nd worship."

P. 71, 72.

But time would fail us to quote, or even indicate a tithe of the
beautiful, melting, and magnificent passages in this noble "Roman." We
would merely request the reader's attention to the whole of the sixth
scene; to the ballad, a most exquisite and pathetic one, entitled the
"Winter's Night;" to the "Vision of Quirinus," a piece of powerful and
condensed imagination; and, best of all, to the "Dream of the Coliseum,"
in scene viii.--a dream which will not suffer by comparison with that of
Sardanapalus.

But it is not the brilliance of occasional parts and passages alone,
which justifies us in pronouncing the "Roman" an extraordinary
production. We look at it as a whole, and thus regarding it, we
find--first, a wondrous freedom from faults, major or minor, juvenile or
non-juvenile; wondrous, inasmuch as the author is still very young, not
many years, indeed, in advance of his majority. There is exaggeration,
we grant, in passages, but it is exaggeration as essential to the
circumstances and the characters as Lear's insane language is to his
madness, or Othello's turbid tide of figures to his jealousy. The
hero--an enthusiast--speaks always in enthusiastic terms; but of
extravagance we find little, and of absurdity or affectation none.
Diffusion there is, but it is often the beautiful diffusion of one who
dallies with beloved thoughts, and will not let them go till they have
told him all that is in their heart. And ever and anon we meet with
strong single lines and separate sentences, containing truth and fancy
concentrated as "lion's marrow."

Take a few specimens. Of Italy he says:

"She wraps the purple round her outraged breast,
And even in fetters cannot be a slave."

Again, she

"Stands menacled before the world, and bears
Two hemispheres--innumerable wrongs,
Illimitable glories."

"The soul never
Can twice be virgin--the eye that strikes
Upon the hidden path to the unseen
Is henceforth for two worlds."

"To both worlds
--The inner and the outer--we come naked,
The very noblest heart on earth, hath oft
No better lot than _to deserve_."

"Before every man the world of beauty,
Like a great artist, standeth night and day
With patient hand retouching in the heart
God's defaced image."

"Rude heaps that had been cities clad th