The Press. — London, England, 1856-08-30 00:00:00

ATIOVST 30, 1856. Vouched to its proud possessor ; till at last As man, the errant babe, intent on death, In orbital aphelion with his sire, Back to the irresistible bosom of love Wheels his precipitous foot, and with a smile, Foreseeing his apotheosis there, Bounds to embrace the beauty infinite; So he, divinely rooted in the world, And lifting into life his facial flower, Back to the pre-eternals called of God, Passed, disappearing in the essential heavens. Again : Initiate, mystic, perfected, epopt, Illuminate, adept, transcendent, he Ivy like, lived, and died, and again lived, Resnscitant. On high his nest he wove In the strange tree whereof man first was made, Whose roots reached down to hell, whose topmost bough • Waves its bright leaflets in the airs of heaven, And com.nuned with the universal life, Beloved of lightrting for its kindred birth, That vivifies its veins ; until pos4essed Of all that could be known, the whole he knew; Cropped where they grew the flowers of learning, mused Tn meadowy beds, and bright with fragrant dew. Carving with glyphic art immortal runes, That rule the reluctant spirits of the dead, On living wood, with primal matter oned, Which breedeth still betimes celestial fruit, Ile, arrow-like, launched forth—heaven is a bow The chord whereof is earth—and charmed his way Led by prismatic clue through spheres and skies, Fire, ice, and scalding venom•floods of hell, To prove all sacred truth within himself; To test all holy virtues ; and to know The sovereign Master of the Universe, Who hallowing, blessed his hemispheral aim. The following might have found a place among the Rejected Addresses : The angels wrought the mountains, bulk by bulk, And chain by chain, serrated or escarped, Or coal-red burning from Vulcanian forge ; Hekla and Mouna Roa and Auvergne; Tuxtla; and Tongarari, southwards isled ; By savages beset, who deem when dead, Their chieftain's eyes translated into stars ; Andes and Himalaya's heavenly heights ; Dhawalaghies pinnacle supreme, And Chuquibamba's cone of roseate snow; The hill Altaic named the almighty god, By Tchndic tribelets of the age of mounds; Higher than lark can soar, or falcon fly, Cloudlet, or visible vapour scud, it stands; Oared, and Balkan; Alp, and Alp pennine; The magnet mountain which directeth earth, Brainlike, ensconced beneath her snowy crown ; Lupata's mighty spine; Lamalmon's pass, O'ertoppling ; Abba Yaret's glittering peak; Ankobar's, Medra's ranges; all that ring The desert heart of slave land, or thence stretch To the Cape of Storms, and lion of the sea ; And Erebus antarctic, fenced with ice. There are about eighty pages of this kind of writing. Mr. Bailey, we presume, lives in a world of his own —" perfected, epopt, and illuminate," like his own hero. We cannot sympathise with his raptures — Which only heads refined from reason know. But he is doubtless very happy in the centre of his own creations, and as they seem perfectly innocuous, perhaps he could not employ himself better. Mr. Mackay (5), as the world well knows, is a skilful versifier, and in some of his popular songs has not fallen far short of the standard of true poetry. He is by no means obnoxious to the same charges which in the commencement of this article we brought against a particular class of minor writers. We gladly admit that his claims are much higher than theirs. But we do not think the " Lump of Gold," or any of the other poems in the present volume, will add to his reputation. The in cidents of the first mentioned are commonplace, and the language and versification of them all are polished till the substance is worn away. The Spirits of the Past (6) is a painstaking and carefully-elaborated poem, containing sketches in verse of various celebrated characters, both male and female, from Cain and Helen down to Napoleon Buonaparte and Lady Jane Grey. Mr. Mitchell's style of composition does not provoke criticism. He certainly does not write poetry, but he is a man of sense and simplicity, and free from the affectation and morbid self-consciousness we have felt it our duty to denounce. Much interesting information may be gleaned from this volume, without the reader's taste receiving any offence, or his sense of the ridiculous any stimulant. Goethe has said that the prevalence of a subjec tive tone in poetry is a symptom of the decline of the art. Such a tone is certainly the predominant one at present; and such a tone is ever likely to prevail where literature has so much artificial aliment, and manly energy so few opportunities of development. What may be the future of English poetry we retrain (5) The Lump of Gold. By Charles Mackay. Routiedge and Co. ( 1 11) its Qf the Past. By Nicholas Michell William Tegg and Co. THE PRESS. from inquiring. Let us hope we have sufficient vigour left to furnish a more healthy style. True poets still exist among us, and so long as one of them remain there is no reason to despair. Out and "Home." By the late Rev. W. G. Tupper, M.A. Edited by his Brother. London : Bosworth. IT is not possible to read this little volume without that kind of pleasure which we derive from being in company with an intelligent, cultivated, vivacious, and holy intellect. The greater part of the book is occupied with the journal of a voyage made by the author to Bombay, touching at the Cape, Mauritius, and Ceylon, and back by the overland route. " Home " was reached very soon after he left Malta. His health, extremely delicate when he quitted England, was not improved by the fatigues of travel, though the journal is written in a buoyant spirit. As the ship in which he sailed quitted the English shore, he seems to have had a presentiment of his lonely death : Pascal's " Je mourrai seul," or a kindred thought, was strongly on my mind ; it was altogethera parable of dying; all good affections following as far they could, but a sepa- ration made—the one to go and the other to stay. Looking and longing in plenty, but no more seeing, at least not yet —not at present. The journal is full of acute observation, and in style is a perfect model of the happiest union of literary culture and lively fancy with devout and prayerful sentiment. At St. Vincent he notices the new Portuguese church in progress : No doubt it will be in its unpolished way the glory of the plate. the centre and heart of it, as the churches abroad always seem to be. When shall we learn, I wonder, to try our best to make our churches in England the home of the poor? It will be a lesson which it will take years to learn them I am afraid, more especially as those who ought to know it already have not learnt it yet. The condition and prospects of our Church in the countries he visited always engaged his earnest atten tion, and his notes on the subject are very acceptable. At Cairo he felt himself growing weaker. He longed for a desert excursion, but could not manage it. " I had somehow taken it for granted that Cairo air " was bracing, and wondered why it did not brace " me." He adds, " I have had enough of travelling, " and shall be heartily glad when I find myself at "home." He reached home sooner than he expected. A month later there was a funeral at sea, and the bo,ly of William George Tupper was committed to the blue waves of the Mediterranean, in sure and certain hope of the Resurrection, which had long been one of his daily thoughts. To the journal are added some thoughts in prose and verse. The fol lowing is remarkable as being fundamentally one with the principle which Mr. Ruskin has so eloquently expounded in his chapter on the "Mystery of Art".— Omnia exeunt in mysterium (St. Aug.?). Take anything, the simplest and most ordinary, you may go along with it a little way and then you stop, but it goes on beyond you into infinity ; as if we stood in the centre of a dark space, into which things flow we know not whence ; the lamp of our intellect throws its light a little distance round, and gradually gives way to the darkness beyond. The following thoughts deserve attention. There can be no doubt that to abolish the outward forms or ceremonies of religion is to open a door for impiety to enter:— I have often thought what could be the reason of the great prevalence of disregard to, and false shame about, religion in the younger men of the present day. Why should any gentleman think it " cant," .17c., to abstain from laughing at such things and so forth ? I believe it is be cause outward signs which would distinguish Christians from other men have fallen into disuse, or rather that, with the errors cut away, good has gone, just as an old rotten tree cut down in the midst of a forest is sure to break away some green and good branches with it. I think such a custom as that of crossing oneself was a most excellent one, and it is much to be regretted that, with errors great and manifold, that has gone too. I would not have it re vived for the world, for doubtless it would lead others to reintroduce errors and abuses, such as the worshipping of crucifixes and the like; still I regret much that it was ever discontinued, for it is such outward acts as These which bind and keep together in a true spirit of piety men who cannot see into each other's motives and feelings. Sureiy this sort of freemasonry is sadly wanted. It could not be revived ; alas ! that ever it died. • • • • The object of education is to make children fit to enter heaven, ultimately ; therefore proximately to make them good sons and daughters, good servants, good subjects, good fathers and mothers, good men and women ; and the key is to lead them forward to confirmation, ever looking back to baptism, and seeking the reflection of it in con firmstion. Let any amount of culture come under this— as much as you please as the roof mill corer—but if it lies out of this roof or over it, it will rot, actively and passively. Imagine the possibility of education without religion ! Imagine it being lawful to teach " to do good and to distri bute forget not," but unlawful to add, " for with such sa crifices God is well-pleased." The volume is a pleasing memorial of a true Christian man, with scholarly acquirements, and a most amiable spirit. 