Page:Biographical and critical studies by James Thomson ("B.V.").djvu/498

482 Lastly I must note the cordial love of life, and the cheerful confidence in death: —

I have dwelt thus at length on these personal characteristics, not only because they are very interesting in themselves, on account of the greatness of the personality they help to characterise, but also because they have not, so far as I am aware, been so plainly discovered in any of the author's previous works. There is not space left to speak at all sufficiently, even were it in my power so to speak, of the impersonal or dramatic poems. Some of the shorter pieces are very fine, and two or three will take place with his best. Here is the shortest, entitled "Magical Nature":—

There is a piece of grim ironical humour, "Filippo Baldinucci on the Privilege of Burial," turning on the