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Rh  Leaning past the piny crest Of the mountain in the west, Wavering there in star-bright guise, Still a stranger in the skies!

Careless gods, take back your gift, Or his human heart uplift: Deathless youth ye gave in sport, Deathless sorrow haunts your court: Still a stranger in the skies, Ganymede in heaven sighs.

EADERS of current literature may have recently observed that two writers of reputation, Miss Harriet W. Preston and Mr. Julian Hawthorne, have been expressing rather pronounced opinions regarding the works of Ouida. Mr. Hawthorne's judgment was brief, and I need only add that it was extremely severe,—far more severe, indeed, than any critical statement which I ever remember to have seen expressed by this writer. Miss Preston's decision took a ranch ampler form, and occupied nearly twelve pages of the Atlantic Monthly. Whatever may have been Miss Preston's intention, she certainly does not appeal to us as one whom the merits of Ouida have more than lukewarmly affected. And yet, at the beginning of her essay, she assumes the attitude of an appreciator rather than a detractor, taking pains to declare that her inquiry regarding the true causes of Ouida's immense popularity shall be "primarily and chiefly a search for merits rather than a citation of defects." With this excellent resolution fully formed, she at once proceeds to draw comparisons between Ouida and such great writers as Scott, George Sand, and even Victor Hugo. This has an encouraging sound enough; we have the sensation that a refreshingly new note is to be struck in the general tone of fierce vituperation by which Ouida has been so persistently assailed for twenty years. The truth about Ouida would be a pleasant thing to hear: we have beard so much facile falsehood. But Miss Preston proceeds to invest her theme with a curiously languid and tepid atmosphere. She finally astonishes all the sincere admirers of Ouida—and their number is to-day, among intelligent people, thousands and thousands—by saying