ance of fancy is judiciously received; no display is
made of it, and Arthur is sent to school at Putney, where he remains for
two years. The common routine of English education is more than once
broken by tours upon the Continent. When the boy leaves Eton in 1827,
his father pronounces him "a good, though not, perhaps, first-rate
scholar in the Latin and Greek languages." As certain Latin verses
referred to are, for some inscrutable reason, omitted in this American
edition, the reader has no means of deciding whether it is the modest
reserve of the parent which pronounces them "good, without being
excellent," or the fond partiality of the father which discovers them to
be "good" at all. In any case, we must consider Arthur's "comparative
deficiency in classical learning," for which the eminent historian seems
almost to apologize, as one of his especial felicities. The liberalizing
effect of travel, and a varied contact with men and things, prevented
his powers from contracting themselves to a merely academical
reputation. When at Cambridge, he renounces all competition in the
niceties of classical learning, and does not attempt Latin or Greek
composition during his stay at Trinity. Thus he escapes the fate of many
quick minds, which, running easily upon college grooves, that end in the
indorsement of a corporation, never make out to accept their own
individuality for better and for worse. Arthur enters upon legal studies
with acuteness, and not without interest. A few anonymous writings
occupy his leisure. He is now just rising upon the world,--a brilliant
orb, as yet seen only by a few watchers, who congratulate each other
upon the light to be. A fatal tour to Germany, and all ends in darkness
and mystery.

Judging from the writings before us, we should say that this young man
was destined to a greater eminence in philosophy than in poetry. His
father's opinion, in reverse of this, was perhaps based upon average
tendencies of character, instead of selected specimens of production.
The best prose papers here printed, the "Essay on the Philosophical
Writings of Cicero," and the "Review of Professor Rossetti," are far
more remarkable for the ease with which accurate information is
subjected to original, and even profound thought, than are the poems for
brilliancy of imagination or mastery over the capacities of language.
Still, it must be confessed, that the sonnets are full of melody and
refinement,--indeed, we can recal