guard, and on the battlements of which walked persons clothed all in gold; the cross and the sepulchre; the steep hill and the pleasant arbor; the stately front of the House Beautiful by the wayside; the low green valley of Humiliation, rich with grass and covered with flocks, are all as well known to us as the sights of our own street. Then we come to the narrow place where Apollyon strode right across the whole breadth of the way, to stop the journey of Christian, and where, afterwards, the pillar was set up to testify how bravely the pilgrim had fought the good fight. As we advance, the valley becomes deeper and deeper. The shade of the precipices on both sides falls blacker and blacker. The clouds gather overhead. Doleful voices, the clanking of chains, and the rushing of many feet to and fro, are heard through the darkness. The way, hardly discernible in gloom, runs close by the mouth of the burning pit, which sends forth its flames, its noisome smoke, and its hideous shapes, to terrify the adventurer. Thence he goes on, amidst the snares and pitfalls, with the mangled bodies of those who have perished lying in the ditch by his side. At the end of the long dark valley, he passes the dens in which the old giants dwelt, amidst the bones and ashes of those whom they had slain. ** The style of Bunyan is delightful to every reader, and invaluable as a study to every person who wishes to obtain a wide command over the English language. The vocabulary is the vocabulary of the common people. There is not an expression, if we except a few technical terms of theology, which would puzzle the rudest peasant. We have observed several pages which do not contain a single word of more than two syllables. Yet no writer has said more exactly what he meant to say. For magnificence, for pathos, for vehement exhortation, for subtle disquisition, for every purpose of the poet, the orator, and the divine, this homely dialect, the dialect of plain workingmen, was perfectly sufficient. There is no book in our literature on which we could so readily stake the fame of the old unpolluted English language; no book which shows so well how rich that language is in its own proper wealth, and how little it has been improved by all that it has borrowed. To our Cowper said, forty or fifty years ago, that he dared not name John Bunyan in his verse, for fear of moving a sneer. refined forefathers, we suppose Lord Roscommon's "Essay on Translated Verse," and the Duke of Buckinghamshire's "Essay on Poetry," appeared to be compositions infinitely superior to the allegory of the preaching tinker. We live in better times; and we are not afraid to say that, though there were many clever men in England during the latter half of the seventeenth century, there were only two great creative minds. One of those minds produced the "Paradise Lost;" the other the "Pilgrim's Progress.' THE CROWNING OF PETRARCH. Among the great men to whom we owe the resuscitation of science, Petrarch deserves the foremost place; and his enthusiastic attachment to this great cause constitutes his most just and splendid title to the gratitude of posterity. He was the votary of literature. He loved it with a perfect love. He worshipped it with an almost fanatical devotion. He was the missionary who proclaimed its discoveries to distant countries-the pilgrim who travelled far and wide to collect its relics-the hermit who retired to seclusion to meditate on its beauties-the champion who fought its battles-the conqueror who, in more than a metaphorical sense, led barbarism and ignorance in triumph, and received in the capitol the laurel which his magnificent victory had earned. Nothing can be conceived more affecting or noble than that ceremony. The superb palaces and porticos, by which had rolled the ivory chariots of Marius and Cæsar, had long mouldered into dust. The laurelled fasces, the golden eagles, the shouting legions, the captives, and the pictured cities were indeed wanting to his victorious procession. The sceptre had passed away from Rome. But she still retained the mightier influence of an intellectual empire, and was now to confer the prouder reward of an intellectual triumph. To the man who had extended the dominion of her ancient language-who had erected the trophies of philosophy and imagination in the haunts of ignorance and ferocity-whose captives were the hearts of admiring nations, enchained by the influence of his songwhose spoils were the treasures of ancient genius rescued from obscurity and decay-the Eternal City offered the just and glorious. tribute of her gratitude. Amidst the ruined monuments of ancient, and the infant erections of modern art, he who had restored the broken link between the two ages of human civilization was crowned with the wreath which he had deserved from the moderns who owed to him their refinement-from the ancients who owed to him their fame. Never was a coronation so august witnessed by Westminster or Rheims. BOOKS AND EDUCATION IN CHARLES SECOND'S REIGN. Literature which could be carried by the post bag then formed the greater part of the intellectual nutriment ruminated by the country divines and country justices. The difficulty and expense of conveying large packets from place to place were so great, that an extensive work was longer in making its way from Paternoster Row to Devonshire or Lancashire, than it now is in reaching Kentucky. How scantily a rural parsonage was then furnished, even with books the most necessary to a theologian, has already been remarked The houses of the gentry were not more plentifully supplied. Few knights of the shire had libraries so good as may now perpetually be found in a servant's hall, or in the back parlor of a small shopkeeper. An esquire passed among his neighbors for a great scholar, if Hudibras and Baker's Chronicle, Tarlton's Jests and the Seven Champions of Christendom, lay in his hall window among the fishing-rods and fowling-pieces. No circulating library, no book society then existed, even in the capital; but in the capital those students who could not afford to purchase largely had a resource. The shops of the great booksellers, near St. Paul's Churchyard, were crowded every day and all day long with readers; and a known customer was often permitted to carry a volume home. In the country there was no such accommodation; and every man was under the necessity of buying whatever he wished to read.1 As to the lady of the manor and her daughters, their literary stores generally