was an obscure hole, his only visible auxiliary a negro boy, and his supporters a few very insignificant persons of all colors."- Letter of H. G. Otis.

This significant sentence printed at its head gave the key-note to the following poem, but it is interesting to read the characterization of Garrison drawn by Mr. Lowell at this same time, in a letter to C. F. Briggs dated March 26, 1848. "I do not agree with the abolitionists in their disunion and non-voting theories. They treat ideas as ignorant persons do cherries. They think them unwholesome unless they are swallowed, stones and all. Garrison is so used to standing alone that, like Daniel Boone, he moves away as the world creeps up to him, and goes farther into the wilderness. He considers every step a step forward, though it be over the edge of a precipice. But, with all his faults (and they are the faults of his position) he is a great and extraordinary man. His work may be over, but it has been a great work. . . . I respect Garrison (respect does not include love). Remember that Garrison was so long in a position where he alone was right and all the world wrong, that such a position has created in him a habit of mind which may remain, though circumstances have wholly changed. Indeed a mind of that cast is essential to a Reformer. Luther was as infallible as any man that ever held St. Peter's keys." Letters I. 125, 126.

IN a small chamber, friendless and unseen,

Toiled o'er his types one poor, unlearned young man;

The place was dark, unfurnitured, and

born

In the rude stable, in the manger nurst!

Ye earn the crown, and wear it not in

vain.

ON THE DEATH OF CHARLES TURNER TORREY

con

The Martyr Torrey was the name applied to this clergyman, who gave up his professional life in order to devote himself to the antislavery cause in Maryland. He was demned to long imprisonment for aiding in the escape of slaves, but died in the penitentiary, May, 1846, of disease brought on by ill usage. His body was taken to Boston, and the funeral made a profound impression on the community.

WOE worth the hour when it is crime

To plead the poor dumb bondman's cause, When all that makes the heart sublime, The glorious throbs that conquer time, Are traitors to our cruel laws!

Yet thou hast called him, nor art thou unkind,

O Love Divine, for 't is thy will

That gracious natures leave their love behind

To work for Mercy still.

Let laurelled marbles weigh on other tombs,

Let anthems peal for other dead, Rustling the bannered depth of minsterglooms

With their exulting spread.

His epitaph shall mock the short-lived stone,

No lichen shall its lines efface, He needs these few and simple lines alone

To mark his resting-place:

"Here lies a Poet. Stranger, if to thee His claim to memory be obscure, If thou wouldst learn how truly great was he,

Go, ask it of the poor."

THIS poem was written apparently early in 1848, for in a letter to Mr. Briggs, dated February 1 of that year, Lowell, referring to it, says: "The new poem I spoke of is a sort of a story, and more likely to be popular than what I write generally. Maria thinks very highly of it. I shall probably publish it by itself next summer." The poem was published in the middle of December, 1848, and in an exuberant letter to Mr. Briggs shortly after it appeared, Lowell wrote: "Last night. . I walked to Watertown over the snow with the new moon before me and a sky exactly like that in Page's evening landscape. Orion was rising behind me, and, as I stood on the hill just before you enter the village, the stillness of the fields around me was delicious, broken only by the tinkle of a little brook which runs too swiftly for Frost to catch it. My picture of the brook in Sir Launfal was drawn from it." The following note was prefixed to the poem by its author.

According to the mythology of the Romancers, the San Greal, or Holy Grail, was the cup

out of which Jesus partook of the Last Supper with his disciples. It was brought into England by Joseph of Arimathea, and remained there, an object of pilgrimage and adoration, for many years in the keeping of his lineal descendants. It was incumbent upon those who had charge of it to be chaste in thought, word, and deed; but one of the keepers having broken this condition, the Holy Grail disappeared. From that time it was a favorite enterprise of the knights of Arthur's court to go in search of it. Sir Galahad was at last successful in finding it, as may be read in the seventeenth book of the Romance of King Arthur. Tennyson has made Sir Galahad the subject of one of the most exquisite of his poems.

The plot (if I may give that name to anything so slight) of the following poem is my own, and, to serve its purposes, I have enlarged the circle of competition in search of the miraculous cup in such a manner as to include, not only other persons than the heroes of the Round Table, but also a period of time subsequent to the supposed date of King Arthur's reign.

Not only around our infancy
Doth heaven with all its splendors lie;
Daily, with souls that cringe and plot,
We Sinais climb and know it not.

Over our manhood bend the skies;

Against our fallen and traitor lives The great winds utter prophecies;

With our faint hearts the mountain strives;

Its arms outstretched, the druid wood
Waits with its benedicite;

And to our age's drowsy blood

Still shouts the inspiring sea.

Earth gets its price for what Earth gives

us;

The beggar is taxed for a corner to die in,

The priest hath his fee who comes and shrives us,

We e bargain for the graves we lie in; At the devil's booth are all things sold,

Each ounce of dross costs its ounce of gold;

For a cap and bells our lives we pay, Bubbles we buy with a whole soul's tasking:

"T is heaven alone that is given away, 'Tis only God may be had for the asking;

No price is set on the lavish summer;
June may be had by the poorest comer.

And what is so rare as a day in June?

Then, if ever, come perfect days; Then Heaven tries earth if it be in tune, And over it softly her warm ear lays; Whether we look, or whether we listen, We hear life murmur, or see it glisten; Every clod feels a stir of might,

An instinct within it that reaches and towers,

And, groping blindly above it for light,
Climbs to a soul in grass and flowers;
The flush of life may well be seen

Thrilling back over hills and valleys; The cowslip startles in meadows green, The buttercup catches the sun in its chalice,

And there's never a leaf nor a blade too

As for grass to be green or skies to be blue,

"T is the natural way of living: Who knows whither the clouds have fled ? In the unscarred heaven they leave no

wake;

And the eyes forget the tears they have shed,

The heart forgets its sorrow and ache; The soul partakes the season's youth,

And the sulphurous rifts of passion and

woe

Lie deep 'neath a silence pure and smooth, Like burnt-out craters healed with snow. What wonder if Sir Launfal now Remembered the keeping of his vow?