nuity are the chief traits of the existing school of English poetry, we still discern much of real excellence in it. Though most of the writers of poetry are rather able writers of verse than genuine poets-(we do not mean any disrespect in speaking of verse, we refer only to the form and vehicle of composition)-still they have left their mark. Not to rewrite the standard criticisms upon Wordsworth, Hunt and Proctor, none of whom, except the second writer, adequately represent the spirit of the age, if, indeed, they appear to be imbued with it at all: we must pass to the younger apprentices in the school of art-the candidates for immortality. We have just run over the names of most of these, of which, at present, we will only subjoin a word or two of criticism. The music of Tennyson, his remarkably fine ear in the management of rhythm, is his great charm this has been very judiciously remarked by a critic in this Journal, about two years since, and to that notice we can add nothing of consequence. Tennyson is ingenious and imitative, sweet, sad, thoughtful, classic and romantic, severe and luxuriant alternately. This command of styles and variety of talent of themselves denote second rate genius, in which skill in execution exceeds the conception or capacity. The very greatest poets have a marked manner of their own, and leave a distinct impression of individuality on their works, which is apt to run into mannerism, yet which includes a personality not to be mistaken. Milton and Wordsworth could never have become Butler or Moore; yet Tennyson is in one place a follower of Wordsworth, then of the old ballad writers, then a sportive wit. The critic, in the new spirit, demands too high a place for him altogether, as we expect to show hereafter. Talfourd is a chaste, correct copyist of the Grecian drama in its purest translation; a fine scholar, a man of delicate taste, he is no poet : though he can write pleasing verses, and has produced a tragedy superior to Cato. Of Miss Barrett, the only poetess we shall mention, we shall say no more than to refer the reader to another page in our present number which he will find graced with her name. Of the manly Elliott and the elegant Milnes, we have said elsewhere what we do not now con sider it necessary to repeat-(vide Poetry for the People). Hood, full as he is of his punning and comicalities, has penned some very delightful verses, and one poem at least, of singular beauty the Dream of Eugene Aram. The plays of Knowles are almost the sole new tragedies that deserve to keep the stage. Having thus run over most rapidly the surface of contemporary English literature, we stop to ask ourselves a few questions-what is the present state of poetry and the belles-lettres in that country? What is the prevailing scope and character and aims of the great body of living writers? Is the vigor of the national mind, as exhibited in the works of its writers, unimpaired? What are its prospects, and how does our young but rapidly developing literature compare with it? To answer these in a few paragraphs, the questions that might be expanded in a full consideration to the extent of a volume. We are one of that class who believe not only (as indeed all to a certain degree must) in the parallelisms of history, but also in the perpetually recurring changes to be noted in the literary history of every people. Every nation that has had a literature thus far, has gone through certain epochs, periods of literary glory and of the decline of letters. With the exception of Russia, every country on the continent of Europe has had its day of literary splendor, its Augustan age: and now at the present time even Germany, the last in the field with an original literature (previously to the beginning of this century, she was the country of pedants and commentators), has no distinguished original living writers, Tieck and his compeers not being included, as they flourished contemporaneously with Göthe and Schiller. Italy and Spain are as good as excluded from all remark at this time. Some centuries have passed since either land has produced an universal classic. And England, at this moment, is the land of exceeding intellectual activity, cleverness, scholarship, brilliant talent, and imitative genius, but though with a few original minds (not of the first class, however), she can lay no pretence to reviving her former literary greatness. She can institute no parallel between her present literary condition and that of the age of Eliza beth and James I., or of the Commonwealth, or even of Charles II. No great dramatists, epic poets, divines, like Taylor and Southey, wits like Butler or Swift, no such prose as Cowley or Temple could write. Yet we have an infinite number of good, if no very great writers. The same criticism applies pretty nearly to the state of American literature, which will probably be corrupted (the little we have) by similar or the same causes, i. e., great general activity of mind, exhausted in numberless brief labors, which do not allow repose for a great work: the rapid growth of physical science and the material philosophy that accompanies it. In some departments, we think American authors of the present day may fairly claim an equal rank with their English rivals. In poetry, exclude the great name of Wordsworth as the poet of