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JUST PUBLISHED AT THIS OFFICE :

LINDA TRÉSSEL, by the Author of Nina Balatka. Price 38 cts.
ALL FOR GREED, by the BARONESS BLAZE DE BURY. Price 38 cts.
PREPARING FOR PUBLICATION AT THIS OFFICE:

A HOUSE OF CARDS.

THE BRAMLEIGHS OF BISHOP'S FOLLY, by CHARLES LEVER.
OCCUPATIONS OF A RETIRED LIFE, by EDWARD GARRETT.
PHINEAS FINN, THE IRISH MEMBER, by MR. TROLLOPE.

PUBLISHED EVERY SATURDAY BY

LITTELL & GAY, BOSTON.

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TERMS OF SUBSCRIPTION.

FOR EIGHT DOLLARS, remitted directly to the Publishers, the LIVING AGE will be punctually forwarded for a year, free of postage. But we do not prepay postage on less than a year, nor where we have to pay commission for forwarding the money.

Price of the First Series, in Cloth, 36 volumes, 90 dollars.

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Second "
Third

The Complete Work,

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Any Volume Bound, 3 dollars; Unbound, 2 dollars. The sets, or volumes, will be sent at the expense of the publishers.

PREMIUMS FOR CLUBS.

For 5 new subscribers ($40.), a sixth copy; or a set of HORNE'S INTRODUCTION TO THE BIBLE, unabridged, in 4 large volumes, cloth, price $10; or any 5 of the back volumes of the LIVING AGE, in numbers, price $10.

SALE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT'S AUTOGRAPH | in the autograph of the author. Russia, extra, uncut. £45. (Toovey.)

MANUSCRIPTS.

THE original autograph manuscripts of Scott's novels and poems, the proof sheets of the "Life of Napoleon," and many of his other works, were sold by auction in London on the 2nd instant, by order of the trustees of the late Mr. Robert Cadell of Edinburgh. The sale created a sensation in literary circles, and each lot was keenly contested. The following is the result of the sale:

1. "Quentin Durward." The original autograph MS., 4to, Russia, extra, uncut. £142. (Mr. Toovey of Piccadilly.)

2. The Abbot."

The original autograph MS., 4to, Russia, extra, uncut. Pp. 31-53 in vol. 1, and 29-31 in vol. 2, deficient. £50. (Mr. J. Murray, Albermarle street.)

3. "Chronicles of the Cannongate." First and second series, 4to, Russia, extra, uncut. £51. (Melville.)

The original autograph 4. "Woodstock." MS., 4to, Russia, extra, uncut. £120. (Thorpe.) 5. "The Betrothed." The original autograph MS., bound up with No. 6, 4to, Russia, extra. £77. (Lauder.)

6. "The Talisman." The original autograph MS., 4to. £70. (Lauder.)

13. "Peveril of the Peak," 4 vols. in 2, 8vo. notes by Ballantyne, and numerous corrections The proof sheets of the first edition, with MS. and additions in the autograph of the author. Russia, extra, uncut. £26. (H. Stevens.)

14. "The Pirate," 4 vols. in 2, 8vo. The proof sheets of the first edition, with MS. notes by Ballantyne, and corrections and additions in the autograph of the author. Russia, extra, uncut. £27. (Boone.)

66

15. 66 Ivanhoe," "Bride of Lammermoor," Legend of Montrose," 8vo. Fragments of the proof sheets, with MS. notes by Ballantyne, and corrections and additions in the autograph of the author. Russia, extra, uncut. £21. (Toovey.) Mr. Ballantyne's notes to all these works are very interesting, as they contain the corrections which he suggested during the printing, as well as occasional criticisms and remarks. Sir Walter appears generally to have adopted the advice of and some of his notes in reply are very characterhis friend; but sometimes they did not agree,

istic.

from the History of Scotland, 6 vols., 12mo, in16. "Tales of a Grandfather," being stories terleaved, with numerous corrections and addi

tions by the author. Half Russia, extra, uncut. Edinburgh, 1828.

7. "St. Ronan's Well." The original autograph MS., 4to, extra, uncut. £119. (Lauder.) 8. "The Vision of Don Roderick," and other There was a great competition for the last lot pieces, 4to, Russia, extra, uncut. (Stanzas 19 in the sale. It was put up at £5. The biddings to 54 in "Don Roderick" deficient.) £57. went on till they reached £60, when it was (A. W. Elrick.) knocked down to Mr. Toovey; but there being two bidders at the latter sum it was put up again, and ultimately it was adjudged to Mr. Beet, of Bond street, at £100. The total amount obtained was £1,073.

