land."

It may be surprising to hear dear Noll, the dandy of the Literary
Club, deride

"The glaring impotence of dress."

There is a grace--nay, more, there is a genius in transition. The
exile and the emigration of the Irish were not, and are not now,
exclusively territorial, nor is the spiritual pang of leaving loved
homes and cherished hearts entirely sentimental. Of the Irish it may
be said that, of all the races, their pure love of home is the
deepest, and the most faithful and devoted. Often the enforced exile
that must be endured had no solace save death and the grave for
peace--and a home. Of all the fair, and the gentle and pure, fairest
and gentlest and purest, now and ever, is the Irish girl. Swift the
passage in this tender poem from the village in its sunshine to the
town and the streets in their darkness, and the clouds about the life
of outcast humanity, suffering a more fearful exile:

"Where the poor houseless shivering female lies:
She once, perhaps, in village plenty blest,
Has wept at tales of innocence distrest.
Her modest looks the cottage might adorn,
Sweet as the primrose peeps beneath the thorn;
Now lost to all, her friends, her virtue, fled,
Near her betrayer's door she lays her head."

The wonders of the poem are first its pathos, and then its
picturesqueness and its charm. With all these glidings from light to
grave and gladness into gloom, and then again to gaiety, it is a
moving and a magic intermingling. There is a very thunder in the
phrase,

"Pamper luxury, and thin mankind."

And then later:

"Oh, luxury! thou curst by Heaven's decree,
How ill-exchanged are things like these for thee!
How do thy potions, with insidious joy,
Diffuse their pleasures, only to destroy.
Kingdoms by thee, to sickly greatness grown,
Boast of a florid vigour not their own.
At every draught more large and large they grow,
A bloated mass of rank, unwieldy woe;
Till sapped their strength, and every part unsound,
Down, down they sink, and spread a ruin round."

In this poem we find the sympathy and the grace of Gray and Wordsworth
with a greater warmth and a glow that is enkindling. The man who is a
master in transition is also and perforce powerful in contrast. In
this graceful gift the whole piece is a striking study. Whether the
strain be didactic or dramatic, emotional or vivacious, melody is
never lost. With many poets frequently the whole melodiousness o