A great part of those who bear the name of poet at college, never have it elsewhere. They disappear in this succeeding time of trial and formation, as some do even earlier. Others pass through it, and in their writings will appear some of the fruits of the harsh lessons of experience. Hitherto the poet and his "Muse" have toyed with imitations and experiments. Now the muse is passed by in silence, and the real work begins, with self-dependence and manly judgment. His versification is more simple, but not more polished. The music of words, that immediately catches the attention and as readily loses it, grows more infrequent. Music and verse are indeed allied arts, but they cannot both be reduced to the same rules. The most complete failure to understand metrical composition that I ever saw, was an attempt to subject it to musical laws, in a volume written by a professed musician. Blank verse is the finest of all, but few can write in it successfully. Of all living poets, only Bryant and Tennyson excel in it. Now too, if ever, a poet begins to write his name immortal. There appears in his writings a settled character, a oneness that is not at all inconsistent with variety. With less direct effort for originality, he increases it by a greater personality. The pauses and changes which still continue to vary his progress, affect it less. He has learned to write what is for him most natural and easy. Whoever would make his mark for all time, is not to appear as trying to say something wonderful. Let him say as best he can what he thinks and feels, and if that is not worth the telling, it is in vain for him to search for what is. Most of us can, and often do think, thoughts which Shakspeare might have been proud to write, We see what some one describes in words that gain him immortality, but we are too negligent or too unskillful to take advantage of it. We lose much more than we think, by a want of study and practice.

In this period of life the poetic art generally attains its highest perfection, but it is rather perceptible in its effects than in itself. At one stage, art is instantly noticed and admired. At a higher one, its observation requires earnest reflection. In some paintings, we notice

the finely shaded colors and perfect outlines. In other and better ones, we see man living and acting, complete in all his characters, or nature, perfect from the hand of God. There is the same difference in the poetic art. We admire the music and skill of Poe, hardly thinking of that of many better artists, like Tennyson. Now if the old subjects of boyhood are handled, it is more thoughfully and with greater beauty. A poet loves to dwell upon the past. In contemplating it, he learns to put in its poetry, without doing it violence, satire and explanation of the present and prophecy of the future. Mr. Johnston had but entered this higher field of poetry when he died. There is however evidence, from the dates in his volume, that his activity was greater now than ever before, but his pieces were, apparently, hardly finished, and if he had lived to publish them himself, we should have seen them in a better form. In all, they amount to but a few pages, but they show greater development and versatility than any preceding ones. I should like to quote several passages, but I have given so many, and at such length already, that two must suffice The first is from the description of "An Old Church," that attracted his notice in England:

The Church is stone ivy-o'ergrown,

With many angles, and doors and towers,
And where in front the stones are bare
They seem to have blossomed into flowers.
The church is massive old and gray,

And proud it seems of its age to-day.

The second is taken from "On a Crow," and the verse, like the preceeding, shows evidence of being hastily written, but it is nevertheless beautiful in feeling and rhythm :

"If there's aught in the sounds of the forest,

If there's anything pleasant to me,

'Tis the call of an ancient raven

From the branch of an ancient tree.

Though gloomy and old

And sorrowfully told,

"Tis the voice that I love to hear,

For I used to list to that self-same sound
In my father's ancient woodland ground
In many a long gone year."

DeQuincey.

Soon after the close of the Revolutionary War, ere the smoke had blown away and the echoes of its roar had ceased, a man was born in England, whose fame is destined not to die. Born of respectable parents, DeQuincey passed his childhood at home. With an ardor and recklessness so often characteristic of great minds, he cut loose all family ties at the early age of fifteen, and became for three years a waif upon the sea of fortune. Tortured often by the gnawing pangs of hunger, exposed many times to the noxious night air, reduced continually to penury, he was lost to sight amid the restless tide of London life. He alone must be the biographer of that wild portion of his life. His companions were dissolute and debased. One associate, from whom he seems to have drawn many of his noblest views of life, whose memory was fondly cherished by him in later years, and whose name is pronounced with a genuine tenderness and reverence, though a victim to prostitution, was most remarkable of all.

