that he would not be guilty of faults
of construction such as would disgrace a school-boy's composition; and yet
how unworthily is he treated when we find some of his finest passages
vulgarised and degraded through misapprehensions arising from a mere want
of that attention due to the very least, not to say the greatest, of
writers. This want of attention (without attributing to it such fatal
consequences) appears to me evident in L.B.L.'s remarks, ably as he
analyses the passage. I give him credit for the faith that enabled him to
discover a sense in it as it stands; but when he says that it is perfectly
intelligible in its natural sense, it appears to me that he cannot be aware
of the innumerable explanations that have been offered of this very clear
passage. The source of his error is plainly referable to the cause I have
pointed out.

It is quite true that, in the passage referred to, the condition of the
body before and after death is contrasted, but this is merely incidental.
The natural antithesis of "a sensible warm motion" is expressed in "a
kneaded clod" and "cold obstruction;" but the terms of the other half of
the passage are not quite so well balanced. On the other hand, it is not
the contrasted condition of each, but the separation of the body and
spirit--that is, _death_--which is the object of the speaker's
contemplation. Now with regard to the meaning of the term _delighted_,
L.B.L. says it is applied to the spirit "_not_ in its state _after death_,
but _during life_." I must quote the lines once more:--

"Ay, but to die, and go we know not where;
To lie in cold obstruction, and to rot;
This sensible warm motion to become
A kneaded clod; _and_ the delighted spirit
To bathe in fiery floods," &c.

And if I were to meet with a hundred thousand passages of a similar
construction, I am confident they would only confirm the view that the
spirit is represented in the _then present_ state as at the termination of
the former clause of the sentence. If such had not been the view
instinctively taken by all classes of readers, there could have been no
difficulty about the meaning of the word.

As a proof that this view of the construction is correct, let L.B.L.
substitute for "delighted spirit", _spirit no longer delighted_, and he
will find that it gives precisely the sense which he deduces from the
passage as it stands. If this be true, then, according to his view, the
negative and affirmative of