that we shall quote, the difficulty being] nourishment of such poetic genius as shine less to find instances, than to choose among out in Horace, Propertius, Petrarch, Dante, them: Boccaccio, Tasso, Chaucer, Milton, Shakespeare, Jonson, and was not without its in But herkeneth, lordings, O word, I you fluence upon Dryden, Pope, Byron, Shelley pray, That all the Severaine actes, dare I say, If indeed the dialogue of Chaucer was modeled upon that of Boccaccio, it was certainly not the worst thing he borrowed from him. Nor does it seem to have been the only thing he derived from his Italian predecessor. Another point of resem blance between the English and Italian poets may be found in the frequent appearance of some doctrine or conception drawn from Plato. This was an author, He Why is it that Horace was not more the favorite of Mæcenas and Augustus than he has ever been alike with statesmen and philosophers, men of action and men of contemplation, wits and students? makes no secret of his art, if indeed it should be called an art. He refers the poet, and in an especial manner him who attempts that department or species of poesy to which the narrative poem belongs,-to the Platonic philosophy as to the store-house or fountain whence he is to draw thought, good sense, wisdom and that ethereal, essential truth which is neither to be defined nor described. above all others, fitted to train the mind to contemplate subjects of every order, and to pass with ease from the lightest and most trivial jest to the loftiest speculations of theology. A striking example of this is to be found in the profound and magnifi- We have previously insisted upon the cent Platonism in the exordium of the last necessity of a certain dramatic passion in speech of Theseus, concerning the divine all good poetry, sometimes merely breathchain of love, that binding all things to ing a gentle spirit into the verse, sometimes gether, maintains the order and the beauty tumultuous as a stormy sea, again sinking of the system of the world. There is in- tenderly and languidly into the heart, or deed an immense and inexhaustible re- rousing the soul with the most violent exservoir of the purest and richest material citement, varied incessantly in a thousand for poetic thought in the writings of the ways, but always flowing on and making Athenian philosopher, streams of which itself felt. We must, however, carefully may be traced flowing through the litera- distinguish this from that morbid and upture of modern Italy and of England, and natural manner to which the name "spaswherever they appear, sparkling with a modic," has very aptly been applied. Polucid ray peculiarly their own and distin- ets, affecting this style, have passion inguishable from every thing else, there we deed, but it is affected and inflated to such find that the strongest and most eloquent, a degree, and is so invariably out of place, as well as the sweetest flights of song have that it wearies and annoys the mind. That been attained by the poet whose inspira- which we consider as true and regular has tion was caught from this source. Prolific been well described by Pope as an indeed must that mind heve been, and equalled fire and rapture, which is so for largely endowed by nature, which, after cible in Homer, that no man of a true poaffording to theology, to metaphysics, to etical spirit is master of himself, while he pure dialectics, to the science of morals, to reads him. What he writes, is of the most social and political science, to Logic and animated nature imaginable; every thing Rhetoric such ample stores, such profuse moves, every thing lives, and is put in acand abounding wealth, had yet a copious tion. If a council be called, or a battle treasure to bestow upon the world for the fought, you are not caldly informed of what “un FEBUARY, 1864. IL PENSEROSO. was said or done as from a third person; reserving further comment for some future the reader is hurried out of himself by the occasion. foree of the Poet's imagination, and turns in one place to a hearer, in another to a spectator. The course of his verses resembles that of the army he describes. "They pour along like a fire that sweeps THE CAVALIER'S SERENADE. baugh.] Yon silent star his flashing shield Hangs on the welkin steep, Watch o'er my darling's sleep. Of the South wind dreams the lily-bel!, Does my rose-bud dream of me? The prisoned odours hide. the whole earth before it." It is, however, [From the papers of the late Charles Bradenremarkable that his fancy, which is every where vigorous, is not discovered immediately at the beginning of his poem in its fullest splendour; it grows in the progress both upon himself and others, and