is oozing smoke:
And there's a creaky music drones
Whenas your lungs distend your ribs,
A sound, that's like the grating nibs
Of pens on paper late at night;
Your shanks are yellow more than white
And very like what Holbein drew!
Avaunt! ye are a ghastly crew
Too like the Campo Santo--down!
We are your monarch, but we own
That were we not, we very well
Might take ye to be imps of hell:
But ye are glorious ghastly sprites,
What ho! our page! Sir knave--lights, lights,
The final pipes are to be lit:
Sit, gentlemen, we charge ye sit
Until the cock affrays the night
And heralds in the limping morn,
And makes the owl and raven flit;
Until the jolly moon is white,
And till the stars and moon are gone.

No. V. Rain.

The chamber is lonely and light;
Outside there is nothing but night--
And wind and a creeping rain.
And the rain clings to the pane:
And heavy and drear's
The night; and the tears
Of heaven are dropt in pain.

And the tears of heaven are dropt in pain;
And man pains heaven and shuts the rain
Outside, and sleeps: and winds are sighing;
And turning worlds sing mass for the dying.

Reviews

Christmas Eve and Easter Day: by Robert Browning.--Chapman and Hall.
1850.

There are occasions when the office of the critic becomes almost
simply that of an expositor; when his duty is not to assert, but to
interpret. It is his privilege to have been the first to study a
subject, and become familiar with it; what remains is to state facts,
and to suggest considerations; not to lay down dogmas. That which he
speaks of is to him itself a dogma; he starts from conviction: his it
is to convince others, and, as far as may be, by the same means as
satisfied himself; to incite to the same study, doing his poor best,
meanwhile, to supply the present want of it.

Thus much, indeed, is the critic's duty always; but he generally
feels the right, and has it, of speaking with authority. He condemns,
or gives praise; and his judgment, though merely individual and
subject to revision, is judgment. Before the certainty of genius and
deathless power, in the contemplation of consummate art, his position
changes: and well for him if he knows, and is contented it should be
so. Here he must follow, happy if he only follows and serves; and
while even here he will not shelve his doubts, or blindly refuse to
exercise a can