ration of the peculiarities of all his former efforts. It is as full of political prejudices, and partisan advocacy as any of his parliamentary speeches. It makes the facts of English history as fabulous as his lays do those of Roman tradition, and it is written with as captious, as dogmatical, and as cynical a spirit as the bitterest of his reviews."

We have only one word of advice to Mr. Croker, let him set to work and write the History of England, and shame Mr. Macaulay to the end of time. Let him do this, so that all future critics may say as they turn from Croker to Macaulay,

"Look on this picture and on that,

Hyperion to a satyr."

We are inclined to hope that the satyrical Croker will take the advice we tender him, and devote himself henceforth to the truth of history.

A little anecdote of the great critic of the "Quarterly" is not out of place here. Some few years ago, the Review in question now and then executed a poet for the especial delight of their readers; Tennyson, Browning, Keats, and others scarcely less illustrious, have been gibbeted (fortunately only in effigy,) from their new patent drop, the Jack Ketch being Mr. Croker. It reached Mr. Allan Cunningham's ears that the Maid of Elvar, his poetical child, was to undergo capital punishment in the forthcoming number of the Review. The indignant bard, who was a stalwart man of above six feet, with an arm accustomed to wield the mason's mallet, intimated to Mr. Croker that the day after the publication of the attack he would personally chastise him. The valorous Rigby was alarmed, but having announced a "slashing poetical article," he substituted the meek and small Moxon for the gigantic Highlander, who was equally good as a sculptor and a pugilist.

"In her ear he whispers gayly,

If my heart by signs can tell,
Maiden, I have watched thee daily,
And I think thou lov'st me well.

She replies in accents fainter

There is none I love like thee,'
He is but a landscape painter
And a village maiden she.

He to lips that fondly falter
Presses his without reproof,
Leads her to the village altar,

And they leave her father's roof.

I can make no marriage present,
Little can I give my wife,

Love can make our cottage pleasant,
And I love thee more than life.

They by parks and lodges going,
See the lordly castles stand;
Summer woods about them blowing,
Made a murmur in the land.

From deep thought himself he rouses,
Says to her that loves him well,
Let us see these handsome houses,
Where the wealthy nobles dwell.

So she goes, by him attended,

Hears him lovingly converse,
Sees whatever fair and splendid

Lay betwixt his home and hers.

Parks, with oak and chestnut shady,
Parks and ordered gardens great,
Ancient homes of lord and lady,

Built for pleasure and for state.

All he shows her makes him dearer,

Evermore she seems to gaze

On that cottage growing nearer,

Where they twain will spend their days."

Our space will not allow us to quote the entire ballad: we must, therefore, refer our readers to the volume.

A disproportioned marriage becomes beautified and raised for ever on a pedestal, even as the sculptor's hand takes a common block of marble and turns it into a Venus de Medicis, or a Greek Slave.

Let us select another every day fact, the desertion of a trusting girl by her lover, and the revenge of her friend or sister; the magic garment is on, and it is transfigured to an admiring posterity: we shall allude again to this poem as elucidating or illustrating another phase of the poet's mind.

THE SISTERS.

"We were two daughters of one race,

She was the fairest in the face:

The wind is blowing in turret and tree

They were together and she fell—
Therefore revenge became me well-
O the Earl was fair to see.

She died-she went to burning flame,
She mixed her ancient blood with shame :

The wind is howling in turret and tree-
Whole weeks and months, and early and late,
To win his love, I lay in wait—

O the Earl was fair to see.

I made a feast, I bade him come,

I won his love, I brought him home:

The wind is roaring in turret and tree

And after supper, on a bed,
Upon my lap he laid his head

O the Earl was fair to see.

I kissed his eyelids into rest-
His ruddy cheek upon my breast:

The wind is raging in turret and tree

I hated him with the hate of hell,
But I loved his beauty passing well-
O the Earl was fair to see.

went to the tomb of the Capulets for want of a physical Romeo. We fear it will be found to be the verdict of the public, that the author of Sordello is a noble abstraction; a great spirit, but he lacks the flesh and blood of Shakspere, and the milk of human kindness.

Four years afterwards Sordello astonished his friends, and amazed the world-of this work we shall speak more anon, contenting ourselves here with the relation of an anecdote we heard of Douglas Jerrold, when the work first appeared. This distinguished contributor to Punch was recruiting himself at Brighton after a long illness. In the progress of his convalescence a parcel arrived from London, which contained, among other things, this new volume of Sordello; the medical attendant had forbidden Mr. Jerrold the luxury of reading, but, owing to the absence of his conjugal "life guards" he indulged in the illicit enjoyment.

A few lines put Jerrold in a state of alarm. Sentence after sentence brought no consecutive thought to his brain. At last the idea crossed his mind that in his illness his mental faculties had been wrecked. The perspiration rolled from his forehead, and smiting his head, he sat down in his sofa, crying, "O, God, I am an idiot!" When his wife and her sister came, they were amused by his pushing the volume into their hands, and demanding what they thought of it. He watched them intently while they read-at last his wife said: I don't understand what the man means; it is gibberish. The delighted humorist sank in his seat again: "thank God I am not an idiot." Mr. Browning, to whom we told this, has often laughed over it, and then endeavored to show that Sordello was the clearest and most simple poem in the English language. We know only one person who pretends to understand Sordello, and this is Mrs. Marston, the poet's wife.

Mr. Browning's next work was Pippa Passes, the first of a series which he has called "Bells and Pomegranates." Here begins the real poetic life of Browning, so far as the public know him, and out

of these singular productions we hope to justify our faith to the world. The idea of Pippa, a poor factory girl, purifying human nature as she passes about on her vocation, is a fine conception, and it is to be lamented that it is not made so intelligible to the common mind as to be capable of a wider appreciation. To the poet, however, it remains what Keats said of Beauty, "a joy for ever." After a time Mr. Macready produced another play, and the reception which the Blot in the 'Scutcheon had at Drury Lane in 1843, and at Sadler's Wells in 1848, seems to justify the current opinion that the author is only a dramatist for the poet and the critic. He cannot touch the hearts of the million. That he abounds in the esthetic, may be presumed, but the world at large care little for the subtler and more minute workings of the human heart. They demand a broader, wider range, a rougher "guess" at their nature; when it is borne in mind how many words are not heard in a large theatre; how few of the actors know how to deliver a speech intelligibly; it is evident that a tortuous, obscure and condensed style must be so much Greek to a mixed audience who hear a drama for the first time; when, however, you add to these disadvantages, a plot not springing from the every day impulses of the heart, but evolved from some peculiar idiosyncracy of the mind, it is evident you make a very fatiguing and ingenious puzzle, and not a drama to move our tears or smiles. A rapid comparison between three acted dramatists may help the reader to a somewhat better idea of Mr. Browning's "fallings short" in this particular.

While Mr. Browning's plays are chiefly metaphysical or psychological dialogues continued until one of the speakers falls a victim to some special peculiarity, which concludes the affair:—while Mr. Marston takes some common-place wrong, or makes the hero, who is going to redress the evil, some minor poet, who invariably manages to break his own heart and the reader's patience; Mr. Sheridan Knowles goes altogether to the other side of the question.