by the existing religions of the world, there is one of these facts which at once arrests attention, and that is the tendency of all religions, whether savage or civilized, to connect the personal agencies who are feared or worshipped with some material object. The nature of that connection may not be always-it may not be even in any case-perfectly clear and definite. The rigorous analysis of our own thoughts upon such subjects is difficult, even to the most enlightened men. To rude and savage men it is impossible. There is no mystery, therefore, in the fact that the connection which exists between various material objects and the beings who are worshipped in them or through them, is a connection which remains generally vague in the mind of the worshipper himself. Sometimes the material object is an embodiment; sometimes it is a symbol; often it may be only an abode. Nor is it wonderful that there should be a like variety in the particular objects which have come to be so regarded. Sometimes they are such material objects as the heavenly bodies. Some times they are natural productions of our own planet, such as particular trees, or particular animals, or particular things in themselves inanimate, such as springs, or streams, or mountains. Sometimes they are manufactured articles, stones or blocks of wood cut into some shape which has a meaning either obvious or traditional.

The universality of this tendency to connect some material objects with religious worship, and the immense variety of modes in which this tendency has been manifested, is a fact which receives a full and adequate explanation in our natural disposition to conceive of all

personal agencies as living in some form and in some place, or as having some other special connection with particular things in nature. Nor is it difficult to understand how the embodiments, or the symbols, or the abodes, which may be imagined and devised by men, will vary according as their mental condition. has been developed in a good or in a wrong direction. And as these imagin. ings and devices are never, as we see them now among savages, the work of any one generation of men, but are the accumulated inheritance of many generations, all existing systems of worship among them must be regarded as presumably very wide departures from the conceptions which were primeval. And this presumption gains additional force when we observe the distinction which exists between the fundamental conceptions of religious belief and the forms of worship which have come to be the expression and embodiment of these. In the religion of the highest and best races, in Christianity itself, we know the wide difference which obtains between the theology of the church and the popular superstitions which have been developed under it. These superstitions may be, and often are, of the grossest kind. They may be indeed, and in many cases are known to be, vestiges of pagan wor ship which have survived all religious revolutions and reforms; but in other cases they are the natural and legitimate development of some erroneous belief accepted as part of the Christian creed. Here, as elsewhere, reason working on false data has been, as under such conditions it must always be, the great agent in degradation and decay.-Contemporary Review.

IT has come to be belived that there is one language for poetry and another for prose, and indeed it is seldom that, one and the same man attains to excellence as a poet and a prose writer. The diction of a certain modern school of poetry has, to use their own favorite though singular metaphor, "a coloring" which is both unnatural and monotonous, and which would not for a single

moment be tolerated in prose. Against this tendency, however, a healthy reaction has set in. The writers of vers de société choose no subjects which are out of the reach of ordinary men, and no language but what is readily understood, and for this very reason their intrinsic excellence is frequently overlooked.

As in society we endeavor to hide our feelings and emotions under a calm exte

rior, which cannot however entirely prevent our moods from being seen, so these unconsidered trifles have some real feeling just visible beneath the surface. Their great charm in fact is that, while they are written in ordinary language, they convey a soupçon of extraordinary thought and pathos. Such productions reveal themselves in their full force only to the sympathetic reader, while to many they remain merely superficial. But for their rhythm, such compositions appear at first sight to be little more than prose, and yet they possess a vein of the truest poetry. Praed's sparkling wit and finished satire are already highly valued, and he has been rightly termed the father of the school of poetry. Father Prout's humorous songs, Calverly's inimitable odes, and Locker's elegant lyrics, are good examples of the merits of vers de société.

It has been said that poetry is above and beyond all rules and reason. If this be true and sublimity be taken as the test of poetical excellence, Thackeray, we fear, cannot be considered a poet. There is in his poetry nothing but what is within the comprehension of all who are susceptible to the touch of humor and the tear of pathos. He deals only with familiar feelings and affections. But if poetry is a criticism of life and the greatness of a poet lies in his powerful and beautiful application of ideas to life, to the question how to live," to Thackeray must be assigned a high place among the poets of the century. His theme is life as it is. His verses teach no new philosophy, they only depict in pure coloring and true outline the objects and feelings which are around and within us as we live our daily lives. They may seem to be the spontaneous overflow of unstudied fancy, but most of them are in reality the result of deep thought.

The exact position of these writers has to be determined. They combine in their poetry the essential features of the lyric and the ballad. Their verses are an expression in ordinary language of the ordinary feelings of humanity.

