so approved right? the impression on the general reader would be more just if it were with the understanding that those writers presuppose this question to be incapable of such a further answer as is sought. Of the other essays the two on Wordsworth and Coleridge are the most elaborate and valuable, and among the best recent contributions to the history of English literature for nearly a century past. They are at once brief biographies of the poets and critical accounts of their works in the order and circumstances of their production. Portraying the times before them, and then the successive stages of their activity, the writer sets forth the change that took place in English poetry through their influence, along with that of Burns, Cowper and Scott. The genius and influence of Coleridge as a philosopher, also, are not less happily appreciated and described. In all these delineations, the writer shows the full information, nice discernment, and quick and delicate sympathies required in true criticism. He has come nearer than any writer we remember to realizing such an account as he conceives should be given, of one of his subjects, though modestly disclaiming such an attempt, that should delineate his life and works in their stages as related to one another. One renewed impression from the book is the lesson of literary fallibility and failure, as seen in Jeffrey's course toward those men, through the Edinburgh Review, then so formidable an organ of public opinion, which for a time seemed likely to crush their claims; and not less the persistent force of real merit, which raised them so high above their assailant in the world of letters. Another lesson is the inevitable fluctuation in the public mind regarding the standards of literary excellence. Not two generations have passed since the peculiar merits of Wordsworth and Coleridge began to be conceded, and in the meantime they have filled as large a place as any other writers in the minds of men of letters. The centennial anniversary of the latter's birth just recurring is noted with interest, and his fame as a poet and a philosopher is perhaps as wide as ever; but the "Friend" and the "Aids to Reflection" are probably now not so largely read as they have been, though the fact may be partly ascribed to their very success in making his judgments the common property of many authors. Still more falling off may be noticed in the attention given to Wordsworth's works as a whole. Their quantity, and the diffuseness and occasional monotony charged against them by not unfriendly critics, abate the interest of young readers. Principal Shairp's sketches, as col

"These main truths-that on the one hand the capacity of speech is an endowment of human nature, not, however, the only characteristic one, nor a simple one, but the sum and combined effect of qualities which have other and hardly less characteristic modes of exhibition; that every language, on the other hand, is a concrete result of the working out of that capacity, an institution of gradual historic growth, a part of the culture of the race to which it belongs, and handed down by tradition, from teacher to learner, like every other part of culture; and hence, that the study of language is a historical science, to be pursued by historical methods-these truths I have attempted to inculcate, persuaded that there is no other sound and defensible basis for linguistic science."

SHAIRP'S STUDIES IN POETRY AND PHILOSOPHY.*—The readers of Principal Shairp's former work, "Culture and Religion," will be attracted to this volume from the same pen, and will not be disappointed. It is a collection of four essays that originally appeared in the North British Review,--on "Wordsworth,” “Coleridge," "Keble," and "The Moral Motive Power,"-not otherwise connected than by an obvious affinity in three of the subjects, and the sentiments pervading all. We seldom find so much to commend with so little drawback, in the same compass, as in these pages. They are admirable specimens of "Studies in Poetry and Philosophy," abounding in clear, refined and discriminating thought, a manly, unaffected style, and a reverent spirit imbued with Christian sentiment. The modesty and candor of the author give a singular charm to his criticisms, and to his speculative treatment of mooted questions. The fourth essay deals with the history and present state of ethical science, sketching the principal theories of man's moral nature and of virtue, inquiring particularly into the "dynamic force" which empowers man for truly virtuous conduct, and emphasizing the Christian method. We have questioned whether he does not make the term moral, as qualifying motives, too rigidly exclusive of everything prudential. It occurs to us also that when, in reviewing those philosophers who represent conscience as a simple faculty and rightness as a simple idea, he still urges against them the question, What makes an action

* Studies in Poetry and Philosophy. By J. C. SHAIRP, Principal of the United College of St. Salvator and St. Leonard, St. Andrews: author of "Culture and Religion." Hurd & Houghton, New York, 1872. 12mo, pp. 340.

so approved right? the impression on the general reader would be more just if it were with the understanding that those writers presuppose this question to be incapable of such a further answer as is sought. Of the other essays the two on Wordsworth and Coleridge are the most elaborate and valuable, and among the best recent contributions to the history of English literature for nearly a century past. They are at once brief biographies of the poets and critical accounts of their works in the order and circumstances of their production. Portraying the times before them, and then the successive stages of their activity, the writer sets forth the change that took place in English poetry through their influence, along with that of Burns, Cowper and Scott. The genius and influence of Coleridge as a philosopher, also, are not less happily appreciated and described. In all these delineations, the writer shows the full information, nice discernment, and quick and delicate sympathies required in true criticism. He has come nearer than any writer we remember to realizing such an account as he conceives should be given, of one of his subjects, though modestly disclaiming such an attempt, that should delineate his life and works in their stages as related to one another. One renewed impression from the book is the lesson of literary fallibility and failure, as seen in Jeffrey's course toward those men, through the Edinburgh Review, then so formidable an organ of public opinion, which for a time seemed likely to crush their claims; and not less the persistent force of real merit, which raised them so high above their assailant in the world of letters. Another lesson is the inevitable fluctuation in the public mind regarding the standards of literary excellence. Not two generations have passed since the peculiar merits of Wordsworth and Coleridge began to be conceded, and in the meantime they have filled as large a place as any other writers in the minds of men of letters. The centennial anniversary of the latter's birth just recurring is noted with interest, and his fame as a poet and a philosopher is perhaps as wide as ever; but the "Friend" and the "Aids to Reflection' are probably now not so largely read as they have been, though the fact may be partly ascribed to their very success in making his judgments the common property of many authors. Still more falling off may be noticed in the attention given to Wordsworth's works as a whole. Their quantity, and the diffuseness and occasional monotony charged against them by not unfriendly critics, abate the interest of young readers. Principal Shairp's sketches, as col

