Our adventurer, however, bails it out with the colen bell (which he has luckily provided for the purpose of catching the drop from the silver bow of the sturgeon,) and keeping his little bark warily trimmed, holds on his course undiscomfited.

The object of his first adventure is at length discovered in a "brownbacked sturgeon," who

Like the heaven-shot javelin

Springs above the waters blue,

And, instant as the star-fall light

Plunges him in the deep again,

But leaves an arch of silver bright,

The rainbow of the moony main.

From this rainbow our Ouphe succeeds in catching, by means of his colen bell cup, a "droplet of the sparkling dew." One half of his task is accordingly done His wings are pure, for the gem is won.

On his return to land, the ripples divide before him, while the water-spirits, so rancorous before, are obsequiously attentive to his comfort. Having tarried a moment on the beach to breathe a prayer, he "spreads his wings of gilded blue" and takes his way to the elfin court- there resting until the cricket, at two in the morning, rouses him up for the second portion of his penance.

His equipments are now an "acorn-helmet," a "thistle-down plume," a corslet of the "wild-bee's" skin, a cloak of the "wings of butterflies," a shield of the "shell of the lady-bug," for lance "the sting of a wasp," for sword a "blade of grass," for horse "a fire-fly," and for spurs a couple of "cockle seed." Thus accoutred,

Away like a glance of thought he flies

To skim the heavens and follow far

The fiery trail of the rocket-star.

In the Heavens he has new dangers to encounter. The "shapes of air" have begun their work- a "drizzly mist" is cast around him"storm, darkness, sleet and shade" assail him- "shadowy hands" twitch at his bridle-rein- "flame-shot tongues" play around him"fiendish eyes" glare upon him- and

Yells of rage and shrieks of fear

Come screaming on his startled ear.

Still our adventurer is nothing daunted.

He thrusts before, and he strikes behind,

Till he pierces the cloudy bodies through

And gashes the shadowy limbs of mind. and the Elfin makes no stop, until he reaches the "bank of the milky way." He there checks his courser, and watches "for the glimpse of the planet shoot." While thus engaged, however, an unexpected adventure befalls him. He is approached by a company of the "sylphs of Heaven attired in sunset's crimson pall." They dance around him, and "skip before him on the plain." One receiving his "wasp-sting lance," and another taking his bridle-rein,

With warblings wild they lead him on,

To where, through clouds of amber seen,

Studded with stars resplendent shone

The palace of the sylphid queen.

A glowing description of the queen's beauty follows: and as the form of an earthly Fay had never been seen before in the bowers of light, she is represented as falling desperately in love at first sight with our adventurous Ouphe. He returns the compliment in some measure, of course; but, although "his heart bent fitfully," the "earthly form imprinted there" was a security against a too vivid impression. He declines, consequently, the invitation of the queen to remain with her and amuse himself by "lying within the fleecy drift," "hanging upon the rainbow's rim," having his "brow adorned with all the jewels of the sky," "sitting within the Pleiad ring," "resting upon Orion's belt" "riding upon the lightning's gleam," "dancing upon the orbed moon," and "swimming within the milky way."

Lady, he cries, I have sworn to-night

On the word of a fairy knight

To do my sentence task aright

The queen, therefore, contents herself with bidding the Fay an affectionate farewell- having first directed him carefully to that particular portion of the sky where a star is about to fall. He reaches this point in safety, and in despite of the "fiends of the cloud," who "bellow very loud," succeeds finally in catching a "glimmering spark" with which he returns triumphantly to Fairy-land. The poem closes with an Io Paean chaunted by the elves in honor of these glorious adventures.

It is more than probable that from ten readers of the Culprit Fay, nine would immediately pronounce it a poem betokening the most extraordinary powers of imagination, and of these nine, perhaps five or six, poets themselves, and fully impressed with the truth of what we have already assumed, that Ideality is indeed the soul of the Poetic Sentiment, would feel embarrassed between a half-consciousness that they ought to admire the production, and a wonder that they do not. This embarrassment would then arise from an indistinct conception of the results in which Ideality is rendered manifest. Of these results some few are seen in the Culprit Fay, but the greater part of it is utterly destitute of any evidence of imagination whatever. The general character of the poem will, we think, be sufficiently understood by any one who may have taken the trouble to read our foregoing compendium of the narrative. It will be there seen that what is so frequently termed the imaginative power of this story, lies especially- we should have rather said is thought to lie- in the passages we have quoted, or in others of a precisely similar nature. These passages embody, principally, mere specifications of qualities, of habiliments, of punishments, of occupations, of circumstances, amp;c., which the poet has believed in unison with the size, firstly, and secondly with the nature of his Fairies. To all which may be added specifications of other animal existences (such as the toad, the beetle, the lance-fly, the fire-fly and the like) supposed also to be in accordance. An example will best illustrate our meaning upon this point He put his acorn helmet on;

