"Pleasure doos make us Yankees kind o' winch, Ez though't wuz sunthin' paid for by the inch; But yit we du contrive to worry thru, Ef Dooty tells us thet the thing's to du, An' kerry a hollerday, ef we set out, Ez stiddily ez though't wuz a redoubt." The homely New England common-sense philosophy is in evidence throughout the _Papers_. We frequently meet, such expressions as:-- "I like the plain all wool o' common-sense Thet warms ye now, an' will a twelve-month hence." "Now's the only bird lays eggs o' gold." "Democracy gives every man The right to be his own oppressor." "But Chance is like an amberill,--it don't take twice to lose it." "An' you've gut to git up airly, Ef you want to take in God." In the second series of the _Papers_, there is one of Lowell's best lyrics, _The Courtin'_. It would be difficult to find another poem which gives within the compass of four lines a better characterization of many a New England maiden:-- "... she was jes' the quiet kind Whose naturs never vary, Like streams that keep a summer mind, Snowhid in Jenooary." This series contains some of Lowell's best nature poetry. We catch rare glimpses of "Moonshine an' snow on field an' hill All silence an' all glisten," and we actually see a belated spring "Toss the fields full o' blossoms, leaves, an' birds." _The Vision of Sir Launfal_ has been the most widely read of Lowell's poems. This is the _vision_ of a search for the Holy Grail. Lowell in a letter to a friend called the poem "a sort of story and more likely to be popular than what I write about generally." But the best part of the poem is to be found in the apotheosis of the New England June, in the _Prelude to Part I.:_-- "And what is so rare as a day in June? Then, if ever, come perfect days; Then Heaven tries the earth if it be in tune, And over it softly her warm ear lays." The poem teaches a noble lesson of sympathy with suffering:-- "Not what we give, but what we share,-- For the gift without the giver is bare; Who gives himself with his alms feeds three,-- Himself, his hungering neighbor, and Me." Lowell said that he "scrawled at full gallop" _A Fable for Critics_, which is a humorous poem of about two thousand long lines, presenting an unusually excellent criticism of his contemporary authors. In this most difficult type of criticism, Lowell was not infallible; but a comparison of his criticisms with the verdicts generally accepted to-day will show his unusual ability in this field. Not a few of these criticisms remain the best of their kind, and they serve to focus many of the characteristics of the authors of the first half of the nineteenth century. It will benefit all writers, present and prospective, to read this criticism on Bryant:--