tural channel in
metaphysical inquiry or political speculation; both valuable, perhaps,
but neither profound. It was a bold, and a free, and an inquisitive age,
but not one in which thought ran over its set and stationary banks, and
watered even the common flowers of verse: not one in which Lucretius
could have embodied the dreams of Epicurus; Shakspeare lavished the
mines of a superhuman wisdom upon his fairy palaces and enchanted isles;
or the Beautifier [Wordsworth] of this common earth have called forth

"The motion of the spirit that impels
All thinking things, all objects of all thought;"

or Disappointment and Satiety have hallowed their human griefs by a
pathos wrought from whatever is magnificent and grand and lovely in
the unknown universe; or the speculations of a great but visionary mind
[Shelley] have raised, upon subtlety and doubt, a vast and irregular
pile of verse, full of dim-lighted cells, and winding galleries, in
which what treasures lie concealed! That was an age in which poetry
took one path and contemplation another; those who were addicted to the
latter pursued it in its orthodox roads; and many, whom Nature, perhaps
intended for poets, the wizard Custom converted into speculators or
critics.

It was this which gave to Algernon's studies their peculiar hue; while,
on the other hand, the taste for the fine arts which then universally
prevailed, directed to the creations of painting, rather than those of
poetry, more really congenial to his powers, the intense imagination and
passion for glory which marked and pervaded the character of the artist.

But as we have seen that that passion for glory made the great
characteristic difference between Clarence and Warner, so also did
that passion terminate any resemblance which Warner bore to Algernon
Mordaunt. With the former a rank and unwholesome plant, it grew up to
the exclusion of all else; with the latter, subdued and regulated, it
sheltered, not withered, the virtues by which it was surrounded. With
Warner, ambition was a passionate desire to separate himself by fame
from the herd of other men; with Mordaunt, to bind himself by charity
yet closer to his kind: with the one, it produced a disgust to his
species; with the other, a pity and a love: with the one, power was the
badge of distinction; with the other, the means to bless! But our story
lingers.

It was now the custom of Warner to spend the whole day at his work, and
wander out wi