SLC ITUR AD ASTRA. WHO builds on Reason builds upon the sand A fetich-temple crumbling 'neath the strain Alone soars fetterless to realms above, Leaping in scorn past Reason's bounds, secure Where sentient knowledge dies, true life to prove. Emotion, Feeling, these alone endure; Thank God! God is not Intellect, but Love. A RONDEAU BY A BOOKMAN. IN fallow fields I long to lie - Or, steeped in grasses to the knees, Hot-hummed by honey-loaden bees A-dream 'neath circumambient sky, The while the love-begetting breeze KISS. O! little mouth, half rounded to a song,— Swift shuddering with an indrawn lisp of love, My soul has lost itself to compass thee And rues no whit the barter. -Rizzio-A Fragment. SUMMER. The blossom and flower In love ever firmer -Theodora, A HENRY ABBEY. LADDIN selling the dishes of the genii's banquet while the wonderful lamp rested unused in his closet, may stand as a prophetic image of a poet put to business. Imagination, however, does not disqualify a man for practical work, and the subject of this study, Mr. Henry Abbey, has probably been as successful in business as if the gods had not made him poetical. He is at present a flour and grain dealer at Rondout, New York, is vice-president of a bank at Kingston, and a mem. ber of the Produce Exchange, of New York City. Mr. Abbey was born at Rondout, New York, July 11, 1842. He is the eldest son of Stephen Abbey and Caroline Vail. His great-grandmother was Lucy Knox, for whom is claimed a lineal descent from John Knox the great Scotch Reformer. Mr. Abbey's grandfather came when a boy into New York state from Connecticut. Caroline Vail was a descendant of one of three brother Vails who came over in the Mayflower and whose names are engraved in the monument at Plymouth. It is said that one of the brothers married a daughter of Massasoit and a geneological tree shows that Caroline Vail was a descendant of this marriage. Mr. Abbey received his education at several institutes in Kingston and the neighborhood. While preparing for college the panic of 1857 brought financial embarrassment to his father and he was compelled to forego his studies. Probably his training was more an affair of libraries than of schools, his determination towards letters being strong enough to survive the deprivation of college. His first book of verse was published in 1862. This and other early work he regards merely as evidence of an intuitive groping for expression. Soon after the publication of his first work, Mr. Abbey became assistant editor of the Rondout Courier. He did not serve many months in that capacity, however, as he left Rondout and went to New York. Here he wrote verses for the New York Leader and enjoyed the acquaintance of Henry Clapp, Jr., George Arnold, Fitzhugh Ludlow and other literary people of the time. From New York he went to Orange, New Jersey, and started the Orange Spectator, which paper, however, was soon discontinued. In 1864 Mr. Abbey returned to Rondout. He was married in 1865 to Mary Louise du Bois daughter of Mr. Elijah du Bois a member of the Holland Society. In 1872 was published Mr. Abbey's "Ballads of Good Deeds." Most of the poems in this collection had previously appeared in various periodicalsHarper's Magazine, Appleton's Journal, The Galaxy, Chambers' Journal, and others. This volume, under the same name, but somewhat enlarged, was published in London in 1876 and attracted some |