_Notes from Books_ followed within a few months, but met with a less cordial reception. Of the four essays comprised in this volume, three are reprinted contributions to the _Quarterly Review_, being criticisms on the poetry of Wordsworth and Aubrey de Vere; and worthily do they illustrate--those on Wordsworth at least--Mr Taylor's composite faculty of depth and delicacy in poetical exposition. Of Wordsworth's many and gifted commentators--among them Wilson, Coleridge, Hazlitt, De Quincey, Lamb, Moir, Sterling--few have shewn a happier insight into the idiosyncrasy, or done more justice to the beauties of the patriarch of the Lakes. With Wordsworth for a subject, and the _Quarterly Review_ for a 'door of utterance,' Mr Taylor is quite in his element. The fourth essay, on the _Ways of the Rich and Great_, is enriched with wise saws and modern instances. Its _materiel_ is composed of ripe observation and reflective good sense; but the manner is objected to as marred by conceits of style--a sin not very safely to be committed by so stern a censor of it in others. His authoritative air in laying down the law is also occasionally unpleasing to some readers; and great as his tact in essay-writing is, he wants that easy grace and pervading _bonhomie_ which imparts such a charm to the works of one with whom he has been erroneously identified--the anonymous author of _Friends in Council_. But, after all, he is one of those writers to whom our current literature is really indebted, and whose sage, sententious, and well-hammered thoughts may be profitably, as well as safely, commended to every thinking soul among us. * * * * * FOOTNOTES: [2] _Notes from Life._ [3] Ibid. [4] _Literary Remains._ [5] _Lectures on the History of France._ [6] Namely, Jacques van Artevelde, 'the noblest and the wisest man that ever ruled in Ghent,' and whom the factious citizens slew at his own door. [7] Duke of Burgundy, in the last scene of Part II. [8] Beginning:-- 'Rocks that beheld my boyhood! Perilous shelf That nursed my infant courage! Once again I, stand before you--not as in other days In your gray faces smiling; but like you The worse for weather.'... How sweet the lines:-- The sun shall soon Dip westerly; but oh! how little like Are life's two twilights! Would the last were first, And the first last! that so we might he soothed Upon the thoroughfares of busy life Beneath the noon-day sun, with hope of joy Fresh as the morn,' &c. --_Act II. scene ii._ [9] Preface to _Notes from Life._ [10] _Levana_, of which an able translation was published by Messrs Longman in 1848. RAILWAY JUBILEE IN AMERICA.