coming, as it does, at the end of that dreadful series of hints, through which the ambassador must convey to the new wife, if he takes any interest in his own life, without implicating the Duke of Ferrara, 'woe to him if he does this,'—a warning not to be mistaken; it is lighted up by a terrible significance from within. We shudder to feel that if the innocent bride-elect lifts a finger or raises an eyelash except in harmony with the unspoken bidding of her lord, the grave which holds the beautiful original of one veiled portrait has room for her also, and that the picture-galleries of Ferrara even yet are not without available space; and acknowledge heartily, with how slight a motion of his hand, the man of real genius can create an imperishable dramatic effect.

And this brings us to another question much discussed and open to much discussion-the comparative merits of the vigorous grasp, as opposed to the impalpable touchings of the poetical imagination. There can be no doubt that where the vigorous grasp of a subject is possible, such a grasp should always be laid upon it; but there are regions of poetry, perhaps the very highest, beyond the reach of the human eye, except through fluctuating glimpses and visionary hints. And a grander dream of suggestion may visit the heart of

an intelligent disciple, where the poet catches, or half catches, an evanescent ray from lights behind the sun, than if he had measured his distances and counted up his materials with the precision of an architectural draughtsman. When Alfred Tennyson in his 'In Memoriam' attempts to rest on the cheering belief that the soul of his friend, and of my friend, was removed for high purposes and events; and utters his passionate longing for faith, in these sublime words:

The wish, that of the living whole
No life may fail beyond the grave;
Derives it not from what we have
The likest God within the soul?

Are God and Nature then at strife,

That Nature lends such evil dreams?

So careful of the type she seems,

So careless of the single life;

That I, considering everywhere

Her secret meaning in her deeds,
And finding that of fifty seeds
She often brings but one to bear;

I falter where I firmly trod,

And falling with my weight of cares

Upon the great world's altar-stairs

That slope thro' darkness up to God:'

he would not, so far as I am concerned, have improved his picture by telling us that the stairs in question were of white marble, as if they had been

hewn out of the quarries of Carrara; and that each of the steps was twice as large as those which led up to St. Peter's Church at Rome.

We now come to a much contested point on which it would ill become me to pronounce a confident opinion, in the face of such thinkers as Coleridge, as Wordsworth, as Ruskin, not to speak of others; the distinction, I mean, deep and vital, which they profess to have discovered between the fancy and the imagination. It would ill become me, I say, to pronounce a confident opinion, but at the same time, as I am bound here to be perfectly frank and open, I must at once state, and, in venturing upon such a statement, I am happy to find myself fortified by the high authority →of Mr. Dallas, that I cannot accept their conclusions. To begin with the etymology of the words, though I lay no more stress thereon than it deserves (it indicates at least the original belief of mankind), 'imagination' is simply Latin for 'fancy;' 'fancy' merely Greek for 'imagination.' In spite of this, however, I am by no means insensible to the convenience of classing those inward pictures which spring up in light minds, or at least in lighter moods of mind, apart from those which embody the nobler and stronger forms of passion and of thought.

To that extent, therefore, I willingly recognise the distinction which our English language, according to its later arrangement, establishes between them. To any further extent I do not recognise it. I believe that the picturesque procession of Queen Mab, which, in Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare formed for the delight of his hearers, and which is usually presented to us as an admirable instance of poetic fancy, was seen by Shakespeare according to precisely the same laws of inward vision, as were called into action when Dante beheld those dilating flakes of fire which fell slowly upon the enemies of God, as the snow falls heavily among the Alps, without a sound. And yet I suppose none would deny that the Italian lines to which I refer compose a fine imaginative picture. Shakespeare from his memory, his reading, his powers of observation and combination, blended together one set of images into a bright and sparkling whole. Dante, from his memory, his reading, his powers of observation and combination, blended together another set of images into a gloomy and impressive whole. But I say the modus operandi was in both cases exactly the same. separate faculties were no more needed to call into life these two separate poetical creations, than we, under the laws of the physical world, need two retinas,

Two

one framed for glancing at a fire-fly, and the other for contemplating a fixed star.

To me, indeed, it seems that the upholders of the opposite theory would do well to examine themselves, so as to learn whether they have kept before their judgment with sufficient steadiness a truth which no one disputes in words, but which may often be, in the haste and tumult of thought, practically forgotten. Namely, that however expedient, however desirable we may consider it in discussions of this sort to talk of memory and imagination and humour and fancy, as if they were independent and self-existing substances, they are, after all, intimately and indissolubly united in one homogeneous mind. The composite life within is always one thing, and acts invariably in one mass. Like Wordsworth's cloud, 'it moveth altogether, if it move at all.' Hence the reason and humour of an imaginative man contain elements which the reason and humour of an unimaginative man do not contain; hence also the imagination of a humourist and logician is interpenetrated by logic and humour, and the mind acts as a whole under the combined influence of these three separate forces. Above all does one imagination differ from another, according to the proportions in