So in Miss Williams; no single utterance is complete, but only in reference to its counterpart. And not only is this true of the unconscious inward antitheses that run through her poetry, but of the spiritual poems viewed as a whole. Each poem is set over against the other, and they thus take on fuller, deeper significance. Take this paired specimen :

IN TIME OF DOUBT.

If we but had the right

Sure on our side, and strong;

Then the soldier should fight with might,

And the singer should chant his song,

But there cometh a whisper, like whisper of Fate,
'They that conquer the weak are not valiant nor great.'

If it were ours to view

Only the half of life;

If a film on our eyes there grew,

Then we, blinded, were fit for strife;

But the heavenly light sheweth piercingly clear
That the dwarf in the distance is giant when near.

If it were just to-day

That we did live and die ;

If our doing would pass away,

When our power in the grave did lie;

But we know that the dust in the wheel-tracts of time
Is retarding, or helping, a progress sublime.

If we could calmly rise

Just for a moment's breath,

To the height of the clear blue skies,
To the level of life-and death;

But the anger within us, the anger without,
Ever stirring our zeal, hold it molten in doubt.

WITH GOD.

Good Lord, no strength I have, nor
Within thy light I lie, [need;
And grow like herb in sunny place,
While outer storms go by.

Thy pleasant rain my soul doth feed—
Thy love like summer rain;
I faint, but lo, thy winds of grace
Revive my soul again.

I fain would give some perfume out,
Some bruised scent of myrrh;
But thou art close at hand, my Lord-
I need not strive nor stir.

I cannot fear, and need not doubt,
Though I be weak and low :
If thou didst will, a mighty sword

From out my stem should grow.
Thou hast thy glorious forest trees,

Thy things of worth and power;
But it may be thy plan were marred
Had I ne'er lived a flower.

Thy promise, like an evening breeze,
Doth fold my leaves in sleep;
Who trusts, the Lord will surely guard,
Who loves, the Lord will keep.

Here we have no dogma or opinion, but pure Christian belief, rarified in the high atmosphere of emotion, which relieves it from any special or class reference-an unforced simplicity that speaks direct to every religious heart, reflecting back, in proper measure, its own aspirings and triumphs.

With regard to the peculiarly involved elements which somehow refuse to come properly to the surface of Miss Greenwell's chosen forms, it is very remarkable how her poems, read from a certain point of view, might be conceived now and again to slip down to the level of the mere mystical conceits of the Italian revival, when the shimmer

ing sentiment of a perverted spiritualistic reaction sought to possess all forms of life and thought, at length issuing in some very contradictory results. It would take far too much space to go fully into that matter here; all we can do is to set alongside one of Miss Greenwell's poems, the poem of a gentleman who has been deeply influenced by those who have both directly and indirectly gained inspiration from that period. Certainly this gentleman had no intention in writing that his poem should carry with it a purely spiritual or religious suggestion. Yet does not the one, as much as the other, seem but a quaint laboured allegory, capable of being read almost in a purely natural sense?—

A MYSTERY.

A bird sings clear within the darkling wood;

Sing sweet, oh! bird, though wounded be thy breast;
Although thy song of few be understood,

A song of love is thine-a song of rest.

A rose beneath it blooms-a rose unfed

By earthly mould, unnourished by the dew,

Yet rich the rose's fragrance, ruby red

In every leaf as if its heart burned thro'.

And when the bird is silent, them the rose

Gives forth no odour, yields no light nor bloom,-
Death-stricken, pale, its petals shrink and close,
And all the air grows silent as a tomb.

And when the bird sing clearest most it grieves
O'er its deep wound; then from its heart overflows

A crimson drop, that on the rose's leaves

Falls with the song, then sweetest is the rose.

THE BIRTH OF LOVE.

"Does love come down from heaven like light?
Or grow like flowers out of the ground?
For I mean to seek him day and night,
Till I find him, dear, as you have found.

"And tell me when your love was born,
I am sure you remember the day;
Was it out in the harvest among the corn;
Or under the moon in May?

"Ah! not among the golden corn,
Nor in the balmy May,

My love, my little one, was born,
But on a chilly day,-

"A day too late for winter time,

And yet too soon for spring,
After the trees have lost their rime,
Before the birds dare sing.

