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From The Spectator.
A LEGACY OF VERSE.

Ir is painful work making acquaintance for the first time with a mind of rare genius and sweetness which has already and only just left us, and yet left us before its promise had passed into anything like full and adequate performance. There are many of the little poems in this volume which ought to live, which have the breath of true genius in them, and which merely to have entered into should be enjoyment. Yet it is impossible even for an absolute stranger, like the present writer, who had never even heard of the author or read one of the verses in the volume till they appeared in this posthumous publication, to read them without feeling throughout the melancholy of something like a personal loss. This arises partly from the delicately pencilled personal character stamped upon the poems, and on the few extracts from Miss Williams's letters which Mr. Plumptre has given us in his brief but most effective preliminary sketch, and partly, no doubt, from the constantly recurring notes of fragility which are to be

found in almost all the most beautiful
which seem generally also the most hasty
of these poems, and which give to nearly
every one of them the tone of a hurried
though pathetic farewell. In one of Keble's
letters which Sir J. T. Coleridge quotes in
his recently published life, Keble makes a
characteristic remark on the attaching char-
acter of ill-health, observing that it is almost
heartbreaking, "because it gets stronger as
hope gets less." This remark was made
twenty years before his own marriage,
which, however, as Sir J. T. Coleridge ob-
serves, certainly illustrated it. Now there
is something of a similar kind of fascination
in a certain class of poems, not of course be-
cause they convey an appeal for help,
doubt very much if that is the true attrac-

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"When the lamp is shattered, the light in the dust lies dead;

When the cloud is scattered, the rainbow's glory is fled;

When the lute is broken, sweet tones are remembered not;

When the lips have spoken, loved accents are soon forgot."

The wave of life seems to leap and fall in such lines as these, and it is in such lines as these that Shelley's exquisite genius had its most perfect expression.

We are not going to compare these beautiful poems of Miss William's to Shelley's. That would be unjust to her, and would, moreover, convey a very false notion of the true drift and bent of her genius. But they are like his in this, and in this alone, that almost all of them have about them what Mr. Arnold, speaking of Shelley, calls "the lovely wail" of a half conscious and half unconscious fragility. They all tremble with a kind of distant and airy plaintiveness, not the enduring kind of sadness, but the yielding sadness, not the frayed but tenacious string of such a harp as Scott's or Wordsworth's, whose saddest tones have a resonance of terrestrial strength and fortitude about them, but the delicate and ghostly melancholy that seems to be attained only by virtue of the attenuation of the chord, and through the tendency of a half disembodied music to hover over instruments tion of even physical feebleness, but be- that are near their hour of breaking. Yet cause the mere impression of fragility adds Miss Williams's gaiety and humour are not a fresh beauty to that which is beautiful; the less remarkable than her melancholy, but all mere sense of transience, the shadow of com- are of the same kind, all have the tendering withdrawal, the presentiment of loss, ness and pathos that seem just to touch this adds not only a new keenness to the in-world from some point behind and beyond sight with which we enter into the vanishing it. As an illustration of what we have said, gleam, but gives also a new softness to the take almost any of the beautiful poems Responses," beauty itself, the softness of gentle renunci- called "Questionings" and " ation, of that thrill which makes no demand which seem to contain all the boldness of a on the attention, but carries it all the more masculine and all the tenderness of a femiby the involuntary vibration the sinking ca- nine spirit; but this especially, which is, dence leaves behind. All poetry, if it be perhaps, the most lovely of them all : — poetry at all, must be full of life; but there is no paradox in saying that life departing

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Twilight hours: a Legacy of Verse. By Sarah Williams. With a Memoir by E. H. Plumptre, M.A. London: Strahan.

