But we condemn not the poem of our author, because it does not equal Milton's! It has much beauty of imagery and thought, in spite of the measure, which we cannot but regard as peculiarly unsuitable to a stately subject. "Crowned and Wedded," is a piece on the subject of Victoria; "Crowned and Buried,' of Napoleon; and of this we need say no more than that it is well sustained, and worthy a place among the lyrics of other poets who have chosen the same theme; even though of these are Byron and Manzoni. In glancing over the poems of Miss Barrett, we are struck by her frequent and abrupt mention of the great name of Deity. The same fault was charged on her first published work; she has replied by a vindication in her preface to the present and it is but fair to refer the reader to this defence, as otherwise an unfavorable impression might be produced in the minds of devout persons. Certainly, no one can suppose Miss Barrett guilty of want of reverence; but, secluded from the world, and having her daily life inwoven with her spiritual creed, she obeys the impulse of her own feelings, unconscious that those of others may be startled. To conclude; it cannot be doubted that Miss Barrett is a woman of high and original genius. Her manner of thought, her style of writing, are altogether her own. Her boldness is sustained by a consciousness of power. Her poems have her heart and life in them. If she is sometimes wanting in the faculty of construction, it is because her conception is vaster and higher than can readily be expressed. She is inspired with the love of Truth; and she loves Nature because she associates it with spiritual truth. All the force of her powerful imagination, all the treasures of her intellect, are employed to this end. The things unseen, which are eternal, fill her mental vision. Yet her poetry does not want true and deep human feeling; that exists in earnestness and strength, though colored always with that profound religious sense, which pervades her whole poetic being. The distinctness of character belonging to these poems, gives promise that they will not be the last we may expect from the author's pen. She herself announces her intention of going forward. It is our interest to hope that she may be enabled to do so; and that sufficient measure of health and enjoyment may be granted to her, to fulfil her own idea of duty. Should that be the case, what treasures of poetry may we not expect in future, from one who has already proved herself "strong to sanctify The poet's high vocation." E. ART. III.-A New Spirit of the Age.* Edited by R. H. "It is an easy thing to praise or blame; New-York: Harper & Brothers. 1844. THERE is some little pretension in the title chosen for this volume, of the propriety of which we are far from certain. To our notion, it is a misnomer. What constitutes the spirit of our age, of any age? Is it the literary genius by which it is distinguished, or its intrinsic triumphs of morality and art?-Its quiet, inner, unobtrusive evidences of a contemplative soul in letters;-or its open, outward progress in strength and civilization,-those characteristics, no matter of what sort, in which a race exhibits the most earnest action, and to which the living communities declare the most decided tendency? Does the literary genius of the age, at any time, govern, or, to any great degree, influence its living and working spirit? Are men moved to action, led to performance, swayed in their passions and achievements, by the words of the poets and novelists, their contemporaries? This is the question upon which must depend the propriety of the title chosen for this volume. It is a question which would lead us, very far aside, from our course, in philosophical investigation. If we could establish the propriety of this title, as suited to a performance wholly surrendered to contemporaneous literary biography, it would have the effect of greatly raising the value of literary stocks. The mart would become busy with a new class of persons. Poets might then, with some decency of face, present themselves at the offices of "Discount and Deposit," craving accommodations. They There are two American editions of this work before us, one of which is illustrated with portraits. Both come from the press of Harper & Brothers. might be quoted in the three per-cents, be heard of in consols, and even rise into authorities among the lordly potentates on 'Change. But the age quickens with no such wonders. Its spirit exhibits itself in other signs than those which declare for its Genius. In England, from whence this book proceeds, we are delighted with no such revelations. It is only where the literary man adapts himself, as in the case of Lord Brougham, to what are called, by a narrow judg ment, the practical or merely useful wants of the community, that he is admitted to be an authority, and to any degree influences the working spirit of the nation. In France, there is, to be sure, a greater apparent proximation of the one thing to the other;-but the appearance is delusive. It is a fact only to the eye. There, we do occasionally behold the poet and the novelist in power;-the sentimentalist Chateaubriand; the orientalist La Martine; the subtle and speculative novelist Hugo ;-busy in the toil of wielding the politics of the nation,-stirring, with the rest, in its everyday necessities,-and, if we may so style them, every-day philosophies. But how little is it the case, even in France, when we take into the estimate the vast and wholly disproportionate influence possessed, in the same departments, by other classes, in whose number and poetical insensibility, Schiller found such epigrammatic occasion for marvel. Besides, where we do find literary men in power, exercising authority, swaying the popular judgment, or wielding its will,-whether in England or upon the