brought about by the strongest one in the family coming forward, and in a dictatorial manner uttering a few philosophical sentences, which settles the question, silences the others, and ends the play.

Keats, in his narrative, with its haunting sense of beauty, its wondrous superfluities of description, and its remoteness from human interest; Shelley, also, with his dazzling metaphysical distinctions; and Tennyson, with his refined psychologies, possess too little of the nature of men and women to come altogether within the range of humanity; while Crabbe, with his hard, dry paintings, as though he used charcoal instead of colors, converts the world into one huge pauper planet, where there are but two classes, the jailer and the thief-the tyrant and the slave-the millionaire and the destitute-the Pharisee and Lazarus.

In which of these, we would ask Mr. Taylor, is common sense the constituent essence of genius?

We shall close our mental portrait of Mr. Taylor with two extracts from a poem of his, entitled "Ernesto :"

"Thoughtfully by the side Ernesto sate

Of her whom in his earlier youth, with heart
Then first exulting in a dangerous hope,
Dearer for danger, he had rashly loved.
That was a season when the untravelled spirit,
Not way-worn nor way-wearied, nor with soil
Nor stain upon it, lions in its path
Saw none-or, seeing, with triumphant trust
In its resources and its powers, defied-
Perverse to find provocatives in warnings
And in disturbance taking deep delight.
By sea or land he then saw rise the storm
With a gay courage, and through broken lights,
Tempestuously exalted, for awhile

His heart ran mountains high, or to the roar

Of shattered forests sang superior songs

With kindling, and what might have seemed to some,

Auspicious energy; by land and sea

He was way-foundered-trampled in the dust

His many-colored hopes-his lading rich

Of precious pictures, bright imaginations,

In absolute shipwreck to the winds and waves
Suddenly rendered.”

It is very apparent that the writer is a poet whose deficiency of imagination renders his journey a toilsome march, and not a glorious flight. He treads the earth heavily, not flies through the air, or marches with the stately force and untiring alacrity of the athlete or the belted knight.

The conclusion of Ernesto is one of the few attempts which our author makes to be tender

"Once again

He sate beside her-for the last time now,
And scarcely was she altered; for the hours
Had led her lightly down the vale of life,
Dancing, and scattering roses; and her face
Seemed a perpetual daybreak; and the woods
Where'er she rambled, echoed through their aisles
The music of a laugh so softly gay

That Spring with all her songsters and her songs
Knew nothing like it. But how changed was he!
Care and disease and ardors unrepressed,
And labors unremitted, and much grief,
Had written their death-warrant on his brow.

Of this she saw not all-she saw but little

That which she could not choose but see she saw

And o'er her sunlit dimples and her smiles

A shadow fell-a transitory shade—

And when the phantom of a hand she clasped

At parting, scarce responded to her touch,

She sighed-but hoped the best.

When winter came

She sighed again; for with it came the word

That trouble and love had found their place of rest,
And slept beneath Madeira's orange groves."

We bid good-bye to the author of Philip Van Arteveldt, by assuring him that one half the pains he has bestowed upon his dramas would have given to the world a translation of Virgil little inferior to the original. We are not aware of any poet who possesses so many first-rate qualities for a translator.

MISS BARRETT.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning, was, till her marriage with the author of Sordello, so entirely hidden from the world that she might have suggested to Wordsworth the idea of

"A violet by a mossy stone
Half hidden from the eye,
Fair as a star when only one
Is shining in the sky."

And truly the poetical spirit of Miss Barrett was so exquisite as to deserve altogether the epithet of being the violet of women. In person she is slender and petite: her voice very soft and low; her complexion pale: her eyes and hair dark, the latter being very long and hanging down her neck. In addition to her honors as a poetess, she has lately added that of a mother! All honor to Elizabeth Barrett Browning, the greatest poetical intellect ever vouchsafed to an English woman!

Miss Barrett, who is now close upon her fortieth year, was married to Robert Browning, in November, 1846, and has since then resided at Florence. Marriages of this kind have not in general been happy, but let us hope this will prove an exception to the rule.

The facts of her life are so few, and she has mixed so little with society, owing to her fragile state of health, that we shall devote the rest of this chapter to the consideration of her genius; we

may mention, en passant, that she has suffered much domestic sorrow-among the greatest may be mentioned that she had the trial of witnessing the death of a favorite brother who was drowned while swimming in Torbay.

The poetry of most female poets is almost invariably founded on the affections, and treated with a delicacy and tenderness which only a woman can impart: "in that sweet circle none can walk but she," but in addition to this exquisite gift, nature has endowed Miss Barrett with a force of and subtlety of mind which renders her the loftiest specimen of her sex.

"Gentle in heart, subtle and strong in mind,

She shines the marvel of all womankind!"

Mr. Leigh Hunt in one of his clever poems calls her "the sister of Tennyson "—we object to this, and claim her as Shakspere's daughter!—great as Robert Browning is in the world of poetry, his wife is literally "the better half.”

One of the most original female writers of America, Margaret Fuller, has so well expressed our own opinion of Miss Barrett that we give it in her own words.

"In delicacy of preception Miss Barrett may vie with any of her sex. She has what is called a true woman's heart, although we must believe that men of a fine conscience and good organization will have such a heart no less. Signal instances occur to us in the cases of Spenser, Wordsworth and Tennyson. The woman who reads them will not find hardness or blindness as to the suttler workings of thoughts and affections.

"If men are often deficient on this score, women on the other hand are apt to pay excessive attention to the slight tokens, the little things of life. Thus in conduct or writing, they tend to weary, as with a morbid sentimentalism. From this fault Miss Barrett is wholly free."

It is not in Miss Barrett's longest and most ambitious poem that she is the most successful. Her blank verse is sweet and full of tender cadence, but it wants the muscular force to render it fit for so long a march as the "Drama of Exile."

Still this is a poem which none but Miss Barrett could have written. The tenderness, the delicacy, and the grace of this sweet vision of Paradise belong entirely to the female heart. The perusal of "the Drama of Exile" will give the reader a more complete idea of the nature of woman by comparing our first parents in this poem with Milton's Adam and Eve, than a volume of philosophy, with all its physical and mental analysis.

Miss Barrett's Eve is one of the most refined, tender, and etherialised creation of sad smiles and gentle tears that ever stept forth into the world of poetry. Even Lucifer became Barrettised and softened to a horrible beauty. Listen to a speech he makes to Gabriel.

"Here's a brave earth to sin and suffer on!-
It holds fast still-it cracks not under curse,
It holds, likewise immortal. Presently
We'll sow it thick enough with graves as green
Or greener, certes, than its knowledge tree,
We'll have the cypress for the tree of life,
More eminent for shadow:-for the rest
We'll build it dark with towers and pyramids,
And temples if it please you :—we'll have feasts
And funerals also, merry wakes and wars,
Till blood and wine shall mix and run along

Right o'er the edges—and good Gabriel

Ye like that word in Heaven!-I too have strength,

Strength to behold, and not to worship Him:

Strength to fall from him, and not rely on Him:

Strength to be in the universe, and yet

Neither God nor his Servant. The red sign

Burnt on my forehead, which you taunt me with,
Is God's sign that it bows, but not unto God:
The potter's mark upon his work to show
It rings well to the striker!"

With what a magnificent pity Gabriel rebukes his fallen com

peer.