In dramatic conception, depth of thought, and variety of fancy, we could name several women who excelled her; but in the use of language, in the employment of rich, chaste, and glowing imagery, and in the perfect music of her versification, she stands alone and superior. In the words of Miss Jewsbury, “The genius with which she was gifted, combined to inspire a passion for the ethereal, the tender, the imaginative, the heroic,—in one word, the beautiful. It was in her a faculty Divine, and yet of daily life, it touched all things; but like a sunbeam, touched them with a golden finger.” She was a genuine woman, and therefore imbued with a Christian spirit. To borrow again from Miss Jewsbury: “Her strength and her weakness alike lay in her affections: these would sometimes make her weep at a word, at others imbue her with courage, so that she was alternately a falcon-hearted dove, and a reed shaken with the wind. Her voice was a sad melody; her spirits reminded me of an old poet’s description of the orange-tree with its ‘Golden lamps hid in a night of green,’ or of those Spanish gardens, where the pomegranate grows beside the cypress. Her gladness was like a burst of sunlight; and if in her depression she resembled night, it was night wearing her stars.” _SECTION VI.—ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING._ “It is characteristic of this century, that women play a more important part in literature than previously. Not only have women of genius commanded universal homage, but the distinctive characteristics of the female nature have been exhibited with more exquisite analysis and more powerful truth than heretofore.” PETER BAYNE, A.M. _EPIC POETRY._