present poem, and that it would not be published until after his death.
It now appears that it was commenced as far back as 1799, and was
finally completed in 1805. The purpose of the poem is to exhibit the
gradual growth of the poet’s mind, from its first development of
imagination and passion, to the period when he conceived he had grown up
to that height of contemplation which would justify his attempt to
realize the great object of his life—the production of a philosophic
poem on Man, Nature, and Society. “The Prelude,” is addressed to
Coleridge, the poet’s intimate friend; and the egotism of the narrative
is much modified, by its being thus seemingly intended, not for the
public, but for the poet-metaphysician into whose single heart and brain
its revelations are poured. The character of the poem is essentially
psychological, the object being to notice only those events and scenes
which fed and directed the poet’s mind, and to regard them, not so much
in their own nature, as in their influence on the nature of the poet.
The topics, therefore, though trite in themselves, are all made original
from the peculiarities of the person conceiving them. His childhood and
school-time, his residence at the university, his summer vacation, his
visit to the Alps, his tour through France, his residence in London and
France, are the principal topics; but the enumeration of the topics can
convey no impression of the thought, observation, and imagination, the
eloquent philosophy, vivid imagery, and unmistakable _Wordsworthianism_,
which characterize the volume.
It must be admitted, however, that “The Prelude,” with all its merits,
does not add to the author’s great fame, however much it may add to our
knowledge of his inner life. As a poem it cannot be placed by the side
of The White Doe, or The Excursion, or the Ode on Childhood, or the Ode
on the Power of Sound; and the reason is to be found in its strictly
didactic and personal character, necessitating a more constant use of
analysis and reflection, and a greater substitution of the metaphysical
for the poetic process, than poetry is willing to admit. Though intended
as an introduction to “The Excursion,” it has not its sustained richness
of diction and imagery; and there is little of that easy yielding of the
mind to the inspiration of objects, and that ecstatic utterance of the
emotions they excite, which characterize passages selected at random
from the latter poem—as in that grand rushing forth of poetic impulse,
in the Fourth Book:
Oh! what a joy it were in vigorous health,
To have a body (this our vital frame
With shrinking sensibility endued,
And all the nice regards of flesh and blood,)
And to the elements surrender it
As if it were a spirit! How divine,
The liberty, for frail, for mortal man
To roam at large among unpeopled glens
And mountainous retirements, only trod
By devious footsteps; regions consecrate
To oldest time! and, reckless of the storm
That keeps the raven quiet in her nest,
Be as a presence or a motion—one
Among the many there; and while the mists
Flying, and rainy vapors, call out shapes
And phantoms from the crags and solid earth
As fast as a musician scatters sounds
Out of an instrument; and while the streams
(As at a first creation, and in haste
To exercise their untried faculties)
Descending from the region of the clouds,
And starting from the hollows of the earth
More multitudinous every moment, rend
Their way before them—what a joy to roam
An equal among mightiest energies;
And haply sometimes with articulate voice,
Amid the deafening tumult, scarcely heard
By him that utters it, exclaim aloud,
“Be this continued so from day to day,
Nor let the fierce commotion have an end.
Ruinous though it be, from month to month.”
“The Prelude” has many fine descriptions of nature, but nothing which
rises to the beauty and sublimity of the following passage from “The
Excursion”:
—when a step,
A single step, that freed me from the skirts
Of the blind vapor, opened to my view
Glory beyond all glory ever seen
By waking sense or by the dreaming soul!
The appearance, instantaneously disclosed
Was of a mighty city—boldly say
A wilderness of building, sinking far
And self-withdrawn into a wondrous depth,
Far sinking into splendor—without end!
Fabric it seemed of diamond and gold,
With alabaster domes, and silver spires,
And blazing terrace upon terrace, high
Uplifted; here, serene pavilions bright,
In avenues disposed; there, towers begirt
With battlements that on their restless fronts
Bore stars—illumination of all gems!
By earthly nature had the effect been wrought
Upon the dark materials of the storm
Now pacified; on them, and on the coves
And mountain-steeps and summits, whereunto
The vapors had receded, taking there
Their station under a cerulean sky.
Oh! ’twas an unimaginable sight!
Clouds, mists, streams, watery rocks and emerald turf,
Clouds of all tincture, rocks and sapphire sky,
Confused, commingled, mutually inflamed,
Molten together, and composing thus,
Each lost in each, that marvelous array
Of temple, palace, citadel, and huge
Fantastic pomp of structure without name,
In fleecy folds voluminous, enwrapped.
