GEORGE CROUY was born in Dublin, in August, 1780. Being intended for the Church, he entered the Irish University, Trinity College, Dublin, at an early age,-obtained a scholarship, and successively proceeded to the degrees of A.B. and A.M. He was ordained by O'Beirne, Bishop of Meath-the friend of Edmund Burke-and put in charge of a parish in his diocese. His residence was favourable to the study of his profession: the village church stood on the borders of an immense lake, imbedded in mountains; and the solitude amid which the Poet thought and wrote, strengthened his mind, and prepared it to contest for eminence in the great world he was to enter. After remaining some years in this retirement, he visited London;-it was at the animating period when England first embarked in the Spanish war. Sharing the general impulse of the time, and intending to see, in person, the land whose sudden achievements restored almost her old days of romance, he applied himself vigorously to acquire the Spanish language. On the first announcement that the Elbe was open, he went to Germany. No moment could have been more interesting to a British observer. The Continent had been a sealed book since the short peace of Amiens. During the interval the most singular changes had been wrought in every Continental state. The three great capitals of the Continent had been entered by the French armies. The population had been alternately broken down by military severity, and roused to resistance by foreign extortion. Men and manners had changed; half a generation had gone down into the grave;all was now strange, and impressed with the character of the great convulsion. Dr. Croly resided chiefly in Hamburg,-the return of the French troops preventing all intercourse with the interior of Germany. Napoleon had flooded the Continent again with his conscripts, and all was confusion. In 1815 Paris was opened to the world. The lost army of France capitulated behind the Loire, and the conqueror of Waterloo replaced the old family of the French kings on the throne. The curiosity of the English led them to Paris in multitudes; and Dr. Croly remained there for some time. But his chief interest seems to have been excited by the localities and monuments of the Revolution; while the generality of the visitors occupied themselves with the later memorials of the empire which abound in Paris, and which form some of the most striking ornaments of that capital, he was engrossed by the scenes which had been distinguished in the revolutionary period and reign of terror,-the Temple, the Carmes, the site of the Bastile, the prison of the Abbaye, &c. With those impressions on his mind, on his return to England he produced his first poem, entitled "Paris in 1815." It was successful, and was followed at intervals by other poems,-"The Angel of the World," a Tragedy on the subject of the Catilinarian Conspiracy,-"Gems from the Antique," &c. He is also the author of two popular novels, "Salathiel" and "Marston;" and of a successful comedy, entitled "Pride shall have a Fall."

Dr. Croly was thus a writer of tragedy and comedy; - an almost universal poet; a painter of rich and glowing romance; a daring interpreter of the darkest mystery of the Scriptures,-the Apocalypse of St. John; a skilful and searching critic; and an eloquent and accomplished preacher. His Poems have not obtained popularity adequate to their merit-perhaps because he manifests but little sympathy with his kind. He is grand and gorgeous, but rarely tender and affectionate; he builds a lofty and magnificent temple, but it is too cold and stately to be a home for the heart. In several of his minor productions he is exceedingly vigorous and animated,—and from his "Gems" may be selected some of the boldest and most striking compositions in the language.

But, as we have intimated, in subjects of this order, which are, indeed, analogous to his profession, Dr. Croly had not neglected the more direct studies of theology. He produced several works on the chief matters of divinity; among the rest a New Interpretation of the Apocalypse of St. John,-which has arrived at a third edition. In the year 1831, Lord Brougham, on taking the seals, gave him one of the livings in his gift as Chancellor. In 1835, Lord Lyndhurst, then Chancellor, gave him the rectory of St. Stephen's, Walbrook, which involved the surrender of his former living. A few years previously he had received from his own University, what he probably felt as scarcely a less gratifying mark of recollection, the unsolicited degree of LL.D.

Dr. Croly died suddenly, in the street close to his residence in Bloomsbury Square, on the 24th November, 1860.

LARGE, lofty, gorgeous, all that meets the eye,
Strong with the stamp of ancient majesty;
The impress which, so undefined, yet clear,
Tells that the former mighty have been there.
All looking hoary pomp; the walls rich scroll'd,
The roof high flourish'd, arras stiff with gold,
In many a burning hue and broad festoon
Wreathing those casements, blazon'd now with noon;
The marble tablets on their silver claws,

Loaded with nymph, and grace, and pix, and vase.

Beside the mirror foot, the Indian screen
Dazzling the eye with dragons red and green;
The mighty mirror, bright'ning, doubling all,
In its deep crystal lit an endless hall.

The rout a moment paused, gave glance and smile, Then scatter'd on, to wonder through the pile; Yet there was beauty in the very light That round the chamber roll'd its gush of white; And well the wanderer there might feel his Tranced by the bright creations of the blaze.

gaze

PERICLES AND ASPASIA.

THIS was the ruler of the land,

When Athens was the land of fame;
This was the light that led the band,

When each was like a living flame :
The centre of earth's noblest ring,
Of more than men, the more than king!

Yet, not by fetter, nor by spear,
His sov'reignty was held or won;
Fear'd, but alone as freemen fear;
Loved, but as freemen love alone:
He waved the sceptre o'er his kind,
By Nature's first great title-mind!

