by Rudge,
Three-fifths of him genius and two-fifths sheer fudge,
Who talks like a book of iambs and pentameters.
In a way to make people of common sense damn metres,
Who has written some things quite the best of their kind,
But the heart somehow seems all squeezed out by the mind.
_A Fable for Critics_. J.R. LOWELL.

JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER.

There is Whittier, whose swelling and vehement heart
Strains the strait-breasted drab of the Quaker apart,
And reveals the live Man, still supreme and erect,
Underneath the bemummying wrappers of sect;
There was ne'er a man born who had more of the swing
Of the true lyric bard and all that kind of thing;

* * * * *

Our Quaker leads off metaphorical fights
For reform and whatever they call human rights,
Both singing and striking in front of the war,
And hitting his foes with the mallet of Thor.
_A Fable for Critics_. J.R. LOWELL.

PHILOSOPHY.

The intellectual power, through words and things,
Went sounding on, a dim and perilous way!

_The Excursion, Bk. III_. W. WORDSWORTH.

How charming is divine philosophy!
Not harsh, and crabbed, as dull fools suppose,
But musical as is Apollo's lute,
And a perpetual feast of nectared sweets,
Where no crude surfeit reigns.
_Comus_. MILTON.

In discourse more sweet,
(For eloquence the soul song charms the sense,)
Others apart sat on a hill retired,
In thoughts more elevate, and reasoned high
Of providence, foreknowledge, will, and fate,
Fixed fate, free will, foreknowledge absolute;
And found no end, in wand'ring mazes lost.
Of good and evil much they argued then,
Of happiness and final misery,
Passion and apathy, and glory and shame;
Vain wisdom all, and false philosophy.
_Paradise Lost, Bk. II_. MILTON.

Sublime Philosophy!
Thou art the patriarch's ladder, reaching heaven,
And bright with beckoning angels;--but alas!
We see thee, like the patriarch, but in dreams.
By the first step,--dull slumbering on the earth.
_Richelieu, Act_ iii. _Sc_. 1. E. BULWER-LYTTON.

Not so the son; he marked this oversight.
And then mistook reverse of wrong for right;
(For What to shun, will no great knowledge need,
But What to follow, is a task indeed!)
_Moral Essays, Epistle III_. A. POPE.

He knew what's what, and that's as high
As metaphysic wit can fly.
_Hudibras, Pt