parate images, and gets entangled in a
throng of thoughts, until, at the end, we have a sense of a beautiful
confusion of "flowers of all hues, and weeds of glorious feature," and
applaud the fertility at the expense of the force of his mind. The
truth is that will is an important element of genius, and without it
the spontaneous productions of the mind must lack the highest quality
of poetic art. True intellectual creation is an _effort_ of the
imagination, not its result, and without force of will to guide it, it
does not obey its own laws, and gives little impression of real
power. Art is not the prize of luck or the effect of chance, but of
conscious combination of vital elements. Mr. Hirst, though he does
give evidence of Keats' fluency of fancy and expression, has really
produced a finer work of art. We think it is so important that a poem,
to be altogether worthy of the name, should be deeply meditated and
carefully finished, that we hazard this last opinion at the expense of
being berated by all the undeveloped geniuses of the land, as having
no true sense of the richness of Keats' mind, or the great capacity
implied, rather than fully expressed, in his Endymion.

Mere extracts alone can give no fair impression of the beauty of Mr.
Hirst's poem as a whole, but we cannot leave it without quoting a few
passages illustrative of the author's power of spiritualizing the
voluptuous, and the grace, harmony and expressiveness of his verse:

And still the moon arose, serenely hovering,
Dove-like, above the horizon. Like a queen
She walked in light between
The stars--her lovely handmaids--softly covering
Valley and wold, and mountain-side and plain
With streams of lucid rain.

She saw not Eros, who on rosy pinion
Hung in the willow's shadow--did not feel
His subtle searching steel
Piercing her very soul, though his dominion
Her breast had grown: and what to her was heaven
If from Endymion riven?

Nothing; for love flowed in her, like a river,
Flooding the banks of wisdom; and her soul,
Losing its self-control,
Waved with a vague, uncertain, tremulous quiver,
And like a lily in the storm, at last
She sunk 'neath passion's blast.

Flowing the fragrance rose--as though each blossom
Breathed out its very life--swell over swell,
Like mist along the dell,
Wooing his wondering heart from ou