which Lowell's may not fearlessly stand a comparison; for, observe, we
are not speaking of mock heroics like Bon Gaultier's, which are only
a species of parody, but of real doggerel, the Rabelaisque of poetry.
The _Fable_ is somewhat on the Ingoldsby model,--that is to say, a
good part of its fun consists in queer rhymes, double, treble,
or poly-syllabic; and it has even Barham's fault--an occasional
over-consciousness of effort, and calling on the reader to admire, as
if the _tour de force_ could not speak for itself. But _Ingoldsby's_
rhymes will not give us a just idea of the _Fable_ until we superadd
Hook's puns; for the fabulist has a pleasant knack of making
puns--outrageous and unhesitating ones--exactly of the kind to set
off the general style of his verse. The sternest critic could hardly
help relaxing over such a bundle of them as are contained in Apollo's
lament over the 'treeification' of his Daphne.... The _Fable_ is a
sort of review in verse of American poets. Much of the Boston leaven
runs through it; the wise men of the East are all glorified intensely,
while Bryant and Halleck are studiously depreciated. But though thus
freely exercising his own critical powers in verse, the author is most
bitter against all critics in prose, and gives us a ludicrous picture
of one--

A terrible fellow to meet in society,
Not the toast that he buttered was ever so dry at tea.

And this gentleman is finely shown up for his condemnatory
predilections and inability to discern or appreciate beauties. The
cream of the joke against him is, that being sent by Apollo to
choose a lily in a flower-garden, he brings back a thistle as all he
could find. The picture is a humorous one, but we are at a loss to
conjecture who can have sat for it in America, where the tendency