9. "Life of Napoleon Bonaparte," 9 vols., 8vo. The proof sheets, with MS. notes by Sir Walter Scott's friend and printer, Mr. James Ballantyne, the margins covered with corrections and additions in the autograph of the author. Russia, extra, uncut. In these interesting volumes is inserted Sir Walter Scott's correspondence with the printer during the progress of the work, comprising 57 autograph letters. £69. (Bret.)

10. Woodstock," 3 vols. in 2, 8vo. The proof sheets of the first edition, with numerous MS. notes by Mr. John Ballantyne, and very extensive corrections and additions in the autograph of the author. Russia, extra, uncut. Inserted are 14 autograph letters written to Ballantyne during the printing of the work. £59. (Boone.) 11. "Tales of the Crusaders," "The Be trothed," and "The Talisman." 4 vols. in 2, 8vo. The proof sheets of the first edition, with MS. notes by James Ballantyne, and numerous corrections and additions in the autograph of the author. Russia, extra, uncut. Inserted are eight autograph letters written to Ballantyne during the progress of the work. £40. (Bret.) 12. "Fortunes of Nigel," and "Quentin Durward," 6 vols. in 3, 8vo. The proof sheets of the first edition, with MS. notes by Mr. James Ballantyne, and numerous corrections and additions

A WET-NURSE WANTED FOR AN EXPECTED LITTLE STRANGER.- Her Majesty the Queen of Greece being in an interesting condition, the King has nominated a commission, composed of three medical men, to select a wet-nurse for the expected little stranger, and has laid down certain stringent rules for their guidance. For instance, the nurse is to come either from Arachova, at the foot of Mount Parnassus, or from Kyriaki, close to the Helicon. Having thus appeased the most classical and poetic spirits even in his fastidious kingdom, the King turns his attention to the bodily condition of the wet-nurse, who must have blond or black hair, white and regular teeth," and "a good supply of food for the Royal infant's consumption. She must not have more than two children, of whom the youngest should be about two months old; she must not be more than eight-and-twenty; and her husband must be certified to be strong and healthy."

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From The Quarterly Review. were gathered into his net; no thought was The Poems of Samuel Taylor Coleridge. too subtle, no imagination too wild, to beEdited by Derwent and Sara Coleridge.come a part of his vast and sensitive mind. A New Edition. London, 1854.

There was, indeed, one class of his contemporaries with whom he shared this quality, and much else besides. These were the German philosophers, Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel. To explain the universe—that, in brief, was the object which these thinkers proposed to themselves. It seemed to them a small thing merely to lay the foundation of a science, or even of the science, as they imagined it to themselves; they must be its entire architects, they must witness its

ON Coleridge as a philosopher much has been written, and excellently; on Coleridge as a poet comparatively little, and that little has not, as a rule, been remarkable for either subtle appreciation or accurate discrimination. Should we be far wrong if we went further and said that the poetry of Coleridge is in reality not much read at all? Those who confine their attention to the 'Ancient Mariner' and 'Christabel' will probably think that we are in error. But completion. But this was much as if one we judge by this fact, among others, that in man were to undertake with his own hands a late edition of his works the whole series to build a cathedral. Accordingly, all that of poems written in later life, containing they have handed down for the benefit of some of his most exquisite and characteris- posterity is a vast conception, a magnificent tic pieces, is unceremoniously omitted. effort; the details of their philosophy have The first point which strikes us in Cole-been found practically of hardly any value, ridge's character, and which has not, we think, been sufficiently observed, is his ambitious temper, which led him to plan so much more than he or any man could accomplish. It is true that all men who make a great figure in the world must have a share of ambition, a desire for power and for the estimation of power, larger than is found among their fellow men.

But in

from the entire absence of explanation and illustration. Had they worked more slowly, they would have effected much more in the end. To these men, both in spirit and in form, belonged Coleridge, yet with a difference; for besides being a philosopher, he was a poet.

in passages even of his most beautiful poems; as, for instance, in the Ode to Dejection,' the last stanza but one of which is entirely spoiled by this fault. It is, however, far more manifest in his earlier than in his later poems; the 'Religious Musings' are scarcely anything but tumid extravagance; nor is the 'Ode to the Departing Year' much better, in spite of the praise which has been lavished on it by eminent critics.

