Part 15

Oh! what a joy it were in vigorous health, To have a body (this our vital frame With shrinking sensibility endued, And all the nice regards of flesh and blood,) And to the elements surrender it As if it were a spirit! How divine, The liberty, for frail, for mortal man To roam at large among unpeopled glens And mountainous retirements, only trod By devious footsteps; regions consecrate To oldest time! and, reckless of the storm That keeps the raven quiet in her nest, Be as a presence or a motion—one Among the many there; and while the mists Flying, and rainy vapors, call out shapes And phantoms from the crags and solid earth As fast as a musician scatters sounds Out of an instrument; and while the streams (As at a first creation, and in haste To exercise their untried faculties) Descending from the region of the clouds, And starting from the hollows of the earth More multitudinous every moment, rend Their way before them—what a joy to roam An equal among mightiest energies; And haply sometimes with articulate voice, Amid the deafening tumult, scarcely heard By him that utters it, exclaim aloud, “Be this continued so from day to day, Nor let the fierce commotion have an end. Ruinous though it be, from month to month.”

“The Prelude” has many fine descriptions of nature, but nothing which rises to the beauty and sublimity of the following passage from “The Excursion”:

—when a step, A single step, that freed me from the skirts Of the blind vapor, opened to my view Glory beyond all glory ever seen By waking sense or by the dreaming soul! The appearance, instantaneously disclosed Was of a mighty city—boldly say A wilderness of building, sinking far And self-withdrawn into a wondrous depth, Far sinking into splendor—without end! Fabric it seemed of diamond and gold, With alabaster domes, and silver spires, And blazing terrace upon terrace, high Uplifted; here, serene pavilions bright, In avenues disposed; there, towers begirt With battlements that on their restless fronts Bore stars—illumination of all gems! By earthly nature had the effect been wrought Upon the dark materials of the storm Now pacified; on them, and on the coves And mountain-steeps and summits, whereunto The vapors had receded, taking there Their station under a cerulean sky. Oh! ’twas an unimaginable sight! Clouds, mists, streams, watery rocks and emerald turf, Clouds of all tincture, rocks and sapphire sky, Confused, commingled, mutually inflamed, Molten together, and composing thus, Each lost in each, that marvelous array Of temple, palace, citadel, and huge Fantastic pomp of structure without name, In fleecy folds voluminous, enwrapped. Right in the midst, where interspace appeared Of open court, an object like a throne Under a shining canopy of state Stood fixed; and fixed resemblances were seen To implements of ordinary use, But vast in size, in substance glorified; Such as by Hebrew prophets were beheld In vision—forms uncouth of mightiest power For admiration and mysterious awe. Below me was the earth; this little vale Lay low beneath my feet; ’twas visible— I saw not, but I felt that it was there. That which I _saw_ was the revealed abode Of spirits in beatitude.

Not only do we see the superiority of “The Excursion” in such passages as these, but the didactic thought is more assured, is more colored by imagination, and melts more readily into soft, sweet, melodious expression. Take the following, for instance:

Within the soul a faculty abides, That with interpositions, which would hide And darken, so can deal, that they become Contingencies of pomp; and serve to exalt Her native brightness. As the ample moon, In the deep stillness of a summer even Rising behind a thick and lofty grove, Burns, like an unconsuming fire of light, In the green trees; and, kindling on all sides Their leafy umbrage, turns the dusky veil Into a substance glorious as her own, Yea, with her own incorporated, by power Capacious and serene: like power abides In man’s celestial spirit; virtue thus Sets forth and magnifies herself; thus feeds A calm, a beautiful, and silent fire, From the encumbrances of mortal life, From error, disappointment—nay, from guilt; And sometimes, so relenting justice wills; From palpable oppressions of despair.

