written his _Ballad
of the Oysterman_, his _Comet_, and his _September Gale_. Such lyrics as
_La Grisette_, the _Puritan's Vision_, and that unique compound of humor
and pathos, _The Last Leaf_; show that he possesses the power of touching
the deeper chords of the heart and of calling forth tears as well as
smiles. Who does not feel the power of this simple picture of the old
man in the last-mentioned poem?

"But now he walks the streets,
And he looks at all he meets
Sad and wan,
And he shakes his feeble head,
That it seems as if he said,
'They are gone.'

"The mossy marbles rest
On the lips that he has prest
In their bloom,
And the names he loved to hear
Have been carved for many a year
On the tomb."

Dr. Holmes has been likened to Thomas Hood; but there is little in common
between them save the power of combining fancy and sentiment with
grotesque drollery and humor. Hood, under all his whims and oddities,
conceals the vehement intensity of a reformer. The iron of the world's
wrongs had entered into his soul; there is an undertone of sorrow in his
lyrics; his sarcasm, directed against oppression and bigotry, at times
betrays the earnestness of one whose own withers have been wrung. Holmes
writes simply for the amusement of himself and his readers; he deals only
with the vanity, the foibles, and the minor faults of mankind, good
naturedly and almost sympathizingly suggesting excuses for the folly
which he tosses about on the horns of his ridicule. In this respect he
differs widely from his fellow-townsman, Russell Lowell, whose keen wit
and scathing sarcasm, in the famous Biglow Papers, and the notes of
Parson Wilbur, strike at the great evils of society and deal with the
rank offences of church and state. Hosea Biglow, in his way, is as
earnest a preacher as Habakkuk Mucklewrath or Obadiah Bind-their-kings-
in-chains-and-their-nobles-in-fetters-of-iron. His verse smacks of the
old Puritan flavor. Holmes has a gentler mission. His careless, genial
humor reminds us of James Smith in his _Rejected Addresses_ and of Horace
in _London_. Long may he live to make broader the face of our care-
ridden generation, and to realize for himself the truth of the wise man's
declaration that a "merry heart is a continual feast."

FAME