the sun for two days; it was very thick, with a heavy sea, and dodging about as we had been among the ice, at the heels of the steamer, our dead reckoning was not very much to be depended upon. The best plan, I thought, would be to stretch away at once clear of the ice, then run up into the latitude of Jan Mayen, and, as soon as we should have reached the parallel of its northern extremity, bear down on the land.' The ship's course was shaped in accordance with this view, and as about mid-day the weather began to moderate, there appeared a prospect of getting on for some time favourably. By four o'clock in the afternoon, they were skimming along on a smooth sea with all sails set; and this state of prosperity continued for the next twenty-four hours. We had made,' says his lordship, 'about eighty knots since parting company with the Frenchman, and it was now time to run down west and pick up the land. Luckily, the sky was pretty clear, and as we sailed on through open water, I really began to think our prospects very brilliant. But about three o'clock on the second day, specks of ice began to flicker here and there on the horizon, then large bulks came floating by in forms as picturesque as ever-one, I particularly remember, a human hand thrust out of the water with outstretched forefinger, as if to warn us against proceeding further until at last the whole sea became clouded with hummocks, that seemed to gather on our path in magical multiplicity. Up to this time, we had seen nothing of the island, yet I knew we must be within a very few miles of it; and now, to make things quite pleasant, there descended upon us a thicker fog than I should have thought the atmosphere capable of sustaining: it seemed to hang in solid festoons from the masts and spars. To say that you could not see your hand, ceased almost to be any longer figurative; even the ice was hid-except those fragments immediately adjacent, whose ghastly brilliancy the mist itself could not quite extinguish, as they glimmered round the vessel like a circle of luminous phantoms. The perfect stillness of the sea and sky added very much to the solemnity of the scene; almost every breath of wind had fallen; scarcely a ripple tinkled against the copper sheathing as the solitary little schooner glided along at the rate of half a knot or so an hour, and the only sound we heard was a distant wash of waters; but whether on a great shore, or along a belt of solid ice, it was impossible to say. At last, about four in the morning, I fancied some change was going to take place; the heavy wreaths of vapour seemed to be imperceptibly separating, and in a few minutes more the solid roof of gray suddenly split asunder, and I beheld through the gap-thousands of feet overhead, as if suspended in the crystal sky-a cone of illuminated snow. 'You can imagine my delight. It was really that of an anchorite catching a glimpse of the seventh heaven. There at last was the long-sought-for mountain actually tumbling down upon our heads. Columbus could not have been more pleased when, after nights of watching, he saw the first fires of a new hemisphere dance upon the water; nor, indeed, scarcely less disappointed at their sudden disappearance than I was, when, after having gone below to wake Sigudr, and tell him we had seen bonâ-fide terra firma, I found, on returning upon deck, that the roof of mist had closed again, and shut out all trace of the transient vision. At last the hour of liberation came a purer light seemed gradually to penetrate the atmosphere; brown turned to gray, and gray to white, and white to transparent blue, until the lost horizon entirely reappeared, except where in one direction an impenetrable veil of haze still hung suspended from the zenith to the sea. Behind that veil I knew must lie Jan Mayen. 'A few minutes more, and slowly, silently, in a manner you could take no count of, its dusky hem first deepened to a violet tinge, then gradually lifting, displayed a long line of coast-in reality but the roots of Beerenberg-dyed of the darkest purple; while, obedient to a common impulse, the clouds that wrapped its summit standing in all the magnificence of his 6870 feet, girdled by a single zone of pearly vapour, from underneath whose floating folds seven enormous glaciers rolled down into the sea! Nature seemed to have turned scene-shifter, so artfully were the phases of this glorious spectacle successively developed. 