he public may enjoy its
delectable beauty at once. We have on hand enough MSS. of this kind,
which we never intend to print, to freight the navy of Great Britain.
But mediocrity and stupidity are not the only sinners in respect to
this habit of writing carelessly. Hasty composition is an epidemic
among many of our writers, whose powers, if disciplined by study, and
directed to a definite object, would enable them to produce beautiful
and permanent works. So general is the mental malady to which we have
alluded, that it affects the judgments of criticism, and if a
collection of lines, going under the name of a poem, contains fine
passages, or felicitous flashes of thought, it commonly passes muster
as satisfying the requirements of the critical code. Careless writers,
therefore, are sustained by indulgent critics, and between both good
literature is apt to be strangled in its birth.

Now it is due to Mr. Hirst to say that his poem belongs not to the
class we have described. It is no transcript of chance conceptions,
expressed in loose language, and recklessly huddled together, without
coherence and without artistic form, but a true and consistent
creation, with a central principle of vitality and a definite shape.
He has, in short, produced an original poem on a classic subject,
written in a style of classic grace, sweetness and simplicity,
rejecting all superfluous ornament and sentimental prettinesses, and
conveying one clear and strong impression throughout all its variety
of incident, character and description. It is no conglomeration of
parts, but an organic whole. This merit alone should give him a high
rank among the leading poets of the country, for it evidences that he
has a clear notion of what the word poem means.

We have neither time nor space to analyze the poem, and indicate its
merits as a work of art. It displays throughout great force and
delicacy of conception, a fine sense of harmony, and a power and
decision of expression which neither overloads nor falls short of the
thought. In tone it is half way between Shelley and Keats, neither so
ideal as the one nor so sensuous as the other. Keat's Endymion is so
thick with fancies, and verbal daintinesses, and sweet sensations,
that with all its wonderful affluence of beautiful things it lacks
unity of impression. The mind of the poet is so possessed by his
subject that, in an artistic sense, he becomes its victim, and wanders
in metaphor, and revels in se