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By Root 16141 0

is required for its own comprehension. An “argument” is but another form of the “This is an ox” subjoined to the portrait of an animal with horns. But in making these objections to the management of “The Sinless Child,” we must not be understood as insisting upon them as at all material, in view of the lofty merit of originality — a merit which pervades and invigorates the whole work, and which, in our opinion, at least, is far, very far more than sufficient to compensate for every inartisticality of construction. A work of art may be admirably constructed, and yet be null as regards every essentiality of that truest art which is but the happiest development of nature; but no work of art can embody within itself a proper originality without giving the plainest manifestations of the creative spirit, or, in more common ­parlance, of genius in its author. The originality of “The Sinless Child” would cover a multitude of greater defects than Mrs. Smith ever committed, and must forever entitle it to the admiration and respect of every competent critic.

As regards detached passages, we think that the episode of “The Stepmother” may be fairly cited as the best in the poem

You speak of Hobert’s second wife, a lofty dame and bold;

I like not her forbidding air, and forehead high and cold.

The orphans have no cause for grief; she dare not give it now,

Though nothing but a ghostly fear her heart of pride could bow.

One night the boy his mother called; they heard him weeping say,

“Sweet mother, kiss poor Eddy’s cheek and wipe his tears away.”

Red grew the lady’s brow with rage, and yet she feels a strife

Of anger and of terror, too, at thought of that dead wife.

Wild roars the wind; the lights burn blue; the watch-dog howls with fear;

Loud neighs the steed from out the stall. What form is gliding near?

No latch is raised, no step is heard, but a phantom fills the space —

A sheeted spectre from the dead, with cold and leaden face.

What boots it that no other eye beheld the shade appear?

The guilty lady’s guilty soul beheld it plain and clear.

It slowly glides within the room and sadly looks around,

And, stooping, kissed her daughter’s cheek with lips that gave no sound.

Then softly on the step-dame’s arm she laid a death-cold hand,

Yet it hath scorched within the flesh like to a burning brand;

And gliding on with noiseless foot, o’er winding stair and hall,

She nears the chamber where is heard her infant’s trembling call.

She smoothed the pillow where he lay, she warmly tucked the bed,

She wiped his tears and stroked the curls that clustered round his head.

The child, caressed, unknowing fear, hath nestled him to rest;

The mother folds her wings beside — the mother from the blest!

The metre of this episode has been altered from its original form, and, we think, improved by the alteration. Formerly, in place of four lines of seven iambuses, the stanza consisted of eight lines — a line of four iambuses alternating with one of three — a more ordinary and artificial, therefore a less desirable arrangement. In the three last quatrains there is an awkward vacillation between the present and perfect tenses, as in the words “beheld,” “glides,” “kissed,” “laid,” “hath scorched,” “smoothed,” “wiped,” “hath nestled,” “folds.” These petty objections, of course, will by no means interfere with the reader’s appreciation of the episode, with his admiration of its pathos, its delicacy and its grace — we had almost forgotten to say of its pure and high imagination. ­

We proceed to cull from “The Sinless Child,” a few brief but happy passages at random.

Gentle she was and full of love,

With voice exceeding sweet,

And eyes of dove-like tenderness

Where joy and sadness meet.

——

——— with calm and tranquil eye

That turned instinctively to seek

The blueness of the sky.

——

Bright missals from angelic throngs

In every bye-way left —

How were the earth of glory shorn

Were it of flowers bereft!

——

And wheresoe’er the weary heart

Turns in its dim despair,

The meek-eyed blossom upward looks,

Inviting it to prayer.