British Quarterly Review, American Edition, Vol. LIII January and April, 1871 (part 2 of 4)

British Quarterly Review, American Edition, Vol. LIII January and April, 1871 (part 2 of 4)

To those who are acquainted with 'Ecce Homo,' we need not say that this is an interesting volume. There is something so fresh and bold, so frank and vigorous in all that Professor Seeley writes, that we must enjoy reading him, whether we agree with him or not, and whatsoever topic he discusses.

He writes on the 'Revolution at Rome,' and on the 'Decline and Fall of the Empire,' with a masterly grasp on an obscure and complex subject. We entirely agree with him in his estimate of Julius Cæsar's motives and character; and while we acquit Brutus himself of any mean and sordid impulse, we cannot think that he served Rome or humanity in the 'taking off' of the Dictator. If we can trust Sallust at all, the nobles for whom Pompey fought were quite unfit to govern Rome. Our author's explanation of the final fall of the Empire has more than probability. The facts justify it to a large extent. Wherever population is at a standstill, we may be sure 'there is something rotten in the State,' and may confidently anticipate its dissolution. Is not the prostrate condition of France at the time we write another illustration of the truth? Have not similar causes there produced like effects?

Our author's analysis of Milton's opinions and his critique on Milton's poetry, deserve perusal. He appreciates the solitary grandeur of the gentle and cultivated Puritan,--Titanic, yet not coarse. It is not easy to reconcile the utter disappointment, the deep heart-sorrow, of Milton's old age with his uniform hopefulness. All the more honour to him! There is nothing more paralyzing than despair. We doubt whether it should ever find utterance in a Christian's writing. We at once recognise the parallelism of Carlyle's position with Milton's in some aspects of it. We were taken aback to hear of Ruskin in a similar aspect, but our author makes out a good case for him too.

Nothing can be juster in our view than the 'Essay on Art.' These 'elementary principles' must be recognised, one is apt to say, by all thoughtful men, and we are greatly indebted to the Professor for setting them forth so clearly. We cannot too soon adopt the principle that 'art is not always independent, but in some cases parasitic; and accordingly, in judging particular performances, in architecture and oratory, it is necessary to apply two standards in succession--the practical and the artistic ... the decisive test of merit "here" being art in subordination.'

Surely no one has more right than he to speak with authority on 'University Education.' And his strictures upon the course at Cambridge, and the effects of it upon both teachers and taught, are well worthy of attention. Somehow or other it is true that life-long study is not secured by present methods, and it is a topic deserving of careful discussion. 'Why is it so, and how can it be mended?' With a great deal advanced in this searching essay we heartily agree, and we are glad to see that some suggestions in it are already being acted upon. Many more we hope and expect will become the usage of the future. We were pleased, not surprised, to find him frankly acknowledging, that in one important particular the method at Oxford is to be preferred to that at Cambridge. It is not a little humbling to us as a nation to have him say parenthetically (not as 'thesis' to be maintained--observe--but as an axiom--an unquestioned truth) that 'most good books are in German.'

Again, in regard to the study of 'English in Schools.' Who so competent as he to speak? With all that he says about the duty of teaching more fully in our schools, both the language and literature of our country, we heartily agree, though we are not prepared to go with him quite so far as to say, 'No Latin at all till a boy is fourteen.' The 'accidence' of any language are more easily learnt by young minds--it is a mere effort of memory, and strengthens it--while in later life such matters cannot be learnt as accurately, in our conviction. We hold with him, however, respecting the English, and are inclined therefore, in this matter, to the rule, 'Then ought ye to do, and not to leave the other undone.'

The strictures on preaching, again, are excellent. How well it will be if all our young preachers ponder them well! The world needs, and more than that, it likes practical preaching, if it be intelligent, sympathetic, and sincere. Every word he says about 'political preaching' we would gladly endorse. Surely it is as much within a Christian teacher's sphere as the domestic relations, and we believe that greater fidelity in the pulpit on the subject of political morality, will be followed by a great advance at the poll. Men are willing to be told where they are wrong and ought to amend, if only it be a true man who tells them so. Wherever one who is 'bone of their bone' speaks 'to them on vital topics, men will come and hear. They will not then leave the Church to the women and the children.'

With the inaugural address at Cambridge the volume closes. His subject, 'History, a Teacher of Politics,' promises much, and we are inclined to envy those who are in the way of hearing the discourses to which this one is preamble and preface. May they profit by them as much as we think we should, and our children reap the fruits in the wiser legislation of the coming generation of statesmen! Somewhere lately, we have seen the doctrine put forth, with marvellous confidence, that 'the history of the past cannot give wisdom for the future, inasmuch as Society is ever progressing, and no past state therefore can ever be exactly reproduced.' It would be as sensible to say that a legal education is of no good, because laws are ever being altered (ought we to say mended?); or a medical training, because no two human constitutions are exactly alike. 'Men are of like passions' with their forefathers, and masses of men are moved by impulses similar to those which stirred the men of old. So we believe in 'History as the Teacher of Politics,' and are glad indeed that our young politicians at Cambridge have so learned, and faithful, and courageous a guide. May they have the graces to profit by their privileges, and give their countrymen the benefit hereafter, and so disappoint the somewhat disheartening forebodings of the exordium of this discourse!

The Mutineers of the 'Bounty' and their Descendants in Pitcairn and Norfolk Islands. By Lady BELCHER. John Murray.

Lady Belcher, having obtained possession of a variety of private documents, and having from private sources gathered a variety of details, has, in this volume, told over again the romantic story of the Pitcairn Islanders. Lady Belcher herself is the step-daughter of Captain Heywood, a midshipman of the 'Bounty' at the time of the mutiny--she naturally, therefore, feels a personal interest in the subject. She is not very skilled in book-making; her narrative is desultory and overlaid with documents; but she has told the story with a fulness of detail to which the volume of Sir John Barrow, written for 'The Family Library' thirty years ago, makes no pretension. The diary of Morrison, a petty officer of the ship, gives for the first time the details of the voyage, and of the tyrannous conduct of the commander of the 'Bounty,' Lieutenant Bligh, prior to the mutiny. Clearly, Fletcher Christian was maddened by insults and overbearing tyranny. Bligh's conduct indeed seems to have been that of a madman rather than of a sane person. After the mutiny the narrative divides itself into three independent branches. First, a history of Bligh and his companions, who were sent adrift in the boat; next, of Christian and those who remained in the 'Bounty,' some involuntarily, having taken no part in the mutiny, simply because the boat in which Bligh was sent off could contain no more--among these was Peter Heywood, the midshipman. This section of the crew of the 'Bounty' landed at Tahiti, and there gave themselves up to the captain of the 'Pandora,' by whom they were treated with great and unnecessary harshness. They were put in irons, and sent to England for trial. The 'Pandora,' however, was wrecked upon a reef, and after a hazardous boat voyage, they reached Batavia, and were thence sent to England. Heywood and Morrison were adjudged guilty, on the formal ground of insufficient resistance to Christian, but were instantly and honourably pardoned; others were executed.

Christian and eight Englishmen, who remained in the 'Bounty,' went to Pitcairn Island, taking with them some Tahitian women, and founded a colony there. After some dissensions and violence, in which Christian, Edward Young, and others, lost their lives, the colony, under the rule and teaching of John Adams, became singularly peaceful and virtuous. They were not discovered for many years; and were permitted to remain unmolested; one or two adventurers joined them, and the colony remains to this day. It outgrew the small island, however, and a few years since the entire population was transferred, under the auspices of Sir William Dennison, to Norfolk Island; a few of them returned, and were last visited by Sir W. Dilke, who gives an account of them in his 'Greater Britain.'

No wonder that so romantic a narrative, and so picturesque a community, fascinated the muse of Byron, and elicited 'The Island' from his pen.

Lady Belcher has told a plain unvarnished tale, but it is one hardly to be paralleled in the romance of the seas.

European History, narrated in a Series of Historical Selections from the best Authorities. By E. M. SEWELL and S. M. YONGE. Macmillan and Co.

This is the second volume of an attempt to render history attractive and popular with young readers, and there is much to be said in its favour. The era of which it treats is from 1088 to 1228. The characters foremost on the scene are Henry II., Frederick Barbarossa, Richard I., Philip Augustus, John, St. Bernard and Abelard, Becket, Longchamp, and Langton. According to the design, we have a set of pictures by hands of very unequal power. Gibbon and Capefigue are side by side with Milman and James, while from Mr. Stubbs's masterly analysis of Henry II.'s character we pass to a portrait of Longchamp by Lord Campbell, and one of Langton by Dean Hook. The result is rather like a mosaic, but of course it could not well be otherwise. The editorial introductions are admirably done; the first, which describes the position and character of our Angevin kings, is a sketch both brilliant and accurate. The chief objection to this method of teaching history is, that writers of historical monographs are too apt to become amorous of their theme, and to indulge in much fine writing in consequence; and this objection specially applies to Mr. Morrison's account of St. Bernard, which is painfully verbose and magniloquent. Undoubtedly the best chapter in the book, and the one that will most severely tax the young student's mental energy, is that which contains Mr. Stubbs's account of Henry II.

On the Trail of the War. By ALEXANDER JAMES SHAND, Occasional Correspondent of The Times. Smith, Elder and Co.

This little volume purports to be nothing more than a full and true account of the ordinary incidents in an extraordinary state of things which occur on the trail of the war. To this position the author strictly confines himself, leaving the more stirring events of the front to be described by others. Some of the papers are reprints from The Times, but the greater portion of them are original, and may be supposed to be a veracious account of the progress of the armies as beheld from the rear. The author's departure from London is told with a picturesque dash, which predisposes the reader for the hacking, hewing, and slashing he has subsequently to go through; while the last chapter resumes the situation, as the French say, in a warm outburst of dread, and admiration of the strength of new-born Germany. Mr. Shand evidently sees amid all this ponderous power, the stumbling-block over which she must one day totter and fall. To the paramount passion of nationality from which this gigantic Germany has been created, will likewise be owing her quick decay and sudden dissolution. This feeling makes the wisest of Germans lose his head when speaking of united Germany, and proclaim himself proud to belong to God's chosen people. To this we can only answer from our own personal experience, that if the impatience created by the restless variety and overweening self-laudation of the French, are to be exchanged for the cold pedantry and haughty arrogance of the Prussians, Europe will have made but a sorry bargain. We cannot agree with Mr. Carlyle in his opinion that we may be greatly benefited by this sudden transfer of moral power from light satirical France to heavy overbearing Prussia. We can only pray to be preserved from both.

The Revolt of the Protestants of the Cevennes; with some Account of the Huguenots in the Seventeenth Century. By Mrs. BRAY, Author of 'The Good St. Louis and his Times,' 'The White Hoods,' &c. John Murray.

Of all the stirring romances hitherto published by Mrs. Bray, the true history before us is assuredly the most stirring and the most romantic. The single story of Jean Cavalier, the baker's boy of Anduze, contains the elements of a dozen romances. From his first appearance on the stage of history to do his allotted work, to his final sinking into honourable obscurity when his work was done, Jean Cavalier shines out as the true and gallant soldier of the cross, the faithful defender of the right, the constant avenger of the wrong. He was a youth of seventeen, the eldest of three sons of a shepherd of Anduze. 'Altogether,' says Mrs. Bray, 'he was such as we may fancy him to have been, who, armed with the shepherd's sling in the cause of the Lord, overcame the giant Philistine.' None could have thought that such a one could have been chosen to avenge the iniquitous Edict of Nantes, issued by the greatest monarch of Europe, at the instigation of the wisest woman of her day. The boy had been apprenticed to a baker at Anduze, and this circumstance was in itself a fund of amusement at the court of Versailles, where the 'Petit Maître' and the 'Garçon Boulanger' served as whetstones to the wit of the courtiers at the petit lever and grand coucher of the king. But the baker's boy had been endowed by heaven with the strangest and most mysterious of gifts--a military genius untaught, and frank as nature's self--which ere long caused the boldest of the Great Monarch's generals to tremble and turn pale at even the mention of his name. No other account of this extraordinary talent has been given than that during his shepherd life he would love to spend whole hours on the Garden watching the manoeuvres of the soldiers, who at that time were stationed in the country in order to force the Protestants into adoption of the Catholic faith. No other lesson in military science had he ever taken, and yet he defeated the boldest troops and ablest generals of the proudest army in the world! The mysterious nature of his mission, reminds one strongly of Joan of Arc. At nineteen years of age he quitted France for ever, leaving behind him the memory of his glory and the grateful affection of the Protestants of the Cevennes, by whom his name is revered and cherished to this very day.

Mrs. Bray has performed her task of biographer of Jean Cavalier in the most satisfactory and conscientious manner, with all the stedfastness of the historian and the enthusiasm of the romance writer. 'The Revolt in the Cevennes' is a charming book, and should be placed in the hands of every Protestant boy and girl throughout the world.

The Correspondence of the Right Honourable William Wickham, from the year 1794. Edited, with Notes, by his Grandson, WILLIAM WICKHAM, M.A. Two vols. 8vo. London. 1870.

These volumes are another contribution to the still increasing store of material for the history of the great French Revolution; the first act of that great drama of which another is now being played amid sympathies and antipathies, hopes and fears, perhaps as intense, certainly more widely felt, than those which accompanied the first lifting of the curtain. Now, however, the Revolution and the ancien régime have become accustomed to each other, and know that though it be but as cat and dog, they must awhile lead some sort of life together; and they have modified their reciprocal attitude accordingly. Then each startled by the first apparition of the other, glared at it with the hate, not of prolonged antagonism, but of instant death-grapple. Free England, guided by great and noble-minded men--Pitt, Lord Grenville, and Burke--not only joined in, but led the resistance of the Continental sovereigns, and we have no need to blush for the conduct of our grandsires. Whether, looking from our present coign of vantage, we may judge England's course then wise or imprudent, the evidence afforded by these volumes is enough to show--admitting the hostile prejudice which an established and aristocratic government must needs have against a mushroom democracy--that our statesmen descended to the fray with an honesty of purpose, and an elevated sense of national duty on which we may reflect with grateful and patriotic pride.

Mr. Wickham was twice sent by Lord Grenville as minister to Switzerland; to the comparatively slight duties of which office was added the onerous task of concerting, in correspondence with the Royalists in France, with the Prince of Condé, the Court of Vienna, Marshal Suwarrow, General Pichegru, and many others, the measures to be taken against their common foe--the Directory in Paris. At the time of Mr. Wickham's earlier mission, Bonaparte had not yet risen to power, and if Mr. Wickham could have inspired with his own zeal and prudence the selfish and blind potentates whom he was aiding with English counsel and treasure, the glittering series of Napoleonic phenomena might never have appeared. Mr. Wickham was regarded with the most perfect confidence by his own Government. How dangerous he proved to their foes may be judged from the fact that when at a later period he was named to represent his country at the courts, first of Berlin and then of Vienna, his appointment was objected to because it would be displeasing to the French Government.

By those who are either well acquainted with, or are studying the history of the French Revolution, these volumes will be highly prized, while general readers will find much of great interest in a correspondence which comprises letters from George III., Louis XVIII., the Prince de Condé, and the Duc d'Enghien, the Archduke Charles, Marshal Suwarrow, and many others, besides the despatches and other communications which passed between Mr. Wickham and his chief, Lord Grenville. The present Mr. Wickham has added succinct biographical notes concerning the several correspondents and persons named, some introductory remarks to the several groups of despatches, and a slight sketch of his grandfather's career, written with grace and modest pride. The first volume is embellished with a portrait of the diplomatist; and the second with a very interesting one of the most eccentric of great men--Suwarrow.

Nearly all the letters now published relate to Mr. Wickham's foreign missions. He afterwards served as Secretary for Ireland, and while he held that office Emmet's rebellion occurred. He was also a member of the ministry of 'All the Talents.' If he has left as interesting memorials of his later services as of his earlier ones, we hope that his grandson may at a future time let his present good work be followed by a publication of Mr. Wickham's later correspondence.

Cicero. Select Letters. With English Introductions, Notes, and Appendices. By ALBERT WATSON, M. A. Macmillan and Co. Clarendon Press Series.

The letters of Cicero, on account of the materials they supply for the history of the Roman constitution during its last struggles, the light they throw upon the motives and movements of the partisan leaders, and the insight they afford into the character of Cicero himself, are justly regarded as the most important and instructive of his literary productions. Cicero's correspondence extends over the space of twenty-six years; and of the letters written during this eventful period to a wide circle of literary and political friends and connexions, there are extant upwards of 850, which are undoubtedly genuine. Up to the present time, this portion of Cicero's writings has received but little attention at the hands of English editors. In Germany, excellent editions have been published by Billerbeck, Boot, Frey, Hofman, and Süple; while in England we have only an inferior edition of the letters to Atticus by a Master of Arts, and a selection of 111 letters by E. St. John Parry, intended to illustrate the public life of Cicero, accompanied with notes which are purely historical. The volume before us is also a selection of 148 letters, taken almost exclusively out of the two chief divisions of Cicero's correspondence--the Epistolæ ad Familiares, those ad Diversos, and the Epistolæ ad Atticum--containing together 822 letters. The first letter in this volume is dated July 65 B.C., and the last July 43 B.C. The collection, therefore, covers one of the most momentous periods in Roman history. Mr. Watson, in making the present selection of letters, has been principally guided by considerations of their historical importance, or of their value as illustrating Cicero's character. The collection is divided into parts or groups, each of which is preceded by a lengthy and valuable introduction, furnishing the reader with a digest of the leading public events, and a review of the state of political parties during each period. In this portion of the work, the editor has borrowed largely from the well-known 'History of Rome,' by Professor Mommsen, and from Brückner's 'Life of Cicero.' The works of Zumpt, Drumann, Abeken, and Reen, have also been laid under heavy contributions. In the appendices to those sections, the reader will find discussed with clearness and ability many legal and historical questions, highly important for the right understanding of allusions in the letters--e.g., the legal question at issue between Cæsar and the Senate, the Calendar, the meaning of the terms 'colonia,' 'municipium,' and 'præfectura,' &c. These introductions and appendices add greatly to the value of the volume. The notes are far more numerous, but not so learned and valuable as those of the German editions. Indeed, many are so brief and unimportant that it is difficult to account for their insertion, and seem quite out of place in a work which is evidently not intended for tyros. The only persons qualified to read the letters of Cicero are the highest classes in schools, and students at the Universities, neither of which stand in need of a translation of passages and of words that involve no particular difficulty. The following are taken ad apertram libri:--ὕστερον πρότερον, 'I will answer your last question first;' Ὁμηρικῶς 'after the manner of Homer;' contiones, 'addresses to the populace;' manum, 'crew;' in eo ... erant omnia, 'on that everything depended;' inopiam, 'the neediness;' judicium, 'the trial.' Most of the notes are, in our opinion, too elementary for qualified readers of the correspondence of Cicero. The abundant references to Madvig's Grammar will be found exceedingly useful. On the whole, it is an excellent edition, and cannot be perused without greatly enlarging one's knowledge and deepening one's interest in these unique epistolary writings.

The Life of Richard Deane, Major-General, and General at Sea, in the service of the Commonwealth, and one of the Commissioners of the High Court of Justice appointed for the Trial of King Charles the First. BY JOHN BATHURST DEANE, M.A., F.S.A., of Pembroke College, Cambridge; Corresponding Member of the New England Historic Genealogical Society; Rector of St. Martin Outwich. Longmans, 1870. 8vo.

Another successful attempt to rescue a great historical reputation from the slanders of the scurrilous pamphleteers of the Restoration, and one of which it is no mean praise to say, that it is not unworthy of a place beside Mr. Markham's recently published noble vindications of Fairfax. The 'Goodman Button (a hoyman of Ipswich), his boy' of the 'Mystery of the Good Old Cause,' which would seem to have been the source from whence Bates, Winstanley, Heath, and the author of the 'Lives of the King-killers,' as well as Clarendon, drew their inspiration, turns out to have been the son of a Gloucestershire gentleman, who was connected both by birth and by marriage with such families as the Wickhams, the Hampdens, and the Mildmays; and the 'Hoyman of Ipswich' to have been a captain in the King's service, who was attached to the Royal Dockyard, at Harwich, and was a kinsman of Sir Thomas Button's, a near relative of the St. Johns and the Cromwells. Mr. Deane having been fortunate enough to discover a copy of the elaborate and elegant Latin inscription which was composed for the tablet erected to the memory of his illustrious ancestor in Westminster Abbey, among the additional MSS. in the British Museum, has been directed by it to the entry of his baptism in the register of the parish of Lower Guyting, near Winchcombe. It is as follows: 'Anno Dni. 1610, ye viii daie of Julie, was baptized Richard Deane, ye sonne of Edward Deane.' His mother was a Warre, and his grandmother a Wickham, through whom he was connected with the Hampdens and the Cromwells; and his aunt Joan seems to have married Robert Mildmay, of Terling, the grandson of Sir Thomas Mildmay, one of the auditors of the Court of Augmentation in the reign of Henry VIII., and grand-nephew of Sir Walter Mildmay, the founder of Emmanuel College, Cambridge. We have no knowledge of Deane's career up to the year 1642, beyond the fact of his having served under Captain Button, of Harwich, during some part of that period; nor have we any of his private life at all, except that he married Mary Grimsditch, and that at his death he left two daughters by her, Mary and Hannah, the former of whom died unmarried, and the latter married Goodwin Swift, attorney-general of Tipperary, and uncle to the well-known Dean of St. Patrick's, Jonathan Swift. From the year 1642 to that of his death, however, few names are more frequently mentioned in the annals of his day than that of Richard Deane. He early and heartily espoused the cause of the Parliament in the great civil war, under a conviction that in no other way could the religion and the liberties of the country be saved; and soon proved himself to be 'one of those extraordinary men, produced by revolutionary times, who by the innate force of an energetic character, surmount the difficulties of birth and station, and, rising to authority, seem as if they had been born and educated for it; no one wondering either at their elevation, or at the ease with which they discharge the duties of the highest offices.' His biographer has related his great services to the cause which he espoused with singular impartiality, which renders his work a valuable contribution to the general history of his times. After the trial and execution of the King, in which, as is well known, Deane took a very prominent part, he was appointed, 'in connection with Colonels Edward Popham and Robert Blake, as one of the three generals at sea,' with 'co-ordinate powers.' In 1651, he assumed the chief command in Scotland, where he was the principal means of bringing about the 'eight years' tranquillity' which Bishop Barnet 'so commends and attributes to the (happy) usurpation.' War now breaking out with the Dutch, Deane was hastily summoned to rejoin the fleet. It was in action with the Dutch that he met with his death, June 2, 1653. 'He fell at the moment of victory, sword in hand, in the bow of his ship, as he was waving his sword and encouraging his men to follow him in boarding 'the Dutch Admiral,' Van Tromp. Deane was buried with all honour in the chapel of Henry VII., at Westminster Abbey, on the 24th of February following. 'The corpse,' the authors of the 'Parliamentary History of England' inform us, 'was brought from Greenwich to Westminster Bridge by water, attended by thirty barges in mourning. The procession was saluted in their passage by all the ships in the river, and the Tower guns. In the evening, the body was interred in the Abbey with great pomp; the lord-general and his council, with all the officers of the navy and army then in town, attending the funeral.' After the Restoration, his body, together with those of twenty others of his contemporaries, was removed and re-interred in the adjoining churchyard. The sympathies of his biographer may be inferred from the following comments on this act of Charles II. and his advisers. 'If their bodies had been decently removed from the church to the churchyard, no blame can justly attach to the King for the removal, for he naturally desired to clear his own family vaults of those whom he might undoubtedly regard as intruders. But it is not quite so certain that the removal and re-interment were so decorously conducted as tradition says they were. The present Dean of Westminster, with the laudable desire of ascertaining not only the place, but also the manner of re-burial, caused, in November, 1869, the ground to be opened on the spot supposed to be the grave of the removed, but found no evidence of a decent and careful interment, such as fragments of coffins, and skeletons lying side by side in the order of deposit, but only a confused mass of bones, so mixed together as to suggest an irreverent emptying of coffins into a large common pit. The Dean, and other members of the Chapter who accompanied him, went away, and still remain in the charitable hope that they have failed in discovering the deposit which they sought, but have fallen in with some other not unusual spectacle in crowded churchyards, where the callous sexton of one generation shovels away the coffinless bones of the preceding, to make room for the bodies of his own contemporaries who may have occasion for his services. It is earnestly to be hoped that such was the case here, and that the only indignity to which Richard Deane and Robert Blake were exposed, was the removal of their remains from the burial place of kings to that of ordinary Christians, with no other memorial of their names than that of their deathless renown. Be the case as it may, these facts are certain, they fought on the same deck, died in the same cause, and were buried in the same pit. They had been loving and pleasant in their lives, and in their graves they were not divided.' We congratulate Mr. Deane on the ability, the fairness, and the diligence which he has brought to his praiseworthy undertaking. He has rendered the historical student admirable service.

John Wesley and the Evangelical Reaction of the Eighteenth Century. By JULIA WEDGEWOOD. Macmillan and Co.

The Life and Times of the Rev. John Wesley, M.A., Founder of the Methodists. By Rev. L. TYERMAN. Vols. I. and II. Hodder and Stoughton.

Our literary and ecclesiastical authorities are much occupied at present with the life-work and surroundings of John Wesley, with his relation to the Church of England, and with the probable position that would have been assigned to an ecclesiastical reformer, or revivalist, occupying in the Church of Rome a position analogous to that of John Wesley in the English Church. We do not endorse the big words with which Mr. Tyerman opens up his subject. 'Is it not a truth (he asks) that Methodism is the greatest fact in the history of the Church of Christ? Methodism has now existed one hundred and thirty years. Is there any other system that has spread itself as widely in an equal period? We doubt it.' Whether the victories of Methodism over other ecclesiastical organizations, or over religious indifferentism, or over the stubborn resistance to God's truth of the barbarian or the idolater, can be paralleled with the past successes of the Apostolic Church or not, and whether numbers or area can now be used as measures of greatness, may be considered open questions, but no ecclesiastical writer pretending to honour truth or candour can hide his eye to the fact of Methodism, or to the vitality it displays at the present moment. We are thankful for this instalment of Mr. Tyerman's valuable work. There is a mine of wealth, a store-house of treasure, in the unimpeachable diary and authentic correspondence contained in this first volume, which will amply repay most careful attention.

Miss Julia Wedgewood, in our opinion, has done very excellent service. She has not attempted to write a memoir of John Wesley or his brother, or a history of Methodism, nor has she kept up a chronological continuity in her fascinating pages, but she has shown us the remarkable figure of Wesley upon a great variety of backgrounds. Methodism at Oxford, with its first obstacles in the painfully exacting conscience and scrupulosity of Wesley himself, becomes a vivid sketch of Oxford life at the commencement of the eighteenth century. Methodism in Virginia becomes an impressive representation of the relation of England to her colonies. The conflict of Methodism with Bristol and Cornwallese colliers; its hand to hand fight with the devils of hysteria and fear, and with those of bigotry and exclusiveness; with Moravian theology, and with Calvinism and its old problem of the universe, are all well told in a succession of bright and thoughtfully conceived pictures. There is very remarkable candour, much good sense, and wise use of material in her work; and the volume will bring the high enthusiasm and glorious earnestness of Wesley into contact with classes that would remain strangers to the more elaborate biographical details of Mr. Tyerman. The subject is so large--so important in all its bearings--that we cannot dismiss these works with a cursory notice; we shall hope, at an early date, to return to the literature and ecclesiastical position of the Wesleys.

Memorials of the late Rev. William M. Bunting; being Selections from his Sermons, Letters, and Poems. Edited by the Rev. G. STRINGER ROWE. With a Biographical Introduction by THOMAS PERCIVAL BUNTING. Wesleyan Conference Office.

The characteristic of William Bunting which all who knew him would assuredly mention first was an unbounded power of loving; and as the effect of this as near an embodiment of the 'charity' of the Epistle to the Corinthians as is perhaps possible to men who love truth and the God of truth. 'Grace to all them that love the Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity,' was not only a sentiment upon his lips, it was an instinctive, irrepressible feeling of his heart. Few men were more attached to his own Church; few men had more large-hearted and loving appreciation of the good men and good things of all other Churches. Charity was the 'bond of his perfectness.' Wherever Christ was to be served, the souls of men benefited, faithful preachers to be heard, fervent worship to be joined in, there, according to his opportunity, William Bunting was to be found. Our cathedrals were familiar with his tall, attenuated, intellectual figure. In any Nonconformist congregation in London, where worship and preaching were edifying, he was at any time as likely to be found as in a Wesleyan Chapel. Few of the principal Nonconformist pulpits were unfamiliar with his ministrations. His friends were the best ministers of every evangelical church. He was a lover of all good men, and all good men loved him. He was a kind of tertium quid, around which the best men and feelings of the different sects crystallized into beautiful forms of charity. No one thought of him as belonging to any one section of the Church; the feeling towards him was that he belonged to all. This volume of memorials will be valued by his friends. The brief biographical sketch by his brother is sufficient for the record of his uneventful life; it is racy and piquant in its style, yet fervent and tender in its love and devout sympathy.

As a preacher, Mr. Bunting was diffuse and therefore lengthy, and sometimes tedious, although his brother testifies to his great efficiency.

As a letter-writer he was wonderfully loquacious; some of his letters, as he says, 'as long as a life,' even as abbreviated here, filling eight or ten pages of print. Rarely could he have said with Paul, 'I have written a letter unto you in few words:' but they are wonderfully loving, enthusiastic and brilliant, full of delicate sympathy and beautiful piety and charity.

Chiefly, however, Mr. Bunting excelled as a writer of hymns. Two or three of his compositions have found their way into popular hymnals, and are not likely to be forgotten. The tender pathos of the 'Song in the Night Season,'

'Thou doest all things well,'

has not often been surpassed.

The Life of Arthur Tappan. With Preface by the Rev. NEWMAN HALL, LL.D. Sampson Low and Co.

Mr. Tappan was a New York merchant, of a type which the laudator temporis acti would tell us was once not uncommon, but is now rarely to be met with either in America or England. This we are loth to believe. There are still, thank God, not a few upright, God-fearing, noble-hearted men, who will do and dare whatever righteousness and religion may demand. Mr. Tappan was eminently one who 'feared God and eschewed evil,' whose business was as much a religion to him as church-worship. His one simple maxim was to do right at any cost. He is said to have been the first man in America 'to make use of money in large sums for benevolent objects.' Certainly he was generous, to the verge of prudence; and when reverses came upon him he did not begin retrenchment with the things of God. His high-toned morality did not always square with the morals of Wall-street, and often involved him in perplexing and ludicrous entanglements; but nothing could shake his determination to do right. Several business friends wished to help him in his pecuniary difficulties, but urged upon him as a tacit condition the desirableness of lessening his anti-slavery denunciations. His short and decisive answer was, 'I will be hung first.' He was the prime mover and leader of many things, greatest and best, in the religious life of America. He was president of the Anti-Slavery Society, and one of the founders of the Bible Society, the Tract Society, Oberlin College, and the American Education Society--to all of which he gave large pecuniary and laborious personal assistance. He was a kind of American John Thornton in his religious philanthropy. He fought many a fierce and fearless battle, especially in the anti-slavery cause--when to be its advocate was to imperil life. He was mobbed, and had a price set upon his head. A more beautiful, single-hearted, noble life of integrity, industry, fearlessness, and generosity has rarely been lived. His closing days at Newhaven have an interesting setting of New England Puritanism, and were quiet, devout, and beautiful. In a higher sense than mere amassing of money he was a 'successful merchant.' Our merchants will do well to read this interesting memoir, and to learn anew from it the old lesson that 'the fear of the Lord is, indeed, the beginning of wisdom.'

Journeys in North China, Manchuria, and Eastern Mongolia; with some Account of Corea. By the Rev. ALEXANDER WILLIAMSON, B.A., Agent of the National Bible Society of Scotland. With Illustrations and 2 Maps. Two vols. Smith, Elder and Co.

Mr. Williamson has contributed to the literature of travel and of science another of those thorough, sober, and instructive books which have been one of the incidental results of Christian Missions. To the ordinary advantages over casual visitors, which long residence and familiar intimacy gives to a missionary, and to the conscientiousness which his religious position and character impose upon him, Mr. Williamson, as a highly-educated medical man, adds a higher degree of scientific knowledge than many of his brethren possess, which qualifies him to speak of the configuration, products, and possibilities of the country in a way that will impart valuable knowledge. Mr. Williamson first visited China as a missionary in connection with the London Missionary Society. His health failed after two or three years' residence, and he returned to England. On the re-establishment of his health he returned to China, about seven years ago, as an agent of the National Bible Society of Scotland. These volumes are, virtually, the journal-records of eight extensive journeys through various parts of North China, which he has made in the prosecution of his evangelistic labours. It need scarcely be remarked that a man so occupied, the very business of whose life is to travel from place to place, and to cultivate familiar intercourse with the people, has opportunities for the acquisition of knowledge, to which no mere casual traveller, or resident merchant, or professional man can pretend. Accordingly, Mr. Williamson's volumes are full of minute, thorough, and novel information of all kinds concerning the country and the people; they are utilitarian enough for a blue book, while they have the general interest of a book of travels in countries of which we are almost entirely ignorant. We do not, in fact, remember two volumes the information of which is so valuable, and the interest of which is so great, at this particular juncture especially, when our peaceful relations with China are again in peril. Our Government, as well as the general public, may gather from them more accurate and extensive information respecting the sources and character of Chinese feeling towards us, than from any other source whatever--not excepting even the valuable and intelligent information furnished by our diplomatic agents. Mr. Williamson has been among the people as distinguished from officials, and he speaks confidently concerning the peacefulness and friendliness of their disposition towards Protestant missionaries. He travelled unarmed, and encountered no violence or rudeness, nothing more than the occasional attempts at extortion with which travellers are not unfamiliar in London and New York. They are grossly ignorant, and in some places look upon Europeans as a different species of beings. 'In some places they calls us "devils," not in impertinence, but in genuine ignorance of our origin and character; so much so, that they often use this term with complimentary prefixes, as e.g., their practice of calling a friend of ours Kwhe tze ta jen, "His Excellency the Devil." Moreover, they often use this term in our courts of justice. In other places they look upon us as a race of fierce men not quite up to the mark in mental powers. Many a time have foreigners been provoked by Chinamen coming up to them, patting them on the shoulder, and caressing them just as we would a huge Newfoundland dog, or a semi-tamed lion. Nor is this all. They appear in many districts to look upon us as a species of fools. Often have I observed Chinamen address myself and others just as mendacious nursery-maids address children, as if we were incapable of seeing through their barefaced lies and shallow deceit.' The Imperial claim is as preposterous as ever--as shown by the refusal to receive Prince Alfred--and is a serious obstacle in national intercourse. Lord Elgin attempted effectually to destroy this by a march on Peking, which was baffled by the flight of the Emperor to Tartary. The Chinese people sadly lack truth, uprightness, and honour, the fear of God. The opium trade, which has been our great disgrace, and which has, it is feared, extended beyond all legislative or diplomatic control, is the deadly curse of the country. 'There are literally millions,' says Mr. Williamson, 'to whom opium is more valuable than life. The only hope is the creation of a public opinion against it among those who abstain from the poison, and among the young; so that the generation of opium smokers may, in due course, die out. The reformation has already commenced, and only needs to be fostered and systematized.'

The Roman Catholics are much disliked by the Chinese, chiefly because of the outrages committed by the French soldiers during the late war--the fatal blunder into which our neighbours always fall in their dealings with weaker nations, or in their attempts to colonize: wherever they go, they invariably succeed in getting themselves well hated. Another cause of dislike to the Roman Catholics is the assumptions of the priests, and their arbitrary claims to property. 'There is no hostility on the part of the people towards Protestant missionaries.' And Mr. Williamson thinks that 'were the matter of inland residence made a provision in treaty engagements, there would be little or no difficulty in carrying it out.' The hostility of the mandarins during the last year or two, the Tien-tsin massacres, and other indications of dislike in the governing classes, are attributed by Mr. Williamson to 'the ultra-liberal policy of our Government, and especially to that outburst of hostile criticism in the spring of 1869, on the part of our officials and leading politicians and writers at home, all of which was duly communicated to the Chinese authorities, leading them to believe either that we were sure of our strength, or had lost all interest in our countrymen in China.' Mr. Williamson lays great stress on a demand being made for 'inland residence under proper sanction;' and he argues this from the perfect success of the experiment, so far as it has been made. 'Protestant missionaries, British, German, and American, have been labouring unmolested for some years, in many of their inland cities.' The Chinese opponents of missionaries are not the people, but corrupt officials, who oppose everything foreign and everything calculated to enlighten or improve the moral tone of the people. Mr. Williamson's reply to such diplomats and writers as denounce the missionaries in China, or sneer at them, is not only conclusive, it is perfectly crushing. Five powerful foreign legations have for several years resided in Pekin, viz., the British, American, French, Russian, and Prussian. They had very able men and very great facilities. Not long ago, the head of the British Legation thought fit to taunt the missionaries, by urging them to begin by converting the higher classes, adding that 'China would be raised through them, not in spite of them.' Mr. Williamson pertinently asks, what with all their ability and opportunities they have done, and unhesitatingly answers, nothing! All the European books, lesson books, and books of science especially, which it is no part of the missionary's function to produce, have been compiled or translated by them. 'Dr. Hobson has given them works on Physiology; on the Principles and Practice of Surgery; on the Practice of Medicine and Materia Medica; on the Diseases of Children; on the Elements of Chemistry and Natural Philosophy. Mr. Wylie has given them the whole of Euclid; De Morgan's Algebra, in thirteen books; Loomis' Analytical Geometry and Differential and Integral Calculus, in eighteen books, and also the first part of Newton's Principia which is now in process of completion. Mr. Edkins has translated Whewell's Mechanics, and given them many other contributions on science and Western literature. Mr. Muirhead has produced a work on English history, and another on universal geography. Dr. Bridgman has published a finely illustrated work on the United States of America. Dr. W. P. Martin has translated Wheaton's International Law, and just published an elaborately illustrated work in three large volumes, on Chemistry and Natural Philosophy. Other missionaries have given them works on Electro-telegraphy, Botany, and elementary treatises on almost every subject of Western science.' Would it not be as well for some of these diplomatic gentlemen to employ their abundant leisure in emulating, rather than in sneering at the earnest philanthropy of these hard-working missionaries. Until they can show something like such a list of contributions to Chinese enlightenment, shame should keep them silent, even if they are incapable of generous appreciation.

These matters, however, are only touched in the introductory part of Mr. Williamson's book, which is an intelligent traveller's account of China and the Chinese. It is full of matter for quotation; but for this we have no space. At one of the temples in Manchuria, Mr. Williamson saw an instrument, which was the famous praying machine. 'Prayers are pasted both on the inside and outside of the barrels, which being turned round, their prayers are presented, as they suppose, to their god.' Some curious church music was aided by 'two trumpets, each of which was about twelve feet long, with a mouth two feet in diameter; they were mounted on small wheel-carriages, like guns, and the players reclined upon the ground when playing.' This was in the famous Temple of Do-la-nor. At one place the landlord, having no clock, fastened a huge fat cock under Mr. Williamson's bed, lest he should oversleep himself. We will add only, that the book is written in a plain, business-like style, that it is full of valuable facts, that, in appendices, Mr. Edkins and others have contributed valuable papers, and that, in our judgment, it is one of the most sterling and instructive, as it is one of the most modest books of travels that has appeared for years.

Westward by Rail: the New Route to the East. By W. F. RAE. Longmans, Green and Co.

The temptations to fulsome eulogy or to exaggerated caricature are, to a writer of a book of American travels, so great and are so rarely resisted, that Mr. Rae, as a signal exception, deserves the very highest praise. His feeling to America and Americans is evidently of the kindest, and yet he has had such a wholesome fear of fulsome praise, that he has put himself under almost undue restraint--the greys predominate in his colouring. He has everywhere manifestly endeavoured to see things as they are and to describe them as he saw them; the result is a sober, judicious, intelligent book, that vouches for its own trustworthiness. Mr. Rae describes only the route across the American continent from New York to San Francisco by the Great Pacific Railway. He tells us that the basis of his book is two series of letters which appeared in the Daily News, revised and recast. He writes in an easy, accustomed style, as men write whose pen is the weapon with which they fight the battle of life. He has imagination enough and descriptive power enough to redeem his narrative from the dryness of a log, and he has sufficiently large and varied knowledge of the world to qualify him to form wise, practical, and genial estimates of things. Much in American life is novel and experimental, and demands in its judge no small power of constructive imagination. Much in American feeling is provincial, wayward, and almost morbidly sensitive, and needs great candour for the appreciation of its fresh, generous, and noble elements. The Americans are rapidly outgrowing some of the follies of their youth; there are still in the practical administration of politics and social economies many things--worse than follies--that belie the noble principles of their constitution, and that the warmest friends of America cannot but look upon with anxiety. The extent of administrative corruption, the unscrupulousness of party politics, not only as towards each other but as towards other nations--such passionate, undignified, and manifestly venal messages as the one just sent to Congress by President Grant for instance, with the political interpretations of which it is susceptible--render it a question of great solicitude whether these are the moral weaknesses of childhood, which experience and discipline will cure, so as to develope a nation high and courteous in political as in social and personal honour, or whether its political maturity will manifest the faithlessness and unscrupulousness which so sadly stain the escutcheons of some European nations, and which necessitate a constant and suspicious vigilance; we strongly hope in the higher developement, but the centenary of the nation's birth is near at hand, and we are longing to see a high-minded government and policy such as we do not see yet.

Mr. Rae describes with smartness, the railways and cars and travelling ways of America as they have often been described. He especially commends to our own greater railway companies the luxury of Pullman's sleeping cars, and we heartily endorse the recommendation. It is no small luxury to be able to go to bed while traveling at the rate of thirty miles an hour in America--of from forty to fifty here--those who cannot sleep may at any rate enjoy a sprawl with disencumbered limbs. We would also add a recommendation of the check system with luggage; what should prevent our companies giving passengers a check, to which a corresponding number is affixed to the piece of luggage, so that the latter might be delivered to the porter or a servant presenting the check? The comfort of being delivered from all anxiety about luggage is a great luxury of American travel. Mr. Rae describes Chicago 'the Garden City,' 'the Queen of the West,' 'the Queen of the Lakes,' as it is proudly called. Forty years ago it was a log fort, to-day 300,000 well-to-do people, many of them as wealthy merchants as any in the States, occupy in palatial residences one of their most imposing cities. Mr. Rae's account of the Mormons is not very eulogistic, and is we suspect much nearer the truth than most of the superficial accounts, the result of an hour's conversation, note-book in hand, that have reached us. Brigham Young's peculiar institution does not commend itself even on utilitarian grounds: the intolerance, jealousy and violence of the Mormon city, restrained only by the adjacent United States' camp, must make it an unenviable residence: while even the vaunted industry of the residents is seriously qualified in Mr. Rae's estimate of what has been done in relation to the condition of the place. We commend Mr. Rae's careful study of Mormondom to all who have been fascinated by the glamour of writers like Mr. Dixon. Mr. Rae has much to say concerning California, the enterprise of the people and their great future; but he gives special emphasis to their ultra-provincialism, and what surprises us more, implies a slighting estimate of their hospitality. Of their literature he speaks in glowing terms--indeed he seems to think the provincial press of the States superior to the New York press. Mr. Rae's book is restricted to the route which he travelled, and to matters connected with it; it is therefore limited in its range. He has also a slight tendency to preach, but, as a whole, his book may be very highly commended as an honest and successful attempt to represent Brother Jonathan as he really is.

A Voyage round the World. By the Marquis de BEAUVOIR. In Two vols. John Murray, Albemarle-street. 1870.

These charming volumes come before us with every claim to interest. The author is a Frenchman without national prejudice--a mere boy in years without either self-sufficiency or vain-glory--a nobleman of high degree without morgue or arrogance, to whom fortune has allotted an inestimable opportunity of improving the gifts of nature by sending him as companion to the young Duc de Penthièvre, on this easy, pleasant 'Voyage round the World.' All these conditions unite to predispose the reader to a series of novel emotions in traversing an already beaten track. The Duc de Penthièvre is introduced to us as a young man of high intelligence and sterling character, who, in spite of his youth, had already seen six years of service in the United States' navy, and gained promotion therein by merit alone--not as homage to his position as scion of a royal house. The princes of the House of Orleans have been apt scholars in the great school of adversity. It would be well for France if the lessons they have been learning could be turned to account in the government of their own country. We learn from M. de Beauvoir's preface that, during the space of three months, three princes of Orleans left Europe to see if in some distant land they might not utilize their talents and energy, as at present they were unable to devote them to the service of their own. The Duc d'Alençon entered the Spanish service, and took command of the artillery during the glorious expedition to the Philippine Islands; the Prince de Condé went to India and Australia, where death cut him off at the commencement of his career; and the Duc de Penthièvre, the Prince de Joinville's son, started on a voyage round the world. No greater proof of the great change which has come over the social world of France could be found than this announcement made so simply by our author.

The two volumes under review are devoted to Australia, Java, Siam, and Canton. The novel judgments of men and things, attributable to the extreme youth and exceptional position of the writer, gives an entirely original insight into the manners and customs of the higher classes of these different countries. Naturally enough, we turn at once to Australia. Throughout the whole of the volume which treats of Australia, the national pride of the English reader is gratified to its fullest extent, not by empty praise of material wealth and rich produce, but by solid admiration of the perseverance, tenacity of purpose, and high intelligence with which the mother country has resisted all temptation to impose a yoke upon her distant children; and has thereby caused their hearts to cling closer to her own, than those of her nearer and dearer progeny. We can readily sympathise with the pleased astonishment which seizes upon the Marquis de Beauvoir, when he contrasts the wise abstention from all interference in the local government of the colony, with the petty and vexatious pressure of French authority in Algeria.

One instance of the equity of the law as practised in the colony, contrasted with the following of its mere letter, peculiar to the tribunals of Europe, we cannot pass over.

'In going through the workshops we remarked two native blacks, mere children, and utterly hideous, but with a perfectly gentle expression. Their extremely white teeth exposed to view by a mouth split from ear to ear, formed a strong contrast with their black skins, as their jolly and perpetual laugh did with the dress which is worn by those condemned to hard labour for life. Their appearance was so cheerful, that we were naturally much interested in them. Besides, there was a great deal in their novelty as aborigines.' All interest in these merry culprits was, however, at an end, when the visitors were informed that one of them had murdered three sailors, and the other had waylaid and hacked to pieces two white women. They had not been condemned to death, because 'they were natives--and none of the aborigines had as yet been hung--their instincts and belief being so different, that with them murder is no crime; they are tamed more by gentleness than cruelty.'

The Marquis expatiates, with true youthful ardour, upon this generous forbearance, and declares that a government professing such principles after invading, in the name of civilization, a country occupied by a barbarian race, deserves the admiration of all Europe. The records of Sydney law confirm the distinction made between barbarous native and civilized colonist; for a little while after, seven white men, having murdered a family of natives, were hung without mercy, to give a good example to the rising generation of the young colony, who are taught to pity the blind, ferocious instincts of the native race, and to feel contempt and horror of the civilized white men guilty of the same cold-blooded atrocities.

