was received we believe with general indifference. The
public are seldom sanguine with new poets; the exceptions
to the rule having been for the most part signal
mistakes; while in the case of "A." the inequality of
merit in his poems was so striking that even persons
who were satisfied that qualities were displayed in them
of the very highest kind, were yet unable to feel confidence
in the future of an author so unusually incapable,
as it appeared, of knowing when he was doing well and
when he was failing.

Young men of talent experience often certain musical
sensations, which are related to poetry as the fancy of a
boy for a pretty face is related to love; and the counterfeit
while it lasts is so like the reality as to deceive not
only themselves but even experienced lookers-on who
are not on their guard against the phenomenon. Time
in either case is requisite to test the quality both of the
substance and of the feeling, and we desired some
further evidence of A.'s powers before we could grant
him his rank as a poet; or even feel assured that he
could ultimately obtain it. There was passion, as in a
little poem called "Stagyrus," deep and searching; there
was unaffected natural feeling, expressed sweetly and
musically; in "The Sick King of Bokhara," in several
of the Sonnets and other fragmentary pieces, there was
genuine insight into life and whatever is best and noblest
in it;--but along with this, there was often an elaborate
obscurity, one of the worst faults which poetry can have;
and indications that the intellectual struggles which,