Right in the midst, where interspace appeared
Of open court, an object like a throne
Under a shining canopy of state
Stood fixed; and fixed resemblances were seen
To implements of ordinary use,
But vast in size, in substance glorified;
Such as by Hebrew prophets were beheld
In vision—forms uncouth of mightiest power
For admiration and mysterious awe.
Below me was the earth; this little vale
Lay low beneath my feet; ’twas visible—
I saw not, but I felt that it was there.
That which I _saw_ was the revealed abode
Of spirits in beatitude.
Not only do we see the superiority of “The Excursion” in such passages
as these, but the didactic thought is more assured, is more colored by
imagination, and melts more readily into soft, sweet, melodious
expression. Take the following, for instance:
Within the soul a faculty abides,
That with interpositions, which would hide
And darken, so can deal, that they become
Contingencies of pomp; and serve to exalt
Her native brightness. As the ample moon,
In the deep stillness of a summer even
Rising behind a thick and lofty grove,
Burns, like an unconsuming fire of light,
In the green trees; and, kindling on all sides
Their leafy umbrage, turns the dusky veil
Into a substance glorious as her own,
Yea, with her own incorporated, by power
Capacious and serene: like power abides
In man’s celestial spirit; virtue thus
Sets forth and magnifies herself; thus feeds
A calm, a beautiful, and silent fire,
From the encumbrances of mortal life,
From error, disappointment—nay, from guilt;
And sometimes, so relenting justice wills;
From palpable oppressions of despair.
If “The Prelude” has thus fewer “trances of thought and mountings of the
mind” than “The Excursion,” it still bears the marks of the lofty and
thoughtful genius of the author, and increases our respect for his
personal character. The books devoted to his residence in Cambridge, his
tour to the Alps, and to the influence of the French Revolution upon his
genius and character, are additions to the philosophy of the human mind.
We believe that few metaphysicians ever scanned their consciousness with
more intensity of vision, than Wordsworth was wont to direct upon his;
and in the present poem he has subtily noted, and firmly expressed, many
new psychological laws and processes. The whole subject of the
development of the mind’s creative faculties, and the vital laws of
mental growth and production, has been but little touched by professed
metaphysicians; and we believe “The Prelude” conveys more real available
knowledge of the facts and laws of man’s internal constitution, than can
be found in Hume or Kant.
We have not space for many extracts from the poem. Its philosophical
value could not be indicated by quotations, and we shall content
ourselves with citing a few random passages, illustrative of its general
style and thought. The following lines exhibit the tendency of
Wordsworth’s mind, when a youth at college:
I looked for universal things; perused
The common countenance of earth and sky:
Earth, nowhere unembellished by some trace
Of that first Paradise whence man was driven;
And sky, whose beauty and bounty are expressed
By the proud name she bears—the name of Heaven.
I called on both to teach me what they might;
_Or turning the mind in upon herself,_
_Pored, watched, expected, listened, spread my thoughts_
_And spread them with a wider creeping; felt_
_Incumbencies more awful_, visitings
Of the Upholder of the tranquil soul
That tolerates the _indignities_ of Time,
And from the centre of Eternity
All finite motions, overruling, lives
In glory immutable.
—
To every natural form, rock, fruit, or flower,
Even the loose stones that cover the high-way,
_I gave a moral life_: I saw them feel,
Or linked them to some feeling! _the great mass_
_Lay bedded in a quickening soul, and all_
_That I beheld respired with inward meaning._
In the following stern description, he records his condemnation of life
as he found it at the great English university of Cambridge:
For, all degrees
And shapes of spurious fame and short-lived praise
Here sat in state, and fed with daily alms
Retainers won away from solid good;
And here was Labor, his own bond-slave; Hope,
That never set the pains against the prize;
Idleness halting with his weary clog,
And poor misguided Shame, and witless Fear,
And simple Pleasure foraging for Death;
Honor misplaced, and Dignity astray;
Feuds, factions, flatteries, enmity, and guile
Murmuring submission, and bold government,
(The idol weak as the idolater)
And Decency and Custom starving Truth,
And blind Authority beating with his staff
The child that might have led him; Emptiness
Followed as of good omen, and meek Worth
Left to herself unheard of and unknown.
The most remarkable line in the poem, a line almost equal to Milton’s
“Thoughts that wander through eternity,” is that which concludes the
following passage on the statue of Newton at Cambridge:
And from my pillow, looking forth by light
Of moon or favoring stars, I could behold
The antechapel where the statue stood
Of Newton with his prism and silent face,
The marble index of a mind forever
_Voyaging through strange seas of thought, alone_.
With the lingering, mysterious music of this line sounding in our ears,
it would be an impertinence to continue these loose remarks on “The
Prelude” any further; and we close by commending the poem to the
thoughtful attention of thinking readers.
* * * * *
_Christian Thought on Life: In a Series of Discourses. By Henry
Giles, Author of Lectures and Essays. Boston: Ticknor, Reed &
Fields. 1 vol. 16mo._
The author of this beautiful volume is a born orator, whose written
style instinctively takes the form of eloquence, and whose strong and
deep emotions are at once the inspirers and guides of his pen. He has
given us here a dozen discourses, full of living thoughts and winged
words, and with not a page which is open to the charge of dullness or
triteness. When his theme compels him to introduce common thoughts he
avoids commonplaces, and we cannot recognize the old acquaintance of our
brain in the fresh and sparkling expression in which it here appears.
Mr. Giles, indeed, is so thoroughly a thinker, and his mind is so
pervaded by his sentiments, that where he lacks novelty he never lacks
originality, and always gives indications of having conceived every
thought he expresses. Nobody can read the present volume without being
kindled by the vivid vitality with which it presents old truths, and the
superb boldness with which it announces new ones. Among the many
eloquent and impassioned discourses in the volume, that entitled “The
Guilt of Contempt” is perhaps the sharpest in mental analysis, and
closest and most condensed in style. It will rank with the best sermons
ever delivered from an American pulpit. Another excellent and striking
discourse is on the subject of spiritual incongruities as illustrated in
the life of David. The five discourses on the Worth, the Personality,
the Continuity, the Struggle, the Discipline, of Life, are remarkable
for their clear statement of Christian principles, and the knowledge
they evince of the inward workings of thought and emotions. Prayer and
Passion is a sermon which securely threads all the labyrinths of
selfishness, and exposes its most cunning movements and disguises.
We will give a few sentences illustrative of Mr. Giles’ mode of treating
religious subjects, and the peculiar union of thought and emotion in his
common style of expression. Speaking of the Psalms of David, he
says—“They alone contain a poetry that meets the spiritual nature in
all its moods and in all its wants, which strengthens virtue with
glorious exhortations, gives angelic eloquence to prayer, and almost
rises to the seraph’s joy in praise. . . For assemblies or for solitude,
for all that gladdens and all that grieves, for our heaviness and
despair, for our remorse and our redemption, we find in these divine
harmonies the loud or the low expression. Great has been their power in
the world. They resounded amidst the courts of the tabernacle; they
floated through the lofty and solemn spaces of the temple. They were
sung with glory in the halls of Zion; they were sung with sorrow by the
streams of Babel. And when Israel had passed away, the harp of David was
still awakened in the church of Christ. In all the eras and ages of that
church, from the hymn which first it whispered in an upper chamber,
until its anthems filled the earth, the inspiration of the royal prophet
has enraptured its devotions and ennobled its ritual. And thus it has
been, not alone in the august cathedral or the rustic chapel. Chorused
by the winds of heaven, they have swelled through God’s own temple of
the sky and stars; they have rolled over the broad desert of Asia, in
the matins and vespers of ten thousand hermits. They have rung through
the deep valleys of the Alps, in the sobbing voices of the forlorn
Waldenses; through the steeps and caves of Scottish highlands, in the
rude chantings of the Scottish Covenanters; through the woods and wilds
of primitive America, in the heroic hallelujahs of the early pilgrims.”
* * * * *
_Specimens of Newspaper Literature. With Personal Memoirs,
Anecdotes, and Reminiscences. By Joseph T. Buckingham. Boston:
Little & Brown. 2 vols. 12mo._
The author of these volumes has been long extensively known as one of
the leading editors of the country; and his age and experience
peculiarly qualify him to do justice to the subject he here undertakes
to treat. His own recollections must extend back some sixty years; and
during that period he has been constantly connected with newspapers,
either as printer’s apprentice, journeyman, or editor. He knew
intimately most of the editors and writers for the press, who took
prominent parts in the political controversies at the formation of the
government, and during the first twenty years of its administration, and
he is thoroughly acquainted with all the New England newspapers which
appeared before the Revolution and during its progress. The work,
therefore, is a reflection of the spirit of old times, giving their very
“form and pressure,” and exhibiting, sometimes in a ludicrous light, old
political passions in all their original frenzy of thought and form of
expression. The specimens given of newspaper literature, in verse and
prose, are all interesting either for their folly or wisdom, and some of
them are valuable as curiosities of rhetoric and logic. Not only is the
work valuable to the antiquary, the historian, and the members of “the
craft,” but it contains matter sufficiently piquant to stimulate and
preserve the attention of the general reader.
The author of these volumes is a marked instance of that inherent
strength of character which pursues knowledge under difficulties, and is
victorious over all obstacles which obstruct the elevation of the
friendless. Without having received even a school education, and passing
the period that boys usually devote to Lindley Murray in a printing
office, he is one of the most vigorous and polished writers in New
England, and in thorough acquaintance with classical English literature
has no superiors. Every thing he writes bears the signs, not merely of
intellect and taste, but of forcible character; and we believe that a
selection from his newspaper articles would make a volume, which for
originality of thought, and raciness of expression, would be an addition
to our literature.
* * * * *
_Songs of Labor, and Other Poems. By John G. Whittier. Boston:
Ticknor, Reed & Fields. 1 vol. 12mo._
Whittier’s popularity, great as it is, must be increased by these Songs
of Labor. In them, the Ship-Builders, Shoemakers, Drovers, Fishermen,
Huskers and Lumbermen, are gifted with vigorous and melodious utterance,
in songs whose chime is the very echo of their occupations. The other
poems of the collection are of a merit as various as their themes. The
best is the poem entitled “Memories,” one of the most exquisitely
tender, thoughtful and imaginative poems in our literature. “Pious IX.”
and “Elliott,” are essentially battle-pieces, and the rhymes clash
together like the crossing of swords. Fierce and hot as the invective of
these poems is, we still think the business of wrath is much better done
in “Ichabod,” in which rage and scorn take the form of a dirge, and
smiting sarcasms are insinuated through the phrases of grief. Throughout
the volume we are impressed with the great nature of the author, and the
superiority of the man to any thing he has yet produced. He unites, in a
singular degree, tenderness with strength, delicate fancy with blazing
imagination, sensitive sentiment with sturdy character; and his most
exhilarating and trumpet-voiced lyrics have the air of impromptus. In
the following lines, for instance, from a poem in the present volume on
“The Peace Convention at Brussels,” he extemporises as good heroic verse
as Campbell’s:
Still in thy streets, oh Paris! doth the stain
Of blood defy the cleansing autumn rain;
Still breaks the smoke Messina’s ruins through,
And Naples mourns that new Bartholomew,
When squalid beggary, for a dole of bread,
At a crowned murderer’s beck of license, fed
The yawning trenches with her noble dead;
Still, doomed Vienna, through thy stately halls
The shell goes crashing and the red shot falls,
And, leagued to crush thee on the Danube’s side,
The beamed Croat and Bosniak spearman ride;
Still in that vale where Himalaya’s snow
Melts round the corn-fields and the vines below,
The Sikh’s hot cannon, answering ball for ball,
Flames in the breach of Moultan’s shattered wall;
On Chenab’s side the vulture seeks the slain,
And Sutlej paints with blood its banks again.
* * * * *
_Rural Hours. By a Lady. New York: George P. Putnam. 1 vol.
12mo._
To judge from the dedication, the authoress of this goodly duodecimo
must be the daughter of Cooper, the novelist. She has much of her
father’s remarkable descriptive power, but is happily deficient in that
fretful discontent which disturbs the harmony of his later productions.
The volume will be found a delightful companion both to the denizen of
the city and country. The writer wins upon the reader’s sympathies with
every page. Her intelligence is clear and quiet, enlarged by intimacy
with nature and good books, and elevated by a beautiful and unobtrusive
piety. We hope this will not be her last production.
* * * * *
_Sleep Psychologically Considered with reference to Sensation
and Memory. By Blanchard Fosgate, M. D. New York: George P.
Putnam. 1 vol. 12mo._
This thin volume is devoted to a subject which, though its discussion
involves a consideration of topics properly metaphysical, has more
general interest than any other in the science of metaphysics, because
its phenomena stimulate the curiosity of all who, like Richard the
Third, are troubled with dreams. The author supports, with great power
of illustration and argument, three propositions, viz., that during
sleep the mental faculties are as active as during wakefulness; that
memory is no criterion by which to judge the mind in sleep; and that the
mind is dependent upon the integrity of the organs of external sensation
for a remembrance of what transpires during this state. The discussion
of these topics is enlivened by many curious examples.
* * * * *
_Europe, Past and Present. By Francis H. Ungewitter, LL. D. New
York: George P. Putnam. 1 vol. 12mo._
This is a thick volume of some seven hundred pages, completely crammed
with facts relating to the history, geography, and present condition of
every state in Europe. The index, containing ten thousand names, will
convey an idea of the amount of matter which the author has compressed
into his volume. Though a work of vast labor, we presume that its value,
as a work for constant reference, will amply repay the expense of
compiling it. Every man who reads European news should possess the book,
provided he desires to read news intelligently. It gives accurate ideas
of the relative importance of the various States, by exhibiting their
financial condition as well as their territory, population, and
productions.
* * * * *
_Chronicle of the Conquest of Grenada. (Irving’s Works, vol.
14.) New York: George P. Putnam. 1 vol. 12mo._
Every lover of the romantic and picturesque in history will heartily
welcome this re-issue of Irving’s charming Chronicle. By assuming the
position of a contemporary, he is enabled to exhibit the prejudices of
the time with almost dramatic vividness, and to give events some of the
coloring they derived from Spanish bigotry without obscuring their real
nature and import. The beautiful mischievousness of the occasional irony
which peeps through the narrative, is in the author’s happiest style.
The book might easily be expanded into a dozen novels, so rich is it in
materials of description and adventure. In its present form it is
replete with accurate history, represented with pictorial vividness.
* * * * *
_Domestic History of the American Revolution. By Mrs. Ellet,
Author of the Women of the American Revolution. New York: Baker
& Scribner. 1 vol. 12mo._
The theme which Mrs. Ellet has chosen is an important one, and
absolutely necessary to be comprehended by all who wish to understand
the American Revolution as a living fact. The great defect of most of
our national histories and biographies is their abstract character,
neither characters nor events being represented in the concrete, and
brought directly home to the hearts and imaginations of readers. The
result is, that most of us, when we attempt to be patriotic, slide so
readily into bombast; for having no distinct conceptions of what was
really done and suffered by our forefathers and _foremothers_, we can
only glorify them by a resort to the dictionary. Mrs. Ellet’s book is
devoted to those scenes and persons in our revolutionary history, in
exhibiting which the novelist is commonly so far in advance of the
historian; and she has performed her task with much discrimination in
the selection of materials, and no little pictorial power in
representing what she has selected.
* * * * *
_The Vale of Cedars; or The Martyr. By Grace Aguilar. New York:
D. Appleton & Co. 1 vol. 12mo._
This is Grace Aguilar’s last work, in the most melancholy sense of the
word, she having died of consumption shortly after its completion. The
story is one of much interest; the sentiments beautiful and pure; the
style sweet and pleasing. We have read none of her novels with more
satisfaction than this. At a period when romance writing has been so
much perverted from its true purpose, it is delightful to find a
novelist who, to a talent for narrative, united a regard for the highest
and purest sentiments of human nature.
* * * * *
_Norman Leslie: A Tale. By C. G. H., author of the “Curate of
Linwood,” etc. New York: D. Appleton & Co. 1 vol. 12mo._
This novel, in title the same as one by Theodore S. Fay, is in matter
and style very different. It is a historical novel of the period of the
religious wars in Scotland, and though not peculiarly excellent in
characters, is filled with stirring events and attractive scenes. The
publishers, without much increasing the price, have printed it in a
style of much neatness. Large type and white paper are a blessing not
commonly vouchsafed to American novel readers.
* * * * *
_Margaret Percival in America. A Tale. Edited by a New England
Minister, A. M. Boston: Phillips, Sampson & Co. 1 vol. 12mo._
“Margaret Percival,” by Miss Sewall, has had a large circulation in this
country, and it is but right that the present novel, which not only
represents Margaret as a more tolerant Christian, but describes the
process by which she became so, should be read by all who have been
influenced by the English Margaret.
* * * * *
_Life, Here and There: Or Sketches of Society and Adventure at
Far-Apart Times and Places. By N. P. Willis. New York: Baker &
Scribner. 1 vol. 12mo._