The influence which Coleridge's ambition exercised on his poetry was to some extent most it is overlaid and hidden by other feel-injurious, for his great defect is the maniings. Thus in Wordsworth it was overlaid fest strain which he puts on himself, often by pride and a certain narrowness of intellect; in Byron it was in a great measure quenched by the admiration which was so early poured upon him, so that for the rest of his life he alternated between vanity, the complacent satisfaction at this admiration, and cynicism, which is the satiety of it; in Shelley there is not enough of definite aim to render the word ambition applicable to him - he had no determinate wish to subdue to himself the realities of the world, he was merely urged onward by an incessant craving, the demon of discontent. But Coleridge was definitely ambitious. His endeavour, consciously pursued and to the end of his life never laid aside nor despaired of, was to survey and arrange in system the whole world of realities; he despised the restrictions which had been laid on this investigation by the narrower spirit of the philosophy of the eighteenth century; all things, spiritual as well as material,

But there was another result, which, though less apparent, was a far better one. For the reaction from ambition is not that petty shame which is the reaction from selfconceit; it is self-humiliation, the acknowledgment of inferiority before a power which at once comprehends and baffles the combatant. And next in dignity to the accomplishment of a great design is the resignation which leaves it unaccomplished, and yet does not cease to believe in the pos

sibility of its accomplishment. The traces | blended in the harmony of that wide expe

of such a resignation, impressed upon a most tender and sensitive spirit, are to be found in all the later poems of Coleridge. Take, for instance, the following, which is indeed deficient in that imaginative power which is Coleridge's most striking excellence, but for that very reason exhibits more clearly those qualities which we have just been ascribing to him:

'How seldom, friend! a good great man inherits
Honour or wealth, with all his worth and pains!
It sounds like stories from the land of spirits,
If any man obtain that which he merits,
Or any merit that which he obtains.
For shame, dear friend! renounce this canting

strain!

What would'st thou have a good great man obtain?

Place-titles-salary-a gilded chain —
Or throne of corses which his sword hath slain?
Greatness and goodness are not means, but ends!
Hath he not always treasures, always friends,
The good great man?—three treasures, love, and
light,

And calm thoughts, regular as infant's breath;And three firm friends, more sure than day and night

Himself, his Maker, and the angel Death.'

It must be admitted that the middle of the above poem does not correspond in dignity and beauty to the beginning and end (and it was perhaps a half-consciousness of this that induced the poet to use his notes of admiration so profusely), but, as we have just said, passages of inferior merit are common even in Coleridge's most remarkable pieces.

Ambition, tenderness, imagination-these are the three key-notes to the character of Coleridge. Doubtless there were in the complexity of his nature other veins also, and some of inferior metal, whereby he has been a problem of no small difficulty to those who have tried honestly to understand him. But these three are his predominant qualities, those which first strike a sympathetic reader of his works; and the others we believe to have been more or less superficial, and the result of weakness: but we shall have more to say of them presently. In none of his poems do his distinctive merits appear more prominently than in the following, entitled 'Love, Hope, and Patience in Education; and here they are

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And in thine own heart let them first keep school.
For as old Atlas on his broad neck places
Heaven's starry globe, and there sustains it, so
Do these upbear the little world below
Of education,-Patience, Love, and Hope.
Methinks I see them grouped, in seemly show,
The straightened arms upraised, the palms aslope,
And robes that, touching as adown they flow,
Distinctly blend, like snow embossed in snow.
Oh, part them never! If Hope prostrate lie,
Love too will sink and die.

But Love is subtle, and doth proof derive
From her own life that Hope is yet alive;
And bending o'er with soul-transfusing eyes,
And the soft murmurs of the mother Love,
Woos back the fleeting spirit and half-supplies;
Thus Love repays to Hope what Hope first gave
to Love.

Yet haply there will come a weary day,
When overtasked at length
Both Love and Hope beneath the load give way.
Then with a statue's smile, a statue's strength,
Stands the mute sister, Patience, nothing loth,
And both supporting does the work of both.'