'Although-by reason of our having hit upon its side instead of its narrow end-the outline of Mount Beerenberg appeared to us more like a sugar-loaf than a spire-broader at the base and rounder at the top than I had imagined-in size, colour, and effect it far surpassed anything I had anticipated. The glaciers were quite an unexpected element of beauty. Imagine a mighty river of as great a volume as the Thames, started down the side of a mountain, bursting over every impediment, whirled into a thousand eddies, tumbling and raging from ledge to ledge in quivering cataracts of foam, then suddenly struck rigid by a power so instantaneous in its action, that even the froth and fleeting wreaths of spray have stiffened to the immutability of sculpture. Unless you had seen it, it would be almost impossible to conceive the strangeness of the contrast between the actual tranquillity of these silent crystal rivers and the violent descending energy impressed upon their exterior. You must remember, too, all this is upon a scale of such prodigious magnitude, that when we succeeded, subsequently, in approaching the spotwhere, with a leap like that of Niagara, one of these glaciers plunges down into the sea-the eye, no longer able to take in its fluvial character, was content to rest in simple astonishment at what then appeared a lucent precipice of gray-green ice, rising to the height of several hundred feet above the masts of the vessel.' As soon as they had got a little over their first feelings of astonishment at the panorama thus suddenly revealed by the lifting of the fog, Lord Dufferin and his companions began to consider what would be the best way of getting to the anchorage on the west side of the island. They were still seven or eight miles from the shore, and the northern extremity of the island, round which they would have to pass, lay about five leagues off, bearing west by north, while between them and the land stretched a continuous breadth of floating ice. We need not detail all the elaborate manoeuvrings by which they worked the vessel among the hummocks; finding, more than once, after making some little progress by arduous efforts, that there was no thoroughfare' in the direction chosen, and nothing was left them but to return back, and try their fortune through some other passage. They could effect no landing on the western coast; they put about and tried the eastern, and had no better success. Worse than this, on attempting to retrace their course, they found themselves in danger of being ice-locked. The wind having shifted, it was now blowing right down the path along which they had picked their way; and in order to return, it would be necessary to work the ship to windward through a sea as thickly crammed with ice as a lady's boudoir is with furniture.' 'Moreover,' says the noble navigator, it had become evident, from the obvious closing of the open spaces, that some considerable pressure was acting upon the outside of the field; but whether originating in a current or the change of wind, or another field being driven down upon it, I could not tell. Be that as it might, out we must get, unless we wanted to be cracked like a walnut-shell between the drifting ice and the solid belt to leeward; so, sending a steady hand to the helm-for these unusual phenomena had begun to make some of my people lose their heads a little, no one on board having ever seen a bit of ice before-I stationed myself in the bows, while Mr Wyse [the sailing-master] conned the vessel from the square-yard. Then there began one of the prettiest and most exciting pieces of nautical manoeuvring that can be imagined. Every single soul on board was summoned upon deck; to all, their several stations and duties were assigned, always excepting the cook, who was merely directed to make himself generally useful. As soon as everybody was ready, down went the helm, about came the ship, and the critical part of the business commenced. Of course, in order to wind and twist the schooner in and out among the devious channels left between the hummocks, it was necessary she should have considerable way on her; at the same time, so narrow were some of the passages, and so sharp their turnings, that unless she had been the most handy vessel in the world, she would have had a very narrow squeak for it. I never saw anything so beautiful as her behaviour. Had she been a living creature, she could not have dodged, and wound, and doubled with more conscious cunning and dexterity; and it was quite amusing to hear the endearing way in which the people spoke to her, each time the nimble creature contrived to elude some more than usually threatening tongue of ice. 