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 whelming grief for the loss of his friend, and the desire to perfect himself in his art.

A record of this ten years' apprenticeship to the Muses would be deeply interesting, could we get it; but we must not pry too closely into the private history of a poet:

At any rate he has been profiting by the admonitions of reviewers, friendly or inimical, and is pruning, clipping, cutting, and clearing his garden of weeds and noxious excrescences. That is to say, he is ruthlessly