By these stages, then, Holmes concluded that he was an essayist and developed into one. The "Poetry" of 1836 was entitled "A Metrical Essay," and it was, without intending to be, distinctly prosaic. "Urania," of 1846, was self-described as "A Rhymed Lesson" and affected to be nothing more. At last "The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table"--adopting the title and the form of an unsuccessful beginning in the _New England Magazine_ of 1831-1832--resorted frankly to prose and achieved a wider reputation for Holmes than all the foregoing verse had done.[29] The young person trained through the reading of Pope, Goldsmith, and Campbell was in the end fitted to do his best work after the manner of Addison, Goldsmith, and Lamb. From the appearance of "The Autocrat" Holmes's verse was subordinated in bulk and importance to his prose. [29] For a direct statement on the resumption of the old attempt, see "The Autocrat's Autobiography" printed as a foreword to the volume. For an indirect account, see the passages on Byles Gridley and his "Thoughts on the Universe" in Holmes's "The Guardian Angel." With his assumption of the _Atlantic_ editorship, Lowell had set the prime condition that Holmes should become a regular contributor, and it is evident from the motto on the title page, "Every man his own Boswell," that Holmes's conversation had furnished the suggestion for the series. The vehicle was perfectly adapted to the load it was devised to carry. The introduction of a chief spokesman in a loosely organized group made way for the casual drift from topic to topic. The accident of a boarding-house selection justified the domination by one speaker which would have been unnatural in any social group. The continuity of the group gave a chance for characterization and for the spinning of a slight narrative thread comparable to those on which the _Citizen of the World_ and the "De Coverley Papers" were strung. And the chief speaker, autocrat that he was, could give vent to his thoughts on the universe without let or hindrance, and when the whim seized him could impose his latest poems upon his always tolerant and usually deferential fellow-boarders. From the publication of the first number Lowell's judgment was vindicated, with the result not only that the Autocrat spoke through twelve issues, but that the thread of his discourse was continued with "The Professor at the Breakfast-Table," in 1859, was resumed with "The Poet at the Breakfast-Table," in 1871, and was not concluded until the conversations "Over the Teacups," in 1890.