You're surprised, I suppose, I was absent so long,

But your godship respecting the lilies was wrong;

I hunted the garden from one end to t'other,

And got no reward but vexation and bother,

Till, tossed out with weeds in a corner to wither,

This one lily I found and made haste to bring hither."

"Did he think I had given him a book to review?

I ought to have known what the fellow would do,"

Muttered Phoebus aside, "for a thistle will pass

Beyond doubt for the queen of all flowers with an ass;

He has chosen in just the same way as he'd choose

His specimens out of the books he reviews;

And now, as this offers an excellent text,

I'll give 'em some brief hints on criticism next."

So, musing a moment, he turned to the

Then the bard owned no clipper and meter of moods

Save the spirit of silence that hovers and broods

O'er the seas and the mountains, the rivers and woods;

He asked not earth's verdict, forgetting the clods,

His soul soared and sang to an audience of gods;

'T was for them that he measured the thought and the line,

And shaped for their vision the perfect design,

With as glorious a foresight, a balance as true,

As swung out the worlds in the infinite blue;

Then a glory and greatness invested man's heart,

The universal, which now stands estranged and apart,

In the free individual moulded, was Art;

Then the forms of the Artist seemed thrilled with desire

For something as yet unattained, fuller, higher,

As once with her lips, lifted hands, and eyes listening,

And her whole upward soul in her countenance glistening, Eurydice stood like a beacon unfired.

Which, once touched with flame, will leap heav'nward inspired

And waited with answering kindle to mark

The first gleam of Orpheus that pained the red Dark.

Then painting, song, sculpture did more than relieve

The need that men feel to create and believe,

And as, in all beauty, who listens wit love

Hears these words oft repeated - ‘beyond and above,'

So these seemed to be but the visible sign

Of the grasp of the soul after things more divine;

They were ladders the Artist erected to climb

He who would write and can't write, can surely review,

Can set up a small booth as critic and sell us his

Petty conceit and his pettier jealousies; Thus a lawyer's apprentice, just out of his teens,

Will do for the Jeffrey of six magazines; Having read Johnson's lives of the poets half through,

There's nothing on earth he's not competent to;

He review with as much nonchalance as he whistles,

He goes through a book and just picks out the thistles,

It matters not whether he blame or commend,

If he's bad as a foe, he 's far worse as a friend;

Let an author but write what's above his poor scope,

He

goes to work gravely and twists up a rope,

And, inviting the world to see punishment done,

Hangs himself up to bleach in the wind and the sun;

'Tis delightful to see, when a man comes along

Who has anything in him peculiar and strong,

Every cockboat that swims clear its
fierce (pop) gundeck at him,
And make as he passes its ludicrous
Peck at him—"

Here Miranda came up and began,
"As to that—"

Apollo at once seized his gloves, cane, and hat,

And, seeing the place getting rapidly cleared,

I, too, snatched my notes and forthwith disappeared.

I HAVE observed, reader (bene- or male-volent, as it may happen), that it is customary to append to the second editions of books, and to the second works of authors, short sentences commendatory of the first, under the title of Notices of the Press. These, I have been given to understand, are procurable at certain established rates, payment being made either in money or advertising patronage by the publisher, or by an adequate outlay of servility on the part of the author. Considering these things with myself, and also that such notices are neither intended, nor generally believed, to convey any real opinions, being a purely ceremonial accompaniment of literature, and resembling certificates to the virtues of various morbiferal panaceas, I conceived that it would be not only more economical to prepare a sufficient number of such myself, but also more immediately subservient to the end in view to prefix them to this our primary edition rather than await the contingency of a second, when they would seem to be of small utility. To delay attaching the bobs until the second attempt at flying the kite would indicate but a slender experience in that useful art. Neither has it escaped my notice, nor failed to afford me matter of reflection, that, when a circus or a caravan is about to visit Jaalam, the initial step is to send forward large and highly ornamented bills of performance to be hung in the bar-room and the post-office. These having been sufficiently gazed at, and beginning to lose their attractiveness except for the flies, and, truly, the boys also (in whom I find it impossible to repress, even during school-hours, certain oral and telegraphic communications

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concerning the expected show), upon some fine morning the band enters in a gayly painted wagon, or triumphal chariot, and with noisy advertisement, by means of brass, wood, and sheepskin, makes the circuit of our startled village streets. Then, as the exciting sounds draw nearer and nearer, do Ï desiderate those eyes of Aristarchus, whose looks were as a breeching to a boy." Then do I perceive, with vain regret of wasted opportunities, the advantage of a pancratic or pantechnic education, since he is most reverenced by my little subjects who can throw the cleanest summerset or walk most securely upon the revolving cask. The story of the Pied Piper becomes for the first time credible to me (albeit confirmed by the Hameliners dating their legal instruments from the period of his exit), as I behold how those strains, without pretence of magical potency, bewitch the pupillary legs, nor leave to the pedagogic an entire self-control. For these reasons, lest my kingly prerogative should suffer diminution, I prorogue my restless commons, whom I also follow into the street, chiefly lest some mischief may chance befall them. After the manner of such a band, I send forward the following notices of domestic manufacture, to make brazen proclamation, not unconscious of the advantage which will accrue, if our little. craft, cymbula sutilis, shall seem to leave port with a clipping breeze, and to carry, in nautical phrase, a bone in her mouth. Nevertheless, I have chosen, as being more equitable, to prepare some also sufficiently objurgatory, that readers of every taste may find a dish to their palate. I have modelled them upon actually existing