They perhaps go farther than this, and present to us human nature as it is, and that side of human nature with which we are most familiar. There is a peculiar charm in light lyrical and ballad verse. "Ballad," says a critic," is a word freNEW SERIES.-VOL. XXXIV., No. 1

quently used as synonymous with song, but it properly denotes an historical song, or a song containing a narrative of adventures or exploits, either serious or comic." The numerous old English and Scotch ballads extant vividly represent the habits and thought which existed in remote times. The modern ballad in like manner preserves a record of our own; but the artificial needs of our advanced refinement are not supplied" by a short chronicle in verse of a well-defined transaction" as the ballad has been aptly called. Among the writers of the present century are many whose lyrics and ballads will ever be remembered, and with the foremost of these we may place Thackeray himself. Vivid description and smooth rhythm are the characteristics of his poetry; depth and simplicity of thought are united with ease and elegance of style. Like his prose, it is both grave and gay, tender and humorous. Imagination is not its predominant feature; but satire, playfulness, and tenderness are abundant. "The Ballad of Bouillabaisse'' might serve as a model of these qualities. Its writer shows here the wonderful attachment he felt for old things, old places, and old faces. also a good example of Thackeray's inimitable versatility, and we can read it now with the light of his life's story upon the page.

"But who could doubt the Bouillabaisse?'" says Mr. Trollope (whose recent life of Thackeray in English Men of Letters' is a valuable contribution to contemporary literature).

"Who else could have written that? Who

at the same moment could have gone so deep into the regrets of life, with words so approprireaders will agree with me that to read it ate to its jollities? I do not know how far my always must be a fresh pleasure. . . . If there

be one whom it does not please, he will like nothing that Thackeray ever wrote in verse." Take for example :

There's Jack has made a wondrous marriage;
There's laughing Tom is laughing yet;
There's brave Augustus drives his carriage;
There's poor old Fred in the Gazette;
On James's head the grass is growing :
Good Lord! the world has wagged apace
Since here we set the claret flowing,

And drank, and ate the Bouillabaisse.

Ah me! how quick the days are flitting!
I mind me of a time that's gone,
When here I'd sit, as now I'm sitting,
In this same place-but not alone.

7

A fair young form was nestled near me,
A dear, dear face looked fondly up,
And sweetly spoke and smiled to cheer me-
There's no one now to share my cup."

Thackeray's humor is infectious because of his own thorough sympathy with human nature. It is not cynical, but smiles through tears. Of this quality, and of his rare dexterity of language, "The White Squall" is a good instance. This ballad was written in 1844, after his visit to Turkey and Egypt, and it appeared in his " Journey from Cornhill to Grand Cairo."

"On deck, beneath the awning,

I dozing lay and yawning;
It was the gray of dawning,
Ere yet the sun arose ;

And above the funnel's roaring,
And the fitful wind's deploring,
I heard the cabin snoring

With universal nose.

I could hear the passengers snorting,
I envied their disporting-

Vainly I was courting

The pleasure of a doze !"

Again, there is a touch true to nature in the closing lines:

And when, its force expended,
The harmless storm was ended,
And as the sunrise splendid

Came blushing o'er the sea,
I thought, as day was breaking,
My little girls were waking,
And smiling, and making

A prayer at home for me."

We may read Thackeray's poetry again and again, and wish there was more of it, and though it is not, of course, to be understood that it is all of equal merit, yet most of it is very good. No better example of his style can be given than "The Cane Bottom'd Chair. It is natural and flowing, and affords glimpses of greater power and breadth of thought than appear on the surface:

So smiling and tender, so fresh and so fair, And yonder she sits in my cane bottom'd chair.

"At the Church Gate," a poem familiar to all who have read “ Pendennis," is exquisite in many ways, and its tenderness, unsullied by mawkish sentimentThackeality, must touch all hearts. ray's poetry is not seldom distinguished by the true feeling which peeps out in simple pieces like this. The Chronicle of the Drum," too, is a thoroughly natural and unstrained ballad.

66

It is a

story of two hundred years Writ on the parchment of a drum."

It was composed at Paris, at the time of the second funeral of Napoleon. The picture here given of the French nation is very true to life: the drummer tells the story of the wars of France through which he and his ancestors have drummed. Through the whole there. runs a deep undercurrent of love of his country, whether it be under a monarchy, a republic, or an empire. Seldom, perhaps, has anything been depicted in a more realistic manner, than the graphic portrait of Mère Guillotine" contained in this ballad :

"Young virgins with fair golden tresses,
Old silver-hair'd prelates and priests,
Dukes, marquises, barons, princesses,
Were splendidly served at her feasts.

Ventrebleu! but we pamper'd our ogress With the best that our nation could bring, And dainty she grew in her progress,

And called for the head of a king!

"She called for the blood of our king,

And straight from his prison we drew him;
And to her with shouting we led him,
And took him, and bound him, and slew him.
'The monarchs of Europe against me

Have plotted a godless alliance:
I'll fling them the head of King Louis,'
She said, as my gage of defiance.'

Thackeray gives his pen a tongue in "The Pen and the Album," and it speaks to us eloquently of its master's life :

"Since he my faithful service did engage

To follow him through this queer pilgrimage, I've drawn and written many a line and page.

"Riding from Coleraine

(Famed for lovely Kitty),
Came a Cockney bound
Unto Derry city;
Weary was his soul
Shivering and sad, he
Bumped along the road
Leads to Limavaddy.”

