Newtonian system of the universe, 'entertain it in so vague and perplexed a manner as to show clearly that a better mental preparation than the usual one is necessary, in order that such persons may really understand the doctrine of universal attraction.'

Perhaps one of the most effectual means which scientific men possess of furthering the diffusion of clear physical ideas, is to render the elementary study of the physical sciences, Mechanics, Chemistry, and Natural History, an indispensable part of the curricula of the literary and scientific institutions of the country; which would thus hold out, on the one hand, to those whose views would be met by a simple elementary knowledge of these subjects, such a system of training as could not fail to be useful and valuable to them in their future life, by increasing their scientific power and giving them that general acquaintance with the fundamental truths of each science, which every welleducated man ought to possess; and on the other hand, to those whose inclinations and talents might dispose and enable them to penetrate into the arcana of Nature, and to take some position, however humble, among the discoverers and philosophers of the age, such a standard of attainment in each branch of knowledge as is limited only by the existing bounds of science. Entertaining these views, we cannot refrain from expressing our gratification at the course which has been adopted in the establishment of the system now in operation, of granting degrees in the UNIVERSITY OF LONDON; a system which, while it recognizes to its fullest extent the paramount importance of cultivating the ancient and fertile fields of literature and science, imposes upon those who would avail themselves of its advantages, the further necessity of labouring in the more recently acquired territories of the republic of knowledge. This system has already taken deep root in the leading colleges of this University; and from the nature of the Institution, it is evident that the same system must speedily be adopted throughout the country, wherever there are colleges connected with it. We wait with anxiety, but without misgiving, until the progress of time shall have developed and brought into play the great powers which such an Institution is capable of exerting. That the results will be both speedy and great, there is every reason to hope; but how speedy and how great, time alone can unfold.

ART. II.-POEMS, BY ALFRED TENNYSON. 2 Vols. Moxon.

A WRITER of no mean authority has pronounced the present to be “ a mechanical age," and so perhaps in some respects it is. A few years only have passed over us, and we have seen the most wonderful revolutions in art and science, and in all their various applications to the use and benefit of society. We have seen, in our own time, “not a bar of iron-not a block of wood

But doth suffer an earth change

Into something rich and strange."

By the instrumentality of machinery, brought to such excellent perfection by the inventive powers of the human intellect, we have effected the mastery of mind over matter—the annihilation, as it were, of time and space, and the subjection of the elements to the service and dominion of man. The result may be easily conceived; much that was once abstract and ideal is now reduced to the level of ordinary reality; and things and thoughts are exposed to our notice, and offered to our everyday consideration, which once we ventured to approach only in our poetic and most visionary dreamings. Some of our readers may perhaps exclaim;-are not the wonderful discoveries, grand improvements, and sublime inventions of the age calculated to furnish rich materials for poetic inspiration? We answer that at present they are not; we do not indeed believe in a theory which has lately been advanced, that " an age is never poetical to itself," but we believe that in the youth or commencement of any eventful epoch, its great facts and truths are often too actual and as it were too common-place, as well as not sufficiently and intimately connected with us by associations, to satisfy the higher cravings of the imagination. A ship with its flowing sails, and easily gliding motion, is not in itself more full of beauty, or suggestive of grander thoughts, than a railway-train—

-"rushing with whirlwind sound,

Flashing thick flames, wheel within wheel, undrawn,"

and hurrying from place to place hundreds of human beings, with almost as much facility as the enchanted tapestry of the Arabian romance; yet this latter would be looked upon, if introduced at present into poetry, as something essentially prosaic, while the former, by old usage, has been admitted as poetical, and has been surrounded with the most fanciful imagery by almost every poet of either olden or modern

time. Passions and emotions, although subject to various modifications, and to different stages of refinement, are the same at all times; and consequently the delineation of them in poetry must be at all times interesting. But the "facts" and circumstances of an age, however great or grand they may be, until they have become absolutely and entirely a part and parcel of ourselves, and can be viewed in all their scope and bearings from the high ground of experience, will be no more capable of producing a great and universal interest, than if an epic or dramatic poem were to be constructed with the object of delineating the passing manners, or the usages and conventionalities of every-day society.

To pronounce, however, as some have ventured to do, that all the changes and improvements of the age have tended to quench the fire of poetic inspiration, and to take from poetry, as it were, its soul, dulling man's delight in it, and lessening his taste for it, is an assertion, of which, in our humble opinion, it needs "no ghost from the grave" to prove the fallacy. It was a beautiful thought to call poetry "the first-born of art;" and most sincerely do we believe that as it was the earliest born, so also it will be the longest lived. The power that had winged some of its highest flights, and had achieved some of its noblest triumphs before melody had given birth to music, or painting had developed itself in composition, will continue still to satisfy the natural longings of the soul, as long as men possess the same feelings, the same hopes, passions, and emotions, that they do at present; and great indeed must be the revolutions of the human intellect, and changed the workings of the human heart, before its charm can be diminished, or its influence impaired.

