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in which he does it; and we think our readers will be equally lenient after we have furnished them a few passages from the poem. The landscape painter could hardly choose a more gloomy and romantic subject than that presented in the opening stanza:

"Long lines of cliff breaking have left a chasm ;'
And in the chasm are foam and yellow sands;
Beyond, red roofs about a narrow wharf
In cluster; then a moulder'd church; and higher
A long street climbs to one tall-tower'd mill;
And high in heaven behind it a grey down
With Danish barrows; and a hazelwood,
By autumn nutters haunted, flourishes

Green in a cuplike hollow of the down."-p. 3.

This is followed by a graphic account of the sports of the three children, their childish quarrels, and their jealousies. Passing over some little peculiarities which are rather common in Tennyson, we transcribe the closing lines in the third stanza as no indifferent specimen of that species of poetry:

"When, if they quarrell'd, Enoch, stronger-made,

Was master: then would Philip, his blue eyes
All flooded with the helpless wrath of tears,
Shriek out I hate you, Enoch,' and at this

The little wife would weep for company,

And pray them not to quarrel for her sake,

And say she would be little wife to both."-p. 4.

The feeling of Philip on seeing the first proof of the preference of Annie is well described in the following passage, although it will be seen that it is somewhat inconsistent with what is subsequently related in the poem:

"But as he climb'd the hill,

Just where the prone edge of the wood began
To feather toward the hollow, saw the pair,
Enoch and Annie, sitting hand-in-hand,
His large grey eyes and weather-beaten face
All-kindled by a still and sacred fire,
That burn'd as on an altar. Philip look'd,
And in their eyes and faces read his doom;
Then, as their faces drew together, groan'd
And slipt aside, and like a wounded life
Crept down into the hollows of the wood:
There, while the rest were loud in merrymaking,
Had his dark hour unseen, and rose and past
Bearing a lifelong hunger in his heart."-p. 6.

Soon after, Enoch and Annie are united in marriage, and in due time they have three children. But, as already intimated, he is poor, and resolves to better his fortune. The account we have of his parting with wife and children is full of genuine pathos, but is such that a fragment would spoil it. We must, therefore, pass on to a passage that is more compact in itself, and consequently can be more easily separated from the context. Enoch is but a short time gone when one of the children dies. This affords Philip an opportunity of paying Annie a visit. He enters her room without much ceremony, places himself by her side, and offers to educate her children. The poet describes the result as follows: "Then Annie, with her brows against the wall, 1 Answered, I cannot look you in the face;

I seem so foolish and so broken down.
12

VOL. X.-XO. XX.

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Some time after, the children want to go nutting to the wood. They ask Philip to accompany them; he consents, on condition that Annie will go also; nor will she refuse. The whole party proceed on the nutting excursion, and we are accordingly presented with some interesting

scenes:

"But after scaling half the weary down,

Just where the prone edge of the wood began
To feather toward the hollow, all her force
Fail'd her; and sighing, 'Let me rest,' she said:
So Philip rested with her well-content;
While all the younger ones with jubilant cries
Broke from their elders, and tumultuously
Down thro' the whitening hazels made a plunge

To the bottom, and dispersed, and beat or broke

The lithe reluctant boughs to tear away

Their tawny clusters, crying to each other

And calling, here and there, about the wood."-p. 19.

Annie wants some rest, and Philip an opportunity to say some tender things. After the preliminaries supposed to be usual in such cases, he tells her that he wishes her to be his wife. She receives the proposal in good part, and is rather pleased with the idea that her husband, whose only ambition was to make her happy, is dead. But let the poet tell in his own words how graciously the suitor is treated by the modern Penelope :

"Then answere'd Annie; tenderly she spoke :
You have been as God's good angel in our house.
God bless you for it, God reward you for it,
Philip, with something happier than myself.
Can one love twice? can you be ever loved
As Enoch was? what is it that you ask?'
'I am content,' he answered, to be loved
A little after Enoch.' 0,' she cried,
Scared as it were, ' dear Philip, wait a while.
If Enoch comes-but Enoch will not come-
Yet wait a year, a year is not so long:

Surely I shall be wiser in a year:

O wait a little!' Philip sadly said,

Annie, as I have waited all my life

I well may wait a little.' Nay,' she cried,

'I am bound: you have my promise-in a year:

Will you not bide your year as I bide mine ??

