game. But who can fail to appreciate the intense beauty of the heralding shadows? Nor is this all. This "hunter of shadows, he himself a shade," is made symbolical, or suggestive, throughout the poem, of the speculative character of Orion; and occasionally, of his pursuit of visionary happiness. For example, at page 81, Orion, possessed of Merope, dwells with her in a remote and dense grove of cedars. Instead of directly describing his attained happiness-his perfected bliss-the poet, with an exalted sense of Art, for which we look utterly in vain in any other poem, merely introduces the image of the tamed or subdued shadowstag, quietly browsing and drinking beneath the cedars:

"There, underneath the boughs, mark where the gleam

Of sunrise thro' the roofing's chasm is thrown

Upon a grassy plot below, whereon

The shadow of a stag stoops to the stream,

Swift rolling toward the cataract, and drinks deeply.
Throughout the day unceasingly it drinks,

While ever and anon the nightingale,

Not waiting for the evening, swells his hymn-
His one sustained and heaven-aspiring tone-
And when the sun hath vanished utterly,

Arm over arm the cedars spread their shade,

With arching wrist and long extended hands,
And grave-ward fingers lengthening in the moon,
Above that shadowy stag whose antlers still
Hung o'er the stream."

There is nothing more richly-more weirdly-more chastely-more sublimely imaginative-in the wide realm of poetical literature. It will be seen that we have enthusiasm—but we reserve it for pictures such as this.

At page 9, Orion thus describes a palace built by him

for Hephaestos (Vulcan).

But, ere a shadow-hunter I became

A dreamer of strange dreams by day and night—

For him I built a palace underground,

Of iron, black and rough as his own hands.
Deep in the groaning disembowelled earth,
The tower-broad pillars, and huge stanchions,

And slant supporting wedges I set up,
Aided by the Cyclops who obeyed my voice,
Which through the metal fabric rang and pealed
In orders echoing far, like thunder-dreams.
With arches, galleries and domes all carved-
So that great figures started from the roof
And lofty coignes, or sat and downward gazed
On those who stood below and gazed above-
I filled it; in the centre framed a hall;
Central in that, a throne; and for the light,
Forged mighty hammers that should rise and fall
On slanted rocks of granite and of flint,
Worked by a torrent, for whose passage down
A chasm I hewed. And here the God could take,
Midst showery sparks and swathes of broad gold fire
His lone repose lulled by the sounds he loved:
Or, casting back the hammer-heads till they choked
The water's course, enjoy, if so he wished,

Midnight tremendous, silence, and iron sleep."

The description of the Hell in "Paradise Lost" is altogether inferior in graphic effect, in originality, in expression, in the true imagination-to these magnificent-to these unparalleled passages. For this assertion there are tens of thousands who will condemn us as heretical; but there are a "chosen few" who will feel, in their inmost souls, the simple truth of the assertion. The former class would at least be silent could they form even a remote conception of that contempt with which we listen to their conventional jargon.

We have room for no further extracts of length; but we refer the reader who shall be so fortunate as to procure a copy of "Orion," to a passage at page 22, commencing "One day at noontide, when the chase was done."

It is descriptive of a group of lolling hounds, intermingled with sylvans, fawns, nymphs, and oceanides. We refer him also to page 25, where Orion, enamoured of the naked beauty of Artemis, is repulsed and frozen by her dignity. These lines end thus:

"And ere the last collected shape he saw

Of Artemis, dispersing fast amid

Dense vapoury clouds, the aching wintriness
Had risen to his teeth, and fixed his eyes,

Like glistening stones in the congealing air."

We refer, especially too, to the description of Love, at page 29; to that of a Bacchanalian orgie, at page 34; to that of drought succeeded by rain, at page 70; and to that of the palace of Eos, at page 104.

Mr. Horne has a very peculiar and very delightful faculty of enforcing, or giving vitality to a picture, by some one vivid and intensely characteristic point or touch. He seizes the most salient feature of his theme, and makes this feature convey the whole. The combined naïveté and picturesqueness of some of the passages thus enforced cannot be sufficiently admired. For example:

"The archers soon,

With bow-arm forward thrust, on all sides twanged
Around, above, below."