About the age of nineteen, he became reconciled with his family, and entered the University of Oxford. He soon after commenced the use of opium, quickly becoming a slavish devotee to its pleasures. From this time dates the decline of a noble intellect. Then was bedimmed a light that would otherwise have shone with an ever-increasing brilliancy. His College career was strikingly analogous to that of Coleridge, or Southey, two of his most noted cotemporaries. Each became distinguished for proficiency in Greek. Each won the admiration and praise of his preceptor. Each became, at some time of life, involved in some wild vagary. Each became prominent in the world of letters. It seems remarkable that DeQuincey did not join with these two in their Utopian dreams of emigration to the banks of the Susquehanna. Soon after graduation, DeQuincey commenced his literary career. "The confessions of an Opium Eator," and "Suspira de Profundis," first brought him prominently before the public view. Their contents is a singular pot-pourri of autobiography, reflections, and revelations about opium. With great power has he recorded the childish grief, hopes and fears that he experienced, when six years old, at the death of a baby sister. His fanciful hypotheses, interwoven

with simple truthfulness, continually display that complete absence of any true conception of death, always so inseparable from early youth. The reflections of his boyhood are stamped with a rare maturity, and his Confessions have rent the vail that hid the secret powers of opium, although they have led us into a dark sphere of mystery, that borders on the incipient sciences of clairvoyance and somnanbulism. His other writings come mainly under three heads,-scholastic, critical, or purely imaginative. To determine in which of these departments he has been most successful, is no easy task. Without doubt, Thomas DeQuincey ranks among the most thorough Greek scholars of this century. In the knowledge of the dead languages, there is a strict line of demarcation between the true scholar and the one unworthy of the name. Far superior to a close intimacy with the grammar and construction of a language, (although this is necessary,) is a keen sense of the distinctive signification of words, and an accurate perception of the subtle shades of thought intended by the author. This power inspires its possessor with the true spirit of the language, and clothes his translations with its genius. Few scholars have possessed this faculty to a greater degree than DeQuincey. An essay entitled Homer and the Homeridæ," discovers to the reader a glimpse of his profound study and familiarity with the subject. The argument by which he annihilates the good character of "that lying apostate," Josephus, is worthy of a better cause. His critical essays are marked by the same depth of thought and accuracy of expression. Let us turn now to his imaginative works; (the fruit of his fertile fancy,) and his descriptive essays. Klosterheim is a story replete with strange and wild scenes. By it you seem surrounded with an atmosphere, heavy with mystery and horror, and yet so powerfully drawn as to banish all idea of fiction. His description of an assassination is very vivid. The stealthy nervous step seems behind you; the heavy breathing of the sleeping victim; the slight motion of a limb; the glittering steel; the fatal stroke, and-an involuntary shudder creeps over you.

Far simpler, in its mystery, than Bulwer's strange story, and equally exciting, its termination is more satisfactory. A marked peculiarity of the mystery of DeQuincey, is seen in its complete removal from the sphere of spiritualism. More striking still is DeQuincey's "Dream Fugue." Fugues in harmony have been attempted and rendered only by master composers. Fugues in literature have seldom been essayed. But from the pen of DeQuincey has flowed a figure

worthy of its author in conception and execution. The story increases in interest, and then comparatively dies out, but quickly the theme appears written in another strain. Catching up the thread of the story with an unlooked for novelty; now appearing grand and solemn, and as quickly receding, with grotesque antic; unfolding with singular fascination; ending in a vast flood of imaginative and majestic language. Where can we find more beautiful description or more touching narration, than in the "Spanish Nun?" Where a more thrilling and heart-rending scene than in the "Easedale Romance?" How incomparable is the felecity of expression and sound thought in his essay on "Joan of Arc?" What a torrent of language sweeps you resistlessly along in his "Flight of a Tartar Tribe?" Where is displayed more subtle argument or more logical deductions than in his essay on the Essenes. He is both simple and strong in style, often poetic in thought, always dignified and majestic in expression, and powerful in argument. He is singularly original and fantastic in imagery; vivid in narration and description, and vast in erudition. What must be our verdict of his life's work? Failure seems too harsh. Success, is false. He strove to be a deep philosopher, and failed most signally, even according to his own testimony. The devotion to a habit wild in its pleasures, but fatal in its effects, betrays too surely some weak point in his character. We must confess that his was a giant intellect, sadly crippled. The foul fiend, opium, stole from his brain all that was strongest and noblest. Most forcibly does he remind us of a ship shocked and shattered by the tempest's force; without rudder and without sail, floating powerless on the ever restless wave, the wreck of a once staunch and noble craft. We must admire Thomas DeQuincey for what he was. We must lament that he was not what he might have been.

E. A. C.