In striking contrast with this may be placed the lines "Abd-el-Kader at Toulon," they seem to give us a glimpse of what Thackeray might have done in heroic poetry.

'No more, thou lithe and long-winged hawk,

of desert life for thee;

No more across the sultry sands shalt thou go swooping free; Blunt idle talons, idle beak, with spurning of thy chain,

Shatter against thy cage the wing thou ne'er may'st spread again.'

The teaching of Thackeray's poetry is well summed up in that grand ode "Vanitas Vanitatum," which is said to have been written in 'a lady's album, containing the autographs of kings, princes, poets, diplomatists, musicians, statesmen artists and men of letters of

long been famous. They appeared in the pages of Punch, with which journal Thackeray was associated during the earlier part of his literary career. are truly humorous, and though somewhat unequal, yet show throughout that vigor of thought, and facility of expression, for which their author became afterwards remarkable.

"The Wofle

New Ballad of Jane Roney and Mary Brown" is inimitable; but perhaps the most popular is "Jacob Omnium's Hoss. Thackeray's humor often enough disguises indignation as well as pathos, and, "though he rarely uttered. a word, either with his pen or with his mouth, in which there was not an intention to reach our sense of humor, he never was only funny."

Thackeray's place among the writers of vers de société, nay, perhaps among the poets of his time, will be decided in years to come. His present reputation still an almost insuperable bar to any as the greatest novelist of his time, is recognition being given to the poetical value of his scattered verses. Who could support both reputations? In all examples which occur to us we find that the one gives place to the other; but Thackeray may be the exception which proves the rule.

Mr. Frederick Locker, in his "London Lyrics," says:

refined, and fanciful, not seldom distinguished "Light lyrical verse should be short, elegant, by chastened sentiment, and often playful, and it should have one uniform and simple design.

The tone should not be pitched high, and the language should be idiomatic, the rythm crisp and sparkling, the rhyme frequent and never forced, while the entire poem should be marked by tasteful moderation, high finish, and completeness, for, however trivial the subjectmatter may be, indeed, rather in proportion to its triviality, subordination to the rules of composition, and perfection of execution, should be strictly enforced Each piece cannot be ex

pected to exhibit all these characteristics, but the qualities of brevity and buoyancy are essential.

We may accept these conditions as the true test of excellence, and applying this test to the poetry of Thackeray we can arrive at some definite conclusion as to its intrinsic worth.-Temple Bar.

I

EVERY one remembers, or has read, how, for some years after the Peace of Paris and the accession of the late Czar, it was said that Russia "sulked," or that Russia “rested"-the words getting to be characteristic in England, the one of the Patriotic School (those who had been, or who would like to be thought to have been," in the Crimea, damme"), the other of the Manchester School and its humble admirers. In a certain narrow sense, both terms were true; in a wider and better sense, neither-as has been abundantly testified by recent competent writers. Russia was smitten with wonder and shame at her defeat, and at the utter collapse of the magnificent autocratic system of Nicholas. But these feelings did not last long. Only those Only those who know the Russian character can believe how quickly shame and indignation passed in all sincerity into penitence before heaven, and how the wild throes of that again gave speedy birth to ecstatic resolves, and schemes for the most searching social and fiscal reforms-in theory.

The philosophe liberals in particular, when the country got wind of the Czar's emancipation idea, were carried away by the most unbounded enthusiasm, such enthusiasm as ordinary Englishmen have no conception of, as seems possible to be felt on this side of Europe only by people of Celtic stock. Englishmen have a foolish insular habit of sneering at anything of this kind they fail to understand as "sentiment," by the mere name condemning and dismissing it, or of denying its reality, and calling it hypocrisy. Of the genuineness of this Russian enthusiasm there can surely be scarce a doubt, when it is remembered

that very many, if not most, of the enthusiasts were nobles, who fully expected to lose seriously by the great emancipation and other projected reforms, but who were ready to sacrifice their interests for the good of their country, to prove in a fine theoretical way how sweet it is pro patria mori. They expected that in "something less than no time" their dear country, with a reforming White Czar at its head, would be not merely abreast of the nations of Western Europe, but far ahead of them, in the very van of liberty and civilization. Whether it was a wise enthusiasm, likely to lead to much practical result, is another question.

It will be remembered how these generous gentlemen were disappointed and snubbed as soon as the great ideas began to take practical shape; how the noblesse had been asked to send through their marshals to the Czar suggestions as to the great emancipation and cognate questions, how they rejoiced at this. because they took it for a sign that the Czar was to break the Tchinovnik, or bureaucratic yoke, and to settle and arrange all reforms in consultation with a parliament of his nobles and notables; and how after all it was apparent that the bureaucracy had triumphed over both Czar and nobles, and were arranging things pretty much as they pleased. The following authentic story concerns that crisis, and is very characteristic of the temper to which the Russian nobles had been brought.

In the winter of 1860-61, Olgaroff, a wealthy noble of a northern district, was at home sulking and smarting under what he considered the humiliating trick that had been played on him and his peers. He was marshal of his district, and the long, elaborate, and eloquent