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***SORROW AND SIGHING SHALL FLEE AWAY.-THE PROPHET ISAIAH,

"Sorrow and sighing, sorrow and sighing,

How can it happen that these should pass

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'Or I might keep the gates 'gainst the dogs of the liars without,

I am great against liars myself; yet I lied to the squire

When I met him, along with the rest, at his
coming of age,

And hurra'd for Our noble
he, mean as a hound!

young

master

"And again, when the parson I spoke of came here t'other day,

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Out of Church he is gentle, and pure as a wo

man, and poor,

And the poverty is such a kingship, becomes him so well,

But this, though one of the most beautiful of these unfinished but wonderful lyrics will by no means convey to our readers a fair conception of the poet's originality of imagination, of the boldness with which she deals with conceptions that would seem anything but native to an English girl's imagination. Take, now, this, which we might almost call, in some humble sense, a companion to the Poet Laureate's "Northern Farmer," not, of course, that it involves anything like the same grasp of detail or the same complete dramatic knowledge of the class depicted. But Miss Williams skilfully avoided the necessity for this by giving to her yeoman's dying thoughts justThere's another sin, too, on my conscience: a faint touch of fever and delirium, just that vagrancy of mind which renders it impossible to expect that he would paint his standard of life so minutely as Tennyson's farmer paints his. Also, she has chosen a rough mind of a higher strain than the Northern Farmer, a mind evidently often visited by gleams of spiritual light. On the whole, her picture is sufficiently vivid and striking:

That I called him Your Reverence' humbly:
I doubt it was wrong.

when we were first wed,

I was jealous with Janet, miscalled her a sinner one day,

And I struck her! She lives with the angels
this many a year;

But I'll scarce dare to meet her, till Thou,
Lord, hast spoke to her first.

"I

would fain make confession to Thee, Lord, before I come hence;

But the children crowd round me with crying, and harass my soul.

am gone,

If they would but be still for a moment until I | But, as we have said, it is impossible for us even to refer to the innumerable indications of originality, sweetness, and power in this little volume.

And not thrust in their sighing while I am at talk with the King.

"Well, what is it you want, then, Kezia? speak

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quickly, my girl!

Say good-bye to us, father; nor mutter like this, in your sleep.'

Little lass! she is tender and fair, and the boys are good boys;

I must help them from yonder. Good-bye, lass! Good-bye, boys, Good-bye!" The condition of mind implied in the fine line,

"And the poverty is such a kingship becomes him so well!"

sudden roughnesses, failures, flaws, but there In all Miss Williams's poems there are is scarcely one poem that does not stamp her a poet of an order above what it has usually been given to women to attain. Had she lived, we cannot doubt that she might have been known as a poet vastly more powerful and original than Mrs. Hemans, one with at least as much originality and far less of mannerism than Mrs. Browning. The very her, will, of course, prevent this full recog small quantity of what she has left behind nition of her genius. Still, we think that those who have eyes to see will discover it.

We cannot conclude without giving a specimen or two of Miss Williams's letters, from Mr. Plumptre's finely chosen extracts. What a perfect bit of description is the following, better than a water-colour as mere sketching, and with a humour and observation playing over it worthy, Mr. Plumptre truly observes, of Charles Lamb!

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is, it will be seen, as strikingly opposed as possible to the pure worship of the land, the conscientia' which is adstricta gleba of Tennyson's hero. But if we go on extracting all that seems to us the product of true genius in the volume we should print nearly half of it, and we should have to do so merely to show the striking variety of mood and poetical conception it contains. What a range of conception, from the first fine piece called "Baal," the idea of which is to paint the changing attitude of man towards the powers of evil as the world grows older, and the corresponding change in the voice of God as it pleads with man, to the exquisite little children's Marjory's Wedding" and Crutch, the Judge," which show the divine light play, ing on children's nature with a spiritual truth, as it seems to us, infinitely superior little gem-like bits of darkest blue set in to the highest touches in Mr. Keble's beausnowy curled cumuli, and lead-grey nimbus. tiful but comparatively artificial Lyra Inno-Of course it is utterly impossible to describe this centium. For mere force of diction take the following verse: "Is it so, O Christ in heaven! that the highest

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suffer most?

poems,

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such as

That the strongest wander furthest and more
hopelessly are lost?

That the mark of rank in nature is capacity
for pain,
And the anguish of the singer makes the sweet-
ness of the strain?"