lected here, invite attention anew to both the men and their writings. But later authors, even of inferior powers, in turn put forth more novel attractions. The enthusiasm of the cultivated classes, as well as of the larger public, is inconstant. Even such great names cannot keep their full spell upon successive generations.

CONCORD DAYS.*-To those of us who have hitherto only known something in general of Mr. Alcott, as one of the Concord set and a transcendental teacher and talker, through occasional mention or brief extract from his conversations with his classes, this book gives him a pleasant introduction. It is made up chiefly of brief informal essays and character-sketches, in the guise of extracts from a diary, arranged, though without such reasons as might be asked for, under several months in the year from April to September inclusive. Availing himself of this elastic form, the author gives us fruits of his thought and reading with freedom and variety, speculations in philosophy and morals, his views of eminent men, ancient and modern, to whom he is partial, favorite citations in prose and verse, and an example of his teaching in a conversation with children on worship. As an essayist, he has not Emerson's aphoristic beauty of thought and charm of style, nor Lowell's wealth of allusion, and still less Holmes' wit or Charles Lamb's humor; but his sentiments and language are fresh and pure, with a certain benignity that wins the reader's good will, outlooks into some departments of learning, a warm feeling toward nature and humanity, and a pleasing repose of mind. His tastes and studies are in the direction of idealism and mysticism. Among his principal favorites are Plato and Plutarch, of the ancients, and of the moderns, Boehme, Coleridge and Emerson, especially the latter. Cultivated and agreeable as is his style, it is sometimes wanting in simplicity. It strikes us as at least odd that he should introduce into one of his conversations the remark of another, "I never saw any one who seemed to purify words as Mr. Alcott does; with him nothing is common or unclean" (p. 186). As might be expected of one so transcendental, his speech is sometimes to us unintelligible. Yet some of his utterances and quotations (for which, by the way, he does not always give the author as desired) are plain and wholesome, as when he says that our periodical literature is far from being a pure benefit," and

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* Concord Days; by A. BRONSON ALCOTT. Boston: Roberts Brothers, 1872. 12mo, pp. 274.

quotes Plato's saying that, "Total ignorance were in no wise a thing so vile and wicked, nor the greatest of evils; but multifarious knowledge and learning acquired under bad management causes much more harm" (p. 22). As to the religious aspect of the book, the author's associations might have led us to expect more to complain of than we find. With the deficiencies of his school, his good taste and native reverence keep him from the offensive and flippant utterances some of them indulge in. His sympathy with the most noted mystics colors favorably his treatment of religious themes. He might not disavow our meaning if we should say that in these things his standpoint, which of course his associates would call "liberal" or "advanced," is sometimes essentially pagan. It seems to us even an affectation of paganism when he dates the death of Plotinus from the year of the Emperor's reign rather than from the "year of our Lord" (p. 148). Any distinctive Christian faith, held earnestly, can hardly say, as in his “Ideal Church,"—" Let us respect all races and creeds as well as our own; read and expound their sacred books like our Scriptures (p. 267). We are surprised that with his knowledge of human nature, he prefers it as either desirable or possible that in his "Ideal Church," the one canon of order should be, "Let the services be left to the speaker's selection." He may be surprised also to learn that his more reasonable preference expressed in the same article, "In the ordering of the congregation, let age have precedence, give the front seats to the eldest members," (p. 266), has been and still is realized in one rural church in Connecticut, now over an hundred years old. It is pleasant to see that those who in our day are alike classed as radicals," are yet at opposite extremes of opinion. Mr. Alcott can say—whether or not with all the meaning we should attach to the words,-"The essence of all creeds is God, personal, incarnate, without whom a church and divine worship were impossible" (p. 266). And we doubt not he has said many things wise and beautiful in those "Conversations" that have won him a name. When he speaks of our Lord, if it is not all we could wish, it is yet some tribute in not unlawful money, as in the sentence that ends with calling Him "the celestial man" (p. 189). Turning to another matter, we wonder if Mr. Alcott's "advice" to an author, which he owns as his "code of composition" (p. 51), was ever carried out by himself or any other, and further, if such was the travail, what became of the birth!

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