ion of the finish, and the elegance of the contours, because
our attention is so fixed on the radiance which glows through
them."--(P. 82.)

Of this poet, who has so much flame in him that we cannot distinctly
see his features, it is said in almost the next sentence, "Even in his
most brilliant passages there is nothing of _the heat of inspiration_,
nothing of that _celestial fire_ which makes us feel that the author
has, by intensifying the action of the mind, raised himself to
communion with superior intelligences.(!) It is where he is most calm
that he is most beautiful; and, accordingly, he is more excellent in
the expression of sentiment than in narration." (The force of the
"accordingly" one does not see; surely there may be as much scope for
inspiration in sentiment as in narration.) "Scarce any writer presents
to us a sentiment with such a tearful depth of expression; but though
it is a tearful depth, those tears were shed long since, and Faith and
Love have hallowed them. You nowhere are made to feel the bitterness,
the vehemence of present emotion; _but the phoenix born from passion
is seen hovering over the ashes of what was once combined with it_."

The young phoenix rises from the ashes of the old; so far we
comprehend. This, metaphorically understood, would infer that a new
and stronger passion rose from the ashes of the old and defunct one.
But into the allegorical signification of Mrs Fuller's phoenix, we
confess we cannot penetrate. We have a dim conception that it would
not be found to harmonise very well with that other meaning conveyed
to us in so dazzling a manner by the illuminated statue. Pity the lady
could not have found some other poet to take off her hands one of
those images: we are not so heartless as to suggest the expediency of
the absolute sacrifice of either.

It is not to be supposed that this authoress is always so startling
and original as in these passages. She sometimes attains, and keeps
for a while, the level of commonplace. But we do not remember in the
whole of her two volumes a single passage where she rises to an
excellence above this. If we did, we should be happy to quote it.

"_Tales, by Edgar A. Poe_," is the next book upon our list. No one can
read these tales, then close the volume, as he may with a thousand
other tales, and straightway forget what manner of book he has been
reading. Commonplace is the last epithet that can be applied to them.
They are strange--power