Continent,—it is rather in spite, than because, of their literary endowments. These are yielded to the occasion,-are sacrificed to what appears the popular requisition. Ambitious of the time, such authors deliver themselves to its daily uses. Their labors regard political objects merely, and these generally of temporary expediency. They write for parties. They philosophize for factions. Their very songs are about grain, and rents, and cattle, and corn-laws. Their books are political systems, and problems, allegorized for effect;-a cunning mode by which to salt and season those political propositions, which might otherwise offend the vulgar swallow. Such *The apostrophe to the Muse,-which may be rendered thus: Wert thou nought, sweet Muse, to me; The thousands who are nought to thee." are the labors of Dr. Bowring, Ebenezer Elliott, Harriet Martineau, and, measurably, of one very far superior to all of these, Thomas Carlyle. These, it may be conceded, do exercise some obvious influence upon the spirit of the age,—— even while it is yet passing. They help its progress in one or more of the nations, and their voices are heard with attention in others. But they do not so much govern as belong to its movement. They are its weights rather than its levers. Some exception may be made in favor of Carlyle. But, up to this period, his spirit is rather felt, than followed, by the party. Indeed, his genius is one to threaten and to warn, rather than to guide. These, however, are so many isolated names, and, in due proportion as they rise and rank in the estimation of the mass, do they lose their influence in the literary circles. And, naturally so. It is by a partial surrender of letters that they are admitted to political position. It is by folding up their wings, which have borne them to a certain point of view, that they are enabled to rest upon the eminence in sight of the multitude. Other names might be mentioned, such as Talfourd and Macaulay,--men, who, eminent also in the law, are permitted an occasional exercise in letters. But they suffer to the Muse few liberties. They close the door upon her in public, turn away from her more familiar blandishments, and, when they meet her in the highways or the fields, it is with something of apprehension, and a constant look over the shoulder, lest the liaison should be detected by the unfriendly eyes of that age, whose spirit, it is insisted, is identical with its literary genius. Were these authors openly to assert the genius of the age, while working under the influence of its multitudinous spirit, it would be very apt to forfeit for them that moderate degree of confidence by which they are suffered to work at all. However much we may desire to think otherwise, we are estopped by too many woful histories. There is a too-regularly recurring experience against the hope, even from the days of Homer. It is a history in all ages,--not varied in the progress of any people. The spirit of the age is one thing,-its genius another. Else should we never hear of the giant minds of a century living unknown and in neglect. We say nothing of their living in poverty, for, unless it be absolute want and destitution, poverty is, perhaps, one of the smallest cares of genius. To feed well, and go clad in fine linen, is doubtless a very pleasant condition;--but there is that about the great intellect which makes it comparatively indifferent to this sort of social compensation. Its cravings are of another sort. It asks for consideration. Possessed of great truths, its first and only care is to procure a hearing. It demands an audience, attention, appreciation,--and, these accorded, there is no more humble creature in all God's creation, than the being whom he has endowed with the glorious gift of genius. It is in the denial of this hearing that he is arrogant,--that he offends where proud men would have him solicit. Denied to be a teacher, he becomes a prophet, and, like the great Jewish masters, similarly denied, denounces the wrath of heaven, and the scorn of men, upon the blind and bigoted generations which refuse to hear. Such men as these are willing to abandon their earthly pos sessions and all earthly securities, in the prosecution of those claims which they seldom have had allowed while living. Such has been the history of all the poets;—in the estimation of more prudent people, the most profligate wretches that ever lived;-taking no more care of the needful, than if every mother's son of them were the special care of heaven, and sure of daily quails and manna from above. What, indeed, is earthly food to that ambitious nature which toils only for utterance, and dreams only of immortality? But the blindness, the injustice, the neglect, which deny that the genius of an age shall be its moving spirit also,-which vainly calls upon its people,-doomed, Cassandra-like, while blasted with the full consciousness of inspiration, to meet with nothing but scorn and rejection from those whom its prophecies would save!―This is the torture, worse than poverty or death, to which the endowing and imaginative minds of a people have always been subject from the earliest records of history. We fear, indeed, if the truth were known, that even your mere professors of the liberal arts,-those who have no boast of being bothered with any divine intuitions,-who are simply men of elegant tastes and of moderate talent, and who, in spite of the profession of letters, still keep a worldly eye to the main chance, and never commit a solecism in good manners by speaking out the keen consciousness of an offensive truth;-even these share somewhat in the discredit of an occupation, the foundations of which have been laid by genius. They have less force in the social movement than any of the numerous orders which constitute society. They make its gentlemen, perhaps, but |