le."--p.45.

The misadventures of the five friends on their road to Nornyth are
very sufficiently described:

"The night was cold and cloudy as they topped
A moorland slope, and met the bitter blast,
So cutting that their ears it almost cropped;
And rain began to fall extremely fast.
A broken sign-post left them in great doubt
About two roads; and, when an hour was passed,
They learned their error from a lucid lout;
Soon after, one by one, their lamps went out."--p.29.

There remains to point out one fault,--and that the last fault the
occurrence of which could be looked for, after so clearly expressed
an intention as this:

"But, if an Author takes to writing fine,
(Which means, I think, an artificial tone),
The public sicken and won't read a line.
I hope there's nothing of this sort in mine."--p. 6.

A quotation or two will fully explain our meaning: and we would
seriously ask Mr. Cayley to reflect whether he has always borne his
principle in mind, and avoided "writing fine;" whether he has not
sometimes fallen into high-flown common-place of the most undisguised
stamp, rendered, moreover, doubly inexcusable and out of place by
being put into the mouth of one of the personages of the poem; It is
Sir Reginald Mohun that speaks; and truly, though not thrust forward
as a "wondrous paragon of praise," he must be confessed to be,

"Judging by specimens the author quotes,
An utterer of most ordinary phrases,"

not words only and sentences, but real _phrases_, in the more
distinct and specific sense of the term.

"'There, while yet a new born thing,
Death o'er my cradle waved his darksome wing;
My mother died to give me birth: forlorn
I came into the world, a babe of woe,
Ill-omened from my childhood's early morn;
Yet heir to what the idolators of show
Deem life's good things, which earthly bliss bestow.

"'The riches of the heart they call a dream;
Love, hope, faith, friendship, hollow phantasies:
Living but for their pockets and their eyes,
They stifle in their breasts the purer beam
Of sunshine glanced from heaven upon their clay,
To be its light and warmth. This is a theme
For homilies: and I will only say,
The heart feeds not on fortune's baubles gay.'"--p. 51.

Sir Reginald's narrative concludes after this fashion:

"'But what is this? A dubious compromise;
Twilight of cloudy zones, whereon the blaze