And Philip answer'd, "I will bide my year.'-p. 21.

This was a pretty easy way to dispose of the rights of poor Enoch. After they leave the wood, Philip wishes to show his beloved that he desires to take no advantage of vows or promises made at a tender

moment:

"Annie, when I spoke to you,

That was your hour of weakness. I was wrong.

I am always bound to you, but you are free.'"-p. 22.

The loving and faithful Annie would not agree to this, for the poet tells us,

"Then Annie, weeping, answered I am bound.'"-p. 23.

After the year is passed, Annie is quite as anxious as Philip to get married, although she modestly asks another month in order to be quite sure that Enoch will never return. To satisfy herself on this point, she prays earnestly for a sign; she starts out of bed in the dead of night, seizes "the Holy Book" so as to get her finger on a text which will enlighten her on the all-important subject. In this pious manner she satisfies her conscience, and the marriage takes place; and in the very same stanza in which the merry event is chronicled, the poet accounts as follows for certain apprehensions occasionally entertained by Annie: "Such doubts and fears were common to her state, Being with child but when her child was born, Then her new child was as herself renew'd.

Then the new mother came about her heart,
Then her good Philip was her all-in-all,

And that mysterious instinct wholly died."-p. 25.

A poet having any regard for the unities would have allowed his heroine at least seven months to get into the interesting state here described; but not a week is allowed by Tennyson. Horace, it is true, lays great stress on the importance of entering at once in medias res; but it may be doubted whether he meant to encourage quite so much abruptness, especially in delicate affairs, as we have here. Be this as it may, the rest of the story is soon told, so far as the incidents are concerned. But we would not have a single stanza overlooked; for if Tennyson does not scruple to violate the unities, and sometimes does some violence to nature herself-and we think we may add, some injustice to woman-it is not the less true that nowhere in "Enoch Arden" is he more poetical than in those passages in which he transgresses most in these respects. The character of Enoch is finely described; in no other part of the poem is the author so happy as in this, recalling as it does, some of the most musical and most vigorous passages in Maude and the Idylls of the King. It is, however, a great defect that he has no fault to find with the conduct of Annie; but, on the contrary, rather regards her, upon the whole, as a model of her class. There is a similar defect in his portraiture of Enoch Arden, since nine-tenths of those who read it will think that, in the opinion of the poet, it is rather a praiseworthy thing for a man who happens to get poor to let a more fortunate person take possession of the wife he loves, and with her of his children, and retire into obscurity himself for fear of disturbing their happiness. The terrible anguish of the poor wanderer on finding his house desolate, and all his hopes of happiness blighted forever, are well described in the following passage:

"Now when the dead man come to life beheld
His wife his wife no more, and saw the babo
Hers, yet not his, upon the father's knee,
And all the warmth, the peace, the happiness,

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And his own children tall and beautiful,
And him, that other, reigning in his place,
Lord of his rights and of his children's love,-
Then he, tho' Miriam Lane had told him all,

Because things seen are mightier than things heard,
Stagger'd and shook, holding the branch, and fear'd
To send abroad a shrill and terrible cry,

Which in one moment, like the blast of doom,

Would shatter all the happiness of the hearth."-p. 35.

He steals back and hides himself. This is not natural; still less natural is it for a man who loves his wife to bless and pray for her, because she hastens to take another in his stead as soon as she thinks she has an opportunity. But Enoch Arden does more than this: he also blesses his rival, the man who deprived him of his wife's affections! Such a statement may well be incredible; but the following are the words put into the mouth of the dying man: "I charge you now,

When you shall see her, tell her that I died
Blessing her, praying for her, loving her;
Save for the bar between us, loving her
As when she laid her head beside my own.
And tell my daughter Annie, whom I saw
So like her mother, that my latest breath
Was spent in blessing her and praying for her.
And tell my son that I died blessing him.
And say to Philip that I blest him too;

He never meant us anything but good.