Resistless words were on his tongue;

Then eloquence first flash'd below!
Full arm'd to life the portent sprung,
Minerva, from the thunderer's brow!
And his the sole, the sacred hand,
That shook her ægis o'er the land!

And throned immortal, by his side,
A woman sits, with eye sublime,-
ASPASIA, all his spirit's bride;

But if their solemn love were crime,
Pity the beauty and the sage,-
Their crime was in their darken'd age.

He perish'd-but his wreath was wonHe perish'd on his height of fame; Then sank the cloud on Athens' sun;

Yet still she conquer'd in his name. Fill'd with his soul, she could not die— Her conquest was posterity!

LINES WRITTEN AT SPITHEAD.

HARK to the knell !

It comes in the swell

Of the stormy ocean wave;

"Tis no earthly sound,

But a toll profound

From the mariner's deep sea grave.

When the billows dash,

And the signals flash,

And the thunder is on the gale;

And the ocean is white

In its own wild light,

Deadly, and dismal, and pale.

When the lightning's blaze

Smites the seaman's gaze,

And the sea rolls in fire and in foam;

And the surges' roar

Shakes the rocky shore,

We hear the sea-knell come.

There 'neath the billow,

The sand their pillow,

Ten thousand men lie low;

And still their dirge

Is sung by the

surge,

When the stormy night-winds blow.

Sleep, warriors! sleep

On your pillow deep

In peace! for no mortal care,

No art can deceive,

No anguish can heave

The heart that once slumbers there.

THE Poet was born at Camberwell, in 1812, and received his education at the London University. That is nearly all we know of his "life's history;" probably it is all we need know, for his career as an author has been unassuming and uneventful. During many years he was a resident at Florence; preferring the "sunny south" chiefly because of the delicate health of his accomplished lady, Elizabeth Barrett, to whom he was married in 1846, and who died in that city in 1861. Mr. Browning, however, has since lived in England; and if he often woos the Muse, his appearances in print are not frequent; circumstances having, happily in his case, prevented the necessity of his being. as so many of his predecessors have been, "a man of letters by profession."

His fame was obtained so far back as 1836, when his dramatic poem " Paracelsus" suddenly startled the world. It was his first work, and it can scarcely be said that he has surpassed it: no doubt his mind has been since strengthened by study and invigorated by travel: but the deep and earnest thought, the impressive reasoning, the stern philosophy of that remarkable poem, blended as they were with rich poetic fancies and grand and delicate imagery, found their way to the universal heart, and ever since his name has been among the foremost of those who are the glories of our age and country. The list of his subsequent publications is a large one. His compositions are of all orders: among them are two tragedies, both of which were acted, but with what the critics term "equivocal success:" they did not indeed attract the public night after night. as some dramas of more modern times have done-proving how easy it is for miserable mediocrities to prosper: but they have been, and will long be, quoted as evidence that the highest efforts of genius are not always the most assured of perpetuity on the stage. Browning cannot be described as a popular Poet; authors far inferior to him have found readers much more numerous: he has written, indeed, as if in scorn of public opinion and in defiance of criticism. Faults might be easily pointed out that subject him to the charges of affectation and bad taste; and not unfrequently he seems wantonly to supply proofs of rhyme and metre being "made for slaves;" while sometimes he appears to labour only that he may become incongruous and incomprehensible.

But of his genius there can be no doubt: his admirers are many and very enthusiastic : there are, indeed, those (and they are not of the meaner sort) who place him first among the Poets of the century, lauding even the eccentricities and affectations that vex and distress those who base their poetic creed on the teachings of the giants who are gone from earth.

It is impossible to read the poems of Robert Browning without conviction of his thorough knowledge of Nature and of the human heart, and also of his deep and earnest sympathies with humanity-in spite of frequent sarcasm and occasional trifling with the deeper and holier sensations that stir the soul.

His collected Poems remind us, indeed, of the spots by which, at one time, fashion used to deface the cheek of beauty, the evil effect of which was forgotten when a smile lit up the features and grace was displayed in the movements of the form. Mr. Browning will no more believe his peculiarities to be defects than the beauty of a past age would have admitted such blots to be deformities.

Messrs. Chapman and Hall have published the works of Robert Browning, in 3 vols. : those however who desire easier access to his poems may obtain a volume of "Selections" issued by the same publishers. Among them are several passages from the dramas "Paracelsus," "Sordello," and "Strafford." It is published under the "sanction" of the Poet; although "for the choice of the particular pieces he is in no degree responsible." The volume originat d with "two friends," who, from the first appearance of "Paracelsus," have regarded the writer as among the few great Poets of the century: who have seen this opinion, since, gain ground with the best readers and critics; and who believe that such a "selection" may go far to render it universal.

This testimony of "friends" cannot fail to be accepted by the public; the volume will be read with intense delight by all who appreciate the loftier excellencies of the Divine art; there will be few to gainsay the opinion that "this little book, by the range and variety of power it brings at once under view, will arrest, without overstraining, the attention of many readers; and by making less novel and unfamiliar to them the style of a thoroughly original Foot, will open to them sooner the full enjoyment of a series of writings as remarkable as any that have enriched the literature of our time."