The "genial Autocrat" was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and was the son of a Congregational minister. After graduating at Harvard, he began the study of law, but, like so many other authors, not finding it to his taste, changed to medicine. After finishing his studies in Paris he returned to America, and opened office in Boston. Despite his fondness for literature, he gained a fair practice. In 1847, however, he was elected Professor of Anatomy in Harvard University, a position he held for thirty-five years. His duties were far from arduous, so that like Emerson, he was able to devote much of his time to lecturing and poetry. The founding of _The Atlantic Monthly_ was an important event in his life. He was engaged to write for it, and the result was his greatest work, "The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table," a series of talks on many subjects, interspersed with some poems. Of the same nature are "The Professor at the Breakfast Table," "The Poet at the Breakfast Table," and "Over the Teacups," written at intervals of many years. They are distinguished by careless grace and irrepressible humor. The "Autocrat" is the most original and brilliant, and the series became successively more serious as the doctor grew older. These are the works by which he will be remembered, but, like Lowell, he was a man of many parts, and chose to work in several fields. He was eminent as a physician, lecturer, poet, and essayist, as we have seen, and he even tried his hand at fiction. "The Guardian Angel," his best novel, "Elsie Venner," and "A Mortal Antipathy," have been called 'medicated novels,' dealing as they do with questions of heredity and prenatal influence. He also appeared in the rôle of biographer, with the lives of his friends, Motley and Emerson. Holmes was a lovable man, genial, brilliant, witty, and yet deeply in earnest for all that. He was a thoroughly religious man and a firm believer in immortality, holding his life to be merely the avenue or vestibule to a greater beyond. He was, however, conservative, and took little part in the abolitionist movement which so agitated his brethren. He died at the advanced age of eighty-five, having outlived all his companions in the field of letters. THE MAN 1. Give a brief account of Holmes's birth and antecedents. 2. Where was he educated, and on what lines? 3. What connection did he subsequently form with Harvard University? 4. In what respect does his life resemble that of Emerson, and how does he resemble Lowell? 5. Mention several different fields in which he achieved distinction. 6. Give a summary of his character. 7. According to Holmes, what is it that makes life worth living? STYLE AND WORKS 1. Which is esteemed to be Holmes's best work? 2. Enumerate the four books of the Autocrat series. 3. What is the general character of these books? 4. What progressive difference is noted in the successive books of the series?