huddle it up, after all, in whatever coarse vesture of your own may first come to hand?

To show the dark, perplexed, absurd manner in which our poet, elsewhere so admirable, can write, we will quote some verses of a piece entitled The Poet. It opens boldly and well.

'The poet in a golden clime was born,

With golden stars above;

Dower'd with the hate of hate, the scorn of scorn,

The love of love.'

After this, the whole poem is one dim and preposterous rant.

'He saw thro' life and death, thro' good and ill,

He saw thro' his own soul.

The marvel of the everlasting will,

An open scroll,

Before him lay.'

The poet was manifestly something other than mere mortal

man.

'with echoing feet he threaded

The secret'st walk of fame :

The viewless arrows of his thoughts were headed
And winged with flame.'

They must have been visible at least at both ends.

'Like Indian reeds blown from his silver tongue,
And of so fierce a flight,

From Calpe and Caucasus they sung

Filling with light,

And vagrant melodies the wind which bore

Them earthward till they lit;

Then like the arrow-seeds of the field flower,
The fruitful wit

Cleaving, took root'

And so on to the end, in the same unintelligible or extravagant style, and in the same jarring, dislocating verse, framed, as it were, for the purpose of producing discord, of balking the ear, and adding as much as possible to the confusion and obscurity of the sense.

There is an ambitious Ode to Memory, the whole of which might be quoted as a lamentable instance of a vain and painful affectation of profundity. Every reader of English poetry is acquainted with the ode of Wordsworth, where he traces in childhood the intimations of an ante-natal state of existence. In this

ode a philosophical fancy is pushed, we feel, to its utmost. Childhood is no longer the most simple and innocent period of existence, so full of free, fresh, uncareful life; it comes trailing clouds of glory' from the heavens. It is not enough that its young eye, so sensitive to all impressions, kindles at the novelty of this world; it is not, indeed, the novelty of this world, but the reminiscence of a brighter, that calls the light into its quick, inconstant gaze. For our own part, nothing short of the beauty of that poet's verse could reconcile us to a strain of sentiment so forced and unnatural, and which robs childhood of its true and genuine charm-greater far, we think, than any which a Platonic philosophy can supply. Mr. Tennyson, falling into the same strain of thought, swells into still greater cxaggeration, and speaks of

'The deep mind of dauntless infancy!'

We presume, at least, that he is here following in the same track of Platonic contemplation, but our readers shall judge for themselves; we will give them an opportunity of trying their own acuteness and perspicacity on the verse of our poet.

In sweet dreams, softer than unbroken rest
Thou leddest by the hand thine infant hope,
The eddying of her garments caught from thee
The light of thy great presence; and the cope
Of the half-attained futurity,

Though deep, not fathomless,

Was cloven with the million stars which tremble
O'er the deep mind of dauntless infancy.
Small thought was there of life's distress;
For sure she deem'd no mist of earth could dull
Those spirit-thrilling eyes so keen and beautiful;
Sure she was nigher to heaven's spheres,
Listening the lordly music flowing from
The illimitable years.

Oh, strengthen me, enlighten me!
I faint in this obscurity,

Thou dewy dawn of memory.'

There are probably two, and only two of these lines, (they occur several times in the course of the poem, and are repeated as if for our relief, as a sort of refrain,) which the reader follows with a consenting mind—

But he must not prefer the petition they express to our author, for we assure him that throughout the whole picce there is not

a single fragment a whit more intelligible or more likely to enlighten him, than what we have quoted.

In The Palace of Art one gathers something of the intention of the poet-one catches at a certain general idea-but one gathers, at the same time, that he has failed in any forcible exposition of it. To borrow an expression from a sister art, nothing is made out.' The Two Voices, again, is a very long and tedious dialogue between the better and worse parts of our own nature; if not so obscure as some others, it is, owing to its greater length, full as wearisome.

In this last poem, however, there is a brief passage so excellent that we cannot resist the pleasure of quoting it. And this we do the more readily, because it fairly illustrates the current strain of Mr. Tennyson's poetry, which, to its praise be it said, is quite free from that Byronic gloom and sullenness which infected many of the minor poets of our age.

'Whatever crazy sorrow saith,

No life that breathes with human breath
Has ever truly longed for death.

"Tis life, whereof our nerves are scant,
Oh, life, not death, for which we pant;
More life, and fuller, that we want.'

Here we must part company with Mr. Tennyson. We have been very sparing of quotations brought forward to justify our critical charges against him; for what can be more tedious and distressing to our readers than to have the dark spots selected from an author, and brought together in gloomy contiguity? We are confident we are far more obliging them, as we are gratifying ourselves far more, when we cull out what is beautiful and worthy of admiration. As we have exercised this forbearance in adverse quotation, we may still have space to conclude with one more extract of a pleasing description. We take the following verses from a poem addressed To J. S., on the occasion, as we learn from the poem itself, of the loss of a dear brother.

'God gives us love. Something to love
He lends us; but, when love is grown
To ripeness, that on which it throve
Falls off, and love is left alone.

This is the curse of time. Alas!

In grief I am not all unlearned;

Once thro' mine own doors death did pass;
One went who never hath return'd.

"He will not smile-nor speak to me Once more. Two years his chair is seen Empty before us. That was he

Without whose life I had not been.

'I knew your brother his mute dust
I honour and his living worth:
A man more pure, and bold, and just
Was never born into the earth.

'I have not looked upon you nigh,
Since that dear soul hath fall'n asleep.
Great nature is more wise than I:
I will not tell you not to weep.

'Let grief be her own mistress still.
She loveth her own anguish deep
More than much pleasure. Let her will
Be done-to weep or not to weep.

'Words weaker than your grief would make

Grief more.

"Twere better I should cease;

Altho' myself could almost take

The place of him that sleeps in peace.

'Sleep sweetly, tender heart, in peace:
Sleep, holy spirit, blessed soul,
While the stars burn, the moons increase,
And the great ages onward roll.

'Sleep till the end, true soul and sweet.
Nothing comes to thee new or strange,
Sleep full of rest from head to feet;

Lie still, dry dust, secure of change.

ART. III.*-Elements of Church History. Vol. I., comprising the External History of the Church during the First Three Centuries. By DAVID WELSH, D.D., F.R.S.E., Professor of Divinity and Church History, New College, Edinburgh, &c. 8vo. pp. 479. Edinburgh Thomas Clark. 1844.

THIS work, the author informs us, 'has been undertaken chiefly with a view to his students.' Called officially to lecture upon Ecclesiastical History, he has found it impracticable within the time allotted to him to conduct his students over the whole of the vast field which that subject embraces, and he has accordingly determined to publish the substance of a part of his lectures, in the hope of being thereby enabled to examine more minutely 'some objects that have been hastily passed over, and to enter upon new regions.' In the volume now before us, he gives first a general introduction upon the subject of church history, intended to serve for the whole work when completed, and a special introduction to the first part, in which he describes the condition of the heathen world and the condition of the Jews during the period from the birth of Christ till the reign of Constantine. He then enters upon what (following the example of the Germans) he calls the External History of the Church' during that period. His first section treats Of the Life and Ministry of Jesus Christ;' his second, Of the Progress of Christianity during the Lifetime of the Apostles;' his third, of the state of things from the Death of the Apostle John till the Commencement of the Dioclesian Persecution;' and his fourth, of the state of things from the beginning of the Dioclesian Persecution, till the peace of the Church was secured by Con'stantine becoming sole Emperor.' The third section is divided into two sub-sections, in the former of which the author narrates the spread of the Gospel,' and in the latter describes the opposition made to Christianity' during the period embraced by the section. An appendix of notes and illustrations and a copious index complete the volume.

As this is but the first volume of a work which is designed to extend to six or seven, and as it confessedly presents only one

*It may be proper to mention that this article was not only written but in type, before the lamented death of the eminent individual whose work is here noticed, had occurred. This will account for one or two expressions in the article which, as applied to the writings of one who has already left the world, may appear incongruous, as well as for the tone which marks some of the strictures offered upon the work, and which is somewhat less subdued, than respect for the departed would have dictated.