Life in the bush has charms for our youthful author as great as those of the handsome drawing-rooms of Melbourne and Sydney. After much visiting amongst the highest circles of Sydney--banqueting at the Government House, and dancing in the spacious halls of the great officials of the colony--the buoyant spirits of the young Marquis lead him to throw himself, a corps perdu, into the delights of savage life. His enthusiastic description of the visit to Mr. Capel--the arrival of the party at the hut inhabited by the triple millionaire, on the banks of the Murray river--the glee with which he recounts the danger of fording the stream, while the horses were left to swim to the bank as best they could, and the subsequent scramble up the muddy side to Mr. Capel's dwelling, will make many an English boy's eyes sparkle with delight and envy as he reads.

We can only mention the journey through Java, Siam, and Canton. Much of the interest lies in the description of the court of the King of Siam, rendered familiar to the English public by the recent account of the 'English Governess.' At Hong Kong, the author's admiration of English rule again breaks forth. And we take our leave of the distinguished party, of which he appears to have been the very life and soul, with hearty thanks for the boldness with which the young Marquis has dared to assert his conviction that the English alone are fitted to found a colony, and that no other nation is possessed of the patience, the calmness, and true sense of justice which are needed to render the natives submissive to civilization and the yoke of the foreigner.

Fair France. By the Author of 'John Halifax, Gentleman.' Hurst and Blackett.

At a time when France is torn and tortured by the most terrible war the world has ever known, it seems strange to open a volume of peaceful travel in the beautiful country which most of us know so well, and which has undergone such an unparalleled transformation. The authoress (pace Thackeray) of this charming volume is well known to the public as a novelist, and however critical judgments may vary as to her artistic power, of her purity of tone and freedom from the vicious tendencies of modern fictitious literature, there can be no question. For our own part, we find her even more agreeable as a tourist than as a novelist. She looks at the world with unprejudiced eyes; she finds that even French curés are human beings, and not the frightful demons that they appear to the excited imagination of the honourable member for Peterborough. We have, in these days, been accustomed to travellers of many kinds: there is the sensational tourist, who bursts into mysterious eloquence on the slightest provocation; and there is the cynical tourist, who with upturned nose regards all the world as a gigantic imposture--looking up into the dome of St. Peter's, or down into the crater of Etna, and contemptuously remarking that 'there is nothing in it.' But the truly pleasant traveller is the man or woman who starts with intent to enjoy the trip, who looks at the bright side of everything, and who, writing a book, writes cheerily and gaily. This is precisely what we find in 'Fair France.' The dedication deserves to be quoted: 'I inscribe "Fair France"--France of yesterday--to those heroic and suffering souls in the France of to-day, who yet suffer in hope, seeing light through the darkness, and believing in a new and nobler "France of to-morrow."' That new and nobler France is no dream of the ivory gate. This siege of Paris, to which the siege of Troy seems trivial, will purge the French people of many evil qualities, and leave them greater than before. This is the belief of all who know them well--who know how their higher life has been eclipsed by noxious influences. However this war may terminate, and whatever may be the fate of the country of Lothair, it is pretty certain that the fatal follies which have misguided the French people are now exploded for ever.

The Land of the Sun. By Lieutenant C. R. LOW. Hodder and Stoughton. 1870.

This book makes no pretensions to be regarded as a regular diary of connected travel, but is a series of vivid sketches of such places in the East as the author frequently visited. In a succession of interesting chapters he carries us from place to place, describing each locality with many of its historical associations, and his own personal impressions and incidents of adventure. He tells us something of Aden, Massowah, and the Red Sea, the Andaman Islands, and many other places of interest, some of growing importance; leaving us finally at that city of romance, Bagdad. Those who have commercial relations with 'the Land of the Sun' will find valuable information in this volume, especially in the chapters on Aden and Persia. As Mr. Low says, 'The Suez Canal has opened a new era for Aden and Persia, and indeed for all the ports of the Red Sea, and it is impossible to exaggerate the mighty future in store for them.' It did not require that the title-page should inform us that the writer belonged to the navy, for almost every paragraph contains expressions which are possible from only a joyous, enthusiastic sailor-nature. He makes the reader feel as though he were listening to some clever Jack-tar, who can describe the places and people he has visited, and can spin a yarn with startling effect. The lieutenant revels in adventure, and any skirmish excites his vigorous sympathy. Like a true British sailor, he has an infinite contempt for all his enemies, and a supreme belief in English seamanship and courage. Our readers may get considerable instruction and many a hearty laugh out of this capital book.

Two Months in Palestine; or, a Guide to a Rapid Journey to the Chief Places of Interest in the Holy Land. By the Author of 'Two Months in Spain.' Nisbet and Co.

This little volume is what its title indicates. It gives useful information, and records the impressions du voyage of an intelligent traveller. While it does not wholly refrain from historical reminiscence and archæological speculation, it touches them lightly, and without dogmatism. It is a pleasant record of experiences in sacred scenes, whose interest no number of travellers' books can exhaust. Readers of 'The Leisure Hour' will be familiar with the papers here collected into a volume.

Daybreak in Spain: a Tour of Two Months. By the Rev. J. A. WYLIE, LL.D. Cassell, Petter and Galpin, 1870.

Whatever other distinguishing traits Dr. Wylie may possess, he is at least a famous hater of the Papacy. In several former volumes he appears as the earnest champion of Protestantism, and in his vigorous declamatory rhetoric gives the enemy no quarter. It is no matter of surprise, therefore, that the remarkable movement in Spain which preceded and followed the expulsion of Isabella II. should have awakened his most energetic sympathy. With a naïveté perfectly charming he informs the reader that he entered Spain on the anniversary of the Queen's summary dismissal. The coincidence of the two events may be an important historical incident, but as yet we fail to see it. However, he presents to us the results of two months' tour in a light sketchy manner, though in a very readable book. His descriptions of the scenes and people are sometimes vivid, but they leave the impression of haste and effort to be striking. The author also compiles a number of noteworthy facts concerning the progress of the Gospel in that long unhappy land, which enable us to share his prophetic hopes for its brighter future. The book would be immensely improved by the omission of many of those eulogistic paragraphs on the Bible, which mar the continuity of the narrative, and read like the perorations of innumerable speeches. The illustrations by Gustave Doré, which he says (page 12) accompany the first chapter, are wanting in our copy.

History of England, from the Fall of Wolsey to the Defeat of the Spanish Armada. By JAMES ANTHONY FROUDE, M.A., late Fellow of Exeter College, Oxford. Vols. VIII.-XII. Longmans, Green, and Co. 1870.

This most admirable and faultless reprint of the classic history of a great period of our annals is now completed. Never have publishers considered more carefully the convenience and comfort of the general reader. The volumes are portable, and the type is suited to the most defective sight. The pleasure of consulting Mr. Froude's works is moreover enhanced by a copious and well-arranged index, which occupies no fewer than one hundred pages. The dates are given on every page, from first to last; and this great work, on which we have so often commented, is now placed within the reach of thousands who have for their perusal of it hitherto had to depend on library copies. Whatever difference of opinion may be entertained as to the justness of certain conclusions, and the good taste of some revelations, the extraordinary merit of this history of the most eventful epoch in the development of the English church, nationality, and constitution, can hardly be exaggerated.

Sketches from America. By JOHN WHITE, Fellow of Queen's College, Oxford. Sampson Low and Co.

Mr. White's book has but very little of the character of a tourist's book of travels, although it is, he tells us, 'founded upon a tour that was undertaken without any design of collecting materials for a book.' Personal experiences are but little obtruded. We get the most of them in the second section, 'A Pic-nic to the Rocky Mountains.' The party consisted of newspaper editors and Mr. G. F. Train; who probably is an editor, and a dozen things besides. This personal part of Mr. White's book indicates a keen observer and a graphic pen. We would gladly, had we space, extract some of the amusing incidents of his journey. The first and third parts of the book--on Canada, and on the Irish in America--are disquisitions founded in part upon personal observation, but chiefly upon facts and opinions collected from diversified sources with care and discrimination. They constitute, therefore, a series of judgments by Mr. White, and are to be taken simply as such, quantum valeat. We are bound to say, however, that they are marked by great moderation, scholarly intelligence, and plausible credibility. But clearly, other observers equally well-informed and judicial, might come to very different conclusions. We can only indicate some of Mr. White's opinions. He points out acutely the distinctive characteristics of the Canadians; their many points of difference from the citizen of the States, both in manners, feeling, and political interest. Canadians are strong in a theoretic loyalty, and are proud of their English belongings, while they have very little of patriotic passion. The Irish in Canada are not, Mr. White thinks, so loyal as is often boasted, although they are less hostile than the Irish in America. They feel no affection for the English, and, as a class, desire annexation. The French Canadians are contented without being patriotic. They are not annexationists, and see nothing better for themselves than English rule. The best classes in Canada, like those in the States, studiously eschew politics, and affect indifference, even while the streets of Montreal are crowded at an exciting election. Mr. White conveys no very exalted idea of the dignity of Canadian legislation, by the account he quotes of the behaviour of the members of the Ottawa Parliament singing choruses and indulging in other forms of obstructive boisterousness all night. 'Men, not measures,' is the Canadian political motto, although to a less extent than in the United States. Mr. White gives a good account of the Church legislation of the last few years, and of its beneficial results, which we commend to our Church and State partisans. While admitting that the feeling of Canada is adverse to annexation with the States, Mr. White seems to think that commercial interests and necessities will make it inevitable--a forecast from which there is both room and reason for differing.

Mr. White's book is, throughout, written with an amount of information, a scholarly intelligence and care, and a studied moderation of feeling, which place it above most books of its class, and entitle it to a permanent place in the library. It will have value when the interest of ephemeral books of mere travel has passed away.

POLITICS, SCIENCE, AND ART.

The Transformation of Insects. By P. MARTIN DUNCAN, F.R.S. Cassell, Petter, and Galpin.

The metamorphoses of insects comprise some of the most interesting phenomena of the most attractive class in the animal kingdom. They lose none of their attractions in the hands of the enterprising publishers to whose energy the public are already indebted for so many handsome and profusely illustrated works on various branches of natural history.

The present volume, like the rest, abounds in pictures of all kinds, from those which are diagrammatic, and should accompany a scientific treatise, to those which are highly pictorial and life-like; and they are all of high merit. Of course, the illustrations, for the most part, are not original. They do not come from the hand of the author, nor were they designed to illustrate his text. No work with such first-class engravings, drawn expressly to elucidate the meaning of a writer, could be produced at ten times the cost of the book before us. Collected from all sources, and more or less judiciously distributed through the volume, the plates constitute the chief value of the work. The letter-press, however, like the illustrations, is full of interesting matter. Almost all the well-known facts which science has revealed to us concerning the whole life-history of the Arthropoda, are stripped of their technical phraseology, invested in an amusing, and sometimes a grotesque garb, and displayed so as to attract those to whom real scientific study would be repulsive. To our youth, and to that numerous class of casual and unscientific observers of Nature who rather delight in interesting facts than in the causes which underlie them, 'The Transformation' will, no doubt, be found amusing and satisfactory. On the other hand, we are bound to state that there is nothing in the book before us, either in the shape of original contribution to our information, or of philosophic grouping of phenomena into wider generalizations, which will really assist the scientific student.

We have purposely mentioned the publishers rather than the author as the originators of this work, because the resources of the former are far more evident than those of the latter. Probably no one but the publishers could have produced so handsome and entertaining a volume at so small an expense, while almost any one might have been the author of it. We have also designedly made the plates occupy the first place in our commendation. It is evident that the book was made to order from a large stock in hand. We do not wish to disparage the work at all, or any more than is necessary to let the public know exactly what it is. Such a book would not be written except to order, and could not be so good unless there were a large stock of material on hand. Such books have a definite use, and this particular book is good of its kind. It is, as it professes to be, an 'adaptation of M. Emile Blanchard's work.' If the author had done for his own work what he has done for M. Blanchard, i.e., 'eliminated large portions which, although very interesting, do not refer directly to the phenomena of metamorphosis,' we should have been deprived of half the volume; and as the illustrations could hardly have been crowded more closely together, we should have lost them also, and this would have been a great pity. That the letter-press is but accessory, and sometimes hardly accessory, to the pictures is abundantly manifest. Thus, at p. 366, we have a beautiful engraving representing the transformations of Cicada fraxini--an insect belonging to, and even the type of, the homopterous division of the order 'Hemiptera'--incorporated, without reference to it, into the chapter on the 'Neuroptera;' while, in the chapter on the 'Hemiptera,' the metamorphosis of the same species is described without reference to the engraving.

The term 'insects' is used in the old Linnæan sense, and not according to its more modern and definite scientific signification, and so is made to include not only moths, bees, beetles, locusts, dragon-flies, bugs, and flies, and the orders of which they are the types, but also spiders, hundred-legs, and crustaceans. The Metamorphoses of the Arthropoda would be the more correct title, but this would not have been so popular, and therefore not so well suited to a popular work. This dominant idea of rendering the book popular is always kept in view. Thus, when we have a description of the habits of that popular favourite, the water spider (Argyroneta aquatica), it is hoped, no doubt with some degree of confidence, that we shall be so pleased with the wonderful facts, that we shall forgot to ask why a species which has no metamorphosis, and belongs to a genus, family, and order which never exhibit transformations, should have been introduced to our notice at all. Again, when we are facetiously told that Cimex lectularius drops from the ceiling on to sleepers, and grows more or less rapidly according to the temperature of the room and corpulency of its inhabitants, and we have 'to thank Providence that it has no wings,' it would be ill-natured to inquire whether the statements are strictly accurate, and with regard to the latter statement, to whom we are indebted for the rest of the anatomy?

Mr. Duncan thinks it only just that M. E. Blanchard should be relieved from the authorship of opinions as to the nature of metamorphosis contained in this work, but as the only part of the book which treats of metamorphosis philosophically consists of a long, well-chosen, and acknowledged quotation from Newport's 'Essay,' we think this delicate sense of justice somewhat misplaced.

We cannot too highly recommend the 'Transformation of Insects' as a glorious picture-book full of moderately trustworthy anecdotes; but we warn all students of physiology or natural history that there is no such royal road to learning as its pages present.

Rome and the Campagna: an Historical and Topographical Description of the Site, Buildings, and Neighbourhood of Ancient Rome. By ROBERT BURN, M.A., Fellow and Tutor of Trinity College, Cambridge. Deighton and Co. 1871.

There is something singularly opportune in the publication of this book at this time. Rome, dear to all men of taste, for its countless treasures in the department of the arts--to all scholars, for its multitudinous associations with relics of classical times--to many a Christian too, for its memories of our holy religion, has just passed into new hands, and is henceforth to be subject to other rulers. We will not affect to regret this. We have long despaired of any substantial improvement under the régime now happily brought to an end; but there can be no reason, in the nature of things, why modern Rome should be the worst drained and dirtiest of Christian cities, and why the Pontine marshes, once so fruitful, should now be a pestiferous waste. We believe that a thorough revolution may be worked, both in Rome itself and all around it, not only without any detriment to those precious relics of the old world with which this volume deals, but with great advantage to them; and we hope to read ere long of the appointment of a commission (we are not sure what is the proper Italian word for it) with some such man as the Cavaliere Rosa at its head, whose business it shall be to guard with jealous care whatever already discovered may interest the student of art or of history, and to watch for new matter of a kindred nature wherever public works or private enterprise may lay open the still unworked mines which underlie in all directions the accumulated rubbish of many centuries in this city of Rome. A board of antiquaries and artists, with two or three practical men amongst them, may earn for themselves the gratitude of the civilized world, by an enlightened and earnest prosecution of this work.

As to the book before us, we can hardly find words to express our sense of its varied excellence. It has evidently been a con amore labour with its author; and he has brought to his work the three qualifications essential to its thorough discharge--learning, sagacity, and zeal. His references to the classical writings of Rome, and to those who have been his pioneers in these researches, prove the first; while the accuracy with which he observes and compares both objects and opinions are sufficient evidence of the other qualities.

Starting with a geological discussion of the soil on which the city is built, we are introduced to the original materials for building in Rome and its immediate neighborhood. There is abundant evidence of volcanic action in the tufaceous rock which is characteristic of the region; and this is associated with the depositions of water--both salt and fresh--and in some cases has been manifestly modified by their action. Indeed, there is proof that the valleys between the famous hills were marshes, frequently flooded by the Tiber, down into the early period of Roman history. There are two sorts of tufa, one more granular, and so lighter than the other, as well as a fair portion of a limestone rock, named travertine, harder than either of the tufas; besides these there is capital clay for bricks, and matter which makes the best mortar in the world. We are not surprised, therefore, to find that not only during the Republic, but in later times, when, under the emperors, the wealth and luxury of the Romans was boundless, the main substance even of the most magnificent of their buildings was brick; and marble 'facings,' columns, and pavements came in to give finish and beauty to their solid brickwork. Indeed, to this fact we owe it that so much is still left to us. The barbarous rapacity of the Middle Ages, which ruthlessly appropriated these enrichments, would no doubt have taken all, had all been marble.

Our author regards the myths which connect the early Romans with the Greeks, and with the Trojans under Æneas, as belonging rather to the domain of poetry than history, and confining himself to the facts as illustrated by these ruins, begins with the Palatine, as the hill originally occupied by the first fathers of the Romans; and he gives us, in chronological order, as far as possible, notices of all ruins now uncovered there. He then passes on to the Capitoline, as having been occupied next in point of time, dealing with it in the same manner; after this we return southward to the Aventine; thence, turning east, we cross the valley of the Circus Maximus to the Cælian Hill, and then proceed northward to the Esquiline, the Viminal, Quirinal, and Pincian, in succession. On all these we are introduced to the remains of ancient buildings; their chronology, their identity, their extent, their present condition, and their associations with such historic matter as has come down to us, are all set before us with great accuracy of detail. Then we cross the Tiber, and visit Janiculum and the Vatican Hill; recrossing into the valleys among the hills, we visit the Circus Maximus, the Campus Martius (now occupied by the modern city), and the Via Lata. The 'Forum' (Romanum) is discussed in the earlier part of the work, and with it the Fora of the emperors, which were meant to supersede it and its associations, and did so. The line of the walls of Servius, built mainly of the tufa already mentioned, in large rectangular blocks, is traced all round the city with ingenious care; and then the more extensive walls of Aurelian, with notices of the fortifications of the present day. Before we have done we take a delightful, though hasty, run through the Campagna. We visit Hadrian, at his villa Tiburtina (Tivoli); Cicero, at Tusculum (Frascati); and dear old Horace, at his Sabine farm. At Laurentum we inspect, in detail, the country seat of our communicative host, the unlucky Pliny, who perished miserably when Pompeii was destroyed.

We would gratefully acknowledge our sense of obligation to our intelligent guide; and shall reckon it henceforward as among our pleasantest reminiscences that we have thus visited with him the spot where Virginia bled, where Cicero spoke, where Cæsar fell; that we have, in his company, trodden the Forum, the Capitol, and the Appian way; and wandered, silent and awe-stricken at their grandeur, in the golden house of Nero, the Forum of Trajan, the Coliseum of Vespasian, and the baths of Diocletian.

We must not close our notice without a word about the maps and ground plans, and the illustrations. All are worthy of the work. Here and there, in the ground plans, we miss the arrow-head, indicating the points of the compass, and this, we hold, should always be put in; and if the illustrations, engraved from photographs, as we are told, are a trifle too sharp and hard, we gain in accuracy what we lose in beauty, and would not have it otherwise. We heartily thank Mr. Burn for his valuable work, and his publishers for the style in which they have put it forth; and shall be only too happy to find it in our portmanteau when we next visit Rome.

The Wonders of Engraving. By GEORGES DUPLESSIS. Illustrated with Ten Reproductions in Autotype, and Thirty-four Wood Engravings, by P. Selher. Sampson Low, Son, and Marston.

This translation of 'Les Merveilles de la Gravure' will doubtless, in the words of the editor, be 'acceptable to all lovers of this important and deeply interesting branch of art. It traces from its different origins in wood engraving and nielli, this effort of one high art to become the handmaid and herald of another, until the genius of the engraver has developed a comprehensive department of original design and elaborate artistic work of his own. Our author has told the story of this development as it unfolds itself in the different schools of Italian art in Spain, in Flanders, in Holland, in Germany, England, and France. This necessitates brief sketches of distinguished engravers in wood or copper, belonging to all these countries, with some account of their works. As many of these engravers are far better known to fame by their paintings, we have fresh interesting details concerning the life-work of Leonardo da Vinci, Marc Antonio Raimondi, Albrecht Dürer, Rembrandt, Ruysdael, Lucas v. Leyden, Paul Potter, Hogarth, Gillray, Nicolas Poussin, and Claude Lorraine, with very many others. The author rather glories in a clever reference which he made of some anonymous engraving of the early Italian school to the hand of Leonardo himself, and in some interesting and independent confirmation of his guess, which he afterwards derived from other quarters. To those who have not made the art of engraving a practical and prolonged study, many of these chapters may have the appearance of a catalogue of strange names, and of partially comprehended work, rather than of a dissertation to make one wise. The transition is rapid from one great name to another, and the volume will be used as a book of reference rather that as a continuous treatise. The autotype copies of several old engravings, as well as numerous woodcuts, greatly enliven and enrich the pages. It is very interesting to see in this department of human endeavour, how great results have followed accidental discovery. The Italian goldsmiths, who, before running their enamel (nigellum) into the ornamented and engraved gold, tried the effect of their work by staining paper or linen, and by the impressions (nielli) which the engraved surface when first washed with colouring matter would produce, no more anticipated the extraordinary development which their chance trials would receive, than could the early printers have prophesied the marvels of the modern printing-press. M. Duplessis has briefly and clearly enumerated and described all, or nearly all, of the processes of engraving. We are surprised that he has not given some place to the wonderful process of lithography. The volume is a marvel of finish and beauty.

Art in the Mountains. By HENRY BLACKBURN. London: Sampson Low, Son, and Marston.

Mr. Blackburn is well-known as a traveller with a special faculty; he has an artist's eye, and his record of wanderings in Algeria, Spain, Normandy, are pages of picture. Hence was he the very man to make a pilgrimage into the Bavarian highlands, and bring back an intelligible account of that strange Passion-Play performed by the peasants of Ober-Ammergau; and excellently well he has done it. There is something strange, something almost weird in the enactment of a mediæval miracle-play in this nineteenth century--by peasants, too, who are some of them before Paris by this time, obeying Bismarck's iron will. Extremes meet in the oddest manner. As to this old-fangled representation, which has come off once a decade for the last two centuries, there seems to be nothing irreverent about it. They are a child-like folk, these Bavarian peasants; they have no Prussian geist; they possess a strong imitative faculty, such as belonged to the first villagers who, in ancient Greece, originated what we now call comedy. Mr. Blackburn's illustrations amply show what sort of people they are. Look at the maiden at page 59, with the mild bovine eye that Homer loves to attribute to Hebe, and the well-shapen yet utterly unlightened face, and the comfortable, unfascinating curves of shoulder and arm, a woman--a dull, good, unimaginative 'young person'--with no tendency towards witchery or ladyhood. Having examined that portrait, you have no difficulty in understanding how it is that a Passion-Play lives alongside the railway and the telegraph. The slow-moving, cow-eyed maiden is typical; that she would heartily and reverently enjoy the show of our Lord's Passion is clear enough. But how long she, and such as she, will crawl on in their snail-like groove, now that our 'own correspondent' has appeared in Ammergau, now that the representatives of Judas Iscariot and Pontius Pilate have gone together to besiege Paris, is a question not easy to settle. Mr. Blackburn states that there will probably be ten performances of the Passion Play in 1871, and that then it will not be repeated till 1880. We commend anybody who really desires to see it to go to Ammergau next year. We move fast nowadays--that Bavarian village will be quite another sort of place in 1880.

Church Design for Congregations: its Developments and Possibilities. By JAMES CUBITT, Architect. With nineteen plates. Smith and Elder.

The practical divorce of Art and Utility has told nowhere more disastrously than in the building of churches. Gothic buildings with 'long-drawn aisles and fretted roof,' designed and adapted for the processional and ritual worship of the Romish Church, have for three centuries been the dreary reverberating theatres of Protestant reading and preaching. Perhaps few of us could recall a more comfortless ideal than a rural parish church in winter, half the congregation excluded from seeing, and the other half from hearing the monotonous reader of prayers and sermons. Nonconformists, while rightly deeming that the Episcopal Church had no monopoly of Gothic architecture, have not been always wise in their appropriation of it. They have built the old Gothic church with its nave, two aisles, transepts, and chancel, its clustered stone pillars and clerestory, utterly unmindful of the fact that of all styles of ecclesiastical building it was the most unsuited for their worship and preaching. Their dignified discomfort led to the substitution of iron columns, as incongruous, and, in artistic effect, as ugly as anything that could be imagined--'a mediæval church,' as Mr. Cubitt says, 'in the last stage of starvation.' If we must have nave and aisles, as he justly remarks, we seem shut up either to bad arrangement or bad architecture. Fame and fortune await the architect who can create a new order of buildings for Congregational worship which shall avoid both. Mr. Cubitt seems ambitious to attempt this, and he breaks a lance with old conventionalism with great courage and skill. The type that is required, he says, 'does not present itself in the ordinary nave and aisles plan, whether its nave-piers are thick or thin; but it may be hopefully sought in either of these two ways--'by designing our churches without columns at all, or by designing them with substantial columns placed where they will cause no obstruction. The former system is already adopted in small buildings, and there are some signs of its future employment on a larger scale. It allows great variety of form. Its plans may be oblong, cruciform, circular, or polygonal; or still better, a fresh combination of three different elements. On the latter system the columns may be few in number and far apart, or they may be placed so near the side walls as to obscure, not the seats, but only the passages leading to them. We may thus have either the wide nave with narrow side aisles, or the ordinary nave with very wide bays, or both together. We may plan a grand open space before the pulpit and communion table--surely a natural arrangement for a Protestant Church--and we shall find ample scope for architecture in its external and internal treatment.' The subsequent chapters are virtually a development and illustration of these ideas. The writer advocates the admission of the dome into Gothic architecture; he has much to say on behalf of the Eastern mosque; and no one who has stood in the vast and simple area of St. Sophia, at Constantinople, built, it must be remembered, as a Christian church, could fail to have been greatly impressed with its magnificent congregational capabilities. Galleries in theatre form, iron column churches, lanterns, and most other things that perplex church builders, are discussed. The merit of Mr. Cubitt's work is that it is strictly utilitarian. It recognises the actual necessities, not only of Congregational worship, but of Congregational church builders; it boldly grapples with all inartistic incongruities; it avoids 'schools' and 'orders,' and honestly seeks to supply what is wanted under genuine artistic conditions. Abundance of plates and drawings illustrate Mr. Cubitt's theories. We heartily commend this book to all whom it may concern, as the most independent, intelligent, and scholarly attempt in the direction indicated that has been made.

POETRY, FICTION, AND BELLES LETTRES.

The Window; or, the Loves of the Wrens. Words written for Music, by ALFRED TENNYSON, Poet Laureate; the Music by ARTHUR SULLIVAN. Strahan.

So many rumours have been for so long in circulation about this volume, and the names of its joint authors are so eminent, that it is not surprising it should have excited much curiosity and many hopes. We venture to predict that neither the curiosity nor the hopes will be disappointed. Mr. Tennyson's songs need not fear being 'tested' in the same crucible with the 'Lotos Eaters,' or 'In Memoriam,' or we may add with 'Maud,' or the 'Princess.' Nor will Mr. Sullivan's music be found less characteristic of his genius, or other than fully worthy of the words to which it has been composed.

The 'Window' is, we believe, the first attempt in English--certainly the first attempt of any eminent English poet--to cast a series of events or emotions into the form of a set of connected songs. Wordsworth's well-known series of sonnets are an approach to the same thing; but the song--a composition of two or three stanzas, suitable to music--is not so favourite a form with English poets as with those of Germany. There the cycle of songs--the Liederkreis or Liedercyclus--is better known. Readers of Heine and Chamisso will remember more than one instance. We are glad to welcome it to English literature, not only as a new form of verse, but also because of the promise which it gives of many a marriage between fine poetry and fine music--a marriage hitherto far too rare among us.

The 'Window,' then, is a 'circle of songs,' twelve in number, describing the hopes and fears of a lover parted from his mistress, and uncertain what her reply will be to the great question he has asked her.

In the first--'On the hill'--he stands on the slope of the valley which separates his home from hers, and as he looks across the distance sees the flash from the window-pane of his love:--

'The lights and shadows fly! Yonder it brightens and darkens down on the plain. A jewel, a jewel dear to a lover's eye! O is it the brook, or a pool, or her window-pane, When the winds are up in the morning?

'Clouds that are racing above, And winds and lights and shadows that cannot be still, All running on one way to the home of my love, You are all running on, and I stand on the slope of the hill, And the winds are up in the morning!'

He knows the window of which the flash has thus come to him, and is familiar with all the charm both of what surrounds it, and what it enshrines:--

'Vine, vine, and eglantine, Clasp her window, trail and twine! Rose, rose and clematis, Trail and twine and clasp and kiss, Kiss, kiss; and make her a bower All of flowers, and drop me a flower, Drop me a flower.'

The flowers are there, but their mistress is gone:--

'Gone! Gone till the end of the year, Gone, and the light gone with her, and left me in shadow here! Gone--flitted away, Taken the stars from the night and the sun from the day! Gone, and a cloud in my heart, and a storm in the air! Flown to the east or the west, flitted I know not where! Down in the south is a flash and a groan: she is there! she is there!'

The winter comes, but our lover holds out in spite of the season:

'Bite, frost, bite! You roll up away from the light The blue woodlouse, and the plump dormouse, And the bees are still'd and the flies are kill'd, And you bite far into the heart of the house, But not into mine.'

and it passes, and spring-time comes, with

'Birds' love and birds' song, Flying here and there; Birds' song and birds' love, And you with gold for hair!

'Birds' song and birds' love Passing with the weather; Men's song and men's love, To love once and for ever.'

At last he can bear the suspense no longer--

'Shall I write to her? shall I go? Ask her to marry me by and by?

* * * * * Go little letter, apace, apace; Fly! Fly to the light in the valley below-- Tell my wish to her dewy blue eye.'

The letter is sent, and no answer comes; and then he despairs, as he well may, and in the 'wet west wind' of the spring he wishes himself dead:

'The mist and the rain, the mist and the rain! Is it ay or no? is it ay or no? And never a glimpse of her window-pane! And I may die but the grass will grow, And the grass will grow when I am gone, And the wet west wind and the world will go on.'

The answer is still delayed:--

'Winds are loud and you are dumb: Take my love, for love will come, Lore will come but once a life. Winds are loud, and winds will pass! Spring is here with leaf and grass: Take my love, and be my wife. After-loves of maids and men Are but dainties drest again: Love me now, you'll love me then: Love can love but once a life.'

But at length it comes:--

'Two little hands that meet, Claspt on her seal, my sweet! Must I take you and break you, Two little hands that meet? I must take you, and break you, And loving hands must part-- Take, take--break, break-- Break--you may break my heart. Faint heart never won-- Break, break, and all's done.'--

and its tenour is obvious, from the rapture of the reader--

'Be merry, all birds, to-day, Be merry on earth as you never were merry before, Be merry in heaven, O larks, and far away, And merry for ever and ever, and one day more. Why? For it's easy to find a rhyme.'--

the rhyme to 'Why' being of course 'Ay.'

After this the progress of things need no telling.

'Sun comes, moon comes, Time slips away; Sun sets, moon sets, Love, fix a day. * * * * "To-morrow, love, to-morrow, And that's an age away." Blaze upon her window, sun, And honour all the day.'

The last song of the series is too fine and too even a union of fancy, feeling, and art not to be quoted entire--

'Light, so low upon earth, You send a flash to the sun. Here is the golden close of love, All my wooing is done.

O the woods and the meadows, Woods where we hid from the wet, Stiles where we stay'd to be kind, Meadows in which we met!

Light, so low in the vale, You flash and lighten afar: For this is the golden morning of love, And you are his morning star.

Flash, I am coming, I come, By meadow and stile and wood: O lighten into my eyes and my heart, Into my heart and my blood!

Heart, are you great enough For a love that never tires? O heart, are you great enough for love? I have heard of thorns and briers.

Over the thorns and briers, Over the meadows and stiles, Over the world to the end of it Flash for a million miles.'

Surely these songs, even in the fragmentary state in which we have been forced to give them, will be recognized as the work of a great master, by everyone who has the feeling and the fancy requisite for any appreciation of poetry, and are surely as worthy of Mr. Tennyson's genius as Shakspeare's songs are of his, or the lyrics in 'Wilhelm Meister' of Goethe's. They are full of the old exquisite art that has endeared the songs of the 'Princess' to so many thousand hearts. We find here, as in those and other old favourites, those lovely and indescribable touches which seem to paint in sound or air the very things they name--the

'Winds and lights and shadows that cannot be still;'

the

'Wet west wind, how you blow, how you blow;'--

There is the alliteration that is so magical because so seldom used--

'Woods where we hid from the wet, Stiles where we stay'd to be kind, Meadows in which we met;'

There are the familiarity with nature and the accurate observation at once so characteristic of English poetry and of Mr. Tennyson's muse--

'The blue woodlouse and the plump dormouse.'

'The wren with the crown of gold.'

'The fire-crowned king of the wrens from out of the pine! Look how they tumble the blossoms, the mad little tits! Cuckoo! Cuckoo! was ever a May so fine;'

There too the hundred links of connexion which bind the twelve songs into one golden chain--the constant references to the 'light,' or the 'blaze,' or the 'flash,' or the 'window pane,' which form the keynote of the whole; and lastly the human sentiment at once so deep and broad which fuses the whole into poetry in its noblest sense--all these proclaim the deep and abiding worth of this unpretending series of lyrics.

The Shakspearian ring in one or two of them (especially in No. 8), is as obvious, though in a different vein, as in any of the well-known lyrics in the 'Idylls of the King.'

It will be obvious that we do not agree with those who regard Mr. Tennyson's last effort as 'a trifle from beginning to end.' Slight in texture it may be, but slightness is not triviality.

Mr. Sullivan's task in setting these charming songs to music has not been without its difficulties. The very qualities which render verse characteristic of its author often militate strongly against its adaptability to music. The subtleties which form the main charm of the poet may be mere blemishes and hindrances to the musician. Irregularity of metre and variety of form are among his most serious difficulties. What the composer requires is a strong pervading sentiment or idea to inspire character to his music, with regular even verse for the vehicle. The finest songs of Schubert, Mendelssohn, and Schumann are written to little poems of the simplest structure, almost always in stanzas of four lines of eight or ten feet, the syllables linked together in easy concatenation. Such are the 'Auf Flügeln des Gesanges,' the 'Widmung,' the 'Junge Nonne,' and the 'Sey mir gegrüsst.' Was it instinct or calculation that led Goethe, Heine, Eichendorff, and other great poets of Germany, to throw so many of their enchanting thoughts and passionate emotions into these simple forms? Whichever it was, the end has fully justified the means; and the poems of these great geniuses have a double beauty and a double gift of immortality in the strains of their composer-brethren. Now the very charm of the songs of the 'Window' on which we have been insisting, and so rightly insisting, are all in opposition to those of the poems just spoken of. What is he to make of such stanzas as

'Gone! Gone till the end of the year, Gone! and the light gone with her, and left me in shadow here. Gone--flitted away'?

or such unequal lines as

'Go little letter apace, apace, Fly!'

or,

'For it's ay, ay, ay, ay, ay;'

or,

'And my thoughts are as quick and as quick, ever on, on, on'?

If we want to see what can be made of them, by what adroit shifts their difficulties can be avoided and overcome, we have only to turn to Mr. Sullivan's music; and the examination will well repay the trouble, and will open the eyes of anyone who was not before aware of the laws which must govern verse that is to be married to music. No. 6 has been altered since it was set, and we thus have the advantage of two versions.

For the music itself we must really refer our readers to the book. Dissertations on music, unless in connection with actual performance, or with technical study, are very much like attempts to paint a sunrise in words. At any rate, without musical quotations, any description of these songs would be unintelligible.

The finest of the set are indisputably the first and the last. Next, perhaps, for depth of sorrow, comes No. 7, 'The mist and the rain.' No. 3, 'Gone,' with its persistent accompaniment, is beautiful. Of the tender songs, Nos. 9 and 10 are especially charming, while No. 4 is a bold air, which we venture to predict will be in the mouth of many an amateur baritone before a month is out. We have only one word of regret to add--if regret be not too strong a term. We wish that Mr. Sullivan had availed himself of the chance which the words gave him to do what Beethoven has so finely done in his 'Liederkreis,' namely, to re-introduce the melody of the first song in the last one, and thus make his work really a 'circle.' But this is so obvious that we do not doubt he had some sufficient reason for not doing it.

Mr. Sullivan has written many fine songs; and indeed great as is his genius for the orchestra, it often seems as if it were equally great for vocal music. And it is not too much to say that in this direction at least, his last effort has been his greatest, and that these songs surpass all that he has written before. Of their popularity among the best class of amateurs--that class which we delight to believe is rapidly increasing--there can be no doubt. They will want not only good singing, but what is rarer still, good accompanying, and we trust some opportunity may be shortly found for their being given in public by Mr. Reeves and Mr. Stockhausen, or Mr. Santley, accompanied by the composer himself. After that we are bold enough to hope that he may score some of them for the orchestra. Connected though they be, they are not indivisible, and there are several which would not suffer by being taken from their place in the 'cycle' and transferred singly to the concert-room.

The Paradise of Birds. By WILLIAM JOHN COURTHOPE. Edinburgh: William Blackwood and Sons.

Verily the young English poet who dares tread in the footsteps of the Attic Aristophanes has a fine audacity. This does Mr. Courthope, and not altogether without justification. He is a lover of birds; he is disgusted at the way in which they are murdered at pigeon matches, and for the adornment of ladies' hats. He goes to Aristophanes for inspiration, and gives us a very charming poem as the result. Mr. Courthope is unquestionably a poet. The fault we find in limine is, that he is not sufficiently original and varied in rhyme and rhythm, for a professed follower of Aristophanes. All the birds of the air sing in the pages of the mighty Greek, sing in character, with the very music that belongs to them. We cannot say this of Mr. Courthope, yet is he often fortunate and felicitous. Here is the Nightingale, pitying us unfeathered bipeds:

'Man that is born of a woman, Man, her un-web-footed drake, Featherless, beakless, and human, Is what he is by mistake. For they say that a sleep fell on nature In the midst of the making of things; And she left him a two-legged creature, But wanting in wings.'

Wings! ay, that is what we should all of us like. Fancy being able to soar and tumble in mid-ether, like those pigeons that flash round our roofs. Fancy having power to follow the summer like 'the temple-haunting martlet,' which leaves its house under our eaves for a residence somewhere in Central Asia! What Mr. Courthope wants, in our judgment, is greater imaginative intensity: he plays laughingly with his theme, and even so did Aristophanes, his master; but he does not attain as yet the lofty poetry, the strong humour, which are born of earnestness in Aristophanes.

The Marriage of Peleus and Thetis; and other Poems. By TANKERVILLE CHAMBERLAYNE, B.A. Hurst and Blackett.

There is curious variety of style, of finish, and of theme in this little volume. A classical epos is followed by a monody on Lord Derby, and translations from Horace and Heine. Elegies on Napoleon, Peabody, and Mozart, are interspersed with love ditties and theological speculations. A discussion of the probable condition of Napoleon's soul in the other world is terminated by the following most inappropriate couplet:--

''Tis ours in peace to let him rest With hope upon his Saviour's breast.'

There is some spirit and fire in the 'Song of the Rhine,' weakened, however, by sad doggrel. The impression produced by the whole is, that an accomplished and well-meaning graduate has favoured the public with the contents of his college portfolio without due selection.

Loveland, and other Poems chiefly concerning Love. By WADE ROBINSON. London and Dublin: Moffat and Co.

There is a charm of novelty and freshness about these poems. The thoughts expressed are often both original and beautiful; and in this lies the chief attraction of the book. The language in which the thoughts are clothed is not remarkable for elegance, and the style is occasionally rather obscure, but the reader will find it worth his while to take the little trouble that may now and then be needed fully to grasp the author's meaning. There is no particular arrangement in the poems, but they all turn in some way on the subject indicated in the title-page; one (by no means the best of them) describing an Utopian world perverted and ruled by love alone. There is an elevated tone of feeling about the work in general, befitting the high theme to which it is devoted. We will content ourselves with one specimen of the poetry, though it would be easy to select many. The following lines are taken from a short poem called 'Spring-time in the Woods':--

'Is that next life indeed a Paradise? But whether I shall leave my flowers for aye When leaving earth, or in some other world Shall find them all again, this much I know: Whate'er in me communes with them shall not Be left in loneliness. That sense of mine To which God comes in hues upon the cheeks Of innocent flowers, and in their perfumed breath, Expands in strength and purity, and God Will come to it again as shall be best. I cannot now declare how He shall come; I only know that this poor world, so sad And still so beautiful, cannot exhaust The beauty in the mind of God, or yet His artist power to mould and paint his thoughts.'

Poems. By WILLIAM TIDD MATSON. Groombridge and Sons.

The Inner Life: a Poem. By WILLIAM TIDD MATSON. Elliot Stock.

Mr. Matson does not now first come before the world as a poet, but in his best poem, on 'The Inner Life,' he has done something better than any of his previous productions. The book consists of meditations, not perhaps very strictly connected, yet passing naturally from one into another--all treating on themes of the deepest interest, as the title implies; the poetical strains adding greatly to the charm of the Christian philosophy that is conveyed in them. It is true poetry, though not poetry of the highest order. The reader of this little work will be glad to turn to a volume of poems by the same author which appeared some years ago. Mr. Matson speaks in the preface to this book of the joy he has found in poetry. We do not feel in his case as we are sometimes tempted to do, that the poet himself is the only person benefited--the pleasure found in making the verse being the only pleasure it can ever afford. Far from this: we are much indebted to Mr. Matson for giving his poetry to the world. The versification is unusually easy and flowing--no straining after effect; no determination to be original at all costs: all seems to come naturally and without effort. There is an evenness of merit in the poems which would make it difficult to specify one above another; but one characteristic marks them all, and distinguishes them from those of many other writers, i.e., the Christian sentiment by which they are all pervaded. Instead of the wail of unrelieved disappointment and regret for the past, and dark and vague forebodings for the future, the voice of resignation and heavenly hope is never wanting, mingled with the plaintive strains in which we always expect to hear a poet sing. We cordially recommend both the books to all lovers of this class of poetry among our readers.

The In-Gathering. By JOHN A. HERAUD. Simpkin, Marshall and Co.

Mr. Heraud, whose first poem was published in 1820, ten years before Tennyson, shows no perceptible decrease of poetic faculty now, after the lapse of half a century. It is doubtless true with some men that

'The soul's dark cottage, battered and decayed, Lets in new light through chinks that time has made.'

The little volume before us contains 'Cimon and Pero,' a series of two hundred somewhat mystical sonnets under the title of 'Alcyone,' and several minor poems. 'Cimon and Pero,' which we prefer to any of the other poems, is based on the fine old story, told by Valerius Maximus, of the Greek woman, who, to save her imprisoned father from starvation, fed him at her own breast. Mr. Heraud has avowedly chosen to tell the tale in the austere style of Wordsworth's noble 'Laodamia,' and not without success. It may be but a fable this, but no fable is devoid of significance, and we may say with Valerius, 'Putaret aliquis hoc contra rerum naturam factum, nisi deligere parentes prima naturæ lex esset.' Several of the minor poems have a delicate beauty: among these may specially be noted the short lyric entitled 'Eres,' which is quite in Herrick's vein; the well-known story of 'The Brides of Venice' is also pleasantly told. The author's admirers will be glad to find that he has still the vigour and versatility of his youth, with greater skill of artistic execution.

The Poetical Works of William Cowper. Edited, with Notes and Biographical Introduction, by WILLIAM BENHAM, Vicar of Addington. Globe Edition. Macmillan and Co.

It was a matter of course that Cowper's works should form a volume of the Globe series. His popularity has scarcely waned since he first became the poet of the religious world, beloved for his piety by those who had but small appreciation of his poetry, and admired for his poetry by those who had but little sympathy with his themes or his spirit. As a realistic painter of middle-class life he anticipated, and in delicacy and sensibility infinitely surpasses Crabbe; while as a humorist of the purest water he took the kind of hold upon the general public that Sydney Smith afterwards did--only Cowper's humour was more delicate and subtle--and as a poet of nature he was the literary progenitor of Wordsworth. Mr. Benham's biographical introduction is very carefully and very modestly done. He is, we think, right in his judgment on the point questioned by the Spectator, 'that Lady Austen would gladly have married Cowper;' and perfectly conclusive, we think, is the evidence concerning the contemplated marriage with Mary Unwin. Newton and Bull were Cowper's most intimate friends, and the denial of Southey, who was by no means so accurate as the Spectator assumes, cannot be put against their positive and explicit evidence. The works are arranged in chronological order, and the notes are intelligent, accurate, and true. Altogether, we possess in the Globe volume the best edition of Cowper hitherto given to the world.

The Poetical Works of John and Charles Wesley, reprinted from the Originals, with the latest Corrections of the Authors; together with the poems of Charles Wesley not before published. Collected and arranged by E. OSBORN, D.D. Vols. VII. to X.

This admirably edited collection of the poetical works of the Wesleys proceeds steadily towards its completion. It reveals a surprising fecundity of verse, and an amazing degree of sustained fervour, strength, and excellence. There are treasures of song in Charles Wesley's compositions, unused and unknown as yet by the Church, that would give him high rank as a hymn writer, independently of the compositions which are in every church and on every lip. We do not think he ever reaches the reverent sublimity of the best hymns of Watts. Watts, for instance, would scarcely have used the somewhat incongruous adjective 'tremendous deity;' nor would Watts have fallen into the German jingles of some of his metres; but in devout inspiration, sacred passion, and felicitous verse, Wesley holds his own against any hymn writer of the Church of Christ. We shall have more to say concerning him when the collection of his poetical works is complete. The eighth volume contains his admirable version of the Psalms, and a great variety of personal and national hymns, which furnish a kind of devotional commentary on the history of both. The ninth volume consists of the first portion of the short hymns on 'Select Passages of the Holy Scriptures.' The two-volume edition of 1762 has long been a table book with us. We specially commend some of Wesley's exquisite poetical versions or uses--this, for instance:--

'O that I knew where I might find him, Where but on yonder tree? Or if too rich thou art, Sink into poverty, And find him in thine heart.'

A Syren. By J. ADOLPHUS TROLLOPE. Three vols. Smith, Elder and Co.

