Our Collegiate Course. THE BARD. A PINDARIC ODE. BY THOMAS GRAY. (Continued from p. 469, vol. xxxi.) A voice as of the cherub-choir, Gales from blooming Eden bear; A sound as sweet as if it proceeded from the angel hosts, and carried with it the very air of bliss-giving paradise in far-off harmonies, fades away as I listen and (130 continued) "Shakspere, dear son of memory, great heir of fame ". "Soul of the age The applause, delight, the wonder of our stage! Of whom Hartley Coleridge has so eloquently said— "Great poet, 'twas thine art To know thyself and in thyself to be, Can make of man. Yet thou wert still the same, (131) Milton, the "poet of paradise,”— "Bard of the mighty harp, whose golden chords, Thomas Cooper's "Purgatory of Suicides,” ii., 9. (132) John Milton, the sweet singer of Paradise Lost and Regained, Eden-harped Milton. Of him James Montgomery says, "The sublimity of his invention overawed the graces; and the severity of his taste made fiction itself as inflexible as truth. His Muse has the majesty of Juno to dazzle the eye, the wisdom of Minerva, to inform the understanding, but she wants the girdle of Venus to bind the affections. His poetry will be read for ever by the few, and praised by the many. The weakest capacity may be offended by its faults, but it would require a genius scarcely inferior to his own to comprehend, enjoy, and unfold all its merits." Hazlitt sums up his characteristics thus :-" He has sublimity in the highest degree ; And distant warblings lessen on my ear, That lost in long futurity expire. Fond, impious man, think'st thou yon sanguine cloud, And warms the nations with redoubled ray. Enough for me; with joy I see The different doom our Fates assign, 135 140 dies down into silence in the ages of the coming time. Foolish, vain king, dost thou imagine that the blood-dyed vapours originated by the humid moisture of thy lungs has blotted out the sun? Next day he renews the ruddy radiance of his beams, and with twofold glow gives life-heat to the earth. What is sufficient for me, I perceive with gladness the diverse destiny awarded to us by the powers who rule events. Let hopelessness beauty in an equal degree; pathos in a degree next to the highest fancy, learning, vividness of description, stateliness, decorum; sweetness and elegance." (134) Dryden, Pope, &c., the long line of the illustrious bards, who would wake the lyre in after times, and prove, despite the cruel massacre Edward had made of "the truthful and the bold" minstrels of Britain, that poetry, being indeed "a thing of beauty," cannot fail to be "a joy for ever. In these lines, 125-134, how exquisitely have we realized for us, what Douglas Jerrold finely says: "Poetic heads of every generation, from the half-cowled brow of Chaucer to the periwigged pate of Dryden, from coroneted Pope to night-capped Cowper, fancy sees them all-all; ay, from the long, dead days of Edward to the living hour of Victoria; sees them all gathered aloft, and with fine ear lists the rustling of their bays." (135-8) These lines have been so copiously commented on and excellently explained in a paper on "Poetic Diction," in the British Controversialist, February, 1865, pp. 85-87, that we need not here enlarge upon them. Fond signifies foolish, as in the lines in Phinehas Fletcher's "Purple Island:". "Fond man! that looks on earth for happiness, And here long seeks what here is never found!" Sanguine is blood-dyed, as in Milton's "Lycidas:" "Like to that sanguine flower inscribed with woe;" (106) quenched, utterly destroyed, as in "Samson Agonistes:' "So obvious and so easy to be quenched;" (95) repairs, restores to its former condition, as→→→ "So sinks the day-star in the ocean bed, And yet anon repairs his drooping head, And tricks his beams."-Lycidas, 168-170. (140) Doom, uncontrollable destiny; firm-fixed future, from Saxon deman, to determine and adjudge, as in Milton, Sonnet I.: Be thine Despair and sceptred Care; To triumph, and to die, are mine." He spoke, and headlong from the mountain's height and the anxieties of sovereignty be thine, be mine to vanquish your oppression, and to die free from thy fetters (or even thy mercy). Having uttered these words, the bard leaped forward from the rock's steep peak, and falling into the deep rushing waters (of the Conway), met fearlessly the martyr-suicide's irrevocable death. As the passions delight in animating everything, Gray, whose genius is eminently picturesque, tries to make his words paintings of things, and perhaps, in general, he carries the trick of personification a little too far Here, however, the recognition of the Fates, though a classical image is quite in keeping with the reigning passion of the bard, who blames on Destiny his intended suicide, and denies to Edward any real or personal glory in his greatness. Hence he gives the king as "grim chamberlains" despair and sceptred care, while he welcomes his doom with a poetic apotheosis, and transforms vanquishmeut into victory, which enables him to escape defeat by death. That the poem does not justify, or the poet ap prove of suicide, we need scarcely note; as it is evident enough. (142) "Therein, ye gods, you make the weak most strong; If I know this, know all the world besides, I can shake off with pleasure."" Julius Cæsar," 1, iii. Na (143-4) The closing lines of this finely sustained, exquisitely harmonious, splendidly-phrased and panoramicly picturesque production, by their brief pith, form an excellent finish to a poem so artistically constructed. than Drake, in his "Literary Hours," justly says that "over this inimitable ode, a tinge so wildly awful, so gloomily terrific, is thrown, as without any exception to place