A Fable for Critics

[1] Many of his harshest judgments were aimed at names that have not survived in posterity, including Nathaniel Parker Willis, Cornelius Mathews, Fitz-Greene Halleck, and John Neal.

[3] Lowell gave ample praise to Charles Frederick Briggs and Lydia Maria Child, though he was friends with both and likely allowed his friendship to inflate his assessment of their talents.

One version included an introductory note explaining its author's intentions: "This jeu d'esprit was extemporized, I may fairly say, so rapidly was it written, purely for my own amusement and with no thought of publication" until convinced to do so by Briggs.

Charles Briggs predicted as much in a letter to Lowell in which he said, "I am pretty confident that the 'Fable' will suit the market for which it is intended, unless it should be killed by Hosea, who will help to divert public attention from his own kind".

[7] Oliver Wendell Holmes found it "capital—crammed full and rammed down hard—with powder (lots of it)—shot—slugs—very little wadding... all crowded into a rusty-looking sort of blunderbuss barrel, as it were—capped with a percussion preface—and cocked with a title page as apropos as a wink to a joke".

[11] Freeman Hunt reviewed the poem for Merchants' Magazine in December 1848 and remarked on how true the character assessments were: "Our friends Bryant, Halleck, Willis, Whittier, Poe, and last but not least, Harry Franco, (Briggs,) are, in our judgment, as genuine life pictures as were ever sketched with pen or pencil, in prose or verse.

[10] Edgar Allan Poe reviewed the work in the Southern Literary Messenger and called it "'loose'—ill-conceived and feebly executed, as well in detail as in general... we confess some surprise at his putting forth so unpolished a performance".