"At the corner of a dingy street,
When few were passing by,

When I felt in my face the fitful sleet,
And looked at the fitful sky.

"I know not how, but a buried face

Came back in the cloudy air

And I looked in my heart a sighing space,
And Love was there."

Poems and Romances.

605

Here we have advances towards a revival of later medieval mysticism from both sides,—from the natural and the spiritual,—and the result is the assertion of a kind of middle kingdom wherein the distinctive traces vanish. It would be well were our religious poetry kept as free as possible from this influence.

Poems and Romances. By GEORGE AUGUSTUS SIMCOX, Author of "Prometheus Unbound." Strahan & Co.

In one of her delicious bits of prose, through which gleams of poetry look out as quietly as starry jasmine in a hedgerow before an English cottage door, Mrs Barrett Browning speaks of some poets "who stand on the very vibratory soil of the transition, stretching faltering and protesting hands on either side." Mr Simcox, notwithstanding a peculiar lyrical sweetness, and brooding calm of manner, evidently stands on the "vibratory soil"-the doubtful isthmus, which separates a recognised school from a rising one. He certainly has not bidden farewell to the men of moral allegory, conceit, and riddle— later heirs of the reaction that Italian influence bred in its meeting with early English realism; whilst he as surely holds out a hand to the new and vigorous brotherhood, who seek to return upon pure and simple story, and to shake it free from the encumbering garments of moral and metaphysical meaning and association. Mr Tennyson hails him from one side, Mr Morris and Mr Swinburne from another; and, although we have the most delicate flecks of colour, the green of the grass made deeper and richer through the passing snowy clouds above, -we scarcely find such wide sweep of individual genius, as the severe, unhesitating simplicity of "Prometheus Unbound," and the stately, serene repose of "Jephtha's Daughter" would almost have led us to expect. True, Mr Simcox moves through a tolerably complete circle of romance; but the treatment is throughout scholastic, and takes too little tone from the peculiar characteristics of our own time to compel universal audience and assent. Along with a good deal of the absorbing lyrical sentiment of the laureate, we have some effort after the easy, simple garrulousness of Mr Morris; and though Mr Simcox has too much culture, and too high a poetic ideal, to leave faulty work, we confess we are sometimes, and especially in the "Farewell of Ganore," tormented with a feeling of the want of perfect poetic fusion such as would come from a strong, not to say an overpowering imagination. Elsewhere this defect is less noticeable, because Mr Simcox does not allow himself free sail in the flowing waters of narrative; but, like a shallop of romance, floats gaily at anchor in the gentle stream of the descriptive lyric. And here we find the suggestion for a picture of Mr Simcox's world. It is like one of the pools in the bend of a dreamy river, secluded, soft, fairy-like—a shadowy universe, yet with strange suggestions of a real one in its wavering depths and chequered shadows, and faint, absorbing languor of sweetness, possible whirl and turmoil not being too far withdrawn. Mr Simcox is nothing if he is not ideal; and over the crystal waters we see the breath of allegory all too visibly dimming and confusing what, as being most suggestive of human struggle and emotion,

should have been kept sharply in prominence. Hence a trying obscurity that aims at veiling itself in music "piercing sweet!" Mr Simcox's music is indeed sweet, clear, spontaneous-sometimes like the "breath of a soul," if the expression may be allowed to us; but it is remote, wants the beat and colour of actual blood, and, therefore, can scarcely "find" the common crowd. Yet it is true poetry, for it has music and fine suggestion, and here and there is not void of concentration. But generally it wants dramatic intensity, or, indeed, the thrill of passion in any sense, and appeals, therefore, to the highly-cultivated and select, rather than the common reader. In some of the best poems as respects intention, the style exhibits self-absorbing sweetness, and soft lyrical diffuseness, with allegorical meanings vaguely toiling through it, like spectral figures through mountain mist. Occasionally, too, and because of this to some extent, we have an obscurity shrouded and sheathed in a quaint simplicity of utterance, and a want of individuality of conception. Of this class are "Art and Death," exquisite as respects mere finish ; "A Wind out of the West," " Morning Dew," "Blind Love," and a few others. "Forget-me-Nots" has true lyrical setting, and has more of direct appeal. Here it is :

Forget-me-nots were blooming
Under the castle walls;
One said, "They are forgotten
Who feasted in its halls."