'It had become very cold; so cold, indeed, that Mr Wyse-no longer able to keep a clutch of the rigging -had a severe tumble from the yard on which he was standing. The wind was freshening, and the ice was evidently still in motion; but although very anxious to get back again into open water, we thought it would not do to go away without landing, even if it were only for an hour. So having laid the schooner right under the cliff, and putting in the gig our old discarded figure-head, a white ensign, a flag-staff, and a tin biscuit-box, containing a paper on which I had hastily written the schooner's name, the date of her arrival, and the names of all those who sailed on board, we pulled ashore. A ribbon of beach, not more than fifteen yards wide, composed of iron sand, augite, and pyroxene, running along under the basaltic precipice-upwards of a thousand feet high-which serves as a kind of plinth to the mountain, was the only standing-room this part of the island afforded. With considerable difficulty, and after a good hour's climb, we succeeded in dragging the figure-head we had brought on shore with us, up a sloping patch of snow, which lay in a crevice of the cliff, and thence a little higher, to a natural pedestal formed by a broken shaft of rock; where, after having tied the tin box round her neck, and duly planted the white ensign of St George beside her, we left the superseded damsel, somewhat grimly smiling across the frozen ocean at her feet, until some Bacchus of a bear shall come to relieve the loneliness of my wooden Ariadne.' Meeting with nothing of interest, they soon determined to return to the vessel; 'but-so rapidly was the ice drifting down upon the island-we found it had already become doubtful whether we should not have to carry the boat over the patch which, during the couple of hours we had spent on shore, had almost cut her off from access to the water. If this was the case with the gig, it was very evident the quicker we got the schooner out to sea again the better. So immediately we returned on board, having first fired a gun in token of adieu to the desolate land we should never again set foot on, the ship was put about, and our task of working out towards the open water recommenced.' It was a difficult matter to get extricated from the ice; but after many hours' struggling, the little Foam got free from it, and went spanking away at the rate of eight knots an hour in a direct line for Hammerfest-a port which was gained after eight days' sailing, at the rate of 100 miles a day. The reader who has followed us thus far will know as much of Jan Mayen and its history as is known by anybody who has not visited the island. As Lord Dufferin himself only knew of its existence four years before he went in search of it, there can be no reason why anybody should blush for the deficiency of his geographical knowledge, should this be the first time he may have heard of it. Though one of the curiosities of the world, Jan Mayen has been so rarely visited, that few persons, even among arctic mariners, could render any account of it; and the belief has been current in some quarters that for many years it has been wholly inaccessible. M. Babinet, of the French Institute, made a statement to this effect in the Journal des Débats, as lately as the 30th of December 1856-he, apparently, having not then received intelligence of Lord Dufferin's exploit in the previous summer. It is now, however, an established fact that the island can be reached; and it is not unlikely that other spirited yachtsmen, emulating his lordship's bold example, will seek a new excitement in making it the object of some of their seafaring excursions. A CHEAP TRAIN. 'WELL, Fred., and where are you going to? You're never very locomotive, I know; but you're surely never intending to run yourself to seed here all the autumn, browsing, Nebuchadnezzarlike, among the grass crops of modern Babylon, in September.' The speaker was my friend Mr Spooner; the occasion, an evening visit with which he favoured me, in Pumphandle Court, in the early part of the present month. The air of quiet self-complacency with which this rather flippant address was associated, induced me to surmise that its object was rather to elicit some evidence of curiosity on my part as to his own plans, than to obtain information in regard to mine; and I rejoined, therefore, in the true spirit of friendship, by a similar inquiry. 'Well, do you know, I rather think of cutting over to Paris by "the cheap train," was the reply, enunciated with a glibness which agreeably confirmed my impression of my own sagacity. 'It's too late for Scotland'-this was a piece of gentle swagger, Mr Spooner's foot never having pressed the 'native hills' of the grouse in his life, and his acquaintance with that bird being exclusively a dinner-table one-' and too early for Brighton; and I've got an odd ten-pound note, with which I calculate—with management and economy, and that's the true secret of enjoyment, mind you-I shall be able to knock out a fortnight very jolly.' Never having had the good-fortune to perceive in my acquaintance with my friend, any particular evidence that management and economy were his peculiar forte, my curiosity as to his plans was rather awakened. 