But if my children care to see me dead,

Who hardly knew me living, let them come,

I am their father; but she must not come,

For my dead face would vex her after-life."-pp. 40, 41.

There may be men who think and feel in this way; but if there be, the world contains not many such; and perhaps it is well it should not. In any case, Enoch Arden will be read more than any poem of Tennyson's.

La Gaviota: a Spanish Novel. By FERNAN CABELLERO. Translated by J. LEANDER STARR. 16mo., pp. 281. New York: M. Doolady, 1864 THE only part of this volume which is not creditable to the translator is the dedication to ex-Mayor Opdyke. If he intended to be satirical in speaking of the able manner in which Mr. Opdyke filled "the civic chair of this great city," thereby rendering himself "both distinguished and respected," it is all very well. The same observation will apply to the assertion that that gentleman's "career has been marked by the most devoted patriotism," &c. Perhaps the translator alludes to certain gun and blanket contracts in which the ex-mayor took some interest for the benefit of his country; if not, we cannot see in what sense he can be said to have evinced any extraordinary amount of patriotism. In any case, the quotation from the King of Israel, as applied to Mr. Opdyke, is exceeding ly inappropriate; it might nearly as well have been applied to Sir Thomas Thumb, since he, too, has "stood forth at the period of the nation's trials as an unflinching supporter of constitutional government!"

Now, in the name of common sense, where has Mr. Opdyke stood forth as an unflinching supporter of anything? On what occasion has he

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evinced the least courage, when courage was needed? We have, certainly, no feeling against Mr. Opdyke; we have no doubt that he is a well-mea n ing, honest man; but, in sooth, he is no hero; nor is there any reason why his name should be "revered" "throughout every State," as the translator of "Gaviota" tells him it will be.

But we have no such faults to find with Colonel Starr's version of one of the best stories to be found in the whole range of modern Spanish fiction. In this he exhibits taste and judgment, a thorough knowledge of the Castilian, and literary talent of no mean order. His translation has, we believe, been well received; but it deserves to be generally read, especially by the ladies.

Second edition,

Mount Vernon, and other Poems. By HARVEY RICE. 12mo., pp. 221. New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1865. As we are in the habit of looking to the publishers of Boston rather than to those of New York for good poetry, it is only by accident that this volume has fallen into our hands. Personally we have no knowledge of the author, and we are certainly under no compliments to his publishers; but we are not the less disposed on this account to do justice to the genuine merit of the book. We undertake this all the more cheerfully because it comes without any flourish; it is dedicated to no one; it has not even a preface. The reader is allowed to form his own opinion, without any suggestions from the author. We note this with pleasure, because it is in creditable contrast with the general habit. At the same time, we do not say that Mr. Rice is a great poet; but that he occasionally, if not always, writes true poetry, is an opinion from which no competent judge who examines the unpretending volume before us will be likely to dissent. The contents embrace a considerable variety of subjects, including patriotism, love, the domestic affections, friendship, the beauties of nature, &c. The poem which gives its title to the book is neither the longest nor the best, although it will compare favorably with the most pretentious tributes paid to the Father of his Country. The following allusion to the surrender of Cornwallis is in good taste; it does not evince the less appreciation of Washington for acknowledging the valor of his foe:

"Cornwallis! still thy shade

Bewails, methinks, the fated hour

That saw thee yield thy valiant blade,

A prize to sterner power.

With spirit bowed, till then untaught to cower !"-p. 16.

Even in time of war, it were well that the foemen would do each other justice. Generosity to an enemy, especially when he is in our power, is not only laudable in itself as evidence of a superior nature, but its influence is always salutary; whereas abuse and vituperation injure none so much as those who use them. Another agreeable and patriotic effort is that entitled "Haunts of Childhood;" from which we learn that the

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