t thoughts would swarm as bees about their queen."

And of his friend--

"My other heart,
My shadow, my half-self, for still we moved
Together, kin as horse's ear and eye."

His evasion is also finely told--

"But when the council broke, I rose and past
Through the wild woods that hang about the town;
Found a still place, and pluck'd her likeness out:
Laid it on flowers, and watch'd it lying bathed
In the green gleam of dewy-tassell'd trees:
What were those fancies? wherefore break her troth?
Proud look'd the lips: but while I meditated
A wind arose and rush'd upon the South,
And shook the songs, the whispers, and the shrieks
Of the wild woods together; and a Voice
Went with it 'Follow, follow, thou shalt win!'"

Almost in juxtaposition with these beauties, we find one of the
disagreeable blots, so offensive to good taste, which disfigure the
poem. The travellers are interrogating the host of an inn close to the
liberties where the princess holds her petticoated sway:--

"And at the last--
The summer of the vine in all his veins--
'No doubt that we might make it worth his while.
For him, he reverenced his liege-lady there;
He always made a point to post with mares;
His daughter and his housemaid were the boys.
The land, he understood, for miles about
Was till'd by women; all the swine were sows,
And all the dogs'"--

This is too bad, even for medley; but proceed we into the interior of
the grand and luxurious feminine institution, where their sex is
speedily discovered, but for certain reasons concealed by the
discoverers. Lectures on the past and what might be done to accomplish
female equality, and description of the boundaries, the dwelling place,
and the dwellers therein, fill many a page of mingled excellence and
defects. Here is a sample of both in half a dozen lines:--

"We saw
The Lady Blanche's daughter where she stood,
Melissa, with her hand upon the lock,
A rosy blonde, and in a college gown
_That clad her like an April daffodilly_
(Her mother's colour) with her lips apart,
And all her thoughts as fair within her eyes,
_As bottom agates seem to wave and float
In crystal currents of clear morning seas_."

Curious contradictions in mere terms, also occasionally occur. Thus, of
a frightened girl, we are told th