England has only two poets now that can be named near him: these two are Tennyson and the author of "Philip Van Artevelde." Tennyson is all that Bailey is not in melody and voluntary finish, having no less than a Greek moderation in declining all undertakings he is not sure of completing. Taylor, noble, an earnest seer, a faithful narrator of what he sees, firm and sure, sometimes deep and exquisite, but in energy and grandeur no more than Tennyson to be named beside the author of Festus. In inspiration, in prophecy, in those flashes of the sacred fire which reveal the secret places where Time is elaborating the marvels of Nature, he stands alone. It is just true what Ebenezer Elliott says, that "Festus contains poetry enough to set up fifty poets,"--ay! even such poets, so far as richness of thought and imagery are concerned, as the two noble bards we have named. But we need call none less to make him greater, whose liberal soul is alive to every shade of beauty, every token of greatness, and whose main stress is to seek a soul of goodness in things evil. The book is a precious, even a sacred book, and we could say more of it, had we not years ago vented our enthusiasm when it was in first full flow. FRENCH NOVELISTS OF THE DAY.[20] WE hear much lamentation among good people at the introduction of so many French novels among us, corrupting, they say, our youth by pictures of decrepit vice and prurient crime, such as would never, otherwise, be dreamed of here, and corrupting it the more that such knowledge is so precocious--for the same reason that a boy may be more deeply injured by initiation into wickedness than a man, for he is not only robbed of his virtue, but prevented from developing the strength that might restore it. But it is useless to bewail what is the inevitable result of the movement of our time. Europe must pour her corruptions, no less than her riches, on our shores, both in the form of books and of living men. She cannot, if she would, check the tide which bears them hitherward; no defences are possible, on our vast extent of shore, that can preclude their ingress. We have exulted in premature and hasty growth; we must brace ourselves to bear the evils that ensue. Our only hope lies in rousing, in our own community, a soul of goodness, a wise aspiration, that shall give us strength to assimilate this unwholesome food to better substance, or cast off its contaminations. A mighty sea of life swells within our nation, and, if there be salt enough, foreign bodies shall not have power to breed infection there.