What an unselfish devotion is that of Philip Ray, and what a sublime picture does Enoch present, when coming back home, after a long and dreary absence, having been for years detained upon a lonely island, he finds his wife married to Philip. All his dreams of happiness are at once dashed to the ground. He firmly resolves that he himself shall be the only sufferer; that he will never appear as “a ghost to trouble the joy" of those he loves; and so he lives on, solitary and unknown, and only discloses his identity upon his dying bed. The story is simple, but is told with all of Tennyson's tenderness and pathos. It exhibits to us in glowing colors the higher attributes of human nature. It is, we think, one of the finest of his poems. So much, however, has been written upon "Enoch Arden;" by so many have its beauties been pointed out, that we pass it by, with this brief notice, and more carefully examine the second of the two poems, "Aylmers Field."

We have here a poem of a more tragic character, and the moral to be drawn from it is plain. It is an attack upon the pride of the aristocratic element in England, and is designed to show what fatalities may be brought about by their habits of exclusiveness.

The poem commences with an implied rebuke upon the aristocracy, by reminding them that they are but mortal :—

"Dust are our frames and gilded dust our pride;
Looks only for a moment whole and sound,
Like that long-buried body of the king,
Found lying with his urns and ornaments,
Which at a touch of light, an air of heaven,

Slipt into ashes and was found no more."

The characters are then introduced :

:

"Sir Aylmer Aylmer, that almighty man, the country God,

Who saw from his windows nothing save his own,"

has a daughter, Edith, the last of his line, and a wife who, in every

thing, but echoes the opinions of her lord.

The quiet and seclusion of the village is then noticed:

"A land of hops and happy mingled corn,
Little about it stirring save a brook;
A sleepy land, where under the same wheel
The same old rut wonld deepen year by year;
Where almost all the village had one name;
Where Aylmer followed Aylmer at the Hall,
And Averill, Averill at the Rectory
Thrice over."

The Rector has an only brother, a little older than Edith. The children are always together, and sentiments of affection spring up between them; they are half unconscious of it :—

"They wandered on,

Hour by hour gathered the blossom that rebloomed,

And drank the magic cup that filled itself anew."

Edith delighted in tending to the poor of the village, in alleviating their sorrows, and in ministering to their wants; for,

"She was one

Not sorrowing hedgerow texts and passing by;
Not dealing goodly counsel from a height

That makes the lowest hate it, but a voice

Of comfort, and an open hand of help."

A whisper reveals them to themselves; for, one day, as they are together tending a sick child, they heard the good mother whisper, as she gazed in admiration upon them,

"Bless, God bless 'em, marriages are made in heaven."

The Baronet soon hears from an officious neighbor how matters are going on. He summons Leolin, and after an angry expostulation with him, dismisses him from his house with indignation and scorn. The lovers meet once more, however, and vow eternal constancy; after which Leolin goes out into the world to make his name famous. Edith is carefully confined and closely watched, but some magic charm sustains her. This charm is soon discovered, for the Baronet finds that the two have been carrying on a secret correspondence. He intercepts the letters and sets a still closer watch upon his daugh

ter.

"Kept to the garden now and grove of pines.

Watched even then, and one was set to watch the watcher,
And Sir Aylmer watched them all."

Edith now begins to pine away, until at last a fever attacked her, and,

-"flung her upon a couch of fire,

Where, careless of the household faces near,

And crying upon the name of Leolin,

She, and with her the race of Aylmer, past."

When the news is conveyed to Leolin, he takes his own life with a dagger which Edith had presented to him.

The day of the funeral comes on, and notice with what force it is described. A great calamity has fallen upon the village. Two of

the most beloved have passed away; every thing appears sad and downcast. The very air is oppressed with the burden of a great sorrow, and all nature partakes of the universal gloom.

"Darkly that day rose;

Autumn's mock sunshine of the faded woods

Was all the life of it, for hard on these

A breathless burden of low folded heavens
Stifled and chilled at once."

The sermon which follows, is, we think, the finest part of the poem. With what sad indignation does the preacher, Leolin's only brother, inveigh against that pride, that deifying of titles and estates, which had brought these two, so dear to him, to the grave. The scene appears vividly before us. The preacher, pale and struggling with his emotions; the rough villagers casting angry glances at the Baronet as the cause of all this misery; the Baronet himself at first sitting

but gradually being mastered by his feelings as the preacher rehearses the many noble and endearing traits of his daughter's character, and the giving way of his wife when she saw her husband no longer able to control his feelings. We are carried along with the preacher, and feel almost as intensely as if we were actual hearers.