it at the head of lyric poetry.' The opening and the conclusion are both grand. They have the abruptness of a dream. The bard appears suddenly-in medias res; and as suddenly disappears. No superfluous description is given at the beginning, and none detains us at the end. The dark curtain of oblivion is let down at once over the impassioned speaker, and no glimpse is offered behind "That curtain of obdurate woof, Which limits mortal vision, whose dim folds The Reviewer. The Argument, à priori, for the Moral Attributes of the Supreme Being. By WILLIAM H. GILLESPIE. London: Houlston and Sons. THIS brief and concise exposition of the argument, à priori, for the relative and complex attributes of the Deity, is the completion of what may be regarded as the main intellectual life-work of its author. An old writer says, "Better is the end of a thing than the beginning thereof." Able as we think this supplement, or rather complement of the author's great argument is, we hesitate to apply the proverb to the work, chiefly because we think his former book possessed of very high merits. That work had, however, several forerunners, but this is an entirely fresh development of argumen tation à priori, and therefore may be regarded as indirectly, fundamentally better in its originality, as well as in the nobler height of the argument. But as the author is about to issue in a complete form the entire argument, in a fifth edition of his notable work, and, as we anticipate, at an early date, giving an epitome of the History of Arguments on the Being of a God, as an introduction to some account of this author, his life, and his writings, we abstain from further criticism at present, although we can confidently recom mend this small cheap treatise as in itself worthy of perusal, and capable of exciting many ideas in the reader's mind of great value and consequence. A Refutation of Mr. W. H. Gillespie's Argument, à priori, for the Existence of a Great First Cause. By R. H. B. London: Frederick Farrah. An Examination of Mr. W. H. Gillespie's Argument, à priori, for the_Existence of a Great First Cause. By T. S. B. London: J. Burns. THESE are the titles of two tracts which have been brought under our notice in connection with the recent debate between Mr. W. H. Gillespie and "Iconoclast" (Mr. Charles Bradlaugh) recently mentioned in our pages by "The Reviewer." The aim of the author of the former is "to show, as far as he is able, that Mr. Gillespie has not demonstrated the necessary existence of such a being [as a Great First Cause], and to point out those specific fallacies in his argument which render his conclusions invalid,"-and the intent is pursued with some cogency, though with less metaphy sical acumen than seems to be required to cope with the opponent against whom he has set himself. The latter is a more thorough going, a more talented, and a more ambitious undertaking, and its writer has braced himself well up for his conflict. He examines with analytic skill, and keeps his aim steadily before him. But we adjourn farther criticism here because we hope to make notes and comments on both these works, as well as on others, when we set to the consideration of "Metaphysical Theism-W. H. Gillespie." Ancient Classics for English Readers.-Homer, the Iliad. By Rev. W. LUCAS COLLINS, M.A. Edinburgh and London: W. Blackwood and Sons. WHEN We saw the prospectus of this series of small books on great subjects, we thought it somewhat singular that the idea projected in our series of "Greek Days and Roman Nights "had taken hold almost simultaneously of the author and ourselves. On looking at the volume now before us we find that we shall, most probably, steer quite clear of each other. At any rate, our analysis of Homer's "Iliad," which has been in hand for two winters, need not hinder us from saying that this little work will amply repay reading. It is an able, intelligent, succinct, and elegantly composed scholarly essay on the chief and prince of epic poets. It cannot but whet the appetite to know more of the immortal work on which it treats, and cannot fail to give a reader the proper relish for the study of Homer, either in the original or in the many versions now attainable,-Chapman's, Derby's, Blackie's, Alford's, Dart's, Worsley's, or else Pope's or Hobbes's. Even those who content themselves with this small book will yet be able to comprehend some of the conjuration and the mighty magic of Homer as an exquisite stirrer of the soul and a quaint teller of tales, which cause the spirit to glow with the enthusiasm and ambition of being and doing something manly and noble. The Christian Policy of Life. By Rev. J. B. BROWN. London: Elliot Stock. THIS is a book worthy of being taken into the heart. It is plain and easily understood, and yet the thought in it is subtle and deepreaching. It is quite practical in its aim and teaching, and yet it is full of a generous theology and a spiritual fire and energy. There are, perhaps, in it phrases and opinions, to the entire acceptance of which we should hesitate to pledge ourselves; but to the spirit, the purpose, the inspiring intent of it; to the method of exposition, enforcement, and illustration, we give our hearty assent and consent. We would most earnestly beseech the members of young men's societies having libraries or book clubs attached to them, to procure this as one of the treasuries of excellent, effective, gospel of good news treatises, which only a man in earnest can write. It is heartful, and thoughtful, and scriptureful. It glows with love and burns with anxious zeal for the promotion of a true and fervent nobility of life. It is altogether an invaluable addition to the prac |