'But for the steady fore-sense of a freer and larger existence, Think you that man could consent to be circumscribed here into action? This man persists in relying upon those very things in human belief that are most involved in doubt. He has doubted so long that he sees every truth double, and is uncertain which side to accept. He finally comes to the sceptic's jumping-off place – not the "I will, but I must." Clough's poems are often disfigured, many of them made obscure by the spirit of restless mental questioning. They may give many thoughts peculiar to our time exceedingly well; but most of them seem as if written by a man whose heart is ill at ease. There is a tone of sadness, at times almost pathetic. This is true more especially of the minor poems. There is little of genuine poetry in the misgivings of mental doubt. It is unfortunate for his reputation that these were ever printed; and yet they are valuable for insights into his intellectual character. To apply his own words used for another purpose: - "Our native frailty haunted him — a touch He analyzed his emotions, his thoughts, too keenly. His doubt became his disease, precisely as with Sterling and Blanco White. Yet all his poems are not of this doubtful character. "The Bothie of Tober-na-Vuolich" is full of frolicsome and hearty playfulness. One would never guess, from reading it, that at the time it was published, the author's opinions were too radical for Oxford. It is a Long-Vacation Pastoral, an Idyll of the Highlands. Its peculiarity is the freshness of its scenes, its fidelity to nature, and the quaint Homeric simplicity of its language and structure. The hexameter verse is here successfully employed. We have come even to enjoy the measure as Clough uses it in his two longest poems. He truly says: "It is not an easy thing to make readable English hexameters at all; not an easy thing even in the freedom of original composition, but a very hard one indeed, amid the restrictions of faithful translation." Yet he has overcome the difficulty; very often his verses have "the true Homeric ring." In these lines there is even music in the flow: "Tiber is beautiful, too, and the orchard slopes and the Anio Falling, falling yet, to the ancient lyrical cadence; Tiber and Anio's tide; and cool from Lucretilis ever, With the Digentian stream, and with the Bandusian fountain Folded in Sabine recesses, the valley and villa of Horace." And again in these lines from the Tober-na-Vuolich: "There, in the bright October, the gorgeous bright October, When the brackens are changed, and heather blooms are faded, And amid russet of heather and fern green trees are bonnie, Alders are green, and oaks, the rowan scarlet and yellow, Heavy the aspen, and heavy with jewels of gold the birch-tree, There, when shearing had ended, and barley-stooks were garnered, David gave Philip to wife his daughter, his darling Elspie; Elspie the quiet, the brave, was wedded to Philip the poet." There is nothing unhealthy in all this. The "Bothie" is made out of the experiences of Oxford students while rusticating in the Highlands. In its way, it is perfect; it is interesting because it gives pictures of the Highlands; it is full of student life; it is also more a work of art than his other poems, which seem to be rather the unstudied utterance of his mind; but it is too scholarly, in spite of its peculiar beauty, ever to win many readers; those, however, who can understand it always will prize it highly. It happened to Clough, as to many other recent English writers, to be more truly recognized in America than in England. We are in more sympathy with such earnest, searching minds, than the mass of Englishmen. The fresh and tasteful memoir reveals many most amiable traits of character. His life was only that of the scholar. He was born in Liverpool, January 1, 1819; educated at Rugby, gaining every honor which the school could bestow; carried away the Balliol scholarship at Oxford with a renown beyond that of any of his predecessors; became a Fellow of Oriel; resigned his Fellowship because he found "the restraints of the University incompatible with independence"; was in Rome and Paris during the Revolution of 1848-49; came to Boston in 1852, where he won many friends; returned to England and was married in 1853; took an office in the Education Department of the Privy Coun cil, and there labored until his health gave way and he was compelled to seek rest and change of work. He went to Greece and Constantinople; he came back to England, his health but little improved. Again, he sought relief in travel upon the Continent" He spent some time with his friends, the Tennysons, in Auvergne and among the Pyrenees." Later, with his wife he passed through Switzerland to Italy. "He had scarcely reached Florence before he became alarmingly ill with symptoms of a low malarious fever. His exhausted