e poem, which touches us again more than we deemed
possible, till each renewal of the reading stirs again the depths of
passionate sympathy. A pure manhood among the poets, a heart simple as
the simplest, an imperial fancy, whose lofty supremacy none can
question, a high faith, and a spirit possessed with the sublimest and
most universal of Christ's truths, a tender and strong humanity, not
bounded by a vague and misty sentiment, but pervading life in all its
forms, and with these great skill and patience and beauty in
expression,--these are the riper qualities to which "Enoch Arden"
testifies. They are qualities whose attainment and retention are
singularly rare, and whose value we cannot easily overrate.

And thus much having been said of "Enoch Arden," we find no space for
consideration of the other poems contained in the new volume. "Aylmer's
Field" is in some respects, perhaps, more remarkable than the poem which
precedes it, since the poet never loses sight of England, in its course,
nor the old familiar scenes, but tugs at the fetid roots of shallow
aristocracy with the relentless clutch of one of God's noblemen laboring
for the right.

Shut in these few pages we find the substance of a three-volume novel;
and while the mind sways slowly to the music of its "sculptured lines,"
the lives of men move on from birth to death, leaving their meaning
stamped in rhythmic beauty on our heart and brain.

Nor must we forget, while contemplating the two principal poems in the
volume,--finished heroic lessons of the poet's mature life,--the songs,
singing themselves like summer ripples on the strand, which are their
melodious companions. Among them we dare to mention "In the Valley of
Cauteretz,"--

"Sweeter thy voice, though every sound is sweet."

FOOTNOTES:

[A] _Madame Recamier, with a Sketch of the History of Society in
France_. By Madame M----. London. 1862.

[B] _Causeries de Lundi_.

[C] _Coppet et Weimar: Madame de Stael et la Grande Duchesse Louise_.

[D] Madame de Chateaubriand.

[E] This term designated a larger class of young men than that to which
it is now confined. It took in the articled clerks of merchants and
bankers, the George Barnwells of the day.

[F] Since writing this article, we have been informed that the object of
our funeral oration is not definitively dead, but only moribund. So much
the better: we shall have an opportunity of granting the request made to
Walter by one of the ch