His good opinion of the poems was, on the whole, confirmed, though he was rather taken aback by the character of some of them. An occasional note of bitterness was struck, which accorded ill with the easy tone of the author's letters—the author's letters, I say, for, with the best intentions, we could not fail to penetrate the thin disguise which Miss Lamb had chosen to throw about her identity. Happily, the misanthropic ones were of inferior merit, so that Brunt did not think it best to include them in the collection. But, as he said, their lack of artistic merit simply went to prove that they were a direct expression of a mood, which, though not poetical, was all the more likely to be real. If the public knew what he had spared them, they would be eternally grateful. As it is, I think all will admit that those pieces which he did select for publication, were well worth while. Take, for instance, the sonnet called "Knighted." Any one who is in the way of reading poetry
