We have some popular poets in the United States, but it is doubtful whether the works of any of them have been as much read as Mr. Lowell’s “Bigelow Papers.” Mr. Lowell is no mean poet himself; there are critics who insist that he has not an equal among American versifiers, but the humorous verses just alluded to have made him better known than all of his more serious efforts, and it is believed by intelligent men of all parties that it had immense effect in bringing about the political changes which immediately preceded the late civil war. During the civil war there were many editors who used to say, with some evidence of annoyance, that they wished they could be read as much as Nasby. Nasby was an Ohio editor who invented a scene and some characters in the South, and wrote about them so persistently and with such a realistic air that his effusions were copied regularly in almost all of the Republican papers of the land. Another man who was more read than any editor of the day was Artemas Ward. He did not go into politics to any great extent, but what he did say was so accurately satirical that nearly everybody read it and was the wiser for it. The mistakes of our generals, the blunders of our government and the crimes of many of our contractors were the subject of a great deal of vigorous editorial writing, but no one succeeded in bringing them so forcibly to the attention of the public as a wit who wrote under the _nom de plume_ of Orpheus C. Kerr. During the same period there were facts in the local history of New York extremely uncomplimentary to one great political party, and the opposing party lost no opportunity to disclose them and criticise them in editorial columns and news columns, but one man was more read than all others combined. It was the man who wrote the satire entitled “The New Gospel of Peace,” in which the doings of the alleged Peace Party were set forth in humorous style. At the present time the men whose writings are most read are not the historians, editors, essayists, or even novelists. They are the humorists. Bill Nye is more read than any novelist in the United States. So is James Whitcomb Riley. In Chicago there are a number of able journalists, but the one most quoted by name not only in his own city but throughout the Union is Eugene Field, whose humor finds no subject too great or too small to dwell upon. A little while ago an _edition de luxe_ of his humorous prose and verse was published at a very high price, and some of the later would-be subscribers found to their disgust that the list was full and no more books could be supplied. Is there any poet or novelist in the United States who has had a commercial experience like this?