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superficial age, one of shallow and unmeaning excitement. If it is a period of intense emotion, it is, of course, one of intellectual development. An age of awakened feeling is necessarily one of awakened thought. There may have been greater men in the ranks of science and literature in past times. But the number of acute, sagacious, strong-minded men is numerous, in almost every Christian land. In some of the central countries of Europe, a large proportion of the youth acquire an education much superior to that obtained, generally, in the colleges of our country. In other lands, the ranks of physical science are thronged with laborers, constituting, with those devoted to mechanical improvements, a class of mind, whose influence is one of the most pervading and predominant in society. Unhappily, a vast majority of these men are the idolators of this present evil world, in the hot pursuit after dreams and shadows, following the bubble reputation with insane eagerness.

They are not, however, to be overlooked or despised. They are to be met by minds as sagacious and intrepid as their own. Mere feeling they esteem as straw; naked exhortation as rotten wood. Their heart is as firm as a stone, yea as hard as a piece of the nether millstone. The preacher or the Christian, who would affect them, must have an energy and an insight corresponding to their own; not being afraid to grapple with them in any of their hiding places; to whose ministry, or to whose company, they are willingly, and yet unwillingly attracted. Such men are not to be conquered by piety like that of the Moravians, simple-hearted, affectionate and worthy of all commendation as it is. These have another sphere of labor, and most gloriously have they occupied it. But educated mind must be confronted with educated mind. By the same voice which calls us into the field, we are summoned to study the signs of the times, to understand the force of the enemy, and the temper of our own weapons, so that we may stand up in the shock of the conflict, and having done all, to stand. Mere learning, how great soever it may be, is a miserable dependence. But the union of knowledge with humility and with sanctified affections, is mighty, through God, to the pulling down of the strongholds in which any class of unbelievers may have entrenched themselves.

ARTICLE II.

RELIGIOUS CHARACTER OF THE POETRY OF MRS. HEMANS.

The Works of MRS. HEMANS, with a Memoir of her Life. By her Sister. In six volumes. Edinburg. William Black wood.

1839.

THE decease of the accomplished and gifted lady whose works, complete, we are at once grieved and rejoiced to see here for the first time collected, occasioned the expression of a deep feeling of affectionate and admiring sorrow, such as it has been the fortune of very few who have gone before her, and will be, we fear, of as few who succeed her, in her profession, to excite. It has been more, much more, than the customary compliment which the press, or the public, is wont to render to mere distincIt is not alone the acknowledgement of admiration, which high intellect, however used, commands. It was no cold decree of criticism, wrung from the reason of those who could not but approve, and were willing to do no An affectionate, as well as an admiring sorrow, we have said,-admiring and thankful. It came from the heart. It came from the hearts of those who feel, as well as think; of the good, and of the gratified; of such as have been made, and know that they have been, happier and better, and happier because better, for what she wrote. A pure, unfailing fountain was her poetry,-by the wayside of the pilgrim life which belongs to us all,-that stoic indeed must the traveller be, who could drink of its gushing waters, and be bathed with its blessed "spray-drops,' and yet leave, as he goes again on his journey, to be forgotten for ever.

more.

Rejoiced and grieved, we said. We grieve, not for the sealing of one of our own sources of intellectual and spiritual happiness, and, we trust, improvement, alone;

* Burial of an Emigrant's child.

not for ourselves even chiefly, and not for herself at all; but that "the night hath lost a gem," a genial and a guiding flame for all who loved its silvery light, but which no more is seen of mortal eye."* It has not left the skies unmissed indeed, and therefore we " rejoice." It will be remembered as the "lost Pleiad," when even the bright band which lingers still where it was, shall almost have ceased to be observed as the living.

