In silence feel the dewy showers, And drink with glad, still lips the blessing of the sky... Of mystic beauty, dreamy grace, Unskilled the subtle lines to trace, Or softer shades of Nature's face, I view her common forms with unanointed eyes.' Yet he reaches the hearts of his countrymen, because he has that touch of nature which is beyond art; because he embodies, in smooth and flowing metre, the cardinal qualities of greatness,simplicity, sincerity, manliness, piety. The ethical element is not extraneous and occasional, but inherent and intense. Who can not understand the aspirations and discontent of Maud Muller? Who has not had the elevated and thoughtful tendencies of his mind developed or encouraged by the well-known concluding couplets: 'God pity them both! and pity us all, For of all sad words of tongue or pen, The saddest are these: "It might have been!" Ah, well for us all some sweet hope lies Deeply buried from human eyes; And, in the hereafter, angels may Roll the stone from its grave away!' This devout seriousness, the motive of such pieces as The Hermit of Thebaid, is never long absent. 'Ah, the dead, the unforgot! From their solemn homes of thought, Or in love or sad rebuke, Back upon the living look. Again: 'Stand still, my soul, in the silent dark, Alone in the shadow drear and stark, What, my soul, was the errand here? Or heaping up dust from year to year? We quote at random: And the tenderest ones and weakest, Who their wrongs have borne the meekest, O'er the guilty hearts behind An unwitting triumph find." What daunts thee now? what shakes thee so! "I see a cloud, like a curtain low, Know well, my soul, God's hand controls Round Him in calmest music rolls And where art thou going, soul of mine? What to thee is shadow, to Him is day, Canst see the end? And whither this troubled life of thine And the end He knoweth, And not on a blind and aimless way In these days of iconoclasm it is good to read: 'I see the wrong that round me lies, I feel the guilt within; I hear, with groan and travail-cries, Yet, in the maddening maze of things, To one fixed stake my spirit clings; The manly and pathetic reflections in Snow-bound, as well as its pictures of winter life and landscape, are admirable. Questions of Life is replete with felicitous thoughts and phrases. The Tent on the Beach is celebrated. In these and later poems, the author is seen to be a poet of steady growth. There is no falling off as the shadows thicken. If in his last volume we miss the fire of his first, the loss is amply compensated by a more artistic workmanship, and by the calmer, deeper tone of thought and feeling. There is no probability that a new school, of which the rough barbaric 'realisms' of Whitman are the supposed nucleus, will ever draw the nation away from the stainless pages of Whittier and his leading contemporaries, chief among whom is Longfellow-the central figure in our poetical literature. Drama.-The downward tendency of the stage, as a field for literary effort, has continued to the present hour. However it may be explained, the fact is clear, that, with few exceptions as Bulwer's Richelieu and Lady of Lyons-the dramas written by men of genius within the present period have not been of the available kind; while the authors of successful plays have not been men of genius, and most of them are scarcely known in the literary world. Browning represents the dramatic element of recent times, such as it is; but, in the original sense of the term, he is not a dramatist at all. He has not the peculiar faculty for the invention of incidents adapted to dramatic effect, nor the power of forgetting himself in the separate creations which he strives to inform. Tennyson's Queen Mary is a forced effort, the result of deliberate forethought, a dramatic poem rather than a stage-drama. Beyond all the rest, yet vainly, Swinburne seeks to renew the vigor of other days, when the Eternal Goodness. drama was the natural outgrowth of a passionate and adven turous era. If we seek the causes for this decline, we shall find a main one, it is believed, in the practical, positive temper of the age. Intellect has been diverted to other and utilitarian objects,invention, discovery, journalism. Writers and readers are occupied with new ideas, new themes, new forms. The early stage, moreover, was an important means of instruction, and a primary means of entertainment. But facilities for amusing and instructing the people greatly multiplied. That office is now assumed very largely by the novel and the press. The times are no less stirring, but surplus desire has at present a thousand outlets where it then had one. The diffusion of literature brings intellectual diversion to every fireside at a cheaper rate than dramatic performances. Again, this degeneracy has been confirmed by theatrical management. Formerly, while dramatists were often actors, managers were one or both; to-day, the latter are merely a trading, monetary class. The introduction of movable scenery has begotten and fostered the love of scenic effects. The theatre, as a commercial institution, strives to draw 'the crowd' by ephemeral and dazzling display. The stress is transferred from the mental to the physical. Sensuous appeals take the place of ideas and sentiments. Pomp and noise supply the need of vivid language and vigorous thought. Here, as described by a newspaper critic, is the pageant of a modern play: It includes a burning house, a modern bar-room, real gin cock-tails, a river-side pier, a steamboat in motion, the grand