becomes on fire, like a chariot wheel, by its own rapidity. Exact disposition, just thought, correct elocution, polished num bers, may have been found in a thousand; but this poetic fire, this "vivida vis animi," in a very few. Even in works where all those are imperfect or neglected, this can overpower criticism, and make us admire even while we disapprove. Nay, where this appears, though attended with absurdities, it brigtens all the rubbish about it, till we see nothing but its own splendour. This fire is discerned in Virgil, but discerned as through a glass, reflected from Homer, more shining than fierce, but every where equal and constant. In Lucan and Statius, it bursts out in sudden, short, and interrupted flashes: in Milton, it glows like a furnace kept up to an uncommon ardour by the force or art: in Shakespeare, it strikes before we are aware, like an accidental fire from heaven: but in Homer, and in him only, it burns every where clearly and every where irresistibly." Nor is the similitude here suggested by Pope, inapplicable to Chaucer. He may .be compared to one of those Christmas Yet at my voice these phantoms pass Like fairies on the moon-lit grass A distant step who hear. 1 O! fettered bird! O! startled fawn! As happy clouds await the dawn Awake! blithe nature's playmate fair:— The largess of such smiles! Almost I feel as if it might Thy timid beauty wrong The chant of brooks in forest dark, The night song of the sea, Thy minstrelsy should be! fires of the olden time, kindled with huge and sturdy logs of oak in the vast fire-place of some hospitable baronial hall, blazing incessantly day and night, which though it may sink a little while, the dance goes on, or the merry revels are forward, or while the company around are absorbed in listening intently to some legendary tale, yet when fresh fuel is heaped on, and the brands stirred, flashes up again No END OF IT."Put out your tongue a with livelier flames, sending a thousand little further," said a physician to a female sparks upward and roaring with a gene- patient; "a little further, ma'am, if you rous welcome to all, in sympathy with please-a little further still." Why, doctheir holiday happiness and joviality. But tor, do you think there is no end to a wohere we must leave him for the present, man's tongue ?" cried the fair invalid. UNDER THE MISTLETOE; A Story of Two Christmas Days and Two Kisses. BY THE AUTHOR OF "A DAUGHTER OF EVE." I am an old man; so old am I that, looking back, life seems so very long, and yet so short, that I do not quite know whether many things did not happen in a dream. I am hale and hearty, and merry, for the matter of that; and when I laugh my laugh rings out clearly and loud, they say; so much so that it makes the people around me, especially my grandchildren and nephews and nieces, laugh too. And when I laugh the old times come back when others, who are silent now, laugh with me, and then I am suddenly still, and the laugh dies away; and when I think of it its empty echoes fill my brain just as if it were a sleep-laughter in a dream. When I stop laughing so suddenly—for the merriment and enjoyment, and, for the matter of that, the grief and pain of old men, are short and sudden, like those of children-my grandchildren, and nephews and nieces, have a great difficulty to stop too; and they choke, and nudge ach other and say, "Ah! that is a good story, Uncle; almost as good as the story you told yesterday." Told yesterday; let me see what it was that I told yesterday? How long ago it seems; it must be longer ago than the time when I was only twenty years old, a stalwart, brave fellow in yellow breeches, black leggins, a heavy brass-bound leather helmet with a white plume tipped with red, and a clanking sword, which I now could not lift with my two hands. I was a royal volunteer then, prepared to resist the French; and I and some of my company were encamped in white tents on the coast of Kent; and we had a song, too, a good song, about Boney : And in those days our voices did rant and roar, and the rasters rung again; but I've got a cold now, and my voice isn't what it was; and I must not wake the little children, or I'd sing it to you now. Yes; people think me very merry. And so, bless Heaven! I am; for I try to stand upright, four-square to the world, as a man should; but, being an old man, I have blank places in my heart now, where no love grows; barren spots in my memory, and chill and numbed parts in my feelings whereto I cannot look back; and whereon I dare not tread and touch lest sudden pain should come back, like the shooting of an old, old wound. But I've merry recollections and green where there are barren patches under the