High and commanding genius is able to win our attention even in its most eccentric moods. Such genius belongs to Mrs Browning in a very remarkable degree, and on that account we readily forgive her for some forced rhyming, intricate diction, and even occasional obscurity of thought. But what shall we say of the man who seeks to reproduce her marvellous effects by copying her blemishes? Read the above lines, and you will find that, in so far as sound and mannerism go, they are an exact transcript from Mrs Browning. Apply your intellect to the discovery of their meaning, and you will rise from the task thoroughly convinced of its hopelessness. The poem in which they occur is entitled _The New Sirens_, but it might with equal felicity and point have been called _The New Harpies_, or _The Lay of the Hurdy-Gurdy_. It seems to us a mere experiment, for the purpose of showing that words placed together in certain juxtaposition, without any regard to their significance or propriety, can be made to produce a peculiar phonetic effect. The phenomenon is by no means a new one--it occurs whenever the manufacture of nonsense-verses is attempted; and it needed not the staining of innocent wire-wove to convince us of its practicability. Read the following stanza--divorce the sound from the sense, and then tell us what you can make of it:-- "With a sad majestic motion-- With a stately slow surprise-- From their earthward-bound devotion Lifting up your languid eyes: _Would you freeze my louder boldness, Humbly smiling as you go?_ One faint frown of distant coldness Flitting fast across each marble brow?" What say you, Parson Sir Hugh Evans? "The tevil with his tam; what phrase is this--_freeze my louder boldness_? Why, it is affectations."