More's prose writings give us, on the whole, a higher idea of his powers than his poem. This is not exactly, as a recent critic calls it, 'dull and tedious,' but it is in some parts prosaic, and in others obscure. The gleams of fancy in it are genuine, but few and far between. But his prose works constitute, like those of Cudworth, Charnock, Jeremy Taylor, and John Scott, a vast old quarry, abounding both in blocks and in gems --blocks of granite solidity, and gems of starry lustre. The peculiarity of More is in that poetico-philosophic mist which, like the autumnal gossamer, hangs in light and beautiful festoons over his thoughts, and which suggests pleasing memories of Plato and the Alexandrian school. Like all the followers of the Grecian sage, he dwells in a region of 'ideas,' which are to him the only realities, and are not cold, but warm; he sees all things in Divine solution; the visible is lost in the invisible, and nature retires before her God. Surely they are splendid reveries those of the Platonic school; but it is sad to reflect that they have not cast the slightest gleam of light on the dark, frightful, faith-shattering mysteries which perplex all inquirers. The old shadows of sin, death, damnation, evil, and hell, are found to darken the 'ideas' of Plato's world quite as deeply as they do the actualities of this weary, work-day earth, into which men have, for some inscrutable purpose, been sent to be, on the whole, miserable,--so often to toil without compen- sation, to suffer without benefit, and to hope without fulfilment. OPENING OF SECOND PART OF 'PSYCHOZOIA.' 1 Whatever man he be that dares to deem True poets' skill to spring of earthly race, I must him tell, that he doth mis-esteem Their strange estate, and eke himself disgrace By his rude ignorance. For there's no place For forced labour, or slow industry, Of flagging wits, in that high fiery chase; So soon as of the Muse they quickened be, At once they rise, and lively sing like lark in sky. 2 Like to a meteor, whose material Is low unwieldy earth, base unctuous slime, Whose inward hidden parts ethereal Lie close upwrapt in that dull sluggish fime, Lie fast asleep, till at some fatal time Great Phoebus' lamp has fired its inward sprite, And then even of itself on high doth climb: That erst was dark becomes all eye, all sight, Bright star, that to the wise of future things gives light. 3 Even so the weaker mind, that languid lies, Knit up in rags of dirt, dark, cold, and blind, So soon that purer flame of love unties Her clogging chains, and doth her sprite unbind, She soars aloft; for she herself doth find Well plumed; so raised upon her spreaden wing, She softly plays, and warbles in the wind, And carols out her inward life and spring Of overflowing joy, and of pure love doth sing. EXORDIUM OF THIRD PART.