835 Young Singleton. By Talbot Gwynne. Two Vols. London : Smith and Elder. Two of the most promising of our young novelists, Mr. Reade and Mr. Gwynne, fail in their latest pub lications to fulfil the hopes conceived of them. Mr. Reade's " Never too Late to Mend," in spite of some powerful writing, is certainly not an advance on his previous efforts, and the same must be said of the "Young Singleton" of Mr. Gwynne. In design the fiction bears strong semblance to the " Zelnco " of Dr. Moore, the object being to show the crimes and misery to which ill-regulated passions may lead. Young Singleton is the son of an Anglo-Indian, as the author terms him, " the passion -led selfish son of " a passion -led selfish father." With the evil nature of his sire he has the misfortune, as the author seems to consider it, to inherit certain property alienated from the Church in times past. An old parish dame, moralising on the tragic close of the story, says of the Singletons : They was always an un'ortnit family, 'cos of the Church property : none o' them as ever f heerd tell on died nat'ral, and taint likely as this an should. Old Singleton, as contradistinguished from Young Singleton, is a fiend for cruelty, delighting in the murder of his own children. The son, spared by accident, is described as possessing great sensibility and considerable genius, both perverted by natural malignancy. In some cases he appears more sinned against than sinning, but in the great blot of his life he stands without excuse, and he rapidly degenerates afterwards. It does not strike us that this painful and improbable story is redeemed by particular merit in execution. The characters are hard and mannered—ac. for instance, Dr. Savory, the school master ; Mr. Blinkins, the apothecary ; and Goldup, the valet. The mo-t amusing part of the hook re lates to the debut of Young Singleton on the boards of the Brighton Theatre. The passage, however, is scarcely in keeping with the general tenor of the nar rative. The gravest fault of the narrative is, that the author, in his desire to "point a moral," does in reality offend our moral sense. In Singleton's child hood, we are told; there were " seeds of vanity, envy, " and hatred springing up—his soul about to be " overrun with weeds." • And as a man " who can " think without awe and dread of his impenitent and " blaspheming soul." It is an ungracious task at any time to trace the downward progress of an irre claimably evil nature, and it is nothing short of cant in fiction to do so for the avowed purpose of vindica• ting " the ways of God to man." Viewed philosophi cally, the truth of this particular conception may be doubted. In any nature where great sensibility exists there are saving elements, and, on the whole, stronger tendencies to good than ill. The good points of the book are power of description, dramatic force, and ready invention, which give vitality to the whole story, and will probably, in the opinion of most readers, outweigh the faults we have indicated. THE TEXT OF SHAKESPEARE. TO THE EDITOR OF " THE PRESS." Sir,—My remarks on the new readings of Shake speare, in your issue of the 16th instant, were in• cautiously copied from notes made when travelling, with no authority at hand hut Blackwood, hence my erroneous interpretation. of the first passage from King John, the text of whicb, nevertheless, seems unquestionably correct • • If the midnight bell Did, with its iron tongue and brazen mouth, . Sound on into the drowsy race of night : That is, did the midnight bell' proclaim 'the onward progress of drowsy night? meaning• simply that night's deepest loneliness, or deepest silence, and the churchyard's gloom, would.. better become the expression of his murderous wishes than "proud day, attended with the pleasures of the world." G. R. 14, St. James's square, Aug. 27. THE BIBLE CONTROVERSY. Dn. CUMMING replies this week to the several criti cisms his original remarks have produced. He asks, " Where at present shall we find fifty-four such men as those wro made the version in 1611 ? " and contends that no fifty-four men in the present day would he unanimous in proposing c"rrections, or that their version would be so universally accepted as the present. He concludes : I cannot look *mond at the broad church, and the low church, and the high church parties within the Church of England, or at the keen controversies that rage without her walls—not to speak of other peculiarities incidental to our day—without an earnest and anxious wish that our country may hold fast that which is at present eo widely accepted—our glorious common version ; and that those gentlemen who are agitating for a new and improved ver sion may at present at least meet with no very full or hearty response. Difficulties are not impossibilities, but sometimes they are nearly so. I feel very great sympat'ay with Mr. Barham in his temperate and judicious reflections. I feel with him the desirableness of certain emendations.