Can any other poem of this century be produced in which, with so small a compass, there is so wide a range? It begins with the schoolroom, and ends with principles that are applicable to all men and all times. The truths which it expresses are seen at once to be true; yet they are new, if not individually, at least in the colligation, the unity which binds them together. There is no outcropping of intellectual effort, of conscious observation; yet the results of both intellect and observation are there. And the whole is not like a philosophical thesis, requiring time to understand it, but is impressed on the mind at once by the imagery with which it is conjoined. It is a sort of vision, flashing on the mind at once; and undoubtedly it must have so flashed on the mind of the poet; yet for such a vision to have presented itself to him, a long exercise of the faculties must have been necessary This is what is meant by imagination. Compare with this any of the most admired pieces of Tennyson-almost anything in

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'In Memoriam' will do

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Calm is the morn without a sound,
Calm as to suit a calmer grief,

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whether we take | felt any impulse so fervid, as to carry him the first half, in which observation is pre-out of himself, and make him wholly forget dominant, or the latter half, which abounds every predetermined purpose and will of in thought on abstruse subjects. For in- his own, under the influence of the force stance, the following: that bears him along in his unpremeditated flight. Of such an impulse there are partial traces in one work of Tennyson, and in one only; and that is Maud.' In his other poems he is never touched by that frenzy of the Muses' of which Plato speaks. Tennyson cannot fail to be admired; but his admirers have confounded overcarefulness with perfection, and have assigned him a rank among our greatest poets, which, we are convinced, he will not permanently retain.*

And only thro' the faded leaf
The chesnut pattering to the ground;

Calm and deep peace on this high wold,
And on these dews that drench the furze,
And all the silvery gossamers
That twinkle into green and gold;

Calm and still light on yon great plain

That sweeps with all its autumn bowers,
And crowded farms and lessening towers
To mingle with the bounding main.'
Can any one say that there is spontaneity
in such lines as these? It is quite clear
that they are thought out; the observation,
however delicate and beautiful (and it has
these qualities in a high degree), has been
collected and put together with conscious
knowledge; the poet is quite aware of the
fact that he is a poet; he has never lost
himself in any sudden vision, such as com-
pels utterance. The lines are expressive
of passion, certainly of observation, cer-
tainly - but not of spiritual truth. Still,
such softness of pathos, such originality of
description, must command our admiration,
however we may think it to fall short of the
highest attainment possible. But what shall
be said of the abstruse thinking which occu-
pies the latter half of In Memoriam'?
Such lines as these:

That which we dare invoke to bless;
Our dearest hope, our ghastliest doubt;
He, They, One, All: within, without;
The Power in darkness whom we guess.

I found him not in world or sun,

Or eagle's wing, or insect's eye; Nor thro' the questions men may try, The petty cobwebs we have spun: ' and those which follow, are not poetry but philosophy; and to say the truth, the phil. osophy is neither very original nor very good. And here again, as in the former passage, let it be noticed how entire a want there is of thears celare artem;' or, to speak more truly, the poet has never seen anything so transcendently wonderful, nor

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But to return to Coleridge. Before leaving the poem on which we were commenting, there is one more remark that we must make respecting it. Since Milton wrote Samson Agonistes,' there has not been, except this, any poem of the first rank written in English by a man beyond middle age. This is well worth noticing, for the endurance of a man's powers is the best Of two of test of the capacity of his mind. the greatest geniuses of the century, Wordsworth and Scott, it is certain that they had exhausted their powers some time before their death. And if this cannot be said with equal confidence of Byron and Shelley, who died comparatively young, it at any rate must be allowed that they had shown no decisive signs of adding to the passion and exuberance, which are the merits of early writings, those other excellencies which are the characteristics of maturer life. If we except Keats, whose promise of excellence was great, but whose performance is too undeveloped to produce the same vigorous impression as the others whom we have mentioned, these are the great poetical names of the beginning of the century.

Tennyson and his imitators would do well to ponder upon the words of Plato : ὃς δ ̓ ἂν ἀνευ μανίας Μουσῶν ἐπὶ ποιητικὰς θύρας ἀφίκηται, πεισθεὶς ὡς

άρα ἐκ τέχνης ἱκανὸς ποιητὴς ἐσόμενος, ἀτελὴς αὐτ τός τε καὶ ἡ ποίησις ὑπὸ τῆς τῶν μαινομένων ἡ τοῦ σωφρονοῦντος ἠφανίσθη. - Phædrus, p. 245, A. We subjoin the translation of this passage by the Master of Trinity in his admirable edition of the Phædrus' recently published: - Whoso knocks at the door of Poesy untouched with the Muse's frenzy-fondly thorough poet-neither he nor his works will ever persuading himself that art alone will make him a attain perfection; but are destined, for all their cold propriety, to be eclipsed by the effusions of the in

spired madman.'

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