ever complaining of the irretrievable disorganization of society, and drawing with mocking hand dark pictures of the passions. Some, it set to work to repeople historic scenes, with the vividly imaged forms of the departed, who once moved among them; in others, it gave birth to the idea of an universal bond existing for humanity not only socially, but spiritually. Thus Wordsworth, assuming the oracular tone of one who revealed a great unacknowledged truth, says— "My voice proclaims

How exquisitely the individual mind

to the external man

Is fitted, and how exquisitely too

The external world is fitted to the mind,

And the creation (by no lower name

Can it be called) which they with blended might
Accomplish."

To many, this seemed like insane mysticism; and the noble work of song which it ushered in, (nobler than Paradise Lost, because more philosophic and Christian, while equally harmonious,) was designated by the caustic, but unthinking Byron,

"A drowsy, powzy poem, called the Excursion,
Writ in a manner that is my aversion."

But here was the enunciation of a new principle, which was yet, because a principle, as old as the creation-even as the law of love is both old and new at the same time,—a principle that is destined utterly to revolutionize the ideas of mankind concerning poetry; and to place the man who first clearly expressed it, immeasurably above his rhyming critic. For if the universe is stored with types and resemblances exquisitely fitted by the hand of God to spiritual realities existing in the mind-if the one is but the counterpart of the other -if the mind is an immaterial world, and the world a material mind, enigmatically reflecting, as in a mirror, that Divine mind in whose image man is created-then the true poet is not he who merely possesses rhythmical sweetness, and the power of tricking out narratives of the passions, be they dark or gentle in the meretricious ornament of random metaphorsbut he, who, standing on the apex of divine philosophy, and looking at nature and the mind and destiny of man, with eye illuminated by revelation, is able to read himself and to interpret to his fellow men, in language musical through the high converse of his soul with truth, the mystic characters there traced by the Almighty hand. In other words, Poetry is a

science, as well as mathematics or astronomy. It is an art in relation to its mechanical composition,-a science in relation to its inner, symbolical meaning. In its highest forms, the figures with which it is embellished, are not the chance. creations of a discursive fancy, but profound truths. Such is the poetry of the Holy Scripture, whose similes are sermons, with a meaning going deep below the letter, and pointing us to the will of the Most High, written on all things we behold. Now in the science of poetry, every writer must be deficient, whose mind is not thrown into the mould (UTOTOTOTIS) of the Divine mind. With all that is captivating in melody and imagination, there will be lacking in his productions depth and moral truthfulness. His words will serve rather to amuse the idle, than to instruct the wise. He will fall short of that prophet character, which the common sense of mankind has ascribed to the poet.

This great principle of the harmony between the mind and the universe, which enters into all the teaching of the Catholic Church, and is partially developed in cold sculpture-like precision by Butler, made Wordsworth and his colleagues, while only dimly seen by them, rhapsodists of Liberty and Pantisocary, but as it rose in colossal clearness above the mists of earthly passions, it revealed

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Glory beyond all glory ever seen

By waking sense, or by the dreaming soul"—

the vision of a Heavenly Kingdom upon earth, the spiritual home of redeemed humanity. For, if the individual mind had its counterpart in nature, and with that is blended together in unity with GoD-then GoD has established a bond for the race; and there seems an absolute necessity for an allembracing spiritual dominion adapted to the common wants of the universal soul of man. Ill-understood at first, as pure abstract truth always is, but daily gaining a stronger hold upon the thoughtful few, this philosophic poetry, a poetry governed like that of scripture, by scientific rules, has been made by providence a mighty element in the movement going forward in the Church and in society; and re-acted upon by it, has gained precision, perspicuity and depth; and is leading thousands who are unconscious of it, to the comprehension and adoption of Divine truth in its fullness. The poet's task is daily becoming more elevated and responsible, since he has assumed that true position, of which even heathen reason had a faint perception, though it could not realize its holy greatness, -that of a Divine Teacher in subordination to the Church;

one, who, by the constitution of his mind, is more susceptible than others to the impressions of external truth, and more ready in unfolding the deeper analogies between nature and grace. Such is the ground taken by Mr. Coxe. He stands before us in conjunction with Bishop Mant, Keble, Williams, and others, in advance of the Wordsworthian theory, viewing in the Church, her Sacraments, Creeds, and liturgical services, and in the Holy Scriptures, of which she is keeper, the Divine mould of mind, by which the poet can realize his traditionally imputed inspiration.

