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the libr

"And one, a full fed river winding slow
By herds upon an endless plain,

The ragged rims of thunder brooding low,
With shadow streaks of rain."

The "Dream of Fair Women" abounds also in this word-, painting. The following passages are taken from the impassioned song of her, who fell a victim to the rash vow of the Gileadite warrior. It is the picture of her life, when in accordance with her prayer, she had been permitted "to go up and down upon the mountains and bewail her virginity, she and her fellows."

"The torrent brooks of hallowed Israel

From craggy hollows pouring, late and soon,
Sound all night long, in falling thro' the dell,
Far heard beneath the moon.

"The balmy moon of blessed Israel

Floods all the deep-blue gloom with beams divine:
All night the splintered crags that wall the dell
With spires of silver shine.

"The light white cloud swam o'er us. Anon
We heard the lion roaring in his den;
We saw the large white stars rise one by one,
Or, from the darken'd glen,

"Saw God divide the night with flying flame,
And thunder on the everlasting hills.

I heard Him, for He spake, and grief became
A solemn scorn of ills.

"When next the moon was rolled into the sky,
Strength came to me, that equalled my desire.
How beautiful a thing it was to die

For God and for my sire."

The "In Memoriam" furnishes us with abundant materials for quotation under this head. But we must content ourselves with a single passage. To one who has not read the poem it may be needful to explain, that the remains of the friend repose in the church-vault of his own home, in the west of England, on the banks of the Severn, while the poet is living in his seclusion in the far-east of England.

"When on my bed the moonlight falls,
I know that in thy place of rest,
By that broad water of the west,
There comes a glory on the walls.

"Thy marble bright in dark appears,
As slowly steals a silver flame
Along the letters of thy name,
And o'er the number of thy years.

"The mystic glory swims away;
From off my bed the moonlight dies;
And closing eaves of wearied eyes
I sleep till dusk is dipped in gray:

"And then I know the mist is drawn

A lucid veil from coast to coast,
And in the chancel like a ghost
Thy tablet glimmers to the dawn."

We close our remarks upon this point in the words of another. "In no way is Tennyson's definite power more shown than in his painting of indefiniteness itself, of those vague influences, common to certain moods of mind, and flowing from some aspects of external nature."

Another marked characteristic of Tennyson's poetry, is its moral purity. No one can read it, without feeling that he has been in converse with a mind to which pure and elevated thoughts are natural and habitual. In this respect he is eminently like Wordsworth. There is not a sentence in his writings, which contains an indelicate or ungodly allusion. The change which has come over the poetry of England, in this respect, within the present century, is one of the harbingers of a better day. We can simply indicate this point and leave it, letting the quotations which we make under other topics, pass for an illustration of this.

Kindred to this picture, is another, to which we shall make but a passing reference. His poetry abounds in those fine moral sentiments, especially, in this volume, those suggested by the death of beloved and Christian friends, expressed in brief and compact forms, which may be taken and stored up in the mind like caskets of gems, and used at our own will, for our instruction and consolation. The following from the In Memoriam, to the truth of which many a mourner can bear witness, will serve as an example.

"This truth came borne with bier and pall

I felt it, when I sorrowed most;

"Tis better to have loved and lost,

Than never to have loved at all.

“But I remained, whose hopes were dim,
Whose life, whose thoughts, were little worth,
To wander on a darkened earth,

Where all things round me breathed of him.”

There is still another characteristic closely allied to those just mentioned to which it is proper to allude. The poetry of Ten- · nyson bears evidence of a long continued struggle of mind in reference to the truths of religion, with a tendency all the while towards the purer and more evangelical forms of faith. This struggle is depicted more fully perhaps than any where else in his "Two voices." These doubts and aspirations are also breathed forth in the following, from the In Memoriam.

"O, yet we trust that somehow good
Will be the final goal of ill,

To pangs of nature, sins of will,

Defects of doubt, and taints of blood;

"That nothing walks with aimless feet;
That not one life shall be destroyed,
Or cast as rubbish to the void,
When God hath made the pile complete;

"That not a worm is cloven in vain;
That not a moth with vain desire
Is shrivelled in a fruitless fire,
Or but subserves another's gain.
"Behold! we know not any thing;
I can but trust that good shall fall
At last,-far off,-at last, to all,
And every winter change to spring.

"So runs my dream: but what am I?
An infant crying in the night:
An infant crying for a light:

And with no language but a cry."

The above quotation may be supposed to convey a meaning, to which we should take serious exceptions, but at the same time we can not but be drawn in sympathy toward one, who expresses himself in such deep and earnest tones. But in the prelude to the In Memoriam, written, as is apparent from internal evidence as well as from the date which accompanies it, after the rest of the poem, his mind seems to have found a firmer resting-place. He breaks out in the opening stanzas like one who feels that he stands upon a solid basis of faith.

