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    NOTICES OF BOOKS. 63

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    . « *» . Andromedaand Other Poems, By Ch...

    except— the good Time coming' Yet it is well to look on all sides ; in on ev his ery shield quarter , _' Circumsp ; behind ice as _!* - and well pursue as forward s his . long The 1 journey wise man in safet writes y .

    Once , —not to mention those high and enduring Names , which are greatnesses and models for all time—once , our worship was directed

    to some very respectable idols , which the over-keen heresy of the present day has broken to pieces . We have become Iconoclasts .

    Perhaps it has been so in every age . The idolaters of the Past have , we suppose , always been few , in comparison with those self

    worshippers , champions of the Present , who are looking and stepping onwards—full of new ideas , and intent on new achievements .

    The old style has disappeared , or is disappearing . Whether the present fashion be better or not , demands more lengthened enquiry

    than we can now devote to the subject . That a new phase in literature is presented to us there can be little doubt . And this change is

    most obvious in style ; for the current of ideas runs pretty much on the ancient level ; and we take leave to doubt whether it be brighter

    or deeper than of old . There is , to speak moderately , at least as much thought in the sonnets and lyrics of Mr . Wordsworth , as in

    the polished verses of Mr . Tennyson and his many imitators . The sturdy truths of Sidney Smith are as sound and substantial as any

    of the problems of the present day . The racy Saxon style of Cobbett is not yet surpassed . Lord Macaulay ( later in date ) has

    passages of dashing magnificence—ready resolute opinions on a thousand subjects ; obtained occasionally , perhaps , by rapid and

    imperfect reading—but in the main , true , liberal , and thoroughly English . There may be a more correct and a more imaginative style

    than his ; but in force , clearness , and picturesque effect , his vigorous writings will not easily be surpassed . We do not refer to Mr .

    Carlyle , ( of whose merits we are perfectly sensible , ) because he belongs to an intermediate age , and has materially influenced the present .

    It is said that this is a microscopic era . And , indeed , not to speak of the recent revelations of the microscope itself , as applicable

    to science , it seems tolerably evident , from the doctrines of the detective Mr . Huskin and his disciples , that a morbid attention to

    minute matters prevails . The great dramatists , indeed , never contemned minute truths when they tended to elicit individual

    character , or to mark the extent of emotion : — " What Give sorrow , man ! words ne ' er . pull 7 ' your liat upon your brows ,

    But they did not sacrifice the massive and substantial features of and the it scene w _^ uld , in be their well anxiety we think for , small if this inconsequential adherence to the peculiarities grand fact ;

    , or outline were still the main point of the painter ' s and poet ' s meditation . Moreoverall things should be represented truly , from

    , the actual point of view . If we sketch a portrait of the size of life ,

    every hair and corrugation may properly be niap £ _3 ed down : it is

    Notices Of Books. 63

    NOTICES OF BOOKS . 63

• Citation
  • English Woman’s Journal (1858-1864), Sept. 1, 1858, page 63, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/ewj/issues/ewj_01091858/page/63/