swelled from the " Songs of Innocence" to the poems of Emerson--a rapid increase of the tide in literature. Other signs of its increase meet us everywhere in the best books of verse published during the last few years. And perchance the increase has been even more rapid than the most of us have opportunity to learn, for we are informed by Mr. Rossetti that James John Garth Wilkinson has not only edited a collection of Blake's Poems, but has himself produced a volume of poems entitled "Improvisations of the Spirit", bearing a strong family likeness to those of Blake; and it may be that Wilkinson has the singing voice which Emerson has not. It would be a boon to the public, at any rate, to make these two volumes easily accessible.

Emerson and Garth Wilkinson, the former undoubtedly the supreme thinker of America, the latter as undoubtedly second to none in England, are surely in themselves sufficient attestation to the truth and depth of the genius of their forerunner, William Blake.

He came to the desert of London town,

Grey miles long;

He wandered up and he wandered down,
Singing a quiet song.

He came to the desert of London town,
Mirk miles broad;

He wandered up and he wandered down,
Ever alone with God.

There were thousands and thousands of human

kind

In this desert of brick and stone:

But some were deaf and some were blind,
And he was there alone.

At length the good hour came; he died,
As he had lived, alone:

He was not missed from the desert wide,
Perhaps he was found at the Throne.

WALT WHITMAN.

I.

As these rough notes are not for the few who know Whitman, but for the many who knowing him not would be the better for knowing him; are in fact mere notes of introduction, not of critical discussion; it may serve the convenience of those to whom they are addressed, to indicate at once collectively the materials on which they are based.

First, Whitman's own writings :-" Leaves of Grass," with the "Passage to India ", constituting his great Poem as finally settled, 500 pp., Washington, 1872; "Democratic Vistas," prose, 84 pp., Washington, 1871; "After all not to Create only," poem, 24 pp., Boston, 1871.

"Notes on Walt Whitman, as Poet and Person," by John Burroughs; 2nd edition, New York, 1871. From this valuable little book I have drawn, in many cases simply transcribing, most of the biographical sketch. Let this general acknowledgment stand in lieu of a swarm of quotation marks.

"The Good Gray Poet, a Vindication," by W. Douglas O'Connor, a pamphlet of 46 pp., New York.

Any of the above can, I suppose, be procured through Trübner and Co., of London.

"A Woman's Estimate of Walt Whitman," in the Radical of Boston, May, 1870. I do not know where or whether this beautiful essay, so eloquent with fervour and brave sincerity, can now be procured. My own copy I owe to the kindness of Mr. W. M. Rossetti, to whom the piece was originally addressed, and who communicated it to the Radical.

"Selections from Leaves of Grass," edited by W. M. Rossetti, London, 1868. These selections were simply published to pave the way for a complete edition in England. The volume contains an excellent prefatory notice by the editor, and likewise Whitman's prose Preface to the first edition of the "Leaves of Grass", which has been omitted from all subsequent editions; and although much of this Preface has been since worked up into the Poems, it remains highly interesting in itself, and I, for one, would be glad to see it reinstated in its integrity.

"Walt Whitman," by Moncure D. Conway, in the Fortnightly Review, October, 1866; especially interesting for the account of a visit which the writer paid to the poet nearly twenty years ago, soon after the appearance of the first edition of "Leaves of Grass ".

Walt Whitman was born May 31st, 1819, in the village of West Hills, on Long Island, about thirty miles from the city of New York. His father's stock was English; his mother's half good Dutch, half good sea-faring English. The parents lived on their own farm in rude plenty, having a dozen or fifteen slaves. The father was a large,

quiet, serious man, very kind to children and animals; a good citizen, parent, and neighbour. But it seems that the poet's chief traits come from his mother; and he has often declared that his views of humanity and of womanhood (for which he has an ardent reverence or reverent ardour, as manly as it is rare) could never have been what they are, if he had not had the practical proof of his mother and other noble women always before him. In his early childhood his parents moved to Brooklyn, then a charming rural town, now much the same in regard to New York as the London of Surrey is to the London of Middlesex. Here his father engaged in house-building and carpentering, and Walt went to a public (or, as we should say, national) school for some years. In 1825 Lafayette (the Lafayette of the American War of Independence and the French Revolutions of 1789 and 1830, the high-toned Cromwell-Grandison of Mirabeau and our Draconic Carlyle) visited Brooklyn in state, and consented to lay the corner-stone of a free public library. The schools were out to greet him, and gentlemen assisted in placing the smaller children in good spots for witnessing the ceremony. Lafayette, also helping the little ones, took up young Walt, and before depositing the child, pressed it a moment to his breast and gave it a kiss. This early chivalrous consecration may