natural result of our Principles being better known, would be a greater readiness on the part of foreign Catholics to accept us as Churchmen, and acknowledge us as brethren. If such is the result, so be it. In the estimation of others the knowledge of Anglican Principles will be likely to lead to a desire after Anglican practices, to a dislike of those doctrines and practices which are distinctly Roman, and to a wish among members of the different National Churches of the Continent to break from off their neck the yoke of Rome, after the precedent of the Anglican Church. Again we say, if such is the result, so be it. If we honestly believe and trust in our own position and doctrines, like true-hearted Churchmen, we cannot fear any result whatever which can ensue from that position and those doctrines being fairly set forth in the sight of all the world. Be the consequences what they may either to ourselves or to others, no one but the most arrant coward could on that account draw back or hold his hand. Provided that we have a loyal confidence in Anglican Church Principles, we can have no kind of fear for the results of an intelligent appreciation of them by foreign Christians, either with respect to others or to ourselves. Whether that unity which has been forfeited by the sins of men shall ever be vouchsafed to Christians by the great Head of the Church, it is not for us to say. But of one thing we are sure that every Anglican Churchman who prays for the unity of Christ's body, and attempts anything, however small, to bring it about, must do it professedly and distinctively upon Anglican Church principles. He must not dream of compromising Truth for the sake of conciliating either Rome or Geneva. He must not acknowledge a false centre of unity with the followers of the Pope, nor mistake an unorganized and unsubstantial agreement in differences for Catholic unity with the members of the Evangelical Alliance. Union in the Truth is the means and the only means of producing unity of spirit, and from unity of spirit flows unity of organization. It must be on the solid platform of Primitive Truth that Greece, Rome, England, German Protestantism, and English and American Dissent, must take their stand together, and reconcile their differences, if ever that is to take place; and the Principles of the Primitive Church are in a special manner the Principles of the Anglican Church. Those words of De Maistre, which have been chosen for the motto of one of the Society's publications, are most remarkable, and, considering the person from whom they emanate, astonishing: Si jamais les Chrétiens se rapprochent, comme tout les 'y invite, il semble que la motion doit partir de l'Eglise d'Angleterre... Elle peut être considérée comme un de ces intermèdes chimiques capables de rapprocher des éléments in เ 6 associables de leur nature.' 'So,' says Mr. Cleveland Coxe, wrote the Count De Maistre, a close observer of Continental 'Protestants and of the Russo-Greek Church; but one of the 'most bigoted Ultramontanists that ever strove to make the "worse appear the better reason in behalf of Rome. Perhaps he said it "not of himself." It was written before the present century opened, and what sign of such a movement existed then? 'But now, when we find deep calling unto deep, religious movement characterizing the whole Church, and all that is not ' unreal and reactionary setting towards one result, it becomes England and English Christians to recognise this noble mission ' of their Church.'2 'Among the Continental Primitivists,' continues the American presbyter, 'the writer cannot but think that things are ready for an important influence from England. 'Let them know that there are English sympathies and English prayers for them: let many run to and fro, and let knowledge be increased. Yes-the knowledge of each other! Is Christ 'divided? Are we not one body in Him? And should anything but their own fault separate us from truly pious and Catholic reformers at such a time as this?' Why,' cries a preacher in the University pulpit at Oxford, why will we sit still and 'do nothing towards displaying to the Continental Churches 'the true character of the Anglican Church? Why will we ' allow that which ought to be dearest to each one of us-our Faith and our Church-to be misrepresented and misunderstood, and not utter one word to silence calumny and enlighten ignorance? Why will we not show to weary-hearted men 'who are stretching out their hands if haply they may find the 'Truth, a living example, as far as may be, of the Church of 'S. Augustine which their souls long for? Why will not we 'set an example before their eyes whereby they too may work 'out their own reformation upon Catholic principles, instead of 'burying themselves in one of the two abysses-Infidelity or 'Superstition?' 'It is not now for the first time,' writes the French Abbé whose letters have been already quoted, speaking of the Validité des Ordinations de l'Eglise Anglicane,' it is 'not now for the first time that I have learnt to believe that "God has done a special grace to the universal Church in allowing the sacred hierarchy of the Church to have been 'present in all its integrity and legitimacy, at the stormy time 'of the Reformation, in the bosom of that noble nation which 'has now become the first nation of Europe and of the globe, 1 Considérations sur la France, p. 27. Ed. 1852. Sympathics of the Continent, p. 48. 