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dinary character under ordinary circumstances ;--- gort of subject on which Wordsworth is fond of expending all the force of his genius, but which he could not have ventured to treat with more perfect simplicity, nor have rendered more affecting, without the slightest aid from poetical embellishment. We do not suspect our Author of having the design to support any metaphysical theory on points of taste : but it is singular, how carefully she avoids the decorative phraseology and all the artifices of poetry, as though a Doric severity of style was alone befitting the subject. If this be the mere undesigned result of native taste, it evinces a passion for simplicity and a delicacy of tact, not very common in young poets; and we may be assured that some ambitious effort to be fine, some occasional glitter of expression, would let out the secret, were this simplicity of style accidental, or connected with poverty of imagination.

• Egotism' is in a different strain, and perhaps not equal to the preeeding Essay as a whole. We do not think the illustrations are uniformly the most forcible or appropriate that could be selected. There is however much smartness and inoffensive humour in the descriptions; and we have now and then an exquisite couplet, as for instance,

• Woe to themselves, and woe to small and great

When two good egotists are tête à tête !'
The concluding part reminded us continually of Cowper.

Poetry and Reality' is written with more sustained vigour than any Essay in the volume: the satire is very keen without being broad, and the moral is excellent. It is this, that

• A poet's soul may miss the road to Heaven !' The contemplatiye devotion of the mere man of taste, the religion of philosophic sentiment, is exquisitely ridiculed.

·0, he approves the Bible, thinks it true;
(No matter if he ever read it through)
Admits the evidence that some reject,
For the Messiah professes great respect,
And owns the sacred poets often climb
Up to the standard of the true sublime.
Is this then all ? is this the utmost reach,
Of what man learns when God descends to teach?
And is this all and were such wonders wrought,
And tongues, and signs, and miracles, for nought?
If this be all, his reason's utmost scope,
Where rests his faith, his practice, and his hope?' p. 81.
· His heathen altar is inscrib'd, at best,
To “God unknown," unhonour'd, unaddress'd;
His Heav'n, the same Elysian fields as theirs,
Much such a world as this, without its cares;

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Where souls of friends and lovers, two and two,
Walk up and down, with nothing else to do.
He, in that path the ancient sceptic trod,
“ Knows not the Scripture nor the pow'r of God;"
Nor loves nor looks to Zion's heavenly gate,
Where many mansions for believers wait;
Where ransom'd sinners round their Saviour meet,
And cast their crowns rejoicing at His feet;
And where, whate'er pursuits their pow’rs employ,
His presence makes the fulness of their joy.
- This is the bliss to which the saint aspires,
This is that, “ better country” he desires ;
And ah! while scoffers laugh, and sceptics doubt,

The poor way.faring man shall find it out.' pp. 83—4. Our Author has not spared to lash sectarian prejudice. Our church-going friends must not therefore be angry at her exposing, in turn, the delusions of the enthusiast in reference to all that is captivating to the senses in the pomp of ecclesiastical architecture, and the scenic decorations of Christian temples. They must recollect that 'Popery is,' according to an Episcopalian author, 'the religion of cathedrals.'

• The village church, in rev'rend trees array'd,
His fav'rite haunt-he loves that holy shade;
And there he muses many an eve away,
Though not with others, on the Sabbath day.
Nor cares he how they spend the sacred hour,
But-how much ivy grows upon the tow'r.
Yes, the deluded poet can believe
The soothing influence of a summer's eve --
That sacred spot--the train of pensive thought,
By osier'd grave and sculptur'd marble brought,
The twilight gloom, the stillness of the hour,
Poetic musings on a church-yard flower,
The moonshine, solitude, and all the rest,
Will raise devotion's flame within his breast;
And while susceptive of the magic spell,
Of sacred music and the Sabbath bell.
And each emotion nature's form inspires,
He fancies this is all that God requires.

• Indeed, the Gospel would have been his scoff,
If man's devices had not set it off;
For that which turns poor non-conformists sick,
Touches poetic feeling to the quick.
- The gothic edifice, the vaulted dome,
The toys bequeath'd us by our cousin Rome,-
The pompous festival, the splendid rite,
The mellow window's soft and soothing light,
The painted altar, and the white-rob'd priest,
(Those gilded keep-sakes from the dying beast)

The silken cassock, and the sable gown-
Make other less agreeable things go down:
Like him, how many! (could we make the search)
Who while they hate the Gospel, love “the Church,”

- That Gospel, preach'd by Jesus to the poor;
Simple, sublime, and spiritual and pure.-
Is not constructed, and was ne'er design'd,
To please the morbid, proud, romantic mind:
'Tis not in flow’rs or fields, or fancy found;
Nor on Arcadian, nor on holy ground ;
Tis not in poetry, 'tis not in sound;
Not even where those infant lips respire,
A heav'n of music from the fretted quire;
Chaunting the prayer or praise in highest key,

-Te Deuin, or Non nobis Domine. pp. 85—7. It was rather daring to bring forward so unreservedly an Itinerant preacher as a contrast to the Enthusiast: but we give our Author credit for having painted from the life, and as her 'appeal is to facts, she ought to be safe even from the sneer of the man of taste. Perhaps the parallel which is drawn between the poor, contemned, and hectic methodist preacher, and the titled, beneficed overseer of the Church, will appear invidious; yet 'the strange thing'

6 is after all too true.' One circumstance our Author does not neglect to introduce with feeling and emphasis,—that whosoever is guilty of preaching the Gospel in heathen districts, where now,

"the once savage miner kneels and prays,'—even the poor itinerant, is safe from absolute persecution; he is no longer exposed at least to such persecution

: as his fore-fathers saw, Thanks to the shelt'ring arm of civil law.' The effects of his labours are then described, and the poem closes with the following indignant challenge.