a former era, and we challenge comparison between Dana, Bryant, Halleck, Holmes, Lowth, Willis, Street, and Longfellow, and the remaining best living English poets. They are fairly met on their own ground and in their own vein of delicacy, taste, fancy, speculation, humor, pathos, and descriptive power, to say nothing of a mastery of style, rhythm and the finest poetical dialect. Then, too, in humor, we have referred to Irving, in sketching Dickens, there is Paulding, a strong satirist, Wirt, a delicate wit, Willis, full of sparkling gaiety, and in certain of his best sketches, the author of the Motley Book. In all England, we know not the writers of late, who could surpass these four writers in their respective styles (to say nothing of a host of clever magazine sketchers_beside)-Irving, Dana, Willis, and Hawthorne. Rip Van Winkle are the best attempts of Irving all of Dana's romantic tales, as Paul Fellow, Edward and Mary, &c., are, we believe, without an equal in English contemporary literature. Willis, as a lighter writer, is the cleverest English and American author now living; and our prose poet, Hawthorne, can be paralleled only in Germany. We have three classic writers of history; we have produced the best popular moralists of the day; Dewey, Channing, and the intellectual Unitarian sect. Our orators have, in many cases, pronounced orations perfectly admirable in their way, as those of Wirt, Ames, Web ster, the Everetts (of all parties). Since We argue the gradual decline of English and American literature (joined much as the established church of the first country and the branch of it here), of the same stock, though ours being the younger in all probability will survive the elder, and at least more than outlast our day, not only from the number of merely clever writers and the general prevalence of imitation, but also from the love of periodical criticism and the success with which it is cultivated. Criticism has always flourished in the absence of all other kinds of genius: it is best when others are in decay or gone, and this seems to us one of the most remarkable of the Signs of the Times. From the great increase, too, of periodical literature, most of the minor kinds of writing are more cultivated than the longer and more imposing. We have few histories, and long poems (thank heaven!) but abundance of critiques of all kinds, political, literary, theological and characteristic essays, on all subjects, of manners, morals, medicine and mercantile policy; sketches of life and scenery; letters, from abroad and at hoine, tales, short biographies and every possible variety of the lesser orders of poetry. We apprehend that literature of this grade and character-short, to the point, interesting-will be the prevailing literature for a long time to come. The chief instruction of the people, their main intellectual resource of amusement, also, will be found in the periodical press. In a busy age of the world, the mass of men (even of readers) have little leisure. This they cannot and will not devote to long, abstract treatises on religion or politics. Our middle age epoch may not come for ten centuries; meanwhile we need to read much and rapidly. The infusion of popular feeling into our works of speculation, the great aims of reforming, enlightening, and, in a word, educating the people and impressing the importance of the individual,-this is one of the great problems of the age, and perhaps the Problem. To render man physically comfortable, and to give him sufficient occupation, of whatever sort circumstances demand, is the primary duty of society; but, immediately next to that, to seek to elevate and refine, deepen and expand, the characters of all men, till they come to know, appreciate, and act upon the immutable principles of Justice and Humanity; to recognize one Father and Master above, and all brothers and equals below. This is the great lesson of life, the very object and end of being. INFLUENCE OF EUROPEAN ON ASIATIC CIVILISATION. EUROPE is commonly said to be the centre of human civilisation, and the extension of European civilisation the hope of mankind. We do not mean to dispute this position in the sense in which it is probably understood, for European civilisation is, without doubt, the highest that has yet been attained, although it promises more from the principles which it contains, almost buried out of sight, than from the fruits which it has hitherto actually produced. The European race, however, is not primary and aboriginal, but derived and composite; not indigenous to that continent, but sprung from eastern sources; and the germs of its civilisation, such as it now exists, were found in the Celtic, Gothic, and Slavonic tribes, of which it is composed. Now that Europe has gained an unquestionable ascendency in controlling the affairs of the world, it is both convenient and instructive to assume that continent as a central or starting-point, and to trace the influences which, by means of its peculiar civilisation, it is exercising over the rest of mankind. There are only three main directions in which it can make its influence felt-to the south, to the west, and to the east. In the south, Europe has been to Africa a curse; the European has been to the African race a spoiler and a tyrant. In the west, Europe has taken possession of