they may be said to rise above the average of effusions of this class, they scarcely belong to the realm of poetry, in spite of a few vigorous lines scattered through them. The first of these, entitled "The Death of Abel," is written with precocious power and exhibits originality of thought and expression, but the second, "The Raising of Lazarus," scarcely shows special promise. Both are entirely foreign in manner to their author's more mature efforts; for the most characteristic emanations of Wolfe's fancy are lyrical in form.

It is difficult to refer to their exact places in the order of their composition even these scanty evidences of a genius which a variety of untoward circumstances debarred from its full development. Wolfe never consciously regarded himself in the light of a poet. What little he did write was composed with no more serious intention than to amuse himself and a small circle of friends. To none of his poems does he appear to have attached the slightest value, and for none of them did he expect even an ephemeral fame. They seem, as has been said, to have been almost accidentally preserved. Not one of them was written for publication. In most cases, as undoubtedly in the case of his most celebrated verses, they were suggested by a chance accident. Wolfe was in the habit of

throwing them off from time to time, and showing them to his intimates, by whom they were handed about the college in manuscript, and many pieces which have not survived were probably produced in this way. But the reputation he thus acquired was a purely academic one, and warm as were the praises with which each of these poems was greeted in his own circle, Wolfe's modesty never allowed him to think of himself seriously as a poet. Thus it was that when the incentive which the interest of his college companions provided was lost to him in the retirement of his curacy, he appears never to have attempted further composition.

These circumstances render all the more remarkable the exceeding beauty of the lyrical pieces thus written at random. Wolfe's genius was, indeed, essentially lyrical. He had a quick ear, and a vivid delight in music, and was possessed of an exquisite and almost unwholesome sensibility to every sort of emotion. All his most successful efforts were made under the immediate impulse of some strong feeling. The account which is given of the origin of the beautiful song commencing

"If I had thought thou couldst have died,"

admirably illustrates the nature of his poetic gifts:

"Another of his favourite melodies was the popular Irish air, 'Gramachree.' He never heard it without being sensibly affected by its deep and tender expression; but he thought that no words had ever been written for it which came up to his idea of the peculiar pathos which pervades the whole strain. He said they all appeared to him to want individuality of feeling. At the desire of a friend he gave his own conception of it in these verses, which it seems hard to read, perhaps impossible to hear sung, without tears. He was asked whether he had any real incident in view, or had witnessed any immediate occurrence which might have prompted these lines. His reply was, he had not, but that he had sung the air over and over till he burst into a flood of tears, in which mood he composed the words."1

This anecdote shows clearly how strong was the lyrical faculty in Wolfe. Individuality of feeling is precisely the note of all the lyrics he has left, and all were apparently suggested in the same occasional way. The Spanish song,

"The chains of Spain are breaking,"

is another instance of his feeling for music, and his skill in transferring to the written words the spirit of the melody they were designed to accompany. It was occasioned by hearing a

1 Among some extracts from Wolfe's papers, Archdeacon Russell has printed the following reflection: -"Irish music often gives us the idea of a mournful retrospect upon past gaiety, which cannot help catching a little of the spirit of that very gaiety which it is lamenting."-9th Edit. p. 365.

friend playing the Spanish national air, "Viva el Rey Fernando."

All of Wolfe's more important pieces were composed between the years 1814 and 1817. Of the poems not lyrical, the longest is "Jugurtha," written in the first of these years. There is a grim intensity about it, very appropriate to the position and probable feelings of the captive Numidian into whose mouth the soliloquy is put, and which shows a stronger fibre than is apparent in the lyrical pieces. But the most thoughtful and strongest of his longer poems is the "Farewell to Lough Bray"-written in 1815 -verses which are not unworthy to stand beside the noble lines which they most resemble and at once recall-Coleridge's Ode to Mont Blanc. These, with the two well-known songs, "Oh, say not that my heart is cold," and "My love has an eye of the softest blue," as well as the touching verses beginning "My own friendmy own friend," which were addressed to George Grierson, the brother of the lady he had wished to marry, are the poems which, independently of the immortal verses on the Burial of Sir John Moore, best establish the claim of Wolfe to the title of poet. Other poems marked by the same qualities of metrical charm, tenderness, and individuality of feeling which characterise everything he wrote, are

"The Frailty of Beauty" and the song, "Go, forget me."

Not one, however, of these beautiful specimens of a very rare poetical talent would, in all probability, have been preserved to us but for the chance which led to the composition of the "Lines on the Burial of Sir John Moore." For, although Archdeacon Russell's volumes were intended to perpetuate the piety of his friend as much as the genius of the poet, it is doubtful whether they would ever have seen the light but for the attention which, almost immediately after Wolfe's death, was drawn to his poem by the publication of Captain Medwin's Conversations of Byron. In this work Byron was quoted as having referred to Wolfe's verses, the authorship of which was still unknown, as the most perfect ode produced in that poetical age. Medwin, notwithstanding Byron's express and regretful repudiation of their authorship, hinted that they really were the production of his hero, and this led a number of Wolfe's friends to come forward and establish his fame by attesting their knowledge of the circumstances under which the verses were written. Those circumstances, together with the history of the many fraudulent claims advanced in connection with them, form an interesting item in the curiosities of literature. For perhaps no poem has been