Now let the light of nature-boasting man,
« Do so with his enchantments," if he can!
Nay, let him slumber in luxurious ease,
Beneath the umbrage of his idol trees;
Pluck a wild daisy, moralise on that,
And drop a tear for an expiring gnat,
Watch the light clouds o'er distant hills that pass,

Or write a sonnet to a blade of grass.' p. 92. ( The World in the llouse,' and The World in the Heart,' are the rather quaint titles of the last two Essays in the volume. They relate to that great stumbling-block,' the inconsistency of the temper and spirit often manifested by professed Christians, with that renunciation of the world and that separate character, which are described in the New Testament as the distinguishing marks of the disciples of Christ.

• Love not the world'-most merciful decree

That makes its friendship enmity with 'Thee.' The subject effords scope for all the severity of satire, and if at any time this mode of assault may be effectively employed in the service of truth, it seems most appropriate when directed against inconsistency. Incongruity is always ridiculous. Our Author will not, hoever, be easily forgiven for the freedom of her strictures on the shewy taste, the ostentatious charities, and the secul r spirit of the religious world; yet it should tend in no small degree to conciliate, that having such power of satiric humour at command, and under such temptation to exercise it with diverting effect, the passages are few in which she bas deviated into the tone of irony or sårcasm; and in those few the sarcasm is undeniably just. As the passages to which we allude, will again and again be quoted, personally applied, perhaps, and mis-applied, and blamed as uncandid by those who feel their truth,--we shall prefer taking our extracts from other parts of the Poems. The concluding lines in the first of these two Essays, deserve transcription for the excellent spirit they breathe, no less than for the axiomatic wisdom of the sentiments.

• Oh, for a soul magnanimous, to know,
Poor world, thy litileness, and let thee go!
Not with a gloomy proud, ascetic mind
That loves thee still and only hates mankind;
Reverse the line, and that my temper be,

-To love mankind, and pour contempt on thee.' In the World in the Heart,' the various forms in which earthly-mindedness discov. r's itself, are admirably described, although we have some exceptions to make in point of illustration, as well as of expression. We may as well siate in this place, that our Author is not upfrequently misled, either by a dread of over-retined expression, or by a wish to give the utmost force to her sentiments, into colloquralisms, and illustrations of a domestic plainness, which will not in all cases be intelligible, iind in most instances, they let down the subject. We refer to the worldly minded cook,' to the simile of * Ton Tickler's ground,' to such plırases as 'say her say,' and persevering chek,' and at the risk of being thought fagtidious, we must add 'he word · skull,' which occurs by the necessity of rhyine, in the following couplet.

• The few ideas that travel, slow and dull

Across the sandy desert of her skull.' Vol. VI. N. S.

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These offences against taste are rare, but they are not the less objectionable. We regret also exceedingly, that the versification in some instances betrays marks of carelessness or fatigue. Imperfect rhymes, false quantity, or accent, such lines as

Who seeking that, cares little for all this,'faults of this nature are the less to be excused, where the composition itself is of so high a character, and when the sentiments deserve that the utmost elaboration should be bestowed on expressing them.

To how bigh a style of poetry Miss Taylor is capable of attaining, will be evidenced in the two extracts we have reserved as concluding speciinens of the volume. The first is taken from The World in the Heart.' After depicting in strongly marked lines, the melancholy portrait of the souninal Christian, in the decline of life, merged in the spirit of the world, the Author presses home the importance of ascertaining on what evidence we rest our hopes of Heaven, when, as an objact of desire, it appears so dim and distant,

• Not as it is indeed-true, awful, near.

• And yet, amid the hurry, toil, and strife,
The claims, the urgencies, the whirl of life,
The soul-perhaps in silence of the night
Has flashes, transient intervals of light;
When things to come, without a shade of doubt,
In terrible reality, stand out.
Those lucid moments suddenly present
A glance of truth, as though the Heav'ns were rent.
And through that chasm of celestial light,
The future breaks upon the startled sight;
Life's vain pursuits, and Time's advancing pace,
Appear with death-bed clearness, face to face;
And Immortality's expanse sublime,
In just proportion to the speck of time:
While Death, uprising from the silent shades,
Shows his dark outline ere the vision fades;
In strong relief against the blazing sky,
Appears the shadow as it passes by.
And though o'erwhelming to the dazzled brain,
These are the moments when the mind is sane.',

pp. 169–170. The image of Death in these lines, is as sublime a conception as we recollect to have met with for a long time. It is awfully picturesque, and the expression is not less felicitous.

Our last extract we shall select from one of the smaller poems in the volume. These miglit, we think, have been placed, with more propriety, together at the end, as some of them