trivial subject, be it in the most simple strain, his imagination, _in spite of himself_, affects it. There never was a better illustrator of the dogma of the Schoolmen--_in omnem actum intellectualem imaginatio influit_. We believe we might affirm, that throughout all the mature original poems in these volumes, there is not one image, the _expression_ of which does not, in a greater or less degree, individualize it and appropriate it to the poet's feelings. Tear the passage out of its place, and nail it down at the head of a chapter of a modern novel, and it will be like hanging up in a London exhibition-room a picture painted for the dim light of a cathedral. Sometimes a single word--an epithet--has the effect to the reader of a Claude Lorraine glass; it tints without obscuring or disguising the object. The poet has the same power in conversation. We remember him once settling an elaborate discussion carried on in his presence, upon the respective sublimity of Shakespeare and Schiller in Othello and the Robbers, by saying, "Both are sublime; only Schiller's is the _material_ sublime-- that's all!" _All_ to be sure; but more than enough to show the whole difference. And upon another occasion, where the doctrine of the Sacramentaries and the Roman Catholics on the subject of the Eucharist was in question, the poet said, "They are both equally wrong; the first have volatilized the Eucharist into a metaphor--the last have condensed it into an idol." Such utterance as this flashes light; it supersedes all argument--it abolishes proof by proving itself.