by the abruptness of its transitions from poetical to personal lamentations, but by the art with which the poet has spread out all the gloom and all the glory thereof in the light of ancient and modern associations, of Grecian, Roman, or Italian story. Ebenezer Elliott is another example of what we mean. Never till he snatched his red-hot poker pen, had we any idea that the blue lights and smoky visages, the din and soot of foundries, could have inspired and immortalized a world poet; for, in spite of our sage critic in "Chambers," we do opine that all genuine poetry is at least colored by the special atmosphere through which it first begins to burn, and that Elliott had been no poet at all if he had not felt the action of a furnace on his mind, as well as that of his mind on a furnace. Our view of association does not go quite to the extent of supposing that all things are made, though it does go to the extent of supposing that all things are modified by its influence. vorite theory, so many agreeable, lovely, and noble things; the Cain-spirit would now gather all abortive undertakings, unhappy thoughts, guilty and monstrous deeds, bruised and broken wings of imagination, frightful shapes of nature, which, not to call "ugly," is a high effort of faith-shapes of thought more terrific still--dreary and ominous sounds scents going up from fields and lands of pestilence-the seeds of murder, and the gore of suicides-the breath of blasphemers, and the hearts of traitors-and present such an offering, himself shuddering, to an incensed Heaven. To collect such an infernal broth into a Canidia cup has not yet been effected by the darkest spirit, although some writers have failed in the attempt less from inclination than from power. Far better for men to be accounting for and accumulating images of the beautiful, than to be (as in France) artistically handling and reproducing the horrible and the bad. It is, therefore, more the healthy, mild, Whatever may be thought of Alison's genial, and Christian tone of Alison's work, "Essay on Taste," as a speculation, there is than its depth or power, that we admire. one view in which it is incomparable-we His book, unconsciously, is the best treatise mean, as a fine and delicate selection of beauon the goodness of God that we remember. tiful objects-of objects of which all men are The being must be good who has scattered pleased to be reminded. There is scarcely beauty through his world in such universal anything in art, or nature, or thought, that is profusion, that, go down into whatever dark sublime, beautiful, or attractive, but we find mine, you find beauty sparkling before you inserted in some part or other of its pages. in the silver or the golden ore-that, peneIt is a great nosegay of flowers. It is plea- trate into whatever ocean depth, you find it sant, in this world of care and woe, to light growing in the coral, or reposing in the shell— upon such "certain places," where all things that, in the heart of .the forest, it is there, for a season, by their richness, variety, har- forming the pine cone, or so intermeddling mony, and the soft evening light of genius in with every motion of the fallen leaf, as to which they are shown, seem to stand up on a make it, amid all its wild whirlings a thing hedge of roses, excluding us from, and from of beauty-that, when you have climbed the us the harsh realities of the present, the re- loftiest eminence, beauty has climbed it becorded mistakes and miseries of the past, and fore you, and waits for your coming, in the the tremendous uncertainties of the future-sparkling silence of the snows, or in the aswhere the "beautiful is not vanished," and where we can at times imagine that "it is a happy world, after all." Nay, in reading Alison's book on "Taste," we are standing by the side of an altar, whereon all the fruits and fatness, all the beauty and elegance of earth, are being offered up, as in Cain's bloodless sacrifice, to heaven. But the spirit of the offering is not that of the first murderer; over all the gifts and all the glories thereof there are sprinkled the rich drops of pious feeling; and rude and ruthless were the hand which should indignantly or contemptuously throw down the altar, and scatter the lovely fruits to the winds of the wilderness. Assuredly, in an age like ours, no bad man would willingly collect, even to support a fa pect of the sun, shorn of all but light and beauty-nay, that its gleam is the true ghost of the grave-the joint tenant of the shroud, and that destruction and death may well say, We have heard the fame of it with our ears.' But to return. Alison, as a writer of sermons, has a