part of one's inner life,
including the period since English literature first existed, might have
ample elbow-room to sit down and quaff their draughts of Castaly round
Chaucer's broad, horizontal tombstone. These divinest poets consecrate
the spot, and throw a reflected glory over the humblest of their
companions. And as for the latter, it is to be hoped that they may have
long outgrown the characteristic jealousies and morbid sensibilities
of their craft, and have found out the little value, (probably not
amounting to sixpence in immortal currency) of the posthumous renown
which they once aspired to win. It would be a poor compliment to a dead
poet to fancy him leaning out of the sky and snuffing up the impure
breath of earthly praise.

Yet we cannot easily rid ourselves of the notion that those who have
bequeathed us the inheritance of an undying song would fain be conscious
of its endless reverberations in the hearts of mankind, and would
delight, among sublimer enjoyments, to see their names emblazoned in
such a treasure-place of great memories as Westminster Abbey. There are
some men, at all events,--true and tender poets, moreover, and fully
deserving of the honor,--whose spirits, I feel certain, would linger a
little while about Poets' Corner for the sake of witnessing their own
apotheosis among their kindred. They have had a strong natural yearning,
not so much for applause as sympathy, which the cold fortune of their
lifetime did but scantily supply; so that this unsatisfied appetite may
make itself felt upon sensibilities at once so delicate and retentive,
even a step or two beyond the grave. Leigh Hunt, for example, would be
pleased, even now, if he could learn that his bust had been reposited in
the midst of the old poets whom he admired and loved; though there is
hardly a man among the authors of to-day and yesterday whom the judgment
of Englishmen would be less likely to place there. He deserves it,
however, if not for his verse, (the value of which I do not estimate,
never having been able to read it,) yet for his delightful prose, his
unmeasured poetry, the inscrutable happiness of his touch, working soft
miracles by a life-process like the growth of grass and flowers. As
with all such gentle writers, his page sometimes betrayed a vestige of
affectation, but, the next moment, a rich, natural luxuriance overgrew
and buried it out of sight. I knew him a little, and (since, Heaven
be praised, few English