66 Strong Son of God, immortal Love,

Whom we, that have not seen thy face,
By faith, and faith alone, embrace,
Believing where we cannot prove;

"Thine are these orbs of light and shade;
Thou madest Life in man and brute;
Thou madest Death; and lo, thy foot
Is on the skull which thou hast made.

"Thou wilt not leave us in the dust:
Thou madest man, he knows not why;
He thinks he was not made to die;
And thou hast made him: thou art just.

"Thou seemest human and divine,

The highest, holiest manhood, thou:
Our wills are ours, we know not how;
Our wills are ours, to make them thine.”

Leaving this point with these quotations and remarks, we will very briefly advert to one or two others. Were there room, we might refer at length to the musical rhythm of his poetry-a quality, in which, in our view, it is unrivalled. But as this is a subject naturally requiring many quotations, by way of illustration, we shall not enter upon it. We wish simply to touch upon one or two features which have been regarded as objectionable in his poetry. The first has reference to the obscurity of his style. In many passages of his writings this is doubtless a fault, .but by no means in all. While we would not wish for a style, so altogether transparent as to be superficial; while we believe that the mind in reading finds its pleasure in such a vigorous use of itself, as to warm and glow under the exercise; it ought not to be compelled to turn back and hunt long, and perhaps fruitlessly, after the lost thread of thought. Not unfrequently, in reading Tennyson, the reader is thrown into this perplexity and doubt. And yet those who are familiar with his writings, will remember passages which were not clear upon the first reading, but which have since broken in their fullness upon the mind, and left an exceedingly pleasant impression.

Another fault found with his writings, is, that they are too recluse too far removed from the stirring scenes of real life-not enough in sympathy with the movements of the age, and the questions of the day. "He has no excuse," says one, "for expending his precious hours, his glowing thoughts, and his sweettoned voice, in painting the hues of the peacock's tail, or in contemplating the variations of those hues, while the poor bird suffers and cries to him, the man of thought, for sympathy and aid. We have had enough of the past; we have had enough of description, and passion, and cold reflection; we now want sympathy and hope, and direction. Alfred Tennyson was born and lives at a time when men are shouting in the wilderness of this world, 'Oh, for a better time!" Tennyson himself seems at times to be troubled with this idea to reproach himself for his isolation. In the In Memoriam, at a certain place, he starts up, as if with a sudden resolve to be practical.

"I will not shut me from my kind,
And, lest I stiffen into stone,

I will not eat my heart alone

Nor feed with sighs a passing wind."

"Non omnes omnia possumus." For ourselves we are quite willing that Tennyson should be what he is. While we do not by any means despise or undervalue that poetry which is enlisted wholly in the cause of progress or reform, still there are enough who are ready to dash into this conflict, and we are willing that Tennyson should sit apart in his retirement and sing at his own sweet will. We are by no means certain that his poetry will not do a great deal more good in its way, than that of many more noisy and reformatory bards.

In taking leave of the In Memoriam, we know not whether we can assign to it so high a place as does a certain writer in one of the English magazines, who says of it, "In our eyes it is the noblest Christian poem, which England has produced for two centuries." But we advise all lovers of good poetry to procure the book and read for themselves.

Tennyson, it is understood, has recently married, and has removed from Lincolnshire to the County of Westmoreland, in the north of England, near to the former residence of Wordsworth. Whether his object in this removal, was to receive upon his heart the influence of what Wordsworth calls, the "brotherhood of ancient mountains," and which wrought so powerfully upon his own mind, we know not. We conjecture, that the 99th, the 100th, and the 101st poerns of the In Memoriam, refer to this removal. The sister also is married, and the magnificent marriage-hymn which closes the volume, was written in reference to this event.

ART. VIII.-THE FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW.

AN ACT to amend and supplementary to the Act entitled "An Act respecting fugitives from justice, and persons escaping from the service of their masters," approved, February 12, 1793.

AMONG the measures passed toward the close of the late session of Congress, and known as the "Compromise" or "Peace" measures-which after lumbering in the Senate for months in the shape of an omnibus, were at length worked through the opposition of North and South in disjointed fragments-was a Bill to amend the act entitled "An act respecting fugitives from justice, and persons escaping from the service of their masters." This act is familiarly called the Fugitive Slave Law, yet the term slave or slavery does not once occur in it. The phraseology of the act is "fugitives from service or labor," "persons owing service or labor," &c., after the phraseology of the Constitu