Although, with the exception of his marriage and travels in America, Mr. Watson's verse tells us little of the facts of his life, few poets have ever revealed more of the history of their mind. What manner of man he is we know without waiting for the publication of his intimate correspondence. It is fortunate for his temperament that, combined with an almost morbid sensitiveness, he has something of Byron's power of hitting back. His numerous volumes contain many verses scoring off adverse critics, upon whom he exercises a sword of satire not always to be found among a poet's weapons; which exercise seems to give him both relief and delight. Apart from these thrusts edged with personal bitterness, William Watson possesses a rarely used vein of ironical wit that immediately recalls Byron, who might himself have written some of the stanzas in _The Eloping Angels_. Faust requests Mephisto to procure for them both admission into heaven for half-an-hour: To whom Mephisto: "Ah, you underrate The hazards and the dangers, my good Sir. Peter is stony as his name; the gate, Excepting to invited guests, won't stir. 'Tis long since he and I were intimate; We differed;--but to bygones why refer? Still, there are windows; if a peep through these Would serve your turn, we'll start whene'er you please...." So Faust and his companion entered, by The window, the abodes where seraphs dwell. "Already morning quickens in the sky, And soon will sound the heavenly matin bell; Our time is short," Mephisto said, "for I Have an appointment about noon in hell. Dear, dear! why, heaven has hardly changed one bit Since the old days before the historic split."