the room, and joined Vincent, Lady Roseville, Ellen, and one or two other
persons who were assembled round a table covered with books and prints.
Ellen was sitting on one side of Lady Roseville; there was a vacant chair
next her, but I avoided it, and seated myself on the other side of Lady
Roseville.

"Pray, Miss Glanville," said Lord Vincent, taking up a thin volume, "do
you greatly admire the poems of this lady?"

"What, Mrs. Hemans?" answered Ellen. "I am more enchanted with her poetry
than I can express: if that is 'The Forest Sanctuary' which you have
taken up, I am sure you will bear me out in my admiration."

Vincent turned over the leaves with the quiet cynicism of manner habitual
to him; but his countenance grew animated after he had read two pages.
"This is, indeed, beautiful," said he, "really and genuinely beautiful.
How singular that such a work should not be more known; I never met with
it before. But whose pencil marks are these?"

"Mine, I believe," said Ellen, modestly.

"Well," said Lady Roseville, "I fear we shall never have any popular poet
in our time, now that Lord Byron is dead."

"So the booksellers say," replied Vincent; "but I doubt it: there will be
always a certain interregnum after the death of a great poet, during
which, poetry will be received with distaste, and chiefly for this
reason, that nearly all poetry about the same period, will be of the same
school as the most popular author. Now the public soon wearies of this
monotony; and no poetry, even equally beautiful with that of the most