consisted of a prayer-book and a receipt-book. But in truth they lost little by living in rural seclusion. For, even in the highest ranks, and in those situations which afforded the greatest facilities for mental improvement, the English women of that generation were decidedly worse educated than they have been at any other time since the revival of learning. At an earlier period, they had studied the masterpieces of ancient genius. In the present day, they seldom bestow much attention on the dead languages; but they are familiar with the tongue of Pascal and Molière, with the tongue of Dante and Tasso, with the tongue of Goethe and Schiller; nor is there any purer or more graceful English than that which accomplished women now speak and write. But, during the latter part of the seventeenth century, the culture of the female mind seems to have been almost entirely neglected. If a damsel had the least smattering of literature, she was regarded as a prodigy. Ladies highly born, highly bred, and naturally quick-witted, were unable to write a line in their mother-tongue without solecisms and faults of spelling such as a charity girl would now be ashamed to commit.2 The explanation may easily be found. Extravagant licentiousness, the natural effect of extravagant austerity, was now the mode; and licentiousness had produced its ordinary effect, the moral and intellectual degradation of women. To their personal beauty it was the fashion to pay rude and impudent homage. But the admiration 1 Cotton seems, from his Angler, to have found room for his whole library in his hall window; and Cotton was a man of letters. Even when Franklin first visited London, in 1724, circulating libraries were unknown there. The crowd at the booksellers' shops in Little Britain is mentioned by Roger North in his Life of his brother John. One instance will suffice. Queen Mary had good natural abilities, had been educated by a bishop, was fond of history and poetry, and was regarded by very eminent men as a su perior woman. There is, in the library of the Hague, a superb English Bible, which was delivered to her when she was crowned in Westminster Abbey. In the title-page are these words, in her own hand:-"This book was given the King and I, at our crownation. Marie R." and desire which they inspired were seldom mingled with respect, with affection, or with any chivalrous sentiment. The qualities which fit them to be companions, advisers, confidential friends, rather repelled than attracted the libertines of Whitehall. In such circumstances, the standard of female attainments was necessarily low; and it was more dangerous to be above that standard than to be beneath it. Extreme ignorance and frivolity were thought less unbecoming in a lady than the slightest tincture of pedantry. ALFRED TENNYSON, 1810. ALFRED TENNYSON, the present poet laureate of England, is the son of a clergyman of Lincolnshire, and was born about the year 1810. He went through the usual routine of a university education at Trinity College, Cambridge, and since then has lived a life of retirement. There is nothing particularly eventful in his biography, and beyond a very small circle it is said he is seldom met. In 1830, he first appeared as an author, by publishing a small volume of verses, which was succeeded by a second volume, three years afterward. In 1843 appeared his two volumes, including many of his former productions, considerably altered, with the addition of many new ones. His more recent publications are "The Princess, a Medley," the largest and most ambitious of his works,'-and "In Memoriam," which may be said to be the most characteristic. The latter is a tribute to his departed friend, Arthur H. Hallam, a son of the celebrated historian, to whom he was bound by many endearing ties, and who was on the point of marrying the poet's sister, when he sickened and died. As a poet, Tennyson, like Wordsworth, has divided the critics; and here, as in most cases, the truth is not to be found in either extreme. While some of his minor pieces are truly beautiful and interest the feelings, and while we find, here and there, a gem in his larger productions, it must be acknowledged that much of what he has written is quaint, speculative, affected, and enigmatical.2 Among the beauties which atone for these faults, the "May Queen" stands out in prominent relief, for its simple and natural truthfulness, and touching pathos. It is, however, so generally known, having been brought before the public in so The subject of the "Princess" relates to a certain philosophical princess, who founded a college of women, to be educated in high contempt for the male sex. This royal champion of "women's rights" has been betrothed to a neighboring prince, and the poet, assuming the character of this prince, narrates the tale. "As a poem," says Mr. Moir, "its beauties and faults are so inextricably interwoven, and the latter are so glaring and many, that, as a sincere admirer of the genius of Tennyson, I could almost wish it had remained unwritten. I admit the excellence of particular passages; but it has neither general harmony of design nor sustained merit of execution." 2 Some of his critics are to me as enigmatical as the poet himself. For instance, the author of the "Illustrious Personages of the Nineteenth Century" says, in his praise, (I presume,) "He can gather up his strength like a serpent, in the gleaming coil of a line, or dart it out straight and free." I candidly confess I know not what this means, as applied to poetry. Read notices of Tennyson's works in "Gentleman's Magazine," Feb. 1848; "North British Review," ix. 43, and xiii. 473; "Edinburgh," lxxvii. 373; and "London Quarterly," lxx. 385. many ways, that I refrain from quoting it. But the following pieces favorably represent him :— LADY CLARA VERE DE VERE. Lady Clara Vere de Vere, Of me you shall not win renown; Lady Clara Vere de Vere, I know you proud to bear your name; Too proud to care from whence I came. Is worth a hundred coats-of-arms. Lady Clara Vere de Vere, Some meeker pupil you must find; I could not stoop to such a mind. Lady Clara Vere de Vere, You put strange memories in my head: Lady Clara Vere de Vere, When thus he met his mother's view, She spake some certain truths & you. Indeed, I heard one bitter word That scarce is fit for you to hear: Her manners had not that repose Which stamps the caste of Vere de Vere. Lady Clara Vere de Vere, There stands a spectre in your hall! You changed a wholesome heart to gall! |