space in which the echo
of Lowell's was scarcely silent. I spoke for the rank and file and in
my whole career of nearly eighty years it was perhaps the culminating
moment, when fate placed me in a juxtaposition so memorable.

In 1857 I sent a poem to the _Atlantic_ then just beginning
under his editorship. My poem came back with the comment, "Hardly good
enough, but the writer certainly deserves encouragement." This frost,
though not unkind, nipped my budding aspirations in that direction. I
hung my modest harp on the willows and have almost never since twanged
the strings. At a later time in England I came into pleasant relations
with Lowell and saw his tender side. His term as Minister to England
had come to a close. He had just lost his wife and was in deep
affliction, the sorrow telling upon his health, but he took kind
thought for me and helped me zealously in my quest of materials for
a considerable historical work. He enable me to approach august
personages whom otherwise I could not have reached; in particular
securing for me a great courtesy from the Duke of Cleveland, a
descendant of Vane, who gave me _carte blanche_ to visit Raby
Castle in Durham, Vane's former home, a magnificent seat not usually
open to visitors but which I saw thoroughly. I have already mentioned
the funeral of Lowell. It took place on a lovely day in the August of
1891. The procession passed from Appleton Chapel to Mount Auburn, and
I, hurrying on reached the open grave before the line arrived. It was
a spot of great beauty in a dell below the pleasant Indian Ridge on
which just above lies the grave of Longfellow. At a few rods' distance
is the sunny bank where later was laid to rest Oliver Wendell Holmes.
Close at hand to the grave of Lowell lay his gifted wife, Maria
White who wrote the lovely poem "The Alpine Shepherd," and the three
brilliant and intrepid nephews who were slain in the Civil War. The
old horn-beams, quaint and unusual trees, stand sentry on either hand.
I saw the coffin lowered. Standing just behind Phillips Brooks, I
heard for the last time the voice of my boyhood friend reading with
tenderness the burial service. One final experience remained for me
on that day which I especially treasure. Leaving the cemetery I walked
the short distance to the gate of Elmwood, the birthplace and always
the home of Lowell. This spot he especially loved, he knew its trees,
every one, and the birds and squirrels that came to visit them