prose. The literary men and women of
England are reverenced in America with much more
than regal reverence. Those who own no saints
have more than canonised their favourite novelists
and poets. When these grandchildren of
England come back where they were not born,
and find every man surrounded with a wall of
reticence, and villas and gardens with four walls
built high and strong, with spikes and broken
glass for garnishing, it is very provoking. The
American considers English exclusion and seclusion
as a very unjust mystery and secresy. He
finds out all he can, and, as own correspondent
of some New York or Boston " fust-class "
daily or weekly paper, sells his peep-show. The
gossiping, curious cousin is tried, judged, and
condemned by a code of social laws that he has
never been instructed in ; and if ever so carefully
taught, it is doubtful whether he would see the
moral difference between making a paper on
London and its celebrities, or giving the pathology
of the great West, and particularly of Eden,
and the career and characteristics of Jefferson
Brick, and " strong-minded " samples of
femininity essentially unfeminine.

A true American may be crude, superficial,
and impulsive, but he is certain to be frank and
warm-hearted. He gives you his hand with his
heart in it. He may be hasty and imprudent in
forming friendships, and incur censure for
fickleness, when he is correcting mistakes that
an Englishman would never have made. He
sheds tears, kisses, and dollars, on the just and
the unjust. It is the American fashion, and he
likes it, or he is in too much of a hurry to
make changes.

Mr. Willis was accused of offensive personality
in his gossiping letters from England.
The first excuse for him is that he was American.
There is another, that the commercial
mind of the English may possibly appreciate.
Personal observations of men, women, and things,
in England find a ready market and money in
America, just as Yankee caricature, wit, humour,
and bad spelling, find a market here.

Such flippancy as the following was
considered delightful by Mr. Willis's countrymen.
Why, then, should he deny himself the pleasure
of pleasing them? The scene is a soirée in
London, where he sees the lions :

Rejected Smith's, he thought a head quite glorious
And Hook, all button'd up, he took for " Boreas."
     He noted Lady Stepney's pretty hand,
And Barry Cornwall's sweet and serious eye,
     And saw Moore get down from his chair to stand
While a most royal duke went bowing by ;
      Saw Savage Landor wanting soap and sand,
Saw Lady Chatterton take snuff and sigh,
Saw graceful Bulwer say " good night" and vanish,
Heard Crofton Croker's brogue, and thought it Spanish,
And fine Jane Porter, with her cross and feather,
And clever Babbage, with his face of leather;
And there was plump and saucy Mrs. Gore,
     And calm old lily-white Joanna Baillie,
And frisky Bowring, London's wisest bore,
     And there was " devilish handsome Disraeli."

And yet the poet could be sadly in earnest.
In proof, we quote the poem entitled :

THIRTY- FIVE.

"The years of a man's life are threescore and ten."

Oh, weary heart, thou'rt half way home,
     We stand on life's meridian height,
As far from childhood's morning come
     As to the grave's forgotten night ;
Give youth and hope a parting tear,
     Look onward with a placid brow,
Hope promised but to bring us here,
     And reason takes the guidance now.
One backward look, the last, the last,
One silent tear, for youth is past.

Who goes with hope and passion back?
     Who comes with me and memory on ?
Oh, lonely looks the downward track,
     Joy's music hush'd, hope's roses gone.
To pleasure and her giddy troup
     Farewell — without a sigh, or tear ;
But heart gives way and spirits droop
     To think that love must leave us here.
Have we no charm when youth is flown,
Midway to death, left sad and lone ?

Yet stay, as 'twere a twilight star
     That sends its thread across the wave,
I see a brightening light from far
     Steal down a path beyond the grave !
And now, bless God, its golden hue
     Comes o'er and lights my shadowy way,
And shows the dear hand clasp'd in mine;
     But list what those sweet voices say—
          The better land's in sight,
          And by its chastening light,
All love, from life's midway is driven,
Save hers whose clasped hand will bring thee on to heaven.

Still the poet married again, worthily and
happily, and other loves bloomed for him after
life's first young charm had fled.

His first country home was named Glen
Mary, for his English wife. His second was
named Idlewild, perhaps by the second wife,
who has sweetly contradicted the name by
making it an educational home.

In selling Glen Mary, Mr. Willis wrote:

"LETTER TO THE UNKNOWN PURCHASER AND NEXT
OCCUPANT OF GLEN MARY.

"Sir. In selling you the dew and sunshine
ordained to fall hereafter on this bright spot of
earth — the waters on their way to the sparkling
brook—the tints mixed for the flowers of that
enamelled meadow, and the songs bidden to be
sung in coming summers by the feathery builders
in Glen Mary — I know not whether to wonder
more at the omnipotence of money or at my
own impertinent audacity toward nature.
How you can buy the right to exclude at will
every other creature made in God's image from
sitting by this brook, treading on that carpet of
flowers, or lying listening to the birds in the
shade of these glorious trees — how I can sell
it to you — is a mystery not understood by the
Indian, and dark, I must say, to me.

"' Lord of the soil ' is a title which conveys