spots, too. Just as you see in churchyards yew-trees; so there are elsewhere fertile and little tombs, which, in the summer ones, which tender hands love to deck; and the spring, are very gay with flowers. Such pleasant graves are they, where some one lies with happy memories about them -good children, sweet sisters, or dear wives who lived in peace and died happily, and upon whose memory a halo rests like fleeting sunshine in a distant field. Such graves are for the young, not for the old; and they who are young and happy We'll still make 'em run, and still make go and sit in the summer afternoon near 'em sweat to the grave, and plant sweet-smelling In spite of old Boney and the Brussels flowers in the mould, which blossom and Gazette. spring up, and look gay still, like the calm memory of the happy dead. But I don't quite remember what that gen- But, deary me! I am talking now like tleman had to do with the inspiration of an old man, a very old man, as I think I am; but then I've got such spots in my with Joe, and Joe beat me, and Alice dry brain yet, and pleasant ones to dwell on. laughed; and then I shot against Joe, and *Been in love? Yes, I should think I he beat me too, and she laughed the more; have; how else could I have grandchil- and I wrestled with him and threw him, dren, those people who laugh so well and and she didn't laugh then, but ran to see heartily when I laugh, and make me tell whether he was hurt, and said it wasn't how old I am a score of times, and say fair for Joe to tackle a big fellow like me, how well I am looking? Well, well; although he was high an inch taller. In some of them want me to look ill, I think; short, I could not please her any how! but I'll laugh and live to spite 'em. No, no; I don't mean that you know. How can I live but as long as I have breath? and breath and life are in the hands of One greater than us all! Well, it was one day when we heard that the flat-bottomed boats of old Boney were not coming over, and that the Army of Boulogne had melted bit by bit away, like a snow drift, that we made a night of Been in love! I think I was talking of it. Ay, it was a night, too! and, being not that, was I not? Yes, been in love! Well, and in the summer, we must needs keep we just did love when I was a young fel- up the fun till the sun came up over the low, and I recollect my wife, my Alice, seacoast, looking red and angry at our that left my side but now it seems, and folly. Well, Joe and I—the two Joes, as yet it's twenty years ago; and I recollect they called us-ran down to the beach and her, as I loved her, when she was very washed our hot faces, and plunged in the young, and I love her now. She was a fresh, salt waves, and were in a few mo merry one, was Alice; we used to walk, ments as fresh and as merry as larks. and laugh, and talk together like two And, after dressing, Joe must needs take a friends. I think that she could do any walk with me—who was nothing loth, you thing but drink and smoke, and tell an un-must know-along the edge of the cliff. truth, or do a wrong action. Her face was The seas for centuries have been washing a sweet oval face; her hair a dark brown, that chalk-bound coast, and at intervals nearly black; and her eyes a deep blue, there stands up pillars of chalk, with the full of merriment at one moment, ay, at sea around them, and with little green all moments, except when she heard a sad patches of land, a few yards square, on the story or was touched with pain for any one top of them. The people call such a place else, and then they grew deeper as they "No Man's Land," and no man can own filled with tears. Not for herself. She it, truly. Well, Joe came to one of these, never cried for herself that I know of, for a few feet-say twelve-from the cliff, she never had a day's illness. But she and, turning to me, he said, "Joe Junior," was terribly cut up when her poor brother said he-I think I see his bright face now died, and that you see was how I knew "I challenge you to leap up on that 'No her. Her brother was my right hand man | Man's Land,' I do!" in my company. Many's the time that "Joe," said I, hurriedly, "don't be a he stood shoulder to shoulder with me, fool! It may be it would give way at top, good at drill, good at a song-good at any and if it did not how could you jump back thing. He used to live near the coast; without a run? You'd be stuck a top and, indeed, he joined us, and I was one there, like a mad sentinel or a pillar saint. of his tent-fellows, and his chum. Well, I'm not going to jump it." he knew people that I know, and we were soon friends; and he took me home to show me Alice. He was always talking about her, and she about him; and, when he was