best society. But now a laughing prophet had arisen whose tongue was
tipped with fire. The _Biglow Papers_ was an unexpected blow to the
slave power. Never before had humor been used directly as a weapon in
political warfare. Soon the whole country was ringing with the homely
phrases of Hosea Biglow's satiric humor, and deriding conservatism
began to change countenance. "No speech, no plea, no appeal," says
George William Curtis, "was comparable in popular and permanent effect
with this pitiless tempest of fire and hail, in the form of wit,
argument, satire, knowledge, insight, learning, common-sense, and
patriotism. It was humor of the purest strain, but humor in deadly
earnest." As an embodiment of the elemental Yankee character and
speech it is a classic of final authority. Says Curtis, "Burns did not
give to the Scotch tongue a nobler immortality than Lowell gave to the
dialect of New England."

The year 1848 was one of remarkably productive results for Lowell.
Besides the _Biglow Papers_ and some forty magazine articles and
poems, he published a third collection of _Poems_, the _Vision of Sir
Launfal_, and the _Fable for Critics_. The various phases of his
composite genius were nearly all represented in these volumes. The
_Fable_ was a good-natured satire upon his fellow authors, in which he
touched up in rollicking rhymed couplets the merits and weaknesses of
each, not omitting himself, with witty characterization and acute
critical judgment; and it is still read for its delicious humor and
sterling criticism. For example, the lines on Poe will always be
quoted:

"There comes Poe, with his raven, like Barnaby Rudge,
Three-fifths of him genius and two-fifths sheer fudge."