Now it is this thrusting forward of the bow-arm which is the idiosyncrasy of the action of a mass of archers. Again: Rhexergon and his friends endeavour to persuade Akinetos to be king. Observe the silent refusal of Akinetos -the peculiar passiveness of his action-if we may be permitted the paradox.

"Rise, therefore, Akinetos, thou art a king.'

So saying, in his hand he placed a spear.

As though against a wall 'twere sent aslant,

Flatly the long spear fell upon the ground."

Here again: Merope departs from Chios in a ship.

'And, as it sped along, she closely pressed

The rich globes of her bosom on the side

O'er which she bent with those black eyes, and gazed

Into the sea that fled beneath her face."

The fleeing of the sea beneath the face of one who gazes into it from a ship's side is the idiosyncrasy of the action of the subject. It is that which chiefly impresses the gazer.

But we are positively forced to conclude. It was our design to give "Orion” a careful and methodical analysis— thus to bring clearly forth its multitudinous beauties to the eye of the American public. Our limits have constrained us to treat it in an imperfect and cursory manner. We have had to content ourselves chiefly with assertion, where our original purpose was to demonstrate. We have left

unsaid a hundred things which a well-grounded enthusiasm would have prompted us to say. One thing, however, we must and will say in conclusion:-"Orion " will be admitted by every man of genius to be one of the noblest, if not the very noblest poetical work of the age. Its defects are trivial and conventional-its beauties intrinsic and supreme.

THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY.

MACAULAY has obtained a reputation which, although deservedly great, is yet in a remarkable measure undeserved. The few who regard him merely as a terse, forcible, and logical writer, full of thought, and abounding in original views, often sagacious, and never otherwise than admirably expressed-appear to us precisely in the right. The many who look upon him as not only all this, but as a comprehensive and profound thinker, little prone to error, err essentially themselves. The source of the general mistake lies in a very singular consideration-yet in one upon which we do not remember ever to have heard a word of comment. We allude to a tendency in the public mind towards logic for logic's sake-a liability to confound the vehicle with the thing conveyed-an aptitude to be so dazzled by the luminousness with which an idea is set forth as to mistake it for the luminousness of the idea itself. The error is one exactly analogous with that which leads the immature poet to think himself sublime wherever he is obscure, because obscurity is a source of the sublime-thus confounding obscurity of expression with the expression of obscurity. In the case of

Macaulay—and we may say, en passant, of our own Channing —we assent to what he says too often because we so very clearly understand what it is that he intends to say. Comprehending vividly the points and the sequence of his argument, we fancy that we are concurring in the argument itself. It is not every mind which is at once able to analyse the satisfaction it receives from such Essays as we see here. If it were merely beauty of style for which they were distinguished -if they were remarkable only for rhetorical flourishes—we would not be apt to estimate these flourishes at more than their due value. We would not agree with the doctrines of the essayist on account of the elegance with which they were urged. On the contrary, we would be inclined to disbelief. But when all ornament save that of simplicity is disclaimed-when we are attacked by precision of language, by perfect accuracy of expression, by directness and singleness of thought, and above all by a logic the most rigorously close and consequential-it is hardly a matter for wonder that nine of us out of ten are content to rest in the gratification thus received as in the gratification of absolute truth.

Of the terseness and simple vigour of Macaulay's style it is unnecessary to point out instances. Every one will acknowledge his merits on this score. His exceeding closeness of logic, however, is more especially remarkable. With this he suffers nothing to interfere. Here, for example, is a sentence in which, to preserve entire the chain of his argument—to leave no minute gap which the reader might have to fill up with thought—he runs into most unusual tautology.

"The books and traditions of a sect may contain, mingled with propositions strictly theological, other propositions, purporting to rest on the same authority, which relate to physics. If new discoveries should throw discredit on the physical propositions, the theological propositions, unless they can be separated from the physical propositions, will share in their discredit."

These things are very well in their way; but it is indeed questionable whether they do not appertain rather to the trickery of thought's vehicle than to thought itself—rather