omitted; they are not very striking, and only encumber. The converse
which Joan and Conrade hold on the banks of the Loire is altogether
beautiful. Page 313: the conjecture that in dreams "all things are that
seem," is one of those conceits which the poet delights to admit into
his creed,--a creed, by the way, more marvellous and mystic than ever
Athanasius dreamed of. Page 315: I need only _mention_ those lines
ending with "She saw a serpent gnawing at her heart!" They are good
imitative lines: "he toiled and toiled, of toil to reap no end, but
endless toil and never-ending woe." Page 347: Cruelty is such as Hogarth
might have painted her. Page 361: all the passage about Love (where he
seems to confound conjugal love with creating and preserving love) is
very confused, and sickens me with a load of useless personifications;
else that ninth book is the finest in the volume,--an exquisite
combination of the ludicrous and the terrible. I have never read either,
even in translation, but such I conceive to be the manner of Dante or
Ariosto. The tenth book is the most languid.

On the whole, considering the celerity wherewith the poem was finished,
I was astonished at the unfrequency of weak lines, I had expected to
find it verbose. Joan, I think, does too little in battle, Dunois
perhaps the same; Conrade too much. The anecdotes interspersed among the
battles refresh the mind very agreeably, and I am delighted with the
very many passages of simple pathos abounding throughout the
poem,--passages which the author of "Crazy Kate" might have written. Has
not Master Southey spoke very slightingly in his preface and
disparagingly of Cowper's Homer? What makes him reluctant to give Cowper
his fame? And does not Southey use too often the expletives "did" and
"does"? They have a good effect at times, but are too inconsiderable, or
rather become blemishes when they mark a style. On the whole, I expect
Southey one day to rival Milton; I already deem him equal to Cowper, and