fame, if not so dazzling, at least as enviable, as from his philosophical speculations. A theory, however ingenious or brilliant, may be impugned and shattered, if not overturned. But sermons which have once become classical in their reputation, may indeed be depreciated, but seldom cease to be read. Opinions vary as to Logan's sermons, but most people know them; whereas, if the truth of a philosophical treatise be over thrown, it requires all charms of style to save it from neglect; and perhaps we are justified in predicting, that a century hence not more than three books of a philosophical kind will continue to be read for their mere literature, and these are "Brown's Lectures," Sir W. Drummond's Academical Questions," and "Fichte's Destination of Man." Whatever may or has become of the special opinions advocated in those works, we are persuaded that the richness of language, fertility of illustration, minuteness of analysis, and fine philosophic and poetic enthusiasm of the first; the energy, terseness, boldness, and eloquence of the second, and the power (as of a painter of spirits) of depicting thinnest abstractions, the fervor of feeling, and the grandeur of sentiment of the third, will secure them readers, after the metaphysical writings of Spinoza, Hobbes, Locke, Stewart, Reid, Ballantine, and many others, are no more regarded (save for their substance, which has gone into other and more convenient forms) than the autumn shells whence the kernels have been extracted. Alison's sermons appear to us to be fine expressions of a certain form and feeling of Christianity, and in this light possess considerable chance for continued life. As compositions, expressing refined sense to refined people, colored in their diction, and often poetical in their spirit, they retain, and may long, a certain place. He is not a clear or strong reasoner, nor an overbearing declaimer, nor a searchingly practical preacher. His sermons are undoubtedly superior to Blair's and Logan's, but not by any means equal to Taylor's, Barrow's, or Hall's. They are the result of a judgment sound, not subtle-of an intellect, calm, clear, and equable-of a fine and sensitive taste-of imagination rather cultivated than copious-of acquirements select rather than extensive-of full command of beautiful diction-of a genuine and glowing love for the works of nature—and of an enlightened and cheerful piety. But we miss altogether the short and striking things, the charm of unexpectedness, the evangelical richness, and the practical savor, which meet us in the first class of Christian authors. We read his elegant pages with delight, but few burning embers cling to our memories or our hearts. Alison's best discourses are those on the seasons of the year-fine, fresh joy-breathing descants on the works of God, full of a bright and balmy devotion, and an exhilarating and sunny spirit, which reminds you of the "glad prose" of Jeremy Taylor. He gives admirably the gay leap of spring from the "detested trance" of winter-the broad brightness of the golden summer-the mellow and sombre interest of autumn; and if he fails at all it is in representing the sterner features and barren magnificence of winter, that skeleton among the seasons. We much prefer Foster's sermons on the same topic. He discovers a profounder sense of the beauty and meaning of nature—a more passionate love for it-hangs a weight of personal interest on all his cogitations-and when he approaches autumn and winter, those dark seasons appear to stand up, to give him a gloomy welcome, as an energy kindred to themselves, and their pale cheeks flush with a strange joy, like the red of a fallen leaf. He absolutely revels in the images of death and desolation which are suggested by the aspects of the closing year. In Alison's sermon on the "Threatened Invasion," he brings himself into competition with Robert Hall. Both were upon their metal, aud have reached and sustained a high flight of patriotic and Christian eloquence. Both are hurried out of their wonted equability of manner by the excitement of the crisis, and their polished and rounded periods become instinct with a somewhat sterner and more Tyrtæan energy. Of the two, Alison's discourse is the more solemn and sustained, Hall's the more intellectual and brilliant. But we confess that neither comes up to our idea of a war-sermon What a a trumpet-call, summoning the sons of men, by their hearths and by their altars, by their country and by their God, to do battle for all that was dear to them in their laws, and all that was sacred to them in their religion. We should have liked something rougher, sterner, more spirit-stirring