Happier circumstances would have brought good work from Fitzadam. The following is from "Lovers' Oaths," and involuntarily reminds us of Edgar Poe's lighter subjects and metres, which saw light a score years after this :—

"By the vow breathed thro' lips,
Meeting oft as they breathed it,
As to drink the warm life

Of the heart that bequeathed it.

“By the big tear of blisses,
That moistened, in starting,
Our long-clinging kisses,
The moment of parting.

"By thy sweetness and grace,

More than heaven to a lover;
By that form and that face,
Which are heavenly all over.

"These pledges I call, love,

To witness I take thee;

By these, each and all, love,

I'll never forsake thee."

Here there is nothing of the moodiness, the great wild thought: all is light and playful as any rose-lipped maiden could desire. This is from parting :

It is painful to turn from the natural tenderness of the man to the gloom of his despair, however grand that may be.

"Another day is gone—the sun's i' the sea

Sealed with the stern irrevocable past,

One life-sand more is down-and so till the last

Melts in a mass of round eternity.

Oh life! thy thriftless suns pass over me,

As o'er the herbless and unwatered waste,
Smote with eternal barrenness and blast.

The malediction of the Scripture tree

Is on me, or if such dead mass make sign

Of summer, 'tis as some forgotten grave

Which brings forth nought of blade or blossom, save
Rank, bitter weeds. Would e'en such grave were mine,
For this slow rotting of the spirit here,

Makes death itself a thing most wished and dear!"

Though the natural bent of Fitzadam's mind was evidently toward moodiness and melancholy, yet he did not always give way to it; and in the obituary of the Erne Packet, his own paper, special reference is made to the hilarity of his temper. He could even fling back a lance at his adversaries. Witness his "Parting Word to London, from the Top of the Coach :

"You seem quite unconcerned, my dear,

Nay, laugh and leer as if you funned one-
Does this become you, Mistress London-
To titter so behind your fan,

At your wronged bard and "broken man?"
What you ungracious baggage, what!
Though all my money you have got,

Nay more, much more than that, you shrew,
All I could beg and borrow too."

We cannot better conclude this brief sketch of Ismael Fitzadam, the neglected, the forgotten poet, than by quoting "Napoleon Moribundus," which is certainly the most powerful of his poems, as it is also the most characteristic effort of his original and peculiar faculty:

"Yes! bury me deep in the infinite sea,

Let my heart have a limitless grave;
For my spirit in life was as fierce and free
As the course of the tempest wave.

"As far from the stretch of all earthly control
Were the fathomless depths of my mind,
And the ebbs and flows of my single soul
Were as tides to the rest of mankind.

"Then my briny pall shall encircle the world,
As in life did the voice of my fame;
And each mutinous billow that's skyward curled,
Shall seem to re-echo my name.

"That name shall be storied in records sublime,

In the uttermost corners of earth;

Now breathed as a curse, now a spell-word sublime,
In the glorified land of my birth.

"My airy form on some lofty mast

In fire-fraught clouds shall appear,

And mix with the shriek of the hurricane blast,
My voice to the fancy of fear.

"Yes! plunge my dark heart in the infinite sea—
It would burst from a narrower tomb;

Shall less than an ocean his sepulchre be,

Whose mandate to millions was doom?"

This poem need not fear comparison with any of its age. May we not look upon it as a blossom in a wreath of immortelles which shall bind "Ismael Fitzadam" to our memories a little while longer? We may wish that he had written more with such a power, and think what he might have done under a happier star.

KENINGALE ROBERT COOK, B.A.

WILL HE ESCAPE?

BOOK THE THIRD.

(Continued.)

CHAPTER III.

MR. HARDMAN PAYS A VISIT.

HE next day he went about dissatisfied, scarcely touching his piano. At dinner his wife said,

"Why don't you go out, dear, and take a good walk with Livy? You will get ill.",

"O, I can't be always walking. Really, I'm not a school-boy quite to be sent out to take an airing. If I had a horse, then I could ride—as every other man in a place like this has; but I can have nothing like any one else."

"But why not get a horse, dearest? We should both be so glad to see you riding about."

"O, the expense! and you wouldn't like it. It wouldn't suit the petticoat government under which I live. O, no."

These, again, were words foreign to him; still they pointed merely at a little domestic grievance, not at the one which they so dreaded. It was a relief. Before the day was over, it had been all planned, and Mrs. Talbot came to him with a scheme.

"It is quite reasonable," she said; "and, indeed, I think you ought to have your horse. Livy and I make you a little presentthis five-and-twenty pounds out of our bank; and you can make up the rest yourself.”

The Beauty was greatly pleased, but he was a gentleman, after all, and would not take their money.

"I am not so dependent as that," he said; "but I know where I can get a capital horse for forty pounds, and get time to pay for him, without taking your little money. No, no."

He was very proud of himself for this. Perhaps, too, he wished not to lay himself under any obligation which might hamper his

future movements; perhaps he felt a twinge of conscience. No matter, the horse came home that very evening; and the Beauty took to making long rides.

Next day drove up the Hardman carriage, its owner seated back in it, with quite a sheriff-like air. He got out in a slow, solemn way; stood on the steps a few moments, giving orders to his servants while the door was kept open; then entered slowly.

"Tell Mrs. Talbot, please, that I would be obliged to her to let me speak to her privately. Privately!-you understand?"

It was wonderful the change in Mr. Hardman as he appeared to Mrs. Talbot when he entered. She understood it all, and it was a deep humiliation. There was a puffed importance, half medical, half official; and his chin was elevated some more degrees.

"I have come," he said, "to speak about this matter, which concerns us both so immediately."

"O, about the proposal your son made my daughter. It was so unexpected—such a surprise—that I thought it better not even to mention it when you were at Bindley."

She could not resist taking this tone, and it gave her her old superiority.

"Of course-of course," he said; "quite right. You see though, Mrs. Talbot, I have been turning the matter over a great deal; and, of course, it comes to this; I must look at it as a pure matter of business."

"A pure matter of business!" she repeated. "O, you are joking, surely?"

"Not at all, ma'am. Love, and all that, is very well; but I, as a man of sense, must consider it in other ways. Now, I know you are people of good family and connections, and all that, and very suitable; but, then, our side has its corresponding advantages, too. My son will come into a very large income; I may naturally look for a very high and advantageous connection for him-very high, ma'am, as things go now! Plenty of girls in the market-ay, and that I know of; people of rank, and all that."

"Then we have no wish to interfere with your market, Mr. Hardman; not for a moment."

"Now," went on Mr. Hardman, "I do not know what sort of fortune Miss Talbot will bring with her; but I may assume it will be a very moderate one. I am not saying there is any discredit in that -far from it; but-"

"Now once for all," said Mrs. Talbot, with a calm contempt, under which he became restless, "let us put this on its proper footing.