THE HEIGHT OF THE RIDICULOUS.

The poet's comic vein reaches its climax in this bit of extravaganza There are several personal touches in it. His feelings toward the public were so kindly that he always expected his productions to meet with a favorable reception. He had a good opinion of these lines:

"And thought, as usual, men would say

They were exceeding good."

In the third stanza there is a reference to his slight build.

THE CHAMBERED NAUTILUS.

This selection, as well as the remaining ones, is taken from "The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table." It is there introduced as follows: "Did I not say to you a little while ago that the universe swam in an ocean of similitudes and analogies? I will not quote Cowley, or Burns, or Wordsworth, just now, to show you what thoughts were suggested to them by the simplest natural objects, such as a flower or a leaf; but I will read you a few lines, if you do not object, suggested by looking at a section of one of those chambered shells to which is given the name of Pearly Nautilus. We need not trouble ourselves about the distinction between this and the Paper Nautilus, the Argonauta of the ancients. The name applied to both shows that each has long been compared to a ship, as you may see more fully in Webster's Dictionary, or the Encyclopædia,' to which he refers. If you will look into Roget's Bridgewater Treatise, you will find a figure of one of these shells and a section of it. The last will show you the series of enlarging compartments successively dwelt in by the animal that inhabits the shell, which is built in a widening spiral. Can you find no lesson in this ?"

6

"In

"The Chambered Nautilus " was a favorite poem with Holmes. writing the poem," he says, "I was filled with a better feeling — the highest state of mental exaltation and the most crystalline clairvoyance, as it seemed to me - I mean that lucid vision of one's thought, and of all forms of expres sion which will be at once precise and musical, which is the poet's special gift, however large or small in amount or value."

This poem is the high-water mark of the author's poetic achievement. In this single flight he has not been often surpassed in America.

I. Siren = one of three damsels, according to mythology, said to dwell near the island of Capreæ, in the Mediterranean, and to sing with such sweetness that they who sailed by forgot their country, and died in an ecstasy of delight.

=

2. Sea-maid mermaid, a sea nymph with a fish's tail. Mermaid is from Fr. mer, sea, and Eng. maid.

3. "The story of its spreading a sail is as fabulous as the similar story CHAMBERS.

regarding the argonaut.

4. The shell is camerated, or divided into chambers, by transverse curved partitions of shelly matter.

5. Triton

= a fabled sea demigod, the trumpeter of Neptune.

CONTENTMENT.

This poem is introduced in the "Autocrat " as follows: "Should you like to hear what moderate wishes life brings one to at last? I used to be very ambitious, wasteful, extravagant, and luxurious in all my fancies. Read too much in the Arabian Nights.' Must have the lamp, couldn't do without the ring. Exercise every morning on the brazen horse. Plump down into castles as full of little milk-white princesses as a nest is of young sparrows. All love me dearly at once. Charming idea of life, but too highcolored for the reality. I have outgrown all this; my tastes have become exceedingly primitive, — almost, perhaps, ascetic. We carry happiness into our condition, but must not hope to find it there. I think you will be willing to hear some lines which embody the subdued and limited desires of my maturity."

1. Plenipo = plenipotentiary; an ambassador or envoy to a foreign Court, furnished with full power to negotiate a treaty or transact other business. the English Court, so called from the Palace of St.

2. St. James

=

James, used for Court purposes.

3. See the sketch of Holmes for a remark on this stanza.

4. Titian (1477-1576) was the head of the Venetian school, and one of the greatest painters that ever lived. The number of his works exceeds six hundred.

5. Raphael (1483-1520), called by his countrymen "the divine," is ranked by almost universal consent as the greatest of painters.

6. Turner (1775–1851) was the greatest of British landscape painters. By his industry and thrift he amassed a fortune of a million dollars.

7. Stradivarius (1644-1737) was a distinguished maker of violins. In this connection the following extract from Holmes's biography will be read with interest: "At one time the Doctor was seized with an ardent desire to learn to play upon the violin. I think there was not the slightest reason to suppose that he ever could learn, and certainly he never did; but he used to shut himself up in his little study,' beside the front door in the Charlesstreet house, and fiddle away with surprising industry, and a satisfaction out of all proportion to his achieveinent. After two or three winters he reached

a point at which he could make several simple tunes quite recognizable, and then finally desisted from what would have been a waste of time had it not been a recreation."

8. Buhl = a light and complicated figure of brass, unburnished gold, etc., set as an ornament into surfaces of ebony or other dark wood.

9. Midas:

= a Phrygian king, to whom was granted the wish that what

ever he touched might turn into gold.

THE DEACON'S MASTERPIECE.

This is the best-known and the most popular of Holmes's humorous pieces. At the Breakfast Table one morning "the young fellow whom they call John" had proposed some conundrums before the Autocrat made his appearance. The Autocrat disapproved of their trifling character. Then, as introductory to the poem: "I am willing, — I said, to exercise your ingenuity in a rational and contemplative manner. No, I do not proscribe certain forms of philosophical speculation which involve an approach to the absurd or the ludicrous, such as you may find, for example, in the folio of the Reverend Father Thomas Sanchez, in his famous Disputations, 'De Sancto Matrimonio.' I will therefore turn this levity of yours to profit by reading you a rhymed problem, wrought out by my friend the Professor."

INDEX.

Berkeley, Sir William, on free schools, 14. Centres, literary, 288.