granted that Mr. ---- only formed the plan in ignorance of your
intention.

"With many thanks, very truly yours,

"J. R. LOWELL."

ENGLISH EDITOR'S PREFACE.

I can safely say that few things in my life have pleased me more than
the request of Messrs. Truebner, backed by the expressed wish of the
author, that I would see the first English edition of the "Biglow
Papers" through the press. I fell in with the Papers about ten years
ago, soon after their publication; and the impression they then made on
me has been deepening and becoming more lively ever since. In fact, I do
not think that, even in his own New England, Mr. Lowell can have a more
constant or more grateful reader, though I cannot say that I go much
beyond most of my own intimate friends over here in my love for his
works. I may remark, in passing, that the impossibility of keeping a
copy of the "Biglow Papers" for more than a few weeks (of which many of
us have had repeated and sorrowful proof[1]) shows how much an English
Edition is needed.

Perhaps, strictly speaking, I should say a reprint, and not an edition.
In fact, I am not clear (in spite of the wishes of author and
publishers) that I have any right to call myself editor, for the book is
as thoroughly edited already as a book need be. What between dear old
Parson Wilbur--with his little vanities and pedantries, his "infinite
faculty of sermonizing," his simplicity and humour, and his deep and
righteous views of life, and power of hard hitting when he has anything
to say which needs driving home--and Father Ezekiel, "the brown
parchment-hided old man of the geoponic or bucolic species," "76 year
old cum next tater diggin, and thair aint nowheres a kitting" (we
readily believe) "spryer 'n he be;" and that judicious and lazy
sub-editor, "Columbus Nye, pastor of a church in Bungtown Corner,"
whose acquaintance we make so thoroughly in the ten lines which he
contributes--whatever of setting or framing was needed, or indeed
possible, for the nine gems in verse of Mr. Hosea Biglow, has been so
well done already in America by the hand best fitted for the task, that
he must be a bold man who would meddle with the book now in the editing
way. Even the humble satisfaction of adding a glossary and index has
been denied to me, as there are already very good ones. I have merely
added some half-dozen words to the glossar