Lowell was also a humorist by nature. His irrepressible perception of the comical and the funny find expression everywhere, both in his poetry and prose. His “Fable for Critics” was a delight to those whom he both satirized and criticised in a good-natured manner. Bryant, Poe, Hawthorne and Whittier, each are made to pass in procession for their share of criticism――which is as excellent as amusing――and Carlyle and Emerson are contrasted admirably. This poem, however, is faulty in execution and does not do its author justice. His masterpiece in humor is the famous “Biglow Papers.” These have been issued in two parts; the first being inspired by the Mexican War, and the latter by the Civil War between the states. Hosea Biglow, the country Yankee philosopher and supposed author of the papers, and the Rev. Homer Wilber, his learned commentator and pastor of the first church at Jaalem, reproduce the Yankee dialect, and portray the Yankee character as faithfully as they are amusing and funny to the reader. In 1853, Mrs. Lowell died, on the same night in which a daughter was born to the poet Longfellow, who was a neighbor and a close friend to Lowell. The coincident inspired Longfellow to write a beautiful poem, “The Two Angels,” which he sent to Mr. Lowell with his expression of sympathy: “’Twas at thy door, O friend, and not at mine The angel with the amaranthine wreath, Pausing, descended, and with voice divine Uttered a word that had a sound like death. “Then fell upon the house a sudden gloom, A ♦shaddow on those features fair and thin, And slowly, from that hushed and darkened room, Two angels issued, where but one went in. “Angels of life and death alike are His; Without His leave, they pass no threshold o’er: Who then would wish, or dare, believing this, Against His messengers to shut the door?” ♦ spelling not corrected: artifact of poem Quite in contrast with Lowell, the humorist, is Lowell, the serious and dignified author. His patriotic poems display a courage and manliness in adhering to the right and cover a wide range in history. But it is in his descriptions of nature that his imagination manifests its greatest range of subtilty and power. “The Vision of Sir Launfal” is, perhaps, more remarkable for its descriptions of the months of June and December than for the beautiful story it tells of the search for the “Holy Grail” (the cup) which held the wine which Christ and the Apostles drank at the last supper.