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ance of fancy is judiciously received; no display is made of it, and Arthur is sent to school at Putney, where he remains for two years. The common routine of English education is more than once broken by tours upon the Continent. When the boy leaves Eton in 1827, his father pronounces him "a good, though not, perhaps, first-rate scholar in the Latin and Greek languages." As certain Latin verses referred to are, for some inscrutable reason, omitted in this American edition, the reader has no means of deciding whether it is the modest reserve of the parent which pronounces them "good, without being excellent," or the fond partiality of the father which discovers them to be "good" at all. In any case, we must consider Arthur's "comparative deficiency in classical learning," for which the eminent historian seems almost to apologize, as one of his especial felicities. The liberalizing effect of travel, and a varied contact with men and things, prevented his powers from contracting themselves to a merely academical reputation. When at Cambridge, he renounces all competition in the niceties of classical learning, and does not attempt Latin or Greek composition during his stay at Trinity. Thus he escapes the fate of many quick minds, which, running easily upon college grooves, that end in the indorsement of a corporation, never make out to accept their own individuality for better and for worse. Arthur enters upon legal studies with acuteness, and not without interest. A few anonymous writings occupy his leisure. He is now just rising upon the world,--a brilliant orb, as yet seen only by a few watchers, who congratulate each other upon the light to be. A fatal tour to Germany, and all ends in darkness and mystery. Judging from the writings before us, we should say that this young man was destined to a greater eminence in philosophy than in poetry. His father's opinion, in reverse of this, was perhaps based upon average tendencies of character, instead of selected specimens of production. The best prose papers here printed, the "Essay on the Philosophical Writings of Cicero," and the "Review of Professor Rossetti," are far more remarkable for the ease with which accurate information is subjected to original, and even profound thought, than are the poems for brilliancy of imagination or mastery over the capacities of language. Still, it must be confessed, that the sonnets are full of melody and refinement,--indeed, we can recal
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