If “The Prelude” has thus fewer “trances of thought and mountings of the mind” than “The Excursion,” it still bears the marks of the lofty and thoughtful genius of the author, and increases our respect for his personal character. The books devoted to his residence in Cambridge, his tour to the Alps, and to the influence of the French Revolution upon his genius and character, are additions to the philosophy of the human mind. We believe that few metaphysicians ever scanned their consciousness with more intensity of vision, than Wordsworth was wont to direct upon his; and in the present poem he has subtily noted, and firmly expressed, many new psychological laws and processes. The whole subject of the development of the mind’s creative faculties, and the vital laws of mental growth and production, has been but little touched by professed metaphysicians; and we believe “The Prelude” conveys more real available knowledge of the facts and laws of man’s internal constitution, than can be found in Hume or Kant.

We have not space for many extracts from the poem. Its philosophical value could not be indicated by quotations, and we shall content ourselves with citing a few random passages, illustrative of its general style and thought. The following lines exhibit the tendency of Wordsworth’s mind, when a youth at college:

I looked for universal things; perused The common countenance of earth and sky: Earth, nowhere unembellished by some trace Of that first Paradise whence man was driven; And sky, whose beauty and bounty are expressed By the proud name she bears—the name of Heaven. I called on both to teach me what they might; _Or turning the mind in upon herself,_ _Pored, watched, expected, listened, spread my thoughts_ _And spread them with a wider creeping; felt_ _Incumbencies more awful_, visitings Of the Upholder of the tranquil soul That tolerates the _indignities_ of Time, And from the centre of Eternity All finite motions, overruling, lives In glory immutable. — To every natural form, rock, fruit, or flower, Even the loose stones that cover the high-way, _I gave a moral life_: I saw them feel, Or linked them to some feeling! _the great mass_ _Lay bedded in a quickening soul, and all_ _That I beheld respired with inward meaning._

In the following stern description, he records his condemnation of life as he found it at the great English university of Cambridge:

For, all degrees And shapes of spurious fame and short-lived praise Here sat in state, and fed with daily alms Retainers won away from solid good; And here was Labor, his own bond-slave; Hope, That never set the pains against the prize; Idleness halting with his weary clog, And poor misguided Shame, and witless Fear, And simple Pleasure foraging for Death; Honor misplaced, and Dignity astray; Feuds, factions, flatteries, enmity, and guile Murmuring submission, and bold government, (The idol weak as the idolater) And Decency and Custom starving Truth, And blind Authority beating with his staff The child that might have led him; Emptiness Followed as of good omen, and meek Worth Left to herself unheard of and unknown.

The most remarkable line in the poem, a line almost equal to Milton’s “Thoughts that wander through eternity,” is that which concludes the following passage on the statue of Newton at Cambridge:

And from my pillow, looking forth by light Of moon or favoring stars, I could behold The antechapel where the statue stood Of Newton with his prism and silent face, The marble index of a mind forever _Voyaging through strange seas of thought, alone_.

With the lingering, mysterious music of this line sounding in our ears, it would be an impertinence to continue these loose remarks on “The Prelude” any further; and we close by commending the poem to the thoughtful attention of thinking readers.

* * * * *

_Christian Thought on Life: In a Series of Discourses. By Henry Giles, Author of Lectures and Essays. Boston: Ticknor, Reed & Fields. 1 vol. 16mo._

The author of this beautiful volume is a born orator, whose written style instinctively takes the form of eloquence, and whose strong and deep emotions are at once the inspirers and guides of his pen. He has given us here a dozen discourses, full of living thoughts and winged words, and with not a page which is open to the charge of dullness or triteness. When his theme compels him to introduce common thoughts he avoids commonplaces, and we cannot recognize the old acquaintance of our brain in the fresh and sparkling expression in which it here appears. Mr. Giles, indeed, is so thoroughly a thinker, and his mind is so pervaded by his sentiments, that where he lacks novelty he never lacks originality, and always gives indications of having conceived every thought he expresses. Nobody can read the present volume without being kindled by the vivid vitality with which it presents old truths, and the superb boldness with which it announces new ones. Among the many eloquent and impassioned discourses in the volume, that entitled “The Guilt of Contempt” is perhaps the sharpest in mental analysis, and closest and most condensed in style. It will rank with the best sermons ever delivered from an American pulpit. Another excellent and striking discourse is on the subject of spiritual incongruities as illustrated in the life of David. The five discourses on the Worth, the Personality, the Continuity, the Struggle, the Discipline, of Life, are remarkable for their clear statement of Christian principles, and the knowledge they evince of the inward workings of thought and emotions. Prayer and Passion is a sermon which securely threads all the labyrinths of selfishness, and exposes its most cunning movements and disguises.

