It is difficult to make selections from the "IN MEMORIAM," that will fairly represent it; for one must needs read it as a whole, to get fully into its spirit. The following, however, are some of the beautiful stanzas that can be read with pleasure by themselves. In speaking of his four years' companionship in college with his departed friend, he thus writes:

XXII.

The path by which we twain did go,

Which led by tracts that pleased us well,
Through four sweet years arose and fell,
From flower to flower, from snow to snow:
And we with singing cheer'd the way,

And, crown'd with all the season lent,
From April on to April went,

And glad at heart from May to May:
But where the path we walk'd began
To slant the fifth autumnal slope,
As we descended, following Hope,
There sat the Shadow fear'd of man;
Who broke our fair companionship,

And spread his mantle dark and cold;
And wrapp'd thee formless in the fold,
And dull'd the murmur on thy lip;
And bore thee where I could not see

Nor follow, though I walk in haste;

And think that, somewhere in the waste,

The Shadow sits and waits for me.

The allusion to the time when the "happy sister" was to be their bond of union is very beautiful :

LXXXII.

When I contemplate, all alone,

The life that had been thine below,
And fix my thoughts on all the glow
To which thy crescent would have grown;
I see thee sitting crown'd with good,
A central warmth diffusing bliss

In glance and smile, and clasp and kiss,
On all the branches of thy blood;

Thy blood, my friend, and partly mine;
For now the day was drawing on,
When thou shouldst link thy life with one
Of mine own house, and boys of thine
Had babbled "Uncle" on my knee;
But that remorseless iron hour
Made cypress of her orange-flower,
Despair of Hope, and earth of thee.
I seem to meet their least desire,

To clap their cheeks, to call them mine.
I see their unborn faces shine

Beside the never-lighted fire.

I see myself an honor'd guest,
Thy partner in the flowery walk
Of letters, genial table-talk,
Or deep dispute, and graceful jest:
While now thy prosperous labor fills
The lips of men with honest praise,
And sun by sun the happy days
Descend below the golden hills

With promise of a morn as fair;

And all the train of bounteous hours
Conduct, by paths of growing powers,
To reverence and the silver hair;

Till slowly worn her earthly robe,

Her lavish mission richly wrought,
Leaving great legacies of thought,
Thy spirit should fail from off the globe;
What time mine own might also flee,

As link'd with thine in love and fate,
And, hovering o'er the dolorous strait
To the other shore, involved in thee,
Arrive at last the blessed goal,

And he that died in Holy Land

Would reach us out the shining hand,

And take us as a single soul.

What reed was that on which I leant?

Ah! backward fancy! wherefore wake
The old bitterness again, and break
The low beginnings of content?

The spiritual qualifications for any feeling of communion with the dead are thus finely set forth :

XCII.

How pure at heart and sound in head,

With what divine affections bold,

Should be the man whose thought would hold

An hour's communion with the dead.

In vain shalt thou, or any, call

The spirits from their golden day,
Except, like them, thou too canst say

My spirit is at peace with all.

They haunt the silence of the breast,
Imaginations calm and fair,

The memory like a cloudless air,
The conscience as a sea at rest:

But when the heart is full of din,
And doubt beside the portal waits,
They can but listen at the gates
And hear the household jar within.

MRS. NORTON.

CAROLINE ELIZABETH SARAH SHERIDAN is the granddaughter of Richard Brinsley Sheridan, and was born about the year 1808. She early showed that she inherited the genius of her celebrated ancestor, and in her seventeenth year composed her poem "The Sorrows of Rosalie." "Bereaved by death," as it has been said, "of one to whom she had given her heart, she became, in an unpropitious hour, the wife of the Hon. George Chappel Norton." The union proved a most unhappy one, and was dissolved in 1840, Mrs. Norton having been, for many years, the object of suspicion and persecution of the most mortifying and painful character. That her husband's treatment of her was most unjustifiable, no one who is acquainted with the history of this most unfortunate union for a moment doubts; but that in such cases the fault is all on one side, the world rarely, if ever, believes. It is certainly much in Mrs. Norton's favor that she has not forfeited the confidence of her most intimate friends, and that in the darkest hour of her persecution she enjoyed the esteem of some of the first personages in England.

Mrs. Norton's next work was a poem founded on the ancient legend of the "Wandering Jew," which she termed "The Undying One." A third volume appeared from her pen in 1840, entitled "The Dream, and other Poems." These have given her a very high rank among the female poets of England. The "Quarterly Review" says that "she is the Byron of our modern poetesses. She has very much of that intense personal passion by which Byron's poetry is distinguished from the larger grasp and deeper communion with man and nature of Wordsworth. She has also Byron's beautiful intervals of tenderness, his strong practical thought, and his forceful expression. It is not an artificial imitation, but a natural parallel." For the honor of the sex, I hope the "natural parallel" cannot be carried any further. Indeed it cannot. Much of Byron's poetry is "earthly, sensual, devilish;" while the moral tone of all that Mrs. Norton has written is pure and elevated. Her poetic powers, naturally of a high order, have been greatly cherished and improved by education and culture, and by a careful study of the best models. But she can speak best for herself.

