next venture was a second volume of _Poems_, issued in
1844, in which the permanent lines of his poetic development appear
more clearly than in _A Year's Life_. The tone of the first volume was
uniformly serious, but in the second his muse's face begins to
brighten with the occasional play of wit and humor. The volume was
heartily praised by the critics and his reputation as a new poet of
convincing distinction was established. In the following year appeared
_Conversations on Some of the Old Poets_, a volume of literary
criticism interesting now mainly as pointing to maturer work in this
field.

It is generally stated that the influence of Maria White made Lowell
an Abolitionist, but this is only qualifiedly true. A year before he
had met her he wrote to a friend: "The Abolitionists are the only ones
with whom I sympathize of the present extant parties." Freedom,
justice, humanitarianism were fundamental to his native idealism.
Maria White's enthusiasm and devotion to the cause served to
crystallize his sentiments and to stimulate him to a practical
participation in the movement. Both wrote for the _Liberty Bell_, an
annual published in the interests of the anti-slavery agitation.
Immediately after their marriage they went to Philadelphia where
Lowell for a time was an editorial writer for the _Pennsylvania
Freeman_, an anti-slavery journal once edited by Whittier. During the
next six years he was a regular contributor to the _Anti-Slavery
Standard_, published in New York. In all of this prose writing Lowell
exhibited the ardent spirit of the reformer, although he never adopted
the extreme views of Garrison and others of the ultra-radical wing of
the party.

But Lowell's greatest contribution to the anti-slavery cause was the
_Biglow Papers_, a series of satirical poems in the Yankee dialect,
aimed at the politicians who were responsible for the Mexican War, a
war undertaken, as he believed, in the interests of the Southern
slaveholders. Hitherto the Abolitionists had been regarded with
contempt by the conservative, complacent advocates of peace and
"compromise," and to join them was essentially to lose caste in the
best society. But now a laughing prophet had arisen whose tongue was
tipped with fire. The _Biglow Papers_ was an unexpected blow to the
slave power. Never before had humor been used directly as a weapon in
political warfare. Soon the whole country was ringing with the homely
phrases of Hosea Biglow's sat