Mr. J. A. Trollope has returned to the scenes of his first love--to Italian skies, artists, maidens, marchesi, and friars. We are plunged at once into the hot sunshine and tropical excitements of a Ravennese Carnival. The author gives us exuberant descriptions of female beauty, of fastidious adornment, dexterous deshabille motivée, and of fierce sexual passion met by cold calculating resolve to play a high stake without love, or faithfulness, or even wisdom. Mr. Trollope is matchless in his portraiture of Italian artistes, and of the simple contadina of refined and delicate taste, and pure seraphic devotion to the one over-mastering affection. He has, in this story, contrasted the natures of two beautiful portionless girls, who by strange fortune are thrown, during the same carnival, into the way of the two Marchesi Castelmare. The one is an opera singer, the other a painter. The former resolves on making a conquest of the elder nobleman, and the latter does win the affections of the younger. The uncle is described as the pattern of the highest virtue, of stone-cold passions, of infinite proprieties; and La Lalli, the syren, succeeds during the carnival in bewitching, maddening, and befooling him into promise of marriage, and inspiring the most deadly jealousy of any interference with his claim. A noble nature is ruined by the fierce fires of a foolish attachment, and most tragic are the issues. We will not diminish the fascination of the story by revealing its secret. La diva Lalli is actually murdered on the very day when the old marchese has publicly admitted his intention to marry her, and everybody but the murderer seems to have run the risk of having to bear the brunt of the charge. More than a volume is occupied with an endeavour to answer the question, 'Who has done the deed?' There is more delicacy, and subtlety, and meaning in the inquiry, than in the inquiry, 'Who killed Tulkinghorn?' and the reader is reminded of the heart-searching of Mr. Browning's 'Ring and Book,' rather than of Mr. Dickens's popular story. The story cannot be called pleasing or profitable. It is a wonderful drawing, full of brilliant effects, and crowded with narrative and suggestion. The style is clear, and the Italian expletives and appellatives give it an operatic grace and sweetness that are very attractive. If 'tesoro mio' had been translated 'duck of diamonds,' and the rest of the prettiness turned into plain English, perhaps the blue sky and the circolo and the carnival would have had to vanish likewise.

Against Time. By ALEXANDER INNES SHAND. Two vols. Smith, Elder and Co. 1870.

The machinery that Mr. Shand has contrived is clumsy, and looks like a violent effort to be original. The hero of the story is put into circumstances of maddening temptation to make money by unfair means. He is exasperated by discovering that a relative has made him sole heir to her vast estates, on the proviso that in the course of three years he developes out of the few thousands that are left to him, a fortune equal to that which he may then receive. On his failing to fulfil this condition, the designation of the property is concealed from all except a pair of contemptible villains, who endeavour to play a series of underhand tricks to secure it ultimately for their own uses. The hero came from the Kursaals of Germany to hear of this race that he had to run 'against time,' and he is determined, by huge speculation, to win the prize. The monetary scheme, the Credit Foncier and Mobilier of Turkey, is described by one who has seen the eggs of many of these vipers hatched in the sun of England's prosperity. There is a grandeur about the conception, and a rapidity in the inflation of this great balloon, that is enough to take away the breath of ordinary financiers. The young aristocrat is the Ulysses in council, the Achilles in strife, the Bayard sans peur, sans reproche; and though he makes, in the course of three years, some quarter of a million sterling, and might claim the possession of family estates, he has positively contrived to withdraw the greater part of it from the 'concern,' and to have done it without dishonour. He has been dabbling up to the elbows in boiling pitch, and is neither scorched, nor blistered, nor defiled. Most surprising is his nobility. When the bubble bursts, he has the magnanimity and magnificence voluntarily to sacrifice his splendid fortune, and more splendid prospects, at the shrine of the honour which seems for a moment in the dust. Finally, of course it all turns out for the best, and the young lady who has won the heart of the great financier is prepared to second his sublime sacrifice, and as the two are starting for Australia in beautiful poverty, it turns out that on the bridegroom's failing to fulfil the conditions of the will, the penniless bride has herself become the heiress of the immense estates, and so the pair are happy ever after. There is much brilliant writing in the story, some caustic satire, and a great deal of clever and pleasant characterization.

Diary of a Novelist. By the Author of 'Rachel's Secret,' 'Nature's Nobleman,' &c. Hurst and Blackett. 1871.

The title of this volume is attractive. What speculations and hopes are excited by the mere announcement, 'Diary of a Novelist!' The secrets into which curious readers have attempted to pry are about to be unfolded, the originals of the characters described are to be revealed, a real personal living interest is to surround the author's fictions ever after. What would we give to have such a diary from the pen of George Eliot or Charles Dickens! But amid such a rush of eager anticipations, we turn to the book itself, and find that no explanations are given--the authoress does not lift the veil. It is the journal of a year's most striking thoughts and noteworthy experiences. The first feeling is one of disappointment that the volume is so different from our expectations; but disappointment soon changes into hearty admiration and sincere gratitude. It is emphatically a good book. Sympathy with all that is beautiful and noble pervades the whole, and it is written with the ease of a practised hand. The rippling chat runs on through a succession of bright sunny scenes, ever and anon deepening into shady pools of profounder thought, and then again merrily hastening on its way. We are permitted to read the aims of this novelist's life, so true, pure, earnest, that we involuntarily exclaim, 'O si sic omnia!' There is also a cheerful religiousness in this diary, which will equally surprise those who think that a fiction-writer's only use is for amusement, and those who indiscriminately condemn all novels as unmitigated evils. The following sentence gives us the key-note of the book:--'I like to feel that this fair earth, which God has made, which even now, where man has not marred it, keeps the touch of his hand upon it still--breathes back its life to Him in love. And so the whole world becomes to me at once a Temple and a Home--a place for worship and for happy life: and I live in it, not alone, but sharing with all created things in the great Father's care, and joining with them in their many-voiced psalm of love and praise.' The charming sketches of natural scenery show the touch of an artist and a poet; the outline descriptions of character reveal the writer as a keen observer of human life; while her reflections on some of the tangled problems of the world tell us that she, too, has wrestled with the mighty mystery, and found peace only in trust.

We notice an exuberance of enthusiasm which might be toned down with advantage to the general style. The attempt to transcribe the Yorkshire dialect is not successful; but, as we have ourselves failed in that accomplishment, we appreciate the difficulty, and only notice the fact--'a fellow feeling makes us wondrous kind.'

The Iliad of the East. By FREDERICK RICHARDSON. Macmillan.

The title of this book is of course ad captandum; the East has no Iliad, in any intelligible sense. What is here offered us is a series of legends, taken from Valmiki's Sanskrit poem, the 'Ramagana,' and taken from the French version of M. Fauche. It is a readable little volume, and may be recommended to those who desire to obtain some slight knowledge of the early Sanskrit poetry. When we compare a work like the Ramagana with the Iliad and Odyssey, we cannot avoid the conclusion that in the Greek mind there existed a vivid view of poetry, which is quite absent from the Hindoo mind. Rama's adventures are absurdly grotesque. We meet garrulous vultures, chivalrous monkeys, and so forth. The supreme imagination, which obtains a sublime effect by depicting humanity in its intensest forms, as in Achilles, Diomed, Odysseus, as in Helen, Andromache, Penelope, has no place in the Oriental poems. They are childish, exaggerated, mere nursery tales. The theorists, foremost among whom is Mr. Max Müller, who conceived that both the Greek and Sanskrit poetry come from one source, ought assuredly to explain to us why there exists so wide a difference between the Homeric poems and all the Oriental cycle. Homer's epic, like the goddess Athene, seems to have sprung perfect in person and panoply from the brain of its creator. The Eastern pseudo-epics are mere strings of ridiculous stories, with no definite connection, no beginning, middle, or end. This manifest literary difference would appear to indicate some definite racial difference. Valmiki is not an entirely unreadable author, but between Homer and him there is about as much difference as between Shakespeare and Quallon. Now, what the Sanskrit scholars ought surely to do for us is to state some theory whereby to account for the fact that their favourite language contains no literature worth perusal. There is neither the poetry of the Greek nor the theosophy of the Hebrew in Sanskrit. Hence we venture to infer that there is some innate racial distinction as yet undiscovered by the modern ethnologist.

John. By Mrs. OLIPHANT. Edinburgh: William Blackwood and Sons.

Mrs. Oliphant's delicate touch in social description is too well known for it to be necessary to dwell upon it here. She is one of the few lady-novelists who improve as they go on; the truth being that she has never sought to obtain startling effects by absurd means, but has always studied nature and human nature. In 'John,' re-published from Blackwood's Magazine, which is a novelette rather than a novel, she is very felicitous. There is no more story than Canning's knife-grinder had to tell: it is a mere love-tale, 'Silly sooth,' as Shakespeare hath it. John is a country parson's son, and Kate is a banker's daughter, and she is thrown from her horse near the parsonage, and has to be taken there, and as she convalesces makes sad havoc with poor John. A simple story, but charming in its simplicity. The situation is well conceived. Dr. Clifford is a worldly person; his son John is utterly unworldly; Crediton, the banker, is a plutocrat of the first force; Kate is a spoilt child, who means to have her own way in marriage. The end of it all is easily conceivable; but the comedietta is played out with consummate skill, especially by its heroine. We are less interested in her lover than in her; and although doubtless Mrs. Oliphant is an able nomenclator, we venture to think that the book would have more properly represented its title if that title had been 'Kate.'

From Thistles--Grapes? By Mrs. EILOART, Author of 'The Curate's Discipline,' 'Meg,' &c., &c. In three vols. Richard Bentley, Publisher in Ordinary to Her Majesty, New Burlington-street.

Given a bundle of thistles, how many bunches of grapes can it produce? Answer, none. This theory Mrs. Eiloart seeks to develope to its fullest extent; and, as a natural consequence, we find the miserable 'grapes,' the son, dangling by the neck on the scaffold whither the testimony of the 'thistles,' the unnatural parent, has sent him. There is nothing so new or original in the plot of the novel as the title, which with its note of interrogation at once arouses the interest of the reader, an interest which unfortunately goes little further than the title-page. The scene is laid in a cathedral town of England. Dr. Langton, a sanctimonious divine, who has sown a terrible crop of wild oats, as well as 'thistles' in his early youth, excites the enmity of one of his parishioners, a ragged vagabond, who has been convicted of robbery, and sentenced to one month's imprisonment in the county jail. The fellow, having escaped from durance, is concealed by the hero till morning, and succoured by the heroine in a wood, where he lies helpless and prostrate from a sprained ankle. But unfortunately Dr. Langton, passing by that way, discovers the poor wretch of whom the officers are in pursuit, struggling amidst the brambles, and instantly gives the alarm. The vagabond is consequently conveyed back to prison, muttering threats and imprecations against his betrayer. From these preliminary incidents arise a series of events, which, as they pass before us, we salute with all the reverence to which they are entitled from their venerable age and ancient service. But notwithstanding the long acquaintance we have enjoyed, in the land of romance, with the greater part of the adventures contained in these three volumes, some of them appear before us with their old garments so delicately patched and mended with Mrs. Eiloart's new materials that we willingly forget the proverbial weariness of the thrice-told tale. The death of the heroine is well managed. The kindness to the wretched offender, her efforts to drag him out of the mire into the atmosphere of intelligence and feeling, meets with the usual result. He becomes deeply enamoured of the sweet gentle girl according to the brutal instincts of his nature, and pushes her through the wood even to the brink of the precipice down which she is bent on throwing herself, maddened as she is with the discovery of the hero's attachment to another. The vagabond, whose brain is as usual muddled with beer, suddenly becomes sobered at the sight of her peril, and rushes forward to save her. Seizing her by the folds of her dress, the frail material gives way, and a portion of it remaining in his hand and afterwards found in his possession, becomes the circumstantial evidence, which causes his arrest. Now the thistles come forward to bear witness to having beheld the frantic flight of the girl through the wood, and the subsequent appearance of the boor on the very spot where she had met with her death. The testimony is crushing, the offender is condemned to die, and mounts the scaffold proclaiming his innocence. The revelation of the relationship in which he stands to his denouncer is made too late, and Dr. Langton arrives with the proof of the young lady's meditated suicide just in time to see his own illegitimate son swing in mid-air as the drop falls, and the shoutings of the crowd announce that all is over. The perseverance and tenacity of purpose which bear an author through the labour of executing three goodly volumes unaided in the task by incident, description, or dialogue, are beyond all praise. 'Il est si facile de ne point écrire,' exclaims Boileau. But the lady-writers of modern times evidently reverse the saying--with them it far more difficult to refrain.

'Six Months Hence.' Being Passages from the Life of Maria née Secretan. Three volumes. Smith, Elder and Co.

In the anonymous author of this story we have, we suspect, a new writer of fiction, and of considerable power. The novel is mainly a psychological one--although full of tragic incidents, and complicated in its plot. Indeed, the story is constructed with a mechanical ingenuity, which in the minuteness and mosaic of its incidents, is not unworthy of the author of the 'Lady in White.' The story is told autobiographically by the heroine, in a plain matter-of-fact way; full, however, of psychological self-analysis that would do credit to the author of 'Dr. Austin's Guests,' especially in the delineation of Fortescue's madness. The heroine enters upon a situation as governess in the family of Mr. Armitage, of Harcourt Villa, Hastings; who, being left a widower, with a son and daughter, Charles and Helen, has married, a second time, a woman of coarse nature and unscrupulous character, who has one son, Fred, a little boy of six. A Mr. Fortescue, an accomplished and wealthy young man, is a constant visitor at the villa, and is the presumptive lover of Helen, although he has never declared his love. Helen, and Maria, the governess, who are of the same age, become fast friends; gradually, however, Mr. Fortescue transfers his attentions to Maria, whose first guilt consists in yielding to ambitious desires, and permitting in herself and Mr. Fortescue treachery to her friend. The incipient attachment is strengthened by a long nursing of little Fred, who meets with an accident; the rescue of Maria from the tide by Mr. Fortescue precipitates matters, and they are secretly engaged to be married; two or three days before the intended disclosure of the engagement, and a few days before the intended marriage, Mr. Armitage dies, having, through the machinations of his wife, made an iniquitous will, whereby little Fred is made his heir in the event of his attaining the age of twenty-one; should he die before that age, the estates revert to the natural heir, no other provision being made. Maria and Mr. Fortescue are married. On the very week of their arrival at Dalemain Castle, Mr. Fortescue's seat in Cumberland, little Fred is murdered,--Mr. Fortescue being absent from home on some business in another part of Cumberland. Helen is suspected and tried; then suspicion falls upon Charles, against whom circumstantial evidence is strong, and public indignation stronger still. The mob at Lewes attempt to lynch him on the day of his trial, and he receives injuries of which he dies. In the meanwhile, Maria discovers that she has married a maniac, who inherits the fatal taint from his grandmother. In the event of such a contingency, by the grandfather's will, the property is to go to the next heir. Now comes the struggle between Maria's cupidity and her conscience; she tries to hide the fact of her husband's insanity, and discovers that, under a strong hallucination, he has been the murderer of little Fred. Again a struggle between selfishness and conscience--Helen is accused of the murder, and Maria conceals the evidence that will exculpate her, and, to put it out of her power to save her, goes with her husband into Switzerland; there she hears that the accusation is transferred to Charles, whom she has secretly but passionately loved. What conscience would not do for Helen, love does for Charles; she hastens to England with proofs of his innocence, but arrives only in time to see him die of the injuries received from the mob. All this is told with great power--the anatomy of selfishness in herself, of madness in her husband, and of love in Helen and Charles is very masterly, and almost painfully minute. The story is one of intense interest, and gives promise of another powerful writer of fiction, who, notwithstanding the feminine autobiography, and the minute analysis of female passions, is, we suspect, of the sterner sex.

The Struggles of Brown, Jones, and Robinson. By One of the Firm. Edited by ANTHONY TROLLOPE. Smith, Elder, and Co.

Mr. Trollope has, in this little brochure, essayed the epic of modern advertising. The following sentences epitomise the moral thereof:--Robinson, loquitur--'Did you ever believe an advertisement? Jones, in self-defence, protested that he never had. And why should others be more simple than you? No man, no woman, believes them. They are not lies; for it is not intended they should obtain credit. I should despise the man who attempted to build his advertisement on a system of facts, as I should the builder who lays his foundation on the sand. The groundwork of advertisement is romance. It is poetry in its very essence. Is Hamlet true?'

'I really do not know,' said Mr. Brown.

'There is no man, to my thinking, so false,' continued Robinson, 'as he who in trade professes to be true. He deceives, or endeavours to do so. I do not. Advertisements are profitable; not because they are believed, but because they attract attention.'

Per contra. 'The ticketing of goods at prices below their value is not to our taste, but the purchasing of such goods is less so. The lady who will take advantage of a tradesman, that she may fill her house with linen, or cover her back with finery, at his cost, and in a manner which her own means would not fairly permit, is, in our estimation, a robber. Why is it that commercial honesty has so seldom charms for women? A woman who would give away the last shawl from her back will insist on smuggling her gloves through the Custom-house. Is not the passion for cheap purchases altogether a female mania? And yet every cheap purchase--every purchase made at a rate so cheap as to deny the vendor his fair profit, is, in truth, a dishonesty--a dishonesty to which the purchaser is indirectly a party. Would that woman could be taught to hate bargains! How much less useless trash would there be in our houses, and how much fewer tremendous sacrifices in our shops?'

Those who read in the Cornhill Magazine this sketch of the advertising firm, its wonderful puffs, and the sensations they caused in Bishopsgate; with the unromantic, hard, business-like match-making which is interwoven with it, will remember with what a keen and somewhat cynical satire, too much upon a dead realistic level perhaps, the story is told. Those who have not read it there, are recommended to make themselves acquainted with it. It is but 'An Editor's Tale,' but its moral is wholesome and timely.

Mariette; or, Further Glimpses of Life in France. A Sequel to Marie. Bell and Daldy.

This story of humble life in the French provinces is intended as a sequel to that of 'Marie,' and is a mere narrative of events occurring in the daily existence of the humblest of serving women, who reports the sayings and doings of her masters, through the incidents, political and municipal, occurring in the good town of Nantes, where they reside. The book is amusing enough, a sort of French country town chronicle, such a record as Mrs. Gaskell would now and then give us of English life under the same conditions; there is nothing in it to stir the passions--nothing to irritate or vex; but on the other hand, nothing to soothe or calm the nerves. It resembles a long unbroken chant, as if from the lips of an aged crone, which neither commands the attention of the listener nor prevents him from bestowing it on anything else, and yet is regretted when it is over, simply because the scenes, the characters, the conversations are all familiar to our memory, and hallowed by long association. The little volume possesses one charm of its own. It is written without the smallest pretension, easy and simple in style, and delicately subdued in sentiment, in keeping with the character and station of the supposed narrator.

Lorna Doone. A Romance of Exmoor. By R. D. BLACKMORE. Sampson Low.

We spoke of this novel when it first appeared in almost the highest terms of commendation that we could command. A re-perusal of it only confirms our impression, that in scholarly conscientiousness, artistic skill, and romantic interest, it more nearly approaches the best of the Waverley novels than any fiction that has appeared since then. We can give it no higher praise. We only wonder that it has so tardily won the honours of a cheap edition.

The Victory of the Vanquished. A Tale of the First Century. By the Author of the Schönberg-Cotta Family. T. Nelson and Co.

In her new story, Mrs. Charles has ventured to tread the oft-trodden paths of the age of the Incarnation, and with a delicacy, grace, and devout tenderness that perhaps none of her predecessors have attained. The story opens in Rome in the year A.D. 17. Its personages are a captive German family, brought to Rome by Germanicus--slaves in his household, first becoming acquainted with the pagan life at Rome, then with the heaving Jewish life, which He who was Immanuel was stirring to its depths. Jew and Roman, Greek and Christian represent the various classes of contemporary life. Mrs. Charles is too refined and reverent an artist to bring us into the actual presence of him who taught in Capernaum; but we vividly feel and realize his life; and Siguna and her children, Seivord and Hilda, and Laon, the old Greek, and Cloelia Diodora, the Roman maiden, find its salvation. A more beautiful, pellucid, and tender story has rarely been written.

Chips from a German Workshop. By F. MAX MULLER, M.A., Foreign Member of the French Institute, &c. Vol. III., Essays on Literature, Biography, and Antiquities. Longmans, Green, and Co.

The first and second volumes of Mr. Max Müller's occasional essays on the subject of comparative mythology, and on the so-called science of religious development, received the modest and quaint title of 'Chips from a German Workshop.' Our author has given the stress of his energy and the prime of his life to great undertakings. His edition of the 'Rig-Veda,' and now his elaborate translation and interpretation of its hymns, have not prevented his delivering important courses of lectures on the Science of Language. The great assistance he rendered to Baron Bunsen in his Oriental and philological speculations has been abundantly recognised by all students of the greater works of Bunsen. But scientific scholarship on this high scale has brought our author into contact with other and allied themes of literary research; and we find in the present volume a reprint of sixteen additional essays, of varied interest and merit, which greatly enhance our idea of the wide extent of Mr. Max Müller's scholarship, and are, moreover, of a class which may be safely commended to the general reader. Comparative grammar is clearly the key which this accomplished student of ancient and modern languages is tempted to use on all occasions, and for the solution of all puzzles, historical, theological, political, and even scientific. His keen and penetrating eye sees analogies, histories, reaches of civilization, bonds and bars of fellowship, in non-extant words, where one less trained to the business would utterly fail to discover them; and his linguistic omniscience makes us, in our ignorance, not seldom feel that he is too clever by half, and that his conclusions come almost too 'pat' upon his speculative theses. Be this as it may, we thank him very heartily for the exceeding refreshment and peculiar charm of this volume. The three articles on 'Cornish Antiquities,' on the question 'Are there Jews in Cornwall?' and on 'the Insulation of St. Michael's Mount,' which were written in 1867, form a trilogy of extreme interest. We have seldom read anything more perfect or complete in its way than his demolition of Mr. Pengelly's plausible theory, that the Cornish language was spoken before the insulation of St. Michael's Mount, in Cornwall, could have taken place; even though, geologically speaking, that event must be thrown back from 16,000 to 20,000 years. His learned refutation of the idea that Jews worked in the mines of Cornwall, in part effected by the discovery of the true etymology of the name of the town Marazion, on which so much had been built, and his instructive exposition of the nature and value of the Cornish antiquities and language, will well repay perusal.

The gem of the volume is the eloquent and affectionate tribute to the memory of Bunsen, in the form of a review of his memoirs. To these Max Müller has now added a valuable postscript, in a selection of some hundred letters addressed to himself by the great scholar and diplomatist. They are charged with kindly and generous feeling, and with noble enthusiasm; and they give fresh insight into Bunsen's astounding activity, far-reaching glance, and prodigious range of literary endeavour. They would many of them be more intelligible if they were read in their proper place in his biography; but the perusal of them recalls the zest with which three years ago the memoirs of this great man were devoured rather than read. We are not surprised that M. Müller should say, 'It has been my good fortune in life to have known many men whom the world calls great philosophers, statesmen, scholars, artists, and poets; but take it all in all, take the full humanity of the man, I have never seen, and I shall never see his like again.'

One of the essays to which we would direct special attention is that on the language and poetry of Schleswig-Holstein. The biographical articles on Schiller, and Wilhelm Müller, and some of the shorter 'chips' on 'Ye Schyppe of Fools,' 'Old German Love-songs,' and on 'A German Traveller in England, A.D. 1598,' are racy, and highly entertaining.

The World of Moral and Religious Anecdote; Illustrations and Incidents gathered from the Words, Thoughts, and Deeds in the Lives of Men, Women, and Books. By EDWIN PAXTON HOOD. Hodder and Stoughton.

Mr. Hood is a man who reads everything, and who, making allowance for such slight inaccuracies as are characteristic of voracious readers, forgets nothing that he has read. It would be difficult to name a man better qualified to compile a volume of anecdotes. We wish, however, he would not call Samuel Bailey, the thoughtful author of the 'Essays on the Formation and Publication of Opinions,' Bail_lie_. Eccentricities of this kind are frequent in Mr. Hood's writings, and not easy to be accounted for.

The volume published by Mr. Hood, under the more general title 'The World of Anecdote,' has met with a reception so favourable, that he has published this companion volume, 'The World of Religious Anecdote,' filled with anecdotes of religious men or things, gathered from a very wide circle of religious biography and history, and from all imaginable miscellaneous sources--from a quarterly review to a newspaper. Mr. Hood does not exaggerate the importance and significance of anecdote, either in history or biography; if exactly told, such incidents as constitute anecdote, indicate the movement or the man, more truthfully than formal disquisition. We do not pretend to have read through Mr. Hood's volume--this would be a task, less arduous only than to read through a dictionary--but we have read enough of it cordially to commend it as a repertory of many things that are both new and good, and of some that are neither.

The Essays of an Optimist. By JOHN WILLIAM KAYE. Smith, Elder, and Co.

Mr. Kaye tells us that he had no particular design when writing these papers; no purpose, that is, of illustrating any special philosophy. They were not to him a serious work--they were 'holiday tasks, written by snatches, and sent off piece by piece as they were written; the loose thoughts of a loose thinker, desultory, discursive,' written away from books, 'in country inns, or sea-side lodgings, or other strange places far away from home.' Criticism is exonerated from dealing in any serious way with a book so produced. Literature is not thus achieved. Cameo-cutting should be as artistic and patient as genre painting. Mr. Kaye is pleasantly garrulous, and intelligently superficial. He writes as one would write good letters; and what he writes is very pleasant to read. He throws the regulating good sense of a sober well-informed man upon such matters as Holidays, Work, Success, Growing Old, Toleration, &c. He has done and can do good work; therefore we accept with a certain degree of interest these 'chips.'

A Book of Golden Thoughts. By HENRY ATTWELL, Knight of the Order of the Oak Crown, &c. Macmillan and Co.

This is one of the most charming volumes of the Golden Treasury series. The author, with rare discernment and fine taste, has selected the richest, sweetest thoughts of our greatest and wisest teachers on a marvellous variety of themes, but all tending in the direction of high spiritual culture. The apothegms or longer passages extracted from French or German writers are translated with delicate tact and placed in an appendix. The words of Pascal--J'ecrirai ici mes pensées sans ordre, et non pas peut-être dans une confusion sans dessein: c'est le veritable ordre, et qui marquera toujours mon objet par le désordre même--are placed at the head of the volume. It would take a long time to try and unravel the design of Mr. Attwell, but whoever wishes to have the choicest words of Bacon, Pascal, Montesquieu, Goethe, Ruskin, Helps, and many others, may find them here brought together into small compass, and presented in a very attractive form.

Publications of the Early English Text Society. 1870. Extra Series. Trübner and Co.

X.--The Fyrst Boke of the Introduction of Knowledge, made by Andrewe Boorde, of Physycke Doctor.

A Compendyus Regyment, or a Dyetary of Helth. By the same Author.

Barnes in Defence of the Berde.

XI.--The Bruce. By Master JOHN BARLOWE, Archdeacon of Aberdeen, A.D. 1375.

These issues are not quite according to the Society's programme in their report of January last, which, stated that three or four other works besides the first part of the 'Bruce' were in the press for their extra series of 1870, and made no mention of the volume which Mr. Furnivall has edited. Indeed, the opportunity for his undertaking this work did not, he tells us, occur until February, when he purchased an early copy of the Dyetary at Mr. Corser's sale.

Dr. Andrew Boorde or Borde, was a Carthusian monk of Henry the Eighth's time, who 'was dyspensyd of the religion,' whatever that may mean--a point obscure to Mr. Furnivall--travelled over a great part of Europe, and returned to practise as a physician, having for his patient the Duke of Norfolk, when that great noble was in the Royal favour. Of several works which the Doctor wrote, Mr. Furnivall has printed two; in a preface and epilogue which he is pleased to style 'Forewords and Hindwords,' are collected many particulars of the author's life, and long extracts from others of his writings. 'The Introduction of Knowledge' is a book of travel, partly in rhyme, giving characteristics and specimens of the languages of the several countries the author had visited. The Dyetary is a book of hygiène, containing many prescriptions which modern physicians would approve. Both tracts abound in quaint, curious, and shrewd remarks. One of the Doctor's last works was a treatise on beards, which he seems to have condemned, and to have advocated shaving. For this Mr. Furnivall, who 'left off the absurdity some three years before his neighbours,' thinks him 'a noodle,' as it seems did 'Barnes, whoever he may be,' whose defence of the Berde is here printed. There is, however, some reason to suppose that the learned editor thinks Barnes was a noodle also. The subject is clearly a pet with him.

The 'Bruce' is well-known, and has been frequently reprinted, editions having appeared as lately as 1856 and 1869. The last was issued after Mr. Skeat had begun his labours; but its character was not such as to lead the Society to desire less the completion of their own edition. About half the poem is now printed. Mr. Skeat's preface and glossarial index await the publication of the second part. John Barlowe was the contemporary of Wycliffe, Chaucer, and Gower, and his poem is a worthy member of the group of noble works which were the first fruits of English literature. It may be called English, now that Scotland and England have a common inheritance, though it is a Scot's story of his countrymen's resistance to the dictation and encroachment of the English king, and the Archdeacon would doubtless have scorned and repudiated the epithet. The subject-matter of the poem is a great one. It tells how, on the death of King Alexander, a doubt arose, whether, according to the true law of inheritance, the Bruce or the Baliol ought to succeed to the throne; how the dispute was referred to the arbitration of the English Edward,--

'For that the king of Ingland Held swylk freyndship and company To thar king, that was swa worthy Thai trowyt that he as gud nychtbur, And as freyndsome compositur Wald have Iugyt in lawtes;'

how, instead of judging loyally, he seized the opportunity for insisting on his own claim to a feudal superiority over the Scottish crown, deciding for the Balliol because he 'Assentyt till him in all his will,' while the Bruce replied,--

Schyr, said he, sa God me save, The kynryk zham I nocht to have, Bot gyff it full off rycht to me: And gyff God will that it sa be, I sall as frely in all thing Hald it, as it afferis to king; Or as myn eldris foronch me Held it in freyast reawte;'

how English invasion and Scottish insurrection followed, and how the long-baffled Bruce fought out his triumph. The story is told with archaic simplicity, but with much grace of diction.

The Riches of Chaucer, &c. By CHARLES COWDEN CLARKE. Second Edition, carefully Revised. Lockwood and Co.

Tales from Chaucer in Prose, designed chiefly for the use of Young Persons. By CHARLES COWDEN CLARKE. Second Edition, carefully Revised. Lockwood and Co.

Mr. Clarke is a veteran in the field of Shakespearian literature; although this is not necessarily a qualification for the exposition of Chaucer, who lived two centuries and a quarter earlier, and at the very dawn of our literature: the scholarly character of his Shakespearian work, however, is a presumption in favour of a worthy presentation of Chaucer. The work itself justifies this presumption. The first of these volumes is an expurgated, modernized, and accentuated edition of Chaucer. Scholars, or perhaps we should say, pedants, will likely enough turn up their noses at this, and pour upon Mr. Clarke the ridicule that has been the meed of Bowdler; but Chaucer and Shakespeare stand in different relations to modern popular readers. To such the archaic language of Chaucer makes him simply unintelligible, while his coarseness absolutely excludes him puerisque virginibus. No idolatry of English literature can warrant a parent in putting Chaucer as he is into the hands of his children. Nor can much moral benefit accrue to anyone from his perusal. If, therefore, Chaucer is to be a popular book at all, to be read by any but scholars, both processes are essential. Mr. Clarke has every desirable qualification for the work, which demands both a scholar and an artist. The accentuation of the rhythm too will be a great help to unpractised readers. This edition of Chaucer may be put into the hands of young people and modest women, with the assurance also that it will be easily understood and thoroughly enjoyed. We trust that through it our first and one of our greatest poets will be introduced into schools and homes, and win a popularity hitherto denied him.

The second volume is an attempt to reproduce the Tales of Chaucer in modern prose after the manner of Lamb's 'Tales from Shakespeare.' This is a far more arduous undertaking. Mr. Clarke tells us that he has endeavoured to render the poetry in as easy prose as he could, without at the same time destroying the poetical description and strong natural expressions of the author. Some of the long discussions are omitted, as of course is all that is offensive in coarse expression or allusion. The task has been difficult. 'I was,' Mr. Clarke says, 'to be at one and the same time modernly antique, prosaically poetic, and comprehensively concise.' That he has succeeded in so large a degree is very high merit. We trust his little volume will be widely read.

THEOLOGY AND PHILOLOGY.

The Origin, and Development of Religious Belief. By S. BARING-GOULD, M.A. Part II.--Christianity. Rivingtons.

We have already called the attention of our readers to the first part of this remarkable work, in which the writer, taking the standpoint of positive science and the facts of human nature, endeavoured to account for the developments of religious belief in all ages and places, and uttered his conviction that they all correspond to some necessity and quality of human nature. He then hazarded the opinion that the true and absolute religion would take account of, and embody, and satisfy, the cravings expressed in the strange worship and religious ideas of all peoples. He has now pursued his inquiry into the positive dicta of Christian theology, and seeks to show that they rest on facts anterior both to the text of Scripture and the very existence of the Divine Society. Revelation, if it exists at all, must take up into itself all the varieties not only of Mosaism or heathenism, but of polytheism, of idolatry, fetishism, and mysticism, because these and many others are facts of human nature, and have had a great part to play in the development and progress of human thought. Christianity, to our author, is true--and by Christianity he appears to mean the whole dogmatic and hierarchical and social edifice of Catholicism, because it contains in itself the utterance of all truths. All other religions and all sects and schism of the one Church, so far as they hold positive truth, hold only what the Church holds; their negations are to his mind 'nothing,' and are destitute, therefore, of all vital power. The Quaker, the Lutheran, the Anglican, the Greek, the Presbyterian, the modern Christian philosopher, not to say the Pagan, the Arian, the Pelagian, the Donatist, grasped severally and forcibly some one truth; perhaps one-half of the antinomy presenting itself in some great synthesis. Let this be granted, and, according to Mr. B. Gould, Catholicism held the same great truth. It may be found embedded in her system, taught with greater explicitness there than by the sectary; but each of these has denied some truth or placitum of Catholicism, and its negation has been nothing, has added nothing to the value of belief as positive truth. Yet with all this, the author falls foul of Rome at a hundred points. The union between the Church and the temporal power is denounced with unmeasured terms; the Papacy is a violation and a 'negation' of the oecumenicity of the Church, and the encyclical of Pius IX. comes in for a series of terrific blows. The Inquisition and the persecuting spirit which arose in Rome under the union of sacred and secular powers, is treated with as sincere a condemnation as is every form of Protestantism. Still further, when the author comes to deal with the evidence for the Incarnation, on which his whole theory turns, he disposes of every vestige of proof which may be supposed to linger in the New Testament in favour of this stupendous mystery of grace, and this 'conciliation of all antinomies.' The chapter on 'The Evidence of the Incarnation' is a feeble rechauffé of the most ultra type of modern scepticism. Miracles and prophecy, the inspiration, authenticity, and genuineness of the Gospels, the evidential value of specific occurrences in the life of Christ, all go to the wall. Much is made of discrepancies and contradictions, of the silence of contemporary historians, and all the rest of it, with which we are so familiar; and our author's conclusion is, that there is no evidence worthy of the name for the chief fact on which the whole of the religious development of Christianity turns. Relinquishing every proof of the divinity of Christ derivable from the New Testament as less than useless, the grounds on which he calls for a belief in the incarnation of God in Christ (who, by the way, need not ever have existed as an historical character at all) are, that 'such a union of divinity and humanity is necessary to me, that my nature may find its complete religious satisfaction;' 'such a dogma alone supplies an adequate basis for morals, establishes the rights of man on a secure foundation, enables man to distinguish between authority and force, conciliates my double nature, rational and sentimental, and my double duties, egoistic and altruistic, and supplies an adequate incentive to progress.'

These several points furnish the matter of several chapters; and while it must be observed here that Mr. Baring-Gould's 'negations,' as well as those of other sectaries, are 'nothing,' and his condemnations and denials of many positions for which the Catholic Christian would be prepared to die, put him, in spite of himself, among the most extreme left of the Hegelian school, yet his arguments on the worth of the dogma of Incarnation, from his own point of view, deserve serious consideration. After his numerous indications of a negative criticism and spirit as hardy and audacious as could be well imagined, he sets to work with a will, to blaspheme Protestantism as the negation of moral truths. His monstrous perversions of Luther's and Calvin's position merit severe castigation. Thus, 'Calvin denied free-will, and therefore denied duty.' Can he have read the 'Institutes?' The statement 'that Reformers denied the holiness of God,' with Jewel's 'Apology,' or any of the Protestant symbols in his hand, is too flagrant a violation of common fairness. The charge in this chapter against Protestants, that they deny or negative the Personal Christ, and in a later chapter, that they have only a dead Christ and not a present Christ to worship or love, comes with a bad grace from one who has thrown away the evidence of the existence or divinity of Christ as an historical fact. He appears to glory in the sacramental system of the Romanist, and assures us that the Protestant sacraments are reduced to two, and these are not baptism and the Lord's Supper, but the 'Ministry' and the 'Bible;' the latter of which, in its sacramental character, he pleasingly describes for his purpose, as just so much 'washed-up rags and black treacle stains,' an euphuism for the printed page, which is the matériel for the communication of such truth and reality as we poor destitute beings possess. We are content. The mighty Word itself, with all its power to kindle life and instruct intelligence, to stir the affections, and discern even the thoughts and intents of the heart, is graciously communicated to us by the printed page, and by the living voice of men charged with the Holy Ghost; and for an actual communication of the living Christ to our true nature, it is on an infinitely higher level than that which can only reach our emotional nature through the medium of our alimentary canal and gastric juices. When our author holds up to heartless Protestants certain acts of special worship which Cardinal Wiseman described so feelingly and poetically, we can hardly refrain from telling him that such Cremorne splendours of religious awe, such blendings of fetishism and wax-candles with the stupendous conception of the ever-present Christ, will have little effect upon those whose intellectual, moral, and sensuous nature have been brought into their due relation with each other, who know the Christ, who love Him and could die for him.

There is much that is worthy of profound consideration in Mr. Baring-Gould's positive assertions with reference to the Incarnation and the Atonement, the dogma of immortality and the Christian sacrifice; but he has a strange habit of putting a few transcendental propositions one after the other, mounting up from a 'positive' basis to something like 'Catholic doctrine,' and then calling his string of dogmas, demonstration. He appears perfectly rabid in his hatred of Protestantism and Protestants, in his dislike of the doctrine of the Atonement, as expounded in every phase of evangelical Christianity; and he never wearies of accusing Protestants of worshipping a dead Christ, because they cannot, after his Hegelian fashion, accept the Tridentine dogma of transubstantiation and eucharistic sacrifice. With all his rapturous admiration of the Church and denunciation of Protestants, it is sufficiently amusing to find him perpetually--when he wants to give high utterance to his most enthusiastic dream--driven to quote the poetry of Sectaries; and once he is so far left to himself as actually to make that heretic, Isaac Watts, do him some service, and say for him one of his sweetest thoughts. After all said and done, we find him still outside the Roman Church, and the next thing we may hear is, that his interesting, eloquent, and original book is placed in the 'Index.' There is surely scarcely a position of high importance adopted by him which would not be repudiated by a Catholic theologian.

The Athanasian Creed, and its usage in the English Church: an Investigation, as to the General Object of the Creed, and the Growth of prevailing Misconceptions concerning it. A Letter to Very Rev. W. F. HOOK, D.D., from C. A. SWAINSON, D.D. Rivingtons.

This letter is extremely interesting, coming, as it does, on the morrow after the publication of the Report of the Ritual Commissioners, and following the courageous articles of Dean Stanley and Professor Maurice in the Contemporary Review, and the long discussion of the subject in the Guardian. Dr. Swainson is well entitled, by his prolonged studies in this department of ecclesiastical literature, to be heard in defence of the symbol of Athanasius. The upshot of his argument is, that it is a 'hymn,' and not a 'creed.' Here he does but re-echo the language of Dr. J. H. Newman, Mr. Maurice, and others. He conceives, however, that he has proved that it was in the first instance used to prepare candidates for baptism, and that the damnatory clauses do not belong to it in essence, and have not the same authenticity or value as the exposition given in it of the Catholic faith; that their meaning is not intended to cover every individual clause of the exposition, but to refer to the Catholic faith as a whole; that they merely assert the grand distinction which faith makes between those that are being saved and those that are perishing for ever in the darkness of unbelief; that the inaccuracies of the English translation are due to the influence of the Greek translation of Bryling, and to the obscurity introduced by Luther's version of it into German; that it ought to be 'sung,' in a true translation, as an addition to the psalmody, and not in place of the Apostles' Creed; that as 'the articles were never intended originally to be made a test to be subscribed or enlarged from that point of view,' the reference to the Athanasian Creed in the Articles does not bind us to believe that every clause in it is agreeable to the word of God, any more than a multitude of other propositions in the Articles, about which it would be absurd to make a similar assertion. These various refinements will not avail to reconcile the Anglican clergy to continue much longer the use of a formulary which, though certain portions of it may, by antiquarian scholars, be severed in thought from the rest, does yet assume to the majority of those that are called to 'sing' or 'say' it, the appearance of a homogeneous whole. Dr. Newman's description of it as a war-song of the Church, is unquestionably true; if so, it does condemn, in the language of triumphant dogmatism, the opinions of Arian, Sabellian, and Apollinarian, as well as those who repudiate the Double Procession of the Holy Spirit; and it declares that, without doubt, those who hold such opinions shall perish for ever. Scarcely one in a thousand of the Anglican clergy can believe in the obvious literal interpretation of the symbol as a whole.

The History and Literature of the Israelites, according to the Old Testament and the Apocrypha. By C. DE ROTHSCHILD and A. DE ROTHSCHILD. Two vols. Longmans, Green and Co.

The first element of interest to us in this work is, that it is a history of the Jewish people and their literature, by members of their own nation and faith. It must ever be of great interest and of great importance to Christian students of the Old Testament to see the views of it taken by Jews, who certainly do not bring to it the Christian preconceptions which so often overlay and perplex its interpretation. If, as we think, the interpretation of the modern Jew errs through his refusal to see the relations of its predictions and types to Jesus of Nazareth, it is certain that the interpretation of Christians often errs through the excess of Christian allusion which they imagine themselves to find there. One way of correcting the latter is to see how intelligent, pious, and conscientious Jewish interpreters look at it. Many things are placed by them in natural lights, which are not the less artificial in Christian hands, because Christian thought and meaning are imported into them. The Messrs. Rothschild, who claim the conjoint authorship of the book, are accomplished and devout men, and are remarkably free from polemical one-sidedness. A chaste and gentle elegance of style, illumined with quiet lights of a poetic but restrained imagination, make the volumes very pleasant to read. The work, moreover, is popular in form. Its critical power is not great, and the criticism that there is, is latent rather than formal, and is exhibited in its results rather than in its processes. It is sufficient, if not to determine great controverted questions, yet to give intelligence to the quiet assumption of conclusions. Nothing is debated, everything is assumed and affirmed as unquestionable truth, although there are indications that the writers are aware of the positions of modern criticism.

The first volume is a simple recast of the Old Testament story; the ordinary conclusions of popular orthodoxy are accepted. It makes no pretensions to the rectification and reconstruction of Ewald or Stanley; Ewald, indeed, is not once referred to. This volume, therefore, which completes the history, calls for no remark, except that it is written freshly and pleasantly. The second volume, which deals with Hebrew literature, presents many more points for criticism. The writers have arrived at conclusions, some of which are warranted by the most authoritative judgments of modern scholarship; others of which are so far from this, that it was almost incumbent upon the authors to justify their assumption of them. They are such as these,--that there were two Isaiahs, the first living down to the time of Josiah, the second a hundred and fifty years later in the time of Cyrus--the one the prophet of prosperity, the other of adversity; that the Messianic prophecies of the latter, those contained in the fifty-third chapter for instance, had reference to contemporary martyrs; that the traditions of Jonah, the fretful prophet, were handed down through many generations, until they were embodied in their Biblical form by some able writer of the Babylonian period; the writers, however, repudiate the idea of its being a legend, and contend for its historical character--that the book of Daniel was written about the year B.C. 160; that the canonical book of Psalms was ever used or intended to be used 'as a kind of liturgy of the Jewish Church,' and 'that the poems were made to serve this purpose, however different their original object might have been;' that the book of Job was an imaginative drama, or dialogue, written about the Babylonian period, constructed to prove the true doctrine of human calamity; that the book of Ecclesiastes was written 'in the Persian, if not in the Macedonian period,' and that the author 'put his ideas very appropriately into the mouth of King Solomon;' that the 'Song of Solomon' was 'written not long after the death of Solomon, by a poet living in the Northern Kingdom,' was supposed to be the production of Solomon himself, and 'naturally believed to have a religious tendency,' and that through this misconception it obtained its place in the Canon.

As the writers give no reasons for their assumptions, it is impossible to indicate the reasons of our agreement with them or difference from them; we content ourselves with remarking, that the absence of reasons in matters so greatly controverted, deprives the volume of scholarly character and critical value. We can only say that, taking it for what it is, it is an intelligently and agreeably written book. Although making no pretensions to the ability or historical power of Stanley's 'Jewish Church,' it does not fall into any of his great assumptions. The general remarks on the office and character of the Prophets, and on the schools of the Prophets, are very meagre and feeble compared with the chapters of Dr. Payne Smith, or of Dean Stanley. The work, indeed, must be commended as simply a popular and uncritical reproduction from a Jewish point of view of the Old Testament story.

Present Day Papers on Prominent Questions in Theology. Edited by the Right Reverend ALEXANDER EWING, D.C.L., Bishop of Argyll and the Isles. Strahan and Co.