There is evidence to this effect in the appearance of the volumes before us, as in all the symptoms of renewed attention to the compositions of Mrs. Hemans, and of increased appreciation of their merit, which the occasion of her departure has produced. Such a popularity,-the popularity of such productions,-is a matter of just congratulation. It is a recognition of the virtue which is their vital principle. It confirms anew, and with a force proportioned to the brilliancy of the reputation, the old theory of the value and interest of truth, in literature, and in poetry, as much as in religion, and in life. It proves that honesty is the best policy in the one department as in the other;-the honesty of the simplicity of nature;inasmuch as it shows that even the taste of the reading community at large, no less than the conscience of all men, may be relied on for the approval of "whatsoever things are lovely," if they be but worthily set forth. This they must be, of course; and this is enough. This is to accomplish the peculiar duty, and to attain the highest honors, of the poet. This is the essence of the "divine delightfulness," as Sydney calls it, of his noble art. It is to make fervent the disposition to do what philosophy teaches to be desirable, and religion feels to be right. It is to entice the ardent will" onward, and farther on, "as if your journey should be through a fair vineyard, at the first giving you a cluster of grapes, that full of that taste you may long to pass farther." It is to fill the soul with a rapturous love of that glorious beauty of immortal Goodness, whereof even Plato and Tully have said, that they who could see it would need no more; and which to see, demands in him who leads her gently forward, as an eastern bride, betrothed, but yet unknown, antic attitudes of studied grace,-no "wreathed

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smiles,"-no opulent drapery, nor blazing ornaments, nor wealth of words of praise; but only to unveil.

We may be deemed enthusiastic by some; not, perhaps, for this estimate of the loveliness of virtue as it is, or of the dignity of the poet's craft as it should be; but for the application of it to the case before us. Such, however, at such hazard, must we venture to pronounce, in the outset, the crowning praise of Mrs. Hemans. She has made poetry, as it was meant to be, the priestess of religion. These volumes render it evident how deeply she came to feel in her own spirit that it was so. Her genius was hallowed, at length, with the holy waters of faith, and love, and prayer. She realized, with Milton, that "these abilities are of power to inbreed and cherish in a great people the seeds of virtue, and public civility; to allay the perturbation of the mind, and set the affections in right tune; to celebrate, in glorious and lofty hymns, the throne and equipage of God's almightiness, and what he works, and what he suffers to be wrought, with high providence, in his church; and, lastly, that whatsoever in religion is holy and sublime, in virtue amiable or grave, whatsoever hath passion or admiration in all the changes of that which is called fortune from without, or the wily subtilties and refluxes of man's thoughts from within,-all these things, with a solid and treatable smoothness, to paint out and describe." Such, apparently, was the model which she set before her. It was, at all events, the theory which she more and more matured in conception, and disclosed in practice, as she wrote; and no writings can be cited more pertinently, or more plentifully, than her own, as an argument for its correctness. If it could have been a mere instinct that prompted her to such a course,—an intellectual instinct, more than a spiritually cultivated study,her success is still what it is. The encouragement for those who emulate her fame, should be greater; for it is, at least, a new instance to prove, that, as an innate moral sense in heathen hearts is " a law unto themselves," so is the sincere conscience (so to speak) of mere intellect,-the innate taste, enough alone to guide it to the choice of "the sweet food of sweetly-uttered knowledge."*

In truth, however, there is not only no reason to doubt

* Sydney.

VOL. V.-NO. XVII,

4

the conscientious, well-elaborated, religious purpose of the poetry of Mrs. Hemans,-alluding more particularly always to her latest, but there is abundance of proof that her notions of the subject were much the same with those of Milton, which we have cited. She applied the theory, indeed, in a different department of themes; to one for which her genius was best suited,-not to say better suited than his. She applied it, in fact, to themes, where he applied it to a theme. She did in detail, what he did upon a greater scale. She wrote as a woman should, where he wrote as a man. If his leading principle was (as Haslett says) faith, hers was love;-a Christian faith and love. Her sphere was domestic; his, epic. She dealt with the affections of individuals, and he with the attributes of the race. She was content with a " Thought," of that "Paradise" which was lost and regained for him: her home was her paradise. His was an ambition to be immortalized in that admiration of after days, "whereof," even then,

"All Europe rang from side to side."*

It was to build, though by the labor of a life-time, one grand colossal monument,-its point to be high in heaven, and its feet resting at once on the future and the past. This was his "noble task." For this he lived. For this he fell, "o'erplied." Her ambition was to be remembered by the heart. She poured forth feelings of her own, that, like the wandering dove of old, would roam the world around, to find a shelter in one human breast. This, for her, was to make happier, and to be so. This was the spirit and the sense in which it was enough for her, in the language of her own Lonely Student,

"to add but one

To those refulgent steps, all undefiled,

Which glorious minds have piled,

Through bright self-offering, earnest, childlike, lone,
For mounting to Thy throne!—

And let my soul, upborne

On wings of inner morn,

Find in illumined secrecy, the sense

Of that blest work, its own high recompense."

* See Milton's sonnet on his blindness.

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