deserved to attract attention, and among the minor poems were 'The
Poet's Vow,' 'Isobel's Child,' 'The Romaunt of Margret,' 'My Doves,'
and 'The Sea-mew.' The volume did not suffice to win any wide
reputation for Miss Barrett, and no second edition was called for; on
the other hand, it was received with more than civility, with genuine
cordiality, by several among the reviewers, though they did not fail
to note its obvious defects. The 'Athenaeum'[39] began its review with
the following declaration:

This is an extraordinary volume--especially welcome as an
evidence of female genius and accomplishment--but it is hardly
less disappointing than extraordinary. Miss Barrett's genius
is of a high order; active, vigorous, and versatile, but
unaccompanied by discriminating taste. A thousand strange and
beautiful views flit across her mind, but she cannot look on
them with steady gaze; her descriptions, therefore, are
often shadowy and indistinct, and her language wanting in the
simplicity of unaffected earnestness.

[Footnote 39: July 7, 1838.]

The 'Examiner,'[40] after quoting at length from the preface and 'The
Seraphim,' continued:

Who will deny to the writer of such verses as these (and they
are not sparingly met with in the volume) the possession of
many of the highest qualities of the divine art? We regret
to have some restriction to add to an admission we make so
gladly. Miss Barrett is indeed a genuine poetess, of no common
order; yet is she in danger of being spoiled by over-ambition;
and of realising no greater or more final reputation than
a hectical one, like Crashaw's. She has fancy, feeling,
imagination, expression; but for want of some just equipoise
or other, between the material and spiritual, she aims
at flights which have done no good to the strongest, and
therefore falls infinitely short, except in such detached
passages as we have extracted above, of what a proper exercise
of her genius would infallibly reach.... Very various, and
in the main beautiful and true, are the minor poems. But the
entire volume deserves more than ordinary attention.

[Footnote 40: June 24, 1838.]

The 'Atlas,'[41] another paper whose literary judgments were highly
esteemed at that date, was somewhat colder, and dwelt more on
the faults of the volume, but added nevertheless that 'there are
occasional passages of great b