e Longfellow and Holmes, he never tried his hand at
a novel. One of the most important parts of a novelist's equipment he
certainly possesses; namely, an insight into character, and an ability
to delineate it. This gift is seen especially in his sketch of Parson
Wilbur, who edited the _Biglow Papers_ with a delightfully pedantic
introduction, glossary, and notes; in the prose essay _On a Certain
Condescension in Foreigners_, and in the uncompleted poem, _Fitz-Adam's
Story_. See also the sketch of Captain Underhill in the essay on _New
England Two Centuries Ago_.

The _Biglow Papers_ when brought out in a volume were prefaced by
imaginary notices of the press, including a capital parody of Carlyle,
and a reprint from the "Jaalam Independent Blunderbuss," of the first
sketch--afterward amplified and enriched--of that perfect Yankee idyl,
the _Courtin'_. Between 1862 and 1865 a second series of _Biglow
Papers_ appeared, called out by the events of the civil war. Some of
these, as, for instance, _Jonathan to John_, a remonstrance with
England for her unfriendly attitude toward the North, were not inferior
to any thing in the earlier series; and others were even superior as
poems, equal indeed, in pathos and intensity to any thing that Lowell
has written in his professedly serious verse. In such passages the
dialect wears rather thin, and there is a certain incongruity between
the rustic spelling and the vivid beauty and power {500} and the
figurative cast of the phrase in stanzas like the following:

"Wut's words to them whose faith an' truth
On war's red techstone rang true metal,
Who ventered life an' love an' youth
For the gret prize o' death in battle?
To him who, deadly hurt, agen
Flashed on afore the charge's thunder,
Tippin' with fire the bolt of men
That rived the rebel line asunder?"

Charles Sumner, a somewhat heavy person, with little sense of humor,
wished that the author of the _Biglow Papers_ "could have used good
English." In the lines just quoted, indeed, the bad English adds
nothing to the effect. In 1848 Lowell wrote _A Fable for Critics_,
something after the style of Sir John Suckling's _Session of the
Poets_; a piece of rollicking doggerel in which he surveyed the
American Parnassus, scattering about headlong fun, sharp satire and
sound criticism in equal proportion. Never an industrious workman,
like Longfellow, at the poetic craft, but preferring to wait for the