This digression, however, has no bearing upon the honored names heading this table, as both now have become 'household words' in our midst. Both are acknowledged as _real poets_, but how different are they in style, and mode of thought! Jean Ingelow, as the more brilliant, is the more general favorite, Adelaide Procter having as yet scarcely received her due meed of praise. Miss Ingelow exhibits an exuberant fancy, a luxurious wealth of diction, and a generally fine poetic sense of form; her thoughts are sound, and their dress new and glittering; but the volume we have read is one to please the fancy and gratify the intellect rather than touch the heart. The style is occasionally obscure and the thought difficult to follow. Of course one can always find a meaning, but one is not always sure of interpreting according to the author's intentions. This quality, found largely in the school of Robert Browning, is one to be guarded against. Mrs. Browning sometimes deals in such involutions, but her style is so evidently an essential part of herself, that we rarely think of affectation in connection with it. It is pleasanter to dream our own dreams, than to follow any author into a tangled maze, whence we, and not he, must furnish the clew for egress. The 'Songs of Seven' and 'The High Tide on the Coast of Lincolnshire' are truly fine poems, to us the most complete and sustained in the entire collection. In 'Requiescat in Pace,' we are carried so far away from the actualities of life that we scarcely care whether the lover be dead or living. As in a fairy tale, we read for the sake of curiosity, admiring sundry touches here and there, but feeling nothing. Miss Ingelow's rhythm is good, and her language musical. The style of Adelaide Procter is singularly lucid and direct; she has but little command of poetic ornament, and we rarely think of her choice of words. _Pathos_, and _a close, keen representation of human experience_, are her distinguishing characteristics. She is a poet to read when the soul is wrung, and longs for the solace of communion with a noble, tender, sympathetic human heart. The very absence of ornament brings the thoughts and feelings nearer to our needs. Her poems are evidently pictures of real human souls, and not poetic imaginings of what human beings might feel under such and such circumstances. There are many of Miss Procter's tales and shorter poems which bring tears to the eyes of all who have really lived and sorrowed, and the more we read them, the more do they come home to us. We feel as if we could take their author into our heart of hearts, and make all the world love her as do we. With her, brilliancy of imagery and description are replaced by a sententiousness and concentration of expression that suddenly strike home some truth perhaps well known, but little dwelt on. For instance, in 'A Legend of Provence,' we find: