The Sun.
London, England, 1855-09-19 00:00:00

LITEILITDRE.

: a Companioo, in Versc for the
English Prayer Book. By Robert Montgomery,
M.A., &c. Chapman and Hall.
It was only very recently that the " Collected
Poetical Writings" of the Rev. Robert Mont-
gomery were given to the world in a substantial
volume of no trifling dimensions. A goodly book
of many hundred pages imperial octavo, compactly
double-columned, if we recollect rightly, and
comprising between the ample span from title-
page to analytical-index, a mass of metrical com-
position enough to have engaged the literary
attention, and to have satisfied the literary am-
bition of a career twice the length of that already
accomplished by Mr. Montgomery. Nevertheless,
here we have the same author appearing before us
yet once more with a new contribution of no in-
considerable magnitude, a work constructed upon
a plan sufficiently extended to build up for its
writer, by its aid alone (supposing the scheme of
the undertaking to have been realised with, to
say the least of it, merely respectable ability) a
distinct and extended reputation. In it are com-
prised together in one symmetrical whole, very
nearly two hundred (including the prefatory
stanzas, indeed, exactly 189) separate composi-
tions. Constituting, in fact, a regular " litur-
gical series of meditative poems"—designed by
their author to accompany the public services of
the Common Prayer Book in due sequence,
affording its text thereby what many doubtless
may long have desired to obtain, a complete series
of metrical illustrations to the Liturgy of the
Church of England. " The Publishers may pre-
sume to state," says the advertisement, that pre-
cisely " such a volume has long been considered a
desideratum." Employing the same stereotyped
phraseology, it may be here added that the hiatus
so long observed has been at length filled up in the
, English Church Literature. The book is, there-
fore, to be accepted as a boon, and its appearance
is, at the very least, entitled to be here notified
accordingly. Already numerous portions of the
work had been issued from the press, at intervals,
during the last four or five years, as anonymous
specimens of what was at length to be avowedly
accomplished by the Rev. Robert Montgomery in
its present state of completeness—those same frag-
mentary portions of the work, then only in em-
bryo, appearing from time to time through the
columns of class publications of a religious cha-
racter, such for example as the Scottish Ecclesias-
tical Journal, and the Guardian, and the English
Churchman. Favourably viewed as these mere
scraps of the production (now in its ripened en-
tirety, and no longer shrouded over by the anony-
mous) were then, upon the occasion of their original
appearance, they cannot fail to secure for theme
selves a more extended and a more deliberately
respectful attention, now that the veil concealing
their authorship has been torn away, and that ac-
companied by other poems of a similar kind never
before printed, they are given to the public anew
in the form of their present collective republication.
The undertaking, such as it is, had no doubt been
in a great measure foreshadowed, and that, more-
over, very beautifully, by the author of " The
Christian Year "—a volume that has long enjoyed
a wide celebrity, and one in no way distinguished
by the unwholesome indications of evanescence. It
was left for Mr. Montgomery, however, to accom-
plish at large, in " The Sanctuary," what was
only, so to speak, indirectly hinted at by Mr.
Keble in his " Christian Year." The admirers
of the former need scarcely be reminded
nowadays with what eminent success his hand had
long since supplied them with a collection of church
poetry in the shape of the well-known manual of
sacred verse (now actually in its sixth edition), en-
titled " The Christian Life." His latest achieve-
ment, of a like kind, is altogether of an ampler scope,
and without detriment to its predecessor, be it
said, of a more elevated, as it unquestionably is
of a more ambitious, character. The Publishers
have hinted, we observe by a foot note to their
Prospectus or Advertisement, and the suggestion
appears to us peculiarly judicious, that the volume
may probably prove acceptable as a "Devotional
Class-book for Reading and Recitation," or, again,
as a " Sacred Prize Gift in Schools and Families."
A suggestion here referred to by ourselves thus ex-
pressly, for inasmuch as it seems to us to be especi-
ally indicative of the form of the book as a
literary production, and of its general charac-
ter as a religious composition. " The Sanctuary,"
besides comprehending a variety of miscellaneous
poems illustrative of the Liturgy of the Church of
England, embraces, under distinctive heads, aII
series of effusions, relatinc, now to the " Com-
munion," now to the " Collects, and Epistles, and 1
Gospels," now to the "Litany," and now again to
" Prayers and Thanksgivings upon several occa-
sions." Separate poems, under the last-mentioned
category, have particular reference to the Apostles
—Peter, Andrew, Thomas, Matthias, Philip,
James, Simon, James, Jude, Matthew, and Bar-
tholomew, as well as to the inspired Evangelists
(besides St. Matthew, under his elder title as an
Apostle), Mark, and Luke, and John—strangely,
having altogether uncommemorated in the latter
part of this division the beloved Disciple, whether
considered in his august character as an Apostle,
or as the awful and holy seer of the Apocalypse.
Quoting from the prefatory verses already
spoken of, we may say of the volume here
under consideration that it is expressive, variously
and by turns, of—
" Dejection's sigh, devotion's tear,
The laud, the rapture, and the groan."
Embellishing as by a metrical paraphrase the deep
sicfnificance of the " Amen "" Doxology "
"thenedicite "—" Jubilate "—" Cantate "—" Ve-
nite "—" Te Deum " and " Benedictus." It raises
its supplication in tones of music and words of
emotion alike for rain and for fair weather, for
plenty and for pardon, for peace and deliverance,
against wars and tumults, against dearth and
famine. It illustrates, in like manner, the creed,
the collect, the gospel, the epistle, and the offer-
tory. It articulates, sometimes somewhat too
simply for the language of poetry, the thoughts of
the accomplished versifier : as when it is said
(p. 154)