We will give a few sentences illustrative of Mr. Giles’ mode of treating religious subjects, and the peculiar union of thought and emotion in his common style of expression. Speaking of the Psalms of David, he says—“They alone contain a poetry that meets the spiritual nature in all its moods and in all its wants, which strengthens virtue with glorious exhortations, gives angelic eloquence to prayer, and almost rises to the seraph’s joy in praise. . . For assemblies or for solitude, for all that gladdens and all that grieves, for our heaviness and despair, for our remorse and our redemption, we find in these divine harmonies the loud or the low expression. Great has been their power in the world. They resounded amidst the courts of the tabernacle; they floated through the lofty and solemn spaces of the temple. They were sung with glory in the halls of Zion; they were sung with sorrow by the streams of Babel. And when Israel had passed away, the harp of David was still awakened in the church of Christ. In all the eras and ages of that church, from the hymn which first it whispered in an upper chamber, until its anthems filled the earth, the inspiration of the royal prophet has enraptured its devotions and ennobled its ritual. And thus it has been, not alone in the august cathedral or the rustic chapel. Chorused by the winds of heaven, they have swelled through God’s own temple of the sky and stars; they have rolled over the broad desert of Asia, in the matins and vespers of ten thousand hermits. They have rung through the deep valleys of the Alps, in the sobbing voices of the forlorn Waldenses; through the steeps and caves of Scottish highlands, in the rude chantings of the Scottish Covenanters; through the woods and wilds of primitive America, in the heroic hallelujahs of the early pilgrims.”

* * * * *

_Specimens of Newspaper Literature. With Personal Memoirs, Anecdotes, and Reminiscences. By Joseph T. Buckingham. Boston: Little & Brown. 2 vols. 12mo._

The author of these volumes has been long extensively known as one of the leading editors of the country; and his age and experience peculiarly qualify him to do justice to the subject he here undertakes to treat. His own recollections must extend back some sixty years; and during that period he has been constantly connected with newspapers, either as printer’s apprentice, journeyman, or editor. He knew intimately most of the editors and writers for the press, who took prominent parts in the political controversies at the formation of the government, and during the first twenty years of its administration, and he is thoroughly acquainted with all the New England newspapers which appeared before the Revolution and during its progress. The work, therefore, is a reflection of the spirit of old times, giving their very “form and pressure,” and exhibiting, sometimes in a ludicrous light, old political passions in all their original frenzy of thought and form of expression. The specimens given of newspaper literature, in verse and prose, are all interesting either for their folly or wisdom, and some of them are valuable as curiosities of rhetoric and logic. Not only is the work valuable to the antiquary, the historian, and the members of “the craft,” but it contains matter sufficiently piquant to stimulate and preserve the attention of the general reader.

The author of these volumes is a marked instance of that inherent strength of character which pursues knowledge under difficulties, and is victorious over all obstacles which obstruct the elevation of the friendless. Without having received even a school education, and passing the period that boys usually devote to Lindley Murray in a printing office, he is one of the most vigorous and polished writers in New England, and in thorough acquaintance with classical English literature has no superiors. Every thing he writes bears the signs, not merely of intellect and taste, but of forcible character; and we believe that a selection from his newspaper articles would make a volume, which for originality of thought, and raciness of expression, would be an addition to our literature.

