ng reflection: "It is ascertained by inspection of the registers
of many countries, that the uniform proportion of male to female births
is as 21 to 20: accordingly, in respect to marriage, every 21st man is
naturally superfluous." Here is hint enough to set Saxe's bright vein of
humor flowing. The Superfluous Man becomes a concrete embodiment, and
sings his discovery of the cause of his forlorn single lot and his
hopeless predicament. It flashes upon him that he is that 21st man
alluded to by the profound statistician. He is under a natural ban,--for
he's a superfluous man. There's no use fighting 'gainst nature's
inflexible plan. There's never a woman for him,--for he's a superfluous
man. The whole conception and execution of the poem afford a fine
example of the manner in which a genuine artist may inform a subtile and
an extravagant whim with life, humor, and consistency.

"The Mourner a la Mode" contains some good instances of the neatness and
felicity with which the author floods a whole stanza with humor by a
single epithet.

"What tears of _vicarious_ woe.
That else might have sullied her face,
Were kindly permitted to flow
In ripples of ebony lace
While even her fan, in its play,
Had quite a lugubrious scope,
And seemed to be waving away
The ghost of the angel of Hope!"

The sentiments of a young lover on finding that the object of his
adoration had an excellent appetite, and was always punctual at lunch
and dinner, are expressed with a Sheridan-like sparkle in the concluding
stanza of "The Beauty of Ballston."

"Ah me! of so much loveliness
It had been sweet to be the winner;
I know she loved me only less--
The merest fraction--than her dinner;
'T was hard to lose so fair a prize,
But then (I thought) 't were vastly harder
To have before my jealous eyes
_A constant rival in my larder!_"

There is one practical consideration in regard to the poetry of Saxe,
which may excite the distrust of those critics who, with Horace, hate
the profane multitude. Fortunately or unfortunately for his reputation,
Saxe's poems are _popular_, and--not to put too fine a point of
it--_sell_. His books have a regular market value, and this value
increases rather than diminishes with years. This is, we confess, rather
a suspicious circumstance. Did Milton sell? Did Wordsworth sell? Must
not the fame that is instantaneous prove hollow and epheme