the powers it indicates, and
the task of leading the age--and that, on the whole, it is rather a
prodigious comet in the poetical heavens, than either a still, calm
luminary, or even the curdling of a future fair creation.

Admitting the force of much of this criticism, and that Bailey's art and
aptitude to teach are unequal to his native power and richness of mind,
we are still willing to wait for a production more matured than
"Festus," and less fragmentary and dim than the "Angel World;" and till
then, must waive our judgment as to whether on his head the laurel crown
is transcendently to flourish.

But meanwhile a young voice has suddenly been uplifted from a provincial
town in England, crying, "Hear me--I also am a poet; I aspire, too, to
prove myself worthy of being a teacher I aim at no middle flight, but
commit myself at once to high, difficult, and daring song, and that,
too, of varied kinds." Nor has the voice been despised or disregarded.
Some of the most fastidious of critical journals have already waxed
enthusiastic in his praise. Many fine spirits, both young and old, have
welcomed him with acclamation, as his own hero was admitted, for the
sake of one song, into the society of a band of experienced bards. Even
the few who deny--unjustly and captiously, as it appears to us--the
artistic, admit the poetical merit of his work And we have now before
us, not the miserable drudgery of weighing a would-be poet, but the
nobler duty of inquiring how far a man of undoubted genius, and great
artistic skill, is likely to fulfill the high-raised expectations of the
period. The scene of the "Roman" is in Italy. The hero is a patriot,
filled and devoured by a love for the liberation of Italy, and for the
re-establishment of the ancient Roman Republic--"One, entire, and
indivisible." To promote this purpose, he assumes the disguise of a
monk; and the history of his progress--addressing now little groups, now
single individuals, and now large multitudes of men--at one time
captivating, unwittingly, a young and enthusiastic lady, by the fervor
of his eloquence, who delivers him from death by suicide--and at
another, shaking the walls of his dungeon, through the power and
grandeur of his predictions and dreams--till at last, as, after the
mockery of a trial, he is led forth to death, he hears the shout of his
country, rising _en masse_--is the whole story of the piece. But around
this slender thread, the author has strung