fully the Conductors have adhered to the aim and spirit of thei Debates continue, as we have said, to excite spirited contention, toleration and sympathy. The Leading Papers deal as usual in a thoughtful manner with subjects of high interest in philosophy, liter and logic. In the Toiling Upward series of articles many hitherto graphies of men, who have fixed high aims steadily before the laboured sedulously for their accomplishment, have appeared; while have been rewritten have been set in a new light, and been inf definite purpose. The Essayist unfolds some of the best efforts of men to the view of their compeers-they show achievement, and bilities of greater usefulness and wider fame. The Reviewer has late to bring before readers those books of worth that have come bef make them masters of the main contents of the volumes noticed. chiefly through the indifference of our younger readers to the o small a space as can be granted them in that departmentvigorously maintained than usual. We hope this may be rec equally unsatisfactory is the Societies' Section, to which few sec seem mindful to contribute. We here and again earnestly gentlemen to correspond with us, especially when they can com thing novel and important.

The Poetic Critique fulfils its rôle in about its average manner speaks hopefully of the verses he has now on hand. The Eloquen supplies, in a preservable and readily accessible form, some of the our greatest thinkers on topics of much moment. The selections not only intrinsically valuable, but also seem capable of an admi usefulness, as supplying matter for reading and elocutionary prac legiate Course has received a new development, and certainly original form readily understood, not only rare, but useful know Literary Notes we have little to say; they form, as far as space compendious digest of the history of current literature.

The Proprietors and Conductors, as far as their opportunities done their utmost to thattain the serial,nusefulness, in such at compatible with its main aim, and in progressive interest; nor their efforts to keep pace with the desires, and aspirations of readers of the age. The work of review, at this season, bel Conductors of this serial only, but to its readers as well. aright the pages set before them, and have they striven to increas culation, that from which they have derived instruction? Abo been diligent and honest, not in the pursuit only, but in the truth? Do they not only eagerly progress themselves but also

Ha

"Pass to others what their toil hath won And, like spent runners in the torch-race, hand Each to fresh athletes, Truth's undying brand."

THE

BRITISH CONTROVERSIALIST.

Poetic Diction;

ITS LAWS AND ITS LICENCES.

'I do not know what poetical is; is it honest in deed and word? is it a true ng?”—“ As you Like it," iii., 3.

"ALL things that are," the judicious Hooker observes, "have me operation not violent or casual. That which doth assign unto ch thing the kind, that which doth moderate the force and power, at which doth appoint the form and measure of working-the ne we term a Law." Laws in this sense originate in the essenl nature of the things thought of, and imply the necessary relans between the properties and qualities of these things and their sults; they express the constant and regular order of things, and e methods according to which their energies operate. When we ow the inner norm of anything we can deduce thence the chater of its efficiencies. Laws pre-exist in things, and regulate all e possible forms of causation which they can exert. Everything at exists has inherent in it an efficient force, by the use of which acts its part among the elements of the universe. These inherent wers of action, as they form the signs of the intents and purposes the existence of each individual item in creation-in its widest se, including all mental and material nature-are regarded in ilosophical language as the enactments of the Creator; and thus the extension of a beautiful analogy, from the higher forms of ic life, into the metaphysic of being and knowing, the principle d characteristics of existences are spoken of as giving the laws of eir activity-the commands or prohibitions in regard to them to ich all must attend and which all must obey. Laws inhere in d operate among and upon all things, and hence their ever-active wers. That which forms the fundamental basis or essence of any istence coerces all that comes into relationship with it to respect more or less as a causal power, as a potential producer of phenoena; and it does so on pain of non-success, at least in the

made to sccomplish our aim in so for sa we have been

V

neglected the laws of its activities. When we know th teristics and the laws of things we can become possessed science of their possible effects. Hence science is essent science. Now prescience is the prime element in art, or p effectiveness: a foresight of the end aimed at, and a pr ment of the means by which it is to be brought about an naries of art; and these depend upon science.

Licence signifies liberty within the limits of law; an or apparent departure from the letter or specific requi the maxims or precepts which overrule activities, combi conformability to the spirit or principle of the fixed rul permitted violations of the supreme laws of things as exig justify, or at least show to be advisable in the circ Licence is exceptional action for which leave is given standing the existence of statute law to a contrary effec provision made to prevent the too rigid enforcement of law; a mode of giving a possible elasticity to a syste known to be, in general, best, and therefore most Law operates in every normal case, and claims submis ordinary circumstances. Licence is only rightly avai the true intent of the law has been obeyed to the utmos when the strict observance of the law will not subserv and chief purpose for which that law exists, which is, the b effecting of right aims by proper agencies. Licence law, and admits its claim to obedient respect. The ide is only possible as a correlate of law. Law is an orig directing energy; licence is a practical expedient for end similar to that aimed at by the law, though by a included in, yet recognized by the law. Hence Pope sa

"If, where the rules not far enough extend

(Since rules were made but to promote their end),
Some lucky licence answer to the full

The end proposed, that licence is a rule.
Thus Pegasus, a nearer way to take,

May boldly deviate from the common track,

From vulgar bounds in brave disorder part,

And snatch a grace beyond the reach of art,

Which, without passing through the judgment, gain
The heart at once, and all its end attains."

It has, however, always the law as a parallel and a refe only justified when the effect is superior, while tending end, to that attainable by obedience to the law. Licen in the very act of insubordination glorifies the law, a rously condones the offence, and takes the well-inten grace into favour. By the brilliant audacity of a reprehensible licence, Nelson gained victory at

That is bombasting out a braggart blank verse hideously unseemly. But the same writer's hi him to adopt more appropriate ideas and more e other occasions, and enabled him to redeem that the production of this genuine example of poetic "I'll cleave the world as a swimmer cleaves th Breaking the sleek green billows into froth, With tilting full-blown chest; and scattering With scornful breath, the kissing, flattering f That leaps and dallies with his dipping lip."

Life

How splendidly the alliteration in the last line is delightfully managed, too, in an earlier passage position, viz., in the early lines in which this simi

"As Hero gave her trembling sighs to fin Delicious death on wet Leander's lip."

The choice of the diction of poetry is in gene delicate process of intellectual chemistry, in wh assimilate from the poet's vocabulary the most words. For the exercise of this fine exquisitenes rules can be given, but the fact of its employmen out; its effectiveness may be illustrated, and some given regarding the abuses to which poetic diction knowledge of the principles upon which the ch made may be acquired, and hence there will arise guarding the operations of this instinct by the acti lect. As all the instincts of man require to be e does this: the glory of man is to have all his life intellect, and all its powers exercised in accordan which are found by investigation to be best adapte best results. As a specimen of the refinement of poets attain, we may instance the two following pa the words crouch and couch might have been interch loss of intelligibility; but, as will be seen at once, loss of appropriateness of emotional and imagina ness, which are among the finer essences of poetry

Ion. Why do I creep thus stealthily along,

With thief-like steps? Am I not armed by heaver
To execute its mandate on a king

Whom it both doomed ? Can hell have naltered m