These pamphlets have been published separately, and subsequently collected into a volume. The first bears the title 'The Atonement,' by the Rev. Wm. Law, a reprint of that great writer's 'Dialogue on the Atonement,' with an elaborate introduction; the second, by the editor, is on 'the Eucharist;' the third to the sixth are anonymous, under the titles 'The Rule of Faith,' 'The Present Unbelief,' 'Words for Things,' and 'Meditations and Prayers;' the seventh is a translation of Luther's theses on 'Justification by Faith,' by the Rev. J. Wace. It is impossible to deal with these papers separately in the compass of a brief notice. One strong spirit pervades almost the whole of them. The burden of several is to charge upon Evangelical doctrine the entire blame of the 'present unbelief,' to represent that which we hold to be the essence of the Gospel of Christ as little better than blasphemous misunderstanding of God, as immoral, as defamatory to the true nature of God and the work of Christ. It is urged that Socinians and infidels would have had their deadliest weapon wrenched from their hands, if schoolmen and theologians had not perverted the Gospel by representing the Atonement of Christ as a means adopted to reconcile the Father to his rebellious children, propitiate His wrath, or satisfy His justice. We quite agree so far as this with Mr. Law, and with the spirit of several of the pamphleteers. If the Church of Christ had been converted to the view of Christ's work held by the Socini and their followers, such disbelievers would have gained a great victory. The doctrine of 'substitution' is the bête noire of these writers. Whatever else they attempt to explain away or refute or repudiate, this hated doctrine comes in for condemnation. The editor, in his paper on the Eucharist, devotes great space to show that the 'basis of morality is overthrown by the idea of a substituted or equivalent righteousness, ... all true conception of the righteousness and holiness of God is lost, and we are only saved from profanity ... by our non-observance of its real nature.' To 'accept the sacrifice of the Son' in lieu of man's righteousness, or in place of man's punishment, 'is a terrible misconception,' changing 'all that we naturally know and believe about God, as good and right, into darkness.' The paper on the 'Present Unbelief,' which turns on man's indisposition to recognise the self-evidencing revelation of God, and propounds much wise and true remark on the undue reverence paid by men and Churches to the logical processes once needed for special combat with evil, but now no longer useful, tells us that 'the definitions of God too often among ourselves, of God under the name of Christ Jesus, or the anointed Saviour, have been too similar to the heathen--to Saturn devouring his children, painted, no doubt, in milder colours, and clothed in decent cloud, but very near the old heathen conception, the old pictures of the Greeks.' 'God was not only in danger, but lost by such a belief.' The author of the paper on 'the Rule of Faith,' after much vague declamation and mystical enthronement of the inner life, says what is very excellent on the fact 'that the proof of revelation being true from the character of its operation, is the highest kind of proof, and is not liable to the accidents which affect other or external evidence.' He lays great emphasis on that inner verification of revealed truth which also makes it to be revelation to each man. 'The God of another is not my God; He is not my God by authority; I must be the authority myself.' After developing the older 'rule of faith,' as understood by the writer, and saying some useful though not very satisfactory or clear things about the canon of Scripture, he endeavours to show that the old 'rule of faith and practice in Christ has been essentially altered.' The climax of the offence of modern theology is represented here and elsewhere in these papers as a transformation of the statements, 'God so loved the world that He gave His Son for it,' into 'God so loved his Son as to give the world for Him.' What the writer means we are at a loss to understand, but he actually tells us, with a very grave and solemn look, that 'in the theology of substitution the way is turned into the end,' 'darkness is brought in at the centre,' God's 'love for man, as such, and individuals, as such, was lost sight of, and the soul left to a conventional relationship with Him which left it entirely outside, and from whence it could draw no nourishment.' All we can say here is, that the author does not understand the alphabet of the doctrine of substitution, or has wilfully misrepresented it. The introduction to the reprint of William Law's dialogue is full of these misconceptions, and seems utterly blind to the mighty powers of the new life which, in the reformed theology, are the direct form in which the justification of the soul by faith in Christ's sacrifice becomes a matter of experience or consciousness. The paper on 'Words for Things' is largely occupied with the same theme. That man should not suffer to the full the consequences of his sins in this world and the next seems, we suppose, to these writers a fearful violation of order; that the work of Christ should be adapted to save a man from his sins by guaranteeing and assuring him of the Father's forgiveness is incomprehensible to them. To us this state of mind is only explicable on the supposition that these writers cannot have felt the awfulness, hideousness and peril of sin against the irresistible order in the midst of which we are placed. Christianity seems to us a very worthless thing if this key-note of its melody, this key-stone of its masonry be abstracted. From Confucius to Marcus Antoninus, from Seneca to Lord Herbert of Cherbury, from English Deists to French Positivists, we are told by sages and philosophers of all kinds to be good and self-sacrificing, to love God and our neighbour, and do justice and love mercy, and that all will be well. Leave out of Christianity the 'grace' that, to a broken heart and to a mind conscious of guilt, comes not only with the Divine life that makes a man a new creature, but with the assured conviction that the order of God's universe, the will of the Father, the justice of His rule, are manifested in His infinite love to the world through the death of His Son; leave out the sublime truth that pervades the whole revelation, and then the Bible and the Christ have little more to tell us than we can find in enlightened heathenism and pagan philosophy. There is much in these papers of which we cordially approve, and for which we feel grateful; but this dead-set at what seems to us the heart of Christianity wounds and distresses us. Mr. Wace's translation of Luther's theses is pitched in another key, and deserves separate treatment.

The Theology of the New Testament. A Handbook for Bible Students. By the Rev. J. J. VAN OOSTERZEE, D.D. Translated from the Dutch by MAURICE J. EVANS, B.A. Hodder and Stoughton.

Biblical Theology of the New Testament. By CHRISTIAN FRIEDEREK SCHMID, D.D., late Professor of Theology, Tübingen. Translated from the Fourth German Edition. Edited by C. WEIZÄCKER, D.D. By G. H. VENABLES. Edinburgh: T. and T. Clark.

The Theology of Christ from His own Words. By JOSEPH P. THOMPSON. New York: Charles Scribner.

We anticipate great advantage from the translation of these two excellent manuals. We are learning in this country to value 'historical theology' and the genesis and development of Christian ideas. Many efforts have been made to present to the student the first stages and earliest forms of this wondrous element of religious thought. Neander in his 'History of the Planting of the Christian Church,' Reuss in his 'Histoire de la Théologie Chrétienne,' and Dr. Bernard in his Bampton Lecture, have made us familiar with the fact that the teaching of the New Testament, though resulting in glorious harmony, is yet not homogeneous, and reveals throughout a progress from less to more--from germinant seeds to rich efflorescence, from mysterious reticence to open secrets, from fundamental principles to elaborate and systematic detail. The peculiar type of doctrine conspicuous in the Synoptic Gospels differs from the spirit and burden of the fourth gospel. The Petrine doctrine is not identical either with Pauline or Johannine theology. We are, perhaps, too apt to explain the language of James by that of Paul, or both by that of John, without sufficiently taking into account the specific teaching of each Evangelist and each Apostle. Dr. Oosterzee's 'Biblical Theology' presents, in small compass, the results of much careful study, and seeks, at each stage of the inquiry, to place the student in relation with the authors of the New Testament respectively, and with them alone for the time being. The references to literature are ample, and various points of stimulating inquiry are suggested. The author does not go very deeply into the separate positions, nor does he attempt any elaborate exegesis of the Scriptures cited in proof of the induction he makes. The Evangelical bias of the inquiry is not concealed, and his summaries of doctrine and the higher unity which he claims for the somewhat divergent forms, reveal very clearly the dogmatic tendencies of his own investigations. We can most cordially commend this work--especially to those who have not access to larger and more voluminous treatises--as an admirable compendium of Biblical theology, and a valuable preliminary to all honest study of scientific and dogmatic theology.

The second work mentioned above pursues the same general theme, and contrasts the Biblical theology of the New Testament with exegesis on the one hand and systematic divinity on the other. This manual is a translation by Mr. G. H. Venables of the fourth German edition of the late Dr. Schmid's work as edited by Dr. Weizäcker, and is a far more elaborate treatise than that of Dr. Oosterzee. It is divided into two parts, the one a development of the teaching of Jesus, and the other an exposition of the teaching of the Apostles. The first part is preceded by an historical review of the life of Jesus, and the second by a fruitful and suggestive sketch of the lives of the Apostles. The strength of learning and high analytical powers of the author are reserved for the doctrinal review, and very beautifully does he bring forth the teaching of our Lord under the three divisions--(a) the glorification of the Father in the Son, involving the full sublime teaching of Christ with reference to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; (b) the redemption of man, including the object of redemption, man and the world, and the subject of redemption in all His relations; and (c) the whole teaching of Christ about the kingdom of God, which is identified with the Church; there the author reveals his sacramentarian proclivities, and his high idea of the function of the Church and development of the kingdom both in this world, and that which is to come. In developing the teaching of the Apostles, his chief point is that that of James and Peter presents Christianity as in living unity with the Old Testament, and that of Paul and John in its fundamental distinction from the Old Testament. Great care and skill are shown in showing how the teaching of Paul and John roots itself in the previous teaching of Jesus, and the result of the entire discussion affords high subsidiary proof of the unity of the New Testament, the authenticity of the later as well as the earlier of Paul's Epistles, and the fundamental identity of doctrine in the Apocalypse and fourth Gospel.

Dr. J. P. Thompson of New York, in the third work mentioned above, has confined himself to the high, grand, noble theme of illustrating the 'theology of Christ.' He takes, as we think, higher and broader ground in his illustration of the 'kingdom of God' than either Dr. Oosterzee or Dr. Schmid, and admirably states the truth when he represents the Church as a form of the kingdom of God, embracing the whole 'commonwealth of believing souls who, through all diversities of race, language, and ecclesiastical institution, fraternise in the love of Christ.' Dr. Thompson developes the teaching of Christ under a great variety of themes which are not concatenated in any such classification as Dr. Schmid's, though they traverse much of the same ground. Such topics as 'prayer,' 'providence,' and 'eschatology,' occupy much of the space. The exposition is wise, candid, and eloquent.

A Dictionary of Doctrinal and Historical Theology. Edited by the Rev. JOHN HENRY BLUNT, M.A., F.S.A. L--Z. Rivingtons.

We see no reason for modifying the judgment of Mr. Blunt's Dictionary which we ventured to pronounce upon the first section of it. His extensive knowledge is beyond all doubt, and his indefatigable industry beyond all praise. We give him all credit for both painstaking and conscientiousness; but he sorely lacks the scholarly faculty of using his knowledge in a dispassionate way. Rash assertion, hasty generalization, partial and illogical inference, disfigure every page of his Dictionary. Mr. Blunt is fairly carried away by his sacramentarian theories; they possess him like a fever, and affect both his vision and his judgment. Above most of his brethren even, and that is saying very much, he infuses a polemic into every scrap of antiquarian fact that he can collect, and into every particle of reasoning that his ingenuity can devise. We are aware that a statement like this is a very grave accusation, and that it can be substantiated only by a patient induction such as a brief notice will not permit; but we pledge our critical judgment to the assertion that there is not a page in which statements do not occur, which no judicial mind can accept. Thus, on the very first page, sub voce, 'Laity,' Mr. Blunt chooses to interpret the Hebrew word עַם, which Gesenius and all lexicographers render 'people'--in the sense of nations--by the ecclesiastical word 'laity,' i.e., the people as distinguished from the priests. This enables him to give to a number of instances in which the word occurs just the twist of interpretation that his theory demands. Surely a conscientious scholar would refrain from giving a general term such a special significance for the sake of sustaining an ecclesiastical theory. It matters not that the term is sometimes used in this sense, and is applied to the people as distinguished from the priests--Mr. Blunt treats it as the generic sense. Under the word 'Latitudinarianism,' among much prejudiced statement, we meet this astounding assumption, 'this article (the 18th of the Church of England) is somewhat loosely worded; but by comparison of the language used with the use of similar language in the New Testament, it will be plainly seen to amount to a statement that salvation is only to be obtained within the boundaries of the Church.' Under the word 'Lay-Co-operation' we have this unscholarly, and must we not say spiteful, assumption: 'Puritanism confounded the idea of the κλῆρος and the λαὸς, and if the phrase "co-operation of the laity" had been known to it, the theory of such co-operation, as well as the practice, would have been resolved into a substitution of the laity for the clergy, by setting the former to do those works chiefly or solely which especially belong to the office of the latter.' Is it the function of a theological dictionary to utter hypothetical prophecies founded upon rash and gratuitous statements, and conceived in a spirit of theological malice like this? Under the head 'Lay Priesthood' we read: 'This sacerdotal function of the Christian laity is a consequence of the anointing which they receive from God the Holy Ghost in baptism and confirmation.... The Holy Eucharist is offered at the altar by the priest ordained for that purpose, and the lay priest co-operates with him by saying "Amen" at the giving of thanks.' Will Mr. Blunt permit us to say that no lay scholar could possibly have been guilty of such desperate assertions?

Passing over the word 'Limbo,' and some regrets that it cannot be used on account of prejudice, although perfectly unobjectionable in itself, we find under the word 'Liturgy' the usual assumptions of men of Mr. Blunt's school, e.g., 'the circumstances under which, the Holy Eucharist was instituted, make it absolutely certain that the Apostles celebrated it from the first with a considerable amount of ritual preciseness, and the same circumstances make it probable that they also used from the beginning some liturgical form. It seems to be unnecessary to prove that the Apostles used some set form of liturgy in celebrating the memorial of their Lord.' And yet if Mr. Blunt would condescend to furnish such proof, it would convert to his views of things one-half of Protestant Christendom.

Under the word 'Lollards,' Mr. Blunt is disingenuous enough to cite against Wickliffe the articles prepared for his indictment in the trial before Archbishop Courtenay; among them, '7. That God ought to obey the devil;' and then to say, 'Such was the teaching initiated by Wickliffe, and assiduously promulgated by his followers.' It is surely a new thing to adduce an indictment of enemies as a witness to character. Does Mr. Blunt really believe that this was Wickliffe's teaching? If he does, what are we to think of his scholarship? If he does not, what are we to think of his candour?

This brings us only to 'Ló,' under the first letter in this division of Mr. Blunt's work. We need not say that these are fair samples of the whole. We protest against such gross assumptions and perversions in the name of simple scholarship. We greatly regret that so much labour and knowledge are thus perverted to the aims of the fanatical polemic. His book is not without its value, but it sorely tries the patience of a simple inquirer after fact and truth. Mr. Blunt has done his best to make worthless a work that might have been a valuable contribution to popular ecclesiastical knowledge.

The Leading Christian Evidences, &c. By GILBERT WARDLAW, M.A. Edinburgh, T. & T. Clark.

The Evidences of Christianity in the Nineteenth Century. By ALBERT BARNES. Blackie and Son.

We have bracketed these two volumes together, not simply because they are alike in theme, but because by a peculiar coincidence they are complementary of each other. Written as we need scarcely say, altogether independently, they yet arrive by opposite methods at similar conclusions. From Scotland and from America come the same earnest, forcible national testimony to the truth of Christianity. There are both likeness and unlikeness. Each author treats his subject in a clear, attractive, popular manner, candidly confessing difficulties where such exist, yet carrying the reader forward by the almost irresistible power of his reasoning to the most decided conviction. The literary style is eminently different, as is to be expected when two diverse thinkers express themselves on a common topic. This, however, arises not only from the individuality of the writers, but also from the very circumstances in which their works were produced. Mr. Gilbert Wardlaw has been 'secluded, during the later years of life, from other opportunities of service to the cause of truth,' and his book therefore bears the impress of a thoughtful mind evolving for itself arguments in support of a faith in which has been found the truest consolation during years of retirement. We imagine that his very seclusion from active life has compelled him to re-examine in the light of modern scepticism the foundations of his belief. His work is characterized by a calmness and quiet force which we cannot too highly admire, and which must be productive of the happiest results upon the minds of sincere doubters. Mr. Barnes's volume, on the other hand, had a different origin. It consists of a series of Lectures in a Theological Seminary, which are somewhat elaborate, diffuse, and theoretical, and were evidently intended to produce an immediate impression on an audience by their style as well as their matter. Yet each work is admirable. Both should be studied together, since they look at the argument from diverse stand-points. Their methods of treatment, not only in manner but substance, are in harmony with the circumstances in which these volumes originated. The one may be described as the subjective, the other the objective method. Mr. Wardlaw, believing that the moral aspect of the Christian revelation and the attitude of the inquirer are the most important preliminary questions in determining the truth of Christianity, commences with the internal and experimental evidences; while Mr. Barnes deals with external proofs, looking at the Bible as a book to be accounted for on historical grounds. It has been a real mental gratification to study these diverse methods, and to watch how, though travelling by distinct lines of thought, both authors arrive at the conviction that Christianity is from God. The volumes are in many ways helpful to each other, for if Mr. Wardlaw's seems to suffer from condensation, leaving too much to his readers' minds, the same points are often elaborated by Mr. Barnes with abundance of detail. It would have been an improvement if, in 'The Leading Christian Evidences,' italics or some other form had been adopted by which the successive stages of the argument would have been indicated, so that we could at a glance gather up the main points discussed. We do not venture on any criticism of positions which we consider weak or unsound, as our space is limited, and therefore content ourselves with congratulating these authors on their well-reasoned additions to our apologetic literature.

The Brahmo Somaj. Lectures and Tracts. By KESHUB CHUNDER SEN. First and Second Series. Edited by SOPHIA DOBSON COLLETT. Strahan and Co.

We have on previous occasions given considerable space to the remarkable movement in Hindu thought which is known to us under the above title. Some of these lectures, notably that on 'Jesus Christ--Europe and Asia,' have long been before us, and offer a remarkable sign of the effect produced on Indian society, by the truth of Christ's life, and its sublime ideal of conformity with the will of God enshrined in the Gospels. The lack, the negation, the blank in the theology of Mr. Sen need not be wondered at. This is a very different phenomenon from a similar mental position when adopted by a professedly Christian teacher. These lectures and tracts will receive special attention in consequence of the recent visit to England of this remarkable man, whose obvious earnestness and passionate yearnings after the regeneration of India have produced so deep an impression. We do not in the least sympathize with the hasty disposition shown by some to accept Mr. Sen as a prophet of an undogmatic theism, nor with his somewhat arrogant address to English Christians from certainly very small acquaintance with them and their work. All that he knows of the higher life of faith and true holiness, and all the stimulus that his own moral nature and Hindu society have received of late years, are so conspicuously due to the indirect effects of missionary labour and Christian teaching, that his disposition to ignore the source of the new light that has flooded his soul is unsatisfactory in the extreme. At the same time, we do rejoice at the moral dignity and spiritual ideal and religious exercise which he is proclaiming to his countrymen. His protest against Pantheism, his grasp of the idea of 'the Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man,' of man's sin, and need of regeneration, of man's dependence, and need of faith and resignation, of self-sacrifice and prayer, are very instructive. But let us clearly recognise the position assumed by him, that Hinduism and Mahometanism are themselves, in some purified form, to 'harmonize and form the future Church of India.' The words of Jesus or His Apostles are often quoted by him with respect, as something 'excellently and wisely said,' but there is no acknowledgment of fealty to the Lord, no Gospel but what he calls 'the Gospel of Divine mercy,' based upon his own intuitions and experiences.

'The true faith,' which is expounded in a series of apothegms arranged under a variety of headings, is intended to appeal to those who are accustomed to the style of some of the best of the sacred books. There is much that is most excellent and Christian in its tone of feeling, beautiful and attractive in form, lofty in conception and ideal, as were the meditations of Antoninus. He and his friends reveal the potent influence, the pungent leaven, the grain of mustard seed, that has been cast into the Oriental mind. They are feeling after God and finding Him. God has given them by His Spirit some faith. May it daily grow to more and more!

Christus Consolator. The Pulpit in Relation to Social Life. By ALEXANDER MACLEOD, D. D. Hodder and Stoughton.

Ad Clerum. Advices to a Young Preacher. By JOSEPH PARKER, D.D. Hodder and Stoughton.

A Treatise on the Preparation and Delivery of Sermons. By JOHN A. BROADUS, D.D., Philadelphia. Smith, Elder, and Co.

The literature of homiletics is becoming almost redundant. It is singular that every man whose business it is to teach this difficult science is dissatisfied with the text-books and manuals that his well-meaning predecessors have prepared for him, and tries his hand at a new one. We cannot see any very sufficient reason for the work of Dr. Broadus. It is neither better nor more comprehensive nor more helpful than the well-known treatises of Vinet, Kidder, and Shedd. It is not so philosophical as M. Vinet's, nor so erudite as Dr. Kidder's, nor so rich and suggestive as Dr. Shedd's. It goes over the old ground in very much the old way, and tells some of the old stories, and gives much the same old advice. Those who can work by rule, and who thoroughly trust the rule-maker, will find the subject carefully and exhaustively but not energetically treated by Dr. Broadus. The contrast between Dr. Broadus and Dr. Parker is great. The 'Advices to a Young Preacher' are racy, caustic, and stimulating. They are not confined to the great theme, but wisely condescend to give useful hints on little things. The personal allusions to living men, the astounding eulogiums passed by Dr. Parker on some of his brethren, the withering satire pronounced on others, the conversational criticism on certain printed sermons, and the familiar epistolary offer to all and sundry to send the respected author a sermon to criticise, almost take the breath out of one's mouth, and certainly remove the volume from the range of ordinary literature. The specimen prayers introduced by the author, though very excellent in their way, appear out of place. Notwithstanding these drawbacks, the book is full of strong and wise advice. Here is caricature and broad farce, and extreme exaggeration and violent personal attack under assumed or blank names, all of which are strangely out of tune with the manly and reverent tone of the author when he touches the deepest themes. A preacher of such high reputation and undoubted success must be listened to by young preachers with great interest. Dr. MacLeod's volume has greatly delighted us. Seldom have the high functions of Christian truth, and the possibilities of the pulpit, been more powerfully or more candidly put. We wish that some of the unsuccessful men whom Dr. Parker grinds to powder, would ponder with the aid of this volume the sublime work which may even now be within their reach. Dr. MacLeod has described with singular power and freshness 'the preacher as an Elevator, as a Healer, as a Reconciler, as an Educator, as a Liberator, and Regenerator.' Under these several headings he has touched the sorest places in our social life, has carried a torch into some of the darkest chambers of human sorrow and need, and has shown the mission of Christianity and the function of its minister with conspicuous success. Dr. MacLeod is wise and stringent, moreover, in his condemnation of those who only preach fragments of the truth of God. His rebuke has a loving, helpful peal in it, which makes the heart soft, and calls aloud for higher effort and more consecrated zeal. There is neither common-place exaggeration nor rasping personality; it is full of wisdom, strong sense, and earnestness.

Culture and Religion in some of their Relations. By J. C. SHAIRP, Principal of the United Colleges of St. Salvator and St. Leonard, St. Andrew's. Edinburgh; Edmonston and Douglas.

The volume before us consists of five lectures delivered by the principal of the United Colleges of St. Leonard and St. Salvator, on a theme of high interest, at a time when the elevating process indicated by the rather vague term 'culture' bids high to supersede the divine claim and authoritative sway of religion. Professor Shairp, though dealing with the relations of culture and religion in a vein and manner suited to popular address, reveals on every page his own deep sympathy with the paramount claims of religious truth and the spiritual life of man, and a large-hearted appreciation of those aspects of 'culture,' which its exclusive advocates imagine never to have shed their light on deeply religious minds. With great dexterity, if, in the present case, such a term is applicable, our author shows that starting from a fair definition of 'culture,' 'it must embrace religion and end in it;' and on the other side, that Christianity is the great harmonizing principle of human affairs, bringing one region of human cultivation after another under its sanctifying influence 'to reconcile all true human learning not less than human hearts to God.' In lecturing on the 'scientific theory of culture,' our author exhibits the ideally educated man on Professor Huxley's theory, and quotes and criticises the celebrated comparison drawn by him between the liberal education he demands, and the acquaintance which an imaginary chess-player should possess with the laws of the mighty game with nature, on the success of which his fortune and his life depend. Mr. Shairp has shown with great beauty and force of expression, that if there were no other than the fixed laws of this game determined by scientific investigation, 'men would be more than ever driven inward, and their natural selfishness be tenfold concentrated and intensified;' that for the 'tender conscience' which Mr. Huxley postulates as an element in wisely playing this great game of life the 'theory' makes no provision; and indeed that such conscience, though the highest part of a man's nature, would be no help, but a hindrance, to any successful issue of the struggle. The scientific theory of culture leaves out facts of our nature which are as certain, though not so apparent, as any fact which science registers. With fine appreciation of all the excellencies of Mr. Arnold's theory of culture, which he designates as literary or æsthetic, Mr. Shairp contends that Mr. Arnold has erred in his estimate of what the spiritual energy really is in which our highest good is to be sought, 'has made that primary which is secondary and subordinate, and made that secondary which by right ought to be supreme.' He argues with much force, that the first great commandment 'cannot be made subservient to any ulterior purpose;' that religion is either a good in itself or it is not a good at all. We have not space to describe the remaining lectures on 'Hindrances to Spiritual Growth' and 'Combinations of Religion and Culture.' The volume is charged with weighty suggestions.

The Witness of St. John to Christ; being the Boyle Lecture for 1870; with an Appendix on the Authorship and Integrity of St. John's Gospel, and the Unity of Johannine Writings. By the Rev. STANLEY LEATHES, M.A. Rivingtons.

This is the third series of Boyle Lectures delivered by the Rev. Stanley Leathes. In the first and second series, the author dealt with the witness of the Old Testament, and that of St. Paul to Christ. In the volume before us, he pursues a similar method; and taking nothing for granted, not even the genuineness of the fourth Gospel, nor the inspiration of this, or of other portions of the New Testament, 'he does not assume that its conception is true, but he does affirm that if its message is fraught with substantial truth, certain results will follow, and--do follow.' In the appendix, there is an effort made to grapple with the question of the genuineness of the fourth Gospel, and to meet the difficulties raised by Dr. Davidson, the Rev. J. J. Tayler, and others. There is nothing special or peculiar in this argument, with the exception of the detailed effort which Mr. Leathes has made to show the abundant similarity of theme, doctrine, historical fact, and even form of expression between the three Synoptic Gospels and the Gospel of John. We have never seen this point so well elaborated elsewhere, and the obvious conclusion is that much too great a stress has been laid upon the supposed discrepancy of subject-matter and ethical tone discernible between these documents. We think that both Dr. Hengstenberg and the Rev. John Godwin have handled the Paschal difficulty more successfully than Mr. Leathes, but few writers have shown with more sufficiency and clearness the unity of the Johannine writings. In fact, everything turns in this discussion on satisfactorily showing the possibility, from a literary standpoint, of the identity of authorship of the Apocalypse and the fourth Gospel. The Tübingen school, Dr. Davidson, J. J. Tayler, and the most thorough-going opponents of the genuineness of the Gospel, admit, nay contend for the Johannine authorship of the Apocalypse. They uphold the external evidence for it against Lücke and others; they establish the relations between the John of the Synoptists and the Apocalyptist. If, then, by accumulation of independent evidence, the identity of the author of the fourth Gospel with the Apocalyptist is established, or a belief in it is shown to be perfectly rational, a great victory is won for the faith of Christ. We commend Mr. Leathes' argument to the profound consideration of students. The eight lectures deal with the credibility of the witnesses, the characteristics of John's teaching, the essentials of this teaching, John's appeal to the inward witness, the unity of John's writings, their authority, John's message to the age, and John's place in Holy Scripture. There is much fine and strong, though rather cold and artificial reasoning in these lectures. The reader feels a little too much as though he were under the authoritative commands of a drill-sergeant, or rather of a too officious guide, who tells him exactly where he must stand, or where he must not stand, in order to see some glorious panoramic landscape. The hand of the critic and the logician is always on the shoulder, and forcing head and heart into the appropriate and rational conclusion. Yet, with this drawback, every lecture leaves a healthy impression; and the testimony of the beloved disciple to our Divine Lord seems at length to be so strong and self-evidencing, that it matters comparatively little when, where, or by whom the testimony is given.

Secular Annotations on Scripture Texts. By FRANCIS JACOX. Hodder and Stoughton.

This volume is the result of very extensive and discursive reading. Sixty or seventy passages of Scripture have been annotated by the author from the copious stores of his secular erudition. Choice fragments of poetry, philosophy, and history, the analogies of life and thought, with the high themes suggested by the sacred text, are heaped in almost prodigal affluence of illustration upon the foundation of each text. Thus, on 'the Tempter's it is written,' our author quotes in illustrative vein not only Bunyan, and the criticism on the Dublin Synod of Irish Catholics, but Shakespeare's 'Merchant of Venice,' Gray, Coleridge, Burns, Diderot, Thomas Carlyle, and Charles Dickens. In his beautiful comment on 'Consider the lilies,' we have Tennyson, and Justice Shallow, Leigh Hunt and Mr. Proctor, Bishop Copleston, Isaac Taylor, Shenstone, and Dr. Croly's Salathiel, Mr. Hannay, and Mrs. Browning, all laid under contribution, and a very charming mosaic is the result. We might imagine the book to be the work of a life-time, or the hobby of a highly-cultured and devout man. Many a sermon and many a platform-speech may hereafter benefit by Mr. Jacox's labour of love; but none will take the pure delight in it which it must have given to the author in his quiet hours. The annotations of the words 'Strangers and Pilgrims,' 1 Peter ii. 11, are peculiarly rich and beautiful.

Rain upon the Mown Grass, and other Sermons, 1842--1870. By SAMUEL MARTIN, Minister of Westminster Chapel. Hodder and Stoughton.

The ministry of the Rev. Samuel Martin has now for nearly thirty years exerted a spiritual force upon an ever widening circle. Westminster Chapel has constituted a focus of holy influence, where his varied, thoughtful, continuous instructions have not only gathered around him one of the largest congregations in England, but have conferred upon it a character for wise effort, liberal sympathies, and Christian devotedness. It would be impossible to measure the circumference of that influence. Few nonconforming churches in the kingdom have failed at least to seek Mr. Martin's presence and assistance when any great thing was to be done; when any difficult enterprise needed a special consecration, when a young pastor at his ordination, or a church entering on a new career of usefulness, craved sanctifying counsel and tender sympathy. It would be difficult to convey to a stranger, or to an unsympathizing critic, any conception of the strange fascination, the deep thrill of holy excitement, the solemn hush of spirit which the spoken words of Samuel Martin have produced on susceptible minds. It is quite beyond our power to analyze or account for the overwhelming impression we have known him produce by his mode of quoting some well-known words of Holy Scripture, or by iterating and reiterating in a manner almost unique, the key-word or clause of some discourse on which he has put forth all his strength. His sermons are often characterized by an exceeding quaintness which from any other lips than his might provoke a smile; by a subtle ingenuity of illustration which reminds one of Brooks, or Sibbes, or even of Thomas Adams; by an elaboration of argument which seems to throw a disproportionate weight on some minor truth of God's word; by a fulness of illustration bordering on the efflorescent; and by a tone of meditation, fitted, as it might seem, to the cloister or some learned leisure rather than to this busy, world-harassed, distracted age: yet it is almost impossible to listen to one of those exceptional discourses without an intense desire for a higher, more beautiful, more self-sacrificing life. The exquisite sensitiveness of the preacher to all the sorrows of men, his obvious personal distress over the breaking heart of suffering humanity, his quivering sympathy with the weak and diseased, the poor, the out cast, the prisoner, 'the publican and the sinner,' the old man and the little child, make almost every sermon a lesson in the 'enthusiasm of humanity.' Much of every good sermon, is beyond the power of reproduction by the press; and this noble volume of Mr. Martin's discourses has to some extent the effect upon the reader which a volume of Beethoven's symphonies might have upon a musical student who had lost the power of hearing. Notwithstanding this necessary peculiarity disparaging the printed and revised report of all the noblest productions of the pulpit, we render Mr. Martin our unfeigned thanks for the volume. It contains thirty-two discourses. Many of them have been preached on special occasions, and demand a little imagination from the reader before he can understand their full significance. Take, for instance, the sermon preached at the opening of the new church at Halifax on the text, 'Then the king said unto Nathan the Prophet, See now, I dwell in a house of cedar, but the ark of God dwelleth within curtains.' The three sacred places, 'the home,' 'the grave,' 'the sanctuary of God,' have never been more admirably described, and the sketch given of 'the history of places of true worship' has never been drawn with more graphic force or spiritual beauty; but all the circumstances of the day and the place of that discourse gave it tenfold meaning. It would be well for those who disparage the Puritan theology and its professors, to understand that the high strain with which the volume opens on the genial influence and character of the Gospel, was preached with electrifying power to one of the great gatherings of Nonconformist ministers and churches in the North of England.

The sermons on 'The Saving Name,' 'The Precious Blood of Christ,' 'The Fulness of God,' show how Mr. Martin handles some of the great theological problems, and there is hardly one which is not charged with deep emotion, with carefully expressed thought, and spiritual force. This last element is the distinctive virtue of a volume which can scarcely be touched without perceiving some electric flash of light, some new pulsation of holy, Christ-like feeling.

The Shepherd of Hermas. Translated into English, with an Introduction and Notes. By CHARLES H. HOOLE, M.A., Senior Student of Christ Church, Oxford. Rivingtons.

It is not long since we called the attention of our readers to the admirable translation, from the Greek test, of the 'Shepherd of Hermas,' which was published, together with other writings of the so-called Apostolic Fathers in the Ante-Nicene Christian Library. The Greek text of this ancient Christian allegory or romance was found, together with the epistle of Barnabas, attached to the Codex Sinaiticus of the New Testament; and this may account in part for the revival of interest among the students of ecclesiastical history in this once popular but long-neglected fragment of antiquity. Mr. Hoole has executed his task with great care and painstaking, and has given in his 'introduction and notes' some very valuable information bearing on its interpretation, and on its reception by the Ante-Nicene Fathers of the Church. We are brought by it 'into the earliest period of Christian antiquity.' It was doubtless quoted by Irenæus, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, and Eusebius, with a decreasing respect; and we can only admire the fine tact and good sense which ultimately led the later writers and the Church Councils unequivocally to exclude it from the Canon of the New Testament. The question of the authorship is enveloped in great obscurity, and the apparently explicit statements are easily refutable. It is not even certain, but indeed very doubtful, whether the author was an ecclesiastical officer of any kind. The supposed Ebionitic tendencies of his doctrine have been maintained strongly by Hilgenfeld, but refuted by Dörner and Donaldson. We are surprised that in virtue of the non-appearance in Latin translations of the main passage on which this charge rests, Mr. Hoole has thought fit to omit it. Dr. Donaldson shows at length that there is 'nothing in the teaching of Hermas with regard to God, Christ, the Church, or the work of salvation, which is contrary to the truths or spirit of Christianity.' It is interesting also to observe from various passages, that Hermas identified the office of bishop and presbyter, and makes no reference to the Eucharist.

Ante-Nicene Christian Library. Vols. XVII. and XVIII. Edited by Rev. A. ROBERTS, D.D., and JAMES DONALDSON, LL.D. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark.

These two volumes are extremely valuable; one is the third and last volume of Tertullian, and the other contains 'The Clementine Homilies' and 'The Apostolical Constitutions.' The Homilies are a translation by the Rev. Thomas Smith, D.D., by Peter Peterson, M.A., and Dr. James Donaldson, and the 'Constitutions' have been carefully revised from Whiston's translation. If Bunsen's theory be correct, that they take us into the end of the second century or beginning of the third, and can be almost conclusively shown to be the work of one to whom the interpolations of the Ignatian literature were familiarly known, we obtain a valuable additional test of the quality of second century literature, and another assurance that the Gospel of John must have preceded them by more than a generation. It is not merely the abundant quotation from the fourth Gospel, but the profound difference of tone between these documents, that is so remarkable. If this is the second century theology and ecclesiasticism, how comes it that an author living in that century could rise such an untold height above them and omit what unfortunately had become the chief features of his time? Krabbe, in his elaborate work on the Apostolical Constitutions, concludes that the eighth book could not have been written before the end of the fourth or beginning of the fifth century. Bunsen thinks that the law of interpolation may account for the several references to later customs and offices which are to be found there. At all events, throughout the earlier books, we hear nothing or next to nothing of the sacerdotal order, and no other officer is mentioned intermediate to bishop or deacon. In the eighth book we have full-blown sacerdotalism and episcopacy, and the several apostles are made responsible for all the innovations. We owe a great debt of obligation to the careful editors of these translations now approaching their term. The admirable indices of all kinds greatly enhance the value of the work thus accomplished.

The Miracles of Our Lord. By GEORGE MAC DONALD. Straham and Co.

Mr. Mac Donald is well known in the circles of the Church, for the ministry of which he was educated, as a preacher of remarkable freshness and power. Whatever judgment may be passed upon some points of his theology, there are few living men whose words are fuller of high religious inspiration, and indicate a more reverent and intense love for the Lord Jesus. This is his distinctive claim as a religious teacher. He disregards the conventionalities of sermon-structure, and of sermon-speech, and brings to bear upon his themes the fresh thought of a man of genius, and the penetrating spiritual insight of a man of fervent piety. Whether any of these papers have been preached as sermons we do not know; thousands of readers have become acquainted with them in the pages of the Sunday Magazine, to which they were contributed. Mr. Mac Donald has no difficulty in accepting the miraculous; nay, he justly says that if the Supreme Being 'be a God worthy of being God, yea (his metaphysics even may show the seeker), if He is a God capable of being God, He will speak the clearest, grandest word of guidance which He can utter intelligible to His creatures.' 'The miracles are mightier far than any goings on of nature, as beheld by common eyes, dissociating them from a living will; but the miracles are surely less than those mighty goings on of nature with God, beheld at their heart. In the name of Him who delighted to say, "My Father is greater than I," I will say that His miracles in bread and in wine were far less grand and less beautiful than the works of the Father they represented, in making the corn to grow in the valleys, and the grapes to drink the sunlight on the hill-sides of the world, with all their infinitudes of tender gradation and delicate mystery of birth.' Whether we agree with every minute interpretation or not, this little volume, precious as fine gold, is full of penetrating spiritual insight, of fine spiritual sympathy, and of suggestions and inspirations greatly helpful to the noblest spiritual life.

Saint Paul: his Life, Labours, and Epistles. A Narrative and an Argument. By FELIX BUNGENER. Translated from the French. Religious Tract Society.

M. Bungener's is one of the numerous books elicited by M. Rénan's assaults upon Christianity. Such have always produced the effect of multiplying defensive exposition and arguments. They are therefore not to be regretted; their resultant good is much greater than their incidental evil. Untenable positions are tested and abandoned, and valued defences are strengthened. M. Bungener's argument is the narrative. He goes steadily through the incidents of the Apostle's history, parrying attacks, and setting forth evidences and arguments as he goes. His French brevity and his religious earnestness give a great charm to the volume.

History and Revelation: the Correspondence of the Predictions of the Apocalypse with the marked Events of the Christian Era. By JAMES H. BRAUND. Two vols. Seeley, Jackson, and Halliday.

In the exposition of the Apocalypse, literally everything depends upon a right principle of interpretation. Whether the symbolism of the book has its solution in historic facts or in spiritual principles, determines everything that a writer has to say respecting it. Into these two schools all interpreters of the Apocalypse may be divided. Of the former, Mr. Elliott is the modern Coryphæus, and he has found in Mr. Braund a laborious disciple. 'The Horæ Apocalypticæ,' he says, 'will be found, perhaps, the nearest to perfection of its kind extant;' and these two volumes are devoted to a patient working out of historical coincidences and congruities. Mr. Braund confidently trusts that the proof from such congruity will be so self-evident that it will be impossible to doubt. But clearly it must depend very largely upon the historical knowledge and imaginative ingenuity of the interpreter, whether a fulfilment can be demonstrated or not. For instance, there is much more of ingenuity than of demonstration in the fancy of Mr. Elliott adopted by Mr. Braund, that the white horse of the first seal is the Roman Empire, that the rider is Nerva, and that the bow in his hand is the symbol of his Cretan origin--the Cretans being great votaries of Apollo. It may be so; but the mere statement of it does not, in virtue of its congruity, carry with it demonstrative proof. It is a mere piece of ipse dixitism, which might find a hundred parallels of equally ingenious suppositions. On what authority, again, does Mr. Braund affirm that the 'seven horns of the Lamb symbolize his atoning work, because the blood of the sin offering was sprinkled on the horns of the altar, and the seven eyes, his mediatorial character between God and men'? Horns are usually the symbol of power, and eyes of wisdom. The statement of Mr. Braund, so far from being self-evidencing, provokes our incredulity.

For ourselves, we hold to the opposite principle of interpretation, as substantially adopted by Hengstenberg, Godwin, and others, viz., that the rise, progress, and overthrow of antichristian principles--Jewish, pagan, infidel, worldly and ecclesiastical--are symbolized in the Apocalypse, and that with the development of these, national events have to do in only a very subordinate way. Then much of the symbolism takes its place as mere parabolic drapery. Whether any specific historical event find its type in an Apocalyptic symbol or not, we cannot err seriously if we lay hold upon a great principle; certain it is that every antichristian power in the history of the world has had its strength in the domain of superstition, rather than in mere historic incident; and to be assured of the destruction of this is to be assured of the main thing. We cannot help thinking that such laborious demonstrations as Mr. Braund's are, comparatively speaking, exercises of painful and wasted ingenuity.

Moses, the Man of God. A Course of Lectures. By the late JAMES HAMILTON, D.D., F.L.S. James Nisbet.

These lectures have been selected for separate publication from Dr. Hamilton's MSS. They have all the fascinating characteristics of his pen--graceful description, imaginative reconstruction, unconventional, and often very ingenious, sometimes learned, disquisition, with the light, graceful touch of poetic style and delicate fancy which ally all his productions with general rather than with sermon literature. As sermons they seem to us to want point and cogency: they read rather like chapters of a book; but it is a sufficient commendation to say they are James Hamilton's.

Memories of Patmos; or, some of the Great Words and Visions of the Apocalypse. By J. R. MACDUFF, D.D. James Nisbet and Co.

Dr. Macduff disavows all pretensions to be a hierophant of the mysteries of the Apocalypse. We are left to gather incidentally that he himself inclines to what may be called the spiritualistic, as distinguished from the historic school of interpreters. His object in this volume, however, is to present those 'manifold isolated passages of transcendent grandeur, beauty, and comfort ... which can be see by the naked eye, without the aid of the prophetic lens or telescope.' His selections are made chiefly from the opening and closing chapters. Dr. Macduff's manner of discoursing is too well known to need characterizing; it is enough to say that in these glorious manifestations of the exalted Christ, he has, with due regard to exegesis, indulged, wisely and profitably, in the unction of description and application which have made his books so popular. No man may discourse of the new heavens and the new earth without palpable shortcoming, but he has given to devout readers a wise and edifying book.

Hours of Christian Devotion. Translated from the German of A. THOLUCK, D.D., Professor of Theology in the University of Halle. By ROBERT MENZIES, D.D. Blackwood and Sons.

This excellent manual of devotional thought, the work of one of the greatest Biblical scholars that Germany has produced, has passed through many editions, and has been translated into several different languages with more or less of abridgment. Dr. Menzies has accomplished the difficult task not only of translating the prose meditations, but the numerous poetical effusions that enrich and pervade the volume. Seventy-six brief meditations on personal, experimental, and practical religion, are of course very varied in their character. Thus one of them is a running comment of extreme beauty on Psalm xxiii., followed by a poetical rendering of the spirit of the Psalm, which, even in Dr. Menzies' translation, is of a high order, as thus--

'I strayed a wild tumultuous road along, My mind not less tumultuous than the way;'--

And a few verses later on--

'Rich is the banquet both for heart and eye, As varying still their hues by night and day, A world of flowers, like sparkling jewelry, Their opening loveliness around display.

'When shines the sun aloft without a cloud, His smile evokes a pomp of colour bright; Or if in gloom his radiant face he shroud, Sweet violets shed their perfume thro' the night.'

We are tempted somewhat profanely to ask, however, whether the perfume of the violet quite carries out the idea of flowery beauty as a banquet for the eye through the night? To many of these meditations four or five great texts are prefixed, and the reader feels that the gentle pressure of a powerful hand has crushed these sacred fruits, and handed him the fragrant wine of the kingdom in a golden goblet. The writer seems to blend his own spiritual history with his exposition in such a way as to aid the reader to make such experience his own. Reading between the lines it is easy to perceive the philosophic dissertant, the accomplished Biblical scholar, the learned theologian, but all is subdued to the language of simple, earnest piety and profound devotion. Some of the deepest mysteries of the kingdom of God are made more comprehensible when thus brought into the light and glory of the Most Holy Place. We note particularly the meditations on 'Drawing nigh to God,' and on 'By grace made free from sin.' Thus, 'If peace have departed from thy heart, build upon the vacant spot a penitential altar, and peace will again return, for the Lord Himself will place upon it the atoning sacrifice. Can any suppose that a servant who has transgressed his Lord's will, and then with anxiety in his heart sets about amending his ways, is as well qualified to do good works as the child who has wept repentant tears upon his Father's bosom, and has had his faults forgiven? Oh, no; the future cannot be made better until the evil be made good.' The abundance and variety of the material furnished in this volume for quiet pondering render further characterization difficult. We are thankful for the introduction of this wise, thoughtful, helpful book in this dark, sad season.

The Holy Bible, according to the Authorized Version, arranged in Paragraphs and Sections; with Emendations of the Text, also with Maps, Chronological Tables, &c. The New Testament. Religious Tract Society.

It is very difficult to amend the authorized version without proceeding to a thorough revision which again would necessitate a revision of the textus receptus of the Greek. There is no intelligible principle to guide an editor in pursuing a middle course. Dr. Jacob has improved the renderings in the more important instances in which the labours of later critics have shown that the translators to whom we owe our justly venerated English version were in fault. We are too thankful to have errors removed in any degree to demur. The truth is, that a false superstition for the authorized version, like all false things, is permitted to suppress true reverence for the Divine Word as God gave it. It will soon cease to be a question of the excellencies or defects of the authorized version, and will become the imperative duty of all who reverence that which is the truest and most perfect record of revelation, to protest against its usurpation of a reverence due only to the original text. Another bondage from which the editors of this admirable edition are helping to deliver us is that of chapters. The arrangement of the text in paragraphs according to the sense, and its division into sections corresponding thereto, is a much greater service in interpretation than many might suppose. This beautiful, clearly printed, and carefully edited volume deserves very high praise.

Night unto Night. A Selection of Bible Scenes. By the Rev. DANIEL MARCH, D.D. Hamilton, Adams, and Co.

Certain well-known night-scenes of Scripture are here sketched with a vividness and graphic force which make us spectators of the varied incidents, while the lessons that are drawn from them of warning, of hope, or of duty, are brought home to the heart and conscience with tenderness and power.

Bible Lessons. By the Rev. EDWIN A. ABBOTT, M.A., Head Master of the City of London School. Part II., New Testament. Macmillan and Co.

Mr. Abbott has very opportunely published the substance of the Bible lessons which he gives to his fifth and sixth forms, thereby demonstrating how practicable it is to give to pupils the very highest form of religious teaching, without any ecclesiastical or even dogmatic sectarianism. He must be a fanatical theorist indeed who can take exception to the contents of this volume; and yet pupils receiving them would be possessed of all that the most exigeant need care for in religious teaching. It is not every teacher who can inculcate religious truth with such penetrating wisdom and catholic breadth of sympathy as characterize Mr. Abbott; but it is almost certain that, practically, he must be an ingenious fanatic indeed, who, with the Bible alone in his hand, can do much in sectarian teaching; at any rate if he do, he will do it wilfully, and the remedy will neither be far to seek, nor slow of application. Mr. Abbott has done good practical service--over and above the intrinsic value of his book, which is great--by this timely publication.

The Pulpit Analyst. Vol. V. Hodder and Stoughton.

