Lowell could not of course escape his own shadow cast by the brilliant success of the first series, although fourteen years in a man’s memory does not raise such an accumulation of fame as it does in the memory of spectators. He was doubtless a bit nervous as he essayed to repeat an earlier impromptu, for such the first series may fairly be called, but the nervousness really attacked only the beginning of his effort; once he was fairly under way, the old assurance all came back, and it was easy enough to indulge in that vernacular which was so imbedded in his early consciousness as to be not an acquisition but an inheritance. The Yankee dialect and macaronics, both of which were the lingo of his boyhood, were so native to his wit that he handled them in maturity as freely as one’s hand grasps in a return to the country the scythe which has been swung in boyhood. It is perhaps more to the point to observe that, as in the earlier series, the figures of this pastoral had been developed from suddenly designed sketches until they stood full formed to the reader in the resultant book, now, upon the resumption of the art, they became simply accepted types to be illustrated rather than developed; and there is therefore from the start a firmness of touch and a solidity of modelling which give to the entire series an air of certainty and ease, as if the author had no need to add or rub out. There is possibly a little loss of buoyancy and spontaneity, but if so there is compensation in the touch of wisdom and especially of deep feeling characteristic of the series as a whole. Lowell is so sure of the rustic form he is using, and of the old-fashioned pedantry of Mr. Wilbur, that he can draw more confidently from deeper soundings, as indeed the very growth of his own nature compels him to do. Thus, while the satire of the earlier series is more amusing, that of the second is more biting. For when he was dealing with the iniquities of the Mexican war, he was after all contemplating what might be deemed a cutaneous disease as compared with the deadly virus now attacking the most vital part of the national body, and, moreover, fourteen years of personal experience such as he had known could scarcely fail to give him more penetration.