e no copy."

Even into this new passage, rich as it was at first, his fancy
afterwards poured a fresh infusion,--the whole of its most picturesque
portion, from the line "For there, the Rose o'er crag or vale," down to
"And turn to groans his roundelay," having been suggested to him during
revision. In order to show, however, that though so rapid in the first
heat of composition, he formed no exception to that law which imposes
labour as the price of perfection, I shall here extract a few verses
from his original draft of this paragraph, by comparing which with the
form they wear at present[63] we may learn to appreciate the value of
these after-touches of the master.

"Fair clime! where _ceaseless summer_ smiles
Benignant o'er those blessed isles,
Which, seen from far Colonna's height,
Make glad the heart that hails the sight,
And _give_ to loneliness delight.
There _shine the bright abodes ye seek,
Like dimples upon Ocean's cheek,--
So smiling round the waters lave_
These Edens of the eastern wave.
Or if, at times, the transient breeze
Break the _smooth_ crystal of the seas,
Or _brush_ one blossom from the trees,
How _grateful_ is the gentle air
That wakes and wafts the _fragrance_ there."

Among the other passages added to this edition (which was either the
third or fourth, and between which and the first there intervened but
about six weeks) was that most beautiful and melancholy illustration of
the lifeless aspect of Greece, beginning "He who hath bent him o'er the
dead,"--of which the most gifted critic of our day[64] has justly
pronounced, that "it contains an image more true, more mournful, and
more exquisitely finished, than any we can recollect in the whole
compass of poetry."[65] To the same edition also were added, among other
accessions of wealth[66], those lines, "The cygnet proudly walks the
water," and the impassioned verses, "My memory now is but the tomb."

On my rejoining him in town this spring, I found the enthusiasm about
his writings and himself, which I left so prevalent, both in the world
of literature and in society, grown, if any thing, still more general
and intense. In the immediate circle, perhaps, around him, familiarity
of intercourse might have begun to produce its usual disenchanting
effects. His own liveliness and unreserve, on a more intimate
acquaintance, would not be long in dispelling that charm of poetic
sadness, whi