we like best, and also consider most complete, they would be from among his smaller productions of a few stanzas each, and many of his sonnets. His longer poems want design and order. From the former we can only afford space for the following: 'ON A WITHERED FLOWER. "O WONDROUS power of Thought, Wakes from its silent death, And that long perish'd bird once more I hear it sing. "And now a mist of light Grows stronger on my sight, Shaping itself into a form most dear. My child-my buried child-I know that you are near ! "I feel a bright form stand (One of the seraph band) Close at my side as in the days gone by: I hear his little feet With my long steps compete I walk along-nor turn around mine eye." (p. 128.) The last four lines could only have come from the very centre of a father's sorrowing heart. They are indeed "deep beyond tears," and thrill upon the hushed and listening soul. Of the sonnets we prefer the following, remarking however upon the interesting, and perhaps unprecedented circumstance of a poet's best sonnet being the one addressed to his wife "TO FANNY. "YEAR treads on year with slow and measured pace, That walks its round in the eternal space. And thus by slow degrees we run our race, Or long or short, how truly circular! Let us not mourn that every passing day When we must say Farewell-farewell has been We think Mr. Browning's "Cavalier Poems" are hardly worthy of appearing with his other poems, though they may be quite good enough for his cavaliers, and are so far in keeping with the title of "Dramatic Lyrics." In his "Camp and Cloister," he seeks to show how the active combinations of the first are likely to induce sympathy and love, and the inert isolation of the other to induce antipathy and hatred. The "Camp" is famously done so is the "Cloister" in a certain way, that way being, however, most odious. From Mr. Browning we should have expected a passion worthy of such a design, not a delineation of the most atrocious spite and the most malignant littleness, however dramatically true to such a nature in such circumstances. It is the kind of nature and the kind of truth that we object to. It does a poet's soul harm to write such things, and it does a critic's soul harm (no need for that) to read such things. If a monk had laid a train to blow up the whole fraternity, gardens and all, we could have beheld it (on paper) with far less disquietude than that which we suffer in contemplating the venom which this monk spits out upon the pet flowers of brother Lawrence. We do not demur as to the cause or motive for all this spite; the nature of a monastic life acting upon so vicious a temperament we readily admit as sufficient-it is the hatefulness of the fact that arrays the feelings against a deliberate critical judgment. From these remarks it will be apparent that we are thrown into this state of antagonism by a position and character which are worked out too well, both being of a kind that we cannot bear, even in abstract contemplation. We will give a few verses, and then leave the reader to his own impressions. "Gr-r-r-there go, my heart's abhorrence On grey paper with blunt type! At the woeful sixteenth print, * Blasted lay that rose-acacia We're so proud of! Hy, Zy, Hine . . . Ave, Virgo! Gr-r-r-you swine!" Of the love-poem, entitled "In a Gondola," we cannot afford sufficient space to speak as it deserves. Bad imaginations may think it too physical; but grossness is the very last term that could be justly applied to such a poem. Its physicality is purified by the intensity of the poetry, and leaves no room for ugly and uncharitable cavils, though it may be open to various critical objections. The only objections, however, that we feel of any importance arise from the want of a line to mark when the blow of the assassin is struck which kills the lover; and from the presence of another line, in which the dying lover tells the girl to "care only to put aside her beauteous hair," which his "blood will hurt." This mixed suggestion of vanity, indifference, and personal admiration, at such a moment, we think compromises the passion, and brings the feelings up "with a jerk,” as though they had been trifled with. It was probably an afterthought, and interpolated like a stage-direction, the poet and dramatist seeing the action in his imagination. In a vague and dreamy abstraction the thought might have mingled confusedly with the shades of death in the lover's eyes, and he might with a last caress of tenderness have put aside her silken tresses, near which his heart's blood was already flowing. But the emotion and the moment were too intense to bear the words, in uttering which the fine spirit evaporates, and we awake again in the common light of earth. This is merely our individual impression : to others the same may not occur. It should never be forgotten by all that large class of readers who are more especially open to the influences of periodical disquisition, that the we of criticism is only the opinion of an individual. We will close our review of these "Poetical Contrasts" by summarily placing their several most striking characteristics in alternate juxta-positions. Mr. Trench writes from study and