Hymns and Other Poems. By W. Bright, M.A., Fellow and
Tutor of University College. (Rivingtons.)—In this little volume Mr. Bright's religious, ecclesiastical, and historical sympathies find vent in dignified but rather frigid verse. He takes care to throw into the hymns all the distinctive tenets of the High-Church creed which may constitute sound piety, but do not make good poetry ; and in the other poems, whether he muses in a French cathedral or does honour to a Christian martyr, he
certainly eschews fine -writing and tolls the plain story, but he tells it so plainly that it might slip off its metrical dress and be none the worse for it. Still the pieces may be read with pleasure on account of the story, especially by those who share the writer's "loyal zeal for Faith," which, it seems, some folks call "The instinct of a priestly caste, A love of dull dogmatic form, A helpless yearning o'er the past."
This is from the train of thought that occurs to him at St. Gervais, Rouen I — "Be the memory blest Of Mello and Avician ! O'er theirgraves Haply Victricius—he who, one has deemed, First sang the- great Quicunque '—ho who bore The staff at Rouen, while o'er Hippo rose The light of all the west—this temple reared."
Our readers may fairly judge from this extract whether they will like Mr. Bright's volume.
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