of separation, by the intensity and sincerity of the Truth enforced.

This position has been contested by Sydney Smith in two lectures on Wit and Humour delivered at the Royal Institution in 1804. He there boldly affirms that he knew no single passage in any author that was "at once beautiful and witty." Sydney Smith was able to adduce several passages in support of his assertion, where the wit was more prominent than the beauty, and neutralised its effect. He urges, with reason, that the Latin line on the Miracle at Cana

Nympha pudica Deum vidit, et erubuit

is witty, but not sublime-the sublimity being killed by
the wit. But a larger range of investigation would
assuredly have modified his judgment. For even his
own chosen examples are not all conclusive.
He cites,
for instance, the familiar couplet from "Lochiel's Warn-
ing "

'Tis the sunset of life gives one mystical lore,
And coming events cast their shadow before-

Mr.

and avers that this ceases to be witty, just because it is mysterious and morally striking. But it would be at least as fair to argue that the wit, such as it is, enforces and fixes in memory the mystical lesson. A finer and more accomplished critic than Sydney Smith has, however, in our own day, been perplexed by this juxtaposition of wit and pathos in a favourite poem of Hood's. Francis Palgrave, in the original issue of his Golden Treasury, was so far offended by the middle stanzas of "The Death-Bed," as to omit them bodily; and to explain in his notes that they were "ingenious," and that ingenuity and poetry were mutually destructive. As to one of these stanzas:

Our very hopes belied our fears,

Our fears our hopes belied—

We thought her dying when she slept,
And sleeping when she died-

most of Hood's readers would reply that the poignancy of the pathos is heightened by the so-called "conceit" and that the use of it is just not "ingenious" because it is based upon absolute fidelity to nature. By a happy coincidence, in the same volume Mr. Palgrave has preserved, without any change, a second poem of Hood's, to which the same objection might as well have been taken. In the verses beginning—

I remember, I remember,

The house where I was born

the writer, recalling the poplar trees which surrounded his father's homestead, adds

I used to think their slender tops

Were close against the sky:

It was a childish ignorance,

But now 'tis little joy,

To know I'm farther off from Heaven
Than when I was a boy.

This is unquestionably witty, but it is also unquestionably beautiful; for in this instance, as in the former, the wit is subordinate to the deeper human interest, and is felt to be so by the reader. It is only fair to Mr. Palgrave to add, that he long ago restored the missing stanzas to the former poem, and has thus left his delightful volume without its solitary flaw.

The blending of poetry and wit is therefore common to Hood with many of his predecessors; but he was the first to make the more daring venture of employing verbal wit-the pun-in serious verse, and justifying it by its results; and this, too, in poems where the interest is purely pathetic. In Hood's mixed poems, such as "Miss Kilmansegg," this form of wit is deliberately employed throughout; and the puns in that poem display an amazing combination of humour and fancy. They display also that quality, in which Hood's puns are unique, of falling naturally into their places, as if they had met the writer on his road, rather than been sought

TO HOPE.

OH! take, young Seraph, take thy harp,
And play to me so cheerily ;
For grief is dark, and care is sharp,
And life wears on so wearily.
Oh! take thy harp!

Oh! sing as thou wert wont to do,
When, all youth's sunny season long,
I sat and listen'd to thy song,
And yet 'twas ever, ever new,
With magic in its heaven-tuned string-
The future bliss thy constant theme.
Oh! then each little woe took wing
Away, like phantoms of a dream;
As if each sound

That flutter'd round,

Had floated over Lethe's stream!

By all those bright and happy hours

We spent in life's sweet eastern bow'rs,
Where thou wouldst sit and smile, and show,

Ere buds were come, where flowers would blow,
And oft anticipate the rise

Of life's warm sun that scaled the skies;

By many a story of love and glory,

And friendships promised oft to me;
By all the faith I lent to thee,-

Oh! take, young Seraph, take thy harp,
And play to me so cheerily;

B

For grief is dark, and care is sharp,
And life wears on so wearily.
Oh! take thy harp!

Perchance the strings will sound less clear,
That long have lain neglected by
In sorrow's misty atmosphere;

It ne'er may speak as it hath spoken

Such joyous notes so brisk and high; But are its golden chords all broken? Are there not some, though weak and low, To play a lullaby to woe?

But thou canst sing of love no more,

For Celia show'd that dream was vain; And many a fancied bliss is o'er,

That comes not e'en in dreams again.
Alas! alas!

How pleasures pass,

And leave thee now no subject, save
The peace and bliss beyond the grave!

Then be thy flight among the skies:

Take, then, oh! take the skylark's wing, And leave dull earth, and heaven ward rise O'er all its tearful clouds, and sing On skylark's wing!

Another life-spring there adorns

Another youth-without the dread Of cruel care, whose crown of thorns

Is here for manhood's aching head. Oh! there are realms of welcome day, A world where tears are wiped away! Then be thy flight among the skies:

Take, then, oh! take the skylark's wing, And leave dull earth, and heavenward rise O'er all its tearful clouds, and sing

On skylark's wing!

THE DEPARTURE OF SUMMER

SUMMER is gone on swallows' wings,
And Earth has buried all her flowers:
No more the lark,—the linnet-sings,
But Silence sits in faded bowers.
There is a shadow on the plain
Of Winter ere he comes again,—
There is in woods a solemn sound
Of hollow warnings whisper'd round,
As Echo in her deep recess

For once had turn'd a prophetess.
Shuddering Autumn stops to list,
And breathes his fear in sudden sighs,
With clouded face, and hazel eyes
That quench themselves, and hide in mist.

Yes, Summer's gone like pageant bright;
Its glorious days of golden light
Are gone the mimic suns that quiver,
Then melt in Time's dark-flowing river.
Gone the sweetly-scented breeze
That spoke in music to the trees;
Gone for damp and chilly breath,
As if fresh blown o'er marble seas,
Or newly from the lungs of Death.
Gone its virgin roses' blushes,
Warm as when Aurora rushes
Freshly from the God's embrace,

With all her shame upon her face.
Old Time hath laid them in the mould;
Sure he is blind as well as old,

Whose hand relentless never spares
Young cheeks so beauty-bright as theirs!
Gone are the flame-eyed lovers now
From where so blushing-blest they tarried