"If I were rich I would kiss her feet, I would kiss the place where the gold hems meet, Ah! qu'elle est belle La Marguerite. "Ah me! I have never touch'd her hand; When the arriere-ban goes through the land, Six basnets under my pennon stand ; Ah! qu'elle est belle La Marguerite. "And many an one grins under his hood; Ah! qu'elle est belle La Marguerite. "If I were rich I would kiss her feet, And the golden girdle of my sweet, And thereabouts where the gold hems meet ;- "Yet even now it is good to think, While my few poor varlets grumble and drink "Of Margaret sitting glorious there, Ah! qu'elle est belle La Marguerite. Ah! qu'elle est belle La Marguerite. Ah! qu'elle est belle La Marguerite. "And sometime it may hap, perdie, While my new towers stand up three and threeAnd my hall gets painted fair to see Ah! qu'elle est belle La Marguerite— "That folks may say: Times change, by the rood, For Lambert, banneret of the wood, Has heaps of food and firewood ; Ah! qu'elle est belle La Marguerite. "And wonderful eyes, too, under the hood Of a damsel of right noble blood :' St. Ives, for Lambert of the wood! Ah! qu'elle est belle La Marguerite."-P. 168 whole volume is that entitled "The Wind." It no particular modern writer in an especial manne general way of many. Shelley, Browning, Tennyso all might have written it, still we venture to doub have been more successful than our author. A song from "Golden Wings "-one of the m and unintelligible poems in the book-may not 1 some of our readers, as serving to exemplify m what we venture to designate as two of the most of this original writer, viz., his want of precision obscurity. "Gold wings across the sea! "The water slips, The red-bill'd moorhen dips. "Are not my blue eyes sweet? "White swans on the green moat, "O gold wings, Listen how gold hair sings, "I sit on a purple bed, "Dies in the autumn night, "Kisses the long wet grass: Gold wings across the sea! "Gold wings across the sea! "Gold wings the short night slips, Gold wings across the sea."-P. 210. From the above extracts and remarks our readers will be enabled to form some tolerable opinion of the character and value of "The Defence of Guenevere and other Poems." There can be little doubt that had more pains and a greater amount of care as to detail been expended on the book, it would have had a much better chance of obtaining a permanent place in the poetical literature of the present age. As it is, there are many deficiencies which will be obvious to the great majority of readers, and only those who are resolutely determined to defend at any cost the faults and eccentricities of the Pre-Raphaelites, as well as to sing and preach their praises, will be found to overlook them or ignore their very existence in the present instance. To be less general in our criticism, what can indicate carelessness so accurately as the lack of rhythm, the barbarous rhymes, and the oftentimes bad grammar, which in so many places disfigure the verses? "Guenevere" and "her" (p. 35), and "dawn" and "corn" twice repeated, an elegant but not an original cockneyism, are amongst these; and we might point out many other instances of a similar careless neglect. Once more, let us warn Mr. Morris not to be led by the flattery or kind opinions of friends to imagine that obscurity and profundity are convertible terms. If a writer wishes to be understood, and has anything worth saying, let him put it into language that will be intelligible to an ordinary capacity. To say but little, and that little vaguely, while more is implied, is to acknowledge on his own part a deficiency of the power or an ignorance of the art of poetry. We quite believe that much may be accomplished by the writer whose book is before us, but it will only be by a careful selfcriticism, and by a resolute determination to resist the temptations alluded to. If he persist in a course, into which, possibly inexperience may have led him in the present instance, it will not only be detrimental to himself personally, but to the entire school of which he is so respectable a representative. He has already shown himself capable of accomplishing far 1. evidences the possession of very unmistakeable originality, a thorough knowledge of many details of the subjects selected, a considerable power of language, and a good use of epithets; so that while we cordially welcome him, and thank him for the result of his past labours, we earnestly trust that we may meet him at a future period, with something that may deserve more than alternations of praise and blame, and merit wholly and altogether our kindly and friendly criticism. THE EUCHARISTIC CONTROVERSY IN SCOTLAND. 