BROWNE'S POEMS.

NOTWITHSTANDING some peculiarity of mind which leads the author astray after not very intelligible allegories, and induces him to treat real subjects in a manner not always congruous to their own nature, this little volume is distinguished from the common run of poetical publications. Mr. BROWNE, if not an ori- ginal, is not an imitator; neither subjects, nor manner of treatment, nor style, are borrowed. In reading him we are not continually reminded of somebody else : but his class, if intellectually consi- dered, is that of TENNYSON and other modern writers, who, how- ever they may differ in other things, resemble one another in making their own minds, and not nature, the standard of existences ; and colour, if they do not always pervert, whatever they handle. This peculiarity to some degree characterizes Mr. BROWNE, as well as a want of attentive finish. Some poems, and many parts of poems, are indeed finished, and with great felicity, by the writers of this school; but that effect looks like the result of some accident, as if the composition finished itself. Laborious care, a determina- tion to remove ruggedness and halting lines, seems to them an un- known or unnecessary art. Mr. BROWNE, however, appears to us sui generis in looking at the age, not for purposes of satire, or to furnish him with single subjects, but to estimate its spirit in a critical if not a philosophical sense. His glance may neither be very pro- found nor very comprehensive ; but we think he is the first who has taken an elevated kind of Young-England view in verse.

There are a variety of short miscellaneous poems in the volume, but the principal productions are five. "The National Bankruptcy" describes the outward forms of misery attendant upon such an event ; with an individual sketch, not very distinctly drawn, but apparently designed to show the supporting nature of woman's love. There is a quaint kind of power in the poem; but it appears to fall short of its theme, because the author has not treated it in a manner sufficiently comprehensive, through not perceiving the historical truth of the subject. A national bankruptcy is a foregone conclusion, the result of some corrupting vices in the people and their rulers, each reacting upon the other ; and even its present evils are not fully exhibited in gaping or anxious crowds, or mobs longing for plunder but restrained by fear. In spite of its power of language, "The National Bankruptcy" fails of effect, by being too abstract and theoretical.

"The Two Friends" is a didactic poem in the form of a dialogue, apparently intended to display the relative character of opinions derived from studious speculation and from worldly know- ledge, opposing the critically exacting spirit of the one to the tole- rant character of the other, with some application to the present day. The subject is perhaps unnecessarily limited, and there is a little of the level spirit of didactic poetry in the piece ; but it is the most real of the whole, and distinguished by a philosophical and quiet spirit, never sinking to flatness and sometimes rising to deli- cate beauty,—such as this OLD ENGLISH HOME SCENE.

The sun had spent his prime; from the old house The pargetted, quaint gables duskier sloped Their lengthening shadows o'er the tiny lake, That, by a smooth declivity of sward, Lay parted from the ivy-mantled porch. Trim beds of flowers, confessing Art, beside The casements bloom'd in ancient order set ; But farther on, Art feebler seemed to shrink From Nature's touch : shrubs in all hues of green, Tangled in groups or solitary stood, In subtile wildness and caprice well-plann'd. A grassy knoll swell'd upward from the lake, Fine from the sheep's bite, crown'd with reverend oaks, Where the far village-spire above the brow Peer'd through a mellow interval of shade.

CRITICISM ON LATER POETRY.

1 learn'd to know Poets of every age and many a land. I found a various sameness, for the mind Still vibrated between determined points And the old phases of successive change. But ever they seem'd most monotonous, The lights of what men call a polish'd age. Whether they lack'd the strength to rest on self, The secret of all greatness ; or by words 'Were carried far from what they would have said, Like men uxorious, ruled where they should rule ; Or whether, in such days as these of ours, The show of what is fitting to be felt So well is studied, that our feelings too Become conventional, like all things else ; And Art, the age's mirror, with it grows Morbid, because emotions lose their power, Which prove so often spurious and assumed.

"The Age of Romance" runs rapidly over the field of classical and romantic poetry ; but the impression it produces as a whole is aot equal to the subject—aggravated by an ill-chosen metre, 'which throws the accents in a manner to produce a halting effect. "Eros and Anteros" and "The Grotto" are both allegories, not very clearly made out. Eros and Anteros do not merely represent love but the heavenly and earthly principle ; and the bewildered Syrian who practises magic rites to raise them, after seeing the cross in the heavens and becoming a convert, is found dead by the mystic fountain. "The Grotto," the longest and most elaborate piece in the volume, derives its title from the poet's magic descent through a lake, where a variety of sights pass before his eyes, seemingly intended to represent an allegory of life, parts of which have been suggested by the older essayists. There is a good deal of poetry in the piece, so far as poetry depends upon splendour of words and images without any imitation of reality or moral con- clusion: but the drift of the poem, or of its parts, we do not com- prehend except here and there,—as in these stanzas on

SUBTILE BEAUTY AND CHANGE.

There is a splendour in the meanest things, Which sometimes to the fairest we deny.

Beauty dwells everywhere, yet often flings O'er that which least allures the vulgar eye A subtiler seeming : the dull winter sky, The barren moor, the common scentless flower, The stunted tree, which asks for sympathy

From blighted youth, hoar age, even these have power—

Even these can wisdom teach in the mind's happier hoar.

Change, which is interwoven with our being— Change, without which we neither move nor live—,

Change, arbitress of feeling, hearing, seeing, Of much we know and much that we believe, Whose handmaids, Error, Truth, in turn receive The traveller on the world's highway forlorn,

And to his heedless thirst draughts mingled give—

Change from me now what late I saw had torn, New scenes and combinations new before me borne.

There are two other poems belonging to the larger class,—" Sir Balyn," a good imitation of the older ballads ; and "The Ideal and the Real," an allegory even less clear than the two others. The miscellaneous poems are of various merits: the best and most finished is "Flow on, thou shining river."