"Fashions in poetry may alter, but so long as the themes with which they deal have an interest for his countrymen, his 'Lays' will find, as they do now, a wide circle of admirers. His powers as a humorist were perhaps greater than as a poet. They have certainly been more widely appreciated. His immediate contemporaries owe him much, for he has contributed largely to that kindly mirth without which the strain and struggle of modern life would be intolerable. Much that is excellent in his humorous writings may very possibly cease to retain a place in literature from the circumstance that he deals with characters and peculiarities which are in some measure local, and phases of life and feeling and literature which are more or less ephemeral. But much will certainly continue to be read and enjoyed by the sons and grandsons of those for whom it was originally written; and his name will be coupled with those of Wilson, Lockhart, Sydney Smith, Peacock, Jerrold, Mahony, and Hood, as that of a man gifted with humor as genuine and original as theirs, however opinions may vary as to the order of their relative merits."
'The Modern Endymion,' from which an extract is given, is a parody on Disraeli's earlier manner.
THE BURIAL MARCH OF DUNDEE
From the 'Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers'
I
Sound the fife and cry the slogan;
Let the pibroch shake the air
With its wild, triumphant music,