1. Declaration on the Doctrine of the Holy Eucharist: signed by the Bishops of Edinburgh, Argyll, and Glasgow. 2. Statement on the same subject. By the Bishops of Moray and S. Andrew's. 3. Address to the Bishop of Edinburgh from the Clergy of the Diocese of Edinburgh. 4. The Bishop's Reply. Edinburgh: Grant and Son. 5. Remonstrance to the Right Rev. the College of Bishops of the Church of Scotland: signed by Presbyters serving in the Scottish Church. 6. Memorial to the Right Rev. the Bishops of the Episcopal Church in Scotland: signed by Lay Members of the Episcopal Church in Scotland. 7. The Bishop of Brechin's Letter to the Earl of Wemyss. 8. Letter to the Bishop of Edinburgh, from the Rev. J. Keble, A.M., Vicar of Hursley. 9. Six Sermons on the Doctrine of the Most Holy Eucharist. By the Rev. P. Cheyne. Aberdeen: Brown and Co. To worship with the spirit and with the understanding also is the great effort of all earnest devotion. As we ponder in our hearts the truths of revelation, we cannot but endeavour to acquire an increasing appreciation of their reality: we must be careful indeed that we do not lower the thoughts of GOD to our own anticipations, and that we do not limit the infinite mystery of GoD to the finite grasp of our own intelligence. It is important to remember that however much of truth we get to know, we can know as yet only in part. Our understanding therefore must be elevated in the contemplation of Divine Mystery, and not as is too frequently the case, Divine Mystery lowered by the limitation of human understanding. For this reason faith is always positive rather than negative. While we assert what is contained within the legitimate logical scope of the words of revelation, we are safe. When we deny anything because we do not see that it is involved in those words we instantly fall into danger. The combination of Divine truth and material organization in the work of redemption involves many expressions which it is difficult for us to reconcile with the outward phenomena which alone come within the reach of our senses. As soon as the supernatural operations of grace are apprehended by us, we learn that we cannot safely say to any of them, thus far shalt thou go, and no farther. If we believe human nature to have been taken up to the throne of GOD in Heaven, we cannot deny the possibility of the like Divine assumption to any created substance. We must simply leave the matter in the Hands of GOD. What He tells us, that we must believe, and as we must believe what He tells us in all its integrity, we must upon the consequences of His words with faith in as undoubting a certainty as if our natural perceptions could trace the method of their operation. act It is now in the Eucharistic controversy that the two dispositions of mind have chiefly to be tested. There are those who believe CHRIST fully and entirely as enunciating a Divine, supernatural fact when He said, This is My Body, This is My Blood: and there are those who take these words as merely human in their power, and consequently with such limitations as are suggested by the ordinary laws of nature. The one class of believers ponder upon the truth and delight to find in them a foundation laid for new life. The other class of believers reject it because it transcends their understanding. Surely it is safer to accept God's word as meaning more than we can understand, than to cut God's word short because it is spoken to us in dark sayings and perpetuated in unfathomable operations. When CHRIST takes the Bread and says, This is My Body, we are surely safer in giving full faith, and treating it as we should treat His Body than if we were to deny that it could be Bread through failing to perceive the manner in which it is assumed into connection with His glorified Body, or to deny that it could be His Body through failing to perceive the manner in which His Presence overshadows the earthly element. The positive operation of faith accepting CHRIST's words may thus be contrasted with the negative operation of philosophical definition and rationalising scepticism which seems to be the great evil of the Roman doctrine of Transubstantiation on the one hand, and of the Calvinistic doctrine of virtual equivalence upon the other. That would indeed seem to be the less evil of the two, which ignored in a Divine Mystery the earthly portion of the instrument; and yet it can scarcely be doubted by any who are conversant with the Romish system that this error has led to most grievous practical results, not spiritualising devotion as we might perhaps have expected, but materialising and limiting that which |