them she had left us this unstinted proof. Moreover the one line,
"Fill all the stops of life with tuneful breath"
had in it enough of character and sweetness to provoke an intelligent curiosity. As a scholar and a man of letters, the reader felt his interest awakened. He replaced Mrs. Browning on the book shelf, and made up his mind with characteristic distinctness he would read the poems of this forgotten American author.
It was not an easy resolution to keep. A confident appeal to the public libraries of New York and Philadelphia brought to light the astonishing fact that no copy of the "Poems on Man" was to be found within their walls. The work had been published in several editions by Harper and Brothers between the years 1838 and 1843; but no forlorn and dust covered volume still lingered on their shelves. The firm, when interrogated, knew no more about Cornelius Mathews than did the rest of the reading world. The next step was to advertise for a second-hand copy; but for a long while it seemed as though even second-hand
