The special popularity, indeed, of lyric as opposed to epic verse is due to this habit of feeling. A good example may be found in the work of Mr. Swinburne: the latter is the better poetry, the earlier remains the more popular—because of its eloquence of margin. Mr. Tupper might long ago have sat with laureate brow but for his neglect of this first principle. The song of Sigurd, our one epic of the century, is pitiably unmargined, and so has never won the full meed of glory it deserves; while the ingenious gentleman who wrote Beowulf, our other English epic, grasped the great fact from the first, so that his work is much the more popular of the two. The moral is evident. An authority on practical book-making has stated that 'margin is a matter to be studied;' also that 'to place the print in the centre of the paper is wrong in principle, and to be deprecated.' Now, if it be 'wrong in principle,' let us push that principle to its legitimate conclusion, and 'deprecate' the placing of print on any part of the paper at all. Without actually suggesting this course to any of our living bards, when, I may ask—when shall that true poet arise who, disdaining the
