three hours she entered, very pale, and rather excited, and handed me the following lines, written on rose coloured paper, much scented : : BROTHER, WHAT IS LIFE? The ticking of the clock; THE TIMES WE LIVE IN. Ir is a rule in writing, we believe, as well as in thinking, speaking, and acting, one of those old elastic maxims, dictated by good feeling, self-respect, and deference to others, which fit themselves to every age and every circumstance of life,―a maxim true, and good, and venerable,—not to put the egotistical first person in the foremost place, when proposing to treat of subjects of greater interest and importance. This rule, therefore, we will immediately break through. We (the editorial, not the royal, we) are young men of to-day, young Englanders, boys, school-boys; utterly unqualified therefore, by age, condition, and habits of thought, to judge of that world, into which we have not yet entered, or the characteristics of that generation, of which, for some years yet, we cannot be reckoned a part. Of course, therefore, like cuckoos, young Englanders, or ancient Egyptians, we are about to eat our grandmothers, criticise our generation, and disturb the economy of our nests. To begin with the unpleasing side of things: ours is a levelling, prosaic, artificial, luxurious age. It is a dead level of rotten ice over an unfathomable sewer. An unsavoury image, but we really believe a true one. Press it and it bends; the fair-seeming upper-crust of society is tolerant of all sorts of attacks to a certain extent; it will yield and accommodate itself to any change; no stern principles, no grumbling prejudices; it does not creak in disgust, or crack with honest hostility; it bends, but it is not firm, rash innovator! it will give way with a crash, and all things unpleasant are below! It is a levelling and a level age: there is nothing more remarkable than our lack of gigantic minds. We say not of great men, lest the shades of Havelock and Lawrence, the spirits of Tennyson and Brougham, should rise and confute us where we sit. But we mean of heroes of all time, Charlemagnes, Cromwells, Luthers,-men who were not only made by ages, but made ages for themselves. Such men, in truth, are but the spirits of the storm, but an age that is utterly without them is rather unwholesome in its languor. Again, this drowsy levelling is observable throughout society. The masses, thank God, are not so ignorant as they have been, and every one is able to attain a certain amount of information; but it seems doubtful whether, on the whole, the upper classes have improved in proportion. Besides the levelling of society, which is perfect in theory and may some day be harmless in practice, there is a levelling which is radically false, the dead level in matters of faith. The worst feature in our times is this: an Americanization of feeling in morals, politics, and religion, which tends to the establishment of a general no-creed on all such subjects, and a sweeping condemnation of every grain of hero-worship or manly faith, of everything that ought to be true and lovely and of good report, under the intolerable name of Cant. Cant has done much harm in this world, but the name of Cant has done much more: and what is true of superstition, is true of its would-be opposite, viz.: "that its master is the people, and wise men follow fools." Cant is bad, but there is a species of canting against cant, which is the double-distilled essence of hypocrisy. This loose, almost Epicurean, feeling, which we have attempted to describe, is a truly dangerous canker; more general and therefore more obnoxious than Atheism, it is far more restless and aggressive. "Atheism did never perturb states:" this lax anti-principle will be their downfall. The result of this universal spirit is, that half our younger countrymen have no opinions that they can honestly call their own: and individuality is forced to hide its diminished head, for fear of the inevitable onslaughts of the many, who are yearning to "'eave 'arf a brick at it." And this brings us to the second count of the indictment, the prosaic character of the times. Nothing marks the tone of an epoch more surely than its poetry. When more than half the world is eagerly in pursuit of wealth, and the remainder vainly sighing for its pleasures, no wonder that poetry "is quiet." And although we may unquestionably claim the title of a poetic nation, in regard to the number of our bards, still our advanced civilization has long since made us artificial, and singularly unsusceptible of general poetic influence. Shakspeare has indeed penetrated our language and our lives, and English literature lives upon his "household words;" but no one since his time has had on English minds the effect even of a Beranger or Burns. Byron, for a short time, made youths turn down their collars, and seek to emulate his genius by aping his folly aud his vice. Scott produced in fashionable circles that aristocratic, semi-Roman Catholic tone, called Walter Scottism on the continent; but for permanent national effects we may look in vain. But though susceptibility to the influence of poetry has long been wanting to the general English mind, yet there was a time not long ago, when versifying, good or bad, was at least a fashionable amusement. Can we say it is so now? Do not the brutally stupid comic songs of the present day tell rather badly for the wit and taste of the οἱ πολλοι ? We fear that the majority of modern Englishmen are not only unpoetical, but by habit of thought utterly antagonistic to poetry. And what of the mass of poetasters? They dilute Shakspeare copiously, they enliven the mixture with spasms of their own; they draw from the well of English undefiled, to brew their own weak tea, or still more wretched beer. By savage exertion they produce occasionally a good line, or a pithy sentiment; but they seem unequal to any continued flight. It is true, we have our Tennyson: but one swallow does not make a summer; and the works of our great poet, beautiful and striking as they are, are eminently the offspring of an artificial state of society, and eminently unqualified to leaven the world at large. (To be continued.) ON THE CENTENARY OF BURNS. Hech, sirs! is ours a warldly age, Can nought but gear our cares assuage, Sae unco hard ? Sax hunder reams o' patriot rage For Scotia's bard. Ae wee bit grain, of wheat or bear, A thousand fold; And warms the braid lands, far and near, Wi' yellow gold. And he, the bard, whom maist we prize, A century upon him lies; Nae mistie kirk-yard fires arise Out owre his clay; Sax hundred poets seek the skies On ae short day! And aiblins, if auld Robie's praise Alane has stirred sae mickle phraise, Auld-farrant chields, wha fanned the blaze, We thank you a'; To honour worth and weel-won bays We'se ne'er be slaw. If gallant verse, and genius strong, His nobler part shall live in song Throughout our land. T |