ungracious to complain because all is not exactly to our mind. Mr. Tennyson's present two volumes are much freer than his former ones of uncalled for eccentricities, needless provocations to censure, and what, all but his most bigotted admirers must admit to have been violations of good taste. Cheerfully acknowledging this as we do, we must however declare, that Will Waterproof's Lyrical Monologue, The Visions of Sin, and St. Simeon Stylites, are in our eyes great disfigurements of the collection. The two former strike us as utter failures. The latter certainly indicates, what we should not otherwise have suspected Mr. Tennyson of possessing, a sort of dramatic power; but the subject and the thoughts are exceedingly painful, such as certainly, if handled at all, should be handled on quite a different occasion, and in quite a different way. We have dwelt so long on Mr. Tennyson, that we must once again postpone our remaining poets. Nor are we sorry to do so, for many of those on our list deserve much more than the hurried notice they would receive, did we say anything about them now. In truth, a delightful task awaits us, as we hope next month to be able to convince our readers. Meanwhile, we will take leave of Mr. Tennyson by quoting the following lofty strain,-not free indeed from inaccuracy in respect of fact, since snow seldom lies on Rome, and convents were unknown in the West at the time of the holy Martyr into whose mouth our poet puts the following words, which may well dismiss such criticism as irrelevant. ST. AGNES. "DEEP on the convent-roof the snows The shadows of the convent-towers Still creeping with the creeping hours That lead me to my Lord: Make Thou my spirit pure and clear Or this first snowdrop of the year "As these white robes are soil'd and dark, To yonder shining ground; As this pale taper's earthly spark, To yonder argent round; So shows my soul before the Lamb, My spirit before Thee; So in mine earthly house I am, To that I hope to be. Break up the heavens, O Lord! and far, Through all yon starlight keen, Draw me, thy bride, a glittering star, "He lifts me to the golden doors; For me the Heavenly Bridegroom waits, The sabbaths of Eternity, One sabbath deep and wide A light upon the shining sea The Bridegroom with his bride!" 1. Bernard Leslie; or, a Tale of the Last Ten Years. By the Rev. W. Gresley, M. A. Prebendary of Lichfield. London: Burns. 1842. 1 vol. 12mo. pp. viii. 354. 2 A Letter to the Laity of the Church of England, on the subject of recent misrepresentations of Church Principles. By the Rev. Alexander Watson, M. A. of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge; Assistant Minister of St. John's, Cheltenham. London: Rivington and Burns. 8vo pp. iv. 196. 3. A Collection of Papers connected with the Theological Movement of 1833. By the Hon. and Rev. A. P. Perceval, B. C. L. One of Her Majesty's Chaplains. London: Rivington. 8vo. pp. 107. WE have grouped these three very interesting works together, because they seem to have not only a moral but an historical affinity. Mr. Perceval's Collection lets us into the secret of the great theological movement in its organization; Mr. Gresley may pass for the historian of its progress; Mr. Watson bears personal testimony to its results. There is first" the little cloud rising out of the sea, like a man's hand;" then "the heaven black with clouds ;" and last of all, there is the "great rain." The times in which our lot is cast, as they will form a momentous epoch for the future Church historian, so are they rich in materials for ecclesiastical annals. And there is this marked peculiarity about them, that, as "the shaking of the dry bones" arose from within, every step in the progress is of a personal character. The Reformation period had little of this distinctive nature. It was for the most part a movement from without, a rude shock and jostling of general principles; not the combined and systematic advance of individual minds, successively mastering post after post, and occupying a position only after they had sat down before it in form, invested it, and dislodged the enemy. We are far from denying that there is much interest, and deep matter for thinking, in the study of the growth of Luther's character, to take the most obvious example; but all the leading reformers might have written and preached with very different results, had not other elements been at work than the settlement of the doctrine of justification. The reformation was quite as much a political as a theological strife. The world was shaken to its very centre, not because Luther invented his new theory of salvation, nor because Calvin contrived another, nor because Cranmer believed and disbelieved in transubstantiation or the invocation of saints: all this was beside the great struggle: it was the vast principle of authority on the one