It was plumed of the silk of the thistle down:

The corslet plate that guarded his breast

Was once the wild bee's golden vest;

His cloak of a thousand mingled dyes,

Was formed of the wings of butterflies;

His shield was the shell of a lady-bug queen,

Studs of gold on a ground of green;*

And the quivering lance which he brandished bright

Was the sting of a wasp he had slain in fight.

* Chestnut color, or more slack,

Gold upon a ground of black.

Ben Jonson.

We shall now be understood. Were any of the admirers of the Culprit Fay asked their opinion of these lines, they would most probably speak in high terms of the imagination they display. Yet let the most stolid and the most confessedly unpoetical of these admirers only try the experiment, and he will find, possibly to his extreme surprise, that he himself will have no difficulty whatever in substituting for the equipments of the Fairy, as assigned by the poet, other equipments equally comfortable, no doubt, and equally in unison with the preconceived size, character, and other qualities of the equipped. Why we could accoutre him as well ourselves- let us see.

His blue-bell helmet, we have heard

Was plumed with the down of the hummingbird,

The corslet on his bosom bold

Was once the locust's coat of gold,

His cloak, of a thousand mingled hues,

Was the velvet violet, wet with dews,

His target was, the crescent shell

Of the small sea Sidrophel,

And a glittering beam from a maiden's eye

Was the lance which he proudly wav'd on high.

The truth is, that the only requisite for writing verses of this nature, ad libitum is a tolerable acquaintance with the qualities of the objects to be detailed, and a very moderate endowment of the faculty of Comparison- which is the chief constituent of Fancy or the powers of combination. A thousand such lines may be composed without exercising in the least degree the Poetic Sentiment, which is Ideality, Imagination, or the creative ability. And, as we have before said, the greater portion of the Culprit Fay is occupied with these, or similiar things, and upon such, depends very nearly, if not altogether, its reputation. We select another example But oh! how fair the shape that lay

Beneath a rainbow bending bright,

She seem'd to the entranced Fay

The loveliest of the forms of light,

Her mantle was the purple rolled

At twilight in the west afar;

T'was tied with threads of dawning gold,

And button'd with a sparkling star.

Her face was like the lily roon

That veils the vestal planet's hue,

Her eyes, two beamlets from the moon

Set floating in the welkin blue.

Her hair is like the sunny beam,

And the diamond gems which round it gleam

Are the pure drops of dewy even,

That neer have left their native heaven.

Here again the faculty of Comparison is alone exercised, and no mind possessing the faculty in any ordinary degree would find a difficulty in substituting for the materials employed by the poet other materials equally as good. But viewed as mere efforts of the Fancy and without reference to Ideality, the lines just quoted are much worse than those which were taken earlier. A congruity was observable in the accoutrements of the Ouphe, and we had no trouble in forming a distinct conception of his appearance when so accoutred. But the most vivid powers of Comparison can attach no definitive idea to even "the loveliest form of light," when habited in a mantle of "rolled purple tied with threads of dawn and buttoned with a star," and sitting at the same time under a rainbow with "beamlet" eyes and a visage of "lily roon."

But if these things evince no Ideality in their author, do they not excite it in others?- if so, we must conclude, that without being himself imbued with the Poetic Sentiment, he has still succeeded in writing a fine poem- a supposition as we have before endeavored to show, not altogether paradoxical. Most assuredly we think not. In the case of a great majority of readers the only sentiment aroused by compositions of this order is a species of vague wonder at the writer's ingenuity, and it is this indeterminate sense of wonder which passes but too frequently current for the proper influence of the Poetic power. For our own part we plead guilty to a predominant sense of the ludicrous while occupied in the perusal of the poem before us- a sense whose promptings we sincerely and honestly endeavored to quell, perhaps not altogether successfully, while penning our compend of the narrative. That a feeling of this nature is utterly at war with the Poetic Sentiment will not be disputed by those who comprehend the character of the sentiment itself. This character is finely shadowed out in that popular although vague idea so prevalent throughout all time, that a species of melancholy is inseparably connected with the higher manifestations of the beautiful.