"And who should be remembered?
What is the use of fame ?"
A scholar cried; "for glory
Is near akin to shame."
Yet he too plucked the flowers,
And his pale face flushed hot,

And gave one to a lady,

And said, "Forget-me-not."

The lady in her cloister,

Burnt her young heart away;
The scholar in his college,

Grew deaf, and dull, and grey;
But when they put the grave clothes
On each of them at last,

They found that each had cherished
A relic of the past;

With each of them was buried,

To ripen or to rot,

Deep under ground for ages,
A blue Forget-me-not.

This has the simple touch of the true lyric, and we feel it is to be regretted that Mr Simcox has kept himself so far apart, by means of the romance feeling and too vague conceits, from the real hearts of men and women, which he might at once so easily move and win. The Prologue to the Beloved, and the Epilogue, we should mention are both steeped in ideal light, airy with the breath of phantasy, and yet gracefully true.

X.-AMERICAN LITERATURE.

The Bibliotheca Sacra.

January 1869.
Sampson, Low, & Co.

Andover and London:

The Biblical Repertory and Princeton Review. January 1869. New York and London: Sampson, Low, & Co.

The Bibliotheca is, as usual, rich in the supply of well-written and elaborate articles. "The Origin of the First Three Gospel" is ably

The Closing Scenes of the Life of Christ.

607

handled, probably by some one of the editors. These Gospels are usually styled "synoptic," because, though differing somewhat among themselves," they differ as much more from the fourth Gospel, and coincide so closely with each other in the general aspect which they present of Jesus' character and work, that their presentations are peculiarly one." The phenomena of the agreement and the difference of the synoptical Gospels are presented with great clearness and fulness of detail. A discussion of the hypothesis by which it has been attempted to explain these phenomena, is to form the subject of another article. Professor Arnold of Madison University, enters pretty fully into the subject of "Christian Baptism," treating it wholly from the Baptist point of view. This is one of a series of articles inserted in conformity with a plan adopted by the editors, of securing, from representative members of different sects or religious parties, articles unfolding any distinctive theological opinions adopted by them, and exhibiting the peculiarities of meaning which these parties attach to the terms they use. Dr Barrows continues his paper on "Revelation and Inspiration," and presents in detail, and satisfactorily, the external evidence for the genuineness of the Gospel narratives. He touches, also, on the internal evidences, and the relations of the synoptical Gospels to each other, and to the fourth Gospel. He concludes by remarking, "that every age has its peculiar impress of thought and reasoning by which it is distinguished from every other age, and that, in this respect, the Gospels, with the other canonical books of the New Testament, wear their own proper livery, which no writer of the following age was able successfully to counterfeit." Professor Bascom of Williams College, also continues his very able and interesting article on "The Natural Theology of Social Science." He treats in this article of Exchange and Currency. The last paper in this No. contains a discussion of the question, "What wine shall we use in the Lord's Supper?" It most conclusively proves, "from the established meaning of the word, from the customs of Bible lands, and from the testimony of Holy Scripture, that wine is the fermented juice of the grape, and that such is the element appointed by the Saviour to be the memorial of his blood in the sacrament of the supper." All the arguments which have been presented on the other side of this controversy are, in our opinion, altogether unsatisfactory. We are glad to observe, that in Dr Alexander's recent edition of Kitto's Cyclopædia, Dr F. R. Lees' article on unfermented wine has been very judiciously left out, and one far more accurate and reliable has been inserted in its stead.

66

The Princeton is scarcely equal to itself on this occasion. The only article of merit, in our opinion, is the first, which discusses Professor Agassiz on Provinces of Creation and the Unity of the Race." The theory propounded by Agassiz is, "that the human race originated in nations, and that there were originally as many nations created as we now behold varieties of the human race.' This theory is justly condemned as "not less inhuman than anti-Christian," as an 66 endeavour to begin again the foundation of caste," as "simply a revival of the old Greek heathenism under a new scientific nomenclature, a denial of the common brotherhood of man." The article throws a great deal of