learning, and a systematic appropriation of the ideas of others, honorably and reverentially acknowledged on all occasions. Mr. Powell writes for amusement, and from untiring love of poetry; the ideas are mostly his own impressions; not numerous, but often "deep as his heart can feel"-and when not his own, they seem to come somewhere out of the atmosphere, he has not the slightest notion whence. To deal with Mr. Browning's muse is always rather "a serious piece of business," but we venture to think that his most prevailing characteristic is imaginative passion; that he writes with much study, and too often from many learned notes which he loves to introduce in their natural state of difficult remoteness, and sometimes by delicate insinuation, which places them clean out of the possible reach of the wide multitude of readers; but that in almost all cases the fundamental ideas and impressions are his own. If Mr. Trench were to find himself in a forest of the most picturesque scenery, he would draw forth an Eastern allegory from his pocket, and read: if Mr. Powell were there, he would seat himself at the foot of a tree and write down his own emotions: if Mr. Browning were there, he would not waste the chance in reading or writing, but would learn. Mr. Trench dwells entirely on the past, and his studies, as his love, seem to be devoted to the thoughts, events, and emotions of ancient days. Mr. Powell's poems are exclusively modern, and describe his somewhat variable states of present opinion and feeling. Mr. Browning is much addicted to the past, but only to those poetical and impassioned portions of it, which, in many cases, may be said to belong to "all times." The first, is unconscious of the presence of the reader, or of himself as the poet; he thinks only of his subject, and is simple without being at all familiar. The second, is occupied only with his immediate emotions and thoughts, yet without thinking of their order and sequence. The last, is often far too conscious of the act of identical composition, and suddenly startles the reader by asking him a most confounding question in the most familiar tone; though we ought to say that this is chiefly the case in "Sordello," and much less in these "Dramatic Lyrics." The first is very grave, and equable, steady, quiet, sustained; and we should add, devoutly religious and moral in the general tone of all his poems: his "Steadfast Prince," and also his "Genoveva" (published subsequently) breathe the pure spirit of martyrdom. The second is of very mixed features, struggling, restless-a soul without reposedifficult to fix, and only to be balanced by opposites; sometimes nobly moral for humanity, then thinking too much of conventionalisms, then "pitching them all overboard" and admiring the wild forest life of the gipsies; now very religious, and ex cited by scriptural images and contemplations; now becoming "righteous over-much," and losing all contemplations in a maze of wild words, and emotions seeking for relief. Mr. Browning is dramatically variable, but always classically refined and imaginative. The first takes too much time, and labours too hard: the second gives himself no time to understand others, or do himself justice the last is probably slow, but we believe sure of the laurel he seeks. There will certainly be no change in the Muse of the first: his is a calm, contemplative, fixed state; the second is evidently in a transition state, out of which in his onward course we may expect to see much good arise, if he receive warning in time, and work to attain the best results. Browning is partly in a transition state, as to certain forms only, but the character of his genius is established, and not to be mistaken by those to whom such works as his are objects of deep interest. Mr. ART. IX.-The State of the Country. Sir Robert Peel's Speech in the House of Commons, Feb. 17, 1843. Painter. 2. The Speech of Lord Ashley, M.P., in the House of Commons, on Tuesday February 28th, 1843, on the Religious and Moral Education of the Working Classes. London: Ollivier. 1843. 3. A Letter to Sir Robert Peel on the Condition of England, and on the Means of removing the Causes of Distress. By R. TORRENS, Esq., F.R.S. London: Smith and Elder. 1843. 4. A Reply to the Prize Essays of the Anti-Corn Law League. By a LINCOLNSHIRE LANDOWNER. London: Painter. 1843. 5. The Right of Search Question. By HUNTER GORDON, Esq. Barrister-at-Law and Advocate. London: Ridgway. 1843. 6. Church Extension, and Church Unity. By the Rev. HUGH M'NEILE, M.A. London: Hatchard and Sons. 1843. THESE are no ordinary times in which our lot is cast, and we live at an epoch in the history of the Church and of the world, which in future periods, will stand forth conspicuously, and marked by very prominent and notable lines or features. Look where we will at home or abroad; touch what question we may, whether moral, political, physical, or religious, we find every where not merely novelty-for that feature of life must belong to all ages, but we discover a restlessness, an agitation, a total want of everything like repose and quietness, which denotes one of two things, either the breaking up of all that is old, accustomed, |