still. We prefer Macbriar's sermon in "Old Mortality," by many degrees, to both Hall and Alison. Had Scott been a preacher, how much would he have made of it! strong, earth-shaking blast would he have blown against the foe! There had been a cry at the close, "Lead us to battle!" Or had Edward Irving been then in the zenith of his power, what an impression must he have produced by the enthusiasm of his manner, the stateliness of his chivalric form, the wild fire of his vision, the floating terror of his locks, the picturesque dye of his diction, the metaphors about war and battle which he would have culled from Scripture or gathered out of his own imagination and the old border spirit which was in him, and which would, in such a moment, have come up, flushing in blood through his pale cheek! | even as hunters sound the moors for hares. The effect had been Demosthenic! Men Unfortunately this author lies under a mistake would have seen in him the resuscitation of inasmuch as all the heroes we ever met have the Puritan leader, wielding a sword in one either accidentally crossed our path, or else hand and carrying a Bible in the other; or have met us at their own request. Although of David's heroes, "who could handle spear he happens to be as ignorant of us as though and buckler, whose faces were as the faces we were a Hottentot or a Turk, we shall, on of lions, and were as swift as the roes upon the contrary, tell him that we know him the mountains," and would have sought no thoroughly, having met him last in London, other leader to carry them into the middle carrying Professor Longfellow's bag, and in a of the fight! But Alison and Hall, two se- state of "Excelsior" enthusiasm! cluded scholars are hardly in their element when talking of carnage. They seldom catch the right martial spirit. Hall, in the closing passage, alone copes with the sublimity of the occasion; and neither could be said, in the noble language of Job, "to smell the battle afar off, the thunder of the captains, and the shouting." Alison is now a name, but a name beloved and revered, as long as soft sublimity of thought, and elegant richness of diction, vivacity of mild fancy, and felicity of cultivated taste, are qualities reputed and admired. His fame does not rest upon the prominence of one faculty, but upon the exquisite balance of many. It has been objected by a critic in the "North American Review," that we are in the habit of searching the country for heroes, Although we have never hunted after heroes, we have sometimes stumbled on a few. For instance, in the year 1828, we found ourselves stepping northward, toward the town of Crieff, at the close of an autumn evening, in the company of Archibald Alison, the subject of the present sketch. He was exalted to the sublimity of a gig, we were plodding along in the simplicity of a pedestrian; he was advanced in life, we were a mere boy, to him utterly unknown; and yet, fronting, as he did, a glorious western sky, stooping over the woods and turrets of Drummond Castle, and remembering, as we did, his achievements as a theorist on "Taste,' we cannot say that our admiration of him at all then amounted to enthusiasm, or that we gazed with exalted interest on his profile cut out in the red heaven beyond. NOTICES OF NEW PUBLICATIONS. King Arthur. By Sir E. BULWER LYTTON. 2 vols. We see in "King Arthur" a consummate expres sion of most of those higher powers of mind and thought which have been steadily and progressively developed by Sir Bulwer Lytton's writings. His design is a lofty one, and through all its most varied extremes evenly sustained. It comprises a national and a religious interest. It animates with living truth, with forms and faces familiar to all men, the dim figures of legendary lore. It has an earnest moral purpose, never lightly forgotten or thrown aside. It is remarkable for the deep and extensive knowledge it displays, and for the practical lessons of life and history which it reflects in imaginative form. We have humor and wit, often closely bordering on pathos and tragedy; exploits of war, of love, and of chivalrous adventure, alternate with the cheerful lightness and pleasantry of la gaie science. We meet at every turn with figures of a modern day, which we laugh to recognize in antique garb; in short, we have the epic romance in all its licences and in all its extremes.-Examiner. Episodes of Insect Life. Prof. Nichol has done much to make astronomy & lightsome science; Mr. Miller has thrown the influ fossils of the old red sandstone. Neither, however, ence of eloquent and powerful writing around the has produced a work equal, in the particular above mentioned, to the Episodes of Insect Life.