THOMAS HOOD. E watch'd her breathing thro' the night, As in her breast the wave of life So silently we seem'd to speak, So slowly moved about, As we had lent her half our powers Our very hopes belied our fears, For when the morn came dim and sad, Her quiet eyelids closed-she had VEN puns- the lowest form of witbecome in his hands instruments of genuine humour and of deepest pathos. His highest praise is that he ever jokes for noble ends. His very levities are directed to some generous and kindly purpose. He tempts men to laugh, and then leads them to pity and relieve. JOSEPH ANGUS. Oh, love divine that claspest our tired earth, Thou know'st how much a gentle soul is worth, His was a spirit that to all thy poor Was kind as slumber after pain; Why ope so soon thy heaven-deep Quiet's door To call him home again. J. R. LOWELL. While men held both their sides from laughter, he who shook them held both his sides from pain; while tears, kindly or comical, came at the touch of his genius into thousands of eyes, eyes were watching and weeping by his bedside in the lonely night and taking note that the instrument was fast decaying which gave forth the enchantment and the charm of all this mirthful and melancholy music. ANON. The upright and unaffected reformer; the enemy to the death of malice, hatred, and all uncharitableness. SHIRLEY. SIR WALTER SCOTT. HE summer dawn's reflected hue Mildly and soft the western breeze Her chalice reared of silver bright; The lark sent down her revelry; In answer cooed the cushat dove Her notes of peace, and rest, and love. T can be said of him; when he departed he took a man's life along with him. No sounder piece of British manhood was put together in that eighteenth century. of time. Alas, his fine Scotch face, with its shaggy honesty, sagacity and goodness, when we saw it latterly in the Edinburgh streets, was all worn with care, the joy all fled from it :-ploughed deep with labour and sorrow. We shall never forget it; we shall never see it again. Adieu, Sir Walter, pride of all Scotchmen, take our proud and sad farewell. T. CARLYLE. Scott is truly the Homer of Scotland. He has an unfailing sweetness of heart, full charged with the morality of the future. J. H. NEWMAN. He discovered want of moral greatness in his unconsciousness of the holy purpose to which genius may always be consecrated, in his childish admiration of hereditary honours, and his incapacity of conceiving of a higher state of human nature and of society than now exists. He was the ideal of a man of the world-the highest, most attractive manifestation of that character which I have ever known. W. E. CHANNING. Throughout all his work there is no evidence of any purpose but to while away the hour. His life had no other object than the pleasure of the instant and the establishing of a family name. JOHN RUSKIN. DANTE. LL ye that pass along Love's trodden way, If there be any grief like unto mine. Be not a piteous marvel and a sign. Vouchsafed to me a life so calm and sweet, Which with Love's hoarded wealth was given me, So poor that I have dread to think thereon, And thus it is that I, being like as one Who is ashamed and hides his poverty, And let my heart within travail and moan. |