R. P. Milnes, Esq., of Frystone Hall, Yorkshire. In 1881, in his twenty-second year, he took his degree of M. A. at Trinity College, Cambridge. In 1837, he was returned to the House of Commons as representative of the borough of Pontefract, which he continued to represent till his elevation to the peerage. In parliament, Lord Houghton has been distinguished by his philanthropic labours, his efforts in support of national education, and generally his support of all questions of social amelioration and reform. In 1848 he edited the Life and Remains of John Keats; and in 1873-76 published two volumes of biographical sketches, entitled Monographs, Personal and Social,' abounding in anecdote and in interesting illustrations of English social life and literature. In 1876 the collected Poetical Works of Lord Houghton were published in two volumes.

Walk in St. Mark's again some few hours after,
When a bright sleep is on each storied pile-
When fitful music and inconstant laughter
Give place to Nature's silent moonlight smile:
Now Fancy wants no faery gale to waft her
To Magian haunt, or charm-engirded isle;
All too content, in passive bliss, to see
This show divine of visible poetry.

On such a night as this impassionedly
The old Venetian sung those verses rare:
'That Venice must of needs eternal be.

For Heaven had looked through the pellucid air,

And cast its reflex on the crystal sea,

And Venice was the image pictured there;'
I hear them now, and tremble, for I seem

As treading on an unsubstantial dream.

That strange cathedral! exquisitely strange-
That front, on whose bright varied tints the eye
Rests as of gems-those arches whose high range
Gives its rich-broider d border to the sky-

Those ever-prancing steeds! My friend, whom change
Of restless will has led to lands that lie

Deep in the East, does not thy fancy set
Above those domes an airy minaret?

J know not that the men of old

Were better than men now,

The Men of Old.

Of heart more kind, of hand more bold,
Of more ingenious brow:

I heed not those who pine for force
A ghost of time to raise.

As if they thus could check the course
Of these appointed days.

Still is it true, and over-true,
That I delight to close
This book of life self-wise ard new,
And let my thoughts repose
On all that humb e happiness
The world has since foregone-·
The daylight of contentedness
That on those faces shone !

Blending their souls' sublimest needs
With tasks of every day,
They went about their gravest deeds
As noble boys at play.

And what if Nature's fearful wound
They did not probe and bare,
For that their spirits never swooned
To watch the misery there-

With rights, though not too closely For that their love but flowed more fast,

scanned.

Enjoyed, as far as known

With will, by no reverse unmanned-
With pulse of even toue-

They from to-day and from to-night
Expected nothing more

Than yesterday and yesternightTM
Had proffered them before."

To them was life a simple art
Of duties to be done,

A game where each man took his part,

A race where all inust run;

A battle whose great scheme and scope
They little cared to know,

Content, as men-at-arms, to cope

Each with his fronting foe.

Man now his virtue's diadem

Puts on, and proudly wears

Their charities more free,

Not conscious what mere drops they cast
Into the evil sea.

A man's best things are nearest him,
Lie close about his feet,

It is the distaut and the dim
That we are sick to greet:

For flowers that grow our hands beneath
We struggle and aspire-

Our hearts must die, except they breathe
The air of fresh desire.

But, brothers, who up Reason's hill
Advance with hopeful cheer-
Oh! loiter not; those heights are chill,
As chill as they are clear;

And still restrain your haughty gaze,
The loftier that ye go,

Great thong its, great feelings, came to Remembering distance leaves a haze

them,

Like instincts, unawares :

On all that lies below.

From the Long-ago.'

On that deep-retiring shore
Frequent pearls of beauty lie,
Where the passion-waves of yore
Fiercely beat and mounted high:
Sorrows that are sorrows still

Lose the bitter taste of woe;
Nothing's altogether ill

In the griefs of Long-ago.

Tombs where lonely love repines,
Ghastly tenements of tears.
Wear the look of happy shrines

Through the golden mist of years:

Death. to those who trust in good,
Vindicates his hardest blow

Oh! we would not, if we could,
Wake the sleep of Long-ago!

Though the doom of swift decay
Shocks the soul where life is strong,
Though for frailer hearts the day
Lingers sad and overlong-

Still the weight will find a leaven,
Still the spoiler's hand is slow,
While the future has its heaven,
And the past its Long-ago.

FITZGREENE HALLECK.

