thinks "passages of more splendid and sonorous writing are not to be selected from any writer since the days of Milton." As an illustration of subtile imagination sustained by graceful and spirited similes, read the following, from Prometheus Unbound :

1.

III.-The Flight of the Hours.

Behold!

The rocks are cloven, and through the purple night
I see cars drawn by rainbow-wingèd steeds,
Which trample the dim winds: in each there stands
A wild-eyed charioteer urging their flight.
Some look behind, as fiends pursued them there,
And yet I see no shapes but the keen stars:
Others, with burning eyes, lean forth, and drink
With eager lips the wind of their own speed,

As if the thing they loved fled on before,

And now, even now, they clasped it. Their bright locks Stream like a comet's flashing hair: they all

Sweep onward.

These are the immortal Hours,

Of whom thou didst demand. One waits for thee.

2. Lord Macaulay writes of Shelley, "Had he lived to the full age of man, he might not improbably have given to the world some great work of the very highest rank in execution and design;" and another critic believes that "nearly all the poetical writers of any eminence since his time bear visible traces of how much they imbued themselves with Shelley's poetry." Among the best of his productions for brilliancy and musical modulation is The Cloud, with an extract from which we close this sketch.

IV. The Cloud.

1. I bring fresh showers for the thirsting flowers,
From the seas and the streams;

I bear light shade for the leaves when laid
In their noonday dreams.

From my wings are shaken the dews that waken
The sweet birds every one,

When rocked to rest on their mother's breast,
As she dances about the sun.

I wield the flail of the lashing hail,

And whiten the green plains under;
And then again I dissolve it in rain,
And laugh as I pass in thunder.

2. That orbèd maiden with white fire laden,
Whom mortals call the moon,

Glides glimmering o'er my fleece-like floor
By the midnight breezes strewn ;
And wherever the beat of her unseen feet,
Which only the angels hear,

May have broken the woof of my tent's thin roof,
The stars peep behind her and peer;

And I laugh to see them whirl and flee,
Like a swarm of golden bees,

When I widen the rent in my wind-built tent,
Till the calm rivers, lakes, and seas,

Like strips of the sky fallen through me on high,
Are each paved with the moon and these.

3. I bind the sun's throne with a burning zone,
And the moon's with a girdle of pearl;

The volcanoes are dim, and the stars reel and swim,
When the whirlwinds my banner unfurl.
From cape to cape, with a bridge-like shape,
Over a torrent sea,

Sunbeam-proof, I hang like a roof,

The mountains its columns be.

The triumphal arch through which I march
With hurricane, fire, and snow,

When the powers of the air are chained to my chair,

Is the million-colored bow;

The sphere-fire above its soft colors wove,

While the moist earth was laughing below.

4. I am the daughter of earth and water,
And the nursling of the sky;

I pass through the pores of the ocean and shores;
I change, but I cannot die.

For after the rain, when, with never a stain,

The pavilion of heaven is bare,

And the winds and sunbeams, with their convex

gleams,

Build

up

the blue dome of air,

I silently laugh at my own cenotaph,

And out of the caverns of rain,

From the depth of their gloom, like a ghost from the tomb,

I arise and upbuild it again.

CHAPTER L.-MISCELLANEOUS.

Sentiment and Music.

1. There is a sort of instinctive feeling within us that an organ should be reserved for only sacred uses. The bray of the martial trumpet seems akin to the din and clangor of a military movement. The piano is the appropriate instrument of the household room, of comfort and domestic delight. Lesser instruments, with their gay tones, and their lighter lessons for the heart, adapt themselves to the unstable emotions of the hour-in revelry, excitement, or gratification. To each of them there is a season, and from youth to old age these varied instruments may minister to us, according to their uses and our sensibilities.

2. The harp which the monarch of Israel swept as the accompaniment to his divine lyrics; the timbrel which Miriam, the sister of Aaron, took in her hand when she raised the glad pæan, "Sing ye to the Lord, for he hath triumphed gloriously"; the silver trumpets which the priests blew to proclaim the great Jewish festival; the horn and the psaltery, the sackbut and the dulcimer, which lifted up the anthems of the tabernacle or the Temple worship, were not without a sacred influence, helping with their strings or pipes the effect of holy song.

3. But the religious sentiment is the largest that fills the heart of man; its sweep and compass are the widest, and in the course of our own short lives that sentiment will range like a song of degrees" over all the varying emotions of the soul, engaging every one to give it utterance. 4. "Praise the Lord with gladness," is the key-note of one Psalm. "Out of the depths have I cried to thee, O Lord," is the plaintive moan of another. "Sing unto the Lord, all the earth," is the quickening call to a general anthem. "Keep silence before me, O Islands!" stills the trembling spirit into a low whisper of its fear. “The Lord is my Shepherd," is the beautiful pastoral lyric for the serene life of still waters. "He bowed the heavens and came down, he did fly upon the wings of the wind; the Lord also thundered in the heavens, and he shot out lightnings from the sky"-this is the Psalm for the stormy elements or a troubled heart.

5. "O Lord, rebuke me not in thine anger!" is now our imploring cry; "Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him," is now the boast of the resigned spirit. "The lines are fallen to me in pleasant places," is the bright lyric of the heart that finds its joy on earth. "Oh that I had wings like a dove, for then would I flee away and be at rest!" is the burden of the heart when it sighs and moans over the wreck of mortal delights. "Thou hast made man but a little lower than the angels!" is the tone which befits the

feeling of our human dignity. "Lord, thou hast been our dwelling-place in all generations; thou carriest us away as with a flood," is the mingled note of melancholy and faith with which we contemplate our failing years, and yield up one after another, from our earthly fellowship, to the summons of the ever-living God-the everlasting Refuge.

6. Thus, through the whole range of emotions and sensibilities of the heart, in its thrills and wails, in its elation and its gloom, in penitence, remorse, submission, and hope, in gratitude, aspiration, or high desire, the heart varies its note; but sincerity will make music of all its utterances, in psalm or dirge.-Rev. George E. Ellis.

CHAPTER LI.-FELICIA DOROTHEA HEMANS.—1793

1835.

I.—Biographical.

1. "Christopher North" said of little Felicia Browne, the subject of this sketch, "I remember patting her fair head when she was a child of nine years. Even then she versified, with a touching sweetness, about sylphs and fairies." Her father was a Liverpool merchant, but she passed most of her girlhood amidst the wild scenery of North Wales. Already an authoress, at eighteen she married Captain Hemans, a soldier in the Peninsular War, who forsook her after six years of wedded life. After a visit to Scotland, and to Wordsworth at Rydal Lake, her latter years were spent in the home of a brother, at Dublin.

2. She was an accomplished student of German poetry, the influence of which emancipated her, especially in The Forest Sanctuary, her best poem, from the stiff, classical models. One of her volumes, called Songs of the Affections, may be taken as typical of the vein in which she wrote. Her sorrows did not make her censorious, and her enthu siasms did not exceed her perfect control. A fine compli