The 'Analyst' has completed the fifth year of its existence, and has, we think, continued to grow from the beginning. The present volume is a rich and valuable one. A course of sermons by Alford 'On the Parable of the Ten Virgins,' a very valuable series of discourses by Mr. Baldwin Brown 'On Misread Passages of Scripture,' a miscellaneous series of fresh and vigorous sketches by Mr. Watson Smith, and a short series by the Editor on the life of Jacob, constitute a homiletical department of unusual excellence. Dr. Parker's odd concatenation of wise, clever, and incongruous advices to a young preacher, of which we have spoken elsewhere, run through the volume under the title 'Ad Clerum.' Mr. Godwin contributes two or three able discourses on 'Proving Knowledge,' and a new translation, with notes, on the Epistle to the Galatians. The 'Analyst' again changes hands. It comes with the new year under the editorial control of Mr. Paxton Hood. It enlarges its dimensions, and changes its name to 'The Preacher's Lantern.'

JUVENILE BOOKS.

At Christmas time all pleasant things abound:--from turkeys to pantomimes, from oysters to gift books, from staid family gatherings to snapdragon and hunt the slipper; all domestic and social charities are in highest exercise, as if the carol of the angel, and the blessed advent of the Holy child inspired all forms of brightest joy and most loving thought. Not least among the blessings which Christmas pours from her cornucopia are her gift-books. If we welcome with satisfaction the higher works of art which Christmas brings, and which, ministering to the sense of the beautiful, elevate and refine the entire man, moral and intellectual, as well as æsthetical, we welcome still more heartily the affluent Christmas supply of books which more especially address themselves to the young. Artistic excellence, romantic adventure, fairy imagination, natural phenomena, the wonders of travel and of science, creations of fiction and fancies of poetry, are all brought under requisition--and their very highest products consecrated to the nurture of youthful imagination and fancy, mind and heart. This is one of our distinctive glories, and, we will venture to say, a mark of distinctive wisdom, that our literature for the young is so rich in quality and so affluent in quantity. Few nations possess a juvenile literature--France has no children's books; neither has Spain, nor Italy. Even our American cousins have a very meagre native supply. Only Germany can make any pretence to a comparison with us. Month by month books for the young are produced, and at Christmas-tide they are poured forth in bewildering profusion; publishers of gravest repute lay themselves out for them; the staidest literary journals review them. We have come to understand that no service to a people can be greater or more momentous than to supply a pure, bright, merry-hearted literature for the young, which shall wisely minister to their imaginations, and in pleasant ways sow the seeds of good things in their hearts. Happy are the children of these days compared with those of the days of 'Goody Two Shoes' and 'Sandford and Merton.' What a small British-Museum-library a child of twelve would possess who should have, from its birth, acquired and retained the hundreds of juvenile publications of each year; and what is more, how intelligent, if it had imbibed all their instructions, how good if it had embodied all their lessons. Tales of fairies and genii abound, as is fitting and wise; but it is no less a national blessing that our juvenile literature is so wholesome. We can speak only of a very few of the books which, in every variety of form and character, seek to brighten the nursery and the fire-side.

In the very foremost rank, whether in respect of artistic attractiveness or of literary excellency, we must place the dainty publications of Messrs. Nelson. In the Eastern Seas; or, The Regions of the Bird of Paradise. A Tale for Boys. By W. H. G. KINGSTON. In the Wilds of Africa. A Tale for Boys. By W. H. G. KINGSTON. Two books of imaginative travel, in the style that Mr. Kingston has made his own, full of descriptive information carefully compiled, and of adventurous incidents well imagined. Mr. Kingston wraps the pill of useful information in the jam of romantic adventure so deftly that young patients will scarcely be conscious of the physic--only of the gratification of their intellectual palate. In the first of these works Mr. Kingston carries his young friends to fresh scenes and pastures new, and opens out to them the tropical wonders of the Malay Archipelago. Walter Heathfield, the hero of these adventures, is a fatherless boy, who, with his sister, are taken to the East by Captain Davenport. The voyage is, of course, full of adventure and peril, and all the phenomena of Eastern seas and skies are observed. Singapore and Nagasaki open to the young travellers the worlds of China and Japan. Walter, with a companion, is washed overboard in a typhoon, and, of course, is cast upon a desolate island; after hair-breadth escapes he returns to England, as the heir and successor of his relative, Lord Heatherley; the personal story being cleverly interwoven with the useful knowledge. In the second book named, Andrew Crawford is sent to sea, in consequence of the mercantile reverses of his father, with a due charge of good advice from the latter. The captain dies, and the ignorant mate permits the ship to be stranded on the coast of Africa. A slaver picks up Andrew, and part of the crew getting on shore, they resolve to journey inland to the Crystal Mountains, through the gorilla district, the wonders of which are described. On the river, among the mountains, through the wilderness, they wander, until all the marvels of Central Africa are described. These two books will be prime favourites with boys. They are worthy of Mayne Reid.--The Sea and its Wonders. By MARY and ELIZABETH KIRBY. This is a companion volume to 'The World at Home,' published last year, of which it is in every way a worthy successor. Both books are beautifully got up as to paper, type, and binding, and are most profusely illustrated with steel engravings. The wonders of the sea itself, and of its productions, are described in a clear and simple style, and in short chapters, with paragraphs and words equally short, so that the book has a most inviting look to even an inexperienced reader. It would be difficult to find a more interesting as well as instructive book for children from seven to fourteen, while to many beyond that age, its facts will be new and interesting.--The Fall of Jerusalem and Roman Conquest of Judea. A condensed account of the 'Fall of the Sacred City,' and a summary of the events that led to it; followed by a vivid narrative of the final subjugation of Judea. The last chapter gives us the characters which Dean Milman introduces in the 'Fall of Jerusalem,' and quotations from it. It is an interesting and valuable little book, well furnished with engravings.--Lighthouses and Lightships. By W. H. DAVENPORT ADAMS. A very complete and readable account of the ancient Pharos and of our modern lighthouses, with their principles of construction; together with a correct list of those that guard the dangerous coasts of Great Britain and Ireland. A chapter is given to French lighthouses, and to the manner of life of those who spend their days in tending these safeguards for our sailors. As a book of reference it will be very useful, but it will repay a careful reading before being consigned to the reference shelf. The illustrations, over sixty in number, give life and interest to the little volume, which is intended for no especial class of readers, but for both young and old who care for the welfare of humanity.--Cyril Ashley. A Tale. By A.L.O.E. Another of A.L.O.E.'s instructive stories for young people, which the authoress, in a touching preface, 'thinks will be the last time she may be permitted to bring her pitcher from the well-spring in which she has so often dipped it.' Cyril Ashley is a young man of singular prudence and goodness, who has thrust upon him by stern duty the reformation of a weak, selfish step-father, and a number of unruly half-brothers and sisters. The history of Jonah is the stimulus and deeply pondered lesson which gives him the resolution to carry that trying task to a satisfactory issue.--Birds and Flowers. By MARY HOWITT. A volume of verses on birds and flowers, enlarging the latter term, that is, so as to include orchard and forest trees; written on that high level of excellence which makes Mrs. Howitt's poetry so pleasant and readable, although there are not many pieces of it that abide in the memory, or will take their place in our permanent poetical literature. The illustrations by M. Giacomelli, the French artist who illustrated 'the Bird' of M. Michelet, are very beautiful. They are all vignettes, or initial letters, or chapter headings, but they are done with great artistic skill and delicacy. Altogether this is one of the most beautiful of smaller Christmas books. Graceful song and artistic picture together will charm young readers, and supply a very choice gift-book for them.--The Spanish Brothers. A Tale of the Sixteenth Century. By the Author of 'The Dark Year of Dundee,' &c. The author of the series, of which this is one volume, has much of the careful skill and fascination of the author of the Schönberg-Cotta series. Many suspected her first work to be from the pen of the latter. The 'Spanish Brothers' contains a vivid picture of the horrors of the Inquisition, and of the heroism with which many of the early Protestants in Spain endured its inflictions--life-long incarcerations, and auto-dá-fé's, at which men, and even women of gentle birth were burned to death before crowds of exulting spectators. Such things are strange to read of in these our 'soft times,' but there is abundant evidence to prove that both the cruelty and the heroism in their extremest forms were real facts. The fictitious part of the book is a story (interesting, but rather too long) of two brothers devoted to each other, and to the idea of a father whom they had never seen, until one of them comes accidentally to share his prison. The two then remain together till the death of the father and the martyrdom of the son.--The Story of our Doll. By Mrs. GEORGE CUPPLES. The adventures of little Maggie's foundling doll will appeal very successfully to the make-believe imagination of little children, and greatly delight them.--Wonders of the Plant World; or, Curiosities of Vegetable Life.--Useful Plants. Plants adapted for the Food of Man, Described and Illustrated.--Walter in the Woods; or, Trees and Common Objects of the Forest Described and Illustrated. Three little books designed to give young people popular botanical knowledge. The first is the more scientific in form. The last two have recourse to that kind of conversational incident and illustration which children will listen to for hours. All three may be commended.--Pictures and Stories of Natural History. A series of short sketches of different animals, with very effective coloured plates of each animal described. Admirable for juveniles.

Foremost and best among Messrs. Hodder & Stoughton's juvenile books comes Old Merry's Annual, the prince of its class, as Aunt Judy's volume is the princess. Brilliant in crimson and gold, and chubby in form like a winter apple, Old Merry comes forth to brighten Christmas firesides, as cheery, wise, wholesome, and quaint as ever. Among the annuals we like it the best. Stories, gossipy chats de omnibus, puzzles, useful information about most things that interest boys, and didactic papers, make up a miscellany which it is impossible to describe, and difficult to overpraise. M. D. Liefde's story is the vale of an able man, a great favourite with young people. It is chiefly a posthumous publication.--Madeleine's Trial, and other Stories. From the French of MADAME DE PRESSENSÉ. A group of simple stories illustrative of the law of love. The translator has made them so English in tone as well as in style that the flavour of the original is well-nigh exhaled.--Walter's Escape; or, The Capture of Breda. By J. B. DE LIEFDE. A spirited account of one of the most remarkable exploits in the heroic struggles of the Dutch to secure their liberty. It is written with the author's wonted vigour.--Model Women. By WILLIAM ANDERSON. This volume gives us slight sketches of the Mother of the Wesleys, Elizabeth Fry, Amelia Sieveking, Felicia Hemans, Hannah More, Elizabeth Browning, Caroline Herschel, Selina Countess of Huntingdon, and a few others whom the author conceives to have been respectively 'model women,' either in domestic life, philanthropic effort, literary achievement, scientific research, or Christian consecration. There is not much power or point in the characterization of these distinguished women, but the brief memorials of some of them are interesting, and may help to raise the idea of women's work.

Messrs. Griffith and Farran sustain the reputation of the house that became famous by the publication of 'Goody Two Shoes.' They have an admirable staff of writers for young people, and the works they produce are of a highly interesting and instructive character. One of the best this year is Household Stories from the Land of Hofer; or, Popular Myths of Tirol. By the Author of 'Patrañas; or, Spanish Stories.' Between twenty and thirty stories of myth and magic of the old-fashioned sort, embodying the wild legends that hang about the valleys of the Tyrol (the writer pedantically spells it Tirol), and have haunted them for a thousand years. The Norgs, or little men, are the chief heroes, a kind of southern Trolls, or dwarfs of the Black Forest. It is a class of myths less known than those of Scandinavia, but having many of their weird characteristics. The most popular are 'Nickel of the Mine,' the little man of the mountain who dug riches for the covetous, selfish Aennerl; and the 'Rose Garden of King Sweyn,' made by the Norg king for his mortal bride, whom, however, after a fierce combat, he had to surrender to Theodoric the Visigoth. Many of the stories are legendary embodiments of the struggle between Christianity and Paganism. Since Dr. Dasent's 'Norse Tales,' a more important and interesting collection of legends has not appeared.--Tales of the Saracens. By BARBARA HUTTON. These tales are history, not fiction, treating first of Mohammed as prophet and as conqueror, and then of the line of Caliphs by whom he was followed. The book is written in a clear and lively style, and to intelligent readers will prove both entertaining and instructive.--Sunny Days; or, A Month at the Great Stowe. The Great Stowe is a farmhouse in the country, at which a family of little town-folk spent a month. We are told all that they saw and did, and a right merry party they were; none the less so for the wise discipline and sententious wisdom and clever stories of Aunt Gommie. 'Aunt Gommie is like a spider; she goes on spin, spin, spin, and she is never at a loss for a web.'

Sampson Low & Co. have re-published a charming American Story, Little Women; or, Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy. By LOUISA M. ALCOTT. Whether Miss Alcott is the most popular of American writers for young people we do not know; but beyond all question, 'Little Women' is just now the most popular American juvenile fiction. You see it upon every American book-stall, and find it in almost every American home. It is having a greater run than any recent fiction; and it is really a very charming story. The 'Little Women' are the four children of Mr. March, an American pastor, away South at the war. Their characters are delineated, and their history, from early girlhood to motherhood, traced with a consummate cleverness. Miss Alcott has not, perhaps, so delicate a touch as the author of the 'Gayworthy's,' nor so graphic a power as Mrs. Beecher Stowe; but she has delicacy, descriptive power, and force of no ordinary kind. One of the most promising characteristics of American fiction is its individuality. There is a marked family likeness among the fictions by female writers, which during the last few years have obtained such popularity among ourselves. They are redolent of American character and life, especially of New England life, and have also an intellectual cast of their own--a kind of household idealism, quaintness, and piety, not easy to describe, but unmistakably to be recognised. We predict for 'Little Women' a popularity greater than that of the 'Wide, Wide World,' 'The Gayworthy's,' or 'Faith Gartney's Childhood.' We are not sure that our American cousins do not, in this department of literature, far excel any writer that we can boast There are two or three other books of Miss Alcott's ('The Old-Fashioned Girl,' for instance) with which we should like English children to be acquainted, although they are not quite equal to 'Little Women.'

Messrs. Bell and Daldy send The Brownies, and other Tales. By JULIANA HORATIO EWING. Beautiful stories, charmingly told, with capital illustrations by our old friend George Cruikshank.--Aunt Judy's Christmas Volume for Young People contains a wealth of instruction and amusement, which we have neither time nor space to describe. Our young readers should get it, and judge for themselves, and we assure them they will not be disappointed.--Waifs and Strays of Natural History. By Mrs. ALFRED GATTY. An elementary book of instruction, concerning corals and coral islands, the Beaver, sponges, zoophytes, microscopic objects, &c., conveyed in Mrs. Gatty's charming way. Nothing lends itself more easily to romance than natural phenomena, and Mrs. Gatty's readers need not to be told how magical Aunt Judy's pen is.--Parables from Nature. Fifth Series. By Mrs. ALFRED GATTY. Eight more of Mrs. Gatty's popular parables, about 'Consequences,' 'Ghosts,' 'Unopened Parcels,' 'See-Saw,' &c. The one on 'Unopened Parcels' is the longest and the best.--Deborah's Drawer. By ELEANOR GRACE O'REILLY. The author of 'Daisy's Companions' cannot fail of an eager welcome from the readers of that charming little volume. Here is a companion to it. Deborah is the dead sister of Lavinia Meek, who had a great gift of telling and writing stories for children. These had been put away in a drawer, which Lavinia Meek opens for the amusement of little Averil, who reads four or five clever and touching little stories which she found there. These are set in a neat framework of personal history. The little book is a gem.

Messrs. Seeley and Co. send us Aunt Judith's Recollections; a Tale of the Eighteenth Century. By the author of 'Missionary Recollections.' Aunt Judith flourished in the days of Wesley and Whitfield, and in a pleasant chatty way, though somewhat garrulous withal, the old lady tells her young niece Annie the story of those times--of the darkness which had settled on this England of ours, and of the great awakening that followed the labours of those holy, earnest men.--Hetty's Resolve; a Story of School Life. By the Author of 'Under the Lime Trees.' There is but little power or point in these rather prosy details of school routine; but if they should lead some young readers to shun the slippery ways of Florence Benson, and to imitate the honest work of the kind-hearted Maggie, they will not have been written in vain.--Curious Facts about Animals. For Little People. Evening Amusement. Two little books for little folk, simply written and attractively illustrated; the former describing the habits of the mole, the badger, the otter, the deer, the dog, the sheep, the horse, &c., and telling anecdotes respecting them; the latter a series of juvenile stories of the simplest kind, which derive their main interest from the children cutting out figures in black paper to illustrate them.--Tony and Puss. From the French of P. J. STAHL. With Twenty-four Illustrations from designs by Lorenz Frölich. Another dainty book for very little children, with multitudinous groupings of Tony and Puss in varied relationship. Some of the illustrations are very clever, though Herr Frölich's typical 'Papa' looks rather of the feeble order; but he may not be less welcome to the Tinies, for whose special advantage Messrs. Seeley and Co. cater so lavishly.--Sunday Echoes in Weekday Homes. By Mrs. CAREY BROCK. This book is a history of the home life of some young people, who having been trained to look upon the Bible as connected with every thought and incident of their lives, find in the journeyings of the children of Israel types and emblems of their own doings and trials, at home and at school. It is none the less interesting to the class for whom it is written, if less true to Nature, that the children themselves suggest the warnings given and the lessons taught by God's dealings with the Israelites. From the 'passing over Jordan' of the youngest of the family the rest derive much comfort in seeing one of their number enter the 'promised land.'

Messrs. Cassell cater liberally and successfully for young readers. The Log of the Fortuna: a Cruise on Chinese Waters. Containing Tales of Adventure in Foreign Climes, by Sea and by Shore. By Captain AUGUSTUS F. LINDLEY. A Collection of 'Seven Sailors' Yarns'--not all of them, however, relating to China. The scene of one of them is laid in Paris; of another, among Australian Bushrangers; of another, in the Sea of Azof. The 'Yarns' are told on board the Fortuna, which has got upon a mud-bank in Chinese waters, and waits for spring tides. Captain Lindley wields a vigorous, incisive, and humorous pen. His stories are therefore clever and amusing: some of his descriptions and bits of rollicking humour would not discredit Charles Lever. The book is profusely illustrated, and, like all the publications of this firm, marvellously cheap.--Home Chat with our Youngsters. By C. L. MATEAUX. Never was instruction more acceptably given or more sweetly sugared than in this attractive volume. The twenty-two chapters on 'People, and things which the Young Folks see or hear about,' are illustrated on almost every page. The chapters are conversational in form, the young folks asking only sufficient questions to mask the monotony of unbroken information. The story of 'Columbus' is thus told, and is made lucid by illustrations. Simpler synonyms for some of the words might have been found, but the book will be a great favourite in the nursery. It is, for children a stage farther advanced, almost as good as 'The Children's Album.' We can give it no higher praise.

From the Religious Tract Society we have received--Spanish Pictures Drawn with Pen and Pencil. By the Author of 'Swiss Pictures Drawn with Pen and Pencil.' We have done--what doubtless some of our readers have done--tested the 'Swiss Pictures' by taking it to Switzerland as a quasi guide-book. We found it carefully accurate, and full of intelligent observations. This bespeaks our confidence for this companion volume about Spain. 'Africa begins at the Pyrenees,' says the French proverb: so does our author: and even veteran travellers will feel that once over the Pyrenees they are in a terra incognita. And yet few lands are physically more unique, romantically more full of wild legends, historically more full of romance, ethnologically more interesting, and socially and religiously more full of undeveloped possibilities. Madrid, the Escurial, Granada, Seville, &c., are visited and described. Cathedrals, bull-fights, gipsies, Murillo, religious customs, literature, trade, the Moors, all receive due notice; and have thrown upon them gleams of history, snatches of poetry, and visions of the future. The author has freely laid under contribution writers of renown, large extracts from whom are interwoven with his narrative of personal experience. Gustave Doré is among the eminent artists who have supplied the illustrations. It is an instructive and effective popular book.--The Picture Gallery of the Nations is a series of short descriptive chapters of about seventy of the nations of the earth; each occupying only a page or two, and illustrated with very effective wood-cuts, some of them whole-page size, others smaller. It is a popular book of the best kind for young people who delight in the help which the eye affords to the instruction of the pen.--Original Fables. By Mrs. PROSSER. Readers of 'The Leisure Hour' and 'The Sunday at Home' are familiar with Mrs. Prosser's name as the writer of two or three capital serial stories which appeared in these publications. With these fables they will, through the same medium, have made acquaintance. To write fables successfully has been given to only three or four of the human race--the author of those which pass under the name of Æsop, La Fontaine, and Kriloff are the only three names of great fable-writers that occur to us. Mrs. Gatty very successfully attempts parabolic stories, but not the terseness and brevity of the fable proper, which is to fiction what the sonnet is to poetry--what the proverb is to the sermon. Mrs. Prosser has done fairly where so few have done well. From the nature of the case we cannot quote (to analyze would carry us beyond our space); we content ourselves therefore with a general commendation. The morals which she weaves into fables may catch the fancy of children, whom an apothegm would only make callous.--The Leisure Hour and the Sunday at Home are sustained at a degree of almost unrivalled adaptation and efficiency. Tale, biography, sermon, and song, often of a very high order, diversify and enrich their pages. We are glad to see in the 'Leisure Hour' the wise breadth and impartiality which supplies biographers of characters so diversified as those of Miss Burdett Coutts, Charles Dickens, Père Hyacinthe, Professor Huxley, Mr. Disraeli, and General Trochu. Mr. Lord, Naturalist to the Egyptian Exploring Expedition, supplies a valuable series of papers on the 'Peninsula of Sinai.'--Cousin Mabel's Experiences. By E. JANE WHATELY. Cousin Mabel having been absent from England for some years, in visiting various home circles is much struck by the diversified errors and follies into which religious people have fallen, whose earnestness and seriousness cannot be doubted. The ritualism of young ladies run wild upon church decorations, the spiritual gossip in which certain elderly people indulge, the doing for the poor and strangers to the neglect of home duties, the party spirit pervading missionary work, with other forms of worldliness and selfishness, which are so largely mixed up with many forms of religious life--all these grave errors are exemplified in a series of unconnected stories of family life. Miss Whately does not exaggerate in her characters the follies she wishes to point out; and her way of combating them is one of much wisdom, and is combined with many practical hints, calculated to effect in actual life the reforms which in these tales is always achieved. We trust the practical result may be the same.--The First Heroes of the Cross. By BENJAMIN CLARKE. Sunday School Union. Mr. Clarke's 'Life of Jesus, for Young People,' has been received with so much favour that he has attempted to tell the story of the Acts of the Apostles in the same way. He has done this admirably, with great simplicity, and in a very interesting way. Mr. Clarke has spared no pains to qualify himself for forming and expressing true conceptions of the incidents that he narrates.

THE

BRITISH QUARTERLY

APRIL 1871

ART. I.--Burton's History of Scotland. Vols. V., VI., and VII. London. 1870.

The affairs of Scotland will always occupy an honourable and conspicuous place in the grand drama of national development which makes up the history of the British Empire. It has been the destiny of the Scottish people to influence the general fortunes of England in a larger degree, and more permanently, than could have been expected from their mere numbers, or their position in the north of our island. In the years which succeeded the Norman Conquest, Scotland was, in some measure, a place of refuge for the English name from foreign oppression; and though deeply penetrated by the Norman elements which consolidated and strengthened her feudal monarchy, she held up something like a beacon of hope before the eyes of the down-trodden Saxon, during the calamitous period of alien domination. Two centuries later, when her nationality had become more firmly established, when her Highland clans, her Anglo-Norman colonies, her Norse settlements, and her Lowland commonalty had been brought nominally under a supreme government, though not yet formed into one people, she exhibited to the world a magnificent spectacle of prolonged, stubborn, and successful resistance to the encroachments of a very superior power; and, in the internecine struggle which ensued, we see distinctly the high qualities which have made her the worthy compeer of England. It was probably one of the results of this contest that France, aided by her Northern ally, was enabled to throw off the Plantagenet yoke, and to acquire the position she still holds in Europe; and, but for Verneuil and other battles, it is possible that, in the fifteenth century, England might have become a military despotism, extending from the Western Isles to the Pyrenees, and have had a completely different history. It is unnecessary to say what Scotland accomplished at the great crisis of the Reformation; if, in the person of Mary Stuart, her dynasty threatened England with subjection and with the despotism of the Catholic League, her people proved the defence of Protestantism, rejected the sovereign they justly detested, gave strength to the counsels of Elizabeth, and contributed largely to the success of the policy which culminated in the ruin of the Armada. For it was at the momentous period of the civil wars of the seventeenth century that the house of Stuart and part of the Scottish nobility endeavoured to blight the prospects of England, to stifle freedom by military power, and to restore what was Romanism all but in name; but the mass of the nation opposed the movement, and set the noble example of resistance to it; and though they ultimately separated from England, they did much to cause the series of events which ended in the Revolution of 1688. Scotland, in a word, has had a beneficent influence of a marked and even extraordinary kind in shaping the course of our English story; and we need not notice how her independent spirit has affected for good the national character, what eminent men she has given the State, what valuable additions she has made to the treasures of British literature and thought, what use some of her institutions have been, as patterns for our own imitation.

The author of the interesting volumes before us has long held a distinguished name in connection with the literature of his country. He has given us an exceedingly good account of the transitional period in the history of Scotland, which embraces the Revolution of 1688, the Union, and the final extinction of the reactionary and half-Romanist party in the nation, when Jacobitism perished in 1745. He has also described with clear insight, and, on the whole, with an impartial pen, that honourable episode in Scottish annals, of lasting importance to these kingdoms, the 'ancient league' of Scotland with France; and no writer, perhaps, has done more to elucidate whatever is most noteworthy in the antiquarian remains and monuments of the races which from the earliest times have inhabited the northern division of our island. The history, however, which he has just completed, and which deals with the affairs of Scotland from the Roman invasion, under Agricola, to the overthrow of the House of Stuart, is, beyond comparison, his greatest work; and as a repository of the learning with which modern research and criticism have explored the national life of his countrymen, it stands alone, and without a parallel. Mr. Burton, in his first four volumes, which were published in 1867, carried down his narrative from the legendary period of the Roman occupation, of the Scots and Picts, of Fergus and the old Celtic monarchy, to the rise of the feudal kingdom of Scotland and its long contest with the power of England; and he went on to describe the memorable era when the ascendancy of France, and national pride resenting Flodden and Pinkie Cleugh, struggled with the forces of the Scottish Reformation; and Mary Stuart, but for her crimes and her fall, would probably have united the two crowns, and become the sovereign of a Romanized Britain. If in treating this important part of his subject Mr. Burton was sometimes carried away by a somewhat too exuberant patriotism, if he, perhaps, assigned too high a place to the position of Scotland in British annals, and if he was never eloquent or picturesque, he displayed rare and extensive knowledge, a judgment usually calm and correct, and the faculty of forming sound conclusions; and his account of the Scottish war of independence, and of Scottish politics in the sixteenth century, is worthy of very high commendation. His last three volumes, which have recently appeared, and which we purpose now to review, comprise the last years of the reign of Mary Stuart, the triumph of the Reformation in Scotland, the struggle between the Kirk and the Crown, which marked the beginning of the seventeenth century, the reaction against James I. and his son, and the memorable events which were the result; they proceed to describe the great civil war, the important attitude of Scotland in it, the conquest of the kingdom by Cromwell, and the dreary epoch which followed the Restoration; and, as may be supposed, they exhibit the merits and the shortcomings of the earlier volumes. Mr. Burton is inclined to exaggerate the part which Scotland played in 1640-1649: he is rather too lenient to the Stuart kings, and he is not skilful in the art of composition. But, on the other hand, his learning is profound; his views of most of the great questions which arose during this memorable epoch, are sound and judicious, and deserve attention; and, on the whole, he has placed the events of the drama of which he has followed the chequered scenes, in their true light and real significance.

Mr. Burton's narrative begins at the period of the imprisonment of Mary Stuart at Lochleven. A few months previously the Scottish queen had been the hope of the Catholic Powers, which were ever planning the ruin of Elizabeth, and the overthrow of the Reformation in England; and, widely as they were divided from each other, they looked upon her as the appointed instrument with which to assail the common enemy. Her beauty too, her extraordinary gifts, the magic of her presence, and her rare abilities, had won the hearts of the Scottish nobility; and though she had never deceived Knox and the earnest champions of Scottish Protestantism, the pride of the nation was aroused in her favour, from the circumstance that it seemed probable that the two crowns would unite on her brow, and that she would become the sovereign of England and Scotland. Distrusted as she was in England by all the real friends of the Reformation, she was supported by the Catholic party, still most formidable in rank and numbers; and she had on her side the conservative feeling, of extraordinary strength in that age, which saw in her the heir to the throne, Elizabeth being without children, and the means of bringing England once more into the old order and ways of Europe. Had Mary Stuart not disgraced herself in the opinion even of that generation, not over-scrupulous about the acts of princes, there can be little doubt that she would have been acknowledged as Elizabeth's successor; and very probably she would have brought the reign of the heretic Tudor to a close, would have become the ruler of England and Scotland, arrested the Reformation for a time, and changed the whole tenor of our history. Providentially, however, this was not to be; and Mary Stuart, by her own hand, was to destroy the prospect of power and ambition, fraught with destruction to the destinies of mankind, which fortune seemed to have opened to her. The murder of Darnley, followed by the shameless and infamous marriage with Bothwell, revealed the depths of recklessness and crime in the existence of this singular woman, and placed her at once under the moral ban of Scotland, England, and Catholic Europe. At Carberry Hill her followers' arms dropped, as it were, from their nerveless hands; the nation rose in fury against her; her adherents were for the time silenced; and she found herself on a sudden a prisoner, her son proclaimed, the Reformation victorious, and Murray exercising the powers of a regent; the whole scene changing as if by magic. Catherine de Medicis, also, gave her up, alarmed at the storm which had burst out in Scotland; and though undoubtedly the Florentine queen was not guided by moral considerations, and, at this moment was beginning to adopt a conciliatory policy towards the French Huguenots, her complete abandonment of Mary Stuart was caused chiefly by a true conviction that she had ruined herself in general opinion. Philip II. also declined to give the slightest countenance to the beautiful fury, in whom he had hoped to find a St. Teresa; and in Catholic and Conservative England the revulsion of feeling was so strong, that thenceforward the cause of Mary Stuart ceased to be national in any real sense.

Sir Walter Scott and Mr. Froude have given us very different accounts of the captivity of Mary Stuart at Lochleven. Mr. Burton has taken great pains to ascertain the facts, and to judge of them, and we quote a few words from his description:--

'The conclusion of all is, that there is nothing in the conditions to justify the inference that the captive was to be sent thither as to a place of sordidness and severity, as well as of seclusion and security.... There is no evidence that the Lady of Lochleven treated her prisoner harshly. Much vigilance was necessary, however, and that could not be accomplished without giving annoyance and even pain. The daughters of the house shared the prisoner's bed. To one who had enjoyed full command over the stately reserve of the court of France, and the impregnable barrier of isolation which it had put at her disposal, this may have been a heavy grievance; it can be paralleled only by the sufferings of people accustomed to civilized refinement, when their lot is cast among barbarians.'--(Vol. v. 98.)

The only personage, as is well known, who seems to have shown any real sympathy with the Queen of Scotland, in this forlorn condition, was the sovereign who, it might be supposed, was of all persons the least likely to do anything in behalf of her cause. On hearing of the imprisonment of Mary, Elizabeth not only refused to give open support to her 'rebellious lords,' but actually threatened to invade Scotland, should they not restore their mistress to the throne, on terms, however, dictated by England. To suppose that this conduct is to be ascribed to chivalrous generosity would be a mistake; nor do we think with Mr. Burton, that it was due wholly to Tudor dislike of disobedience to the Lord's anointed, though this certainly was one ruling motive. Elizabeth, undoubtedly, throughout her entire reign, especially in the case of the united provinces, was averse to countenancing revolted subjects, even when to do so was her evident interest; but in this instance she was, in fact, guided by other considerations in her conduct. She seems to have wished in this, following the traditional policy of English rulers, to have taken upon herself the settlement of Scotland; and she did not choose that that kingdom should be revolutionized without her sanction. She also had a particular aversion to Knox and the Reforming leaders; and very probably her sagacious advisers may have foreseen that the rule of Murray and his associates was far from secure. These motives probably influenced her policy in not siding with the Regent and his followers; and in one respect the event vindicated, in a great measure, her cautious prudence. Though the infant James was formally crowned, though the Reformed Church was established in Scotland, and Murray proved himself an able ruler, a strong reaction set in in favour of the imprisoned queen; and though unquestionably the great mass of the nation remained completely hostile, she was able to rally a party sufficient to cause a violent counter-revolution. The numerous adherents of the old Church, the whole body of the Catholic clergy, and a large minority of the Scottish nobility enlisted themselves on the side of Mary Stuart; they were joined by some of the politicians and patriots whose one idea was the giving a Scottish sovereign to England; and pity for misfortune, the recollection of rare beauty and great gifts, and that strange loyalty which so often has shown itself superior to the sense of right, of justice, and of the successful cause, contributed to swell the ranks of her followers. Mr. Burton describes the escape from Lochleven, and the stirring incidents of the struggle which ensued, with much research and even animation; but we can only refer our readers to them. The unimportant battle of Langside showed that, however imposing it was in name, the party of the queen was not supported in any degree by the Scottish nation; a defeat, though little more than a skirmish, was sufficient to overthrow her career, and to compel her forthwith to leave her kingdom. After her flight, in which she found few friends, Mary Stuart was obliged to take refuge in England, abandoning for ever a country in which she had played one of the most astonishing parts that have ever fallen to the lot of woman, and which, excepting a revolutionary faction, had repudiated her for crimes which had effaced the sentiment of former affection.

We agree generally with Mr. Burton in his estimate of Elizabeth's policy when her rival had placed herself in her power. That policy was not generous or high-minded; it was even temporising, doubtful, and tentative; but it was essentially crafty and prudent. To have listened to the petition of the Scottish queen, and to have sent her over to France or Spain, would have been to arm the enemies of England with a weapon of the most perilous kind, and, at the same time, to make all Protestant Scotland permanently hostile. On the other hand, Elizabeth refused to hand her guest over to the Scottish lords, in part certainly from compassionate feelings, in part from her known antipathy to rebellion against a lawful sovereign, and in part from a well-founded doubt whether the government of Murray was really stable, and whether, if the surrender were made, a violent reaction would not follow. A middle course was artfully struck out, which had the advantage of seeming just, of ruining the fair fame of Mary Stuart, and depriving her of all moral influence, and which, moreover, gave her the right of intervening in Scottish affairs, and making England the arbiter of them. Under the form of a charge against her revolted subjects, Mary Stuart was really put on her trial before the most distinguished personages in England; and the result of the inquiry was that she was disgraced in public opinion, that her detention was in part justified, and that, though made somewhat dependent on England, Murray and the Regency were confirmed in power. This is what Elizabeth and Cecil had aimed at, and whatever may be thought of the dignity of their conduct, it fell in with the interests of England; and it was, on the whole, inspired by wisdom. Mr. Burton describes at much length the conferences at York and Hampton Court, but we have no space to dwell on his narrative. The only real question was as to the guilt of Mary, and of this, like ourselves, he has no doubt. The evidence contained in the casket letters is confirmed by numerous subordinate proofs; the authenticity of the letters themselves was hardly questioned in that generation, and not a single member of the Commission--though several were devoted to Mary--not even, apparently, her own advocates, attempted to challenge this decisive fact. As the Scottish queen has found defenders of the boldest kind, even in our day, we quote a part of Mr. Burton's comments:--

'There are two theories on which the guilty conclusion to which the casket documents point has been resisted with great perseverance and gallantry; the one is, that, as we now see them, they have been tampered with; the other, that they are forgeries from the beginning. All questions raised on the prior theory, are at once settled by the fact that those to whom the letters were first shown, drew conclusions from them as damnatory as any they can now suggest.... The theory of an entire forgery seems not to have occurred to any of those friends or foes of the queen who saw the documents.... And it is impossible not to connect the stream of contemporary impugnment with a notable peculiarity in these documents. They are as affluent in petty details about matters personally known to persons who could have contradicted them if false, that the forger could only have scattered around him, in superfluous profusion, allusions that must have been traps for his own detection. Wherever any of these petty matters come to the surface elsewhere, it is in a shape to confirm the accuracy of the mention made of them in these letters.... Though this controversy has produced dazzling achievements of ingenuity and sagacity, I would be inclined not so much to press technical points of evidence, as to look to the general tone and character of the whole story. In this view nothing appears to me more natural than the casket letters. They fit entirely into their places in the dark history of events.'--(Vol. iv. p. 436, et seq.)

Events showed that Elizabeth and Cecil were right in calculating that the power of Murray did not rest on a secure foundation. The Regent was one of the best governors who ever appeared in Scottish history; he was honourable, upright, firm, yet humane; and during his too brief rule he maintained order in a manner unknown in that generation. The religious movement, too, of which he was the unselfish and sincere champion, was followed by the great mass of the nation; and though most of the Reforming lords were simply greedy for the spoils of Popery, Knox and his adherents went with them, and, as a people, Scotland was sincerely Protestant. These combined elements of power, however, did not render the Government safe, and it was exposed to a series of formidable attacks which kept the country for some years in anarchy. The united parties which Langside had quelled again formed a perilous coalition; and the old Church, many of the great feudal lords, and the statesmen who wished above all things to place a Stuart on the Tudor throne, once more rallied in behalf of Queen Mary. The leading spirit of this ill-assorted league was that singular character, Maitland of Lethington, one of the ablest men of that stirring age, yet, with his keen intellect and clear brain, an enthusiast possessed by a vain idea. Long one of the chief opponents of the queen, he had yielded to the alluring prospect--held out to him skilfully by his wife, one of the captive's principal attendants--of making Mary Stuart the sovereign of Great Britain, and he now schemed and plotted in her cause in conjunction with his worst former enemies. At the same time, Elizabeth maintained a dubious attitude towards the Regency: wishing to stand well with the Catholic Powers, with whom for the moment she was at peace, and always disliking undutiful subjects, she more than once declared she would release the queen; and though we do not believe she was sincere in this, the effect was to weaken the Scottish Government, and to add strength to its many adversaries. Besides, Elizabeth contrived to stir the sense of Scottish patriotism to the quick by an imperious demand for the extradition of one of the leaders of the Northern rebellion; and the cry went forth that the pusillanimous Regency was the dishonoured instrument of Tudor oppression, and that Scotland under her lawful sovereign should again vindicate her independence with the assistance of her old ally, France. The result was a furious civil war, of which, after the murder of the Regent, the issue was for a time doubtful; and, as Mr. Burton correctly observes, Scotland was more thoroughly and widely divided than she had been at any former period. An event, however, which in that age revolutionized the politics of Europe, was, in Scotland also, to change the situation. The atrocious massacre of St. Bartholomew stirred to its depths a people essentially Protestant, confounded the adherents of Mary Stuart, made the French alliance a source of dread, and threw the nation on the side of the Regency, now in the hands of the vigorous Morton. At the same time, it showed Elizabeth that the interest of England compelled her to support 'the lords,' Knox, and the Reformation; that in Mary she had an implacable enemy; and that her only chance was to strike in boldly with Morton and the national Protestant party. The union of these forces was decisive; Morton and his adherents, backed generally by the spirit of an indignant people, overcame quickly Mary Stuart's faction; an English army invaded Scotland, and the siege and fall of the Castle of Edinburgh put an end to the French alliance, destroyed for ever the chances of the Scottish queen, and, with the death of Lethington and Grange, extinguished the prospects of her cause.

Mr. Burton thus describes this conjunction, one of the turning-points in the history of Scotland:--

'For the future three great disturbing forces, prolific in action, are seen no more. In the first place, the game of conquest has been entirely played out by England. We may say, perhaps, that it came to an end with the Reformation; but there was still room for it, and it might start up any day. Now its place was occupied. On both sides of the border, men looked to another solution of the problem, how the two nations should be made into one. Secondly, it followed that there was no longer danger from abroad, since French protection was no longer needed. The ancient league, if not dead, was paralyzed, and all its long romance of heroism and kindly sympathy was at an end.... Thirdly, Queen Mary has no longer a place in the history of her country. She was in one sense busier than ever ... but in Scotland, however many may have been the hearts secretly devoted to her, her name passed out of the arena of political action and discussion.'--(Vol. v. 384.)

After these events the history of Scotland passes through a period of intrigues and factions, in the midst of which James I. grew up. He abandoned his ill-fated mother, and the Catholic Powers endeavoured to make his youth the instrument of their designs. The ascendancy of D'Aubigny and Arran marks the short-lived triumph of this policy. These attempts, however, were in the long run fruitless; the great body of the people adhered to Protestantism and the English alliance; the Kirk and the Reforming nobles worked together against the common enemy; and James, as he grew to man's estate, had sagacity enough to see the strongest side, and to direct accordingly his public conduct. Mr. Burton omits to dwell upon the base selfishness of the young king, in throwing over the unhappy princess, to whom he owed the love of a son. But morally he was always a coward; and the prospect of the inheritance of England, and the dread of alienating Elizabeth, was more than enough to determine his purpose. The extremely unsettled state of Scotland, after the death of the Regent Morton, and the rudeness and barbarism of its government, appear in the frequency and sudden violence of the changes which took place in its rulers; and it seems to have been assumed, that whatever faction had possession of the person of the king, was rightly invested with supreme authority. In these circumstances, as may be supposed, the progress of Scotland was only slow; the face of the country seemed scarred with the marks of desolation and war; the nation was rent by intestine troubles; and travellers from England drew marked contrasts between the aspect of the Southern land at peace under the Tudor sceptre, and that of its lawless Northern neighbour. Nevertheless, the course of events tended inevitably to the approaching union of the two crowns under a common sovereign--invasion from England had wholly ceased--and though the aged Elizabeth would not acknowledge the title of James to her glorious throne, every politician in both countries was aware that the time was not distant, when the policy inaugurated by Edward I., and pursued by every great English monarch, of joining together the whole of the island, would be consummated without civil war or bloodshed. Meanwhile the tragic and striking figure which had played such an awful and mournful part in the historical drama of the two kingdoms had passed away for ever from the stage, and the terrible career of Mary Stuart had been cut short by the Fotheringay headsman. Mr. Burton properly does not dilate on the incidents of her melancholy life during the later years of her long imprisonment, for they hardly belong to his subject, but his estimate of them is generally correct. Mary Stuart, after the final overthrow of her party in Scotland, transferred her energies to intriguing with the Continental powers; and it can admit of no question that she continued to maintain her claims to the crown of England, that she plotted directly against the life of Elizabeth, and that she kept England in a state of apprehension, intolerable to the Parliament and nation. She was a conspirator of the worst kind, and deserved the death she bravely encountered; and the crooked policy, the vacillation, and the duplicity of her rival towards her prisoner, should not render us blind to the real issue.

While, in circumstances such as these, Scotland was working out her political destiny, her ecclesiastical and religious reformation was being developed and matured. In no country, perhaps, in Europe had the Church of Rome been so grossly corrupt as in the northern part of our island; it had been the appanage of a vicious court, and the instrument of coarse spiritual tyranny; and in none, accordingly, was the reaction against it more rapid, popular, and thoroughly decisive. Although Beaton and the men of his faction had endeavoured to associate the defence of Popery with the spirit of stern opposition to the Southron, their policy had, in the long run, failed; and before Mary Stuart ascended the throne, Scotland, as a nation, had become Protestant. The grand and striking figure of Knox was the chief exponent of this movement; but it is idle to imagine that even Knox could have changed the spiritual life of Scotland, if the people had not been generally with him. As usually has happened, the baser elements of selfishness mingled with this revolution; and the support given by most of the Scottish nobles to the overthrow of Romanism was chiefly prompted by a greedy appetite for the spoils of the fallen Church. Nevertheless, the Reformation took firm root; the old ecclesiastical system of the country and its ancient faith were violently changed; and the accession of Murray to the Regency marks the period of this great transformation. Mr. Burton's account of the new Church which rose on the ruins of its predecessor, and of its peculiar ritual and doctrine, is one of the most interesting parts of his book, and abounds in learning and sound criticism. The Scottish Kirk was founded upon the model of the Huguenot Church of France; with a large admixture of lay elements, it had the same definite and strong organization, and the same tendency to create what was a powerful priesthood all but in name; and its teaching exemplified the austerity and strictness of the theology of Calvin. From the first, accordingly, it was calculated to encourage pretensions among the ministry, and to become an imperium in imperio, not without risk of collision with the State; and its whole system, in its excess, led to fanaticism and contempt of civil authority. We transcribe a few passages from Mr. Burton's description of the Second Book of Discipline of the Scottish Kirk, a specimen of its general principles:--

'It sets forth that, "as the ministers and others of the ecclesiastical estate are subject to the magistrate civil, so ought the person of the magistrate be subject to the Kirk spiritually, and in ecclesiastical government." Further:--"The civil power should command the spiritual to exercise and do their office according to the word of God; the spiritual rulers should require the Christian magistrate to minister justice and punish vice, and to maintain the liberty and quietness of the Kirk within their bounds." Nothing could be on its face a fairer distribution. The civil power was entitled to command the spiritual to do its duty; but then the magistrate was not to have authority to "execute the censures of the Church, nor yet prescribe any rule how it should be done." This is entirely in the hands of the Church; but in enforcing it the State is the Church's servant, for it is the magistrate's duty to "assist and maintain the discipline of the Kirk, and punish them civilly that will not obey the discipline of the same." Thus the State could give no effective orders to the Church, but the Church could order the State to give material effect to its rules and punishments. It was the State's duty, at the same time, to preserve for the Church its whole patrimony; and we have seen that this meant all the vast wealth which had been gathered up by the old Church. Among the prerogatives of the clergy, it was further declared that "they have power to abrogate and abolish all statutes and ordinances concerning ecclesiastical matters that are found noisome and unprofitable, and agree not with the time, or, are abused by the people."'--(Vol. v. 470.)

While Knox and his generation survived, the tendencies of the new establishment were prevented from fully showing themselves. The great Reformer was at bottom moderate; he had a real reverence for the powers that be, however he abhorred Mary Stuart. The lay lords had sufficient influence to control the ministry throughout the country; and the presence of a common danger compelled the Scottish Protestants to uphold the Government. But, when the Kirk had become settled, and the Reformation was completely secure, dissensions rapidly grew up between the spiritual and civil powers, and the Presbyterian clergy began to assume that attitude in the affairs of Scotland, which led, afterwards, to such momentous consequences. The leader of the new school of divines was the celebrated Melville, thus described by Mr. Burton:--

'Knox had a respect for hereditary rank which only yielded to a higher duty, when, as the successor of the prophets of old, he had to announce the law of God even to the highest. Melville, though born to a higher position, was more of the leveller. He was the type of a class who, to as much of the fierce fanaticism of the Huguenots as the Scottish character could receive, added the stern classical republicanism of Buchanan.'--(Vol. v. 404.)