Concerning the artistical merits of the little volume before us, we may speak with decision, and in the full persuasion that our readers will agree with us. As to its defects we shall be more diffident, since they consist in matters of which the feeling and taste are judges. Instinct with doctrinal accuracy, vivid in conception, clear in expression, musical and animated, true to the symbolism of nature and the Divine Word, into which they slide with such easy grace, that many readers would not suspect the deeper meaning which spring up from the words as from the living fountain, the Christian Ballads possess most of the excellencies of genuine Catholic poetry; and give promise of richer fruits, in after years. From the first page to the last there is a warmth and vigor rarely met with in religious poetry. In this respect, Mr. Coxe excells Bishop Mant, and reminds us of Keble and the sainted Heber, although he lacks the condensation of the first, and the chastened sobriety of the other two, at least, in the early Ballads. The sonnets of Bishop Mant which are destitute of this enthusiastic glow, are, in consequence, not generally estimated in the manner that their wonderful depth, compression and comprehensiveness deserve. But whoever studies them, will find the matured fruits of years of thought, the ultimate conclusions of divinely enlightened human wisdom. Coxe possesses a different species of condensation, which is ever the truest mark of the poet; the power of throwing great truths into a few terse, unelaborated words, which cleave to the memory. "Human love baptized," for instance, must live, and so also must the lines

"The holy Church

That o'er our life presides,

The birth, the bridal, and the grave
And many an hour besides."

Mr.

Few qualities conduce more to the effect and popularity of poetry, than the warmth to which we have alluded. Like impassioned oratory, it seizes on the mind, and blinds the

judgment to blemishes for which it in a great measure atones. The Ballads, as must be the case, with short compositions ranging over a series of years, are very unequal in merit. One defect of the early Ballads, to which the author alludes in the preface, if that can be called a defect, which was their chief charm to many readers, is their excessive liveliness and exhilaration, a thing quite different from religious fervor. They exhibit Catholic truth colored by the gayety of those youthful feelings, which throw a roseate light on all around, rather than in the calm but not uncheerful solemnity of its own nature. Catholicism has its cheerful side, bathed in the radiance of such peace as the world knows not-but it is the cheerfulness of harnessed warriors on the battle-field, of wrecked and rescued mariners weeping over friends beneath the billow, of pilgrims with Olivet in their eye, while toiling along the via dolorosa, under the burden of the cross. As Keble says;

"There is an awe in mortals joy

A deep mysterious fear;"

or in the words of Archdeacon Manning: "There is a severity in the perfection of bliss. It is severe because it is perfect, as GoD is awful in his perfections." It is the apparent predominance of another feeling which deprives the first Ballads of the depth and calm power which should pertain to Christian poetry, as they do to the Catholic ritual. There is fervor, solemnity, rapture in the liturgy, but no liveliness. To illustrate our meaning from the Ballads themselves, compare the following lines, than which we know none more noble, sweet, and sober:

"Our mother, the Church, hath never a child

To honor before the rest;

But she singeth the same for mighty kings
And the veriest babe on the breast;

And the Bishop goes down to his narrow bed
As the ploughman's child is laid,

And alike she blesseth the dark browed serf
And the chief in his robe arrayed:"

with other stanzas in the style of—

"A lay, a lay good Christians,
I have a tale to tell,

Though I have ne'er a palmer's staff,

Nor hat with scallop shell."

The beautiful Ballad of Dreamland, of which these words are the commencement, would, in our opinion, be greatly im

VOL. 1.-NO. I.

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proved by the omission of the first, second, and last stanzas, which are not only light in their tone, but take off the attention from the subject to the author. It should begin with"In Dreamland once I saw a Church,

Amid the trees it stood."

imitating the "in medias res," simplicity of John Bunyan's"As I walked through the wilderness of this world I saw," &c. We hurry over the "Ille ego qui quondam,” of Virgil, to get at the arma virum-que cano." An Epic does not need a preface, much less a Ballad.

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It was with great pleasure that on opening a volume of selected poetry, recently published in England, containing pieces by the best writers of the mother land in the present day, we observed foremost in the list of selections, the beautiful Ballad entitled, "Vigils,” and further on, the lines upon "Western Missions," appropriately, but quaintly, called "Wetdmenster." These were silent evidences that the name and genius of the youthful poet of the American Church were rearing themselves a home in the hearts and memories of English Churchmen; and adding another link to the daily strengthening chain that binds together those two branches of the Church Catholic, upon whose according labors, the Providence of God seems now to have placed the determination of the future destinies of Christendom. But the nature of the selections forms also a tacit criticism upon the volume before us. The Ballads referred to, are two of the original collection, which have least of the individual in them, and are richest in the solemn symbolism of the Church and nature. In this respect, the additional Ballads are, generally speaking, not only unexceptionable, which is feeble praise, but deeply imbued" with the modest splendor, the unassuming state, the mild majesty, the sober pomp" which Mr. Coxe tells us, in the words of Burke, "are the characteristics of the Anglican ritual, which the Ballads aspire to illustrate." We would especially instance "Daily Service," "Christening," "The Calendar," Scotland," "Seabury's Mitre," "Nashotah," and "The Church's Daughter," which all manifest poetic abilities of the highest order. The lines

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