Poe’s harsh comment on Sprague’s poems was practically unique compared to other critics, who praised Sprague for his “correctness, good taste, purity of feeling, and great skill and precision in the use of language.” In the comment excerpted below from this study of writers supposedly based on their signatures, Poe moves from high praise to stinging criticism:

Mr. Sprague … is a very correct rhetorician of the old school. His versification has not been equalled by that of any American — has been surpassed by no one, living or dead. In this regard there are to be found finer passages in his poems than any elsewhere. These are his chief merits. In the essentials of poetry he is excelled by twenty of our countrymen whom we could name. Except in a very few instances he gives no evidence of the loftier ideality. … A man may be a clever financier without being a genius.

Boston Public Library, Research Library