An organization of this kind, supported by such spiritual leaders, ere long displayed its natural tendencies. The Kirk, with its powerful local ministry, connected with each other by numerous links, attempted to revive in Scotland the pretensions of the old dominant Church, and it succeeded in creating a vast spiritual power, often in conflict with the authority of the State. The principal fact in Scottish history, during the last years of the sixteenth century and the first of the seventeenth, was the opposition given, by the Presbyterian clergy, to the acts and even the rights of the Crown; and though the conduct of James I. was, as usual, arrogant and unwise, he was subjected to extreme provocation. The enthusiasm which followed the defeat of the Armada, the supposed inclination of the king to High Church, and even Romanist doctrines, and the open favour he showed to several of the old Catholic Scottish houses, gave strength to the champions of the Kirk; and for some time, as he ruefully exclaimed, he was not a ruler in his own dominions. The formal abolition of Episcopacy in Scotland--the institution had existed in name even after the iconoclasm of Knox--marks the highest point of Presbyterian ascendancy; and, more than once, the king and his council were compelled to yield to the demands put forward by those whom he called the 'Popes of Edinburgh.' Undoubtedly, however, if James had been a really able and popular ruler, he could have vindicated his supreme authority, and the national estates, which even at this juncture often showed jealousy of the heads of the Kirk, would have upheld the prerogatives of the Crown. As it was, Scotland was divided by a contest between the Church and the State, and the Presbyterian Hildebrands assumed an attitude which contributed afterwards to many troubles. We quote a passage that gives an idea of the bickerings between the king and the clergy:--

'Entering in the cabinet with the king alone, I show his Majesty that the Commissioners of the General Assembly, with certain other brethren ordained to watch for the well of the Kirk in so dangerous a time, had convened at Cupar. At the which word the king interrupts me, and angrily quarrels our meeting, alleging it was without warrant and seditious, making ourselves and the country to conceive fear where there was no cause. To the which I, beginning to reply in my manner, Mr. Andrew could not abide it, but brake off upon the king in so zealous, powerful, and unresistible a manner, that, howbeit the king used his authority in most crabbed and choleric manner, Mr. Andrew bore him down, and uttered the commission as from the mighty God, calling the king but "God's silly vassal," and, taking him by the sleeve, says this in effect, through much hot reasoning and many interruptions, "Sir, we will humbly reverence your Majesty, always, namely, in public. But, since we have this occasion to be with your Majesty in private, and the truth is, you are brought in extreme danger, both of your life and crown, and, with you, the country and Kirk of Christ is like to wreck for not telling you the truth, and giving of you a faithful counsel--we must discharge our duty therein, or else be traitors, both to Christ and you! And therefore, Sir, as divers times before, so now again, I must tell you, there are two kings and two kingdoms in Scotland. There is Christ Jesus the King, and His Kingdom the Kirk, whose subject King James the Sixth is--and of his kingdom, not a king, nor a lord, nor a head, but a member!"'--(Vol. vi. 81.)

While seeds of trouble were thus growing up in the contests between the Kirk and the Crown, the great Tudor queen had passed away, and James became monarch of the three kingdoms. Both England and Scotland recognised in him the principle of hereditary right, for there was little in his character or antecedents to recommend him as a national sovereign. In his own country he had become unpopular, and in England he was chiefly known as one who had basely betrayed his mother, who had intrigued with Elizabeth to obtain her throne, and who had no sympathy with the great alliance with France and the United Provinces in the war with Spain. James, however, encountered no opposition in assuming the sceptre of these realms; and his progress to London from the North--described graphically by Mr. Burton--was a scene of continuous joy and festivity. The king, at least, had ample reason to feel delight at the happy change which had come over his life and prospects. He left a poor and distracted country--where his reign had long been a long scene of trouble, and where he was being continually reviled by those who, in his phrase, 'agreed as well with monarchy as the devil with Christ'--for rich, peaceful, and well-ordered England; and he might well expect a season of repose amidst the blandishments of a Tudor hierarchy, and the submissive acts of Tudor courtiers. For some time he was not disappointed, and what between the unctuous flattery of prelates, who said that 'he spake like the Spirit,' and of nobles who vied with each other in adulation, James must have thought himself translated to a sphere not unworthy even of his own estimate of himself. Before long, however, he was destined to find out that in England, as well as Scotland, he was to earn the contempt and dislike of his subjects. Essentially timid and short-sighted, he abandoned the foreign policy of Elizabeth; he disgusted Englishmen by his open preference for worthless and needy Scottish favourites; and in a few years he found himself in antagonism with the House of Commons, now becoming a real image of the nation, and with the tremendous force of Puritanism already growing into ascendancy in England. Mr. Burton gives us, from a contemporary chronicler, this sketch of the ignoble monarch:--

'He was of a middle stature, more corpulent through his clothes than in his body, yet fat enough; his clothes ever being made large and easy, the doublets quilted for stiletto proof; his breeches in great plaits and full stuffed. He was naturally of a timid disposition, which was the greatest reason of his quilted doublets. His eyes large, ever rolling after any stranger came in his presence, inasmuch as many for shame have left the room, being out of countenance. His beard was very thin; his tongue too large for his mouth, which ever made him speak full in the mouth, and made him drink very uncomely as if eating his drink, which came out into the cup on each side of his mouth. His skin was as soft as taffeta sarcenet, which felt so because he never washed his hands--only rubbed his finger-ends slightly with the wet end of a napkin. His legs were very weak, having had, it was thought, some foul play in his youth, or rather before he was born, that he was not able to stand at seven years of age--that weakness made him ever leaning on other men's shoulders.'--(Vol. vi. 162.)

As is well known, the dislike entertained for James in England was in part owing to the favour he showed to Scotch favourites. The nation, too, abounding in keen adventurers--poor, hardy, and pushing--came in for a share of this feeling; and the wits and satirists of the day indulged in sarcasms on the greedy race who crossed the border in hungry swarms to feed on the wealth of the well-fed Southron. We quote from one of these pasquinades:--

'Bonny Scot, we all witness can, That England hath made thee a gentleman. Thy blue bonnet, when thou came hither, Could scarce keep out the wind and weather; But now it is turned to a hat and feather; Thy bonnet is blown--the devil knows whither.

Thy shoes on thy feet when thou camest from plough, Were made of the hide of an old Scots cow; But now they are turned to a rare Spanish leather, And decked with roses altogether.

Thy sword at thy [back] was a great black blade, With a great basket-hilt of iron made; But now a long rapier doth hang by his side, And huffingly doth this bonny Scot ride. Bonny Scot, we all witness can, That England hath made thee a gentleman.'

--(Vol. vi. 191.)

During the years that followed the union of the crowns, Scotland made considerable material progress, though still troubled by occasional disorder. The strife which for ages had made the border a theatre of desolation and rapine came, to a great extent, to an end, and signs of good husbandry and growing comfort began to appear in this wild district. The great house of Huntly, 'the cock of the North,' and the terror of the Reformation party, was balanced by the rival house of Argyle, and the barbarous Highlands were reduced in some degree to subjection to the Crown. The wealth of Scotland increased apace under the influence of trade comparatively free; and the political consequences were important in weakening the connection of the country with France. At the same time, the authority of the law, which, since the death of Murray, had been feeble, began to be again vindicated. The following, from a contemporary eye-witness, will show the progress of this revolution:--

'The Islanders oppressed the Highlandmen; the Highlanders tyrannized over their Lowland neighbours; the powerful and violent in the country domineered over the lives and goods of their weak neighbours; the Borderers triumphed in the immunity of their violences to the ports of Edinburgh; that treasons, murthers, burnings, thefts, reifs, heirships, hocking of oxen, breaking of mills, destroying of growing corns, and barbarities of all sorts were exercised in all parts of the country--no place nor person being exempt or inviolable--Edinburgh being the ordinary place of butchery, revenge, and daily fights.... These and all other abominations, which, settled by inveterate custom and impunity, appeared to be of desperate remeid, had been so repressed, punished, and abolished by your Majesty's care, power, and expenses, as no nation on earth could now compare with our prosperities.'--(Vol. vi. 283.)

Yet, though Scotland was growing in wealth, and the authority of the Crown was increasing, the nation, during the last years of this reign, abounded in discontent and disorder. The Scots seem to have felt bitterly the transference of their ancient Royal House to an alien and lately hostile country; and though they had no affection for James, they resented the visible loss of the monarchy. A High Commissioner and Council at Edinburgh could not supply the place of the sovereign; the evils of absenteeism began to be felt in the capital and the rural districts; and complaints were made that what had been a kingdom was now treated as a subject province. Dissatisfaction of this kind, however, was small, compared to the angry sentiments engendered by the long-standing quarrel between James and the Presbyterian clergy. Puffed up by the oriental flattery of the courtiers and prelates at Whitehall, that sagacious ruler formed the design of revolutionizing the Kirk in Scotland, and of restoring the mode of Church government which the Reformation had violently overthrown; and he proceeded to his work with a timid arrogance which provoked contempt and indignation alike. Many circumstances concurred to second a purpose, which in the next generation was to culminate in disaster and ruin to the House of Stuart. The pretensions of the Presbyterian ministry had disgusted many moderate persons; their despotic claims to spiritual domination had aroused the jealousy of the national estates; a large party among the nobility were ready to comply with the wishes of James; and though the nation was fanatically Protestant, a minority of it had no sympathy with what they thought was sacerdotal tyranny. The result was that, without seeming difficulty, Episcopacy was again set up in Scotland; the king was enabled to boast complacently that he had built up the chief pillar of the throne, and he even succeeded in introducing innovations into the simple ritual which had been established after the Reformation. James, however, prudently abstained from allying aristocratic selfishness with popular feeling, and did not venture to lay hands on the forfeited possessions of the Church, long in the ownership of lay families; and, on the whole, notwithstanding the tone of pompous dictation assumed by him, he avoided wounding powerful class interests when he insisted upon the return to 'Prelacy.' His bishops, indeed, were very different personages from the mitred tyrants who, a century before, had lorded it over thousands of vassals, and had exasperated Scotland by their pride and wickedness. They were, for the most part, needy and insignificant men, who thought a great deal more of 'making ends meet,' and of winning the royal ear by adulation, than of asserting the claims of the Church, and they had little in common with the class of the Beatons. Mr. Burton gives us a most interesting account of their difficulties and privations, and of the ignoble means some of them took to keep up their state. We quote an anecdote to that effect:--

'When I was in England his Majesty did promise to me the making of two serjeants-at-law, and I travailed with some to that effect, with whom I covenanted, if they were made serjeants by my means they should give me eleven hundred pounds sterling the piece, and the projector a hundred pounds of it for his pains. Now I have received ane letter, that these same men are called to be serjeants, and has received his Majesty's writ to that effect, and desires me to write to them anent that indenting. I beseech you to know if his Majesty's will is I be paid by that course or not.'--(Vol. vi. 265.)

This change, however, though it did not provoke a violent revolution in Scotland, created a large amount of discontent. The Presbyterian clergy declared that the Kirk had been contaminated and profaned; they kept up a sullen agitation; and many of their congregations only awaited an opportunity to revolt openly. Whenever James paid a visit to his Scottish dominions, which he occasionally did, his devout respect for the Anglican ritual, his reverence for 'my Lords, the Bishops,' and his assiduous care about forms and vestments, aroused indignation and contempt, and before his death it had become evident that a great religious movement was at hand. The King, however, continued to avert a passionate explosion during his life; he avoided acts of high-handed oppression; and it is remarkable that he expressed an unfavourable opinion of the wrong-headed personage who in the next reign was to precipitate the catastrophe and bring his son to ruin. We quote James's account of the character of Laud:--

'The plain truth is, that I keep Laud back from all places of rule and authority because I find he hath a restless spirit, and cannot see when matters are well, but loves to toss and change, and to bring things to a pitch of reformation floating in his own brain, which may endanger the steadfastness of that which is in a good pass, God be praised. I speak not at random. He hath made himself known to me to be such a one; for when, three years since, I had obtained of the Assembly of Perth to consent to five articles of order and decency in correspondence with this Church of England, I gave them promise by attestation of faith made, that I would try their obedience no further anent ecclesiastic affairs. Yet this man hath pressed me to incite them to a nearer conjunction with the liturgy and canons of this nation.'--(Vol. vi. 339.)

The death of James, in 1625, was the inauguration of a new era in Scotland. The king, though full of arrogant pretensions, was timid, feeble, and not without a certain kind of political insight; and if he had irritated and alarmed the nation, he did not venture to outrage its feelings or to assail some of its most powerful interests. His successor, naturally a firmer man, and taught to believe the odious doctrines of passive obedience and divine right, had no scruples in overbearing opposition, however stern and national, to the line of policy he had marked out for himself; and the conscientiousness he undoubtedly possessed with respect to certain cardinal principles, made him obstinate in carrying them out in government. Besides, he seems to have really thought it was no part of the duty of a king to keep faith with ministers or subjects, that something in his office placed him outside the pale of ordinary moral obligations; and in addition, like all the Stuarts, he was especially addicted to favourites, and to lend an ear to their unwise counsels. Such a man, a bad ruler as it were on principle, was calculated to precipitate the great revolution which in England and Scotland alike had been gradually in course of development. As Mr. Burton truly observes, the teasing, fitful, and hesitating attempts of James to cross the will of his people, were as nothing to the steady and resolute efforts with which Charles endeavoured to accomplish the ends which from the first he had clearly in view. The battle in Scotland, as might have been expected, commenced upon the affairs of the Church; and the king, with singular unwisdom, contrived to unite against him most of the nobility, the Kirk, and the bulk of the people, and to stir to its depths the national sentiment. There can be little doubt that Charles intended to force the Anglican system on Scotland, and to introduce into that kingdom the well-endowed State Church, the rich courtier prelates, 'the midge-madge of doctrine,' and the gorgeous ritual which he considered divine in England. His first step was audaciously to claim the resumption of the revenues of the old Church of Scotland, which had been forfeited at the Reformation:--

'A proclamation announced the general revocation by the new king of all grants by the Crown, and all acquisitions to the prejudice of the Crown, whether before or after his father's Act of Annexation in 1587. This was virtually the proclamation of that contest of which King Charles was destined never to see the end. It proposed to sweep into the royal treasury the whole of the vast ecclesiastical estates which had passed into the hands of the territorial potentates from the Reformation downwards, since it went back to things done before King James's annexation.'--(Vol. vi. 355.)

By this wicked and insensate measure, Charles made enemies of all the powerful men, the leaders of the nobility of Scotland, who were in possession of ecclesiastical property, and he gave the whole nation a significant example of the iniquities of mere arbitrary power. But he was not satisfied with exasperating a class; he proceeded to touch to the very quick the religious and patriotic feelings of the nation. At the stroke of a pen he completely changed the ecclesiastical polity of Scotland, by proclaiming his right to make canons for the Kirk; and he not only introduced many of these ordinances, but he peremptorily enjoined the use of forms and symbols in worship for many years detested in Scotland. This was done, too, with a coarse contempt of Scottish sentiment which was especially galling; the innovations being thrust upon the country by English prelates, regarded as aliens. We quote a specimen of scenes which, doubtless, were not unfrequent at this juncture:--

'At the back of this altar, covered with tapestry, there was ane rich tapestry wherein the crucifix was curiously wrought; and as those bishops who were in service passed by this crucifix they were seen to bow their knee, and beck, which, with their habit, was noticed, and bred great fear of inbringing of Popery.... The Archibishop of St. Andrew's and four bishops did "the service" "with white rochets and white sleeves and copes of gold, having blue silk to their foot." Bishop Laud took Glasgow, and thrust him from the king with these words, "Are you a Churchman, and wants the coat of your order?"'--(Vol. vi. 376.)

In this kind of foreign innovation, Laud, now made a royal favourite, was badly and conspicuously eminent. This meddling priest, who thought that he could bind the faith of two nations within his formulas, was made an overseer of the Scottish prelates, and presented to them with insolent rudeness the ecclesiastical policy they were to adopt. There is reason to believe they disliked him heartily, while he was execrated by the Presbyterian clergy. We quote a few words from one of his dictatorial letters:--

'You are immutably to hold this rule, and that by his Majesty's strict and most special command--namely, that yourself, or the Lord Ross, or both of you together, do privately acquaint the Earl of Traquair; ... and the earl will readily do all good offices for the Church that come within his power, according to all such commands as he shall receive, either immediately from the king, or otherwise by direction of his Majesty from myself.'--(Vol. vi. 386.)

By this policy, Charles had contrived to unite the great mass of the nation against him. The descendants of the lay lords of the Reformation, the moderate men who reverenced law, the still powerful Presbyterian clergy and their congregations throughout the country were alarmed, irritated, and provoked; and signs of discontent were manifest even in the Council of National Estates. The last drop that made the cup overflow was the publication of the famous Liturgy of Laud, which, itself odious to all true Protestants, was forced on the people in a manner certain to exasperate a high-spirited country. Mr. Burton criticises at length and learnedly this celebrated attempt on the faith of Scotland: it must suffice to say that the new Liturgy was in conflict with all the forms of Scottish worship, devised, as we have seen, from the Huguenots, which had existed since the Reformation. The scenes that ensued are well known, and it is not necessary to dwell on them. The 'rabblings' of the angry mobs at Edinburgh, Jenny Geddes and her 'devout sisters,' the terror that fell on the appointed bishops, were merely symptoms of the deep indignation which had taken possession of the people of Scotland; and, in a short time, a general opposition was organized against the king and his government. How ignorant Charles and his ministers in England were of the tempest they had waked, will be seen from the following passage:--

'The truth is, there was so little curiosity either in the court or the country to know anything of Scotland, or what was done there, that when the whole nation was solicitous to know what passed weekly in Germany and Poland, and all other parts of Europe, no man ever enquired what was doing in Scotland; nor had that kingdom a place or mention of one page of any gazette.'--(Vol. vi. 451.)

Meanwhile the opposition to the king in Scotland had assumed a formidable shape, and throughout the country crowds of 'supplicants,' demanding a repeal of the obnoxious measures which had been passed during the preceding years, had formed themselves into regular assemblies, connected with a central convocation, which expressed angrily the will of the people. It has been supposed that the Council of Edinburgh connived, to say the least, with this movement; it certainly recognised the representative quality of the delegates by treating officially with them; and the institution of the celebrated 'Tables' marks the commencement of the great revolution. Charles, however, and his councillors were unrelenting; and Laud especially distinguished himself in invoking fire and sword upon the audacious 'rebels.' The 'Tables,' that is, the leading men of the nation, acknowledged as a lawful power, in direct opposition to the Sovereign, resolved to make their authority felt; and the famous compact of the 'Covenant' found the entire sympathy of all classes with them. The Covenant, in fact, was the solemn protest of Scotland against the wrong done by the king. The following, from a contemporary account, shows the deep enthusiasm with which it was welcomed:--

'Gentlemen and noblemen carried copies about in their portmanteaus or pockets, requiring subscriptions thereunto, and using their utmost endeavours with their friends in private for to subscribe. It was subscribed publicly in churches, ministers exhorting their people thereunto. It was also subscribed and sworn privately. All had power to take the oath, and were licensed and welcomed to come in; and any that pleased had power and license for to carry the Covenant about with him, and give the oath to such as were willing to subscribe and swear. And such was the zeal of many subscribers, that for a while many subscribed with tears on their cheeks; and it is constantly reported that some did draw their own blood, and used it in place of ink, to underwrite their names.'--(Vol. vi. 488.)

Charles now began to act after the fashion which was to lead him at last to ruin and death. He had not yet alienated the hearts of his people, and timely concession and simple justice would certainly have allayed the tempest. But he resolved to dissimulate with them, to hold out hopes that he would comply with their requests, and, at the same time, to prepare the means of chastising them as audacious 'rebels.' He sent Hamilton, as a commissioner, to Scotland, with full power to redress grievances, with a promise that a General Assembly and a free Parliament should be convened; but he secretly determined to put down opposition by sheer military force. If Charles was not what is called a 'bad man,' if he was not a mere reckless and wicked tyrant, it must be allowed that the detestable doctrines of kingcraft had poisoned his understanding; he acted on system, as though he were free from all obligations of good faith with his subjects. Mr. Burton gives us the following letter, written to Hamilton at this juncture; it is one of the worst extant specimens of royal duplicity:--

'And to this end I give you leave to flatter them with what hopes you please.... This I have written to no other end than to show you I will rather die than yield to those impertinent and damnable demands, as you rightly call them.... As the affairs are now, I do not expect that you should declare the adherers to the Covenant traitors until, as I have already said, you have heard from me that my fleet hath set sail for Scotland.'--(Vol. vi. 505.)

According to the promise given by the king, a General Assembly was now held, described fully by Mr. Burton. This great convention met at Glasgow; and Episcopacy was condemned and set aside, as in the days of the first Reformation. Charles replied by seizing Edinburgh Castle, and taking possession of the chief Scottish fortresses; and Hamilton openly issued proclamations denouncing the Covenanters as audacious rebels. Civil war broke out in 1639; and in a few weeks, an irregular contest was raging in the east and south-east, and threatening to overrun the kingdom. At this juncture, Scotland abounded with soldiers trained in the Thirty Years' War, not mere mercenaries of the Dalgetty type, but men really fitted to command; and a resolution was formed to march to the south, and to make an armed demonstration against England. In an incredibly short time, 22,000 men were arrayed under the orders of Leslie, and making for the English border--a force relatively to the population of Scotland, of extraordinary numerical amount, and a conclusive proof of the enthusiasm of the country. The composition of this army, led by some of the noblest men in Scotland, shows all classes, high and low, joined in the movement against the king:--

'Our crouners (that is, colonels) for the most part were noblemen. Rothes, Lindsay, Sinclair, had among them two full regiments, at least, from Fife. Balcarras, a horse troop; Loudon, Montgomery, Erskine, Boyd, Fleming, Kirkcudbright, Yester, Dalhousie, Eglinton, and others, either with whole or half regiments. Montrose's regiment was above fifteen hundred men.'--(Vol. vii. 56.)

The Scottish army having reached the Border, the king consented to the brief truce known by the name of the Pacification of Berwick. Once more Charles made specious promises with a resolution to break faith: the wishes of the nation were to be respected; Episcopacy was not to be restored; Presbyterianism was to be the form of Church government; and the National Estates were to sanction the reforms confirmed by a paternal and high-minded sovereign. The Parliament, however, was hardly assembled before it was indefinitely prorogued; and there is ample evidence that Charles intended, as soon as an opportunity came, to invade Scotland, and take summary vengeance. At this juncture, the Scottish leaders unquestionably remembered the 'Ancient League,' and looked to France and Richelieu for aid; and if we cannot approve their purpose, we at least should remember the great provocation. The king thought that the time had arrived to inflict punishment on the 'rebels of the North;' he felt assured that the old English jealousy of a political connection between Scotland and France would throw all England upon his side; and he issued orders for a general armament, for the invasion and even the conquest of Scotland. But, at this crisis, political sympathy got the better of past national dislikes; and England, as a people, was averse to aid the king in crushing discontent beyond the Tweed. For a series of years the government of Charles had provoked indignation in England, only less than that which existed in Scotland; the tyranny of Strafford and the arrogance of Laud had combined the Constitutional and Puritan parties, and a great revolution was fast approaching. The future chiefs of the Long Parliament co-operated with the Scottish malcontents; and Charles found it impossible to collect a sufficient army to carry out his purpose. Mr. Burton describes the situation thus:--

'The result is described by one on whom heavy responsibility lay--the Earl of Northumberland, who was to command the army of the North: "Most of the ways that were relied on for supplies of money have hitherto failed us, and, for aught I know, we are likely to become the most despised nation of Europe. To the regiments that are now raising, we, for want of money, have been able to advance but fourteen days' pay--the rest must meet them upon their march towards Selby, and for both the horse and foot already in the North, we can, for the present, send them but seven days' pay." Those who were considered liable to serve in the army resisted the conscription; and when embodied, they were often so mutinous as to be more dangerous to their officers than they were likely to be to the enemy.'--(Vol. vii. 99.)

The Scottish army, as is well known, encountered no opposition on the Tweed, and, having taken Newcastle, was advancing southwards, when its progress was stayed by the Treaty of Ripon. The sword had been struck out of the hands of the king; his English subjects had refused to second his efforts against their ancient enemies; and, in England and Scotland alike, the national cause was about to triumph. From this time, the chiefs of the opposition to the court cooperated in the two countries; and the acts of the Long Parliament and the Scottish Estates were, in a great degree, of the same kind, and had objects almost similar. Mr. Burton, however, correctly shows that Scotland certainly has the honour of having inaugurated this glorious resistance; but for the resolution displayed by the nation, it is not impossible that Stratford's scheme of 'Thorough' might have been successful for many years, and the constitutional liberties of England might have been suspended for at least a generation. Mr. Burton describes at some length the visit of the Scottish Commissioners to London, and the first proceedings of the Long Parliament; but we have no space to dwell on a subject which, however interesting and picturesque, belongs more properly to the History of England. In 1640-41, the Scottish Estates were convened in accordance with the conditions of the Treaty of Ripon, and it became evident, at once, that the authority of the king would be swept away by a violent revolution. This Assembly, formerly little more than an instrument of the will of the king, was now intent on putting an end to the policy and the power of Charles; it was overflowing with religious zeal and with national, if not democratic passion; and it resolved once for all that the House of Stuart should no longer trifle with the rights of Scotsmen. As Scotland had suffered more grievously than England from the tyranny of the court, the legislation of the Estates was more violent than that of the Long Parliament, and marked more strongly with precipitate haste; on the whole, it does not contrast favourably with that of the English Assembly; but, undoubtedly, not a few of its measures served as precedents for the Long Parliament, in the later stages of the conflict with Charles. For instance, after destroying Episcopacy, and sweeping away all the innovations in Church and State of the twenty years before, the Estates proceeded practically to abolish the prerogatives of the Crown in Scotland; and the course they took seems to have suggested the Nineteen Propositions of the Long Parliament:--

'One of the points which the Estates had determined to carry, was the appointment, by themselves, of all public officers. The Secret Council and the Court of Session were recast, the appointments being made in two separate Acts. In a general Act, applicable to Government offices at large, the king's form of appointment is treated with all reverence; but, at the same time, it is to be exercised in each instance "with the advice and approbation" of the Estates.'--(Vol. vii. 140.)

It was not to be expected, after this, that a revolution could be avoided. Charles, unquestionably, resolved to draw the sword as soon as an opportunity offered; the Estates, backed by the mass of the nation, were as determined to maintain their advantage. When such were the feelings on either side, there is little use in examining with care how or by whom the Civil War was commenced. But, as in the case of the Five Members, so in that of the mysterious Incident, the king seems to have acted with that treacherous malice which so often provoked the indignation of his subjects; and after this event, war was inevitable. The great Irish rebellion of 1641 came to add fuel to the gathering flame; and Scotland, like England, was impressed with the belief that Charles had connived at an infamous scheme of overthrowing the colonists of Ireland, and of marshalling a Papist Irish army to put down the Estates and the Parliament. Mr. Burton examines at some length the evidence against the king in this matter, and certainly is not inclined to acquit him; however that may be, it is somewhat curious that he does not allude to a most significant fact, that the alleged commission to the rebellious Irish was given under the great seal of Scotland, and was said to be in the interest of the Scotch, and that the Irish carefully avoided to lay a hand, at first, on the Scottish colonists, while they massacred wholesale their English fellows. Civil war now broke out in England and Scotland; and for some time, as is well known, success inclined to the side of the king. Mr. Burton describes the brilliant campaigns of Montrose in the North minutely and well; but he shows correctly that they were mere raids, of which the importance has been exaggerated; and Montrose was defeated without difficulty, when encountered by a really able soldier. The real struggle was in the South; and Mr. Burton, perhaps, underrates the extraordinary efforts of Cromwell in restoring the Parliamentary cause, and overestimates the weight which Leslie and the Scottish army threw into the balance. Undoubtedly, however, Leslie and the Scots were auxiliaries of extreme importance. We quote this brief description of Marston Moor, where Leslie and Cromwell commanded together:--

'Prince Rupert headed one of those impetuous attacks for which he was renowned, and scattered before him the right of the allied army under Fairfax and Leven. It was one of those great blows that may confuse a whole army; but the other half was in very competent hands--those of Cromwell and David Leslie. They beat back their opponents, not by a rush, but a hard, steady fight, and were on the enemy's ground, when Rupert returned from a pursuit which he had carried too far. He found that while he had been away pursuing the defeated enemy, events behind him had arranged matters for a second battle, in which each occupied the ground that earlier in the day, had belonged to the other side. The end was an entire victory.'--(Vol. vii. 180.)

Meanwhile the Solemn League and Covenant had attested the Union of England and Scotland, and the celebrated Assembly of Divines at Westminster had been employed in devising means for establishing one faith in both kingdoms. The inherent difference between the Protestantism of the two countries was fully developed. The Scottish Presbyterians, true to the narrowness and bigotry of their peculiar tenets, claimed that the Kirk was of Divine institution, and endeavoured to compel a universal adoption of its ritual and forms of worship. These vain pretensions were strenuously opposed by the Parliament, broad and Erastian in view, and by the great mass of the Puritan party, trained by the results of the persecution of years to acknowledge the rights of freedom of conscience. Disputes, leading to memorable consequences, were the result of these divergent views which Mr. Burton has fully set forth:--

'To the Scottish covenanters the calling of this Assembly, and the adoption of the Solemn League and Covenant as revised by it, were rapidly bringing on the consummation of that great scheme of Divine Providence destined to establish the Presbyterian polity over all mankind. The government of the Church by a General Assembly, Synod, Presbyteries, and Kirk Sessions, was the divine form of Church government, and all others must dissolve before it.... The Parliament, however, had other views, and skilfully prepared for the consummation. There lurked at that time, in the class of men who made the Parliament and the influential circles, a disinclination to reconstruct any strong priesthood.... The Brownists, Independents, or Congregationalists, were a large body in England, and had been growing, even in Scotland, too rapidly for the peace of the Covenanting party. Their principle was, that there should be no combined system of Church government, whether prelatic or Presbyterian, but that each Christian congregation should be a church in itself.'--(Vol. vii. 209.)

The civil war had gone on during these long and important discussions. The genius of Cromwell and the power of his army had everywhere overcome the Royalists; and the great Republican had become the arbiter of the situation, and supreme in England. In these circumstances the auxiliary force of the Scots became of little importance, and jealousies had already begun to grow up between the soldiers of the two nations. As is well known, the unfortunate king repaired to the Scottish camp, and the Scottish leaders delivered him up to Commissioners of the Parliament for a sum of money. We quote Mr. Burton's account of this transaction, which, if not so base as has been described by writers of the Junius type, does little credit to Scottish honour:--

'Apart from any question about trust, had the king really fled from enemies to find refuge with friends? The Scots army were older and steadier enemies than the English. It was in the future, no doubt, that in England he was to be put to death; but the Scots had no more reason to expect this of the English than to be themselves suspected of such a design; and it was not by the party to whom he was intrusted or "sold" by the Scots that he was put to death, but by the enemies of that party. The Scots had made up their minds to return home when their arrears were paid. They could not keep the king except by taking him with them into Scotland, and such an act would have implied at once suspicion and hostility towards those who had been so long their allies. The Scots showed in what they afterwards attempted for him and his son, that, had he agreed to their terms, and consented to be a Presbyterian king over a Presbyterian people, they would have fought for him instead of "selling" him.'--(Vol. vii. 236.)

It is unnecessary to dwell on the melancholy scene of the execution of Charles I. In his case, as in that of Mary Stuart, sufferings and a violent death endured with dignity, have atoned, in the eyes of many persons, for misgovernment and political crimes. This event was the signal for an open rupture between the leaders of the various parties which, in England and Scotland alike, had accomplished the great revolution of the time. The English Independents, already supreme under Cromwell and his invincible army, had resolved to establish the Commonwealth, and to set up Puritanism as the national faith; the Scots insisted on placing Charles II. on the throne as a covenanting King, and on Presbyterianism as the church of these realms. A brief but decisive struggle ensued, which, as might have been expected, ended in the overthrow of the weaker country, and the complete ascendancy of the great soldier who had never yet met his equal in the field. Mr. Burton describes at some length the 'crowning mercies' of Dunbar and Worcester, but we have no space to refer to the narrative. In the settlement of the religious affairs of Scotland, the breadth of view and even the toleration of Cromwell contrast favourably with the high-flown pretensions and narrow-mindedness of the Presbyterian clergy, who approved themselves the Pharisees of pedantic formalism. His grand exclamation--'In the bowels of Christ, I beseech you think that you may be mistaken,' shows that he recognised one of the principles which in matters of faith enjoins charity. We quote Mr. Burton's account of the closing of the General Assembly:--

'Lieutenant-Colonel Cotterel beset the Church with some rattes of musketeers and a troop of horse. Himself (after our fast, wherein Mr. Dickson and Mr. Douglas had two gracious sermons) entered the Assembly House, and immediately after Mr. Dixon, the moderator, his prayer, required audience, wherein he inquired if we did sit there by the authority of the Parliament of the commonwealth of England, or of the commander-in-chief of the English forces, or of the English judges in Scotland. The moderator replied, that we were an ecclesiastical synod, a spiritual Court of Jesus Christ, which meddled not with any thing civil; that our authority was from God, and established by the laws of the land, yet standing unrepealed; that by the Solemn League and Covenant the most of the English army stood obliged to defend our General Assembly. When some speeches of this kind had passed, the lieutenant-colonel told us his order was to dissolve us; whereupon he commanded all of us to follow him, else he would drag us out of the room.... Thus our General Assembly, the glory and strength of our Church upon earth, is by your soldiery crushed and trod under foot, without the least provocation from us at this time in word or deed.'--(Vol. vii. 303.)

It is, however, but just to add that Cromwell did not countenance this violence; and though the General Assembly was closed, no restriction existed during his régime on the exercise of the Presbyterian form of worship.

The northern and southern parts of our island were now under the rule of Cromwell, the Long Parliament having been swept away, and the great soldier wholly supreme. Even the worst enemies of the Protector must allow that in Scotland, as elsewhere, his government was in advance of his time, and, if despotic, was wise and judicious. After long conflicts, the nation was at rest; and if its patriotic spirit was quelled, it enjoyed a large share of real freedom, and grew rapidly in material wealth. Though the Kirk was no longer established, all forms of Protestantism were tolerated and favoured; and the Catholic nobles also had no cause to complain of the harshness of the civil magistrate. In governing the country Cromwell gave proof of that profound policy and anticipation of the future, which marks him out as one of the greatest of statesmen. All restraints on commerce were removed. Scotland was completely united to England; the feudal jurisdiction of the great nobles and Highland chiefs was summarily abolished; and forts, armed with sufficient garrisons, kept the half-barbarous clans in subjection. In a word, all the capital reforms which it took a century after the Restoration to introduce into Scotland again, were, in a few years, carried out by Cromwell; and it is but the truth that his Scottish policy was a model for three generations of statesmen. Under his far-sighted and firm government the country began to thrive apace. We quote from a contemporary chronicler this curious account of Leith and Glasgow:--

'The town of Leith is of itself a pretty, small town, and fortified about; having a convenient dry harbour, into which the Frith ebbs and flows every tide, and a convenient quay on the one side thereof, of a good length, for the landing of goods. This place formerly, and so at this time, is indeed a store-house, not only for her own traders, but also for the merchants of the City of Edinburgh, this being the port thereof.... Glasgow, seated in a pleasant and fruitful soil, and consisting of four streets, handsomely built in form of a cross, is one of the most considerable burghs of Scotland, as well for the structure as trade of it. The inhabitants, all but the students of the college which is here, are traders and dealers.'--(Vol. vii. 313.)

Our space precludes us from dwelling at length on the history of Scotland after the death of Cromwell, described fully by Mr. Burton. As is well known, a loyal reaction set in, in favour of Charles II., and this was followed by a period of tyranny in Church and State of extreme severity. Not only were proscriptions frequent, and the scaffold crowded with many victims, but the legislation of 1641 was cancelled, Episcopacy was insolently restored, the authority of the Crown considerably increased, and Presbyterianism barely allowed to maintain a weak and inglorious existence. The era, indeed, of the ascendancy of Sharp, and of the tender mercies of Claverhouse and his dragoons, was one of darkness and sorrow in Scotland--it far exceeded in its melancholy features that of the Cavalier reaction in England; and the question arises why a nation, which had proved itself so fiercely tenacious of its independence in the preceding generation, submitted for years to this cruel oppression. Mr. Burton has hardly brought out sufficiently the causes of this remarkable quiescence, which are of deep interest to the student of history. They are, we think, to be found in the facts that, after the exertions of the great civil war, Scotland was, in a great degree, exhausted; that after the Restoration, the power of the Crown was upheld for the first time by a standing army, not large, but formidable; and, above all, that the Government avoided one capital error of Charles I.--it conciliated instead of injuring the nobles, and did not attempt to assail their interests by threatening to resume the old Church revenues. Worn out, borne down, and without leaders, the nation was for a time submissive; its discontent exhibited itself in a few occasional risings only; and Lauderdale, Charles II., and his brother were allowed a season to fill up the measure of iniquity and wrong. At last the fierce awakening came. But it should be observed that at this conjuncture the movement for freedom began in England; and if Scotland inaugurated the events which led to the meeting of the Long Parliament, she played a very subordinate part in the Revolution of 1688. The passages of that memorable time are not narrated in this work, so it is not necessary to allude to them. An estimate of Mr. Burton's history will be gathered from what we have already written. It is deficient as a picturesque narrative; it sometimes, as may be supposed, displays a too fervent national patriotism; but it is singularly well-informed and complete, and its conclusions on men and events are usually careful, correct, and judicious.

ART. II.--Early English Texts. Publications of the Early English Text Society. London: Trübner and Co. 1864-70.

'O Poesy divine! O sacred song! To thee bright fame, and length of days belong: Thou goddess, thou eternity canst give, And bid secure the mortal hero live.'

Thus sings Nicholas Rowe in his translation of the poet Lucan; but can we agree with the sentiment expressed? It is partly true and partly false, for although the poet possesses this wonderful power, he himself creates an enemy that wars against his own and his hero's immortality, and this enemy is the medium he uses to express his thoughts. Few men will take the trouble to learn a language for the special purpose of enjoying an author's works, and therefore for the many it is requisite that some one should be ready and willing to reintroduce the old writer into new society. The poet Waller feared that the time would come when his countrymen would be unable to understand his writings, and he thus expressed his fear--

'Poets that lasting marble seek, Must carve in Latin or in Greek: We write in sand, our language grows, And like the tide our work o'erflows.'

This is, of course, an extreme view, and time has proved it to be a false one; but the writers of the centuries previous to Waller are already in the position that he expected soon to be in himself. Chaucer is a household name, but we fear that few read his works, and still fewer the works of those who went before him. This is a state of things that should not be allowed to exist; but that it does exist, no one would be rash enough to deny. We do not blame those who neglect foreign literatures, but we do blame those who turn away from the authors of their own land because there is some little difficulty in understanding their writings.

It cannot be right that the literature of England for eight or ten centuries should be quietly ignored by Englishmen, because it is not easy to read its language; and, moreover, this difficulty is much exaggerated, for although a Saxon book may, without previous study, appear as if written in a foreign tongue, yet the few difficulties of its language will in a graduated study speedily disappear. The pedigree is complete that takes us back from the language of the nineteenth to that of the fifth century. Both in language and literature it is emphatically true that the child is father of the man, and no one can thoroughly appreciate the greatness of Shakspeare, Milton, and our moderns, who has not contrasted them with the authors who preceded them; no one can rightly judge the force of words and phrases, who has not followed them up to their sources, and seen the meads of thought they have flowed through.

Not long ago the early history, language, and literature of England were thought to be unworthy of study. Men of culture studied the languages and literatures of France, Italy, Spain, and Germany, but utterly neglected the early literature and language of their own country, which were considered rude and unworthy of attention. We do not expect to find any among the uneducated caring for the old forms of speech, but it is a disappointment to find men of education, who ought to be justly proud of the grandest literature in the world, treating our old writers with neglect. This feeling of contempt for our early literature is by no means yet destroyed, and therefore no lover of the work done by his ancestors should rest until it is entirely and for ever eradicated.

In the old English literature there is a choice for all tastes: history, biography, theology, science, romance, lyrics, and merry tales, have all come down to us from the earliest times, and in them may be seen the gradual development of the nation's mind. It should be a cause of pride for the Englishman to remember that the links in the chain that connects the language of Tennyson with the language of Alfred are all perfect.

Shall we, then, allow the treasures of the past to crumble and decay? We are now living in the enjoyment of an intellectual feast that centuries of our forefathers have prepared for us; and shall we in return leave to our children less than we have ourselves received? Are we not bound rather to take no rest until all our MS. treasures are placed beyond the reach of decay? The printing press must not be allowed to pause in its work until every line is set in type. Nothing is more likely to encourage our desire to attempt this great work than for us to see what has been done of old. All honour is due to the unnamed writer of the Vernon MS.,[172] to Shirley and Thornton, the contemporaries of Chaucer and Lyndesay, who recognised the value of the treasures that came in their way, and copied MS. libraries that have survived in safety to our times. The man who has consulted the grand Vernon MS. in the Bodleian Library has obtained a glimpse of the olden time, with its noble desire to benefit posterity, that he is never likely to forget.

The student, however, may naturally ask, 'Where can I study these works? I can't read at Oxford, Cambridge, Edinburgh, or London; and even if I could I don't understand the writing. I want the books in print, and not only in print, but in an accessible form.' It is this question that we will attempt to answer; this want that we will try to show can be satisfied.

Various worthy men have at different times laboured to diffuse a knowledge of our old literature, and societies have been formed for the same purpose. Hickes, Junius, Gale, Lye, the two Elstobs, and many others, are editors whose works have been so widely circulated that we need hardly dwell on them; but the issues of printing clubs are less known, and we therefore propose to summarize them. In 1812, the Roxburghe Club was instituted in London, to commemorate the grand sale of the Duke of Roxburghe's library, and although many trifling matters were printed by its members, yet through its aid several important texts have been brought to light. In 1818, John Gower's 'French Ballads' and other poems were printed; in 1819, Caxton's translation of six books of 'Ovid's Metamorphoses,' 'Le Morte Arthure,' and 'Sir Lancelot du Lake;' in 1828, 'Havelok the Dane;' in 1832, 'William and the Werwolf;' in 1838, 'The Owl and the Nightingale,' and Old English versions of the 'Gesta Romanorum,' and in later years the 'Alliterative Romance of Alexander,' the 'Ayenbite of Inwyt,' and the 'History of the Holy Graal.'

In 1823, the Bannatyne Club was started at Edinburgh, and in 1827, it printed the 'Palice of Honor,' by Gawin Douglas, and in 1839, a collection of all the poems relating to Sir Gawayne, and Douglas's translation of the 'Æneid of Virgil,' which it has left without preface, glossary, or notes.

In 1828, the Maitland Club was founded in Glasgow, and it printed three old romances, viz.: 'Clariodus,' 'Sir Beves of Hamptoun,' and 'Lancelot du Lak.'

The Abbotsford Club commenced its career in 1835, at Edinburgh, and printed several romances from the Auchinleck MS., as 'Rouland,' and 'Vernagu,' and 'Otuel,' 'Arthour and Merlin,' 'Sir Guy of Warwick,' and 'Rembrun,' and 'Sire Degarre.'

The Spalding Club, which was founded in 1839, at Aberdeen, printed Barbour's 'Brus' in 1856.

Although the publications of these clubs are very praiseworthy, and have done much good, the number of copies is so small, and their commercial value so great, that they are placed almost as far beyond the reach of the ordinary literary man as the manuscripts themselves. We believe that all true lovers of their country's literature will echo the words of a living editor quoted in the first prospectus of the Early English Text Society. 'I should rejoice to see my books in the hands of a hundred, where they are now on the shelves of one.'

Soon after the select printing clubs were started, a more popular movement set in, with the foundation in 1834 at Durham of the excellent Surtees Society. Although its publications are mostly of an historical or local character, it has issued several literary relics, such as 'The Anglo-Saxon and Early English Psalter,' 'Latin Hymns of the Anglo-Saxon Church,' and 'The Lindisfarne and Rushworth Gospels.'

Four years afterwards, the Camden Society was started in London, and from 1838 to the present time it has continued to publish a most valuable collection of works. Its chief object has been to advance historical studies, but it has issued the 'Thornton Romances,' comprising the early English romances of Perceval, Isumbras, Eglamour, and Degravant; three early English metrical romances--viz., 'The Anturs (or Adventures) of Arther at the Tarnewathelan, Sir Amadace, the Avowynge of King Arther, Sir Gawan, Sir Kaye, and Sir Bawdewyn of Bretan;' 'The Ancren Riwle,' a treatise on the rules and duties of monastic life; an 'Apology for Lollard Doctrines' attributed to Wicliffe; and Mr. Way's invaluable edition of the old English and Latin Dictionary, entitled 'Promptorium Parvulorum.'

All students of English literature owe a debt of gratitude to the Percy Society, which was founded in 1840. Unfortunately it did not meet with the success that it deserved, and died a natural death after some unfortunate dissension among its editors. Nevertheless, it published in a convenient form, among other works, 'Selections from the Minor Poems of John Lydgate;' 'The Owl and the Nightingale' from a better MS. than that which the Roxburghe Club had printed; 'Reynard the Fox;' 'Poems of John Audelay;' 'Romance of Syr Tryamoure;' 'Chaucer's Canterbury Tales,' from the oldest and perhaps the best manuscript known; 'Songs and Carols of the fifteenth century;' and William de Shoreham's 'Religious Poems.'

In 1843, the Cheetham Society was formed at Manchester, in order to print the historical and literary remains connected with the palatine counties of Lancaster and Chester; and the Ælfric Society in London, for the publication of Anglo-Saxon works, both civil and ecclesiastical.

The Caxton Society was started in 1845, and the Warton Club in 1854.

The late Canon Shirley at one time projected a Wycliffe Society, which was to print our great reformer's works, but instead he induced the Oxford delegates to undertake the task, and after great labour he published, in 1865, his catalogue of Wycliffe's works. His lamented death has not stopped the undertaking, and one volume of the Latin works has been published at Oxford, and three of the English ones are nearly ready for issue.

In January, 1857, the Master of the Rolls submitted to the Treasury a proposal for the publication of materials for the history of this country from the invasion of the Romans to the reign of Henry VIII., which has resulted in the issue of the valuable series of chronicles and memorials of Great Britain and Ireland during the middle ages. Many of these works are in Latin and French, but among those to be mentioned as written in English are Capgrave's 'Chronicle,' Pecock's 'Repressor,' Cockayne's 'Saxon Leechdoms,' the 'Anglo-Saxon Chronicle,' and Wright's 'Political Poems and Songs.'

We have now scoured the field and shown shortly what had been done before the formation of the Early English Text Society. This was but little, for there was a mass of unprinted literature entirely unknown and unregistered, and it was felt by a few lovers of early English that the time had come when the great work of producing this literature in cheap editions must be grappled with.

The Philological Society commenced in 1858 with the occasional publication of some Old English MSS., and issued 'Early English Poems and Lives of Saints,' 1250-1406; 'The Play of the Sacrament;' 'Liber Cure Cocorum,' a cookery book in verse; Hampole's 'Pricke of Conscience;' and the 'Castel off Love.' In 1864, these texts were discontinued, and a few of the members of the Philological Society 'formed a committee for the purpose of collecting subscriptions, and printing therewith early English manuscripts.' From this small beginning the Early English Text Society has grown to its present flourishing condition, with a yearly income of over £900.

