He may live without books,-what is knowledge but grieving?

He may live without hope,-what is hope but deceiving?

He may live without love, what is passion but pining?

But where is the man that can live without dining?

[From Lucile.]

FEW IN MANY.

THE age is gone o'er

Once the men were so great and so few, they appear,

Through a distant Olympian atmos phere,

Like vast Caryatids upholding the

age.

Now the men are so many and small, disengage

One man from the million to mark him, next moment

The crowd sweeps him hurriedly out of your comment;

And since we seek vainly (to praise in our songs)

We have more

Painters, poets, musicians, and artists, no doubt, Than the great Cinquecento gave

birth to; but out

Of a million of mere dilettanti, when,

the powers.

Yet a dwarf on a dead giant's shoulders sees more

Than the 'live giant's eyesight availed to explore;

And in life's lengthen'd alphabet what used to be

To our sires X Y Z is to us A B C. A Vanini is roasted alive for his pains,

But a Bacon comes after and picks up his brains.

A Bruno is angrily seized by the throttle

And hunted about by thy ghost, Aristotle,

Till a More or Lavater step into his place:

Then the world turns and makes an admiring grimace.

heroes belongs,

We take the whole age for a hero, in

THE ERRATIC GENIUS.

WITH irresolute finger he knock'd at each one

Of the doorways of life, and abided in none.

His course, by each star that would cross it, was set,

And whatever he did he was sure to regret,

That target, discuss'd by the travellers of old,

Which to one appear'd argent, to one appear'd gold,

To him, ever lingering on Doubt's dizzy margent,

Appeared in one moment both golden and argent.

The man who seeks one thing in life, and but one,

May hope to achieve it before life be done;

But he who seeks all things, wherever he goes,

The leader of every religious society, Christian knowledge he labored through life to promote

to quote

ask Raphael now

Which Madonna's authentic! The statesman's-a name

For parties to blacken, or boys to declaim!

The soldier's?-three lines on the cold Abbey pavement!

Were this all the life of the wise and the brave meant,

All it ends in, thrice better, Neæra, it were

Unregarded to sport with thine odorous hair, [shade Untroubled to lie at thy feet in the And be loved, while the roses yet bloom overhead,

Than to sit by the lone hearth, and think the long thought,

A severe, sad, blind schoolmaster, envied for naught

Save the name of John Milton! For all men, indeed,

man's praise,

And love thyself the more that thou couldst earn

Meed so exalted; but the blame of fools,

Let it blow over like an idle whiff
Of poisonous tobacco in the streets,
Invasive of thy unoffending nose:—
Their praise no better, only more per-
fumed.

The critics-let me paint them as they are.

Some few I know, and love them fron my soul;

And sink into oblivion; - and will

vaunt

The thing as beautiful, transcendent,

rare

The best thing thou hast done! Another friend,

With finer sense, will praise thy greatest thought,

Yet cavil at it; putting in his “buts” And "yets," and little obvious hints, That though 'tis good, the critic could have made

A work superior in its every part.

Another, in a pert and savage mood, Without a reason, will condemn thee quite,

And strive to quench thee in a paragraph.

Another, with dishonest waggery, Will twist, misquote, and utterly per

vert

Thy thoughts and words; and hug himself meanwhile

In the delusion, pleasant to his soul, That thou art crushed, and he a gentleman.

Another, with a specious fair pretence,

Immaculately wise, will skim thy book,

And, self-sufficient, from his desk look down

With undisguised contempt on thee and thine;

And sneer and snarl thee, from his

weekly court,

From an idea, spawn of his conceit, That the best means to gain a great

renown

For wisdom is to sneer at all the world,

With strong denial that a good exists;

That all is bad, imperfect, feeble, stale,

Except this critic, who outshines mankind.

Another, with a foolish zeal, will prate

Of thy great excellence, and on thy head