should be read
through by any one seems to us quite insupposable. And yet, although he
has written this and "Proverbial Philosophy," Mr. Tupper is a D. C. L.
of Oxford and an F. R. S.

--Something of a far higher quality than this is Mr. Bayard Taylor's
"National Ode" written for the Centennial celebration. It is to be
regretted, we think, that Mr. Taylor was not able to give himself up
entirely to poetical composition. He has the poetic faculty, and his
verse is nervous and manly, far better, we think, than his prose. Had he
been a poet only, he might have taken a still higher place in
contemporary literature. This poem, well known to the public, is one of
his finest and most spirited efforts. The present edition[26] is very
handsomely illustrated and printed.

--Charles Sprague is an "American" poet of the last generation, who is
almost forgotten, and indeed quite unknown to readers of the present
day. He has something of Campbell in his style--Campbell in his calm and
serious moods. It may have been desirable to reprint his poems and
essays in an attractive volume,[27] with his portrait; but we fear that
he belongs to the class of middling writers of prose and verse who were
much talked of by our fathers chiefly because they were "American."

--One of the best of the many volumes of verse upon our table is the
collection of poems by Mrs. S. M. B. Piatt.[28] Mrs. Piatt's muse is
often thoughtful, but in all that she has given us, of which much is
attractive in form and suggestive in substance, these lines that follow
are the most valuable. They refer to the altar which Paul found at
Athens "To the Unknown God":

Because my life was hollow with a pain
As old as death: because my eyes were dry
As the fierce tropics after months of rain,
Because my restless voice said, "Why?" and "Why?"

Wounded and worn, I knelt within the night
As blind as darkness--Praying? And to Whom?--
When yond' _cold crescent cut my folded sight_,
And showed a phantom Altar in my room.

It was the Altar Paul at Athens saw.
The Greek bowed there, but not the Greek alone!
The ghosts of nations gathered, wan with awe,
And laid their offerings on that shadowy stone.

The Egyptian worshipped there the crocodile;
There they of Nineveh the bull with wings;
The Persian there with swart, sun-lifted smile
Felt in his soul the writhing fire's bright stings.

Th