[From Manx Recollections, 1894]

CHAPTER X.

THE "SERAPHIM" AND OTHER POEMS.

This was the first appearance of Miss Barrett's original poetry, her previous production being a translation from the Greek of Æschylus. She has since produced other poems; but we now confine our remarks to this one. She struck the poetic harp teii years acre, and yet the poetic world does not resound with her name. Perhaps the obscure grandeur of her style of expression, and the loftiness of her thoughts, have raised this original writer above the reach of popular appreciation.

It may be that she has " fit audience found, though few . " yet surely she deserves to be better known and more beloved by her Christian countrywomen, by those who love poetry when its theme is Love Divine; when it serves as ministering spirit to religion, looking upward for guidance as the eyes of a maiden unto the hand of her mistress."

They who delight in hallowed minstrelsy should be acquainted -with Elizabeth Barrett. Some of her strains are like "an angel's song that makes the heavens be mute." An angel might pause in his celestial harpings to hear a sister spirit on earth sing, so well.

What was said of Caroline Wilson may with equal justice be applied to this gifted lady. " She manifests in her writings the philosophic strength of ' spirits masculine,' combined with feminine grace and tenderness; a union of grace and strength which forms what we deem angelic excellence." In her melodious verse there is indeed both strength and tenderness, like honey in the stony rock. We

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