Yesterday I saw the sunset over the fields; there was such a curious bright peacefulness over everything, the cool clear grey and blue of the sky, joined to the low green hills by a crimson line, where the sun had flung back a parting resurgam before he sank." "In this delicious weather one must keep out all

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day; this afternoon the sunset colours on the sea were exquisite, and the sky scenery magnificent

sort of thing; but I suppose one's instinct of speech is ineradicable. Talking of instincts, I public is one almost universal. The few children fancy the desire for some kind of audience or there are on the sands now, play among themselves prosaically enough; but a grown-up looking tolerably good-tempered, and may at person has only to sit down amongst them, once enliven them into attempting wonderful feats, casting up droll little glances in search of a smile of approbation or amusement. I think, Or read the debate between "the sisters" with children at least, that it is partly the unas to the preciousness to them of their selfish desire to give pleasure. They like gathpast griefs (pp. 129-131), and its exqui-ering shells or doing anything for anybody. I sitely pathetic conclusion; or the lovely lyric called "Departed;" or the previous one, headed Domine, Dirige Nos," with its wonderfully dramatic climax,

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"Darkness, dumbness, fall on us

Through the valley groping;
Drowning brothers call on us;
Some men talk of hoping.
O Lord, direct us!"

but the swallows believe in the spring, at any

hear dismal accounts of east winds in London;

rate. They keep arriving in long V-like lines. How tame they are when they first come! One alighted nearly at my feet this morning and stood looking at me with the most charming air of disdain imaginable. Then he perched on a lump of chalk, and gave his greeting to the land in a little low song-only two or three notesbut wonderfully clear and sweet. The gaunt old

cliff seems to have a fluttering veil of melody will and in the interest of individual senathrown over it, it is so peopled with divers tors. This is one result of the operation of birds."

And take this, for subtle humour, a criticism on humility that is a strong contrast to the clerico-didactic view of that virtue; Miss Williams's exquisite freshness of feeling and touch makes us feel again what we have often felt before, that without a certain playfulness of mind there is little true moral insight:

"I don't know how the good people do who are always lowly-minded; for me, when I am humble, I am detestable, fit only to growl in a hole like an Adullamite bear. I was just longing for some moral caustic to apply to set me right, when, after the bountiful fashion of Heaven, came instead the sweet and wholesome manna of encouragement."

the system adopted by General Jackson, and which is expressed in the maxim promalgated and adopted as a rule of action, if not first uttered by him, " To the victors belong the spoils." Senators have claimed and exercised the right of saying not only who should not, but who should, be made clerks in the Treasury, postmasters, inspectors of the customs, collectors of internal revenue. They have presented lists, and said, "Find places for these men, or you will have trouble when you want my vote upon the great measures and the great appointments of the Administration. If my supporters and party friends are not taken care of, I am not to be counted upon to support party measures." They have traded But we cannot turn from these poems conditions expressed or implied, and genwith each other in these petty offices on the without real regret. As they constitute, we crally expressed, "If you will grind my axe, suppose, at least the substance of Miss Wil- I will grind yours." And it must be conliams's claim to rank among English poets, fessed that in this respect their honour has a claim which can now never become strong been almost unimpeachable. The conseer than it is, we cannot close without pain a quence has been that every Senator has had volume which is, at the present day, we a crowd of followers, a horde of political fear, insufficient in amount to give her such a hangers-on; and inevitably these men have rank, — it was not so once, for Gray's claim been in the mass the least valuable and the rests upon as little, we think, in quantity, least trustworthy of the community. They on poetry of far narrower scope, and con- have formed a clientage like that which pertaining far less play of light and thought, tained to the Senators of Rome, and their though, we admit, on far more perfect interests were looked after with no less soworkmanship and execution, and yet a licitude by their patron in the one case than volume which proves completely, to our in the other. If a man sought an appointapprehension, that she had ample genius, ment, however trivial, the first question with a few years longer of life, to have es- asked was, has he the support of "his Sentablished it. ator ?" If another were threatened with removal he set about getting the protest of "his Senator." I have known more than one important officer of the Government driven to his wits' end, worried beyond endurance to find minor places for the men sent to him with the peremptory demands by the Senators to whom he owed his appointment. This system often produces serious embarrassment in the honest and efficient transaction of the public business. Men are found miserably incapable or dishonest; they are not removed, or if removed, they are soon restored. The reason given is often, "You can't get him out, he is one of Senator's men. Senators claim other privileges, as to which I will not go into details; but they ask for and get, get for the asking, given with haste and solicitude, that to which they have no more right than they have to free board and lodging for themselves and their families at the White House. They have used their power, those who have thus used it, for to these strictures there are a very few honourable exceptions, chiefly among

Part of a letter in The Spectator, 6 March. GENERAL GRANT'S NEXT BATTLE.