'Yes, I've got a return-ticket-two pound there and back, or something of that sort; third class and a carpet-bag, you know. Nobody knows me; and I'm not proud,' he continued-rather defiantly, it struck me, for so true a philosopher. 'Bedroom in the marais. Breakfast, a cup of coffee and some fried potatoes. Palais Royal dinner, two francs fifty, with half a bottle of "Macon vieux," eh! and the thing's done, you know. As for amusement, bless you, I shan't want any knocking about. They translate so close up in England now-a-days, that there'll be nothing at the theatres I shan't be able to see here between now and January, with the advantage of understanding it; and there's the Louvre and the singing cafés, and lots of fun to be had in Paris for nothing.' A recollection of an amiable weakness on my friend's part for little dinners, and the relaxations, not always inexpensive, of Cremorne and M. Laurent's conversazioni, induced me the more highly to appreciate the self-denial with which he proposed to associate the enjoyment of foreign travel; and after I had inspected his passport, which, embellished and ratified as it was by two engraved coats of arms, and the signature of Lord Clarendon's private secretary, he appeared to regard as a sort of pocket palladium-our colloquy terminated. A few days ago, I chanced to encounter Mr Spooner at a popular dining establishment on the confines of Westendia, and was gratified to observe, from a downy moustache, and a new scarf-pin of unmistakably Parisian origin, that the proposed trip had been duly accomplished. Ah, Fred.,' he observed, when he saw me, 'shady place this, after Vefour's and the Café de Paris. Pretty notions we have of dining in England. Waiter! look here-get me some more saddle of mutton, and the currant jelly, and a pint of Bordeaux.' 'It's ill talking,' says the proverb, 'between a full man and a fasting;' so having completed my own modest two shillings' worth, I proposed hearing the details of my friend's excursion when he had completed his, and adjourned to the smoking-room, whither he soon followed me. 'By Jove, Fred., this won't do, mind ye, after Philippe's: I can't stand this two-shilling business now; as for the Bordeaux, it's not drinkable. Bonaparte, Hannibal, or whoever it was, might have cut through Mont St Bernard with it. It's as sour as vinegar, I give you my honour; it's only fit to make salad dressing or sauce piquante.' I hinted that the choice vintages of France, of which he seemed to have acquired so keen an appreciation, were not as yet attainable in this country at three shillings a bottle; and then inquired the particulars of his trip, the economy of which impressed me the more from the valuable experiences in re prandiariá which, notwithstanding, he appeared to have derived from it. I give them, to do him justice, in his own words. 'Well, sir, I started the morning after I saw you, and got down to Boulogne very jolly by the middle of the day.' I had thought the 'cheap train' went by the Dieppe or Newhaven route. 'Well, yes. But you see, when it came to the point, I thought, you know, that what with the time it would take on the journey, and the additional eating and drinking-we must consider all these things-I shouldn't save much; so I sold my ticket to Tom Wye or Wake for a pound, and concluded to go down comfortable,' 'I see. First class-express.' 'Yes. I wanted, besides, to see Amiens cathedral, which I should have missed by the other routes.' Mr Spooner, I feel bound to remark, had never before evinced, to my knowledge, the most remote interest in or desire to make himself acquainted with the mysteries of church architecture. 'Well,' he continued, 'I got down very well, and, mind you, it's much the pleasantest way of doing the thing, put up at the Hôtel des Bains, and had a stunning fricandeau and a bottle of Burgundy. Better for a fellow to begin with Burgundy before he gets on to claret; and Beaune's a good half-way house between sherry and Château Lafitte.' I admired my friend's perspicacity; told him so, and he continued. 'Well, sir, I started for Paris the next morning.' "Third class?' "Why, no. I had fully intended now to have begun economising; but the fact is, I travelled from London with some remarkably nice people, who were going to winter at Rome; and after passing one day with the family, I couldn't make up my mind to the society for the next of the courier and lady's-maid. Besides, upon consideration, I thought it better not to fatigue myself. There's no economy, you know, in a fellow fatiguing himself; and as they charge extra for luggage, and allow you precious little in the third class, that, you see, would have made a difference.' "To the family who were going to winter at Rome, I dare say; but you were only going to take a carpetbag, weren't you?' 