Without attempting, in our confined limits, to range over the fields of American literature, now rapidly extending, and cultivated with ardour and success, we have pleasure in including some eminent transatlantic names in our list of popular authors. MR. HALLECK became generally known in this country in 1827 by the publication of a volume of Poems,' the result partly of a visit to England. In this vo

lume are some fine verses on Burns, on Alnwick Castle, &c., and it includes the most elevated of his strains, the martial lyric, 'Marco Bozz ris.' Our poet-laureate, Mr. Tennyson, has described the poetical character:

Mr. Halleck, in his beautiful verses, ‘On viewing the Remains of a Rose brought from Alloway Kirk in Autumn, 1822,' had previously identified, as it were, this conception of the laureate's with the history of the Scottish poet :

Strong sense, deep feeling passions strong,

A hate of tyrant and of knave,

A love of right, a scorn of wrong,
Of coward and of slave;

A kind, true heart, a spirit high,

That could not fear, and would not bow
Were written in his manly eye,

And on his manly brow.

Praise to the bard !—his words are driven,
Like flower-seeds by the far winds sown,
Where'er beneath the sky of heaven

The birds of Fame are flown!

Mr. Halleck was a native of Guildford, Connecticut, born in 1790. He resided some time in New York, following mercantile pursuits. In 1819 he published Fanny,' a satirical poem in the ottava rima stanza. Next appeared his volume of 'Poems,' as already stated, to which additions were made in subsequent republications. His works are comprised in one volume, and it is to be regretted that his muse was not more prolific. He died November 19, 1867. His 'Life and Letters' were published in one volume in 1869 by James Grant Wilson of New York, who has also edited the poetical works of Halleck (1871), and written a short Memoir of Bryant, in the Western Monthly,' November, 1870.

Marco Bozzaris.

The Epaminondas of Modern Greece. He fell in a night-attack upon the Turkish camp at Laspi, the site of the ancient Platea, August 20, 1 23, and expired in the moment of victory. His last words were: .o die for liberty is a pleasure, and not a pain.'

At midnight, in his guarded tent.

The Turk was dreaming of the hour When Greece, her knee in suppliance bent,

Should tremble at his power;

As wild his thoughts, and gay of wing,
As Eden's garden bird.

At midnight. in the forest shades,
Bozzaris ranged his Suliote band,

In dreams, through camp and court, he True as the steel of their tried blades,

bore

The trophies of a conqueror:

In dreams his song of triumph heard, Then wore his monarch's signet-ring, Then pressed that monarch's throne-a

King;

Heroes in heart and hand.

There had the Persian's thousands stood, There had the glad earth drunk their blood

On old Platea's day;

And now there breathed that haunted air

EDGAR ALLAN POE.

This singular and unfortunately degraded man of genius-the Richard Savage of American literature was born at Boston, January 19, 1809. He was left destitute when a child by the death of his parents (strolling players), but was adopted and liberally educated by a benevolent Virginian planter, Mr. Allan. All attempts to settle

hi respectably in life failed. He was reckless, debauched, and unmanageable. He was expelled from college and from a military ademy in which he was placed by Mr. Ailan; he enlisted in the arny, but soon deserted; and after various scenes of wretchedness, he became a contributor to, and occasional editor of, several American periodicals. His prose tales attracted notice from their ingenuity and powerful, though morbid and gloomy painting; and his poem of ''The Raven,' coloured by the same diseased imagination, but with bright gleams of fancy, was hailed as the most original and striking poem that America had ever produced. Poe died in a hospital at Baltimore, the victim of intemperance, October 7, 1849. A complete edition of the works of Poe, with Memoir by John H. Ingram, was published in 1875, in four volumes-three of them prose, and one poetry. The editor clears the memory of the unfortunate poet from certain charges brought against him by Griswold, the American editor. Some of the criticisms by Poe collected in this edition of his works are marked by a fine critical taste and acuteness.

The Raven.

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volnine of forgotten lore-
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber-door:
"Tis some visitor,' I muttered, tapping at my chamber-door-

Only this, and nothing more.'

Ah! distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December,
And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.
Eagerly I wished the morrow; vainly I had sought to borrow
From my books surcease of sorrow-sorrow for the lost Lenore-
For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore-
Nameless here for evermore.

And the silken sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain
Thrilled me-filled ine with fantastic terrors never felt before;
So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating:
'Tis some visitor entreating entrance at my chamber-door-
Some late visitor entreating entrance at my chamber-door;
This it is, and nothing more.'

Presently my soul grew stronger; hesitating then no longer,
Sir,' said I. or madam. truly your forgiveness I implore:
But the fact is I was napping, and so gently you came rapping,
And so faintly you came tapping, tapping at my chamber-door,
That I scarce was sure I heard you-here I opened wide the door-
Darkness there, and nothing more.
Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering. fearing,
Dreaming, dreaming dreams no mortals ever dared to dream before;
But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token,
And the only word there spoken was the whispered word, Lenore!'-
This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word. Lenore!'-
Merely this, and nothing more.

Back into the chamber turning, all my soul within me burning,
Soon again I heard a tapping something londer than before.
'Surely,' said I surely that is something at my window lattice;
Let me see, then, what thereat is, and this mystery explore-