The following exists only as a fragment, and is as suggestive a bit of landscape as any in Tennyson:

"Upon the reedy margin of the shore,

Shallow and waste, I stand,

And hear far Ocean's low continuous roar

Over the flats and sand.

The wide, gray sky hangs low above the verge,
No white-wing'd sea-bird flies;

No sound, save the eternal-sounding surge,
With equal fall and rise.

While the salt sea-wind whispers in my ears,
Fitful and desolate,

I seem absolved from the departed years,
Not grieved, and not elate."

The Sonnets alone would, as it seems to us, be sufficient to stamp the writer as one of the company of poets who deserve to be remembered, though their words may be few.

The following triad can hardly fail to command admiration:

I.

"If the first meaning of imagined words

Had not been dulled by long promiscuous use,
And their fine sympathies and nice accords
Lost by misapplication or abuse;

Or if, within the breasts of those that choose
To read these lines, hung those responsive chords
Quick to appropriate what sound affords

Of most deep meaning, and touch hidden clues,-
Then might I from our English treasury,
Rich and abounding in poetic speech,

Choose out some phrase whereby to picture thee,
Or come as near thee as my thought can reach ;
For I, bright soul, can show thee in my line
No more than painter limn the Child divine.

II.

Then would I say, thou hadst a shape of beauty,
And countenance both shamefast and serene;
Thy voice was low and pleading, and thy mien
A child-like sweetness mixed with dignity;

A most rare judgment hadst thou, which was seen
To rest on prayer more than authority;

Thence sprang thy wisdom, which did ever lean
On God, and move in perfect liberty.

Thy lofty courage hid itself in gentleness;

Thy spirit, quick at love's neglect to move,
Could never reach before thy swift forgiveness;

And such a soft dependence didst thou prove

With these great gifts, thou, like a babe, didst press
To rest in cherishing arms of those whom thou didst love.

Of thy divine affections rose; white congress,
With brows devout and upward-winging eyes,
At whose graced feet sacred Humility lies;
Truthfulness, Patience, Wisdom, Gentleness,
Faith, Hope, and Charity, the golden three,

And Love which casts out fear,-this was the sum of thee."

We must not omit to cite an instance of the melancholy depth to be found in some parts of the series, noticing at the same time the characteristic manner in which gloom as well as cheerfulness is set forth through the medium of a beautiful artistic image:

Behold the melancholy season's wane!

Oppressed with clouds and with the rainy days,
And the great promise of that lavish gain
All shattered, which his shining youth did raise.
In misty fields the dripping harvest-grain
Hangs its dank head; the sorrowing reaper stays
From day to day his sickling, chiding in vain
His unused sunshine and unwise delays.
Thus when I see this bright youth aged in tears,
With bitter drops I wash my wasting prime,
And sadly see mine own unharvested years
In the unprofited past their dark hours wave,
And the great visions of my early time

Wax fainter, and my face grows to the grave."

There is a quiet strength, we think, in all which we have quoted, without which nothing is really graceful in any high sense. Grace implies a certain elasticity, -a certain natural tendency to the erect, and an easy, unconstrained movement within the limits of natural power; and these qualities eminently belong to Mr. Roscoe's poems. We conclude our notice with the short piece which the editor has placed at the close of the Minor Poems, and which may fitly conclude any notice of the poet's works or life.

SYMBOLS OF VICTORY.

Yellow leaves on the ash-tree,

Soft glory in the air,

And the streaming radiance of sunshine

On the leaden clouds over there.

At a window a child's mouth smiling,
Overhung with tearful eyes

At the flying rainy landscape
And the sudden opening skies.

Angels hanging from heaven,
A whisper in dying ears,

And the promise of great salvation
Shining on mortal fears.

L

ART. VIII-DE BIRAN'S PENSÉES.

Maine de Biran, sa Vie et ses Pensées, publiées par Ernest Naville. Paris, 1857.

THE name Maine de Biran is probably unknown to the majority of even serious readers in England. Indeed, in his own country, according to his biographer, M. de Naville, "on le lit peu, et on le connaît mal." Yet no less an authority than M. Cousin has pronounced him "the greatest metaphysician by whom France has been honoured since Malebranche." The volume before us constitutes in some respects one of the most profoundly interesting and valuable delineations of the interior life and moral and spiritual progress of a man of genius with which we are acquainted. It is under this aspect exclusively that we shall consider the production issued by M. de Naville. Althrough a portion of the philosophical writings of Maine de Biran, in four quarto volumes, has been published, his biographer says, that "we possess but a very incomplete account of the doctrines of this philosopher." There is some naïveté in this admission; for it is exceedingly plain from the Pensées, which extend over a space of thirty years, and of which the last were written only a few weeks before his death, that "this philosopher" himself was not much clearer in this matter than his readers. And, in fact, if it were possible to give a complete account of his views, the work we are about to notice would be wanting in that which constitutes its peculiar interest, as the selfdelineation of a man whose whole life was occupied in making and recording observations of his actual psychological experience, with a characteristic horror of any thing which was not either a spiritual fact, or an immediate and obvious deduction from it;

the consequence of course being, that the more he observed and the more he aspired towards the higher life to which his observations led him, the farther did he become removed from that philosophical sphere which delights in logical schemes and "complete accounts," and the more did he find himself involved in mental states and perceptions of truths which logicians will always be at a loss to make much of so long as we see as in a glass darkly."

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General readers, of the most modern school, will despise Maine de Biran on principle. His life was not epic, and had, indeed, not even an aspiration towards the epic; whereas the present age, though not itself epic, unquestionably hopes to become so, and, as a preparation, has for some time past been "learning to jump and keep itself clean," under the apostleship of Mr. Combe and Mr. Kingsley. We, however, who are either too old or not old enough to feel any very hearty enthusiasm in this rejuvenescence, confess to a lazy and perhaps emasculate liking for a class of literature of which the Psalms of David and In Memoriam are respectively the most ancient and the most modern exemplifications. Trusting that not a few of our readers may share in our infirmity, we proceed to introduce them to Maine de Biran, only premising that our account, if rambling and formless, will all the more faithfully reflect the nature of our subject, which, indeed, scarcely admits of neatness or system in its treatment. We shall first glance through M. de Naville's introduction and biographical sketch, and shall afterwards transcribe a few of the Pensées, which constitute the bulk of the book. These Pensées are taken from mental journals and memoranda of a very various and irregular character: political dissertations; relations, frequently very minute, of daily incidents; philosophical speculations new from the brain, are mingled in these Mss. with expressions and analyses of the most secret movements of the soul. Sometimes, for long together, each day has its entry, sometimes there are gaps of many weeks. was necessary to select. The extent of the original papers, their innumerable repetitions, together with a vast amount of personal and philosophically irrelevant matter, rendered them quite unfit for publication in the mass. M. de Naville proposed to himself to reproduce from these materials only what should enable him to exhibit the movement of the inner life of the writer, to enable the reader to apprehend, in the personal experiences of the philosopher, the origin of his metaphysical theories and his religious views, and to trace, in a word, the development of this extraordinarily sincere spirit." M. de Naville has expressed the great source of the value and interest of this book in this last sentence. Extraordinary sincerity is

It