'Well, I was; but I thought, upon consideration, I had better go comfortable, and a fellow must have clothes wherever he is; so I got some new toggery, and a box or two of cigars-for there's no standing those five sous weeds in Paris-so that what with one thing and what with another, I had rather more luggage than I had intended.' 'And Amiens cathedral?' 'Oh! I was obliged to cut that, and got into Paris about six o'clock, after a remarkably pleasant day with the remarkably pleasant family. Pater familias very civil, and said they should be happy to renew the acquaintance. Uncommon nice connection, mind you, and worth the difference between first and third class fare any day.' 'Perhaps so, if the family had been going to winter in London instead of Rome. As it was, the investment was perhaps hardly so good. However, get on.' 'When I got to Paris, I cut 'em, and determined then to begin doing the economical. By the way, they were no end of civil at Boulogne about the cigars. Depend upon it, if I had not been travelling like a gentleman, I should have had nobody knows what duty to pay for 'em at the custom-house, and there would have been a further expense. True economy, my dear Fred., must be discriminating.' I yielded my fullest concurrence to this proposition. 'Well, sir, I soon routed out a cheap hotel; and thus ended my second day.' Mr Spooner now fell to his Bordeaux, the demerits of which he had apparently forgotten, and then continued: 'I was up pretty early the next morning, and paid my hotel bill.' 'Cheap?' Well, 'Well, to say the truth, it wasn't. I suspect, if you are vagabondising for only a night at an hotel, the best is the best; but one must carry out one's principles.' 'With discrimination,' I ventured to suggest. 'Quite so. With discrimination, of course. the next day I devoted to lodging-hunting, and a pretty turn I had of it, for I was resolved now to begin to economise, and secure the right thing cheap, you know. At length, I hit upon it; and after nearly losing the thing by sticking out for attendance included, found myself the proprietor of an apartment with a sloping roof, a cracked glass over the chimney-piece, a cracked marble table, a cracked marble washing-stand, a bed with a game leg, and a chiffonnier that wouldn't shut-for seven francs a week. Not bad that, I think.' 'Economical enough, in all conscience. What then?' "Why, then, I went off to the Palais Royal to get some dinner.' 'I see two francs fifty!' 'Well, I had intended; but it was rather late for Richard's, and having unluckily to pass the Trois Frères Provençaux' "You very naturally turned in there.' 'Why, to confess the truth, I did, for having, you see, made such a cheap arrangement for my lodging, I thought I might indulge a little.' Exactly: bisque and a cutlet à la Provençale. "Well, something of the kind, I must admit.' And a plomberie, perhaps, with a little dry Silleri! 'Well, I had a little ice-pudding and some champagne, certainly.' 'To be sure. And then?' 'Nothing else, upon my honour, except a little Chambertin to top up with, and some black coffee and maraschino. Home to bed, and spoiled a new hat, by the way, against the ceiling going in.' 'So much for the economy of a mansarde at seven francs a week; but the principle is the thing.' The further detail of Mr Spooner's experiences, though interesting to me, might scarcely prove as entertaining to the world at large. Suffice it to say, that they all exhibited more or less the same disproportionate mixture of the mean and the magnificent; the same cheap train' of idea, and profusion in practice, with which he seemed to have initiated them. His home for the day had cost him a franc; his dinner, ten! He had economised, by avoiding the Italian Opera, to spend twice the saving in bouquets and pistol-shots at the Salle Valentino! He had expended as much in overproof brandy, which made him ill, to | see nothing of life, at a dingy wine-shop in the Rue Traversine, as would have given him a very fair glimpse of its reality at the Variétés! He had not been able to join three English friends at an excursion to Versailles, because he had treated as many Frenchmen, whom he knew and cared nothing about, to supper and rum-punch the night before at the Bal Bullien. How Mr Spooner wrote home for some more money on the Friday of his first week, fasting that day, and indeed the following, with a severity which would doubtless have infinitely gratified the ecclesiastical authorities of the district, it is painful to me to record; how, upon his 'resumption of cash-payments,' he revelled afterwards, I need not detail. Suffice it to say, that he arrived at London Bridge on the tenth day from that on which he had taken leave of it, with only a twenty centime piece in his pocket, and disturbed the parental home ungracefully at two o'clock in the morning for the payment of his cab. 