The poem closes with the death of the Baronet, after having been for two years bereft of reason. His estate is parcelled out into farms, and

"Where the two contrived their daughter's good

The mole has made his run.

The slow worm creeps,

And the thin weasel there follows the mouse,

And all is open field."

We admire these poems of Tennyson as much as any thing he has ever written. Does some one say that they are destitute of that exquisite imagery and poetic imagination which appear so prominently in some of his other works, as for instance in the " Idyls of the King?" We answer that the subject admits not of it. There his characters were mythical, and his fancy had full scope. He could represent them as he pleased. All we asked was that they should be consistent with themselves. Here his characters are human beings. They must think and act like ourselves. No veil of mystery and romance can be thrown about them, but their feelings and actions must be so rep

resented, of course colored and intensified by poetic license, that we can recognize their counterpart in ourselves. This we claim that Tennyson has done. They are not indeed such grand poems as "In Memoriam." Who would think of comparing the two? They cannot with justice be compared, their character and tone are so dissimilar. They cannot be compared line for line with the Idyls of the King. If we wish to contrast the two, we must take into account their different tone and sentiment, and see if the author has as completely developed his idea in the one as in the other. If he has, they are equally meritorious so far as the author is concerned, though the public may differ in their opinions as to which is the higher kind of poetry.

So far then from thinking that Tennyson has not sustained his reputation in these poems, we think that he has increased it, by showing that he does not need to take, for the exercise of his poetic powers, subjects in themselves poetical, but that his genius is great enough to take subjects from ordinary life and clothe them in the drapery of imaginative poetry.

True Glory.

GLORY, in its common acceptation, is the reflection of public opinion. Then the idea of glory must vary as public opinion varies. Where the sentiment of the people is degraded, there the idea of glory must be degraded also; for it cannot rise above the moral and intellectual atmosphere in which it is found. The savage can have no adequate idea of True Glory. The deeds which he praises are those of adventure, rapine and bloodshed. In war man displays his noblest traits and actions, as measured by the savage mind; and these are what men every where admire. The feudal lord had scarcely a loftier conception of glory. If Fame has borne down his name upon her swift pinions, it was on account of his military feats, his prowess in arms. The tournament, and the distant East, were his fields of glory. Into these he entered with a zeal worthy of a better cause. The famous Black Knight is a beau ideal of those who in the dark ages were admired and honored. Public opinion had not then risen to value

nobler traits, such as justice, benevolence, and virtue; and hence it could stoop to honor a villain of the darkest dye, merely for his strength, agility, or skill. Greece, the scene of so many great achievements in science, in art, and in arms, was plunged so deep into human interests, that she failed often to discern and reward the virtue of her statesmen, orators, and philosophers. "We are told that an intelligent countryman gave his vote against Aristides, at the ostracism, simply on the ground that he was tired of hearing him always called the Just. But Aristides, despised, and banished, is still Aristides the Just. Greece even gave the bitter cup to her greatest philosopher, who caught the morning rays of a brighter day. Then is it not true, that she, too, was mistaken in those whom she ought to honor? Is it not true, that she, who stooped to crown the successful competitor in her Olympic games, but who treated with the coldness and rigidity of a stoic the Great Apostle, proclaiming the truth in the midst of her heathen shrines,-is it not true, that she failed to perceive the true merits of character? Thus it is that the common idea of glory, coinciding with public opinion, often unenlightened, has been far from the true idea. Glory, in this view, is nothing more than mere reputation or notoriety. Hence it is that we have so many misrepresentations and misconceptions of character in history. Men whose names ought to have lived, have been overlooked; while men whose names are synonymous with crime, have been remembered with many excuses for their misdemeanors. This characteristic of the past still continues in the present. Men are dazzled with the pomp and magnificence of wealth, with the display of power, with great talents, although combined with extreme meanness; and to these they bend the knee; but the humble and honest laborer, who in the obscure paths of life is performing some noble work, is pushing some reform, or giving vitality to some truth, they pass coldly by. When shall it be that justice, benevolence, virtue, and humility shall be honored? When shall it be that names so bright and glorious, shall not be covered up with the coarse rubbish which men have piled above many of the illustrious names of the past, so deep that the research of the antiquary would fail, utterly fail, to discover them?

Military glory still continues to usurp the place of True Glory. If any hero has earned it, certainly that hero is Wolf, the conqueror of Quebec. Towards the close of that hard-fought battle, while he was lying wounded, mangled, and gory upon the field, he hears the cry, "They fly, they fly!" "Who fly?" was his eager query. "The enemy." "Then I die contented." These are household words, and