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1861.

1864.

1870.

finite, I might alarm the jealousy of the cabinet-keepers of our doctrinal museums." "Currents and Counter-Currents in Medical Science."

"Songs in many Keys."

"Mechanism in Thought and Morals." 1875. "Songs of many Seasons."

Besides these, many other Essays, Addresses, &c.

Here we have a goodly field for critical discussion. Science, Religion, Morals, Poetry: the heavy guns of literature for serious study, and the lighter trifles for the spare minutes, with many of varying grades between them all are here in rich profusion. To our critical discussion we will therefore now proceed, asking our reader's indulgence for and forbearance with all such shortcomings as arise from our unworthiness and insufficiency for the task.

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1861.

finite, I might alarm the jealousy of the cabinet-keepers of our doctrinal museums." "Currents and Counter-Currents in Medical Science."

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1870. "Mechanism in Thought and Morals." 1875. "Songs of many Seasons."

Besides these, many other Essays, Addresses, &c.

Here we have a goodly field for critical discussion. Science, Religion, Morals, Poetry: the heavy guns of literature for serious study, and the lighter trifles for the spare minutes, with many of varying grades between them all are here in rich profusion. To our critical discussion we will therefore now proceed, asking our reader's indulgence for and forbearance with all such shortcomings as arise from our unworthiness and insufficiency for the task.

CHAPTER VI.

PERTAINING TO POETRY.

"Fountain of Harmony! Thou Spirit blest,
By whom the troubled waves of earthly sound
Are gathered into order, such as best

Some high-souled bard in his enchanted round
May compass, Power divine! O spread thy wing,
Thy dove-like wing that makes confusion fly,
Over my dark, void spirit, summoning

New worlds of music, strains that may not die."

IN the verses above quoted from the dedication to Keble's Christian Year, is concealed one of the best definitions of poetry. It is a poet's "confession of faith," and it fits in with our own belief that poetry is something which is sung, and which should contain. 'new worlds of music.' We must first of all have the poet-the maker-who is gifted with a clearer vision than most of us, a vision which comprehends nature, and the good-or God-in nature, and the rule-which also is God-in nature, and the life and its purpose which make up nature. Then he must make for us new songs: all which songs must be

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either of new truths, with keen-edged, arrow-like motion and measure, to sink deep into our inmost consciousness and move our whole being; or of old truths which have failed to strike us before, dressed up anew and decked with all the grace he can command from his great poetic soul, in order that now they may reach us. Carlyle says, "All old poems, Homer's and the rest, are authentically songs. would say, in strictness, that all right poems are:" and then he adds, in his candid, out-spoken manner, "that whatsoever is not sung is properly no poem, but a piece of prose cramped into jingling lines,-to the great injury of the grammar, to the great grief of the reader, for most part !"

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The poet, then, is a Singer, Revealer, Teacher, all combined in one harmonious whole. Whoso rhymes without teaching is no poet; whoso gives us mere verses without a new truth or new beauty of an old truth to form the marrow of them is no poet; but he who sings to us in harmonious measure-now smooth, perchance; now rushing like a tumultuous flood with the mighty force of passion-words which teach us new truth and new beauties of truth, he is a poet, such work of his is poetry. It is subject to such conditions that we claim the title of poet for Oliver Wendell Holmes, and it will be found that his poetical work is able to bear the test of all that we have asserted poetry should be.

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