'And what's the dreariest part of the whole thing, Fred.,' my friend concluded, 'I don't think somehow, upon my honour, that I really enjoyed myself. I don't know how it was, but I suspect that I got wrong at the beginning, and was never able somehow to work round again. It's a bad plan, mark ye, for a fellow to alter his arrangements when he has once made them. I do believe-I give you my word-that if it hadn't been for the going down first class, in the first instance, I should have done the thing as I told you with the ten pounds, and jolly too!' During the enjoyment of the solitary half hour which succeeded the conversation I have detailed, I endeavoured to reduce Mr Spooner's experiences to something like a principle, which resolved itself finally into this that nothing in life is easier than a 'cheap train' of ideas, but that its development into the desirable results which are its ultimate object, can only be secured by as much careful forethought and practical self-denial as are required for other things. Sure it seemed to me that the best designs for economy on the occasion of an autumn tour or any other, if not carried out practically ab initio, are scarcely likely to develop themselves subsequently, such operations of nature, like most others, bearing fruit of the seed originally sown after its kind.' Mr Spooner, though not wiser than his neighboursand there was probably no reason why he should be so -was perhaps, after all, not much less wise than many of them. Half the world of us who do claim to see a little beyond our noses, are as prolific in 'cheap trains' of idea born to die, as that honest but unsuccessful young philosopher. Edwin and Angelina, for instance, agreeing that it is not worth while to wait any longer and quite right too-make their start in life with 'cheap trains' illimitable of ideal economy; commencing with a wedding which, for luxury of detail, might serve as a prelude to L.3000 a year instead of L.300; and appliances for the adornment and glorification of "The Hermitage, Kensington Gravel Pits,' which would not discredit the 'splendid family mansion, adapted to a nobleman or gentleman,' in Palace Gardens, to which they are not without hopes-for these are days of ambition-of some day attaining, and which they are inaugurating a system of life so ingeniously calculated to secure. Alas! the twelvemonth is not over before Angelina, with modes enough in her trousseau to furnish a shop, is sighing over the labours of a home-made bassinet; and Edwin, regardless of the delight of the Hermitage, is converting that bower of bliss into a pandemonium to himself and everybody else, because butcher's meat is ninepence a pound instead of sevenpence. With ten years more experience, we shall find the gentle pair developing the more matured views of the same system of domestic economy, by giving careful dinners, which you and I who eat them know they cannot afford, and saving to make up for them by the educational establishments of Monsieur Patois and Madame Paillon, Rue des Enfants Trouvés, Boulogne-sur-Mer, where there are no extras, few holidays, and the living is as light as the terms, for Frank and Fanny. While further still, could we penetrate the mists of half a century, we might see them, though Soon that year maun come Will bring 'em to their last, developing further fruits of the seed originally sown ' after its kind,' as full of project for the little time remaining for practice, as when they were first acquent-just beginning to suspect, perhaps, like Mr Spooner, when the mischief is done, that they had got wrong at the beginning, and were unable somehow to work round again;' surmising their want of wisdom; resolving and re-resolving to end as they commenced. Here I was awakened from my day-dreaming by the waiter putting the gas out; and upon calling for my bill, discovered that while moralising upon the fallibility of resolution of Mr Spooner and humanity in general, I had extended the single cigar, to which I had vowed to confine myself, into a plurality, upon the precise extent of which, as I am giving up smoking, I refrain from expatiating; and my modest cup of coffee into more of the agreeable summer beverage which my friend had so emphatically denounced, than, unless I develop my own cheap trains' of idea a little more practically, the wisdom arising from them is ever likely to pay for. ALEXANDER SMITH'S CITY POEMS.'