JOHN. There is a line in Longfellow's ballad of "The Wreck of the Hesperus," which has always pleased both my imagination and my ear. PHILIP. I think I know which one you mean. peat it at a venture. I will re It is the last of these two: "And a whooping billow swept her crew, Like icicles from her deck." Am I right? JOHN. Yes. I do not like the epithet "whooping" in the first verse, but I consider the whole of the last admirable. A single happy epithet is always worth a folio of description; and in this, the word "icicles" tells me the whole story. PHILIP. I like it as much as you do. JOHN. In Leigh Hunt's "Hero and Leander," there is a descriptive verse which I esteem one of the rarest of its kind. Hero is expecting Leander on the last fatal night. "Hero looked forth, and trembling augured ill, The darkness held its breath so very still." PHILIP. In this there is the great merit, that the ideas suggested give vigor and support to the mere external significance. It is very natural that Hero should personify the darkness, and attribute an evil intent to it; and one who meditates or strikes a revengeful blow holds in his breath. There is another version of Musæus's story, by Marlow and Chapman, which is crowded full of beauties. Here are a few lines in point. "Buskins of shells all silvered used she, And branched with blushing coral to the knee; Which, as she went, would cherup through their bills." This is a gift of Marlow's luxurious fancy. He throws down such by the handful. The last verse, you see, illustrates the topic we have sauntered to. I remember that John S. Dwight, who has a very refined insight in such matters, commends Bryant for his excellence in descriptive epithets, and quotes, in support of his opinion, this verse: "With valleys scooped between.' This is one of those epithets whose beauty lies in its simplicity and plainness. Ordinary poets, having a natural fellow-feeling with ordinary objects, strive to elevate them by a lofty scaffolding of words, not being able to conceive that the most nat ural image (so it be drawn from nothing in itself base) is always the most noble. They buckle the cothurnus upon the feet of a dwarf, and make him ridiculous by the enforced majesty of his gait. The true poet picks up a common reed and entices ravishing melody from it. Humbleness is always. grace, always dignity. The propriety and force of the epithet quoted above is confirmed by its having occurred to another mind, also a highly poetical one. Wesley, in his Journal, says: "The place in which I preached was an oval spot of ground, surrounded with spreading trees, scooped out, as it were, in the side of a hill, which rose round like a theatre.". Southey's Life of Wesley, (American Edition,) II. 49. Before we lay down Chaucer, let me read a few more passages. In "The Man of Law's Tale," there is a terribly graphic stanza. "Have ye not sometimes seen a pallid face, Toward his death, where he can hope no grace, And such a color in his face hath had, That men might know him that was so bested, So Constance stands and looketh her about." Chaucer had a great deal of what is called knowledge of the world, but it never rendered him sour or contemptuous. Whenever he turns his eye that way, his glance softens with pity or with a good-humored smile. In "The Story of Cambuscan bold," he describes the crowd who gathered about the wonderful brazen horse, each one of whom, in proportion to his ignorance, is anxious to express an opinion about it. He ends by saying, "As unlearned people fancy commonly, Of whatsoever thing may chance to be I am merely reading at random such passages as strike me. In "The Pardoner's Tale," Chaucer describes Death as a weary old man, in a compassionate kind of way that makes us pity him. Three riotous fellows have sworn to be revenged upon Death, if they can find him. Presently, they meet an old man (Death himself) who says to them, "For I cannot find A man, though I should walk to farthest Ind, That would exchange bis youth for my old age; And on the earth, which is my mother's gate, JOHN. Death has been hardly ever so tenderly spoken of. It is singular what ugly portraits of him are ordinarily given us. There seems to be but little living faith in the immortality of the soul; so soon does any idea become formal and external, when diluted by the customariness of a creed. Men do not believe in the next world as they do in London or Boston; they do not launch upon the ignotum mare with a shadow of that prophetic belief which girded up the heart of Columbus. Most religionmongers have baited their paradises with a bit of toasted cheese. They have tempted the body with large promise of possessions in their transmortal El Dorado. Sancho Panza will not quit his chimney-corner, but under promise of imaginary islands to govern. For my own part, I think it wiser to make the spirit a staff for the body, than the body for the spirit. When the vessel casts off for the voyage, and the body finds itself left behind, it may well cry out and disturb the whole vicinage with the story of its wrong. PHILIP. I agree with you that the body is treated with quite too much ceremony and respect. Even religion has vailed its politic hat to it, till, like Christopher Sly, it is metamorphosed, in its own estimation, from a tinker to a duke. Men, who would, without compunction, kick a living beggar, will yet stand in awe of his poor carcass, after all that rendered it truly venerable has fled out of it. We agree with the old barbarian epitaph which affirmed that the handful of dust had been Ninus; as if that which convicts us of mortality and weakness could |