all a man who bends himself to say on this subject something very striking, very forcible-something which nobody has said before-which shall be utterly new, and very sure to elicit admiration-writes this sort of thing: The stone; The waters around it are swirled, But under my feet I feel it go down To where the hemispheres meet At the adamant heart of the world. O, that the rock would move! O, that the rock would roll To meet thee over the sea, love! Surely my mighty love Should fill it like a soul, And it should bear me to thee, love; Like a ship on the sea, love, Bear me, bear me, to thee, love! Guns are thundering, seas are sundering, crowds are wondering, Over and over the cannon-clouds cover brother and lover, but over and over The whirl-wheels trundle the sea, love, And on through the loud pealing pomp of her cloud The great ship is going to thee, love; Blind to her mark, like a world through the dark, I have come down to thee coming to me, love. On the solid sand, I see thee coming to me, love; The sea runs up to me on the sand: I start-'tis as if thou hadst stretched thine hand And touched me through the sea, love. I feel as if I must die, For there's something longs to fly, Fly and fly to thee, love. As the blood of the flower ere she blows Is beating up to the sun, And her roots do hold her down,' And it blushes and breaks undone So my blood is beating in me, love. There are admirable strokes intermingled here, as in all this poetry. Such an idea as "The sea runs up to me on the sand: I start-'tis as if thou hadst stretched thine hand," has truth and beauty; but the tenor of the whole is false, strained, and affected. His description is of the same order: "I mused beneath the straw pent of the bricked And more, as more the sappy roof was sapped, And wept a mirkier wash that splashed and clapped A plopping pool of droppings stood before, Worn by a weeping age in rock of easy grain. The slipping slipping drip Did whip the fillipped pool whose hopping plashes ticked." It is the characteristic of this, and of much modern poetry, not to use imaginative forms and language as the expression of thought or sentiment, but to use thought and sentiment as a nucleus about which to amass imaginative forms or language. The idea, which should be central and all-important, is utterly subsidiary to the costume in which it is dressed. Mr. Dobell's poetry is, like flounces and crinoline, beautiful enough, but heaped in most outrageous excess about a very thin young person in the centre of it. He aims at the reverse of concentration. His problem is: Given this idea; how much poetry can I spin about it? Often he descends merely to amassing printed matter by virtue of endless repetitions. Often, again, he aims at effect by mere accumulation of one phrase or word. Thus : WIND. "Oh the wold, the wold, Oh the wold, the wold! On the wold, the wold, the wold ! Oh the wold, the wold, Oh the wold, the wold! Oh the mystery Of the blasted tree On the wold, the wold, the wold! Oh the wold, the wold, Oh the wold, the wold! On the wold, the wold, the wold! Oh the wold, the wold, Oh the wold, the wold! Oh the fleshless stare, Oh the windy hair, On the wold, the wold, the wold! Oh the wold, the wold, Oh the wold, the wold! Oh the cold sigh, Oh the hollow cry, The lean and hollow cry, On the wold, the wold, the wold! Oh the wold, the wold, Oh the wold, the wold! Oh the white sight, Oh the shuddering night, The shivering shuddering night, On the wold, the wold, the wold !" Ah, weary, weary day, Oh, weary, weary day, Oh, day so weary, oh, day so dreary, Oh, weary, weary, weary, weary, weary, Oh, weary, weary!" In this sort of writing arithmetical formulæ might be advantageously employed. Wordsworth gives us the cuckoo and the echo in four lines: "Yes, it was the mountain echo, Solitary, clear, profound, G G Imagine Mr. Dobell giving full effect to this idea on his favourite scale. Nothing less than shouting cuckoo through a quarto volume would afford him sufficient scope. We confess we have little patience with the whole school of which Mr. Dobell is one of the most prominent members. Raggedness, want of finish, and exaggeration, which, as it necessarily must, often takes the form of distortion, are its characteristics. Fuseli tried the same thing in painting. He too sought for grandeur in what was strained and astonishing in the medium of his art. He more than exaggerated-he exasperated every thing. No man could sit on a stool without the muscles of his leg standing out as if he were engaged in a struggle for his life. People took snuff glaring at one another like tigers; and an elderly lady was always made as like Tisiphone as the artist could attain to. He too had genius, and even great genius; and wasted it by the want of simplicity and truthfulness. He too was once thought a great painter; and the rapid extinction of that brief notoriety, which was the sole and just reward of powers even so ample as his, misapplied as they were, may serve as a warning to those who are indulging the same false aims in another form of art. By JAMES MARTINEAU Essays, Phandey fail to ART. VIII. PERSONAL INFLUENCES ON OUR PRESENT. The Arians of the Fourth Century; their Doctrine, Temper, and Charges to the Clergy of the Archdeaconry of Lewes, delivered at the Co. 1856. The Doctrine of Sacrifice deduced from the Scriptures. A Series St. Paul and Modern Thought: Remarks on the Views advanced in 1856. Passages selected from the Writings of Thomas Carlyle. With a Biographical Memoir. By Thomas Ballantyne. Post 8vo. London: Chapman and Hall. 1856. "THEOLOGY," says Mr. Macaulay, in his mischievous way, "is not a progressive science." It may, however, be retrogressive; and it is sure to repay flippant neglect by lending its empty space to mean delusions. To its great problems some answer will always be attempted: and there is much to choose between the solutions, however imperfect, found by reverential wisdom, and the degrading falsehoods tendered in reply by the indifferent and superficial. Even in their failures, there is a vast difference between the explorings of the seeing and the blind. We deny, how |