" Man, at most, can human be—
What we want is Deity !"
Singing at other moments, however, with a some-
what more ' melodious ' intonation, as in the
couplet (p. 135) :
" And guardian angels, poised en balanced wing,
Camp round Thy soul and anthem-worship sing
or, as again, in the passioned. admonition (page
lA.)
" Adore we, then, ircarnato God !
Who when our world of graves ho trod
And scattered blessings bright and fast,
As beams from out the sun are cast," &c.
Among the more graceful of these meditative
verses, however, are those at page 123, dedicated
especially to " The Epiphany : ' beginning—
" Night is the true romance of time
When shaded earth and sky seem blending,
And fancy bears that mystic chime
Seraphic hosts on high are sending
From Harps above to heaven-tuned minds below,
Whose echoing chords receive their raptured overflow.
Oft in the trance of this deep hour
The sightless Dead may hover nigh,
And o'er the Living wield a power,
We feel not, whence, and know not, why :
Past years revive and buried fond ones start
In resurrection-dreams from out the mourning heart !
Thus, laws may be, to man unknown,
Whereby the spirit-world is sway'd,
Whose spells are round a night-scene thrown
In garden, grove, or haunted glade ;
Where gliding Angels to and fro may steal,
On inward errand sent, and wing'd on plumes of zeal.
Moon, star, and silence, kindred three—
Night
is the hour when such prevail,
And touch the earth with poesy,
Or, bid our mental vision hail
The power and presence of Diviner Things
Than what coarse day-life views, or common Nature brings.
Now, waves and winds a sabbath keep, •
The lull'd Creation seems to pray,
And in the hush of holy sleep
All wild emotions ebb away ;
Calmness of soul and chastity of thought,
Melt through our being's depth, with pure religion fraught.
But, more than Fancy gives to Night
Are peerless charms which Saints admire;
And they, whose hearts respond aright,
To all her dumb appeals inspire,—
Remember well, what hour Th' Incarnate chose
For supplicating watch, and not for mere repose.
Thou source and subject of all prayer,
Benign Redeemer grant that we,
When hymning stand on high declare
That speechless name which shadows Thee,—
Back to our souls Thy mountain-scene recall,
Where Night and Nature heard the praying Lord of all !"
Scarcely less charming are the stanzas commemo-
rative of " The Innocents' Day," in which tender
apostrophes are addressed to the " sainted inno-
cents," " confessing babes," the " meek-eyed dar-
lings" who " lisped in martyrdom." Altogether,
however, the volume is peculiarly one the prominent
value and principal charm of which can be but dimly
intimated by quotation. The value—its complete-
ness as an illustration in verse of the Liturgy of
the national religion. The charm—its melodious
and emotional volubility of poetic language. For
these characteristic merits, "The Sanctuary" will
be especially welcomed by his admirers as another
testimony of the fluent style and fertile resources
of rhetoric, by which Mr. Montgomery's writings
have hitherto been so eminently distinguished.

Get &mica By Mrs. Trollopo. 3 vols. Hurst and
Blackett.

Although. there is a
great deal of ingenuity in
the arrangement of this story, it is most probable
that the readers will bo disappointed, for there is
no character to attract or interest. Whatever
sympathy may be felt for the heroine at the cora-