Frank Preston Stearns, Cambridge Sketches

[91] into the deeper mechanism of his mind. “Shelley's poetry,” he said, “was like the transient radiance of St. Elmo's fire, but Lessing was wholly a poet.” This is exactly the opposite of the view he held during his college life, for Lessing worked in a methodical and painstaking manner and finished what he wrote with the greatest care.

More than this, Lessing was as Lowell realized afterwards,--too critical and polemical to be wholly a poet. His “Emilia Galotti” still holds a high position on the German stage and has fine poetic qualities, but it is written in prose. His “Nathan the wise” was written in verse, but did not prove a success as a drama. In one he attacked the tyranny of the German petty princes, and in the other the intolerance of the Established Church. We may assume that is the reason why Lowell admired them; but Lowell was also too critical and polemic to be wholly a poet,--except on certain occasions. In 1847 he published the “Fable for critics,” the keenest piece of poetical satire since Byron's “English Bards and Scotch Reviewers,” --keen and even saucy, but perfectly good-humored. About the same time he commenced his “Biglow Papers,” which did not wholly cease until 1866, and were the most incisive and aggressive anti-slavery literature of that period. Soon afterwards he wrote “The ”