“’The riches of the heart they call a dream;
    Love, hope, faith, friendship, hollow phantasies: 
    Living but for their pockets and their eyes,
  They stifle in their breasts the purer beam
    Of sunshine glanced from heaven upon their clay,
  To be its light and warmth.  This is a theme
    For homilies:  and I will only say,
    The heart feeds not on fortune’s baubles gay.’”—­p. 51.

Sir Reginald’s narrative concludes after this fashion: 

  “’But what is this?  A dubious compromise;
    Twilight of cloudy zones, whereon the blaze
    Of sunshine breaks but seldom with its rays
  Of heavenly hope, towards which the spirit sighs
    Its aspirations, and is lost again
  ’Mid doubts:  to grasp the wisdom of the skies
    Too feeble, tho’ convinced earth’s bonds are vain,
    Cowering faint-hearted in the festering chain.’”—­p. 60.

A similar instance of conventionality constantly repeated is the sin of inversion, which is no less prevalent, throughout the poem, in the conversational than in the narrative portions.  In some cases the exigencies of rhyme may be pleaded in palliation, as for “Cam’s marge along” and “breezy willows cool,” which occur in two consecutive lines of a speech; but there are many for which no such excuse can be urged.  Does any one talk of “sloth obscure,” or of “hearts afflicted?” Or what reason is there for preferring “verses easy” to easy verses? Ought not the principle laid down in the following passage of the introduction to be followed out, not only into the intention, but into the manner and quality also, of the whole work?

    “’I mean to be sincere in this my lay: 
  That which I think I shall write down without
    A drop of pain or varnish.  Therefore, pray,
  Whatever I may chance to rhyme about,
  Read it without the shadow of a doubt.’”—­p. 12.

Again, the Author appears to us to have acted unwisely in occasionally departing from the usual construction of his stanzas, as in this instance: 

  “’But, as I said, you know my history;
  And your’s—­not that you made a mystery
  Of it, nor used reserve, yet, being not
    By nature an Autophonophilete,
    (A word De Lacy fashioned and called me it)—­
  Your’s you have never told me yet.  And what
  Can be a more appropriate occasion
  Than this true epic opening for relation?’”—­p. 48.

Here the lines do not cohere so happily as in the more varied distribution of the rhymes; and, moreover, as a question of principle, we think it not advisable to allow of minor deviations from the uniformity of a prescribed metre.

It may be well to take leave of Mr. Cayley with a last quotation of his own words,—­words which no critic ought to disregard: 

  “I shall be deeply grateful to reviews,
    Whether they deign approval, or rebuke,
  For any hints they think may disabuse
  Delusions of my inexperienced muse.”—­p.8.