* * * * *

_Songs of Labor, and Other Poems. By John G. Whittier. Boston: Ticknor, Reed & Fields. 1 vol. 12mo._

Whittier’s popularity, great as it is, must be increased by these Songs of Labor. In them, the Ship-Builders, Shoemakers, Drovers, Fishermen, Huskers and Lumbermen, are gifted with vigorous and melodious utterance, in songs whose chime is the very echo of their occupations. The other poems of the collection are of a merit as various as their themes. The best is the poem entitled “Memories,” one of the most exquisitely tender, thoughtful and imaginative poems in our literature. “Pious IX.” and “Elliott,” are essentially battle-pieces, and the rhymes clash together like the crossing of swords. Fierce and hot as the invective of these poems is, we still think the business of wrath is much better done in “Ichabod,” in which rage and scorn take the form of a dirge, and smiting sarcasms are insinuated through the phrases of grief. Throughout the volume we are impressed with the great nature of the author, and the superiority of the man to any thing he has yet produced. He unites, in a singular degree, tenderness with strength, delicate fancy with blazing imagination, sensitive sentiment with sturdy character; and his most exhilarating and trumpet-voiced lyrics have the air of impromptus. In the following lines, for instance, from a poem in the present volume on “The Peace Convention at Brussels,” he extemporises as good heroic verse as Campbell’s:

Still in thy streets, oh Paris! doth the stain Of blood defy the cleansing autumn rain; Still breaks the smoke Messina’s ruins through, And Naples mourns that new Bartholomew, When squalid beggary, for a dole of bread, At a crowned murderer’s beck of license, fed The yawning trenches with her noble dead; Still, doomed Vienna, through thy stately halls The shell goes crashing and the red shot falls, And, leagued to crush thee on the Danube’s side, The beamed Croat and Bosniak spearman ride; Still in that vale where Himalaya’s snow Melts round the corn-fields and the vines below, The Sikh’s hot cannon, answering ball for ball, Flames in the breach of Moultan’s shattered wall; On Chenab’s side the vulture seeks the slain, And Sutlej paints with blood its banks again.

* * * * *

_Rural Hours. By a Lady. New York: George P. Putnam. 1 vol. 12mo._

To judge from the dedication, the authoress of this goodly duodecimo must be the daughter of Cooper, the novelist. She has much of her father’s remarkable descriptive power, but is happily deficient in that fretful discontent which disturbs the harmony of his later productions. The volume will be found a delightful companion both to the denizen of the city and country. The writer wins upon the reader’s sympathies with every page. Her intelligence is clear and quiet, enlarged by intimacy with nature and good books, and elevated by a beautiful and unobtrusive piety. We hope this will not be her last production.

* * * * *

_Sleep Psychologically Considered with reference to Sensation and Memory. By Blanchard Fosgate, M. D. New York: George P. Putnam. 1 vol. 12mo._

This thin volume is devoted to a subject which, though its discussion involves a consideration of topics properly metaphysical, has more general interest than any other in the science of metaphysics, because its phenomena stimulate the curiosity of all who, like Richard the Third, are troubled with dreams. The author supports, with great power of illustration and argument, three propositions, viz., that during sleep the mental faculties are as active as during wakefulness; that memory is no criterion by which to judge the mind in sleep; and that the mind is dependent upon the integrity of the organs of external sensation for a remembrance of what transpires during this state. The discussion of these topics is enlivened by many curious examples.

* * * * *

_Europe, Past and Present. By Francis H. Ungewitter, LL. D. New York: George P. Putnam. 1 vol. 12mo._

This is a thick volume of some seven hundred pages, completely crammed with facts relating to the history, geography, and present condition of every state in Europe. The index, containing ten thousand names, will convey an idea of the amount of matter which the author has compressed into his volume. Though a work of vast labor, we presume that its value, as a work for constant reference, will amply repay the expense of compiling it. Every man who reads European news should possess the book, provided he desires to read news intelligently. It gives accurate ideas of the relative importance of the various States, by exhibiting their financial condition as well as their territory, population, and productions.

