In like manner _By the Fireside, A Serenade at the Villa_, and _Two in the Campagna_, include certain studies of nature and its moods, sometimes with a curiously minute observation of details; and these serve as the overture to some intense moment of joy or pain, or form the orchestration which sustains or reinforces a human voice.
Of the pieces relating to art those connected with the art of poetry are the least valuable.

_Transcendentalism_ sets forth the old doctrine that poetry must be sensuous and passionate, leaving it to philosophy to deal with the naked abstractions of the intellect.

_How it strikes a Contemporary_ shows by a humorous example how a poet's character and private life may be misconceived and misrepresented by those among whom he moves.

_Popularity_ maintains that the poet who is in the highest sense original, an inventor of new things, may be wholly disregarded for long, while his followers and imitators secure both the porridge and the praise; one day God's hand, which holds him, will open and let out all the beauty.

The thought is an obvious one enough, but the image of the fisher and the murex, in which the thought is embodied, affords opportunity for stanzas glowing with colour.