rolling emotion, or of
any purpose beyond what may belong to the monograph before you. There is
too much colour, and too little motion--the reader would even be glad of
a jolt now and then; almost anything rather than this eternally grave
gliding manner, in which the end is like the beginning, the beginning
like the middle, and the _quorsum haec?_ seldom answered with anything
like energy. If we take an Essay like that on "Lucretius," we become
conscious, indeed, of an effort, but it seems rather an effort to lift a
weight, than the effort of a living mind in free movement over a large
subject. Inevitably we have much that is true, very much of refinement
and accomplishment, and of course a good apercu now and then; but such
interest as there is appears a little forced, as if the author only
half-believed in his own points, and too often endeavoured to give an
air of breadth to literary stippling by mere largeness of phrase. These
hints apply (in our opinion) with peculiar force to the paper on
"Lucretius;" but they are not wholly inapplicable to that entitled
"Antinous," which does not fall far short of being tedious. But no
apology was necessary for reprinting the essays on blank verse, &c.,
which are contained in the Appendix, though in those also there seems an
excessive tendency to make small "points," and force large meanings on
trifles. The volume has a finely-executed steel engraving of the
Ildefonso group (Antinous) in the museum at Madrid.

* * * * *

There is nothing rude, we trust, in wondering aloud how many readers
will know quite off-hand, without glancing lower down, who wrote this
exquisite little poem, though scarcely any one will read it without a
sob, and none will ever forget it:--

"My little son, who looked from thoughtful eyes,
And moved and spoke in quiet grown-up wise,
Having my law the seventh time disobey'd,
I struck him and dismiss'd
With hard words and unkiss'd,
His mother, who was patient, being dead.
Then, fearing lest his grief should hinder sleep,
I visited his bed,
But found him slumbering deep,
With darkened eyelids, and their lashes yet
From his late sobbing wet.
And I, with moan,
Kissing away his tears, left others of my own;
For, on a table drawn beside his head,
He had put, within his reach,
A box of counters and a red-veined stone,
A piece of glass abraded by the beach,
And six or seven shells,
A bott