stic of all good writing. Their style is always
pregnant with a working activity--it impresses us with the feeling that
real work is done here. We fear not to say that Milton himself owes much
of his reputation to the peremptory and business-like vigour of his
style. He never beats about the bush--he never employs language which a
plain man would not have employed--if he could. The sublimity of
"Paradise Lost" is supported throughout by the direct force of its
language--language the most elaborate, but also the most to the point,
and the least fantastical, that ever fell from human lips. There are
difficulties to encounter in the abstract conception of the poem. The
naked argument does not at first recommend itself to our understanding.
It is not till we have vanquished those difficulties,--in which step we
are mainly assisted by the unparalleled execution of the work,--that all
our sympathies gravitate towards the mysterious theme.

Now if it be true that it requires all the force of a thoroughly
practical style to reconcile our affections to such remote and obscure
conceptions as the fall of man, the war of the rebellious angels, &c.,
it is peculiarly unfortunate that Miss Barrett, in her opening poem,
entitled a "Drama of Exile," should have ventured to tread on Miltonic
ground. For, while our feelings are naturally disposed to fly off at a
tangent from the vague and impalpable conceptions which form the staple
of her poem, the dreamy and unpractical character of her style makes
them fly still further from the subject. The force of her language is
not sufficient to bind down and rivet our sympathies to the theme; and
the lyrical portions of the drama, in particular, are so inarticulate,
that we are compelled to pronounce this composition--partial to it as
its authoress is--the least successful of her works.

But it is our wish to do full justice to Miss Barrett's extraordinary
merits, and to convey to our readers a favourable impression of her
powers; and therefore we shall say no more at present about the "Drama
of Exile," but shall turn our attention to some of the fairer and less
questionable manifestations of her genius. We shall commence with her
sonnets; for these appear to us to be by far the most finished of her
compositions in point of style; and in depth and purity of sentiment, we
think that they surpass any thing she has ever written, with the
exception of the poem entitled "Bertha in the Lane," which we