had the succeeding words been " government seems one of the fine arts "; but, as the sentence stands, "With Mr. Southey" is demanded. "Southey," too, being the principal subject of the paragraph, should precede "government," which is mentioned only in its relation to Southey. "One of the fine arts" is pleonastic, since the phrase conveys nothing more than " fine art" would convey.

The second sentence is quite as faulty. Here Southey loses his precedence as the subject; and thus the "He" should follow "a theory," "a public measure," etc. By "religion" is meant a "creed "; this latter word should therefore be used. The conclusion of the sentence is very awkward. Southey is said to judge of a peace or a war, etc., as men judge of a picture or a statue, and the words which succeed are intended to explain how men judge of a picture or a statue. These words should, therefore, run thus: "by the effect produced on their imaginations." "Produced," moreover, is neither so exact nor so "English" wrought." In saying that Southey judges of a political party, etc., as men judge of a picture, etc., Southey is quite excluded from the category of "men." "Other men," was no doubt originally written, but "other" erased, on account of the "other men " occurring in the sentence below.

as

Coming to the last, we find that " a chain of associations " is not properly paralleled by " a chain of reason

ing." We must say either "a chain of association," to meet the "reasoning," or "a chain of reasons," to meet the "associations." The repetition of “what” is awkward and unpleasant. The entire paragraph should be thus remodelled:

"With Southey, governing is a fine art. Of a theory or a public measure-of a creed, a political party, a peace or a war-he judges by the imaginative effect as only such things as pictures or statues are judged of by other men. What to them a chain of reasoning is, to him is a chain of association; and, as to his opinions, they are nothing but his tastes."

The blemishes in the paragraph about Byron are more negative than those in the paragraph about Southey. The first sentence needs vivacity. The adjective" opposite " is superfluous; so is the particle "there." The second and third sentences are, properly, one. "Some" would fully supply the place of "something of." The whole phrase," which he possessed over others," is supererogatory. "Was sprung," in place of "sprang," is altogether unjustifiable. The triple repetition of "and," in the fourth sentence, is awkward. "Notorious crimes and follies" would express all that is implied in "crimes and follies which had attained a scandalous publicity." The fifth sentence might be well curtailed; and as it stands has

"Intellect "

an unintentional and unpleasant sneer. would do as well as "intellectual powers"; and this (the sixth) sentence might otherwise be shortened advantageously. The whole paragraph, in my opinion, would be better thus expressed:

"In Lord Byron's rank, understanding, character, even in person, we find a strange union of extremes. Whatever men covet and admire became his by right of birth; yet debasement and misery were mingled with each of his eminent advantages. He sprang from a house, ancient, it is true, and noble, but degraded and impoverished by a series of notorious crimes. But for merciful judges, the pauper kinsman whom he succeeded would have been hanged. The young peer had an intellect great, perhaps, yet partially unsound. His heart was generous, but his temper wayward; and while statuaries copied his head, beggars mimicked the deformity of his foot."

In these remarks, my object is not so much to point out inaccuracies in the most accurate stylist of his age as to hint that our critics might surpass him on his own ground, and yet leave themselves something to learn in the moralities of manner.

Nothing can be plainer than that our position, as a literary colony of Great Britain, leads us into wronging, indirectly, our own authors by exaggerating the

merits of those across the water. Our most reliable critics extol-and extol without discrimination such English compositions as, if written in America, would be either passed over without notice or unscrupulously condemned. Mr. Whipple, for example, whom I have mentioned in this connection with Mr. Jones, is decidedly one of our most "reliable" critics. His honesty I dispute as little as I doubt his courage or his talents; but here is an instance of the want of common discrimination into which he is occasionally hurried by undue reverence for British intellect and British opinion. In a review of the Drama of Exile, and Other Poems, by Miss Barrett (now Mrs. Browning), he speaks of the following passage as "in every respect faultless sublime":

Hear the steep generations how they fall
Adown the visionary stairs of Time,
Like supernatural thunders-far yet near,
Sowing their fiery echoes through the hills!

Now here, saying nothing of the affectation in "adown," not alluding to the insoluble paradox of "far yet near," not mentioning the inconsistent metaphor involved in the sowing of fiery echoes, adverting but slightly to the misusage of "like" in place of "as," and to the impropriety of making anything fall like thunder, which has never been known to fall at all, merely hinting, too, at the misapplication of

"steep " to the "generations" instead of to the "stairs" (a perversion in no degree justified by the fact that so preposterous a figure as synecdoche exists in the schoolbooks),—letting these things pass, we shall still find it difficult to understand how Mrs. Browning should have been led to think that the principal idea itself—the abstract idea, the idea of tumbling down stairs, in any shape, or under any circumstances— either a poetical or a decorous conception. And yet Mr. Whipple speaks of it as "sublime." That the lines narrowly missed sublimity, I grant; that they came within a step of it, I admit; but, unhappily, the step is that one step which, time out of mind, has intervened between the sublime and the ridiculous. true is this that any person-that even I—with a very partial modification of the imagery, a modification that shall not interfere with its richly spiritual tone, may elevate the passage into unexceptionability. For example:

Hear the far generations-how they crash

From crag from crag down the precipitous Time,

In multitudinous thunders that upstartle
Aghast, the echoes from their cavernous lairs

In the visionary hills!

So

No doubt my version has its faults; but it has at least the merit of consistency. Not only is a mountain more poetical than a pair of stairs, but echoes are more