"did not write because they felt obliged to
relieve themselves of the swelling thought within, but as an elegant
exercise which may win them rank and reputation above the crowd. Their
lamp is not lit by the sacred and inevitable lightning from above, but
carefully fed by their own will to be seen of men."

These metaphors no longer express the most accepted view of poetical
composition. It has been found that those who write chiefly to relieve
themselves are very apt to do so at the expense of the reading public.
The "inevitable lightning," with which some are stricken, does not lead
to such good work as does the "lamp carefully fed" by a steadfast will,
whose tenor need not be summarily judged.

These strictures are intended to apply to versifiers in England as well
as in America.

"Yet," she says, "there is a middle class, composed of men of little
original poetic power, but of much poetic taste and sensibility, whom we
would not wish to have silenced. They do no harm, but much good (if only
their minds are not confounded with those of a higher class), by
educating in others the faculties dominant in themselves." In this class
she places Mr. Longfellow, towards whom she confesses "a coolness, in
consequence of the exaggerated praises that have been bestowed upon
him." Perhaps the best thing she says about him is that "nature with
him, whether human or external, is always seen through the windows of
literature."

Mr. Longfellow did, indeed, dwell in the beautiful house of culture, but
with a heart deeply sensitive to the touch of the humanity that lay
encamped around it. In the "Psalm of Life," his banner, blood-red with
sympathy, was hung upon the outer wall. And all his further parley with
the world was through the silver trumpet of peace.

According much praise to William Ellery Channing, and not a little to
Cornelius Matthews, a now almost forgotten writer, Margaret declares Mr.
Lowell to be "absolutely wanting in the true spirit and tone of poesy."
She says further:--

"His interest in the moral questions of the day has supplied the want of
vitality in himself. His great facility at versification has enabled him
to fill the ear with a copious stream of pleasant sound. But his verse
is stereotyped, his thought sounds no depth, and posterity will not
remember him."

The "Biglow Papers" were not yet written, nor the "Vision of Sir
Launfal." Still less was foreseen the period of the struggle whose
victorious