The publications of the Society are naturally of a very varied character, but they may be divided under four heads. There are first the Arthurian and other romances; and these form a large, and probably the most popular class, for they were the light literature of our ancestors, and in them we see as in a mirror the love for war and women, and for action of all kinds. Few of these are of native growth, but are translations from the French.

The second division consists of works illustrating our dialects and the history of our language, including a series of early English dictionaries. Some of these last are of great value and interest, and we are glad to see that the Committee propose to edit some which will form worthy companions to the 'Promptorium Parvulorum' of the Camden Society. A rare old rhyming dictionary has already been issued, and it is proposed to bring out shortly the 'Catholicon Anglicum' from Lord Monson's MS. This is a dictionary of a slightly later date than the 'Promptorium,' which contains many new and unregistered words. To this second division all the texts may be said to belong more or less, because most of the editors give careful glossaries and introductions on the dialect of their authors. Dr. Morris's introductions, especially, are the only real grammars of our early language, and are of the greatest value to the student of the history of the formation of our tongue.

The third division consists of Biblical translations and religious treatises; and the fourth of texts, such as 'Piers Plowman,' which do not come under either of the three first headings.

We will now pass in review some of the works issued by the Society, and we shall do so according to their dates, beginning with the 12th century.

The most valuable monuments of our language are chiefly of a theological character, and in 'Old English Homilies'[173] Dr. Morris has given us a deeply interesting collection, from which a curious insight into the religious views of the time may be obtained. Much of the religious teaching of these old preachers was of an evangelical character, and is but little mixed up with the legends of later writers. One writes: 'We must forsake the broad way which leads to hell, and choose the narrow and green way along the high cliffs which leads to heaven, where there are no earthly luxuries, but where the sight of God alone constitutes the eternal life, bliss, and rest of his saints.' In the homily on the Lord's-day the author tells the curious legend of St. Paul's and St. Michael's descent into hell, and how they obtained for the damned one day's rest in the week unto doomsday. He admonishes all to honour the Sunday, and fortifies his position thus:--'We ought to honour Sunday very much, and to observe it in all purity, for it hath in it three worthy virtues which ye may hear. The first virtue is that it on earth gives rest to all earth-thralls, men and women, from their thrall works. The second virtue is in heaven, because the angels rest themselves more than on any other day. The third virtue is that the wretched souls in hell have rest from their great torments.'

In the 'Story of Genesis and Exodus,'[174] the author has versified the most important facts contained in those books, and has included portions of Numbers and Deuteronomy, so as to give a complete history of the wanderings of the Israelites, and the life of their leader Moses. The poet (of whom nothing is known) invokes the aid of the Deity in these terms:--

'Fader god of alle ðhinge, Almightin louerd, hegest kinge, ðu giue me seli timinge, To thaunen ðis werdes biginninge, ðe, leuerd god, to wurðinge, Queðer so hic rede or singe!'[175]

He then goes on to relate, in a spirited manner, the chief incidents of the Bible narrative. Lamech's bigamy is thus referred to:--

'ðis Lamech was ðe firme[176] man ðe bigamie first bi-gan. Bigamie is unkinde[177] ðing, On engleis tale, twie-wifing.'

To bigamy is afterwards added murder:--

'Twin-wifing and twin-manslagt, Of his soule beð mikel hagt.[178]'

The author thinks that Christian men ought to be as glad as birds are of dawn, to hear the story of man's bliss and sorrow.

'Seinte Marherete,'[179] is the first of a triad of saints' lives, to be edited for the Society, the other two (St. Juliane and St. Katherine) are still to come. The editor is Mr. Cockayne, whose observations are always worth a hearing, although they are of a very pugnacious character. In 'Hali Meidenhad,'[180] he expresses great offence at the opinions of his author, whose attacks on wedlock he takes very much to heart. We find in the side-notes such expressions as these--'highflying notions,' 'this ranter.' The anonymous author of the treatise is supposed by Mr. Cockayne to have been a bishop, and the same as he who wrote the three saints' lives, and the 'Ancren Riwle.' Whoever he was, he writes with considerable vigour, and describes the troubles of wives with great goodwill. The maiden is to ask the queens, rich countesses, and saucy ladies as to their mode of life. 'Truly, truly, if they rightly bethink themselves and acknowlege the truth, I shall have them witnesses that they are licking honey off thorns. They buy all the sweetness with two proportions of bitter.' A husband is held up before the maiden's eyes in these unfavourable colours:--'While he is at home, thy wide walls seem too narrow for thee; his looking on thee makes thee aghast; his loathesome voice and his rude grumbling fill thee with horror. He chideth and jaweth thee, and he insults thee shamefully; he maketh mock at thee; he beateth thee and mawleth thee as his bought thrall and patrimonial slave. Thy bones ake, and thy flesh smarteth, thy heart within thee swelleth of sore rage, and thy face externally burneth with vexation.' It shows how much outspoken language has gone out of fashion, that the author thinks it necessary to put into Latin certain of the passages which a bishop addressed to some young nuns. Mr. Furnivall has unearthed from the Vernon MS. a later essay on the same subject, entitled 'Clene Maydenhood,' in which the author adjures young women to bind Christ in their hearts, because man's love is never constant.

'Havelok the Dane,[181] is one of the best--if not the very best--of early romances, and we are indebted to the Society for bringing it within the reach of the ordinary reader. It was first edited, in 1828, by Sir Frederic Madden, for the Roxburghe Club, but since that time it has been almost unattainable on account of its scarceness and consequent high price. The story, like most of the romances, is a version taken from an original, written in French. Two kings, of England and Denmark, die, and each leaves his child to the care of a steward, who uses it badly. Grim, the founder of Grimsby, saves the life of Havelok, the son of the King of Denmark, and comes with him to England, where the boy grows up stalwart, and becomes the strongest man alive, putting the stone twelve feet beyond his companions. Havelok marries Goldborough, 'the fairest woman alive,' who was the daughter of the dead King of England. The two go to Denmark and drive the usurper from the throne, after which they return to England, and conquer the English usurper. They reign for sixty years, and fifteen children are born to them, who all become kings and queens. Havelok's first acts, on his return to England, were to found a priory of black monks in Grimsby, for the good of his old friend Grim's soul, and to marry Grim's daughters to two of his courtiers. 'King Horn,'[182] another romance of the thirteenth century, is of English origin. Horn, the son of the King of a place called Suddene, who had been killed by the Saracens, reaches the country of a neighbouring king with his companions, and is loved by that king's daughter. The king finds out the attachment, and banishes Horn, who travels to another kingdom, and conquers a formidable giant. After this, he returns to Westernesse and claims his lady love. Various troubles succeed; but, in the end, Horn returns to take possession of the ancestral throne of Sudden.

We now pass to the fourteenth-century texts; and here we find the most important work that the Society has attempted, which is a three-text edition (under the able editorship of Mr. Skeat) of the most valuable work in early English literature before Chaucer, viz., 'The Vision of Piers Plowman.'[183] This great 'Puritan' poem was very popular for many years, and a large number of MSS. of it have come down to us. These differ very much, and it appears that the author, William Langland, was induced by the popularity of this work to produce at various times what may be called, for want of a better term, three editions. These are represented by--1, the Vernon MS.; 2, the copy printed by Robert Crowley, in 1550; and 3, that printed by Dr. Whitaker, in 1813; and all the MSS. at present known can be ranged under one or other of these types. Before commencing the great work of producing a worthy edition of this great classic, the Society was anxious to have as much information concerning the MSS. as it could obtain, and in 1866 issued Parallel Extracts of twenty-nine MSS., asking, at the same time, that librarians or possessors of libraries would communicate to the Society's editor the discovery of other MSS. not noticed in these extracts, as the committee believed that many valuable ones might have remained unknown. In the following year Text A, from the Vernon MS., appeared. This only extends to eleven passus, or less than half of the whole poem, as subsequently written. The author is very severe upon the vices of his day, and in scourging them he gives us a valuable insight into the domestic life of the time.

The poem is divided into two parts, the 'Vision of Piers the Plowman,' and the 'Vision of Do-well, Do-bet, and Do-best.' In the first, the author describes how he fell asleep on the Malvern Hills, and saw, in a dream, much to displease him. The world is represented by a field full of folk, among whom are ploughmen, spendthrifts, hermits, minstrels, beggars, pilgrims, friars, a pardoner with bulls, law-serjeants, bishops, and all kinds of craftsmen. Holy Church comes to the author as a lovely lady, and points out to him Falsehood, Bribery, Simony, and Flattery. The King makes up his mind to punish Falsehood, if he can catch him; but that delinquent flees, and takes refuge with the friars, who pity him and take him under their protection. The king then appeals to Reason, but he will not take pity on wrong until lords and ladies love truth, rioters are holy clerks, knights are courteous, and priests practise what they preach. The author awakes, but soon dreams again. Conscience preaches, and is seconded by Repentance in his endeavours to convert the deadly sins. The preaching has great effect, and all set out on a pilgrimage to find Truth; but no one knows the way, and a Palmer who has returned from the Holy Sepulchre, and met many saints, knows nothing of Truth. They now meet Piers the Ploughman, who directs them to the way, and promises to guide them when he has ploughed his half-acre; meantime he sets them to work. At first, the people will not work till hunger comes in, and then they agree to do whatever Piers wills. All the names of persons introduced into the poem tell their own story, thus Piers's wife is called Work when time is, his daughter, Do as you are bid, and his son, Obey your king. In the second part, Do-well is to fear God, Do-bet to suffer, Do-best to be lowly of heart. All the allegory of the poem is very palpable, and at times tedious; but the incidental allusions to the state of the people are of the greatest interest. The author appears to have felt strongly the responsibility of his position as a preacher, and the contempt he evinces for the small value of the Pope's pardon, shows us that in the middle ages a purer Christianity was occasionally preached than we are often apt to imagine. Langland lays great stress on the law of love, and shows the infinite superiority of a life of righteousness over a mere trust in indulgences. Mr. Skeat says of him: 'He shows himself to us a man of simple, noble, and pure faith, the friend of the poor, the adviser of the rich, with strong views on the duties of a king toward his subjects, together with a feeling of deep reverence for the kingly character, fearless, unprejudiced, and ever willing to be taught.'

'Pierce the Ploughman's Crede'[184] is not written by the same author as the 'Vision,' but is an imitation of it by some one who was glad to avail himself of the popularity of that work. It is thus analyzed by Alexander Pope:--

'An ignorant plain man, having learned his Paternoster and Ave Mary, wants to learn his creed. He asks several religious men of the several orders to teach it him. First, of a friar Minor, who bids him beware of the Carmelites, and assures him that they can teach him nothing, describing their faults, &c., but that the friars Minor shall save him whether he learns his creed or not. He goes next to the friars Preachers, whose magnificent monastery he describes; there he meets a fat friar, who declaims against the Augustines. He is shocked at his pride, and goes to the Augustines. They rail at the Minorites. He goes to the Carmelites; they abuse the Dominicans, but promise him salvation without the creed for money. He leaves them with indignation, and finds an honest poor Plowman in the field, and tells him how he was disappointed, by the four orders. The ploughman answers with a long invective against them.'

Mr. Skeat has followed manuscripts in his edition which had been previously neglected. Dr. Whitaker and Mr. Wright printed from the first edition of 1553, but the British Museum MS. is older than this, and there can be little doubt that both the MSS. and the printed copy are all copied from a MS. now lost or not forthcoming.

The next work we shall mention is a translation of a French treatise on sins and virtues into the homely English of Kent. It is called the 'Ayenbite of Inwyt,'[185] two old and expressive words which are now completely lost to us, and superseded by remorse and conscience. The book was written for the benefit of laymen, in order that fathers and mothers might keep their consciences undefiled. There is a very full account of sins, and the morality preached is very strict, for backgammon and chess are placed among foul and forbidden games. This text had been previously edited by Mr. Stevenson for the Roxburghe Club, but in a very careless manner, as is seen by the author's original preface and table of contents being left out. Dr. Richard Morris has remedied these deficiencies, and has prefixed a most valuable grammatical introduction, in which the characteristics of the Southern dialect during the early English period (1250-1340) are pointed out.

The late Mr. Toulmin Smith's collection of the statutes of 'English Gilds,'[186] in the 14th and 15th centuries, is one of the most valuable works issued by the Society, as its interest is so wide as to include both the past and the present. The study of the societies of the olden times gives us a deep insight into the domestic and municipal life that has been so much neglected by historians, and throws a strong light upon the present condition of the working classes as developed in the trades' unions.

A life and coherency has been put into the dead bones of dry statutes by the valuable essay on the subject by Dr. Lujo Brentano, which is the first and only 'History of Gilds' in English, and comprises the Continental Gilds as well as our own. Mr. Toulmin Smith unfortunately died before the work was completed, but his daughter, with filial piety, has worked at the completion of her father's design, and the result is a book that forms a worthy monument to an able and good man.

The 'Early English Alliterative Poems'[187] consist of the 'Pearl,' 'Cleanness,' and 'Patience.' The first poem is an allegory of great beauty, in which resignation to the will of God is enforced. The writer has lost a daughter of two years old, and he dreams of gleaming rocks, crystal cliffs, and silver trees, and sees his child in bliss on the opposite side of a stream. The second poem is a collection of Biblical stories tending to enforce purity of life, and the third is a paraphrase of the Book of Jonah. All three show the author to have possessed much poetic power.

'William and the Werwolf'[188] was edited by Sir Frederic Madden, in 1832, for the Roxburghe Club, but his edition had become very scarce before the Early English Text Society undertook its publication as the first text for their Extra Series. Mr. Skeat, who has edited this edition, has wisely changed the name of the English romance to William of Palerne, because it is a translation of the French 'Guillaume de Palerne,' and has been able to fill up the missing parts of the English version from the French MS., portions of which were supplied to him by M. Michelant, of the Imperial Library at Paris. The story is as follows:--William, the son of the King of Apulia, is about to be murdered by his uncle, when he is carried off by a wolf, who is found subsequently to be a werwolf or manwolf, enchanted by his stepmother. William is adopted by a cowherd, and afterwards taken into his household by the Emperor of Rome, whose daughter falls in love with the boy. To save herself from being married to another prince, Melior leaves the palace with William, both of them being disguised as bears. They are taken care of by the werwolf, and afterwards re-disguise themselves as a hart and hind. William performs marvels, taking the werwolf's step-mother a prisoner, and only releasing her on condition that the werwolf shall be disenchanted. All ends happily, with several marriages as a climax.

We have not yet referred to the great cycle of Arthurian romances, which have lately been brought so prominently before the reading public by the charming poems of the Poet Laureate. Most of these romances were introduced to an English public in the 15th century, but some are of an earlier date. 'Sir Gawayne and the Green Knight'[189] is one of these last, and appears to have been written by the author of the 'Alliterative Poems' previously mentioned. Sir Gawayne, the matchless and faultless son of Loth, was one of the leading spirits in his uncle's court, and the present text contains one of the most interesting incidents in his career. While Arthur is holding a Christmas festival at Camelot, a knight of gigantic stature, clothed entirely in green and riding on a green foal, enters the hall. He carries an axe, sharp as a razor, and asks that some one should strike him with it, on condition that he may return the stroke at the end of a year. All are silent. Arthur accepts the challenge, but Gawayne beseeches his uncle to allow him to undertake the encounter, and the king consents. The Green Knight adjusts himself, and after Gawayne has struck off his head, walks off with it under his arm. The company feel more comfortable after his departure, but the year soon comes to an end, when Gawayne must travel to seek the Knight of the Green Chapel. After many adventures, Gawayne comes to the loveliest castle ever beheld, where he is welcomed warmly. The lord (who is the Green Knight in a more ordinary costume than that he had before adopted) treats him nobly, and tells him that he will direct him to the Green Chapel. The two make a covenant between them that the lord shall go to the chase and Gawayne stay at home, and at the end of the day give each other what they have got in the meantime. On the first day the hostess tempts Gawayne, but he is proof against her charms, and she leaves him with a kiss, which he gives the host at night; on the second day she does the same and gives him two kisses, which he gives to his host; the third time Gawayne is again tempted and receives three kisses, and a girdle of green lace that will preserve whoever wears it from wound or death. At night Gawayne gives the kisses but keeps the girdle. On the morrow, after much trouble, he finds the Green Chapel, from which the Green Knight comes out, and makes a feint to strike him. The Knight pretends to strike again, and the third time he brings blood, when he explains his conduct to Gawayne thus:--'Two blows I aimed at thee, for twice thou kissedst my fair wife, but I struck thee not, because thou restoredest them to me according to agreement. At the third time thou failedst, and therefore I have given thee that tap.' The Green Knight, who is Bernlak de Hautdesert, now tells Gawayne that his aunt, Morgain la Fay, lives at his castle, and presses his friend to return with him, but Gawayne will not, as he wishes to return to Arthur's court. Here he is received with joy, and all the knights wear a green belt in his honour. The author tells all this, which we have been obliged to relate in the baldest manner, with great spirit and vivacity; and in the midst of his story he gives lively accounts of boar and fox hunts, which display a wonderful mastery over language. Another of the prominent knights of Arthur's court was Lancelot of the Laik.[190] His adventures are related in a short romance paraphrased into the Scottish dialect from a part of the long French 'Lancelot.' The author is in love and dares not tell it, but dreams that he should write a poem for his lady love to read. He does not know what to write about until he thinks of the romance of 'Lancelot,' when he runs over rapidly an enumeration of that knight's early deeds by way of saying that he will not tell of them. He then commences in earnest with the wars between Arthur and Galiot. A knight brings a message from King Galiot, bidding Arthur to yield to him or he will invade his land and not return until he has conquered and taken Queen Guinevere prisoner. Arthur returns the defiance, but on asking Gawayne who Galiot is, he learns that ten kings obey him. At this time Lancelot is imprisoned by the lady of Melyhalt, and laments his fate, but as he hears of a battle between Arthur and Galiot, he obtains leave from the lady to join Arthur on condition that he returns to his prison at night. The lady provides him with a red courser, and red shield and spear, and he goes to the fight, where he performs wonders, and sees the queen, with whom he falls in love. He returns to prison, where the lady visits him, and is smitten with love. She goes to court, and returns after being sumptuously entertained. She now promises to let Lancelot go on one of three conditions--either he must tell whom he loves, or declare his name, or say if he expects again to equal his former exploits. He refuses to tell his lady's name, or his own, but declares his trust to do more than he has done before.

The lady of Melyhalt asks Lancelot to remain with her till the next battle, when she will provide him with black armour. Arthur's forces are led in the fight by Gawayne, who is severely wounded. Lancelot joins in the battle on the third day, and laments over Gawayne, but he does not waste time in regrets; for on all the ladies, with the exception of the queen, sending him a message, he overthrows several knights, and does great damage to the enemy. At last, on Gawayne's instigation, the queen sends him a message, the receipt of which affects him so much that he seems to grow a foot in height, and nothing can withstand him, as he goes into the thick of the fight. His foes leave the place in mortal fear at the sight of him; for whilst his thoughts are of his lady's love he achieves unheard-of-wonders. At last he is borne to the earth, and Galiot, who has seen his powers, says he shall not die on his account, and gives him his horse. Here the Scottish romance closes, and the rest of the story is only to be learnt from the French original. Gawayne swoons when he sees Lancelot with Galiot; but the latter is induced by Lancelot, although he is conquering, to submit to Arthur. When all are friends, Galiot and Arthur go to see the wounded Gawayne, and then they speak of Lancelot. Gawayne says that he would wish to be a woman, if Lancelot would love him all his life. The queen seems to approve of the sentiment, for she admits that she can say no more. Now the serious part of the story commences, for the queen, through the instrumentality of Galiot, visits Lancelot, and promises to love him. She takes counsel with the lady of Melyhalt, and after a general understanding they all part, with hopes of soon meeting again.

Mr. Furnivall has printed a short and rapid sketch of the life and wars of Arthur,[191] king of men, which occurs in an incomplete Latin 'Chronicle of the Kings of Britain,' belonging to the Marquis of Bath. The author seems to have got excited, and found dull Latin prose unequal to his feelings, so he breaks out into English verse. There are many spirited and lively sketches in the Lincoln 'Morte Arthure,'[192] which was first printed by Mr. Halliwell, in 1847. It opens with a general statement of Arthur's conquests, and then proceeds with the account of the summons from the Emperor Lucius. When Arthur hears it, his face is so terrible that the Romans who bring the letter quail before him. The king has a magnificent feast prepared, at which boars' heads are served upon silver, and peacocks and plovers upon golden plates. There are also sucking pigs, herons in sauce, huge swans, cranes, and curlews, tarts and conserves, hams and brawn in slices, wild geese and ducks, young hawks, stews, curries, and all kinds of made dishes. So much for the food; and the drinks are on as grand a scale of magnificence. Wine of various kinds is made to run in silver conduits, and the rare sorts are served by the chief butler in goblets of gold, decked with precious stones, in order to preserve the drinkers from the deadly effects of poison. All this grandeur astonishes the Roman senator, who allows that Rome itself could show nothing equal to this luxurious feast. Arthur sends a grand message to the Roman emperor, in which he threatens to throw down the walls of Milan, ravage Tuscany, and besiege Rome. All these big words seem to have frightened the Roman senator, for he prays to be protected on his homeward journey; and Arthur tells him that if his coffers were crammed full of silver, he would be quite safe with a passport from him. Nevertheless, the Romans were glad to get away, and

'Of alle þe glee undire Gode so glade ware þey nevere, As of þe sounde of þe see and Sandwyche belles.'

In the great battle that follows, Lucius's army is preceded by sixty giants, born of fiends and witches, riding on tower-bearing camels. In spite of all this, Arthur is victorious, and sends the body of the emperor, whom Lancelot had killed, to Rome, as his arrears of tribute. Other battles[193] succeed this, till Arthur learns of the villany of his bastard son, Mordred, when he at once sets out for Britain, and he might well say with Edgar--

'The gods are just, and of our pleasant vices Make instruments to plague us.'

Gawayne, always rash, fights Mordred like a madman, and is slain in the deadly struggle. Thus dies the merriest, the kindliest, and the bravest of knights--he who was the hardiest of hand, the happiest in arms, and the most polished in hall. Now all grows dark, and the end begins to close upon all. Arthur finds the dead body of his nephew, and his great grief is beautifully exhibited in the following description:--

'Than gliftis[194] þe gud kynge, and glapyns[195] in herte, Gronys fulle grisely with gretande teris; Knelis downe to the cors, and kaught it in armes, Kastys upe his umbrere,[196] and kysses hyme sone! Lokes one his eye-liddis, þat lowkkide ware faire, His lippis like to þe lede, and his lire[197] falowede! Þan the corownde kyng cryes fulle lowde,-- "Dere kosyne o kynde, in kare am I levede! Ffor nowe my wirchipe es wente, and my were endide! Here es þe hope of my hele,[198] my happynge of armes! My herte and my hardynes hale one hym lengede! My concelle, my comforthe, þat kepide myne herte! Of all knyghtes þe kynge þat undir Criste lifede! Þou was worthy to be kynge, those I þe corowne bare! My wele and my wirchipe of alle þis werlde riche Was wonnene thourghe Syr Gawayne, and thourghe his witte one! Allas," saide Syr Arthure, "nowe ekys my sorowe! I am uttirly undone in myne awene landes! A dowttouse derfe dede, þou duellis to longe! Why drawes þou so one dreghe, thow drownnes myne herte!"'

Arthur now, with his 1,800 men, fights desperately against 60,000, and is successful in conquering them, and killing Mordred; but what signifies victory, when he has got his death wound, his wife has deserted him, and his friends are dead around him. The great conqueror and pattern of all knightly virtues dies a broken-hearted man, and the grand old story comes to an end. The writer really felt what he was writing about, and the consequence is, that his history stirs our very blood. And not in vigour alone is the writer's power shown; the lines in which he describes a bright morning in spring, and others in which he tells of love, can hardly be beaten by any other early work.

'Merlin'[199] is one of the longest of the romances, and although the whole of the text has been issued in three parts, the work still awaits for its completion Mr. Wheatley's introduction, index, and glossary. It has, however, two interesting essays prefixed--one by Mr. D. W. Nash, who learnedly draws the distinction between Merlin the enchanter and Merlin the bard; and another by Mr. J. S. Stuart Glennie, on the Arthurian localities which he finds in Scotland. The story commences with the miraculous birth of Merlin, and a description of King Vortiger's tower. The various events occur very rapidly at first. Pendragon and Uter defeat Vortiger, and Pendragon becomes king, but soon after he is killed in a battle, and Uter succeeds him, taking his brother's name at the same time as a surname. Uter Pendragon falls in love with Ygerne, the wife of the Duke of Tintagel, and by the help of Merlin he deceives her into receiving him as her husband while the duke is away. This ill-used man is killed in a fight, and the king at once marries Ygerne, who soon after bears him Arthur. Merlin is now very busy, and by his help the child is carried away. When Uter Pendragon dies, Merlin points Arthur out as the heir. He is made king, but the barons revolt against him, and now a long series of battles commence, which are graphically described by the old author. Gawein and the other nephews of Arthur come to him to be knighted, and through their instrumentality the rebel kings are gradually reconciled to their chief, to whom they do homage.

Merlin is enchanted by Nimiane, in a hawthorn bush, in the forest of Brochelond, and Arthur is heavy at heart on account of the long absence of his adviser. Gawein and his fellows go to seek for Merlin, and with the account of their adventures the book is brought to an end.

The 'Romance of the Chevelere Assigne'[200] is a translation of the French poem, 'Chevalier au Signe,' and was formerly edited for the Roxburghe Club by Mr. Utterson. The present editor, Mr. Henry Hucks Gibbs, gives in his preface a description of a curious ivory casket of 14th century workmanship, belonging to Mr. William Gibbs, which illustrates the story.

King Oryens and his queen Beatrice have no child to succeed them, and when one day they see a woman with twins, the queen is unkind enough to revile her. As a punishment, she herself soon afterwards bears six sons and one daughter, each with a silver chain about its neck. The king's mother, Matabryne, gets a man to drown the children, which she replaces by seven whelps, and then bids the king to burn his wife. Marcus, the man employed to take away the children, leaves them in a wood, wrapped up in a blanket, a hind then suckles them, and a hermit takes them home. The forester sees them, and tells Matabryne, who has the eyes of Marcus put out, and employs Malkedras to kill the children, and take away their chains. The man only finds six, as one is with the hermit; but he smites the chains from off these, and the children are turned into swans. The queen gives the chains to a goldsmith to make into a cup, but one chain increases so that half of it does for a cup, and the workman keeps the other five. The poor queen is to be burnt for her crime of bringing forth seven whelps, and a day is fixed for the purpose; but in the meantime, an angel comes to the hermit, and tells him the whole truth, commanding him at the same time to take the child he has with him to court, and have him christened Enyas. The angel counsels the child, who is twelve years old, to say that he will fight for the queen. There is then a great combat, in which right is victorious.

'Alle þe belles of þe close rongen at ones, Witheoute ny mannes helpe while þe fyghte lasted.'

Enyas cuts off the head of Malkedras, and the old queen is burnt instead of the young one, who is unbound. The goldsmith comes forward with the five chains, which being given to the swans, bring them back to their proper form. The unfortunate sixth one, however, is obliged to remain a swan because its chain is irrevocably gone.

The 'Book of the Knight of La Tour Landry'[201] is a very entertaining work, as it gives us a good insight into the condition of woman in the fourteenth century, which cannot be considered as at all satisfactory. The worthy knight set about instructing his three daughters on their various duties, and all his directions are enforced by some tale from the Bible or monkish legends. He employed two clerks and two priests to look up examples and anecdotes for him, and a curious medley is the result of their labours. He seems to have been a credulous man, and a good friend to the priests, for he never fails to uphold their views. He tells us that the Virgin saved the life of an evil woman when she fell into a well, because she fasted on Fridays and Saturdays, and kept herself from sin on those days; but a good woman was lost because she did not confess one sin. He is very severe upon the dressiness of the women, and says that young ladies now often take so long to adorn themselves that they are too late for service. Some ladies who washed their hair in wine and other things, to change its colour, could not get into the church of our Lady until they had cut off their hair. Besides waste of valuable time, much money was thrown away by these ladies, and the knight laments that one woman's dress would have clothed many poor. The worthy man wrote a book for the benefit of his sons, on the same plan as this one for his daughters; but, unfortunately, it has been lost.

'The Wright's Chaste Wife'[202] is really, as it is here styled, 'a merry tale.' A wright or carpenter marries a fair maiden, whose mother can only give, as her portion, a garland of roses, that will keep its colour while she is true to her husband, but will change if she is faithless. The man makes a room in his house, with a trap-door, out of which escape is impossible, and then goes to build a hall for a certain lord. This lord asks the wright about his garland, and thinks he will go to try its efficacy. He gives the wife forty marks, and she tells him to go to the secret chamber, where he drops through the trap-door. He threatens, but his passion is of no avail; and when he is hungry, the woman will give him nothing to eat until he has earned his dinner by work. The steward follows the lord, and gives the woman twenty marks, when he also is sent upstairs, and tumbles through the trap-door. This man won't work until he is very hungry. Next comes the proctor, who also gives the woman twenty marks, and likewise tumbles through the hole prepared for his reception. He very much objects to work, and stands out for a longer time than the others; but at last he is obliged to give in too, and spin for his meal. At last the wright comes home, and wonders at the noise. When he finds out the cause, he asks his wife to let the lord out, but she will not until his lady is sent for. At last all three are set free, and the garland remains as fresh as ever.

'Here endyth the wryghtes processe trewe, Wyth hys garlond feyre of hewe, That neuer dyd fade the coloure. It was made by the avyse Of hys wywes moder, wytty and wyse, Of flowrys most of honoure, Of roses whyte þat wylle nott fade, Whych floure alle ynglond doth glade, Wyth trewloues medelyed in syght; Unto the whych floure I wys, The loue of God and of the comenys, Subdued bene of ryght.'

This story is a reproduction and improvement of one of the 'Gesta Romanorum,' in which the carpenter gets with his wife a shirt that will never want washing as long as she is faithful to him. In the original story the three lovers are fed on bread and water, and not made to work, as in Adam de Cobsam's poem.

Mr. Furnivall seems to have a special gift for hunting interesting tales and bringing them to earth. His 'Political, Religious, and Love Poems'[203] are a miscellany of good things of various dates; but the 'Babees Book'[204] is a perfect treasure-house of curiosities, which tend to illustrate the manners of the fifteenth century. It contains a 'lytyl reporte' of how young people should behave; 'how the good wijf tauzte hir douztir;' 'how the wise man tauzt his son;' the 'Book of Nurture, or schoole of good maners for men, servants, and children,' by Hugh Rhodes; the 'Boke of Nurture, by John Russell;' the 'Boke of Kerninge;' the 'Booke of Demeanor, and the allowance and disallowance of certaine misdemeanors in companie, by Richard West;' the 'Boke of Curtasye;' the 'Schoole of Vertue, by F. Seager,' and various other pieces on the customs of the times. The authors of these pieces give very good rules for behaviour, and some of them would be appropriate in a book of etiquette of the present day; but others discover a state of society now happily passed away. The subjects treated of rise from the rules laid down for boys, which if they follow,

'Than men wylle say therafter That a gentylleman was here,'

up to the difficulties that beset chamberlains, ushers, and marshals, in ordering the precedence of the great men entertained by their lords.

Mr. Furnivall has prefixed to his book a valuable introduction on the subject of Education in Early England.

'The Booke of Quinte Essence'[205] is a short text with a long title, on a revelation delivered to Hermes, the prophet and king of Egypt. It is here said that God's greatest secret for man's need is how to restore old feeble men to the strength of youth. A walnut-shell full of the wonderful liquid is sufficient to turn an old man young again, to cure one given up by the doctors, and to make a coward bold and strong. Besides all these advantages, it has the further one of driving away the devil. As the price of the book that contains these wonderful secrets is only one shilling, we should not be surprised to learn that the Society had sold a very large number of copies.

We now pass to some of the purely religious texts of the fifteenth century, commencing with the hermit of Hampole.

Richard Rolle, author of the 'Prick of Conscience,' was formerly held in great estimation as a prolific writer, and his 'English Prose Treatises'[206] are a real addition to our literature. The hermit was not a priest, but a recognised, although an irregular sort of preacher. One John de Dalton gave him a hermit's clothing and a cell, and provided for his maintenance. His gaze was ever upwards, and he was so absorbed in his work that his friends could take off his tattered coat and put it on again when mended without his knowledge. He was an ascetic himself, but saw that some men must lead an active life or the world would come to an end; and although much of his teaching is gloomy, it is generally Scriptural. Hampole died of the Black Death, in the year 1349, and his shrine became a favourite resort of pilgrims, who believed that he performed miracles of healing after his death. Mr. Perry has discovered a very great curiosity in a Latin office, prepared for the time when the hermit should be sainted. Whether this time did arrive, or whether the office was actually used, does not appear.

The 'Religious Pieces in Prose and Verse'[207] contain Dan Jon Gaytryge's sermon, 'the whilke teches how scrifte es to be made, and whareof and in scrifte how many things solde be consideride' (this has also been wrongly attributed to Wiclif); the 'Mirror of St. Edmund,' which contains some good precepts, although gloomy and ascetic; the 'Abbey of the Holy Ghost,' and a few hymns and poems. The 'Abbey of the Holy Ghost' is founded in the conscience, and the maidens that cleanse the place are righteousness and purity. The abbey is built on the river of tears, meekness and poverty prepare the ground, the walls are raised by obedience and mercy, the love of God and right faith are the cement. Patience and faith shall raise the pillars, shrift make the chapter-house, preaching the hall, prayer the chapel, contemplation the dormitory, sadness the infirmary, devotion the cellar, and meditation the store-house. The Holy Ghost is the warden and visitor, charity the lady abbess, wisdom the prioress, meekness the sub-prioress, discretion the treasure, orison the chauntress, jubilation the helper of the chauntress, devotion the cellaress, penance the cook, temperance the waiter, soberness the reader, pity the answerer, mercy the almoner, dread the porteress, honesty the mistress of the novices, courtesy and simplicity the receivers of the guests, and reason the purveyor. But with all these excellent virtues about, four evil damsels are introduced into the abbey, and they are envy, pride, grumbling, and evil-thinking, who do much mischief; but in answer to prayer the visitor expels the evil damsels.

John Myrc, a canon of Lilleshall, in Shropshire, knowing how ignorant many priests were, compiled his 'Instructions for Parish Priests,'[208] for the purpose of 'coaching' them in their duties. He instructs them as to the questions they should ask the penitent in confession, and gives forms of absolution. He says that bad Latin does not spoil the Sacrament, if the first syllable of each word be right. The author, however, does not confine himself to priests, but adjures the laity to be reverent in their behaviour at church; and not to jest or loll against pillars and walls. This treatise affords, as may be supposed from its subject, very valuable illustrations for the life of its time.

We have left to the last, one of the texts that we like best, and that is, the 'Hymns to the Virgin and Christ.'[209] These poems are full of a pure devotional feeling, and many of them exhibit their authors as true poets. 'The Mirror of the Periods of Man's Life; or, Bids of the Virtues and Vices for the Soul of Man,' is a striking and vigorous poem; but there is a tender philosophy breathing throughout 'Revertere' (in English tunge, turne aghen!) which is very charming:--

'In a noon tijd of a somers day, Þe sunne schoon ful myrie þat tide, I took myn hauk al for to play, Mi spaynel rennyng bi my side. A feisaunt hen soone gan y se, Myn hound put up ful fair to flight, I sente my faukun, y leet him flee: It was to me a deinteouse sight.

'My faukun fligh faste to his pray, I ran þo with a ful glad chere, I spurned ful soone on my way, Mi leg was hent all with a brere. Þis brere forsoþe dide me grijf, And soone it made me to turne aghe, For he bare written in every leef, Þis word in latyn, revertere.

'I knelid and pullid þe brere me fro, And redde þis word ful hendeli; Myn herte fil doun unto my too, Þat was woont sitten ful likingly. I leete myn hauke and feysaunt fare, Mi spaynel fil doun to my knee, Þanne took y me wiþ sighynge sare Þis new lessoun, revertere.

'Revertere is as myche to say In englisch tunge as, turne aghen: Turne aghen, man, y þee pray, And þinke hertili what þou hast ben; Of þi livynge be-þinke þee rijfe, In open and in privite. Þat þou may come to everlastinge lijf, Take to þi mynde, revertere.'

Besides the texts we have noticed, there are many of a later date than the fifteenth century; but we cannot do more than mention the names of Lauder's 'Poems,' Hume's 'Orthographie of the Britan Tongue,' Thynne's 'Animadversions of Chaucer,' Lyndesay's 'Works,' 'The Romance of Partenay or Lusignen,' Levins's 'Manipulus Vocabulorum,' Awdeley's 'Fraternitye of Vacabondes,' &c., &c.

The list of books to be printed in the future is a very tempting one, and we notice many works of great interest, which we trust the Society will have money enough at its disposal to allow it to issue. This can be done only by a large accession of members, and we are sorry to see that the income has not increased as it ought to have done during the last year. The following are the totals of the balance-sheets of the various years from the formation of the Society in 1864, when the income was only £152 2s.; 1865, £384 0_s_. 11_d_.; 1866, £681 0_s_. 1_d_.; 1867, £941 6_s_. 10_d_.; 1868, £1,229 1_s_. 3_d_.; 1869, £1,227 19_s_. 4_d_.

The committee seem to feel the greatness of the work before them, and calling for further assistance, write in their fourth report:--'Thus reinforced, the Society can proceed with fresh vigour to the accomplishment of its task, with the determination not to rest till Englishmen shall be able to say of their early literature, what the Germans can now say with pride of theirs, "Every word of it is printed, every word of it is glossed."' And in their second report, they had previously said, 'The Society will be ready to take on itself the burden laid by the late J. M. Kemble on the Ælfric Society, to leave no word of Anglo-Saxon unprinted.' In redemption of the latter pledge it has now in the press, King Alfred's translation of Gregory's 'Pastoral Care,' the 'Homilies of 971 A.D.,' belonging to the Marquis of Lothian, and a fresh set of Ælfric's 'Homilies,' most of which are in verse.

We ought never to lose sight of the urgent need there is for printing our MS. treasures. A unique manuscript may be destroyed at any moment, as has lately occurred in the total destruction of the Strasburg library, to the irreparable loss of the whole literary world.

All tastes are catered for in the set of Early English Texts. Do you wish for ballads and short poems? You have them here. Do you care only to read romances? You have the tales of battles and gallantry that delighted our grandfathers while they sat as open-mouthed listeners to the reading of the great volume that lasted them for many a long winter evening. Do you wish to study manners and customs, to find out how our ancestors lived, worked, and played, what were their religious beliefs and superstitions? Here are ample materials for your investigation. Or is the old language the object of your examination? Then the great object of the Society is to popularize the old works that illustrate the history of our native speech.

There is everywhere evidence of a growing living interest in modern languages, and of an attempt to study them with the thoroughness that has heretofore been confined to the classical languages. At present, although we are comparatively in the dark as to our grammatical forms, we are gradually constructing a history; but we cannot build without bricks, and the Early English Text Society proposes to supply them.

No pleasure is thoroughly enjoyed until it is imparted to another, so that as we have had the satisfaction of conversing with, and studying the mind and manners of our ancestors, we are anxious that others should enjoy the same pleasure; and we cannot but feel that those who will only read printed books are under great obligations to those gentlemen who undertake the arduous task of reading and explaining the manuscripts for their amusement and instruction. We have made a rapid sketch of the literature of several centuries as illustrated by the publications of the Society, and necessarily, from the extent of the subject, in a very slight and cursory manner, but we shall be quite satisfied if its imperfections lead our readers to consult the originals themselves.

We may add, for the benefit of those whom it may interest, that the subscription to the Early English Text Society is one guinea a year (with an additional guinea for those who subscribe to the Extra Series), and the honorary secretary is Mr. Henry B. Wheatley, 53 Berners-street, W.

ART. III.--Parties in the Episcopal Church.

(1.) Judgments of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. By the Hon. G. C. BRODRICK and Rev. W. H. FREEMANTLE. London: John Murray.

(2.) The Church Times.

(3.) Church Association Reports.

The glory of the Episcopal Church, according to many of her loudest eulogists, is her comprehensiveness. She is not, they say, like the sects, bound within the narrow lines of a rigid orthodoxy. She does not expect that from all her pulpits the same doctrines should be preached in stereotyped phraseology, not even that her ritual shall always conform to the same pattern. She recognises diversities of tastes, and adapts herself to them. Instead of checking, she encourages the widest freedom of inquiry, and secures for her clergy a liberty which the members of voluntary communities will not tolerate in their ministers. Hence she includes in her ranks men of innumerable varieties of opinion, from believers in the extreme theory of verbal inspiration on the one hand to Doctor Colenso and his sympathizers on the other; from upholders of sacramentarian and sacerdotal systems, which run to the very verge of Romanism, to men whose Church principles are hardly to be distinguished from those of the Plymouth Brethren. Whether such diversity is consistent with the fundamental principles of the constitution of the National Church; whether it was ever contemplated by the men who, at the time of the Restoration, gave her her present character; whether the advocates of this comprehensiveness support it by arguments drawn from their own ideal of what a National Church should be, rather than from the documents which determine what the Anglican Church really is; whether the principle they lay down is worked out to the extent which, if admitted at all, justice would demand; whether, on the whole, it works for evil or for good, are questions which we do not propose to discuss at length here. The fact at all events is patent, and was never more so than at present, that the Church of England includes not only individuals of different views, but great antagonistic parties having their separate organizations, pursuing their own ends, and two of them at least, so far from admitting that the Church should be of this comprehensive character, asserting that they themselves are the only loyal Churchmen, and that all others have more or less of the taint of heresy upon them. The lines of demarcation have become even wider, and the feelings cherished by the more eager partizans on either side more intense than when, eighteen years ago, one of the distinguished divines of the day gave to the world his celebrated sketch of the rival hosts. During the interval there have been many fierce struggles, in the settlement of which the courts of law have been called to intervene. Decisions of great importance in their bearing upon the liberty enjoyed by the clergy have been given. Toleration has been secured for doctrines and practices which it was generally thought were inadmissible, and the legislature has gone so far in its desire to relieve scrupulous consciences as to modify the terms of clerical subscription. The result of the liberty thus given, has been, as perhaps might have been expected, a wider divergence of opinion than has existed at any previous period; but this, unfortunately, has not been accompanied by a growth of that mutual tolerance which even the result of the various suits, instituted for the suppression of what was regarded on one side or the other as heresy, ought to have produced. The parties who have failed in their attempts to purge the Church of error have sat down under their defeat, angry and discontented, the loud talk of a determination to secede rather than be parties to the toleration of false doctrines has died away, but the lesson as to the limitation of their power has done nothing towards producing a spirit of greater charity.

The Broad Church party--if indeed it is right to speak of a number of men who have no party organization and no party aims, among whom are to be found all shades of opinion, and whose one bond of connection is their common love of freedom--have consistently maintained that the Church of England belongs neither to one section nor the other, but is intended to comprehend all. The aim of the courts has been as far as possible to maintain this view, on behalf of which they have often strained the language of the law to a dangerous extent, and in fact have allowed mere custom to set aside the authority of law in a way which certainly would not have been tolerated in any proceedings relative to property or civil right. The expositions of ecclesiastical law, as given even by the highest court, have often been remarkable as illustrations of the dexterity with which the judges have rescued the Church from positions of great difficulty, rather than as examples of sound interpretation of the statutes. Considerations of public policy have affected the decisions, and the strict letter of the law has been disregarded in a fashion which would find little favour in Westminster Hall. The question has been, not as to the positive requirements of the statute if construed on the ordinary principles of language, but as to the amount of latitude to be permitted; and so far has this been carried, that the defendant in a recent suit was bold enough to quote a passage from a letter of Dr. Arnold, which was not published till after his death, as illustrative of the liberty which had been granted to him, and which, therefore, though to a much greater extent, he demanded for himself. Statesmen and lawyers in truth, understanding that the absolute victory of either of the contending parties meant the downfall of the National Church, have anxiously sought to protect all in the enjoyment of their position, and to make them understand that the continuance of the great institution, to which in common they profess so hearty an attachment, depends upon their mutual recognition of each other's rights. But the lesson has been given to reluctant pupils, of whom it would not be too much to say that they cling to that which they ought to forget, and turn a deaf ear to all they need to learn. If among the best men on all sides there has been the steady growth of a better feeling, and if there is an increasing body of the ablest and most thoughtful of the clergy who refuse to identify themselves with any party, the majority of the strong adherents both of the High Church and the Evangelicals display all the old spirit, and if they had the power certainly do not lack the will to make the Church the exclusive preserve of their own section.

A better illustration of this could not well be found than that which is given in the introductory Essay on 'Anglican Principles' in the recent volume of 'Essays on the Church and the Age,' the manifesto of moderate High Churchmen. In this party the Dean of Chichester deservedly holds a very high place. His great abilities, his large and varied experience, his distinguished services in various departments of labour, his high character, rightly give him position and influence. He is not a man of illiberal temper, and if he ever had the heat of the partizan, the mellowing influence of time has toned down its ardour. He is so far from being a man of extreme views or from cherishing any sympathy with the Ritualist party, that he says, 'They assert dogmas which are scarcely to be distinguished from some of the errors of the Church of Rome.' 'To this party,' he adds, 'those who adhere to the principles of the English Reformers, and who were, till of late years, known on that account as High Churchmen, are as much opposed as they have ever been to the Puritans, and on the same grounds.' His opposition to these Romanizing tendencies, however, does not lead him to regard more favourably those who are at the other pole of the theological compass. On the contrary, if he condemns Ritualists, he lays much of the blame for their position, as well as for that of the Rationalizers, on the Evangelicals, whom he charges with infidelity to their ecclesiastical obligations, and with all the consequences which have resulted from those lax notions of subscription of which they gave the first example. 'The only difference,' he says, 'between the Tractarian and the Puritan, in regard to the formularies of our Church, is this, that the former honestly, if not discreetly, has avowed the principle upon which the other party has, from the time of the Reformation, never ceased to act. The Puritans did not use the term non-natural; but what else is meant when they clothe in the garment of Calvinism what the Church has laid before them as plain and simple Catholic truth?' Having himself no sympathy with those who do not care to inquire what the Church really means in the dogmas which she has laid down, and who are satisfied if they can so torture her formularies as to make them lend an apparent sanction to preconceived opinions, he contends that 'if the thumb-screw be allowable to one party, it cannot be withheld from the other;' ... that if liberty be granted to one, it must be extended quite as freely to the other; and that if this be conceded, the only conclusion is that 'we possess no authoritative statement of doctrine whatever.'... 'The question is--we repeat it--the principle having been conceded to the Puritans, where is it to stop!' This is certainly turning the tables to some purpose. The Evangelicals have been in the habit of denouncing, with a good deal of righteous indignation, the Popish traitors who eat the bread of a Protestant Church, while all the time they are labouring only to betray her into the hands of her enemy; or the still greater offenders who continue to occupy Christian pulpits, while their writings show that they have accepted even the fundamental doctrines of Christianity in a non-natural sense. It is somewhat startling for them to be told, not only that they are equally guilty, but that their own laxity has been the fruitful parent of the excesses of which they complain so bitterly in others; that as the definite meaning of formularies must be maintained or universal liberty be conceded, and every man left to believe as seemeth right in his own eyes, the toleration to a Gorham necessitated toleration to a Bennett and a Mackonochie and a Colenso; and that on them, therefore, rests the responsibility for the disorder, the anarchy, and the heresy by which the Church is afflicted. The argument is not new, for it is substantially that which was employed by the Rev. W. G. Ward in his defence before the Oxford Convocation, and the Evangelicals would doubtless have a good deal to say in opposition to its conclusions. We quote it here only as indicative of the strong feelings that prevail between different parties. Mr. Ward used it in self-defence, and in an extremity when the tu quoque plea was about the only one which was available. From Dr. Hook it comes as a judicial utterance; and when such a man adopts this style of criticism, we can easily understand with what bitterness the struggle will be carried on by those who have neither his ability nor his self-restraint.

