It will cost you all the earnings that a month of labor lends."


There are, as might be expected, some commonplace pieces in the volume,--
a few failures in the line of humor. The _Spectre Pig_, the _Dorchester
Giant_, the _Height of the Ridiculous_, and one or two others might be
omitted in the next edition without detriment. They would do well enough
for an amateur humorist, but are scarcely worthy of one who stands at the
head of the profession.

It was said of James Smith, of the Rejected Addresses, that "if he had
not been a witty man, he would have been a great man." Hood's humor and
drollery kept in the background the pathos and beauty of his sober
productions; and Dr. Holmes, we suspect, might have ranked higher among a
large class of readers than he now does had he never written his _Ballad
of the Oysterman_, his _Comet_, and his _September Gale_. Such lyrics as
_La Grisette_, the _Puritan's Vision_, and that unique compound of humor
and pathos, _The Last Leaf_; show that he possesses the power of touching
the deeper chords of the heart and of calling forth tears as well as
smiles. Who does not feel the power of this simple picture of the old
man in the last-mentioned poem?

"But now he walks the streets,
And he looks at all he meets
Sad and wan,
And he shakes his feeble head,
That it seems as if he said,
'They are gone.'

"The mossy marbles rest