to gather flowers, but straightway is seized by the lord of the
infernal regions, and disappears in flame and darkness. The entire
volume is a poetical Archipelago--isles of loveliness sprinkling
a dead sea of unprofitable matter.

"It were absurd to compare the light and graceful poems of Morris
with the work "Festus"--a simple Grecian arch with a stupendous
Turkish mosque--an Etruscan vase with a Gothic tower. Yet there are
doubtless many who will prefer the perfect realization of modest
aspirations, to grand, but ineffectual graspings after glory's highest
and most divine guerdons--a quiet walk with truth and nature, to
an Icarus flight of magnificent absurdities.

"It has been said that the author of 'Long time ago' has rung
too many changes on the sentiment and passion of LOVE. Love, the
inspiration of the glorious bards of old,


'Who play upon the heart as on a harp,
And make our eyes bright as we speak of them;'


'love ever-new, everlasting, fresh, and beautiful, now as when
the silence of young Eden was thrilled, but scarce broken, by the
voice of the first lover--a joy and a source of joy for ever.'

"I know it is much the fashion now-a-days, to hold in lordly contempt
many of those sweet and holy influences which are--

'As angel hands, enclosing ours,