of the way things, and was not too scrupulous, recognised, and robbed, a brother in Tom Stoddart.  Eleven years after “The Death Wake” appeared in England, it was published in Graham’s Magazine, as “Agatha, a Necromaunt in Three Chimeras,” by Louis Fitzgerald Tasistro.  Now Poe was closely connected with Graham’s Magazine, and after “Arthur Gordon Pym,” “Louis Fitzgerald Tasistro” does suggest Edgar Allen Poe.  But Poe was not Tasistro.

So much for the literary history of the Lunacy.

The poem begins—­Chimera I. begins:—­

“An anthem of a sister choristry! 
And, like a windward murmur of the sea,
O’er silver shells, so solemnly it falls!”

The anthem accompanies a procession of holy fathers towards a bier;

“Agathe
Was on the lid—­a name.  And who?  No more! 
’Twas only Agathe.”

A solitary monk is prowling around in the moonlit cathedral; he has a brow of stony marble, he has raven hair, and he falters out the name of Agathe.  He has said adieu to that fair one, and to her sister Peace, that lieth in her grave.  He has loved, and loves, the silent Agathe.  He was the son of a Crusader,

      “And Julio had fain

Have been a warrior, but his very brain
Grew fevered at the sickly thought of death,
And to be stricken with a want of breath.”

On the whole he did well not to enter the service.  Mr. Aytoun has here written—­“A rum Cove for a hussar.”

“And he would say
A curse be on their laurels. 
And anon
Was Julio forgotten and his line—­
No wonder for this frenzied tale of mine.”

How? asks Aytoun, nor has the grammatical enigma yet been unriddled.

“Oh! he was wearied of this passing scene! 
But loved not Death; his purpose was between
Life and the grave; and it would vibrate there
Like a wild bird that floated far and fair
Betwixt the sun and sea!”

So “he became monk,” and was sorry he had done so, especially when he met a pretty maid,

   “And this was Agathe, young Agathe,
   A motherless fair girl,”

whose father was a kind of Dombey, for

      “When she smiled
   He bade no father’s welcome to the child,
   But even told his wish, and will’d it done,
   For her to be sad-hearted, and a nun!”

So she “took the dreary veil.”

They met like a blighted Isabella and Lorenzo: 

“They met many a time
In the lone chapels after vesper chime,
They met in love and fear.”

Then, one day,

         “He heard it said: 
   Poor Julio, thy Agathe is dead.”

She died

“Like to a star within the twilight hours
Of morning, and she was not!  Some have thought
The Lady Abbess gave her a mad draught.”

Here Mr. Aytoun, with sympathy, writes “Damn her!” (the Lady Abbess, that is) and suggests that thought must be read “thaft.”