hand, and so-called liberty on the other, which, for the first time since Constantine raised the banner of the cross, fairly measured their swords. And although it is most certain that our present divisions are to be ultimately resolved into this everlasting contest, into which every controversy must, if disengaged into its original elements, finally settle, yet the difference between our own times and the sixteenth century seems this -that the first reformation took up religion among other things; the present reformation, in which we are actors, started from religion. Luther (and the same applies to his fellow-labourers) did not begin with a clear feeling of the work which he was stumbling into: he opposed a scandalous abuse, that of indulgences, in the first instance,— and he did it manfully; but somehow or other he got into a heady and treacherous current; and he was led at last into statements and denials from which he would have shrunk with horror, not only in his quiet cell, but at any time in his startling course, had he but been permitted sufficient leisure to review his position. Far different is the case with our present reformers, or "ecclesiastical agitators." The papers before us prove most clearly that the original parties in the movement did not leap in the dark. Hence the personal interest of the struggle. They had but to keep their minds fixed on one principle the primitive character, the perpetuity and inviolability, of the Church Catholic in doctrine and discipline, and the "apostolical prerogatives, order, and commission of Bishops, Priests, and Deacons," (Perceval's Collection, p. 18;) they saw clearly where they were going from the very first; they took their ground, and have maintained it. Reform is a good thing, indispensable in certain conditions,-and such, we cheerfully admit, was the state of the Church, previous to the assembling of the Council of Trent; but in the very enunciation of the term we cannot but feel that reform is uncertain and vague at the best, and reform was the characteristic of the movement commenced, unwittingly perhaps of its consequences and extent, by Luther; while restitution was and is the essential symbol and end of the present changes, and this is definite and fixed in character and aim. Nor will it do to urge, in objection to this view, the extravagancies of the more violent of the disciples of the movement; nor, again, the gradual development of views, or the enforcing of practices, which seem scarcely, if at all, connected with the original principle itself. Because distant consequences are not provided against, it does not follow that they are not foreseen from the first; and it may be yielded that some suggestions (that of prayers for the dead, for example, to take an instance which seems to be among the most startling) might be fairly impugned, without compromising, in the slightest degree, the integrity of the prime purpose. We wish to be understood, as not expressing an opinion now on this particular doctrine; but it is obvious that this (and many others might be cited of the same nature) is a question of detail, and must be settled by the very test, the existence of which is in dispute by the opposite party; and in this way it will be seen, that Catholics may safely decline to contest any given questions of specific practice or even doctrine with a mere Protestant; nor, again, are they bound to defend or relinquish this or that offensive phrase which may be detected in their writings, until the judge of controversy is agreed upon. Upon due inquiry before a competent tribunal they may afford to abandon an untenable position, but its very relinquishment, being settled by authority, only strengthens the main lines; Antæus-like, they renew their strength from every fall. But the ultra-protestant's inconsistency is glaring, who seeks to cut up Catholicism in details; for it is quite a sufficient reply to such a controversialist, upon his own principles, even to suggest any interpretation, however wild or fanciful; since there is just as much antecedent probability in the one as in the other. If, in controversy, the "Bible and Bible only" reasoner goes beyond his own avròç pa, it is all over with him; he has cut the ground from beneath his feet. One's lungs crow like chanticleer at the first murmur of Scott and Henry, for the unlucky wight who ventures upon the names of such authorities has become an involuntary traditioner, to use the old nickname of the Church. We hold that this point cannot be too steadily and pertinaciously dwelt on; that, for all practical ends, the Catholics are one, by virtue of their fundamental principle of submitting all private interpretations to the authority of the Church; and that all who deny this are one also. Even while we are writing, a melancholy evidence of this truth has appeared in the late