saloon or state-cabin of the steamboat, the deck of the same, the wheel-house, the funnels, and the steamboat in flames; and all these objects are presented with singular fidelity to their originals.' How wide the contrast between this show and the meagre equipment on which the grand old Elizabethans could rely! Of a similar play a like critic observes: It is not a work of literature, but a work of business. The piece is a rough conglomeration of the nothings of the passing hour-objects and incidents drawn, but not always drawn with accuracy, from the streets, the public conveyances, the haunts of profligacy. These nothings are offered for their own sake, and not made tributary to any intellectual purpose whatever.' Finally, with the spread of the religious movement at the close of the last century, a reaction set in against the theatre, and had the natural effect of lowering its tone and manners, as well as its literature. Thus an adverse moral feeling has been an accelerating force to sink it below the level of high art. Yet the general elevation has told powerfully here as elsewhere; and the morale of the theatre, in sympathetic accord with society, has improved beyond precedent. The coarseness and indecency of the past have been left forever behind. It were wise to promote this advancement by a discriminating censure and a judicious restraint. It were vain and senseless to attempt to destroy what has sprung from an instinctive demand of the soul for the incarnate exhibition of the ideals which it trusts-heroism, grandeur, beauty, sorrow, hope, honor that swerves not, virtue triumphant. The dramatic element which creates the theatre is universal and innate. Every preacher who would agitate men out of moral apathy, and rouse them to a sense of personal duty, must employ it. The great divines of the world-as Chrysostom, Whitefield, Wesley, Spurgeon, Beecher - have been essentially great actors-teachers by action. Historians, like Carlyle, Froude, and Motley, who marshal ideas as a living and breathing host, have been masters of the dramatic manner. Springing from what is best in man, the theatre is potent for good. Nowhere can elevated lessons be brought home so directly to the heart. Every great emotion is uplifting. He who has felt like a hero or saint, is thereby more heroic or saintly. It was a very healthy feeling which prompted the boatman, when he saw Forrest as Iago, to ery out: 'I would like to get hold of you, after the show is over, and wring your infernal neck.' Said Steele of Betterton: 'From his acting I have received a stronger impression of what is great and noble in human nature than from the arguments of the most solid philosophers, or the descriptions of the most charming poets." When the elder Booth had recited the Lord's Prayer in the presence of a select company, the host stepped forward with streaming eyes, and in broken accents said: 'Sir, you have afforded me a pleasure for which my whole future life will feel grateful. I am an old man, and every day from my boyhood to the present I have repeated that prayer; but I never heard it before, never!' When the stage is divorced from its mission, it is also potent for ill; and here lies the secret of the felt antagonism. No agency can compare with it in power to corrupt, when surrendered to shame, when villany is invested with charms, and portraits of debauchery attract more than they repel. Those who seek its redemption will condemn its abuse, and encourage the 'legitimate drama.' Meanwhile, there is needed, in its present state, a more careful discrimination both of dramas to be read and of dramas as acted. Pope's lines should be remembered: 'Vice is a monster of so frightful mien, As, to be hated, needs but to be seen; Yet, seen too oft, familiar with her face, Periodical.-One of the most peculiar and influential of the literary forces in this era of prose is the periodical press in its manifold forms, ranging between the two extremes of quarterly and daily. The phenomenal facts are quantity, quality, and rate of increase. The older reviews and magazines, while much less vigorous than formerly, still keep the lead, though having to contest the field with many younger and very formidable rivals. The most remarkable advancement, alike in ability of thought and extent of power, has been made by the newspaper, and its development in the United States-especially within the last decade has never been paralleled in any other country, nor here by any other industry or pursuit. In 1880, nine hundred and eighty dailies were witness to the soul of enterprise and energy in America; while, in 1881, Great Britain had but one hundred and sixty-six for the news supply of its population of thirty-five millions. We have long been the greatest readers in the world. Our periodical publications nearly equal those of the rest of the globe, and the diffusion is growing annually more penetrating and minute. It is needless to allude to the services of a free, pervasive press as a cohesive agent of civilization; as an appliance to chronicle facts, to circulate theories, to expose chronic vice and constitutional abuse,' to report and enlarge discussion, to correct the sins of extravagance and chimera, to hold the community, with a wide-reaching sagacity, to a constant deliberation on social and reformatory questions, till sober principles prevail and the elements are left to a peaceful readjustment. That it has multi 1 Four hostile newspapers are more to be dreaded than a hundred thousand bayonets. -Napoleon I. |