One change, we own, has taken place in our poetical literature; the demand for poems of protracted length or sustained energy is diminished; but this we are confident will only be of short duration. We are of those who think that the orator and the poet are made for the occasion; that the supply both in quantity and description will always be equivalent to the demand. Times of high excitement, we believe, to be congenial to the growth of poetry; it is a plant that blossoms well under a stormy sky. It was soon after the commencement of the present century, amid all the turmoil and confusion that characterized the period, that poetry took deep root, and brought forth fruit abundantly. Men, we are inclined to think, found a relief in the calm retreats that lie islanded in the fairyland of poetry, from the strugglings, strivings, and contentions, which assailed them on every side from without. It was then that they watched with eager impa

tience for each fresh witchery of the great poet of the North, or hung with rapturous attention on the high philosophy of Wordsworth; it was then that they waited for the passionate and enthusiastic sentiments of Byron, the speculative theories of Coleridge, and some few, the dreamy melodies of Shelley. Scarcely, however, had the sounds ceased to vibrate, scarcely had the echo died away, before Science advanced with its most majestic strides; and so grand were the objects that it proposed, and so stupendous the effects that it produced, that it seemed as though it had usurped for itself a region, which the imagination had once considered as peculiarly its own. Its inventions astounded the most creative powers, and led captive the most imaginative faculties, but notwithstanding the influence that it obtained, it could not be but that it often taxed and overstrained the energies of the mind by the very grandeur of its conceptions, and that men were glad to find a relaxation from the tension of their thoughts in that quiet and undisturbed repose which diffuses so tranquillizing an influence over the peaceful regions of poetry. To admit the definition of Bacon, "Poetry conforms the shews of things to the desires of the soul." Higher and more abstruse speculation had begun to be conceded to Science, and Poetry, in accordance with the philosophic definition we have given, adapting itself to satisfy the wants and craving of the time, assumed a simpler and more humble, but not less beautiful and endearing character. Now was felt the merit of that school which had opened so rich a field of new poetry; the happy power and capability of giving grace and dignity to familiar objects of every-day occurrence, to common-place affections, and old-time truths. Now was felt, with a greater force than ever, that poetry has the power to improve the better portion of the soul, to portray the workings of every passion, to penetrate the recesses of the heart, and unravel its most intricate windings, to give a shape to the most hidden thoughts and utterance to the most secret wishes; and it was not likely in an age of intelligence and improvement, that such power would be either forgotten or abused. It may be true, as we said before, that we have no poems of any length or sustained energy, but where, we ask, and we do so advisedly, in the whole range of literary history, of course excepting some few high names, poets not of an age, but for all time, will be found poems evincing greater fancy and more rich description, or containing greater truths, and deeper feeling, than in many of those, which constitute what is called the "minor poetry" of the last twenty years?

It is an assertion sometimes inconsiderately made, that scarcely any poetry is now produced that is worth perusal, and that there is no

writer of the present day, to whom the honourable appellation of poet, in its full and true sense, can be appropriately applied: for Wordsworth, and we say it reverently as well as sadly, from the protracted silence that he persists in keeping, must be reckoned among the past. The first part of the assertion we deny; to the second, at least the spirit of it, we are also inclined to object. Writers who have attempted long poems we perhaps have not: but we do not consider length to be essential to a good and interesting poem. Milton would have been a great poet, even if he had never penned a line of Paradise Lost, and would have lived immortal, a high and honoured bard, in L'Allegro and Il Penseroso, the rich and unearthly beauties of Comus, and the pathetic tenderness of Lycidas. Gray, in whom, more than any poet that we possess, rich fancy and deep thought are refined and mellowed by the most classic purity, never wrote a long poem; and yet his place must always be among the first and noblest of our poets. To descend to writers more immediately connected with our own times, we should say, that the Pindaric fire never bursts forth more brightly, or emits more brilliant coruscations, than in those odes, too short indeed, of Campbell, which many critics pretend to place among his minor and less effective poems; while the melodies of Moore will be read, loved, and wept over, when Lalla Rookh is talked of only as a story that has been forgotten. A good poem is not therefore to be estimated by its length; "for great or bright infers not excellence." One of the grand and true objects of a poem, properly so called, is to work on the sympathies and affections, to excite pleasurable emotions in the mind, to express thoughts and feelings, which belong to all, but which all have not the happy power of investing with language; in a word, to give to common-place subjects and old-time truths a fresh interest and value, by surrounding them with new imagery, and applying them to new purposes; and this object, we venture to say, has been effected by a considerable number of our present poets. Should we wish to prove our assertion, what a host of writers would come crowding to our assistance! Some indeed whom we should like to mention, and who belong peculiarly to the present period, have, but even now, passed from us the hand that struck the lyre is stiff, and the heart that throbbed with the inspirations of genius is cold ;-but we can appeal to the sweet poem of "The Dream," gushing forth like a well-spring with thoughts of the freshest purity, and often giving rise to feelings and emotions almost "too deep for tears," sent forth, we would hope, as a herald of some more exquisite and exalted composition, for with the great capabilities and the various resources already evinced by its