THE DAFFODIL.

I.

NARCISSUS' FLOWER.

"Aн me for youth! Ah me for dolorous eld! This comes apace, while that fleets fast

So sang Theognis in the birth of May,

away!"

When grace and love o'er Hellas empire held. He sat beside the brook, and watched the belled

Beauty of daffodils that laughed a day,

Then sank into decrepitude's decay

Thin shrivelled husks wherethrough the north-wind knelled.

He sat and watched the blossoms: from their bloom

Upgrew before his dreaming poet's eyes
A youth of mystic loveliness, inclined
Face-forward o'er the hurrying streamlet's gloom,

Bending dark brows of yearning, dim surmise,
To search time's turbid flood with prescient mind.

Τ

II.

BALDER'S FLOWER.

WHENE'ER man looks upon the daffodil,

Let him remember golden Balder's death: In Asgard's hall He yielded up his breath, Whom all the gods were impotent to kill, Save Loki with sly mistletoe : then chill

Winter descended, and the world had scathe;
And Odin wandered, a pale waning wraith,
What time his darling dwelt with Hela still.
Yet Balder had not wholly died; for spring

Returning brought pure summer airs again ;
And jocund harbingers of that sweet birth
Were new-fledged daffodils on bare grey earth,
Balder's own flowers, bright cups of golden grain,
Girt with frail sunbeams in a silvery ring.

JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS.

POTENTIA SILENTIÆ:

BEING A SELECTION OF PASSAGES FROM THE LETTERS AND PAPERS OF JAMES SMETHAM.

F we except a passing reference and a reprinted essay, both of which are to be found in the second edition of Gilchrist's Life of Blake, the name of James Smetham is one which signifies little or nothing to the world, although he was known to a select circle as a painter of poetic and scriptural subjects, and amongst a large number of intimate friends as a thinker of no ordinary powers. It was therefore with unusual pleasure, being aware of his genius, that I accepted the proposal of Mr. Frederic Shields that he should prevail upon the possessors of James Smetham's letters and papers to place the more important of them in our hands, in order that portions might be selected for publication in this magazine.

Though all the pieces which we shall give in these articles were hastily thrown off in letters, yet they were not entirely written without some thought of being afterwards published, for when we came to read through a long series of papers addressed to his friend, Mr. Wm. Davies, the author of "The Pilgrimage of the Tiber," we found in one of them dated April 24th, 1858, a somewhat lengthy scheme for "a mutual book." By management," he writes, "I think life might be diverted into a useful channel in the form of a book. I could draw fifty designs on wood, large and small, and get them cut from time to

time, storing them up. Our poetry would do something; our letters past, present, and to come, would do more; and longer essays on our own subjects might be written. As to mode, a good thought has occurred. Of course it must be fragmentary. 'Friends in council' would give some limit as to plan; and the vignettes, etc., would 'give it a relish' which, we flatter ourselves, few authors of moderate abilities could give. But what I mean is, that the whole affair when published should affect not to be published; no preface, but fragments of letters about our plan for a book, with innocent remarks about the various pieces in it, and concluding with a hope that one day we shall publish it, having a serio-comic conclusion that our MSS. and pictures had been stolen, and surreptitiously sent out into the world. As to the serious part of the book, without which I could not be content to do it, we might safely preserve our individuality; I my Methodism and dogged adherence to a narrow line, you your free-thinking and horror of 'replies.' We might now and then pelt one another, and do good by eliciting truth that way. The jokey parts should never be so broad as to make the most serious religious utterances seem incongruous; and yet, I think we have a vein of fun which would make us readable."

In an earlier letter of November, 1855, the title with which I have headed this article was accepted. "I like," he says, "The

Power of Silence. I don't think it would be better for further motto." And in a humorous sketch appended to the same letter, the scroll of their intended labours is inscribed with it in Latin.

So far as it is now possible, we hope to realize James Smetham's portion of the book in the short series of articles of which, we trust, this may be the first. In a future number we hope to represent the humour, and by reproductions of some of his drawings, the pictorial part of it; but for the present we must content