frame. They have mighty thoughts and deep; the deep thoughts often cross each other, and re-cross in their tumultuous lights and shades, till the man is vanquished by the over-forces of his own mind: they see mighty phantasies and shapes; and the vision and the image rule over the man. Does he dream? No, he wakes; he has awakened to more things than his fellows. Is he mad, or of intellect unsound? Not so; for he sees clearly and knows that his mystery is but some excess in the common mystery of all life, and that he is but a troubled human creature; a frame-work troubled by some rebounding and imprisoned spirit within, that seeks for freedom in the illimitable air and in the illimitable light, not as a mere wild voyage to regions where he would be altogether strange and confounded, but as though by a sense of birth-right in these intolerable desires. But time moves on-the wheels of the years pass over the head and face turned star-ward,—and the man finds that he will assuredly be, some day old. He is but where he was when he first commenced this upwardlooking, these aspirations to infinity. His thoughts now slowly recoil and revolve inwardly, and his visions gather closer round him. He seeks a sublime result for that within, which is denied to him from without. He places the images of his mind in order, even as a man before the death of his mortality arraigneth his house: and finally he is no longer vanquished by his thoughts, but fixes and rules over the vision and the dream. Here then he finds some solace for his yearings; he no longer seeks to disperse himself, but to collect; no longer to revel in the arms of bright and unattainable desires, but to build. And the condition of this man's mind is that of creative passion.

"But to the store-house of the world, and to the things of worth for man's largest use and benefit, his soul's sake and body's sake, of what value is this creative passion? Can it take us up into the blessed air beside it, or help us to ride with it triumphant upon the triumphant winds? Or can it come down to us on earth, and if so, with what benefit to those who need help? How shall we perceive and feel it? How know it, how take it to heart and use it, as an incentive to hope, a refuge for sorrow, or an influence to elevate, and a medium to bring good tidings to mankind? Of what value to us shall be a palace of of mighty voices, and echoes from mightier worlds, if we have no fair entrance porch, or if, having entered, we cannot distinguish the passages and step-flights from the pillars and the walls, nor the right shape of anything, nor the clear interpretation of any voice or echo?

"Out of these wild imaginations, these ungoverned and formless phantasies, these outrages to common sense, which heated brains call genius or inspiration, we must seek to free ourselves. Should we not call in the aid of calm reason? Must we not command all these passionate emotions and imaginings by erecting a glacier in the midst, at the summit of which sound sense shall sit upon his judgment throne?

"There sits Sound Sense upon his throne! He is at the same altitude as those fantastic dreams and fiery emotions which he is to govern. Yet a little while he sits; not haughtily, but with a sober pride. And behold!—his throne is sinking-it surely is sinking!-the crowned perfection is sinking lower and lower the glacier is dissolving at the base-the passions are cruelly hot—the summit of his glacier has now dropt flat-his grave long face gapes wide, and out of that widening dismay a gray mist issues, amidst which that very miscalculating presumption is diffused and lost.

"Are we again upon earth? We are safely there, though the descending mist is there also. Nay, but sound sense is a good thing when upon earth. Let us all be reconciled. For out of the mist we now see a man emerge-an actual living piece of humanity. He is a working man and may help us in this matter.

“He hath a rough beard, and a strong, well-knit, supple body; a large organic forehead, and a steady eye. In one hand he holds a chisel, in the other a lump of clay. A modeller and a mason, a designer and a builder is this working man. He would speak to us. Shall we hear him? Or shall he be dumb, and go on with his own work? Will the spirit of the age listen to an unknown, unlaurelled laborer? Well,-let him say what he thinks.

"The first thing for the making of a house is the definite impulse to have a house made. The second thing is to have imagination to conceive of the design. And the third thing is to have a good workman's hand.'

"All this is common, plain-spoken stuff which every body knew before. Why should a man who makes things, presume to tell us how things are made? But let him proceed for the chance of something better.

"The definite impulse is a passion for that thing; the imagination is the power to think the shape; and the hand is the power to make the shape of the thought. You must listen or depart. For now I will go on. The passion of the heart commands the passion of the brain, when the heart is of the right strength as meant by God for a natural, true man; and in those heart-felt emotions doth God's voice speak-the only inspiration of genius, because a revelation from the Infinite Maker to the finite maker who devoutly conceives these things, and aspires to make them manifest to his brothers of the earth. If a man have no passion he can have no true impulse to create any thing. If he have passion, what he designs will then be in accordance and proportion with what he imagines; and lastly, what he imagines can only receive due form and be intelligible to fitting eyes, by mastery of hand.

