WHILE there's one drop in the bottle

This life's still a life of pleasure,
Fúll of promise still the fúture;
Lét the lást drop leave the bottle
Ánd the day grows dárk and heávy,
There will bé a stórm tomorrow.

PFEDDERSHEIM in the PALATINATE, July 15, 1855.

"IF rightly on my theme I think,
There are five reasons why men drink:
Good wine; a friend; because I'm dry;
Or lest I should be, by and by;

Or any other reason why."

ANSWER.

If rightly on my theme I think,

There's but one reason why men drink;

And that one reason is, I think

Why, just because men like to drink.

HEIDELBERG, July 21, 1855.

HE 's dead these long áges, and áll his bones moúldered,
And scáttered his dúst to the points of the compass,
But we still have and will have for éver among us
The heart of the Póet embálmed in his verse.

DALKEY LODGE, DALKEY, April 10, 1855.

THAT I'm much praised by men of little sense
Offénds me nót; I know it 's mere pretence,
The hóllow echo of what, every day,
They hear men of a better judgment say.
TOURNAY (BELGIUM), Nov. 16, 1854.

"PÁGAN, forsake your Gods," the Christian cries, "And worship mine; your Gods are dirt and lies." "Christian," replies the Pagan, "honor 's due Éven to your Gods; to each his God is true."

DALKEY LODGE, DALKEY, March 31, 1855.

LETTER

RECEIVED FROM A REVIEWER TO WHOM THE AUTHOR, INTENDING TO SEND THE MS. OF HIS SIX PHOTOGRAPHS OF THE HEROIC TIMES FOR REVIEW, HAD BY MISTAKE SENT, INSTEAD OF IT, A MS. OF MILTON'S PARADISE REGAINED.

With all the care and attention permitted by my multitúdinous And harassing, yet never upon any account to be neglected, avocátions,

I have read over, verse by verse, from near about the beginning to the very end,

The poem which, some thirteen or fourteen months ago, you did me the honor to enclóse me; And as I feel for literature in general and especially for literary

men

A regard which I make bold to flatter myself is something more than merely professional,

In returning you your work I venture to make these few

hurried observations:

And first, I'm so far from being of opinion that the work 's wholly devoid of mérit

That I think I can discern here and there an odd half line or líne in it,

Which even Lord Byron himself for since Lord Byron

became pópular,

Reviewers' opinions concerning that truly great man have under

gone, as you know, a most remárkable change

I think I can discern, I say, here and there in your work an odd half line or ódd line

Which even the greatest poet of modern times need not have been ashamed of.

And the whole scope and tenor of your work, on whichever side or in whatever light I exámine it,

Whether religiously, esthetically, philosophically, morally or

That, in process of time, and supposing your disposition amenable to advice and corréction,

You may by dint of study and perseverance acquire sufficient poétical skill

To entitle you to a place somewhere or other among respectable English poets.

And now I know I may count upon your good sense and candor to excuse me

If I add to this, you 'll do me the justice to allow, no illiberal praise of your performance,

Some few honest words of dispraise, wrung from me by the necéssity of the case:

Your style, for I will not mince the matter, seems to me very

óften to be

A little too Bombastes Furioso, or, small things to compare

with great, a little too Miltónic;

Its grandiloquence not sufficiently softened down by that copious admixture of cómmonplace

Which renders Bab Macaulay, James Montgomery and Mrs. Hemans so delightful;

Whilst on the other hand it exhibits, but too often alas! the

directly opposite and worse fault

Of nude and barren simplicity, absence not of adornment alone but even of décent dress.

I'll not worry you with a host of examples; to a man of your sense one 's as good as a thousand;

"Ex uno disce omnes," as Eneas said, wishing to save Dido time and trouble;

The very last line of your poem, the summing up of your whole work,

Where, if anywhere, there should be dignity and emphasis, something to make an impréssion

And ring in the ear of the reader after he has laid down the book

And be quoted by him to his children and children's children on his deathbed,

As an honored ancestor of mine, one of my predecessors in this very reviewer's chair,

verse of Homer's Iliad on his lips,

For Homer has by some fatality concluded his great poem much after your meagre fashion

But with the magnificent couplet on his lips, which the judicious translator substitutes for the lame Homeric énding:

"Such honors Ilium to her hero paid,

And peaceful slept the mighty Hector's shade."

The very last line of your work, I say, the peroration of your poem,

So far from presenting us, like this fine verse, with something

full and round and swélling

For ear and memory to take hold of and keep twirling about,

barrel- organ-wise,

That is to say when ear and memory have, as they often have, nothing better to do,