And,

cloud, are subdued and graduated into an infinite variety of more delicate and tender tints. again, his complete command over the simplest, as over the richest colours, is very noticeable.

Hard by a poplar stood alway,

All silver green, with gnarled bark;
For leagues no other tree did mark
The level waste, the rounding gray.
And ever when the moon was low,

And the shrill winds were up and away,

In the white curtain to and fro

She saw the gusty shadow sway.

But when the moon was very low,

And wild winds bound within their cell,
The shadow of the poplar fell

Upon her bed, across her brow.

There is a peculiar fascination in this exquisite passage. The poplar sways to and fro against the curtain, while the warm wind of the early night is blowing; its still shadow, when the wind has sunk and the night is far spent, lies like a bar across the white brow of the sleeping girl. It cannot fail to remind us of the triple-arched casement in The Eve of St. Agnes, where, among "stains and splendid dyes,"

as are the tiger-moth's deep damask'd wings

A shielded 'scutcheon blushed with blood of queens and kings.
Full on the casement shone the wintry moon,

And threw warm gules on Madeline's fair breast
As down she knelt for Heaven's grace and boon;
Rose bloom fell on her hands, together prest,

And on her silver cross soft amethyst,

And on her hair a glory like a saint.

In this passage there is a tropical accumulation of superb colours" rose bloom," "soft amethyst,” the "damask'd wings of the tiger-moth," "the

blushing blood of queens and kings;" in the other not one brilliant colour-nothing but the poorest light and shade-the white curtain, the white moonlight, the black shadow of the poplar: and yet Tennyson, by the artistic disposition of his scanty materials, is probably more affecting than, and certainly quite as effective as, Keats.

The complaint we have been considering affirms that Tennyson uses too much colour: we think it might be as correct to say that he does not use colour as often as he might, and on occasions when most other men would preferring to substitute in its place a subtle epithet, which through some remote and intricate association produces a greater impression than could perhaps be got out of any colour whatever.

Or,

Three silent pinnacles of aged snow.

"The highest-mounted mind," he said,
"Still sees the sacred morning spread
The silent summit overhead.”

There is no colour there; yet how much finer than any colouring could have made it, is "the silent summit!" How completely it expresses the peculiar nobleness of that clear sharp line stretched along the pale dawn, and rising above the still and sacred hills-still at all times, but most affectingly so in the profound serenity of the early morning! Would not the introduction of any colour sully the purity of that inviolate and virginal repose? Silence is sometimes more effective than speechas in Montrose's dying appeal. "He lifted up his face, without any word speaking."

Thus we do not on all occasions agree with Mr. Ruskin. But-de gustibus-it is only a matter of taste-and on matters of taste one cannot feel very keenly, or write very bitterly. Mr. Ruskin, indeed, would fain persuade us that we are responsible for the eye as well as for the heart, and that Art is a master of grave aspect and awful mien. But it is difficult, somehow, to persuade easy-going English people that such is the case. Lord Palmerston, they fancy, may make a decent minister, though his taste be as corrupt as his own Foreign Office; and, for our part, we have not the heart to quarrel with our worthy neighbour, the retired tea and coffee merchant next door, who has erected a hideous pagoda in his back-green. The snowy-limbed, soft-hearted, Aphrodite, is the queen of the gentle craft-not the stiff Minerva, or the vestal Dian.

We have wandered along the stream-side all day; and now, as the evening gathers, the boom of the sea sounds sad and far-remote, the sandy bents have changed to flowery meadow-lands, and we enter at length the lordly chase, through which, for many a mile, the river winds from its fountain among the pines up yonder. The roses in my Lady's garden are still black with winter frosts. The Naiad, with her empty horn, looks dry and disconsolate, and as if she too would not unwillingly follow the elder gods from a planet that owns no more the divinity of Pan. The swans upon the lake are bearing down with ruffled wings before the evening breeze, and the last rays of the

roost.

sun touch gorgeously with gold and purple the cock-pheasant who sweeps silently past us to his The white pillars of the still Greek shrine are repeated in the still water; while the echoes of a fantastic Tivoli die among the woods on which the crimson crown of the evening rests. Fair and pleasant and peaceful, and haunted by the cushat, as when we were boys

But oh! for the touch of a vanished hand,

And the sound of a voice that is still.

T is a pity that Lancelot has left us.

He was

undoubtedly a clever fellow in his way. His friends anticipated a brilliant career for him, at the bar or in the senate. I am not certain that their anticipations would have been realized. He was rather one of those men who, with cultivated taste, sparkling cleverness, infinite fluency, and an intimate acquaintance with the social forms of English literary and political life in the present century, are peculiarly fitted to become the satirists of a party, or the wits of a boudoir, but certainly not poets of wide fame, or statesmen of commanding genius. Such men are now more numerous than we are altogether aware, and though seldom appearing formally before the