* WHEN a poet's first book has been very successful, his second is hardly likely to get justice done to it. He is held responsible for all the exaggeration of enthusiastic admirers, who inevitably lead the way for disappointed purchasers. His claims are sternly challenged by all those whose dissenting voices were drowned in the general applause, and who have been lying in wait for any turn of the tide. Then, each of the various sections of the public, who supported the new author for the promise they found in his book, expects as a matter of course that he will fulfil his promise in their special direction, and according to their personal choice; whereas he must go his own way, and if he has made progress, and does not repeat himself, it will be in a new direction. The result is certain; his new strain will be responded to by a chorus of disappointment, and the author will be abused for not doing what he was expected to do, rather than fairly judged by what City Poems. By Alexander Smith. Cambridge: Macmillan & Co. 1857. he has done. Mr Smith's second venture was especially perilous, he had so large an amount of success to answer for. A poet whose first volume sold 10,000 copies at home, and 30,000 abroad, is not likely to come off scot-free a second time. Nevertheless, we believe that in the minds of all calm judges and fair dealers, these City Poems will be considered far superior to the Life Drama, and will win for their author more real honour. The detraction they have drawn down upon him will work less harm than did the loud folly of the injudicious and unskilled critics of his earlier effort. The vagueness of the Life Drama became in the minds of many synonymous with vastness, and with such the present poems will appear poor in comparison, precisely because they are more within bounds. Those who overrated the one, will underrate the other. But vagueness is not necessarily vastness, and law is a far higher thing than lawlessness. Similes, images, and jewels might have been gathered from the Life Drama as the Carthaginians gathered rings from the battle-field of Cannæ, by the bushelful, so great was their profusion. These are used more sparingly in the City Poems, but with a far truer effect. The manner of the writer is much less spasmodic, by which we mean less sudden in transition from thought to thought, and from thing to thing. There is more homogeneity of style; greater mastery has rendered it malleable. And instead of our being so often blinded with a whirlwind of gold-dust, we see the gold flowing into form, calm, and sometimes strong, and often splendid. The author comes nigher to the business and the bosoms of men who think and suffer. The heat of passion is more covered in, and breaks out less in fancies of fire. Throughout, the poems impress us as being the work of a man who is honestly trying to do his best in all matters wherein he has any choice. He has pruned his lavish leafage and rank overgrowth, checked many extravagant tendencies, curbed his Pegasus when wantonly wayward or in a voluptuous vein; and for these things he is to be commended and encouraged. Many of his earlier admirers will desert him because he has not out-heroded Herod in the spasmodic sublime. They have yet to learn what Mr Smith appears to have learned, that the subtlest and deepest things in poetry do not leave us blinded, but illumined-not breathlessly startled so much as quietly content. He can afford to forego their cheers, having chosen the worthier way to fame, to be followed by the approbation of the wiser few. The great want of the new book is the want of new and varied experience of life. This is unfortunate, but no personal fault. A man who is not yet twenty-seven, and who is only just married, is not expected to reproduce the whole round of human experience. What we urge is, that he has done the best he could do for the time being, acquired more knowledge, purified his thinking, chastened his expression, and altogether improved his art; so that, when the new experience comes, as come it will with coming years, he can transmute it into song with a perfecter freedom, and a larger power. With regard to the cry of plagiarism which has been raised, we have only to say, that it might be raised against the most original poet that ever lived. All young poets reproduce, more or less, the thoughts and images of others. Mr Smith has done this not more than many others, only his 'private eating' has been obvious. The young writer does not consciously take possession of the thoughts of others, so much as they unconsciously take possession of him, and compel him to reproduce them, in the faith that they are his own. He has so thoroughly felt them that they become, in fact, his own. Still, many of the thoughts and images in the Life Drama, which have been attributed to Wordsworth, Keats, and Tennyson, do not specially belong to those poets, having been used by others The past is very tender at my heart; I went aside and read each faded page Then, again, we are reminded that few things can be finer than the conclusion of the following lines, although it does not startle us with surprise, but satisfies us with its sweetness: Here is truc thought admirably expressed; musical in its movement, and beautiful in its repose: We sit together at a rich man's feast, |