The following impassioned verses are addressed by Mrs. Norton to her to whom she has dedicated her poems :-

TO THE DUCHESS OF SUTHERLAND.

Once more, my harp! once more, although I thought
Never to wake thy silent strings again;

A wandering dream thy gentle chords have wrought,
And my sad heart, which long hath dwelt in pain,
Soars like a wild bird from a cypress bough
Into the poet's heaven, and leaves dull grief below!

And unto thee-the beautiful and pure-
Whose lot is cast amid that busy world
Where only sluggish Dulness dwells secure,
And Fancy's generous wing is faintly furl'd;

To thee whose friendship kept its equal truth

Through the most dreary hour of my imbitter'd youth-
I dedicate the lay. Ah! never bard,

In days when poverty was twin with song,

Nor wandering harper, lonely and ill-starr'd,

Cheer'd by some castle's chief, and harbor'd long; Not Scott's "Last Minstrel," in his trembling lays,

Woke with a warmer heart the earnest meed of praise!

For easy are the alms the rich man spares

To sons of Genius, by misfortune bent;

But thou gav'st me, what woman seldom dares,

Belief in spite of many a cold dissent

When slander'd and malign'd, I stood apart

From those whose bounded power hath wrung, not crush'd, my heart.

Thou, then, when cowards lied away my name,
And scoff'd to see me feebly stem the tide;
When some were kind on whom I had no claim,
And some forsook on whom my love relied,

And some, who might have battled for my sake,

Stood off in doubt to see what turn the world would take

Thou gav'st me that the poor do give the poor,

Kind words, and holy wishes, and true tears;

The loved, the near of kin could do no more;

Who changed not with the gloom of varying years,

But clung the closer when I stood forlorn,

And blunted Slander's dart with their indignant scorn.

For they who credit crime are they who feel

Their own hearts weak to unresisted sin;

Memory, not judgment, prompts the thoughts which steel
O'er minds like these, an easy faith to win;
And tales of broken truth are still believed
Most readily by those who have themselves deceived.
But like a white swan down a troubled stream,
Whose ruffling pinion hath the power to fling
Aside the turbid drops which darkly gleam

And mar the freshness of her snowy wing-
So thou, with queenly grace and gentle pride,
Along the world's dark waves in purity dost glide:
Thy pale and pearly cheek was never made

To crimson with a faint false-hearted shame;
Thou didst not shrink-of bitter tongues afraid,
Who hunt in packs the object of their blame;
To thee the sad denial still held true,

For from thine own good thoughts thy heart its mercy drew.

And though my faint and tributary rhymes

Add nothing to the glory of thy day,

Yet every poet hopes that after-times

Shall set some value on his votive lay;

And I would fain one gentle deed record,

Among the many such with which thy life is stored.

So when these lines, made in a mournful hour,
Are idly open'd to the stranger's eye,
A dream of thee, aroused by Fancy's power,
Shall be the first to wander floating by;
And they who never saw thy lovely face

Shall pause, to conjure up a vision of its grace!

"A fine proof of Mrs. Norton's wide range of sympathy is to be found in the poem descriptive of an Arab's farewell to his horse. The enthusiastic regard, which it is well known the Arab always entertains for his steed, finds a most eloquent expositor in our author. The feeling is a beautiful one, and it is beautifully

rendered."

THE ARAB'S FAREWELL TO HIS STEED.

My beautiful! my beautiful! that standest meekly by,
With thy proudly-arch'd and glossy neck, thy dark and fiery eye-
Fret not to roam the desert now with all thy winged speed;
may not mount on thee again-thou'rt sold, my Arab steed!
Fret not with that impatient hoof, snuff not the breezy wind,
The farther that thou fliest now, so far am I behind.

The stranger hath thy bridle-rein, thy master hath his gold,
Fleet limb'd and beautiful, farewell! thou'rt sold, my steed, thou'rt sold!

Farewell those free untired limbs full many a mile must roam,
To reach the chill and wintry sky which clouds the stranger's home;
Some other hand, less fond, must now thy corn and bread prepare-
Thy silky mane I braided once must be another's care.
The morning sun shall dawn again, but never more with thee
Shall I gallop through the desert paths where we were wont to be.
Evening shall darken on the earth, and o'er the sandy plain
Some other steed, with slower step, shall bear me home again.

Yes! thou must go! the wild free breeze, the brilliant sun and sky,
Thy master's house, from all of these my exiled one must fly.
Thy proud dark eye will grow less proud, thy step become less fleet,
And vainly shalt thou arch thy neck thy master's hand to meet.
Only in sleep shall I behold that dark eye glancing bright;
Only in sleep shall hear again that step so firm and light;
And when I raise my dreaming arm to check or cheer thy speed,
Then must I, starting, wake to feel thou'rt sold, my Arab steed!

Ah, rudely then, unseen by me, some cruel hand may chide,
Till foam-wreaths lie, like crested waves, along thy panting side;
And the rich blood that's in thee swells in thy indignant pain,
Till careless eyes, which rest on thee, may count each starting vein.
Will they ill-use thee? If I thought-but no, it cannot be-
Thou art so swift, yet easy curb'd, so gentle yet so free.
And yet if haply, when thou'rt gone, my lonely heart should yearn,
Can the same hand which casts thee off command thee to return?