NEW YORK, February 19, 1865.

THE power of the Senate, in the matter of appointment to office, has been greatly and injuriously perverted since the early days of Government. What was meant to be, and what then was, a general supervisory power over the appointment of the principal officers, cabinet ministers, judges of the Supreme Court, foreign ministers, consuls, officers of the Army and Navy, and the like, has degenerated into an appanage, a perquisite of the senators as individuals. This has gone on until it has come to pass that the pettiest offices of all the departments, of the Customs even, and the Post Office, are filled, not by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, but by the

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the Senators of the New England States and that the Executive, Legislative and Judicial the old Slave States, to build up their elements of our system will find themselves political strength and to reward their politi- set back in statu quo ante bellum. cal supporters. The Senators are elected not by a popular vote, but by the Legislatures of the several States, and the position of Senator of the United States for six years being the most eagerly sought after of all political prizes, except that of President, it is obtained by intrigue, corruption, and, not to mince matters, by direct bribery. But the successful man usually "pays his debts,' as the phrase goes, largely out of the public Treasury by securing the appointment of his friends and of his friends' friends to office.

From N. Y. Evening Post.

A DEFENCE OF COMMERCE.
BY THE REV. JOSHUA LEAVITT, D.D.

TRADE is the exchange of commodities. It is an exchange between men of things which they have severally produced. It comes to this, through how many soever intervening parties the exchange may be effected. The use of money, of credit, or of bills of exchange in any of the stages, makes no difference in the essential nature of the transaction; it amounts just to an exchange of commodities.

One gives another that which he can spare, and receives in return that which he wants. And the other gives to the first that which he can spare, to receive in return that which he wants.

Each gives that which he values less for that which he values more. And each receives that which he values more in place of that which he values less. Both, therefore, are gainers.

The Tenure of Office Act, which restricts, constitutionally or unconstitutionally, the President's power of removal from office, increased largely the power of the Senate in this regard. This law was passed not for the purpose of restricting the power of the President of the United States, but as a check upon, and an affront to, the man Andrew Johnson. That man is no longer to be feared; and the House has voted to repeal the law. But the Senate, having got an accession of appointing power (in effect) into its hands, is unwilling to give it up. And here comes in General Grant, who has avowed his intention of purging the commonweal—an intention which the Senators are obliged openly to approve, but which, if It is the legitimate and normal effect of carried into effect, will send adrift the men trade to make all the parties better off than who constitute no small proportion of the they were, by just so much as what they rebulk of their clientage. This, indeed, will ceive is worth more to them than what they not deprive them of any consideration that give in exchange. If a man consumes all is justly their due, not to say of any power that he receives in exchange, he has so which properly belongs to them in the Gov- much more to enjoy. If he saves a part of ernment. But it will diminish their follow-it, he finds himself just so much the richer ing, make it of less consequence to concili- than he was. ate them, visibly reduce their personal importance.

This pretension of the Senate, it seems that General Grant will wage war against. Alone he could not do much. But the House, irritated by the assumption of the Senate, will sustain him. Supported by the House and the popular feeling, he will hardly fail to march straight to his point. If the Senate should see fit to repeal the Tenure of Office Act, and to second him in his endeavours to introduce honesty and economy into the administration of the Government, and to make fitness and not political clientage the qualification for office, well; if not, there will be a battle, in which the President and the House, sustained as they will be, morally at least, by the Supreme Court, must be victorious. The result of all which will be, if it so fall out, that the old balance will be restored between the three departments of our Government, and

It is in this way, chiefly, that communities and nations become rich, by producing more than they want, and exchanging the surplus for that which is to them still more valuable.

The nature of trade is not affected by the circumstance that the parties whose products are exchanged are separated by half the circumference of the globe; nor by the employing of ever so many intermediate agencies, as merchants and factors and shippers, in effecting the exchange; nor by the use of money, or bills of exchange, or any other means of facilitating the adjustments between various parties concerned. In its substantial nature it is just the exchange of products; and the motive to it is that each party is supposed to value that which he receives more than he does that which he gives.

The owner of a prairie farin in the West sends his flour to Brazil, to feed the owner of a coffee patch, who in his turn sends

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