James Russell Lowell and His Friends by Edward Everett Hale

The happiness of Lowell's happy home was shattered by the death of his wife, October 27, 1853. He spent the summer of the next year at Beverly, on the seashore of Massachusetts, in the summer of 1855 went again to Europe, and returned in 1856. He at once resumed his residence at Cambridge, and, with the opening term of the autumn, entered heartily and energetically on his duty as "Smith Professor."

For there was once a gentleman named Abiel Smith. He is wholly unknown to fame. But I wish at this late moment to express the gratitude, hitherto never fitly spoken, of thousands upon thousands of those whom he has blessed. He left to Harvard College, as early as 1815, the foundation for the Smith Professorship of the Modern Languages.