system and of systematic intelligence, rather than of inspiration. The leading interpreters, even of scientific method, among the English of to-day recognize the essential necessity of a certain poetic gift, a "scientific imagination," as it is called, for the purposes of scientific discovery. In the British poets, accordingly, we find the best British philosophy. What English moralist, for example, is equal to William Shakespeare, who is not only the real historian of the modern mind (an office which of itself implies profound philosophic insight), but also, in the language of the title-page of a recent German publication, "der Philosoph der sittlichen Weltordnung,” “the philosopher of the moral order of the world”? What professed English philosopher has possessed so profound an appreciation of the idealistic philosophy of nature as Wordsworth? What religious philosopher in England has approached the subtlest problems of religious thought with more sympathetic and discerning insight than Coleridge? What living English thinker has fathomed in well-reasoned, systematic prose the dark questions of theodicy, and illuminated them more brilliantly with the light of rational faith and insight, than Tennyson? Not to mention many others, whose poetic flights have been ballasted with solid weights of thought.

THE CULPRIT FAY.

JOSEPH RODMAN DRAKE.

["The Culprit Fay" is the most purely imaginative poem in American literature, and displays a depth of fancy that has seldom been surpassed. It is the principal work of the author, though his shorter poem "To the American Flag" is the one by which he is best known.

Joseph Rodman Drake was born in New York in 1795, and his first literary work consisted of humorous and satirical verses, published in the Evening Post, under the signature of "Croaker." The "Culprit Fay" is too long to give here in full, and we extract some of its more prettily-conceived verses, as an illustration of the whole. In the opening verses the fays are seen assembling, in countless numbers, "in the middle watch of a summer's night."]

THEY come from beds of lichen green,

They creep from the mullein's velvet screen;
Some on the backs of beetles fly

From the silver tops of moon-touched trees,
Where they swung in their cobweb hammocks high
And rocked about in the evening breeze;
Some from the hum-bird's downy nest,-

They had driven him out by elfin power,

And, pillowed on plumes of his rainbow breast,
Had slumbered there till the charmed hour;
Some had lain in the scoop of the rock,

With glittering ising-stars inlaid,
And some had opened the four-o'clock
And stole within its purple shade.

And now they throng the moonlight glade,
Above-below-on every side,

Their little minim forms arrayed
In the tricksy pomp of fairy pride!

[The purpose of the assembly is thus given:]

For an ouphe has broken his vestal vow;
He has loved an earthly maid,

And left for her his woodland shade;

He has lain upon her lip of dew,
And sunned him in her eye of blue,
Fanned her cheek with his wing of air,
Played in the ringlets of her hair,

And, nestling on her snowy breast,
Forgot the lily-king's behest.

For this the shadowy tribes of air

To the elfin court must haste away :-
And now they stand expectant there,

To hear the doom of the culprit fay.

[The fairy tribunal condemns the criminal ouphe to perform the following difficult labors :]

"Thou shalt seek the beach of sand

Where the water bounds the elfin land;

Thou shalt watch the oozy brine

Till the sturgeon leaps in the bright moonshine,
Then dart the glistening arch below,

And catch a drop from his silver bow.
The water-sprites will wield their arms
And dash around, with roar and rave,
And vain are the woodland spirits' charms,
They are the imps that rule the wave.
Yet trust thee in thy single might:
If thy heart be pure and thy spirit right,
Thou shalt win the warlock fight.

"If the spray-bead gem be won,

The stain of thy wing is washed away:
But another errand must be done

Ere thy crime be lost for aye;

Thy flame-wood lamp is quenched and dark,
Thou must re-illume its spark.

Mount thy steed and spur him high

To the heavens' blue canopy;

And when thou seest a shooting star,

Follow it fast, and follow it far:

The last faint spark of its burning train
Shall light the elfin lamp again.

Thou hast heard our sentence, fay:

Hence! to the water-side away!"

[The fay plunges into the wave in quest of the sturgeon, but is met by a host of the thorny and prickly inhabitants of the waters.]

Up spring the spirits of the waves,

From the sea-silk beds in their coral caves;

With snail-plate armor snatched in haste,

They speed their way through the liquid waste:
Some are rapidly borne along

On the mailed shrimp or the prickly prong,
Some on the blood-red leeches glide,

Some on the stony star-fish ride,

Some on the back of the lancing squab,
Some on the sideling soldier-crab,

And some on the jellied quarl, that flings.
At once a thousand streamy stings.
They cut the wave with the living oar,
And hurry on to the moonlight shore,
To guard their realms and chase away
The footsteps of the invading fay.

[The activity of the army of the waves is described with much vigor.]

Fearlessly he skims along;

His hope is high, and his limbs are strong,
He spreads his arms like the swallow's wing,
And throws his feet with a frog-like fling;
His locks of gold on the waters shine,

At his breast the tiny foam-bees rise,
His back gleams bright above the brine,
And the wake-line foam behind him lies.

But the water-sprites are gathering near
To check his course along the tide;
Their warriors come in swift career

And hem him round on every side.
On his thigh the leech has fixed his hold,
The quarl's long arms are round him rolled,
The prickly prong has pierced his skin,
And the squab has thrown his javelin,

The gritty star has rubbed him raw,

And the crab has struck with his giant claw;
He howls with rage, and he shrieks with pain,
He strikes around, but his blows are vain;
Hopeless is the unequal fight.
Fairy! naught is left but flight.

He turned him round, and fled amain
With hurry and dash to the beach again;
He twisted over from side to side,
And laid his cheek to the cleaving tide.
The strokes of his plunging arms are fleet,
And with all his might he flings his feet;
But the water-sprites are round him still,
To cross his path and work him ill.
They bade the wave before him rise,
They flung the sea-fire in his eyes,

And they stunned his ears with the scallop-stroke,
With the porpoise heave and the drum-fish croak.
Oh, but a weary wight was he

When he reached the foot of the dog-wood tree!

[Healing his wounds with fairy remedies, he essays the task again, this time taking a purple mussel-shell as a boat. The "drop from the silver bow" of the darting sturgeon is caught, and the fay gains the shore again, triumphant. He now arms for his second emprise. The arming is beautifully described :]