constitution never rallied against its attack. He sank gradually away, and died on the 13th of November, 1861." "He was buried in the little Protestant cemetery at Florence, a fit resting-place for a poet the Protestant Santa Croce - where the tall cypresses rise over the graves, and the beautiful hills keep guard around." He has left behind him, so his friends claim, no adequate memorial of his powers. He revised, and almost retranslated, Plutarch; he wrote for the "North American" and for "Putnam's Monthly"; but he was never an easy writer. His style is jerky and fitful, yet his choice of words is often inimitable. His poetry is his chief legacy to literature. His "Mari Magno, or, Tales on Board," is on the plan of the "Canterbury Tales," but has not the finish of the " Bothie," or of the shorter poems. The conception, however, is good, and could he have wrought it out carefully, we think this would have proved a very happy success. The spirit of these sketches is more quiet and subdued than in the earlier poems, and even the measure into which he runs the verse indicates a more balanced and reposeful mental state. There are signs in his later writings that faith was gaining ground upon his unbelieving habit of mind. He had a rare gift for describing natural scenery. He could have excelled, too, had he written poems like "The Song of Lamech" or "Jacob." To our mind these, if less piquant, are more complete than perhaps any of his other works. But he had a humorous vein. The "Spectator ab Extra" is full of genuine humor; so also is the poem beginning "How, in Heaven's name, did Columbus get over?" There are few poems more finished in every respect than Clough's "Highland Lassie," quoting which we must bid adieu to the little volume which is to keep his memory green: Farewell, my Highland lassie! when the year returns around, I shall mind me, be it Rhine or Rhone, Italian land or France, I shall seem as now to leave thee with the kiss upon the brow, "Ah me, my Highland lassie! though in winter drear and long But I wake to leave thee, smiling with the kiss upon the brow, ARTICLE III. ENGLISH PARTIES ON AMERICAN AFFAIRS. The Edinburgh Review: The London Quarterly Review: The North British Review: The Times: Blackwood's Magazine on American Affairs: Edinburgh and London, 1861-1862. By parties we may interpret nations. In their authorized dicta the various principles which divide a people are brought to a focus; and to them we may resort, as a standard by which to ascertain the state of the public mind. The predominant party is, for the time being, a representative of the majority; and although they are not to be regarded as an exact criterion, we cannot reach, by a more certain method, the true popular idea. If, then, we would know the real opinion of the English community in reference to the present crisis in this country, we can hardly fail of arriving at a tolerably correct conception by ascertaining the positions the various parties take in their public emanations. Whether we contemplate philosophy, science, or politics: whether we view communities or continents, we discover a natural and systematic grade of opinion extending throughout the social body. In England party lines are distinguished by a strong individuality. The maxims which have alternately governed, in that country, are historical, and derived from their ancient institutions. In the first place we find a class devoted to the precepts of antiquity, distrustful of innovation, and yielding reluctantly to irresistible reason in behalf of change; intent on preservation, and suspicious of the bold spirit of reform which the progress of intelligence calls into being. Then there is a moderate class, recognizing both the advantages of innovation and of prescription, respecting authority and yet open to the convictions of liberal reason. Still another party comprises those sanguine and hopeful spirits, who are morbidly progressive, bold in the assertion of theory, inclined to think all change as for the better, and quick to detect fallacies in inherited institutions. The extremes of these different bodies are equally unreasonable, the ultra conservatives being bigoted and timid, and the ultra reformers reckless and blind to the dictates of moderate reason. But it is gratifying to observe that the enthusiasts of either extreme are generally in a hopeless minority. Those who would sacrifice the spirit of progress to the authority of antiquity, and those who would reject the lessons of historical experience to achieve Utopian reforms, are equally distrusted; and a large majority of the conservatives are averse to absolute monarchy, while the mass of liberals are equally averse to anarchy. The present conservative party of England comprises a majority of the nobility-spiritual and temporal- the church, the universities, and the landed gentry. They held the power in |