There are admirable strokes intermingled here, as in all this poetry. Such an idea as "The sea runs up to me on the sand: I start-'tis as if thou hadst stretched thine hand,” has truth and beauty; but the tenor of the whole is false, strained, and affected. His description is of the same order: "I mused beneath the straw pent of the bricked Dripped dropping more And more, as more the sappy roof was sapped, And wept a mirkier wash that splashed and clapped The plain-stones, dribbling to the flooded door. A plopping pool of droppings stood before, Worn by a weeping age in rock of easy grain. The slipping slipping drip Did whip the fillipped pool whose hopping plashes ticked." It is the characteristic of this, and of much modern poetry, not to use imaginative forms and language as the expression of thought or sentiment, but to use thought and sentiment as a nucleus about which to amass imaginative forms or language. The idea, which should be central and all-important, is utterly subsidiary to the costume in which it is dressed. Mr. Dobell's poetry is, like flounces and crinoline, beautiful enough, but heaped in most outrageous excess about a very thin young person in the centre of it. He aims at the reverse of concentration. His problem is: Given this idea; how much poetry can I spin about it? Often he descends merely to amassing printed matter by virtue of endless repetitions. Often, again, he aims at effect by mere accumulation of one phrase or word. Thus : or: WIND. "Oh the wold, the wold, Oh the wold, the wold! Oh the level dark, On the wold, the wold, the wold ! Oh the wold, the wold, Oh the wold, the wold! Oh the mystery Of the blasted tree On the wold, the wold, the wold! Oh the wold, the wold, Oh the wold, the wold! On the wold, the wold, the wold! Oh the wold, the wold, Oh the wold, the wold! Oh the windy hair, On the wold, the wold, the wold! Oh the wold, the wold, Oh the wold, the wold! Oh the cold sigh, Oh the hollow cry, The lean and hollow cry, On the wold, the wold, the wold! Oh the wold, the wold, Oh the wold, the wold! Oh the white sight, Oh the shuddering night, The shivering shuddering night, On the wold, the wold, the wold !" In this sort of writing arithmetical formulæ might be advantageously employed. Wordsworth gives us the cuckoo and the echo in four lines: "Yes, it was the mountain echo, Answering to the shouting cuckoo, GG Imagine Mr. Dobell giving full effect to this idea on his favourite scale. Nothing less than shouting cuckoo through a quarto volume would afford him sufficient scope. We confess we have little patience with the whole school of which Mr. Dobell is one of the most prominent members. Raggedness, want of finish, and exaggeration, which, as it necessarily must, often takes the form of distortion, are its characteristics. Fuseli tried the same thing in painting. He too sought for grandeur in what was strained and astonishing in the medium of his art. He more than exaggerated-he exasperated every thing. No man could sit on a stool without the muscles of his leg standing out as if he were engaged in a struggle for his life. People took snuff glaring at one another like tigers; and an elderly lady was always made as like Tisiphone as the artist could attain to. He too had genius, and even great genius; and wasted it by the want of simplicity and truthfulness. He too was once thought a great painter; and the rapid extinction of that brief notoriety, which was the sole and just reward of powers even so ample as his, misapplied as they were, may serve as a warning to those who are indulging the same false aims in another form of art. ART. VIII. PERSONAL INFLUENCES ON OUR PRESENT THEOLOGY: NEWMAN-COLERIDGE-CARLYLE. The Arians of the Fourth Century; their Doctrine, Temper, and Conduct, chiefly as exhibited in the Councils of the Church between A.D. 325 and A.D. 381. By John Henry Newman, M.A., Fellow of Oriel College. Second edition, literally reprinted from the first edition. 8vo. London: E. Lumley. 1854. Callista; a Sketch of the Third Century. By Dr. J. H. Newman. 12mo. London:" Burns and Lambert. 1856. The Defence of the Archdeacon of Taunton, in its complete form. Royal 8vo. London: J. Masters, and J. H. and J. Parker. 1856. Notes, Theological, Political, and Miscellaneous. By Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Edited by the Rev. Derwent Coleridge, M.A. London: Moxon. 1853. Charges to the Clergy of the Archdeaconry of Lewes, delivered at the ordinary Visitations in the years 1843, 1845, 1846. By Julius Charles Hare, M.A., Archdeacon. Never before published. With an Introduction, explanatory of his position in the Church with reference to the Parties which divide it. Cambridge: Macmillan and Co. 1856. The Doctrine of Sacrifice deduced from the Scriptures. A Series of Sermons by Frederick Denison Maurice, M.A., Chaplain of Lincoln's Inn. Cambridge: Macmillan and Co. 1854. St. Paul and Modern Thought: Remarks on the Views advanced in Professor Jowett's Commentary on St. Paul. By J. Llewelyn Davies, M.A., Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, and Incumbent of St. Mark's, Whitechapel. Cambridge: Macmillan and Co. 1856. Passages selected from the Writings of Thomas Carlyle. With a Biographical Memoir. By Thomas Ballantyne. Post 8vo. London: Chapman and Hall. 1856. "THEOLOGY," says Mr. Macaulay, in his mischievous way, "is not a progressive science." It may, however, be retrogressive; and it is sure to repay flippant neglect by lending its empty space to mean delusions. To its great problems some answer will always be attempted: and there is much to choose between the solutions, however imperfect, found by reverential wisdom, and the degrading falsehoods tendered in reply by the indifferent and superficial. Even in their failures, there is a vast difference between the explorings of the seeing and the blind. We deny, how ever, that Christian theology can assume any aspect of failure, except to those who use a false measure of success. It is not in the nature of religion, of poetry, of art, to exhibit the kind of progress that belongs to physical science. They differ from it in seeking, not the phenomena of the universe, but its essence,-not its laws of change, but its eternal meanings,—not outward nature, in short, except as expressive of the inner thought of God: and being thus intent upon the enduring spirit and very ground of things, they cannot grow by numerical accretion of facts and exacter registration of successions. They are the product, not of the patient sense and comparing intelligence which are always at hand, but of a deeper and finer insight, changing with the atmosphere of the affections and will. Instead of looking, therefore, for perpetual advance of discovery in theology, we should naturally expect an ebb and flow of light, answering to the moral condition of men's minds: and may be content if the divine truth, lost in the dullness of a material age, clears itself into fresh forms with the returning breath of a better time. With hope thus moderate, in no confidence that the millennium is due at present, but certainly in no despair of larger visions than to-day's, we propose to glance at the newer characteristics of English theology; to trace their origin and deviation from the data of the antecedent generation; and to indicate any common point towards which their several lines of direction may seem to converge. Few thoughtful men, who have lived through the greater part of the present century, can fail to be more or less aware of a vast change in the religious ideas and spirit of the time, a change surely to a higher mood of faith, and even of doubt. A rapid survey of its social conditions, and of its chief authors, living and departed, may help us to appreciate its magnitude and tendency. Prior to the peace of 1815, the disposable activity of the English mind was bespoken for the most part by the excitement of European politics. What religious movement there was arose out of the contagion of "French principles," or the recoil from them; and was so subservient to the antagonism of parties in the state as to acquire no independent or scientific character. The disaffection of Ireland, and its threatened invasion by Napoleon, gave an anti-catholic direction to the zeal of the day, and enabled the "Clapham sect," favoured by the prejudices. of the king and the influence of Mr. Perceval, to attain a position disproportioned to its merits. After the close of the war, the numbers and social importance of this party continued to increase. There were large arrears of domestic politics to be dealt with; and the prominence held by the Catholic question for twelve or fourteen years made a watchword of the "Bible-cry," placed the "Evangelicals" in the |