vote of convocation at Oxford. Six years of inconsistency have forced nearly the whole of the sostyled Evangelical body into the ranks of the apologist of Socinianism. Without suspecting, in 1836, his untenable position, it seems never to have occurred to one amiable person, who then could even sit on the committee which condemned Dr. Hampden, that by this very act he also condemned his own principle of the self-interpretation of Scripture. But as events rolled on, men found that, if they gave up the Regius Professor, they must also abandon the favourite notion of private judgment. With logical consistency, none could demur to the conclusions of the Bampton Lecturer, whose major was the air they breathed; so, while some have been happily startled back into a rejection of the error, which they respected merely as a theory, but recoiled from its hideous results, too many have taken the opposite course, and by maintaining their principle and his, have testified their inability to protest against heresy, without compromising, at the same time, the integrity of this cardinal notion of the all-sufficiency of the written word, unregulated by dogmatic teaching. Time has been the latitudinarian Professor's best ally: he wrote a little before his friends; he shocked what were then the common-sense religious feelings of many who have since learned that this old instinctive horror of heresy was but a scholastic speculation, and who now, alas! seem prepared to follow their clear-headed and long-sighted leader into any cold and forlorn region of heterodoxy, rather than abandon their first. rejection of authority in the Church. Firm in their condemnation of Dr. Hampden, all are, or will be, good Catholics in principle who fall back upon their premises; but we see nothing save accidental prejudice, which can save others from affirming that principle, of which Socinianism is the legitimate logical result, who consistently advocate that gentleman's cause. The only saddening thing about it is to see men, whom all must love, driving on this shoreless sea, without compass and rudder. Now it is in enforcing this great truth of the general consistency of Catholic views, that Mr. Gresley and Mr. Perceval are so valuable. They can afford to object to this or that particular article of theological teaching, say Tract No. 90, or the value of the Roman Breviary, or what not; but this does not affect the great principle to which we have above alluded: "I say, then, distinctly, that I am not prepared to give my own approval-I am not prepared to cite the approval of others- for all the propositions in theology which have been put forth in the Tracts for the Times, and in the publications connected with them, but only for a portion of them. In that series of publications, two classes of doctrines or opinions have been apparently confounded together, which ought, as far as my judgment may enable me to speak, to have been kept entirely distinct. The two classes of doctrines of which I speak are these:-1st, Those which having warrant in Holy Writ, i. e. in the inspired records of the Church, have been witnessed to from the beginning also in the uninspired records, and taught authoritatively by all branches of the Catholic Church, in its decrees, liturgies, and rituals. 2dly, Those which have been maintained and cherished from time to time by different individuals within the Church, but have not been taught uniformly, nor from the beginning, nor by the authorized formularies of the Church. In the first class, which may in the highest sense be termed Catholic, I include the doctrines of Apostolic Succession, as set forth in our ordinal; Baptismal Regeneration, as set forth in our Catechism and Baptisinal Service; the Eucharistic Sacrifice, and the Real Communion in the Body and Blood of our Lord, as set forth in our Communion Office, and the appeal to the Church from the beginning, as the depositary and witness of the Truth, as set forth in the Canon of 1571. In the second class I include such points as these:- the necessity of turning to the east in prayer; the purification and growth in grace of souls in the intermediate state; Dr. Pusey's view of sin after Baptism; Mr. Williams' doctrine of Reserve; Mr. Keble's of Mystical Interpretation. It was, I conceive, the * To this class too may be assigned-the Estimate of the English Reformation— and the sentiment towards Romanism due from members of the English Church. The mixing these questions with the great Church ones has done more to alarm the public mind, and make it take a jaundiced view of the latter, than any other single cause. Yet how independent they really are, and how irrelevant therefore to the original purpose of the Tracts, may be seen from the fact, that many are most zealous for Mr. Perceval's first class of doctrines, who are ever keen in their reproba |