, and the public at large, after a first few puzzling moments
grasped the full force of the new crusade, and the standard-bearer and
author, Hosea Biglow, became the most talked about man of the time.
Previous to this society had laughed at the reformers. Now people
laughed with Hosea at the supporters of the war. From this time Hosea
Biglow's sayings and doings were the most popular comment on the
political situation. Whatever happened was made the subject of a poem
by Hosea, expressing sometimes his own opinions and sometimes the
opinions of Parson Wilbur, John P. Robinson, and other persons
introduced into the series. These poems met with tremendous success.
Wherever it was possible they were set to music and sung with all the
abandon of a popular ballad. There is a story told to the effect that
John P. Robinson grew so tired of hearing the song in which he is
introduced that he fled across the sea in despair. This brought no
relief, however, for the street gamins of London and the travelling
American and Englishman, wherever he could be found, unconsciously
greeted his ears with the rollicking refrain:

"But John P.
Robinson, he
Sez they didn't know everythin'
Down in Judee."

Among the political poems occurs in "The Notices of the Press," which
form the introduction, the exquisite love-poem, _The Courtin'_.

In wit, scholarship, and knowledge of human nature, the Biglow papers
are acknowledged as a classic, and the future student of American
literature will be ever grateful for this preservation of the Yankee
dialect by New England's greatest poet.

Lowell's next important contribution to literature was the publication
of the poem, _The Vision of Sir Launfal_. This beautiful poem, in
which in a vision a young knight arms himself and starts in search of
the Holy Grail, reads like a sacred legend of the Middle Ages. It is
full of the pious spirit of the old monks who still believed the
story of the existence of the Holy Grail, and the possibility of its
recovery by the pure in heart. This story, which has appealed to the
art of every age, found in Lowell a poet worthy of its expression,
and one who has transcribed the mysticism of the past into the vital
charity of the present. Though a dream of the Old World, it is still
the New England poet who translates it, as may be seen from the bits
of landscape shining through it. Glimpses of the northern winter; of
the wind sweeping down from the heights, a