and reiterate what Bulwer has already so well said in his "Word to the Public" written as an appendix to his "Lucretia."

"Thus it will be perceived that in all the classic, tragic, prose-pictures, preceding our own age, criminals have afforded the prominent characters, and crime the essential material.

"The tragic fiction is conceived. it has taken growth-it may be destined, amid the comparative neglect of the stage, to supply the lessons which the tragic drama has, for a while, abandoned. Do not fetter its wanderings from free search after truth through the mazes of society, and amid all the contrasts of nature. If it is to be a voice to the heart, an interpreter of the secrets of life, you cannot withhold from it the broadest experience of the struggle between good and evil, happiness and woe.

"Hunc igitur terrorem animi, tone brasque necesse est.'

"Terror and compassion are the sources of the tragic writer's effects; the destructive or pernicious power of intellect corrupted into guilt, affords him the natural means of creating terror for the evil, and compassion for its victims."

a

Thus argues one of the great masters of modern fiction, and, reasoning from his premises, one can recognize great moral teachings in the incidents which cluster around Erastus Bouverie, and Prosper La Vigne. Intellect without moral goodness is nothing worth, love all selfish is a blasting fire, baleful to itself and all within the circle of its influence. Is there no lesson taught in that portrait sketched in with Occagna-like power, of that brilliant, bad, selfish man, Erastus Bouverie?

Is there not a Brahminical love of life in all its forms, and a stern reiteration of the cry against Cain-in Prosper La Vigne's story? Those books teach morals that underlie all humanity and teach the lessons grandly, if not charmingly.

Mrs. Warfield can sing syrens' songs when she chooses. In these two books she has preferred to strike in men's ears, the startling clang of the iron fasces of the Lictors leading the way into the Hall of Judgment.

"BEAUSEINCOURT" is her latest publication, that book is simply an episode of a larger work, entitled, originally, "The retrospect of Miriam Montfort," which was considered too long for the Press -and therefore mutilated by having the beginning and the end summarily cut off. Mrs. Warfield intended to work these fragments up into another volume, but we doubt whether her failing health will permit her to carry out this infusorial scheme. We have read the

work, as it was originally composed, and have no hesitation in saying, that Mrs. Warfield did herself great injustice in this decapitation of her book. She composes usually in the form of the English threevolume novel; the truth is, she is not American, either in her genius, tastes, or knowledge of literature. She is neither fast nor superficial; sensational she is, because she is dramatic by nature, and is a Poet writing prose. Like Goethe, with her every emotion, every incident finds its vent in rhyme, and to one whom she honors sufficiently to allow of entrance into her inner life, the glancing over her books of MSS. poems is a revelation of her entire life. It is very probable, that the extent of her ability may never be known during her mortal life. "They learn in suffering what they teach in song," and at her door the god of silence stands ever with his finger on his lip; honored and worshipped, no irreverent hand will be allowed to lift the veil which falls before the inner life. In a poem (never published) written on the occasion of the death of her sister, Mrs. La Roche, she says:

"Rest! thou art weary! the strife has been

Too wild, too dark for the soul within.
Stern was the trial, hard the proof—

Thy fate was spun from a mystic woof;
But the fever anguish hath left thy breast,

And thou art ransomed! So-take thy rest!

"Could I recall thee from that repose

Again to traverse thy path of woes;

Could I breathe life in those lips of stone,

Or rend the fetters, around thee thrown;

I would forbear—for thy precious sake—

And with tears most bitter forbid thee to wake."

This sister, like her mother, for ten long years suffered like Mary Lamb, under eclipses of reason. Can language be more piteous than that cry from Catharine's heart? Sad- sad and bitter must have been the life that such love would refuse to summon back to the lifeless lips, so tenderly loved, so agonizingly kissed into their eternal sleep. Ah! God! there are bitterer woes than death in thy beautiful world?