3 Ibid. Two Sermons preached before the University of Oxford, on May 29th and Nov. 5th, 1854, by Rev. F. Meyrick, p. 44. ' and appears destined by Providence one day to recall all the 'peoples of the earth to the purity of the Faith, and the 'holiness of the morals of the Gospel.' Whether such anticipations as are shadowed out in these quotations are the result of ardent aspiration, or whether they are sober probabilities, time will show. Meantime we wish God speed to the Association whose operations we have been considering. Whatever may be the further results of its labours, its work of setting forth Anglican Church principles fairly and honestly is a good work, and can produce nothing but good. The directors of the Association have, we think, taken the best means that were in their power of accomplishing the task which they set before themselves. But they have scarcely as yet taken a step or two along the one course which they have opened to themselves. They have before them not only the labour of preparing many more books of Anglican divinity, small and great, for perusal in all parts of the Continent and in all languages, but they have also to organize a system of dissemination of their publications better than that which at present exists. The state of our foreign chaplaincies and congregations, again, opens a sphere of labour which is in itself enormous. And the foreigners in London demand a supply for their religious needs in the shape of Churches, Colleges, Schools, Clergy, Catechists. The Society is right to confine itself at present to its publications and their distribution, but this is not all that it has before it. It is evident, however, that it must be supported much more largely and much more liberally if it is to rise to its needs, and to take a recognised place among our great Church Societies as occupying ground which is not covered by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, the Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge, or any other of the Home or Foreign Societies which act as the organs of the Church. 361 ART. IV.-Men and Women. By ROBERT BROWNING. In Two Volumes. London: Chapman & Hall. THE reviewer who undertakes the criticism of some famous and popular poet of his own or an earlier day, a Tennyson, a Dante, a Homer, enjoys, despite the arduousness of his task, some great and obvious advantages. He can assume on the part of his readers a tolerable knowledge of the basis of facts on which his superstructure is raised. Mere allusions will at once be understood; the invitation to notice particular beauties of thought and expression will please admirers by whom the merits referred to have been unobserved, will please still more those who have already selected such passages as favourites. Even censures, if not always acquiesced in, may awaken interest, and afford matter for reflection. It is far otherwise when we feel that we cannot calculate upon the reader's intimate acquaintance with the writings to be analysed and made the subject of comment. The twofold process of rendering an account of the poems, and at the same time expressing opinions on their value, is perplexing to the writer, and but too likely to weary the reader. The latter is more inclined to distrust a guide over whose course he has so little control, and who may unconsciously distort the evidence, so as to support his own private views. Nevertheless, the office of such a critic, though a more humble one, may prove to many quite as useful, if they are thereby led to the study of an unduly neglected bard, and find the path to the comprehension of his difficulties in any degree smoothed and facilitated. Although there may be among those whose eyes alight upon these pages, some who are more deeply versed than ourselves in the works of Mr. Browning, such readers will form but a small minority of our circle, and it is our wish to address the larger number. We propose, then, to give an account of the productions of this poet, to examine in detail some of the more important, to notice his chief claims (in our judgment), to admiration, along with his principal defects, and to try to assign to him his fitting place among the living poets of Great Britain. It would be a waste of words to enter at any length into the history of the phases of our national poetry since the days of Queen Anne. This task has often been performed, and we may be content to accept the brief summary given by Mr. Robertson, in his Lectures on the Influence of Poetry.' There was, firstly, the poetry of conventional society, of which Pope is the greatest and ablest representative. Then came the French Revolution, and with it the poetry of sentiment and passion; too often, as is seen in Byron, of morbid sentiment, and unhealthy, because unchastened, passion. The work-day tendencies of our own age, and the rapid strides of physical science, are, not unnaturally, thought to have led by reaction to the poetry of mysticism; among whose votaries may be named Wordsworth,' the present laureate, and Robert Browning. The peculiar form of Mr. Browning's mysticism appears to arise from this, that his poems almost invariably attempt to grapple with some of the more recondite difficulties of life. Plain questions admit of plain solutions, but our poet loves to deal with a class of problems which have been usually supposed (as it has been happily said) to defy description and elude analysis. The struggles of solitary and unaided genius with the masses, and its peculiar dangers and temptations, as in 'Paracelsus;' the power of hidden agencies, the influence of what to human eyes looks small, over that which appears great, as in 'Pippa Passes;' the difficulties which undue distrust creates, and the way in which it may actually evoke the treachery which it is pre-determined to suspect, as in Luria; ' the difference between quiet firmness, and loquacious but evanescent vaunting, as in A Soul's Tragedy; the unsatisfying nature of all earthly joys, as in Easter-Day;' these, and a multitude of kindred themes, mingled with many of a gentler kind, of exquisite grace and tenderness, are handled by Mr. Browning with remarkable depth of thought, freshness, and originality. That language should occasionally sink under the stress thus laid upon it, is not remarkable; the moralist, the metaphysician, and the theologian, all in turn complain of the insufficiency of their instrument. But in Mr. Browning's hands, our mother tongue executes, we believe, as much as it is capable of in these departments of thought; it is terse, vigorous, flowing, and almost always admirably en rapport with his subject. 1 The following lines of Wordsworth may be fitly instanced as tending to show the manner in which physical discovery often affects poetic minds: 'Desire we past illusions to recal! To reinstate wild Fancy, would we hide Truths whose thick veil Science has drawn aside? No, let this age, high as she may, instal In her esteem the thirst that wrought man's fall, The universe is infinitely wide, And conquering Reason, if self-glorified, Can nowhere move uncross'd by some new wall Imaginative Faith! canst overleap, In progress towards the fount of Love.' |