_Punch_ was happier in dealing with Longfellow than with Emerson; the description of the latter as "the cheery oracle, alert and quick," is hardly adequate. _Punch_, however, protested against the proposed monument to Longfellow in the Abbey. He had learned to appreciate J. R. Lowell, who, on leaving England in 1885 after his four years' tenure of office as American Minister, said that "he had come among them as a far-away cousin, and they were sending him away as something very like a brother." _Punch_ refused to say good-bye to this great and wise American, and his "au revoir" verses contain pleasant allusions to _The Biglow Papers_ and _Study Windows_. Nor was his welcome of Oliver Wendell Holmes a whit less cordial, when the beloved "Autocrat" visited England to receive a D.C.L. degree in 1886. Bret Harte had been welcomed by _Punch_ in 1879 as a master of wit and wisdom, humour and pathos. Though, as was said of a famous composer, he began as a genius and ended as a talent, the influence of _The Luck of Roaring Camp_[10] on the development of the short story was fruitful and abiding. To complete the record of _Punch's_ relations with American authors it may be noted that in 1881 he greeted Joel Chandler Harris, the author of _Uncle Remus_, as a benefactor; that he resented Mr. W. D. Howells's critical depreciations of Dickens and Thackeray; and that, when Walt Whitman died in 1892, he indited what was virtually a palinode:-- Whilst hearts are generous and woods are green, He shall find hearers, who, in a slack time Of puny bards and pessimistic rhyme, Dared to bid men adventure and rejoice. His "yawp barbaric" was a human voice; The singer was a man. [Footnote 10: It was translated in the feuilleton of an Italian paper as _La Fortuna del Campo Clamoroso_!] To return to native writers, _Punch_ happily linked a great Churchman and a great Victorian novelist in the stanza which appeared at the close of 1882:-- Two men whose loss all Englishmen must rue, True servants of the Studio and the State. No manlier Churchman Trollope ever drew Than History will portray in gentle Tait. _Punch_ had long acclaimed Tennyson as one of the major poets; but a slight element of reserve mingles in the congratulations on his peerage in 1883. Approval is tempered by chaff, and allusion is made to the Laureate's being prevented from taking his seat in the Lords by having lost his robes. There are no reserves in the tribute to the "beloved Cambridge rhymer" C. S. Calverley, when he passed away in early middle age in 1884. The memorial verses omit all mention of Calverley's genius for high parody, and incorrectly speak of the Ode to Beer as being written in Spenserian stanzas, but are otherwise affectionately appreciative:-- Well, well, omnivorous are the Shades; But seldom hath that Stygian sculler Oared o'er a gayer ghost than "Blayds,"[11] Whose transit leaves the dull world duller.