whose freshness and delicacy seemed to announce a new singer, and four years later his ’Day and Night Songs’ strengthened this impression.  Stationed as revenue officer in various parts of England, he wrote much verse, and published also the ‘The Rambles of Patricius Walker,’ a collection of essays upon his walks through England; ‘Lawrence Bloomfield in Ireland,’ the tale of a young landlord’s efforts to improve the condition of his tenantry; an anthology, ‘Nightingale Valley’ (1862), and an excellent collection of English ballads, ‘The Ballad Book’ (1865).

In 1870 he gladly embraced an opportunity to leave the Customs for the position of assistant editor of Fraser’s Magazine under Froude, whom he afterward succeeded as editor.  He was now a member of a brilliant literary circle, knew Tennyson, Ruskin, and Carlyle, and was admitted into the warm friendship of the Pre-Raphaelites.  But in no way does he reflect the Pre-Raphaelite spirit by which he was surrounded; nor does he write his lyrics in the metres and rhythms of mediaeval France.  He is as oblivious of rondeaux, ballades, and roundels, as he is of fair damosels with cygnet necks and full pomegranate lips.  He is a child of nature, whose verse is free from all artificial inspiration or expression, and seems to flow easily, clearly, and tenderly from his pen.  Some of it errs in being too fanciful.  In the Flower-Songs, indeed, he sometimes becomes trivial in his comparison of each English poet to a special flower; but his poetry is usually sincere with an undercurrent of pathos, as in ‘The Ruined Chapel,’ ‘The Winter Pear,’ and the ‘Song.’  For lightness of touch and aerial grace, ‘The Bubble’ will bear comparison with any verse of its own genre.  ‘Robin Redbreast’ has many delightful lines; and in ‘The Fairies’ one is taken into the realm of Celtic folklore, which is Allingham’s inheritance, where the Brownies, the Pixies, and the Leprechauns trip over the dew-spangled meadows, or dance on the yellow sands, and then vanish away in fantastic mists.  Quite different is ‘Lovely Mary Donnelly,’ which is a sample of the popular songs that made him a favorite in his own country.

After his death at Hampstead in 1889, his body was cremated according to his wish, when these lines of his own were read:—­

     “Body to purifying flame,
     Soul to the Great Deep whence it came,
     Leaving a song on earth below,
     An urn of ashes white as snow.”

     THE RUINED CHAPEL

     By the shore, a plot of ground
     Clips a ruined chapel round,
     Buttressed with a grassy mound;
       Where Day and Night and Day go by
     And bring no touch of human sound.

     Washing of the lonely seas,
     Shaking of the guardian trees,
     Piping of the salted breeze;
       Day and Night and Day go by
     To the endless tune of these.

     Or when, as winds and waters keep
     A hush more dead than any sleep,
     Still morns to stiller evenings creep,
       And Day and Night and Day go by;
     Here the silence is most deep.