America, trampling with almost equal audacity and recklessness on the rights of the Aborigines, but affording some compensation, not to them, but to the race at large, by casting off the slough of feudality, and substituting somewhat improved forms of its own civilisation. The influence of Europe has not been confined to the south and west, but has extended to the east. In the same manner as America, which derives its existing civilisation from Europe, is reflecting its own proper and independent influences, and essentially modifying public opinion and social institutions on that continent; so Europe, which still more remotely derived its civilisation from Asia, has exerted, and continues, with accelerated force, to exert, its influence over the destinies of the Eastern continent. The law of action and reaction is found to prevail not only in the physical, but in the moral world; affecting not only the character of individuals but the condition of nations. Asia, which formerly sent forth her hordes to overrun and subdue Europe, is now revisited in her most ancient seats, and in her securest recesses, by its disciplined armies, and controlled by its civilized governments. The inquiry naturally arises: In what condition does modern find ancient civilisation? In what guise does Europe present herself to Asia? What character does she assume? What benefits or evils does she carry along with her? What instruments does she employ? What are the actual results and the apparent tendencies of this concurrence of the two most important forms of civilisation, the European and the Asiatic, mutually related, yet diametrically opposed, to each other? 1. The first fact that comes under our observation is, that when the two races are brought, as it were, into each other's presence, although thus mutually related, they do not recognize each other; they do not perceive or acknowledge the affinity that subsists between them; they regard each other as strangers and aliens, with whom they have no community of ideas, of feelings, or of interests; no relationship of race or tribe, of kindred or family. In other words, they are so widely separated in dress, manners, and customs-language, religion, and institutions-that, although not only belonging to the same species, but tracing their origin to the same primeval source of civilisation, they yet have no common ground to stand on. They remind one of what has been known to occur in the more intimate relations of real life-of brothers, separated in their early years, and meeting again in mature or advanced age, without mutual recognition, without fraternal affection, without common remembrances or associations; having different habits of thought, of feeling, and of conduct; and looking upon each other according to the ordinary morality of society, as fit objects of plunder and oppression, or of fraud and deception. Thus it is that man estranges himself from his fellow man, and, whether in the family or in the tribe, in the nation or in the race, comes to lose all perception or appreciation of the ties that should bind them together in a common brotherhood. The causes of this alienation of the European and Asiatic races are not obscure. Diverging from a common centre, they have each pursued a widely different course. Society in Europe is more the result of migration than of conquest; in Asia, more of conquest than of migration, although both causes have operated in each. Various streams of population, in successive ages, have occupied the European continent; some flowing on and intermixing with those that had gone before; others, receding and intermixing with those that were advancing from behind; and others again stopping short almost at the part at which they entered; crossing each other at various points, absorbing one another, and reproducing, by their vari ous mutations, that diversity of national character which we actually witness. Society in Asia has undergone also great changes; one tide of conquest succeeding another until it is in vain to seek the original type and matrix of human civilisation. Empire has succeeded empire, conqueror has followed in the track of conqueror, petty tribes have swallowed up surrounding states, and been consolidated into great dominant powers which have again fallen asunder and been broken to pieces; but, amidst all these changes and convulsions, the actual structure and institutions of society have been comparatively little affected. Mahmood of Ghazni, Chenghiz Khan, Timurlung and Nadir Shah, came and went like destroying torrents, with resistless power sweeping all opposition before them; but, when they retired within their ancient limits, leaving society to move on in its accustomed channels. Europe has been less convulsed, but has been subject to deeper and more extensive changes. Asia has been more shaken, but has retained, with a firmer grasp, her original institutions and her social forms; thus widening the difference between the two, whenever and wherever they shall be brought into contact. As this source of the alienation of the European and Asiatic races is found in emigration and conquest, and in the changes that have resulted from them, so another source is found in religion, and in the changes which it has produced. The religious sentiment of the early colonists who passed from Asia