"This shapeless lump of clay, so unsightly, so cold and unsuggestive, is the type of all substance whereon no work has been done. Breathe fire into t-give to it a soul, and it shall have high capacities; set an artist's hand to work upon it, and it may have angel's form. All the great imaginings, all the splendid visions that spring up in the mind, or can be created by voluntary

power, will exercise no good influence in the world, nor have a long date, unless they be wrought upon a clear design, and are built up into a suitable structure. Nay, thoughts themselves, howsoever lofty or profound, must have intelligible form. The spirit of philosophy and of art, may comprehend the abstracrions, and the germinating ideas as they exist in the work-places of the brain; but even these practised spirits understand the things better when they have acquired some definite shape, visible within, if not without; while for the use and benefit of mankind at large no labor is available that hath not intelligible form.

"As generations advance in civilization and refinement, a polish comes over the surface of nature, so that artist that works with a light hand, shall find his tool's edge turned, and his labors produce no effect. In these days the people need power. They talk of knowledge, but must first be made to feel the truth, and desire it. Among the relics of ancient Egypt there is a colossal granite fist; sole memory of a forgotten god. Four thousand years have those granite fingers been held close. They did their work-and were locked up. It was that power which reared the pyramids—which gave them their structure, their form, and their eternity. They could not have lasted as rude shape-` less heaps. They could not have endured the elements; man could not have borne the sight of them. Imagine that mighty fragment of a limb to open out into a hand! A good change has come among some nations, and will gradually develope itself through all nations, the change of feeling and conviction in the estimate of power. True power is now seen to arise from the nobler passions of the heart and of the intellect. Use, then, that mighty open hand with moral aim, and build for truth a lofty fabric.

"Nothing will now be received which has not some distinct principle, a clear design, a shapely structure. Character, passions, thought, action and event, must all be within a circle and citadel of their own, bounded by no hard line of horizon, and opening large portals on all sides to the influences and sympathies of the outer world. The only artist-work that does good in its day, or that reaches posterity, is the work of a soul that gives form. But without the impassioned life of that soul, the best-reasoned form and structure are but cold vanities, which leave man's untired nature just where they found it, and therefore are of no service on earth.""

"Festus" is the only poem Mr. Bailey has written; ten years ago he published the first edition; he then began adding and altering, till, when it appeared three years afterwards, it was like another work; the thin volume had grown thick, every line had undergone the refining crucible of the author's brain, and was modified

by the greater maturity of his mind. Two other editions followed, and the last is nearly three times as long as when it first appeared. As he grows, it grows; it seems as though he meant to devote himself to the improvement and expansion of "Festus," this solitary child of his imagination. Mr. Bailey is a young barrister, is happily married, and being of independent means, devotes himself to his muse. He is about thirty-two years old.

JAMES SHERIDAN KNOWLES,

AND OTHERS.

Dramatic composition is undoubtedly the highest effort of human genius, and comes the nearest to pure creation. During the moments of composition, a truly dramatic mind loses entirely the sense of its own identity in ideal natures, and by the impulse of imaginative sympathy feels and thinks as those ideal natures would really feel and think under the given circumstances and positions. This peculiar intellect invents characters, which become as tangible to the mind as the persons which exist in history.

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Falstaff is as real a person to the world now as Henry V," or "Richard III," and every other imaginary being in Shakspere is equally on a par with the flesh and blood warriors of Froissart and Monstrelet.

The poet in this case is really a creator. From the recesses of his mind come forth, clothed in all the attributes of humanity, those shapes which become as tangible to the world as our own breathing household nothing so real and immortal as the ideal. The bodyreal dies, the soul-ideal lives. However graphic the outside part of a drama ought to be, the real life is within, but the inner spring should be carefully concealed from the gaze of the audience, and only evidenced by the evolved action, as it progressest to its complete development in its catastrophe.

He whose success depends upon stage decorations and merely stage points, is a playwright and not a dramatist. A good