"If thou hast made," she says again, "if thou hast made, Like the winged seed, the breathings of my thought, I bless thee, O my God!" This is a passage of the Poet's Dying Hymn, one of the most characteristic and beautiful of her productions, though, like a multitude more, collected in the edition of her poems before us, scarcely known in this country hitherto, excepting to a few persons, perhaps through the medium of a foreign magazine. * The Scenes and Hymns of Life, which appeared in an Edinburg edition by Blackwood (in 1834), are full throughout of the same spirit. To that collection, also, was attached a Preface of her own (one of her few specimens of prose), briefly explanatory, but explicitly so, of her scheme of "enlarging the sphere of religious poetry, by associating with its themes more of the emotions, the affections, and the purer imaginative enjoyments of daily life than have hitherto been admitted within the hallowed circle." "I have sought," she continues, "to represent that spirit as penetrating the gloom of the prison and the death-bed, bearing 'healing on its wings' to the agony of parting love,-strengthening the hearts of the wayfarer from the perils in the wilderness, gladdening the domestic walk through field and woodland, and springing to life in the soul of childhood, along with its earliest rejoicing perceptions of natural beauty." Such is her own exposition of her poetical theory. It is for others to judge how successfully she has exemplified it in practice. In her own department, we think she has done it with greater effect than any other writer. A selection of her compositions might be made, and a precious one it would be, so full of sketches of the experience of the heart, in all the positions and phases incident to the various domestic relations which are worthy of the labor of such description,—and so livingly and minutely true,—so imbued with nature made wise by suffering,-so applicable * We notice that the writer speaks herself of this fine poem as in her own opinion one of her best. in all things to hundreds of cases which occur every day, -as to form almost a complete manual for the use of any household, exposed, as all are, as well to numberless fluctuations of fortune that cannot be foreseen, as to the changes and trials common to humanity at large. We have had occasion, and so doubtless have most of our readers, to see the character of these sketches, such as we now describe it, tested, and testified to, by the infallible judgment of those to whose circumstances and feelings they were severally adapted. The wife, and the widow, alike, the woman, and the girl,-the mother, -the orphan,-the blest and the afflicted, rejoicing and weary spirits,-in every mood of joy and gloom, but most of all, the multitude of "nameless martyrs," "The thousands that, uncheered by praise, The meekly noble hearts, "Of whose abode Midst her green valleys, earth retains no trace, In some sweet home."" The mighty host of the "most loved" unknown,-these, all these are they whom she has written of, and written for. Their sympathies have given shelter to her thoughts. Their tears have been her praise. An influence worth having is this:-no noisy acclamation at the brilliant meteor of a moment; no hollow outcry of flattered appetite and passion; no cold approval of the rigidly judicious; but the warm verdict, the remembrance, love and blessing of those whose bosoms feel the fame (if fame it is) she truly coveted and richly won. Think, then, of such an influence, wielded as Mrs. Hemans has wielded hers, and as her works will, so long as they continue to be read; an influence so sanctified throughout by a religious spirit, a spirit of encouragement, faith, gratitude, prayer and holy aspiration; so stirring to all virtue that may be in its majestic eulogies of that which has been; so ennobling in its development of the powers of doing and enduring which lie latent in every human breast. This estimate of her poetry will not be universally adopted, we know, as a just one. By some, for various reasons, it will be considered as implying an extravagant appreciation of a subordinate claim to praise, and to the disparagement of others, such they deem to be of primary poetical importance. With such critics, however, we will not contend. We take for granted, that a true and religious spirit is the first merit of poetry; and a genuine religious influence, its first title to fame. Other qualifications we do not overlook. We do not forget the necessity of sense, science, taste, talent, tact,-of knowledge of the world, of an intimacy with external nature, of fine sensibility to every source of emotion, of the power of abstraction, and of application withal,-of a mind generally, as well as professionally and particularly informed, so as to be no less justly balanced, than richly filled, of all the fitness, in a word, for this divine art (as in its right estate we judge it to have been well considered), which is, or ought to be, the result of all opportunities, and all faculties to make the best of them, included in the general idea of a suitable education, added to a genius, for the work. This much, whatever it include, is implied, when we speak of religion as the soul of poetry. Poetry it must be, to begin with; there must be a body for the soul to be breathed into, as the breath of life, and whatsoever therefore may be indispensable