of more than average merit as specimens of pulpit eloquence, possess little of the elements of enduring interest. The poet was lost in the parson. Even in this evil world, it must be allowed by the most censorious that piety is less rare than poetry; and it is a pity that Wolfe's biographer failed to appreciate the fact. That the Archdeacon's memorial volumes, thus overloaded with matter which could hardly be found generally interesting, should have passed within twenty-two years through as many as nine editions, is a high tribute to the force and beauty of the few specimens of Wolfe's poetry which, interspersed through many pages of admiring but not always discriminating eulogy, reveal the full powers of the poet's intellect.

But although the published memoir failed to convey an adequate impression of Wolfe's gifts, it undoubtedly elicited the materials for a more accurate appreciation. The attention which Dr. Russell's volumes drew to Wolfe, brought forth a large number of letters and articles from personal friends, and from these a better knowledge of the poet's characteristics can be gained. From these references it is plain that the poverty of Wolfe's performance was out of all proportion to his ability—a circumstance which may be set down in part to a rare modesty and simplicity of mind, which rendered him almost

altogether unconscious of his unusual talent, and in part to the diversity of the interests which engrossed his leisure. These tributes to his genius possess a stronger title to credence than usually attaches to the enthusiastic panegyrics of personal friends, for they are in almost every case the tributes of men of great ability who enjoyed distinction in their day. From them it may be gathered that Wolfe, during the few years which formed the too brief period of his close contact with the world, impressed his contemporaries by the splendour of his talents, and that as the most brilliant member of a college coterie of exceptional intellectual vivacity, he attracted admiration by a union of the highest mental qualities with a singular purity of mind and elevation of moral character.

As the volumes of Archdeacon Russell's memoir have long been out of print, and as almost all the other memorial tributes are lost to ordinary readers in the waste of the ephemeral pages in which they were published, it has been thought proper to make some effort to revive the fading memory of Wolfe's personality. And it is believed that lovers of poetry will be grateful for a booklet which brings together for the first time, in a convenient form, all of Wolfe's verse that can now be collected. Even though he

had written nothing but the stanzas which have conferred upon Sir John Moore and himself a dual immortality, that single achievement might well be deemed justification sufficient for an attempt to chisel anew, in the reverent spirit of an "Old Mortality," the time-worn epitaph of a gifted Irishman.

It has therefore seemed worth while to make this attempt to recall the attention of lovers of literature to a figure which presents the characteristics of a poet of no mean order. Had the circumstances of his life been more favourable, Wolfe might well have attained to a position in the history of English poetry as high, perhaps, as that which is occupied by Campbell. Even with a spirit clouded and saddened by an experience which produced a permanent effect on his perhaps too feminine nature, he might, had his life been prolonged and had he been enIdowed with leisure sufficient to devote himself to literature, have taken high rank among that order of our poets in which Cowper's is the most representative name. He is one of the might-have-beens of English poetry. But even with the limitations of his sombre career he has left enough to merit warmer remembrance than is now accorded to his modest and retiring figure. And he deserves recognition as the author not only of one of the most touching

elegies in the language, but of two or three other lyrics which possess the charm with which they were impressed by Wolfe's gentle and tender pensiveness, and the mournful accents of his chastened, but essentially poetic spirit.

THE BURIAL OF SIR JOHN MOORE.

I.

NOT a drum was heard, not a funeral note,
As his corse to the rampart we hurried ;
Not a soldier discharged his farewell shot
O'er the grave where our hero we buried.

II.

We buried him darkly at dead of night,
The sods with our bayonets turning ;
By the struggling moonbeam's misty light,
And the lantern dimly burning.

III.

No useless coffin enclosed his breast,

Not in sheet or in shroud we wound him; But he lay like a warrior taking his rest, With his martial cloak around him.

IV.

Few and short were the prayers we said,
And we spoke not a word of sorrow;
But we steadfastly gazed on the face that was dead,
And we bitterly thought of the morrow.