointedly satirized the rigid sticklers for nationality in one of the chapters of his Kavanagh, which we have taken for the text of some remarks we have long intended to make on the subject.