-Tait's Magazine. Mordaunt-hall. By the author of EMILIA WYNDHAM Like the former productions of this clever writer, "Mordaunt-hall" strongly engages the attention and sympathy of the reader. It contains sketches of domestic life and every-day characters as forcible and faithful as those of Miss Austin, at the same time that the principal persons in the tale are invested 572 NOTICES OF NEW PUBLICATIONS. with all the passion and sentiment of romance.- [The Harpers have just issued a cheap edition of A Book for a Corner; or, Selections in Prose and Verse from Authors the best suited to that mode of enjoyment: with Comments on each, and a general Introduction. By LEIGH HUNT. 2 vols. We confess to a degree of partiality for the poet and critic whose declining years are thus occupied in reproducing for others the literary luxuries which have given a charm to his own studious life, and have preserved his feelings fresh and young through all the cares amid which the heart's music too often becomes "like sweet bells jangled, out of tune and harsh." The selections here presented are not from great, but from choice authors. The Shakspeares and Miltons are, we are told, serious studies-exercising mastery over minds the most elevated; but in a "Book for a Corner" companionship should be the rule-and therefore passages in the middle style of literary composition have been preferred by Mr. Hunt. Shenstone and Gray are the types of the class among poets,-De Foe, Pultock, Radcliffe, Inchbald, and Amory, among romancers,-Steele, Addison, Barbauld, Marco Polo, and Mungo Park, among essayists and travel-writers. opens with the "Letter to a New-born Child," by The series Catherine Talbot, and closes with Gray's "Elegy" the intermediate citations being ideally related to the intermediate periods of life from birth to death. In this manner an order of arrangement is pleasantly suggested, while variety in subject and sentiment is judiciously secured. The value of the selections is greatly increased by Mr. Hunt's preliminary comments, as well as by the general introduction to the work.-Athenæum. Hints towards the Formation of a more Comprehensive Theory of Life. By S. T. COLERIDGE. Edited by SETH B. WATSON, M.D. ac This book is one of the finest of the late Mr. Coleridge's philosophical essays. We should, however, have been better pleased if the editor had revealed the source whence he obtained it. He is wholly silent on the subject,- -save that he makes his " knowledgments to Sir John Stoddart, LL.D., to the Rev. James Gillman, Incumbent of Trinity, Lambeth, and to Henry Lee, Esq., Assistant Surgeon to King's College Hospital, for their great kindness in regard to this publication." More than one example of the argument here elaborated have already appeared. 66 In November and December, 1835, were published in Fraser's Magazine, two fragments-one Life," and another on the Science and System of "On Logic;" the former stated to be merely an excursus in, and the latter an introduction to, upon Logic." These were printed under the name A Discourse of Mr. Coleridge; but they have never been gathered into his acknowledged works by his literary executors They were then alleged to be portions of "the Sybilline Leaves" scattered abroad by their author, and retained in the affectionate hands of some who were proud to be esteemed his pupils. Many of the treatises so frequently referred to by Mr. Coleridge, and yet not discoverable among his papers, were suspected to be in this condition. The [April, 1849. internal evidence of the fragments alluded to and of authorship. Both in matter and in form they are the present brochure is sufficient to establish their indubitably Coleridgean.-Athenæum. been issued by Lea & Blanchard, of Philadelphia. A Glance at Revolutionized Italy, &c. By CHARLES Our author is a good hot Tory, and no mistake. A fervent and enthusiastic performance, in prose and verse, in which external objects are spiritualwriters, who infuse a large proportion of scriptural ized in the style adopted by very devout religious The love of God, and dependence upon his Son, are texts and pious ejaculations into their compositions. here, in this manner, zealously inculcated.-Literary Gazette. RECENT BRITISH PUBLICATIONS. Life of Maximilian Robespierre, by G. H. Lewes. Montalba. Dudley Chadbourne, a Woman's History. History of Scotland, by Robert Chambers. Hortensius, or the Advocate, by William Forsyth, Curzon's Visits to the Monasteries in the Levant. Owen Tudor, by the author of Whitefriars. Adventures in the Lybian Deserts, by Boyle St. John, Esq. Sermons of Adolphe Monod, translated by Hickey. |