Note 61 — Chapter XIII · POLITICS 1874-1877

The reference is to a volume by Mr. William Cleaver Wilkinson, entitled A Free Lance in the Field of Life and Letters, published in 1874, which contained three papers on “Mr. Lowell’s Poetry,” “Mr. Lowell’s ‘Cathedral,’” and “Mr. Lowell’s Prose.” In a letter to Mrs. Clifford (Letters, ii. 290) Lowell refers to this book apparently when he says: “You will be glad to hear that a man once devoted an entire volume to the exposure of my solecisms, or whatever he chose to call them. I never read it—lest it should spoil my style by making it conscious.” The papers on Lowell constitute, however, less than a third of Mr. Wilkinson’s book.