e he not pushed
sometimes past the confines of his reason, he would o'ertop the
world.' Next to him in interest comes Earl Leolf, from whose lips
proceed some of the finest poetry in the play, especially that
exquisite soliloquy[8] on the sea-shore at Hastings. Athulf, the
brother of Elgiva, is another happy portrait--a man bright and jocund
as the morn, who can and will detect the springs of fruitfulness and
joy in earth's waste places, and whose bluff dislike of Dunstan is
aptly illustrated in the scene where he brings the king's commands,
and is kept waiting by the monks during Dunstan's matutinal
flagellation:--

_'Athulf._ But, sirs, it is in haste--in haste extreme--
Matters of state, and hot with haste.

_Second Monk_. My lord,
We will so say, but truly at this present
He is about to scourge himself.

_Athulf_. I'll wait.
For a king's ransom would I not cut short
So good a work! I pray you, for how long?

_Second Monk_. For twice the _De Profundis_, sung in slow time.

_Athulf_. Please him to make it ten times, I will wait.
And could I be of use, this knotted trifle,
This dog-whip here has oft been worse employed.'

In his recent play, _The Virgin Widow_ (1850), Mr Taylor declines from
the promise of his earlier efforts. The preface suggests great things;
but they are not forthcoming. There is much careful finish, much
sententious rhetoric, much elegant description; but there is little of
racy humour (the play is a 'romantic comedy'), little of poetical
freshness, little of lively flesh and blood portraiture, and more of
melodramatic expedience than dramatic construction. Neither comedy nor
melodrama is our author's _forte_.

In 1836 Mr Taylor published _The Statesman_, a book which contained
the 'views and maxims respecting the transaction of public business,'
which had been suggested to its author by twelve years' experience of
official life. He has since then allowed that it was wanting in that
general interest which might possibly have been felt in the results of
a more extensive and varied conversancy with public life.[9] In 1848
he produced _Notes from Life_, professedly a kind of supplemental
volume to the former, embodying the conclusions of an attentive
observation of life at large. The first essay investigates in detail
the right measure and manner to be adopted in getting, saving,
spending, giving, taking, lending, borrowing, and beq