_Element of poetic Sensibility._--In its milder forms, the state of mind which I describe, constitutes, not unfrequently, an element of what is termed poetic genius, a melancholy arising from some sad experience of the troubles and conflicts of life, and from sympathy with the suffering and sorrowing world, the great sad heart of humanity--a melancholy that, like the plaint of the Æolian harp, lends sweetness and richness to the music of its strain. Such are many of the strains of Tennyson; such the deep under-current of Milton's poetry; such, preëminently, the spirit and tone of John Foster, one of the truest and noblest specimens of poetic genius, although a writer of prose. A quick and lively sensibility, itself an inseparable concomitant of true genius, is not unfrequently accompanied with this gentler form of melancholy. The truly great soul that communes with itself, with nature, and with eternal truth, is no stranger to this subdued yet pleasing sadness. It is this to which Milton pays beautiful tribute in the _Il Penseroso_, and which he thus invokes: "But hail, thou goddess, sage and holy, Hail, divinest Melancholy! Come, pensive nun, devout and pure, Sober, steadfast, and demure, All in a robe of darkest grain Flowing with majestic train, And sable stole of Cyprus lawn Over thy decent shoulders drawn. Come, but keep thy wonted state, With even step and musing gait, And looks commercing with the skies, Thy rapt soul sitting in thine eyes." _Not inconsistent with Wit._--It should be remarked that the disposition of which we speak is not inconsistent with the occasional and even frequent prevalence of feelings of directly the opposite nature. A prevailing tendency to sadness is not unfrequently associated with an almost equally prevailing tendency to emotions of the ludicrous. The same liveliness of sensibility which prepares the soul to feel keenly whatever in life is adapted to awaken sad and sober reflections, also disposes it to notice quickly the little incongruities of character, the foibles and follies of mankind, in which a duller eye would detect nothing absurd or comical. It is, moreover, the natural tendency of the mind to spring back, like the bow unstrung, from one extreme of feeling to its opposite, and seek relief from its sadness in the lighter sallies of wit. And so we have the melancholy Cowper singing John Gilpin, and the author of the Night Thoughts, in conversation, a jovial and witty man. § II.--SORROW AT LOSS OF FRIENDS.