It is very unjust to such a writer as Mrs. Warfield, to attempt to give any idea of her powers by cutting out a paragraph, or an occasional poem, and setting it at the end of such an article as this, and

one is tempted to refuse to do it. "In all good works," Ruskin says, "every part is connected, so that any single portion is imperfect when isolated." This is just the case here, one knows not what, or where to choose. In this Abyssinian butchery of cutting a steak from a living animal, and holding it up as a sample of meat, we feel more inclined to take what comes first to hand. Mrs. Warfield excels in descriptions of storms. The storm in "Beauseincourt," page 94, is very fine; and the storm on the Lake, in her little tale dubbed by the publisher "The Romance of the Green Seal," (a name reminding one involuntarily of champagne wine,) is very remarkable.

We beg to premise, before proceeding to these selections from Mrs. Warfield's published works, that with Cynulcus,* "we do not read to pick out all the thorns out of our books, but select only what is most useful, and best worth hearing. "In a word, we cannot attempt to criticise Mrs. Warfield, or to point out her faults." "All human work is necessarily imperfect," and our friend is only human. Her life has not been gay,- her books are sad. She has lived too much out of the world. In this day a writer must study men, as well as books, - a woman's life is necessarily limited, and a wounded heart seeks quiet and isolation. If Mrs. Warfield had the large experience of cities and men that "George Sand" and "George Eliot" have had, she would write with them. As it is, her genius is sometimes morbid, but it is always-genius. Her war-songs can be read in the collection of "Southern Poems of the War," made by her friend, Miss Emily V. Mason.

Mrs. Warfield has six children, four of them married, and she has several grandchildren. She resides with her husband on a farm, near Louisville, Kentucky. Her health at present is very delicate. She suffers greatly from nervous symptoms, and disease of the heart. We close with these words of the Authoress of "Bouverie."

"Let no man count himself wholly unfortunate who can look back either from his sleepless bed of luxury, or prison-couch of penury, and say, 'I once was happy.' Brother, there are some of thy fellow-beings who have no privilege to utter words like these, above whom through life, an eternal cloud has brooded unpierced by any sunshine, and to whom the memory of the past is pain. Let not such even despair! the grave is near, the gateway to a new existence where mercy and justice reign eternally, and sunshine is equally dispensed for all who merit its reviving rays. Faith, Hope, Patience!

*Athenæus, B. XV. C. II.

† Ruskin.

The mystic three before whose magic touch sorrow and sin fade into oblivion, and earthly troubles drop to dust, stand ready to comfort him, denied by experience and memory."

I WALK IN DREAMS OF POETRY.

I walk in dreams of poetry!
They compass me around!

I hear a low and startling voice
In every passing sound!
I meet in every gleaming star,
On which at eve I gaze,
A deep and glorious eye, to fill
My soul with burning rays.

I walk in dreams of poetry!
The very air I breathe

Is fraught with visions wild and free,
That round my spirit breathe!
A shade, a sigh, a floating cloud,
A low and whisper'd tone!
These have a language to my brain,
A language deep and lone!

I walk in dreams of poetry!
And in my spirit bow

Unto a lone and distant shrine,

That none around me know!

From every heath and hill I bring
A garland, rich and rare,

Of flowery thought, and murmuring sigh,
To wreathe mine altar fair!

I walk in dreams of poetry!
Strange spells are on me shed;
I have a world within my soul,
Where other steps may n't tread!
A deep and wide-spread universe,
Where spirit-sound and sight
Mine inward vision ever greet

With fair and radiant light!

I watch their deep and household joy,
Around the evening hearth;

When the children stand beside each knee,
With laugh and shout of mirth.
But, Oh! I feel unto my soul

A deeper joy is brought,

To rush with eagle wings and strong,
Up! in a heaven of thought!

I watch them in their sorrowing hours,
When, with their spirits tost,

I hear them wail, with bitter cries,
Their earthly prospects crossed;

I feel that I have sorrows wild
In my heart buried deep!
Immortal griefs! that none may share
With me, no eyes can weep!

And strange it is! I cannot say
If it is woe or weal,

That thus unto my heart can flow
Fountains so few may feel!
The gift that can my spirit raise
The cold, dark earth above,
Has flung a bar between my soul
And many a heart I love!

Yet I walk in dreams of poetry!

And would not change that path, Though on it from a darkened sky Were poured a tempest's wrath.

Its flowers are mine-its deathless blooms; I know not yet the thorn;

I dream not of the evening glooms,

In this, my radiant morn!