there, scarce a look did she give me. Her brother Joe-his name was Joe, and mine, too-could do everything, and was the be-all and end-all of the world, used to think; and so one day I tried to run I 1 "But I am!" said he. And, before I could hinder him, if indeed I had tried, he took a run and jumped. It was so sudden that I could only stand aghast when I saw him there. He stood, indeed, but for a moment, and then he took a step back, and would have jumped back, when I heard a rumbling sound, and half the top of the "No Man's Land" parted, and the chalk and earth, and Joe too, fell down with a crash upon the rocky coast below. I ran round the little creek to the other side of the small bay and, throwing myself down on the turf, stretched my neck over, looked out, and cried out "Joe! Are you hurt, Joe?" A faint voice came up, and I could see the poor fellow struggling under a huge piece of chalk which seemed to hold him down in agony. He smiled in a ghastly way, with his whitened face, and said, Run, Joe, run! The tide's coming in!" Well, I did run; and we got ropes from the tents, and a few strong fellows held these as I swung over the cliff, just reaching poor Joe as the cold sea water was lap, lap, laping up to his mouth, taking away his breath and then running back, crawling over him and leaving bubbles of salt foam as if in sport. I got him out, but he could not stand. Some bones were broken, and he was sadly bruised; so that I was forced to tie him to a rope, and they hauled him up, and afterwards pulled me up, and we took him home. had subsided into solemn talk, and were speaking of poor Joe, were surrounded, and it was insisted that Alice should play too; and she, in a solemn, quiet way, smil ing sadly and yet sweetly too, took me be neath the Christmas bough and kissed me on my lips. Ay, it's many years ago, but I feel it now. My heart beat so fast that I hardly dared return it; but I put my arm around her and took her gently to the bay window of the old hall, saying, as I pressed her hand, "Alice, dear Alice, did you mean that kiss?" Well, I need not tell you what she an swered, 'tis fifty years ago-fifty years ago! and I am surrounded by Alice's dear grandchildren; and there is one, a little thing with light and golden hair that will deepen into brown, who plays around my knees and tells me her little stories, her sorrows, and her joys; so quick, so sudden, so hurried in their coming and their going thatthey are like my own, and, as we talk, we grow quite friends and companions, like my Alice was to me. Bless you, she understands it all! She is a woman in her pretty ways; her poutings, pettings, and quarrelings, She manages her household of one wax doll and two wooden ones, and tells me, for the way doll is the lady and the wooden ones are the servants in mob caps and stuff gowns, when they are impudent and do no work, and when they gossip with a wooden policeman, who belongs to her brother, Well, well! to make a long story short, poor Joe died, with my praises on his lips, and poor Alice bowed her head like a broken lily. It was a long time before she got over it, and summer had grown into winter, and winter to summer, to autumn, and to winter again. The threatened in vasion was all over; our swords were get: ting rusty, our uniforms dusty, and when the holidays came I left the firm in which little Joe. I had just become a partner, and went to spend a fortnight at my old friend's in Kent. So we are fast friends, little Alice and I; and to-night, on Christmas night, 】 noticed that she would not dance nor play Alice was there, well and cheerful now, with the pink and shiny-faced little boys and reconciled to her loss, though we often who were so unuaturally tily and clean in talked of poor Joe; and as the days wore their new knickerbockers with red stockon we grew closer together, and she calledings; but she came and sat by me and me by my name, and seemed to have trans- talked softly in the firelight as Alice did, ferred her brother's love to me. She never told me so nor let others see it till one merry Christmast night, when she rejected all her cousins and her other friends, and would only dance with me. and made me think of fifty years ago. And only think how old times come back ad new times like the old; only just think that when her mother told her she should choose a sweetheart, she got a little bit of mistletoe, and climbing slily on my knee, holding me in talk as if to hide her pur We had the mistletoe, too. At last, one madcap fellow proposed that the ladies should kiss the gentlemen all round when pose-though I guessed it soon, I'll tell and how they could; and Alice and I, who you she put her little doll-like arms |