* * * * *

_Chronicle of the Conquest of Grenada. (Irving’s Works, vol. 14.) New York: George P. Putnam. 1 vol. 12mo._

Every lover of the romantic and picturesque in history will heartily welcome this re-issue of Irving’s charming Chronicle. By assuming the position of a contemporary, he is enabled to exhibit the prejudices of the time with almost dramatic vividness, and to give events some of the coloring they derived from Spanish bigotry without obscuring their real nature and import. The beautiful mischievousness of the occasional irony which peeps through the narrative, is in the author’s happiest style. The book might easily be expanded into a dozen novels, so rich is it in materials of description and adventure. In its present form it is replete with accurate history, represented with pictorial vividness.

* * * * *

_Domestic History of the American Revolution. By Mrs. Ellet, Author of the Women of the American Revolution. New York: Baker & Scribner. 1 vol. 12mo._

The theme which Mrs. Ellet has chosen is an important one, and absolutely necessary to be comprehended by all who wish to understand the American Revolution as a living fact. The great defect of most of our national histories and biographies is their abstract character, neither characters nor events being represented in the concrete, and brought directly home to the hearts and imaginations of readers. The result is, that most of us, when we attempt to be patriotic, slide so readily into bombast; for having no distinct conceptions of what was really done and suffered by our forefathers and _foremothers_, we can only glorify them by a resort to the dictionary. Mrs. Ellet’s book is devoted to those scenes and persons in our revolutionary history, in exhibiting which the novelist is commonly so far in advance of the historian; and she has performed her task with much discrimination in the selection of materials, and no little pictorial power in representing what she has selected.

* * * * *

_The Vale of Cedars; or The Martyr. By Grace Aguilar. New York: D. Appleton & Co. 1 vol. 12mo._

This is Grace Aguilar’s last work, in the most melancholy sense of the word, she having died of consumption shortly after its completion. The story is one of much interest; the sentiments beautiful and pure; the style sweet and pleasing. We have read none of her novels with more satisfaction than this. At a period when romance writing has been so much perverted from its true purpose, it is delightful to find a novelist who, to a talent for narrative, united a regard for the highest and purest sentiments of human nature.

* * * * *

_Norman Leslie: A Tale. By C. G. H., author of the “Curate of Linwood,” etc. New York: D. Appleton & Co. 1 vol. 12mo._

This novel, in title the same as one by Theodore S. Fay, is in matter and style very different. It is a historical novel of the period of the religious wars in Scotland, and though not peculiarly excellent in characters, is filled with stirring events and attractive scenes. The publishers, without much increasing the price, have printed it in a style of much neatness. Large type and white paper are a blessing not commonly vouchsafed to American novel readers.

* * * * *

_Margaret Percival in America. A Tale. Edited by a New England Minister, A. M. Boston: Phillips, Sampson & Co. 1 vol. 12mo._

“Margaret Percival,” by Miss Sewall, has had a large circulation in this country, and it is but right that the present novel, which not only represents Margaret as a more tolerant Christian, but describes the process by which she became so, should be read by all who have been influenced by the English Margaret.

* * * * *

_Life, Here and There: Or Sketches of Society and Adventure at Far-Apart Times and Places. By N. P. Willis. New York: Baker & Scribner. 1 vol. 12mo._

This thick and handsome duodecimo contains many of the most charming and sprightly of Mr. Willis’s popular compositions, evincing that singular combination of sentiment and shrewdness, of poetic feeling and knowledge of the world, in which he has no American rival. The style, airy, graceful and fluent, is distinguished by a “polished want of polish,” a fertility of apt and fanciful expression, and a gliding ease of movement, which take the reader captive, and bear him on through “long reaches of delight.”

* * * * *

_The Berber: Or the Mountaineer of the Atlas. A Tale of Morocco, By William Starbuck Mayo, M. D., Author of “Kaloolah,” etc. New York: George P. Putnam. 1 vol. 12mo._