Despite his prodigious output and ongoing efforts at self-promotion, Tupper's other work did not achieve anywhere close to the bestseller status of Proverbial Philosophy, and even towards the end of the poet's own lifetime he had become obscure.

[26] In 1837, on the encouragement of Henry Stebbing, Tupper began to revise these writings and expand them into a book, working on them at home and in his workplace, Lincoln's Inn, over the subsequent 10 weeks.

Come unto my cool dim grotto, that is watered by the rivulet of truth, And over whose time-stained rock clime the fairy flowers of content; Here, upon the mossy bank of leisure fling thy load of cares, Taste my simple store, and rest one soothing hour.

Behold, I would count thee for a brother, and commune with thy charitable soul; Though wrapt within the mantle of a prophet, I stand mine own weak scholar.

[32] Despite the lack of interest in the third edition, in 1841 Tupper was spurred to write a second series of Proverbial Philosophy at the suggestion of John Hughes, who he had met in a chance encounter in Windsor two years previously.

[35] The two were soon combined into one collection, still entitled Proverbial Philosophy, and this iteration became an enormous success over the subsequent decades: For an era of moralizing ... Tupper's truisms were a comforting balm.

[42] Due to the lack of international copyright laws, the US market was dominated by pirated copies; consequently, Tupper made almost no money from the work's enormous American sales.

[41] Having overcome his stammer at the age of 35,[b] he embarked on a "wildly successful"[14] reading tour of the Eastern USA and Canada, setting off from Liverpool on 2 March 1851 and landing in New York City two weeks later.

[49][50] He was generally warmly received by the people he met, although his tendency to quote his own poetry was "deemed unseemly at the time" and criticised in the press, as was his perceived "patronising attitude and sentimentalism" towards Americans.

[55]After stops in Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, Tupper returned to New York, where he was noticed in a concert crowd by its promoter P. T. Barnum and brought backstage to meet Jenny Lind.

[61][d] His eldest son, Martin Charles Selwyn (born 1841), was made the youngest Captain in the British Army by purchase in 1864,[62] but it fell upon his father to settle his many drinking and gambling debts, and fund a spell in an asylum in St John's Wood, until he was relocated to Rio de Janeiro in 1868.

Tupper managed to stay afloat by continuing to publish poetry, and bringing out new editions of Proverbial Philosophy, including an illustrated version, but he was compelled to let out Albury House from 1867 to generate additional income.

[76] After his Scottish success, Tupper decided to undertake a second American tour; delayed by illness, he arrived in October 1876 and stayed in New York as the guest of Thomas De Witt Talmage, an admirer of Proverbial Philosophy.

[86] Eventually he died, on 29 November 1889, and was buried in Albury churchyard in the same grave as his wife and son Martin Charles Selwyn, with an epitaph reading "He being dead yet speaketh".

While studying at Oxford he refused to eat sugar "by way of somehow discouraging the slave trade",[101] and in 1848 he wrote a national anthem for Liberia and advocated for the republic in communications with Lord Palmerston and President Fillmore.

During his second American tour, Tupper published a sympathetic "Ode to the South", beginning The world has misjudged you, mistrusted, maligned you, And should be quick to make honest amends; Let me then speak of you just as I find you, Humbly and heartily, cousins and friends!

Let us remember your wrongs and your trials, Slander'd and plunder'd and crush'd to the dust, Draining adversity's bitterest vials, Patient in courage and strong in good trust.

According to him, that violent emancipation was ruin all round: in his own case a great farm of happy dependants was destroyed, the inhabitants all dead through disease and starvation, a vast estate once well tilled reverted to marsh and jungle, and himself and his reduced to utter poverty,—all mainly because Mrs. Beecher Stowe had exaggerated isolated facts as if they were general,[g] and because North and South quarrelled about politics and protection.

As Murphy (1937) notes, the closing lines of his autobiography are a confident indication of this,[110] quoting from the epilogue of Ovid's Metamorphoses: Now have I done my work: which not Jove's ire Can make undone, nor sword nor time nor fire.

[112] Acknowledging that the poet's popularity was "one of the most unquestionable facts of the day ... We are quite aware that it would be utterly beyond our strength to displace him from his stronghold in public favour", the article proceeds with a lengthy criticism of his poetry: "[we] belong to that small but respectable minority who regard Mr. Tupper's versicular philosophy as superficial and conceited twaddle".

[113] Although it remained popular for many years, the ultimate challenge to the work's further longevity was that Proverbial Philosophy presents a style and viewpoint that are inextricably linked and of interest only to those who lived during the early-to-mid Victorian period.

In his biography of Tupper, Hudson (1949) contends that "the success of 'Proverbial Philosophy' ... sprang primarily from the moral and religious movement of early Victorian days which gradually lost its impetus as the reign proceeded.

But as those convictions themselves began to crumble in the 1860s, under the pressure of scientific advance and social change, so Tupper’s status declined and he came to seem an embarrassing survival from a superseded past, a victim of the progress he had so earnestly celebrated.

"[14] Collins (2002) adds that the work was a victim of its own success: "The children who had once received gift book editions of Tupper for their birthdays were heartily sick of the man.

"[115] As a piece of art that spoke only to people of its own time, the work has never experienced a revival of interest: "It put the weight of tradition and common sense behind social values and interpretations which were in reality peculiar to Victorianism.

"[81][116] Given that Proverbial Philosophy was published by the author when he was a young man, who went on to live a long life and write prolifically, he was an easy target for satire from new generations and changing tastes – "Tupper's visage was everywhere ... His very generosity and omnipresence worked against him.

Renowned American poet Walt Whitman was an enthusiastic supporter of Tupper while acting as editor for the Brooklyn Eagle (1846–1848)[41] – for example, in his 1847 review of Probabilities: An Aid to Faith he commends the work's "lofty ... august scope of intention!

In the poem Ferdinando and Elvira, or, The Gentle Pieman (c. 1866), Gilbert describes how two lovers are trying to find out who has been putting mottoes into "paper crackers" (a sort of 19th Century fortune cookie).

Mister Close expressed a wish that he could only get anigh to me; And Mr. Martin Tupper sent the following reply to me: "A fool is bent upon a twig, but wise men dread a bandit,"— Which I know was very clever; but I didn't understand it.

[134] On 10 April 1845 Tupper was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society on merit of being "the author of 'Proverbial Philosophy' and several other works", and "eminent as a literary Man, and for his Archaeological attainments".