The green earth heaved her giant waves around, Where, through the mountain vista, one vast height Towered heavenward without peer, his forehead bound With gorgeous clouds, at times of changeful light, While, far below, the lake in bridal rest Slept with his glorious picture on her breast. Here is an air of quietude in good keeping with the theme; the “giant waves” in the last stanza redeem it from much exception otherwise; and perhaps we need say nothing at all of the suspicious-looking compound “mult_a_-flora.” Had Mr. Dawes always written even nearly so well, we should have been spared to-day the painful task imposed upon us by a stern sense of our critical duty. These passages are followed immediately by an address or invocation to “Peerless America,” including apostrophes to Allston and Claude Lorraine. We now learn the name of the tenant of the cottage, which is _Wilton_, and ascertain that he has an only daughter. A single stanza quoted at this juncture will aid the reader’s conception of the queer tone of philosophical rhapsody with which the poem teems, and some specimen of which is invariably made to follow each little modicum of incident. How like the heart is to an instrument A touch can wake to gladness or to wo! How like the circumambient element The spirit with its undulating flow! The heart—the soul—Oh, Mother Nature, why This universal bond of sympathy. After two pages much in this manner, we are told that _Geraldine_ is the name of the maiden, and are informed, with comparatively little circumlocution, of her character. She is beautiful, and kind-hearted, and somewhat romantic, and “some thought her reason touched”—for which we have little disposition to blame them. There is now much about Kant and Fichte; about Schelling, Hegel and Cousin; (which latter is made to rhyme with _gang_;) about Milton, Byron, Homer, Spinoza, David Hume and Mirabeau; and a good deal, too, about the _scribendi cacoïthes_, in which an evident misunderstanding of the quantity of _cacoïthes_ brings, again, into very disagreeable suspicion the writer’s cognizance of the Latin tongue. At this point we may refer, also, to such absurdities as Truth with her thousand-folded robe of error Close shut in her _sarcophagi_ of terror— And Where _candelabri_ silver the white halls. Now, no one is presupposed to be cognizant of any language beyond his own; to be ignorant of Latin is no crime; to pretend a knowledge is beneath contempt; and the pretender will attempt in vain to utter or to write two consecutive phrases of a foreign idiom, without betraying his deficiency to those who are conversant. At page 39, there is some prospect of a progress in the story. Here we are introduced to a Mr. Acus and his fair daughter, Miss Alice.