l in prose writing. Let the reader, for instance, trace
his peculiarly sensitive use of the epithets thin and dark, both here
and in the Letter to a Friend.

Upon what a grand note he can begin and end [155] chapter or paragraph!
"When the funeral pyre was out, and the last valediction over:" "And a
large part of the earth is still in the urn unto us." Dealing with a
very vague range of feelings, it is his skill to associate them to very
definite objects. Like the Soul, in Blake's design, "exploring the
recesses of the tomb," he carries a light, the light of the poetic
faith which he cannot put off him, into those dark places, "the abode
of worms and pismires," peering round with a boundless curiosity and no
fear; noting the various casuistical considerations of men's last form
of self-love; all those whims of humanity as a "student of perpetuity,"
the mortuary customs of all nations, which, from their very closeness
to our human nature, arouse in most minds only a strong feeling of
distaste. There is something congruous with the impassive piety of the
man in his waiting on accident from without to take start for the work,
which, of all his work, is most truly touched by the "divine spark."
Delightsome as its eloquence is actually found to be, that eloquence is
attained out of a certain difficulty and halting crabbedness of
expression; the wretched punctuation of the piece being not the only
cause of its impressing the reader with the notion that he is but
dealing with a collection of notes for a more finished composition, and
of a different kind; perhaps a purely erudite treatise on its subject,
with detachment of all personal colour now adhering [156] to it. Out
of an atmosphere of all-pervading oddity and quaintness--the quaintness
of mind which reflects that this disclosing of the urns of the ancients
hath "left unto our view some parts which they never beheld
themselves"--arises a work really ample and grand, nay! classical, as I
said, by virtue of the effectiveness with which it fixes a type in
literature; as, indeed, at its best, romantic literature (and Browne is
genuinely romantic) in every period attains classical quality, giving
true measure of the very limited value of those well-worn critical
distinctions. And though the Urn-Burial certainly has much of the
character of a poem, yet one is never allowed to forget that it was
designed, candidly, as a scientific treatise on one department of
ancient "cul