into Europe, first assumed the forms of the Grecian, and subsequently of the Roman, mythology; but has ultimately settled down in the profession of Christianity, which is the distinguishing characteristic of the entire European race. The religious sentiment of Asia has embodied itself most anciently in the institutions of Brahmunism, next in those of Buddhism, and more recently in those of Muhammadanism, the three prevailing religions of the continent, not only differing from each other, but radically differing in common from the dominant religion of Europe, and presenting an almost insuperable barrier to intercommunity of sentiment and affection between the two races. To this it may be added, that until modern times, the intercourse between Europe and Asia has been only tran sient and little friendly. Alexander ledge of our species, and of bringing penetrated beyond the Indus, but it was all the tribes of men within the scope a march rather than a conquest, which of our sympathies, in order that no he achieved. He conquered Persia, combination of circumstances may but he was himself subdued in his turn tempt us to commit or tolerate an inby its luxuries and vices, and his suc- justice against them. cessors ruled as Asiatic monarchs, rather than as the founders of European dynasties. The Greek colonies in Asia Minor were for the most part under the control of Persia; and the Romans have left no lasting memorials of themselves in Asia as they have done in Europe. The crusades merely grazed, as it were, the confines of Asia, so that when Vasco di Gama landed at Calicut in 1498, he found himself amongst a people as foreign in manners, language, and religion, as did Columbus when he first landed in America. We have referred to the mutual ignorance and estrangement of the European and Asiatic races, not merely as a fact in history, but on account of the effect which is attributable to this cause. We have no doubt that it is at the foundation of much of the injustice with which the stronger has treated the weaker party in the modern intercourse between Europe and Asia. In proportion as we increase the ties between ourselves and our fellow men, that is, the better we know them, the more incapable do we become of doing them an injury; and in proportion as we lessen the number of associations that we have in common, that is, the less we know them, the less we are shocked at doing them an injustice. If the benevolent Las Casas had known the black as well as he did the red race, could he have proposed to substitute the labor of the one for that of the other in the Spanish mines? Could the massacre of Quallah Battoo, on the coast of Sumatra, have taken place, if in that village, however guilty, the American commander had had a wife or mother, a brother or sister? It is in this way, in part, that we account for the injustice of the Spaniards in Mexico, of the American people towards the colored races, both black and red, and of the English towards the natives of the Eastern world. In each case there have been few or no associations in common; few or none of the links that bind man to man; few or none of the checks on the corrupt and perverted selfishness of his heart; and hence the importance of extending the know 2. The next important fact that arrests attention in a comparative estimate of European and Asiatic civilisation, when brought into contact, is, that the former is essentially progressive in its character, while the latter is stationary and even retrograde. The progressive character of European civilisation has been evinced in every successive stage of its development. We see Greece emerging from a state of barbarism, and in policy and art, in literature and philosophy, producing the highest and noblest forms of thought and action; forms which have descended to the present time, and have been permanently interwoven with the intellectual culture of the race. Rome, less polished and refined, but more vigorous and diffusive, has left her broad impress upon the language and laws of every European people. We need not speak of the civilisation of modern Europe, of the rapidity with which it is moving, of the height to which it is rising, and of the extent to which it is spreading, notwithstanding the incubus under which it labors, of despotic governments, feudal institutions and privileged classes. To know what it is capable of accomplishing we have only to look around. It is in America, where we see the forest falling before the axe, and populous cities rising in the wilderness, where we feel the breath and hear the tread, and respond to the voices of the advancing multitudes, that we judge, in all its reality, of the progressiveness of European civilisation. Even what we see with our eyes, and hear with our ears, and perform with our hands, must give a very inadequate conception of it, without the contrast which a knowledge of the dull monotony of Asiatic civilisation would supply. What a different scene there presents itself! In almost all Asiatic countries a centralized and all-pervading despotism rests upon and paralyzes the public mind. There is nothing of the nature of what we call public opinion, public enterprise, and public improvement. The government and its thousand myrmidons are everything, the people, with their tens and hundreds of millions are |