when leaning on his breast he breathes into our heart his loving Spirit, we feel his quickening power to form our souls anew after his own image. It was this living apprehension of religious truth, this sight and sense of all that is taught in the Word of God, that gave such unction to the ministrations of Arnold, the accomplished Christian scholar and preacher of the Rugby school. "He appeared to me to be remarkable for realizing everything that we are told in the Scriptures. You know how frequently we can ourselves, and how frequently we hear others go prosing on, in a sort of religious cant or slang, without seeing, as it were, by that faculty, which all possess, of picturing to the mind, and acting as if we really saw things unseen, belonging to another world. Now he seemed to have the freshest view of our Lord's life and death of any man whom I ever knew. His rich mind filled up the outline,—it was to him the most interesting fact that has ever happened; as real, as exciting as any recent event of modern history of which the real effects are visible. Such was the union of reverence and reality in his whole manner of treating the Sunday-school, which distinguished them from lessons merely secular." It is this we need in all our teachers, whether in the school, the college, the theological seminary, or pulpit. With their whole heart, and mind, and soul, transfused with this spirit and method of searching the Scriptures, all men take knowledge of them that they have been with Jesus, and learned of Him. The whole Word of God becomes instinct with life and power. The sinews and the flesh come up upon the dry bones of a dead orthodoxy. The breath from the four winds breathes upon them, and they live again; they stand up to view, in the symmetry, the beauty, and the energy of living forms divine. God's own Word becomes, to teacher and taught, a palpable reality, a great truth, armed with fresh power to enlighten, to convert, and to save the soul. ARTICLE VI. The Poetical Works of ALFRED TENNYSON, Poet Laureate, Complete in one volume. Boston. Ticknor and etc. Fields. The Poets and Poetry of England in the Nineteenth Century. By RUFUS W. GRISWOLD. Fourth Edition. Philadelphia. Henry Carey Baird. IN Mr. Griswold's attractive volume, The Poets and Poetry of England in the Nineteenth Century, there occurs the following critical estimate of ALFRED TENNYSON: "The peculiarities of his style have attracted attention, and his writings have enough intrinsic merit, probably, to secure him a permanent place in the third or fourth rank of contemporary English poets." We admire the caution of the critic. Unable to decide whether Mr. Tennyson should take position on the third or on the fourth form of the living aspirants for the laurel, he is yet not altogether indisposed to concede to the poet some peculiarities of style, and some intrinsic merit. But, whilst making the concession, he is evidently frightened, lest posterity should come to a different conclusion. Looking into the future, and imagining that he sees Mr. Tennyson on a lower form than either of the two where he, good-naturedly, had placed him, he hastens to assure the world that he does not positively settle anything. He begs it to be understood that the word probably is an essential part of the sentence, which embodies his critical decision. He summons all to note that, in making up his judgment, he has respect, not so much to what he, as others, thought of Mr. Tennyson's peculiar style and intrinsic merit. Quis risum teneat ? Now we have not a particle of Mr. Griswold's caution. We place Mr. Tennyson, not in the third, nor in the second, nor in the first rank of contemporary English poets, but, boldly and at once, ahead of them all. We regard him, after Wordsworth, as the most profoundly thoughtful poet of the nineteenth century; after Coleridge, as the most marvellously musical. We regard him as the worthy successor to Coleridge and Wordsworth in the sublime office of resisting by intensest spiritualism the debasing influences of vast material wealth. We regard him as the fit exponent of the highest civilization of the world, at one time clothing the best affections of humanity "with golden exhalations of the dawn;" at another time, resolving skilfully the sternest problems of philosophy; at another time still, proclaiming reverentially the loftiest truths of practical religion. We regard him, in a single word, as pre-eminently the poet of our age. In vindicating what we think of Mr. Tennyson, we begin with proof, that he possesses in very eminent degree the power of Imagination-that power which, when largely bestowed, not only justifies one's claim to be a poet, but, according to its measure of bestowment, infallibly determines every poet's place among his brethren. We have had occasion heretofore, to state our view of this great power.* Penetrating always to the innermost nature of everything it grasps, piercing the very heart of things, poising itself at the positive centre, surveying what surrounds it with keen, fixed, serious look, comprehending at a glance the absolute and real, uttering its manifold visions and conceptions through forms which it creates and gifts with life and feeling, displaying ever an intensity of passion, and awakening in other minds responsive affections, Imagination is in man the brightest intellectual reflection of the Godhead. It is this power which, entering into reason as an animating soul, makes the philosopher so near akin to the poet, that there never yet was a great poet, who was not at the same time a profound philosopher. It is this power which given by the Father of lights to the noblest minds of the race, secures for them in the realm of thought an indestructible dominion, and makes them, from age to age, supporters of the eternal. Now to perceive and feel the majestic force of Mr. Tenny* Presbyterian Quarterly Review, June, 1855: "Coleridge as a Poet." VOL. VI.-42 son's imagination, we ask our readers to study carefully some few passages from his earlier writings, where, if at all, a true poet must reveal the workings of this power. Our first citations are from Enone, which, in justice to its elaborate finish and deep passion, ought to be given entire. Our classical readers will remember, that Enone is that shepherd nymph of Ida, whom the graceful, graceless Paris married, before Venus had promised him "the fairest and most loving wife in Greece," or he had seen the Spartan Helen. Reciting with great skill the incidents in that famous contest of beauty between the goddesses, in which Paris was the umpire, and from which the griefs of Enone, and the wider woes of numerous Trojan and Grecian households sprang, the poem is the touching lament of the forsaken one. It is every way worthy to be ranked with the best products of ancient idyllic art. First, we have a picture of the natural scene, such as Imagination only paints: There lies a vale in Ida, lovelier Than all the valleys of Ionian hills. The swimming vapor slopes athwart the glen, Behind the valley topmost Gargarus Stands up and takes the morning; but in front Troas, and Ilion's columned citadel, The crown of Troas. In the picture thus definitely drawn and gloriously hued, observe the peculiar power of imagination. The white vapor that slopes athwart the glen, is not an ordinary mass of mountain mist, but, pierced by the poet's earnest glance, it becomes a thing of life and sympathy. A swimmer in the air and among the pines, eyes turned the while upon the lovely vale, he-for the vapor is it no longer-is reluctant to depart, though warned away by the sun at noon. Putting forth an arm and slowly drawing himself from pine to pine, as if he were unable to get onward without such help, he creeps and loiters, and creeping, loitering, gazes. What he sees, he delineates with wonderful precision: lawns and meadow-ledges midway down the hillsides, hanging rich in flowers; the long brook far below breaking into a series of cataracts, and leaping, flashing, foaming, roaring; the topmost peak of Gargarus heralding the dawn; the opening gorges through which, in front, come glimpses of royal Priam's city, itself a monarch crowned with a columned citadel. This surely is well-nigh perfect, the triumph of penetrative, regardant, unifying imagination. The picture of the natural scene is immediately followed by one of Enone herself, which, given in few touches, is singularly vivid. The very heart of the forlorn one is pierced, and its sore wasting signalled by the pallor of a cheek which has lost the rose. Observe, too, how imagination establishes the profoundest sympathy between the material and the spiritual by Enone's singing to the stillness : Hither came at noon Mournful Enone, wandering forlorn Of Paris, once her playmate on the hills. She, leaning on a fragment twined with vine, Sloped downward to her seat from the upper cliff. The song of Enone intermingles with its wild, wailing bursts of grief numerous descriptive touches, each of which reveals an extraordinary power. Take these, in that splendid outlining of the stillness which she sings to: O mother Ida, many-fountained Ida, |