a beautiful and harmonious line-- 'From his loud fount upon the echoing lea:-- Which, with _increasing_ might, doth _forward flee_'-- Every word of this line is valuable--the natural progress of human ambition is here strongly characterized--two lines ago he would have been satisfied with the _self-same_ impulse--but now he must have _increasing_ might; and indeed he would require all his might to accomplish his object of _fleeing forward_, that is, going backwards and forwards at the same time. Perhaps he uses the word _flee_ for _flow_; which latter he could not well employ in _this_ place, it being, as we shall see, essentially necessary to rhyme to _Mexico_ towards the end of the sonnet--as an equivalent to _flow_ he has, therefore, with great taste and ingenuity, hit on the combination of _forward flee_-- ------------'doth forward flee By town, and tower, and hill, and cape, and isle, And in the middle of the green _salt_ sea Keeps his blue waters fresh for many a mile.' A noble wish, beautifully expressed, that he may not be confounded with the deluge of ordinary poets, but, amidst their discoloured and briny ocean, still preserve his own bright tints and sweet savor. He may be at ease on this point--he never can be mistaken for any one else. We have but too late become acquainted with him, yet we assure ourselves that if a thousand anonymous specimens were presented to us, we should unerringly distinguish his by the total absence of any particle of _salt_. But again, his thoughts take another turn, and he reverts to the insatiability of human ambition:--we have seen him just now content to be a river, but as he _flees forward_, his desires expand into sublimity, and he wishes to become the great Gulfstream of the Atlantic. 'Mine be the power which ever to its sway Will win _the wise at once_-- We, for once, are wise, and he has won _us_-- 'Will win the wise at once; and by degrees May into uncongenial spirits flow, Even as the great gulphstream of Flori_da_ Floats far away into the Northern seas The lavish growths of southern Mexi_co_!'--p. 1. And so concludes the sonnet. The next piece is a kind of testamentary paper, addressed 'To ----,' a friend, we presume, containing his wishes as to what his friend should do for him when he (the poet) shall be dead--not, as we shall see, that he quite thinks that such a poet can die outright. 'Shake hands, my friend, across the brink Of that deep grave to which I go. Shake hands once more; I cannot sink So far--far down, but I shall know Thy voice, and answer from below!' Horace said 'non omnis moriar,' meaning that his fame should survive--Mr. Tennyson is still more vivacious, 'non _omnino_ moriar,'--'I will not die at all; my body shall be as immortal as my verse, and however _low I may go_, I warrant you I shall keep all my wits about me,--therefore'