to the body of poetry, is presumed. In other words, other things being equal, sensibility, talent, accomplishment, and all else that comes under the consideration, not only of style but of feeling, as a mere art,-that poetry we should pronounce at once the worthiest and the likeliest to live, which has in it the superadded inspiration of the immortal spirit of pure religion. By all this we do not mean a creed. We are not sure that many of our readers, who may admire Mrs. Hemans as much as we do, will agree with us in this particular. They may not know, indeed, what her creed was. They may not have bethought themselves, nevertheless, that they remain both thus ignorant, and thus unaware of their ignorance; and yet, when the circumstance is pointed out, they may be of opinion that it suggests a serious objection to this poetry, which they ought to have thought of before. Peradventure they will presently cast about to see if the fault is their own or hers. They will turn over the leaves of these elegant volumes, with the hope, if not the expectation, of deciding a point which somehow or other escaped them on the former perusal. Let them do so. It is just what we should ask of them, and we appeal to them for the result of their investigation as the best proof of the truth of what we have said, and at the same time no inappropriate illustration of what we mean by a true and religious spirit. Especially let them examine the Forest Sanctuary, purely a religious poem, from beginning to end; the hero, an apostate Catholic, and the heroine, his wife, a woman who loved him despite his recreancy, and mourned over him with a torturing 66 sorrow of affection's eye, Fixing its meekness on the spirit's core, One of the most magnificent illustrations, by the way, of the power of a religious principle," the still small voice. against the might of suffering love,"-which either man's or woman's imagination has described; the most perfect, indeed, the most sublimely eloquent, which we remember to have read. She, too, was not all loveliness and love, but a martyr to her faith, like him; weeping over him, yet flying with him to the ends of the earth, from the persecution of her own sect watching the "Southern Cross" at sea, by his side, while yet once more "She sang Her own soft Ora Mater, and the sound Was e'en like love's farewell, so mournfully profound;"- and then dying in his arms, "her head against his bursting heart." Oh! what a picture is this of mingled love and faith, all-powerful both, and both triumphant to the end! Such, again, is the high office of poetry. Such is religious poetry. Yet, who, we ask, inquires for the creed of the writer? Who can determine it, from the whole of that splendid poem, all filled, as it is, with a spiritual enthusiasm that glows in every line. Who, from the rest of her compositions, indisputably religious? Not one, of all that have read them, or will read them, now though dust be in the heart that gave them birth,-in many a proud hall, and by many an humble fireside, and read them with the bliss of bursting tears, and rise up from them to bless God for the new light to see, and the fresh strength to suffer, which these have given them. No one will infer, we hope, from these remarks, that we suppose Mrs. Hemans to have labored to conceal her religious belief, or that she was in any degree or instance without one. The fact is well understood to have been otherwise. She was most decided and fervent in her faith; most conscientiously industrious, also, to be enlightened. Neither are we willing to be held responsible for the false and miserable doctrine, that there is any incongruity between a religious system and a religious spirit; or between both and the spirit of poetry. There is no need of disparaging belief, to promote feeling. The best of feeling, no less for poetical than for religious purposes, is founded expressly upon belief,—the more rational, distinct, and (of course) correct, the better. We should argue no more for poetry, than we should for liberality, and for much the like reasons,-from the want of such a belief, or from its vagueness. The more intelligent a mind is, the more, for the most part, it will appreciate the intelligence of other minds; and that is liberality. So, the more thoroughly principled and settled it is in its faith on particular subjects, the less tired and perturbed it is with the agitation of distrust, dissatisfaction, anxiety, and all the train which ignorance brings in,-the more may it be open, as the poetical mind essentially must be, to the free operation of all influences and impulses, from without and within, and the more able and ready for an energetic exercise of its active powers. Quinctilian holds, even in his heathenism, that an orator must be a good man; meaning, we suppose, a man of sincere principle and set purpose. The poet must be so, much more; he must be so in the Christian sense. He must believe, that he may feel as he should. He must believe, and be able to give a reason for the faith that is in him, that he may be free to feel, and free to think, and act; knowing why and wherefore, and still more, like the orator, that he may possess the power over other minds, which nothing but settled sincerity, and the unmistakable marks of it, can possibly impart. The world is too wise to be permanently deceived by written affectation, any more than spoken; and though |