The “Biglow Papers” threw “A Fable for Critics” into the shade. It was nearly through the press when the “Fable” was published, and Briggs, who kept a close watch of his friend’s production, wrote: “I am pretty confident that the ‘Fable’ will suit the market for which it is intended, unless it should be killed by Hosea, who will help to divert public attention from his own kind.” It is to be suspected that Lowell himself felt the strong contrast which lay in the two works when he was driving them through the press side by side, and rather lost interest in the ebullition of an hour, as he threw himself with an almost exhausted energy into a book which carried at its heart a flame of passionate scorn. The only passage in “A Fable for Critics” which he dwelt upon with genuine delight was his apostrophe to Massachusetts, and that is almost out of key with the rest of the poem. But a third book was shortly to follow and to divide with the other two the popularity which fell to Lowell as a writer. * * * * * It does not appear just when “The Vision of Sir Launfal” was written, but in a letter to Briggs, dated 1 February, 1848, Lowell speaks of it as “a sort of story, and more likely to be popular than what I write generally. Maria thinks very highly of it. I shall probably publish it by itself next summer.” But it was not till the “Biglow Papers” were off his hands that Lowell took steps to print the book, which was published 17 December, 1848. It was not long after that he went to Watertown for the wedding of Mrs. Lowell’s sister with Dr. Estes Howe, and the next day he wrote to Briggs: “I walked to Watertown over the snow with the new moon before me and a sky exactly like that in Page’s evening landscape. Orion was rising behind me, and as I stood on the hill just before you enter the village, the stillness of the fields around me was delicious, broken only by the tinkle of a little brook which runs too swiftly for Frost to catch it. My picture of the brook in ‘Sir Launfal’ was drawn from it. But why do I send you this description--like the bones of a chicken I had picked? Simply because I was so happy as I stood there, and felt so sure of doing something that would justify my friends. But why do I not say that I _have_ done something? I believe I have done better than the world knows yet, but the past seems so little compared with the future.” And then referring to a recent notice of him which intimated that he was well to do, he says: “I wish I might be for a day or two. I should like such an income as Billy Lee desired, who, when some one asked his idea of a competence, replied, ‘A million a minute, and your expenses paid!’ But I am richer than he thinks for. I am the first poet who has endeavored to express the American Idea, and I shall be popular by and by. Only I suppose I must be dead first. But I do not want anything more than I have.”