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 regularly snapped off or snipped down at the close of each deliverance, is as alien and as far from the fresh and vigorous spontaneity of the poet's as is the trimming and hedging morality of the essay on 'simulation and dissimulation' from the spirit and instinct of the man who 'of all things loved to be called honest.' But indeed, from the ethical point of view which looks merely or mainly to character, the comparison is little less than an insult to the Laureate; and from the purely intelligent or æsthetic point of view I should be disposed to say, or at least inclined to think, that the comparison would be hardly less unduly complimentary to the Chancellor.

For at the very opening of these Explorata, or Discoveries, we find ourselves in so high and so pure an atmosphere of feeling and of thought that we cannot but recognize and rejoice in the presence and the influence of one of the noblest, manliest, most honest and most helpful natures that ever dignified and glorified a powerful intelligence and an admirable genius. In the very first note, the condensed or concentrated quintessence of a Baconian essay on Fortune, we find these among other lofty and weighty words; 'Heaven prepares good men with crosses; but no ill can