While High Churchmen are thus determined on their side, and while the more advanced section of the party never attempt to conceal the contempt they entertain for Evangelicals, we have only to turn to the utterances on the opposite side to see how fully the sentiment is reciprocated. It would be hard to conceive of a sadder caricature of Christianity than would be presented by a series of extracts from the Church Times and Church Review on the one side, and the Record and the Rock on the other. That there are members of both parties who are shocked by the violence, the narrow-mindedness, the unreasoning partizanship of their organs, we do not doubt; but it is impossible to deny that these journals do represent large classes, whose antagonism to each other they at once stimulate and express. The scenes which two or three years ago disgraced the meeting of the Christian Knowledge Society, and the prosecutions which occupy so much of the time, and must sometimes try the temper and patience of the judges, are other indications of the same virulence of spirit. We hear about the comprehensiveness of the Church, but while this internal strife continues, that comprehensiveness is its scandal, not its glory. It is the legal association in a Christian Church of men who have no faith in each other, whose principles are mutually subversive, who lose no opportunity of expressing their disgust with their companions and their belief that they are where they are, only by unfaithfulness to conscience and disobedience to law. It is the maintenance of an outward and visible form of union where there is not the inward and spiritual grace; not the fellowship of those who have subordinated minor differences that they may cultivate a true spiritual unity, but of those whose antagonism is deep-rooted and intense, and who remain in the same Church from mutual jealousy and distrust rather than from any better feeling. It is a comprehensiveness which is the child of legal moderation, not of Christian charity, which, so far from being the legitimate development of noble and generous sentiment, is the result only of external constraint, whose hollowness is evident in the railing accusations to which both parties condescend, and which survives only because neither is willing to withdraw from an enforced and hateful union, and so leave all the prestige and emoluments of the National Church in the hands of its opponents for the promotion of what it regards as deadly error.

The ideal of a church which allows the greatest latitude of opinion consistent with an adherence to the primary truths of the Gospel, which trusts for the maintenance of Christian truth to its own living force rather than to any artificial defences, which aims to cultivate unity of spirit rather than agreement in creed, which, proceeding on the belief that where there is the same spirit there will yet be diversities of gifts, and under the same law differences of administration, does not attempt to curb the free development of individual belief or allow the divergence to which it may lead to interfere with the enjoyment of true spiritual fellowship, is a very exalted one. If the Church of England were really striving to attain that, or if it exhibited any signs of an approach to it, we should be prepared to condone many faults, and, even though it failed to realize its own conception, to honour it for aiming at such an ideal. But this is just the view which High Church and Low Church would alike repudiate. Little love as they bear to each other, they have still less for the only section which is honestly seeking to give the Church this character. Whether or not the members of the Broad Church party are right in their interpretation of the facts of history or the principles of ecclesiastical law, it is due to them, at least, to say that they are consistent in their maintenance of clerical liberty. Others demand freedom for themselves, and are very loud in their protests against ecclesiastical despotism if there is any danger that they may themselves become its victims. Broad Churchmen vindicate the liberties of all, and have more than once, in times of fierce excitement, exposed themselves to a storm of unpopularity by their gallant defence of men who had made themselves obnoxious by their avowal of what was branded as heresy. All others have in their turn been assailants; they, never. From all the crusades against heresy they have stood aloof, and have been content to bear the reproach of heterodoxy themselves rather than do anything which might narrow the boundaries of the Church, or curtail the freedom of the clergy. We could not find a better illustration of this than in Dean Stanley's recent volume of Essays. We find him in the Gorham controversy breaking a lance in defence of the Evangelicals when an attempt was made to deprive them of their status in the Church; and when they, forgetful of their own difficulties, turned round, and in their turn became assailants of the authors of 'Essays and Reviews,' we find him equally resolute in courageously withstanding them. His own views in opposition to Ritualism are expressed with sufficient distinctness, and, when dealing with its favourite South African prelate and his attack on Dr. Colenso, he is bold and unsparing; but if any wish him to unite in an effort to expel Ritualists from the Church, his answer is, 'As we would wish to include the Nonconforming members of the Church who are without its pale, so we would wish to retain those Nonconforming members who are within its pale.' The very thoroughness with which the Dean carries out his principle itself irritates many. They cannot understand how a man should be so zealous a champion of the rights of those whose theological and ecclesiastical opinions he has not a spark of sympathy. But nothing tempts him to swerve from his position. The Church is nothing to him if she be not comprehensive, and he will resist to the death anything which threatens to deprive him of this boasting on her behalf.

All that Broad Churchmen can thus do, however, is to justify themselves. They cannot alter the fact that there is an Act of Uniformity defining exactly what the character and constitution of the Church shall be; and when we come to examine the history and requirements of that Act, it is difficult to see how it can be maintained that the Church was intended to be comprehensive. It is so in fact; but it is so certainly in opposition to the designs of the ecclesiastics of the Restoration who gave it its present constitution, and in opposition to the letter of the law.

But if the existence of separate parties with views in such complete antagonism as to be mutually destructive is an anomaly, these parties may plead in their own behalf that they are as necessary to the Establishment as the Establishment is to them; that they could exist and work for the advancement of their own views even though they should be expelled from the Establishment, but that in such case it must assuredly fall; and that so conscious of this have been the administrators of the law, that until the extreme views of Mr. Purchas and Mr. Voysey have dictated a somewhat different course, their constant effort has been to avoid any decision which might compel any one of them to secede--a tenderness certainly not prompted by any regard to them, but solely by a consideration of the probable results to the Establishment. How far this should reconcile conscientious men to retain their position, is a point which must be left for themselves to settle. Nonconformists have sometimes been too ready to settle it for them, and condemn both Evangelicals and Ritualists for infidelity to truth because they do not take the course which, under like circumstances, they themselves would feel bound to adopt. Imputations of this kind are as impolitic as they are unfair. They leave out of sight the different aspect in which the same facts present themselves to different minds, and the diversity of conclusion which may be reached with perfect honesty on all sides. It is certain, however strange it may seem to those looking at the subject from a different stand-point, that of the two extreme parties there are numbers who sincerely believe that the Church was intended to be of their particular type--'Evangelical or Catholic,' as the case may be. It requires a good deal of faith, perhaps, to believe that any man can honestly think that Gunning or Sheldon intended to make the Church Evangelical, but it is nevertheless certain that numbers have a sincere conviction that Evangelicals are the true Churchmen. That 'Catholics' on their side are satisfied of their own ecclesiastical orthodoxy is less surprising; while any, whether High Churchmen or Low Churchmen, who are candid enough to confess their rubrical transgressions, would maintain that no one conforms to the pattern in all things, and that if they err, it is only in common with all beside.

One of the most remarkable features in the history of the Church during the last twenty years has been the development of High Church principles; and in this we do not so much refer to the extreme extent to which they have been pushed by the Ritualists, or to the increase of professed adherents of the party, as to the higher tone of Church sentiment which is so perceptible, and which has affected numbers who would disown all connection with any section of the party. The Tractarian movement has undoubtedly been one of the chief causes of this. Mr. Bennett and others of the early leaders who still remain faithful in their allegiance to the Church of their birth, may well congratulate themselves on the different atmosphere by which they now find themselves surrounded. They have not indeed succeeded in moulding public opinion, they have not undermined the strong Protestant feeling of the nation nor have they persuaded the people that the National Church is anything but a Protestant Church. But practices are tolerated to-day which formerly were regarded with horror and alarm; battle-grounds which once were hotly contested have been left in possession of the High-Anglicans, and they, grown bold by the successes they have won, have put forth new claims and are seeking to introduce innovations--or, as they would call them, restorations--which the most sanguine among them would not have dared to contemplate a few years ago. To preach in a surplice, for example, is no longer regarded as an evidence of Romanising tendency, although, perhaps, it is still a sign that the preacher is not of the Evangelical party. In the struggle, however, which is now waged to prevent the adoption of sacrificial vestments, it is almost forgotten how recently the appearance of the preacher in a surplice was sufficient to provoke popular commotion and to furnish an occasion of legal prosecutions. In the style of Church architecture and music, in the more elaborate form of service adopted in places innocent of High Church tendencies, and in the increased attention paid to some of the festivals, we find the same advance. Nor is it only in such points as these that the change is seen. Even more significant is the quiet revival of Convocation, and the amount of influence it has been able to gain. Power in the strict sense of the term it has not; and there is often a ludicrous contrast between the loudness of its talk and the feebleness of its performances. But if it has no legislative authority, it continually passes its judgment on questions affecting the interests of the Church, and its pretensions have sometimes been treated with a consideration, not to say deference, which is indicative of an alteration in the spirit of the times. No English Prime Minister, indeed, whatever might be his personal proclivities, would dare to concede what its leaders consider themselves entitled to ask; yet a careful observer cannot fail to see that it has been quietly asserting itself in a way most grateful to the advocates of ecclesiastical ascendancy. The Bill for the Revision of the Lectionary, introduced in the last session of Parliament, afforded a very striking proof of this advance. Convocation was first consulted as to the changes proposed to be made, and greatly to the satisfaction of High Churchmen, the preamble of the measure contained a distinct reference to the opinion which that august body had expressed on the subject. It is true that the Bill did not pass the House of Commons, and would probably not have been able to secure the assent of an assembly chosen by household suffrage without the sacrifice of this point of the preamble, but the fact that it was introduced by the ministers of the Crown and, in opposition to the protests of Lord Shaftesbury and some other peers, was accepted by the House of Lords, is itself painfully significant. It may even prove that the move has been premature and impolitic, and the result may be the awakening of a spirit of jealousy that will prevent any further encroachments. Still, such progress as has been made in this development of Church authority would not have been possible if there had not been, in certain quarters, a state of feeling friendly to it--a reaction against the Erastianism which would treat the clergy as mere officers of the State, whose duty was simply to carry out the will of Parliament--a growing tendency to accept the rule of the Church in the business of the Church.

There are many who attribute this High Church development to the influence of what they call the 'Catholic revival' throughout Europe. A wave of deeper spiritual feeling, more humble reverence for authority, more perfect faith in Catholic truth, and more earnest desire to work out the true Catholic ideal of holiness has, they say, been passing over the Continent, and it has reached us. Before we admit the fact of this revival, we are entitled to ask where its evidences are to be found. Is it in Belgium, esteemed the most Catholic country in Europe except Ireland, where the closer our acquaintance with the people the more clearly does it appear that underlying much show of outward devotion, there is, especially in the male part of the urban population, a spirit of silent but decided revolt against the superstitions of Rome? Or is it in Austria, whose ecclesiastical policy has been growingly liberal in its character, and has been continually putting it more and more out of accord with the Vatican? Or in Spain, where once priests and Jesuits ruled supreme, but where the fall of their wretched instrument, who so long disgraced the throne of that unhappy land, has inaugurated an era of freedom? Or is it in Italy herself, preserving indeed her outward allegiance to the Papal See, but it is to be feared with little faith of any kind surviving among her people? As we look at these nations where the dominion of Rome is supposed to be most secure, it seems absurd to talk of 'Catholic revival.' Still we cannot say that it is only a dream of enthusiasts. In a certain sense there has been the revival of which Archbishop Manning is so fond of boasting. Ages and countries in which we find great material prosperity, love of luxury, a low standard of morals, are those in which we find also a strong development of superstition, and a readiness to bow to the will of the priest. Europe in the nineteenth century is no exception to the rule. France in particular would perhaps be pointed out as the scene of the great Catholic revival of the day; and if the desertion by the great body of the Gallican bishops and clergy of the cause for which their predecessors so gallantly contended, the readiness of priests and people to accept the most extreme views of Papal infallibility and Mariolatry, the restoration of the rites of the Church in the old cathedrals in their full pomp and circumstance, and the shameless subserviency of French politicians to Papal ambition, be the signs of a 'Catholic revival,' such revival there undoubtedly has been. Side by side with the falsehood, the frivolity, the idle display, the incredible extravagance, and the immorality which were the scandal of Paris, and in which the court of the Second Empire was so deeply implicated, there was also an outburst of superstitious devotion, yclept, we suppose, a 'revival.' The Empress was the great leader of fashion, and as she was a devotee of Rome and the Jesuits, it became fashionable in the circles of which she was the centre, to affect an earnest zeal for the Church and her observances. As in Paris, so to some extent in other capitals; and thus, though there is little on which a Church intent only on spiritual ends could congratulate herself, there have been an increased splendour in ceremonial, a more facile acceptance of Church dogmas, a greater show of deference to the priest, and especially to the Holy Father, which have been gratefully welcomed. Looking back at the position of the Papacy in 1848, and tracing its rise from the extreme depression into which it had fallen at that time, to that sense of power which encouraged the Pope eighteen months ago to convene a Council in the hope that it would realise the grand idea of years, and proclaim his infallibility, we cannot be surprised that we hear boasts of a revival. But the more closely it is examined, the less of a religious character will it be found to possess.

In England it has been different. Whatever we may think of the doctrines of the Tractarians, it would be worse than uncharitable to doubt their sincerity, their conscientiousness, their intense devotion to the principles they hold, their spiritual life and fervour, as it would be foolish to deny that they have been the authors of what may fairly be described as a 'Romish revival.' So far as there has been any real religious movement in the Roman Catholic churches of the Continent, we believe that it has come from this country. It was no small thing for the Papal See to gain the distinguished band of converts, of which Newman and Manning are the most conspicuous. Bringing with them subtle and highly-cultured intellects, high reputations, and fervid zeal, they threw themselves into the service of the Church in which they professed to have found rest with all the passionate devotion of new converts, and their influence could not but be felt throughout the whole Romish community. The prospect of the return of England to the true Church that so large a secession from the Anglican ranks seemed to hold out, was itself sufficiently stimulating, while the example of their ardour and diligence stirred up their new associates to nobler efforts in the common cause.

But while they thus breathed new life into the movements of the Roman Catholic Church, their influence did not end there. The leaven of their teaching and spirit remained in the Church they had forsaken. Contrary to what was once expected, their secession neither deterred many of their sympathisers from venturing still further in the dangerous paths which had conducted their leaders to Rome, nor induced them to follow their example, and reconcile themselves with the Holy See. So far from the Church being purged of Tractarian principles, these are more defiant and rampant than ever. Mr. Bennett, Dr. Littledale, and Mr. Mackonochie have only developed the idea of Mr. Newman and his coadjutors; but they have done this to an extent which their predecessors never attempted, and which in those days they would not have thought possible. It is possible now, because these teachings have done much more than merely indoctrinate a certain number of minds with their opinions, they have created a High Church tone in a much wider circle than that which they are able directly to affect. Men who would scorn to accept them as their leaders, who declaim about the absurdity of some of their practices, and the Romish tendency of the whole movement, are yet to an extent, perhaps almost unconsciously, influenced by them. How is this?

Something is due to their very audacity. They speak with no faltering tone, they act with decision and fearlessness, and the confidence which they show in themselves and their opinions begets a similar feeling in others; while even with those who refuse to yield themselves absolutely to their lead, there is a disposition to think that, though they may push their notions too far, they would not have dared to go to such an extreme unless they had been in the main right. There are large numbers of Englishmen, who, looking on at the spectacles provided for them in Ritualistic churches, are induced, after the first feeling of surprise, and possibly of indignation, is over, to say, 'There must be something in these men; they have gone too far, but that is only what others are doing in the opposite direction. They have borrowed too much from Rome, while others approach too near Geneva. We like neither the one nor the other. What we want is the service of our own Church well done.' Thus they have carried a large body who condemn Ritualism to a position in advance even of the old High Church view, and they have done it mainly because they had the courage of conviction, and did not shrink from the consequences to which their boldness might expose them. What the Protestant public would think and say of them, how many prejudices they would awaken, what condemnation they would have to face, they must have foreseen. But they have braved all, and they have a reward, even beyond the progress they have made in winning converts to their party, in the subtle but powerful influence they have exerted on Church sentiment.

They have had, too, the life and energy characteristic of the youth of religious parties. In the abundance of their labours, in their freedom from conventionalism in their work, in their willingness to adopt any plan which has been found successful by others, they are an example to ministers of all churches. There are, of course, among them those who have little sympathy with the noble aims of their brethren, and who have no higher object than a gratification of their own strong priestly instincts, perhaps even of their childish love of display, who delight in the show of the gorgeous service, and have little care for the truths it is intended to symbolize, and who bring contempt upon the whole movement by words and deeds which stamp on it a character of weakness and puerility. It is the fate of every party to attract some followers of this type, and it would be as unfair to judge it by them, as it would be uncandid not to recognise the higher qualities of those who have given it weight and importance. The truth is, these men have a faith, and they are not afraid of avowing and of acting upon it; and in an age which is only too prone to seek after compromises, this itself gives them power. Their very dogmatism, offensive as it is to inquiring minds, is a reaction from the too prevalent laxity of religious belief, and commends them to a large class who are weary of endless disputations, and crave for something positive. To the clamour for liberty--which is not unfrequently only another name for lawlessness, the sign of an unwillingness to submit to any rule either of faith or practice, the assertion of a man's right to believe what he likes, and do what he will--they oppose the law of a Catholic Church, ending all discussion, and silencing opposition by the mere assertion that the Church has spoken, and that through her we receive the will of God. In the presence of a widespread disbelief in the supernatural, and a desire to eliminate the miraculous from the teachings of Scripture, they assert the existence of a perpetual miracle in the presence of the Lord upon His own altars, and find the best evidence of His Incarnation in the extensions of that incarnation through the sacraments for the nourishment of the spiritual life of His followers. Such a creed is out of harmony with all Protestant opinion, and does not bear the test of either reason or Scripture; and when, as it must be, the demand for its acceptance is based on the authority of the Church, it is open to attack from the Roman Catholic side equally fatal with that which it has to encounter from Protestantism. But illogical and unscriptural as it appears to us, it is held by Anglicans with a tenacity, and worked out with an enthusiastic ardour, of which we find too few examples among the believers in creeds of a more Scriptural order. They are ready to proclaim its articles on the housetops; so far from attempting to hide the extravagance of any of their pretensions, they seem rather to delight in bringing them out in their most pronounced obnoxious forms; and by their outspoken boldness they constrain even the admiration of those who like them least.

If this party have gained power by the strong assertion of their distinctive principles, they have largely increased it by the way in which they have identified themselves with various popular movements, and the earnestness, combined with a certain kind of practical wisdom, with which they have prosecuted their work. With all the deference they claim for tradition in relation to doctrine, they show not the slightest respect to traditional notions, so far as Christian work is concerned. Of that regard to dignity which restrained the High Church clergy of a former time from everything that bore the most distant resemblance to Methodism, they have not a vestige, and, indeed, they view it as one of the errors of that dreary Hanoverian Protestantism which they hate intensely, and certainly not without good reason. They set out with an ardent longing to recover the masses of the people to their allegiance to the Church, and any means that will contribute to that end they adopt. 'All other sections of the English Church save one,' Dr. Littledale tells us, 'have stood their trial and have failed.' The time is come when an effort should be made on a different principle, and that principle is a careful regard to the tastes and necessities of the people whom they have to win; for past failure is to be attributed largely to 'a refusal to face the fact, that it is with beings with human wants and frailties, and not pure disembodied rationalities that the Church has to deal, that the shopkeepers and artisans have gone to Dissent, and the labourers have gone to the devil.' Acting on this conviction, they have sought to understand the nature of the influences by which the people have been drawn on both sides in order that they might fight both dissent and the devil with their own weapons. They have been willing to learn everywhere, believing that if the children of this world are in their generation wiser than the children of light, the latter cannot do better than become pupils in their school. Hence they have not been particular as to who their instructors were, if only they had something to teach them, and have been content to learn from a gin-palace as well as from a conventicle, from the Odd-Fellow or Forester as well as from the Primitive Methodist, borrowing from the one the histrionic style of their Ritual, and from the other the spiritual enthusiasm which expresses itself in revival services with stirring addresses and glowing hymns. There is certainly something singular in the idea that, inasmuch as the landlord of the gin-palace caters for his customers by means of painting, light, and music, the Church of Christ should do the same, and that ministers of the Gospel, adopting the arts of the managers of benefit societies, and pandering to that childish love of display which the latter gratify by glittering insignia of office, processions with a great deal of pomp and show, and rites around which a mysterious awe is thrown, should seek to attract the people by churches with gaily decorated altars, processions with banners and music, and a regular succession of church festivals celebrated with accessories that appeal to both the eye and ear. It indicates, however, the spirit of the party. Their Ritual has a deeper meaning than this, but by many it has undoubtedly been developed with the prominence they have given it under the belief that it would produce great popular effects.

Had they, however, confined themselves to the cultivation of this histrionic element, they would never have gained the power they possess. They have been equally active in the employment of means of a higher order. With the contempt for preaching which was, and still is, so prevalent amongst a large number of the Anglican clergy, they have little sympathy; for while they attach supreme importance to the work of the sacrificing priest or the confessor, they take ample care also to cultivate the art of popular address. This was specially apparent in the celebrated 'twelve days' mission,' which brought into notice more than one public orator of a type very different from anything with which the Episcopal Church has been familiar. That mission itself, disfigured as it was by many extravagancies and eccentricities, lowered in its character as a Christian work by the loud flourish of trumpets by which it was heralded, and the jubilant exultation as to its success in which its promoters indulged, and especially discredited by their manifest design to make it an opportunity of familiarising the minds of the people with Romish notions and practices, was, nevertheless, a remarkable proof of the skill as well as enthusiasm of the party. We should be sorry to think that among those by whom it was carried on there were not many influenced by a higher desire than to secure a mere party triumph; but regarded in that light only, we cannot too much admire the knowledge of human nature, and particularly of English human nature, shown by those who conceived the idea. Its very novelty was sure to arrest attention and draw crowds, and the fact that crowds are drawn by whatever means to religious services is with many sufficient to cover a multitude of offences against good taste, and even against Christian truth. There are those who apply to everything what they call practical tests, and one of their surest tests of the power of a preacher, is his capability of attracting large audiences. Of course, the proclamation of a grand crusade against sin and Satan, to be undertaken by a number of clergymen whose peculiarities had already attracted to them a large share of public attention, awakened curiosity, and, if there had been no other feeling, that would have been sufficient to crowd the churches. Among those who attended these services were many good people who went to see in what fashion and with what weapons this new warfare would be carried on. They saw the unusual sight of numbers, and many of them belonging to classes seldom found in a place of worship, coming night after night, and apparently impressed by the services. They heard eloquent preachers preaching to them the great truths of the Gospel, in forcible and striking language rebuking the sins of the day, in vivid and glowing pictures setting before them the love of Christ and His redeeming work, and in thrilling appeals beseeching them to believe and obey. Though even this could not reconcile them to a style of worship so strongly Romish in its character, or lead them to accept the error which was so subtly insinuated, it disarmed not a few prejudices, and led numbers, who never had a friendly thought towards Ritualism or Ritualists before, to think that, despite all their faults, these men were doing a great work, and were not lightly to be evil spoken of. The spectacle of so many clergymen banding themselves together for earnest evangelistic work, casting aside the traditions of their Church and their office, throwing themselves heart and soul into services in which the freedom and fervour, characteristic of Methodist revivals were substituted for the dulness and decorum with which the high Anglicans of former days were satisfied, and determined that, so far as lay in their power, they would make their Church what it has so often claimed to be, and what as a National Church it ought to be, the Church of the people, could not fail to produce a deep and favourable impression. Men who maintain an attitude of indifference to all parties did homage to the earnestness which marked the movement; and even among those who regarded it with strongest disapproval, and believed that its effect, so far as it was successful, would be to Romanize rather than Christianize the people, there were many who felt that the only way of overcoming such workers would be to display a spirit as devoted, as self-denying, and as practical as their own. Ritualists would be mistaken if they accepted the ungrudging praise which was given in many quarters to their daring courage, their free and energetic modes of action, their conscientious attempts to solve in their own fashion one of the most important problems of the day as indicating any abatement of decided opposition to their teachings, or of the righteous indignation with which those who are most ready to honour them for all that is good in them or their work, view their disloyalty to the Church of which they are ministers, and the wretched quibbles by which they seek to cloak or excuse their unfaithfulness. But, on the other hand, the Evangelicals will be equally mistaken if they forget that practical service of this character tells powerfully on behalf of the party by whom it is undertaken, and that those who feel that duty compels them to take a position of antagonism to it must, if they are to carry popular sympathy with them, justify their faith also by works.

Another feature in the conduct of the Ritualist clergy deserving of commendation, is the tact they have shown in utilising the power which was lying dormant in their congregations. The experience of all Churches testifies that nothing does more to attract a man to a religious community than the assigning to him a place and a work, and so making him feel that he contributes something to its power and prosperity. The 'Catholic' party (as they would have us call them) understand this, and have acted upon it. They endeavour to find a place for every one who will heartily give himself to the common work. They take care, of course, to preserve the sanctity and authority of the priesthood, and have clearly-marked boundary lines beyond which no layman will be allowed to go; but they perceive that one grand secret of the weakness of the Episcopal Church has been the unwillingness or the inability of the clergy to use the services which numbers in their congregations were willing to render, and they have sought to remedy the defect. Let it be granted that much of the work they give to their followers is not of a very exalted or edifying character. Still, even the masters of ceremonies, the cross-bearers, the choristers, the acolytes, the sacristans, feel themselves honored by the kindly notice of the clergy. They are pleased to think themselves of some use and importance, are led to identify themselves with the movement, and are often among its most zealous propagandists. The Christian work of women has been made a special study, and a number of devoted labourers called forth, who are among the most trusty adherents of the party, and whose ministry of love has been an immense gain to the influence of the Church in the neglected districts where it is carried on, and is a tower of strength to it. If we were intending here to estimate the exact value of the service done in these and other ways by the Ritualist clergy, we should be compelled to make many deductions. But the point on which we wish to insist, is simply the effect of their work in ministering to the growth of High Church sentiment in the country--a growth which has been aided by the unwise opposition of the Evangelicals, who have been too prone to oppose every movement of Ritualist origin without regard to its character. They have thus not only enabled their opponents to monopolise the entire credit of movements which might just as consistently have been undertaken by one party of the Church as another, but have caused Evangelicalism to be viewed by men of a more catholic spirit, who belong to no party organization, but are willing to accept wise suggestions from whatever quarter they come, as obstructive and impractical. The éclat which never fails to attend activity and enterprise has thus unfortunately remained with the Anglicans.

But while High Churchmen owe much of their present position to themselves, or, to speak more accurately, to the small but active section who form their extreme left, it cannot be denied that they have to some extent been favoured by circumstances. There are different characteristics of the age, distinct from and even opposed to each other, which have been friendly to them. They have profited by its material prosperity, and the consequent increase of its wealth and luxury; and they have profited, though in a different way, by its spirit of philosophic inquiry, its intelligent freedom, its political earnestness. A religion which delights in show, which attaches high importance to externals, which will be lenient in its judgments of those who obey the priest and regularly attend the sacraments, is certain to find many votaries in an age when there are such numbers who have no higher business in life than the pursuit of mere pleasure. The love of a new sensation alone is enough to attract crowds of this class to a church like St. Alban's. But it is not the novelty alone which captivates them; it is the type of religion which meets their tastes. It is true that they may hear from the pulpit eloquent denunciations of the frivolity of the life they are leading, but these oratorical thunders do not disturb them, save for the time. It is a remarkable fact, indeed, which has often been noticed, that sermons directed against their own special sins are rather popular than otherwise with hearers gathered from the world of fashion. They listen with interest, and if a preacher does his work well, are, perhaps, moved to some degree of sentimental emotion; they meekly submit to the castigation which they have to endure, and accept it as a species of penance which is to be borne with all humility, and having discharged what they consider a religious duty, feel themselves entitled to return with all the more zeal and avidity to the scenes from which they have for a time been withdrawn. They have had indeed the virtues of an ascetic life set before them, but they do not apply the exhortations to themselves. These, they quietly assume, belong to the 'religious,' the clergy, or those who have a vocation to a more exalted type of piety. For themselves, they are satisfied with a much humbler rôle; and if they are regular at church, observe the Holy Communion at proper times, and practise some degree of abstinence on Fridays and in Lent, they consider that they have amply satisfied all the claims of conscience and religion. If they are zealous at all, their zeal is shown in a very different direction. They leave to others all services demanding self-denial or patience. They are never found in the crowded alleys where the poor congregate, visiting the sick or succouring the needy. For the painful austerities which some practise they have no love. It is by the histrionic element that they are attracted. To them the decorations of the church and the vestments of the priests are subjects of supreme interest. They go into ecstasies over the cut of a chasuble or the colour of a stole, can tell the exact difference between a dalmatica and an alb, can give the most orthodox opinion as to the colour proper to each church festival, and are wonderfully captivated with a religion in which millinery plays an important part. 'You should (said one of this class) visit ---- church. It is so delightfully high; the vestments are superb, and the clergyman has got such dear little boys, with red stockings, for acolytes.'

There is a better side of the system which appeals to another and higher class, also to be found in aristocratic circles. Repelled by the wretched frivolity of fashionable society, wearied of its incessant round of pleasure, conscious that life ought to have some higher end, and seeking after something to satisfy the craving of their souls for the real good,--they are taken by the ascetic view of Christian life as given by High-Churchism. The idea of an authority in the Church which shall relieve them from the trouble of deciding between the conflicting opinions which are abroad, and shall give them some resting-place in which they may find secure footing and so be saved from the indifference and unbelief into which such numbers are drifting, is itself welcome. They are pleased with the idea that they have the faith held by the Catholic Church for centuries, while the prospect of a life marked by self-sacrifice and active labour is that above all others the most calculated to kindle their aspirations. Romanism has always had these two sides by which it has attracted adherents of the most opposite character; and it is not surprising that Ritualism, which has sought to follow so closely in its steps, should exhibit the same characteristics with the same results,--drawing from out the circles of fashion both the superficial and frivolous, who are captivated by its outward and objective character, and the more earnest, who are won by that ideal of a life with nobler aims, and under the government of unselfish principles which it exhibits before them.

The controversies of the day, too, have helped the development of High Church feeling. When a Church is or is supposed to be in danger, when enemies are assailing her from without, and some of her own adherents are seriously compromising her character and influence, and when there is a need, therefore, for the display of special zeal on the part of those who would maintain her position, the party which is conspicuous for the highest idea of her rights, and for the most uncompromising spirit in their assertion and defence, is sure to be specially popular. High Churchmen have known how to use to the utmost advantage the existing state of things. By a singular coincidence, the Judicial Committee have been engaged in hearing the case of Mr. Voysey on the one hand, and Mr. Mackonochie and Mr. Purchas on the other; and although the Vicar of St. Alban's and the Brighton Incumbent have both been condemned, we doubt whether the High Church will not profit more by the spectacle presented by Mr. Voysey than it will lose by the suspension of Mr. Mackonochie or the prohibition of the extravagancies of Mr. Purchas. By the one, indeed, the High Church, as distinguished from the Ritualist section, will gain, rather than lose, if the result be the repression of outrages upon Protestant feeling and defiances of law, which check the sympathy that otherwise would flow much more decidedly in a High Church direction. By the other, however, the gain is immediate and very considerable. Here, we are told, is the outcome of Protestantism. 'Rights of private judgment, free inquiry, individual responsibility--see to what they all lead us! There is safety only in abiding by Catholic truth, and submitting implicitly to the authority of the Church which asserts it. The assumed right of conscience which is the basis of Protestantism is the root of all evil, and the consequence of admitting it will be an absolute eclipse of faith. Reject the voice of the Church, and men will soon cease to believe in the Bible, or even in God at all.' There are not a few who receive all this; even sincere lovers of Evangelical principles will declare that they would rather men should believe too much than believe too little, forgetting that the one evil is tolerably sure to be the cause of the other; that it is just where the dominion of superstition has been most absolute that, in the inevitable sway of the pendulum, scepticism becomes most rampant and powerful; and that no more fatal error could be committed by the friends of truth than to appeal to ecclesiastical authority on its behalf. The fact, however, is undeniable, and it is only another illustration of the general law of which we have just spoken, that in the reaction from rationalizing views and the fear of their consequences, numbers are ready to throw themselves into the sheltering arms of High-Churchism. They love truth more than liberty, and are content to surrender the latter rather than brave the risk of any danger to the former.

The progress of opinion in favour of the separation of Church and State, so manifest in different quarters, has produced a similar effect. Anticipating the possibility of disestablishment and of its coming soon, thoughtful members of the Episcopal Church are anxiously considering in what way she will be best able to meet the difficulties and demands of the novel position in which she will find herself when she is placed on a level with other Christian churches. They see that when the prestige of State connection is gone, something will be necessary to make up for the loss which she will sustain, and they hope to find it in that exaltation of her claims in which High Churchmen delight. In the view of High Churchmen, the Evangelical who has nothing on which to rely but his faithfulness and power in carrying on the work of his ministry, and who admits that the Congregational minister by his side is on a level, so far as authority is concerned, with himself, reduces the Church to the position of the sects; and in the competition which is provoked, she will not necessarily be the gainer. What is wanted, according to them, is that the clergy should assert their prerogative. The maintenance of an ornate and gorgeous ceremonial is important, for it has been shown that it has great attractions for the mass of the people, and has been able to win back numbers who, so long as simplicity was the order of the day, saw no difference between the service of a church and that of a dissenting chapel, and, in fact, preferred the latter because of its greater freedom and warmth. But of still greater moment is it that the Church should mark out distinctly the line which separates her from the sects; should insist on the authority which belongs to her clergy as being in the true line of the Apostolical succession, and should make it felt that her members possess advantages in which those outside her pale do not participate. We do not believe that experience will justify the policy, or that the pretensions which are intolerable in an Established Church would meet with anything but ridicule when put forth by a Church which has not even the special patronage of the State to encourage such un-Christian arrogance. In the meantime, this is a prevalent view, and it is of material service to the party who are contending for High Anglican principles.

From those various causes a High Church spirit is showing itself far beyond both sections of the clergy who have identified themselves with Anglican movements, and, in fact, is more or less affecting all parties. We heard of a conversation the other day between some laymen of extensive information and strong Evangelical sympathies, in which the question was asked in relation to a place which had once been a stronghold of Evangelicalism, 'Are they not becoming rather high at ----?' 'Where' (was the reply) 'is it that they are not becoming high?' We have taken some trouble to get information, and it all goes to corroborate this view. There are few of our larger towns, even those which have been most distinguished for their zeal for Evangelical principles, where we do not find the intrusion of a High Church, and indeed, a Ritualist element, which in some cases may become strong and popular. We regret to add that several of the Episcopal appointments made by the present Government must still further strengthen the hands and encourage the hopes of the sacerdotal party. Already we note some ominous signs in a southern diocese, where, after the lengthened rule of an Evangelical bishop, one of a very different character--a prelate of great power of eloquence and extraordinary tact, not to say subtlety--has been appointed in his room. Some of the Evangelical clergy have, we are told, suddenly awakened to a perception of the great worth of their new diocesan, and are adopting practices which hitherto they have condemned, and a tone which will certainly be much more acceptable to him than that which they have been accustomed to maintain. We venture to predict, that if he preside over the see for a few years, he will be able to report a different state of things from that which he found when he commenced his administration. It is not probable that he will so completely expel the Evangelical element as, if we are to accept his own statement, he had excluded Ritualism from his late diocese, but we fear that his influence may so transform some of his clergy that their old friends will hardly be able to recognise them. Whether Nonconformists have any reason to congratulate themselves on this result of the Liberal triumph to which they so largely contributed, is a question on which we need not enter. They do not owe so much to the Evangelical prelates on the bench, that they have any special reason to regret that their number has not been augmented. Still, the increase of the power of the High Church party was not the direct and immediate object for which they gave their support to Mr. Gladstone; and we are bound to say that the amount of encouragement given to that party, both in the appointment of its members to important positions, and in the favour shown to certain points of its policy, has not been regarded with satisfaction.

One result of the new spirit that has been awakened in the Anglican party, has been the almost entire extinction of that particular section of the Episcopal clergy known as the 'high and dry' school. So long, indeed, as the present system of patronage continues, it is never likely altogether to cease from among us. While there are a considerable number of livings in the gift of the Universities and colleges, who appoint to them members of their own body, who have lived so long among the musty records of the past that they have little fitness for the work of the living present, who have, in fact, by the very force of circumstances, became so many Dryasdusts; and while there are a still larger number regarded as the appanages of great families, who give them to younger sons or needy cousins, without any thought either of their mental or spiritual qualifications, many of the clergy are sure to be 'dry, yea, very dry;' and because they are dry they will also be high. They have nothing on which to rest their claims except the authority of the Church and the dignity of their office, and they are sure to exalt the one and magnify the other. Still, the section is a diminishing one, and the Church may well rejoice both that it is diminished in numbers, and that what remains of it is improved in quality. We have before our eyes now, one whom we knew in our childhood, a quiet, dignified old gentleman, who might have earned respect in any other position but that of a clergyman. He resided in the parish for many years, but what influence for good he ever exerted upon it, except by means of his charities, which were always free enough, it would have puzzled his admirers to tell. Of course, he had a righteous horror of Dissent and Radicalism; but even in opposition to them he never showed any enthusiasm. Such men belong to another generation, and where they are found now occupying positions of importance, in the midst of the busy life of this nineteenth century, they only hold them to the injury of the Church of which they are the representatives.

The papers announced, a few weeks ago, the death of one of this class, with some facts of whose story we happen to be acquainted. He was one of the few pluralists who still remain, residing on one of his livings in a midland county, and holding another in a large manufacturing town in the North of England. This town, with its teeming population and growing importance, he had never visited for more than twenty years. The work was left to be done by two curates, living on very inadequate incomes, while their rector satisfied himself with drawing the lion's share of the ample revenues of the parish. He found more congenial employment in the small village where his other cure was situate, and where he discharged, doubtless with becoming grace, the duties of a country gentleman. A glimpse of his life was given through a side-light in a speech of one of his curates, who, in acknowledging his rector's health, at a great agricultural dinner in the town of which he was so negligent an overseer, assured the company that the rector would gladly have been present, as he took a deep interest in all agricultural pursuits, and was himself one of the most successful breeders of pigs in the county of ----. It is hardly necessary to say that Dissent has a powerful hold upon the parish, or that numbers have grown up in indifference, if not in absolute hostility to religion altogether. And yet even he was not of the worst type. We remember, some years ago, driving several miles in a midland district, with a friend who was thoroughly acquainted with the region and its history. The country was rather thickly studded with churches and parsonages, and, as we passed them, our friend gave us some account of the men who had lived and worked in them. Many of the livings were in the gift of colleges and other public bodies, while others were the property of the country gentry, and, as might be expected, the clergy had almost invariably been of the 'high and dry' school; and as we heard story after story of indolence, incompetence, heresy, or, in some cases, ministerial delinquency, we could not but feel that the Church of England might well rejoice that there are but few remaining of so unworthy a generation.

The Anglican clergyman of to-day (and the class is very numerous in rural districts) is of a very different pattern. Even where he has not actually embraced Ritualistic opinions, he has generally breathed something of their spirit, and is determined to carry it into his work. He loves Dissent as little as his 'high and dry' predecessor, but he is determined to deal with it in a different way. He is courteous in his manner toward the Dissenting minister, but he means, all the time, to 'stamp out' Dissent. But it is to be done by outworking it everywhere--in schools, in pastoral visitation, and in public services; any weakness in preaching being compensated by increased splendour of service. It is impossible not to admire the intensity of devotion with which some of these young clergymen give themselves to their work. A Congregational minister of our acquaintance was telling us of one of them who had recently come to his neighbourhood, and who was working a wondrous change among a remarkably slothful and apathetic people by the earnestness of his spirit and the abundance of his labours. He had himself been called to visit one of his own members, and, though he immediately responded to the summons, he found the clergyman already there, proffering services of every kind, and unwilling to accept a denial of his request to sit up and watch all night by the bedside of the sick man. The Nonconformist convictions of a poor man must be very clear and decided if he can be insensible to such a mode of approach as this, and it was only natural that, when he recovered, the recipient of such kind attentions should be found occasionally in the parish church. But it is by means of the schools, especially, that this gentleman and his class operate, and operate to considerable effect. We are told, and with some truth, that children cannot enter into nice theological distinctions; but it is not in theological subtleties that they are instructed. The lessons given are plain and intelligible enough, as to the rights of the Church and the evils of Dissent, the reverence due to a clergyman and the Church, and the sin which they commit who neglect to show it. Besides there are innumerable ways in which, indirectly, both parents and children are affected; and a clergyman knows well enough, that when he has once got a child to the national school, he has taken the first step towards securing the parent for the Church. Hence the resolute determination of the clergy to get hold of the education of the people, an attempt in which they have been helped by those who, twenty-five years ago, persuaded Nonconformists to take up an untenable position that prevented their just scruples from receiving proper attention, and shut them out from a work in which they had previously been the leaders. Hence, too, the remarkable outburst of zeal and liberality in the extension of denominational schools since the passing of the late Act. Denominational schools are, for the most part, Anglican and Roman Catholic, and a large proportion of the grant to them will, as a matter of fact, go to build up the power of the Establishment and suppress Dissent in the rural districts. It is true the new national schools will be under a conscience clause, but they must be credulous indeed who believe that it will be of much avail in parishes where there is an active and influential clergyman, wielding, in conjunction with the squire, a supreme authority. A more potent instrument could scarcely have been put into the hands of the priesthood; and among the young recruits of the Anglican party, there are numbers who know how to wield it with the greatest effect. They do not trust to the influence of the teaching alone, but they find various ways of interesting the children: they form them into singing classes; they prepare them for their choirs; they accustom them to the observance of Saints' Days; they please them by giving them a place in processions, or employing them as acolytes. In short, they find them in the National schools, and they lose no opportunity of so training them that they shall naturally grow up to be loyal sons of the Church. We have neither the intention nor the desire to reproach them for the manner in which they thus carry on their work, or for the care which they specially devote to children. With their views of the Church, they are only showing a proper loyalty to conscience in the course which they adopt. What we object to is, that the nation should be called upon to support them in this hierarchical crusade by increasing the grants they now enjoy. We have asserted from the first that schools already in existence had a fair right to be left undisturbed in the enjoyment of advantages which the State had virtually engaged to secure them, and which they had won by their own efforts. What we complain of is, that facilities should be given for the multiplication of these denominational schools at the very time that the Government are establishing a great National system.

The National school, however, is not the only theatre on which the activity of the advanced Anglican priest is manifest. His coming into a parish is the signal for a series of changes, all directed to one end. First, the interior of the church is to be remodelled to adapt it to the style of service he means to introduce. Pews which, it must be confessed, are often unsightly enough, are displaced to make way for benches. If it be practicable, a part is railed off for a sanctuary; and the altar, with its tall candlesticks, and, where they can be obtained, with its embroidered and coloured cloths, assumes an entirely new aspect. Fast days and feast days, hitherto unknown, begin to be celebrated; intoning takes the place of the quiet and orderly reading of the service, and by degrees the people find their church and their worship bear a striking, and, to many, not pleasant resemblance to that of Romanism. In all this there is no consultation, either of diocesan or of parishioners. The clergyman assumes the position of a dictator, and resolves to carry out his own ideas, whatever be the result. Sometimes there is fierce discord and, not unfrequently, there are many secessions; but even where this is not so, the changes are, as we hear, in many cases anything but satisfactory to the squirearchy, who have hitherto been found among the most steady supporters of the Church. They valued it as furnishing a respectable and quiet type of religion, which did not make any excessive demands from them. Their old High Church clergyman neither disquieted himself nor disturbed them. He was a welcome guest at their boards, and the slight requisitions which he made, in the way of subscriptions to his charities, were not particularly burdensome, and were generally met with cheerfulness. The new-fangled notions, which make it a far more difficult thing to be zealous Churchmen, requiring not only money for schools and other objects, but some amount of personal effort and sacrifice, and often involving a man in unpleasant controversies with his neighbours, are far from being welcome, and already quiet murmurings may be heard in various quarters. We have given the party by whom this work is carried on, all the credit to which they can possibly lay claim. We are therefore the more at liberty to condemn that which is reprehensible; and one of their most prominent features is their utter contempt for the law to which they owe subjection. Not content with adopting the most pitiful evasions in order to introduce practices contrary to the whole spirit of the Church to which they belong, they have invented a convenient theory of their own as to the distinction between the law of the Church and the law of the State, refusing to obey the one when it comes into collision with the other. In the economy of the Episcopal Church, such a distinction cannot be maintained for an hour. In the eye of the law, the nation is the Church, with Parliament as its legislator, and the courts as its administrators. If any of the clergy feel that their consciences are aggrieved by this subjection to civil authority, they have the remedy in their own hands. Nonconformity has after a long and difficult struggle, succeeded in obtaining for itself a recognised legal status, and the liberty which it has thus secured is opened to them, if they are content to accept the conditions. They can have the freedom, if they are satisfied to pay the price at which it can be obtained. What they cannot do, is to enjoy the advantages which the law gives to the national Church, without, at the same time, submitting to its control. Their declamation about the rights of the Church, and the iniquity of any secular Parliament putting restraints on its free action, or any civil tribunal undertaking to adjudicate on matters of doctrine and discipline, sounds well enough, but coming from those who still claim to enjoy the prestige and emoluments of a national Church, it is simply idle bunkum which can impose on no one. Were they manfully to resolve rather to be free than to retain a position which they can only hold on condition of their disobeying what is to them a higher law, they would command sympathy from all who know how to honour loyalty to conscience. As it is, their attempts to represent themselves as victims of persecution because they are required to obey the law, expose them only to contempt and ridicule.

It is only fair to add that there is a considerable section of the party by whom the force of this reasoning is felt, and who are prepared to carry their objections to State interference to their ultimate issue.

'It would be' (says Mr. Orby Shipley, one of the ablest and most fearless exponents of Ritualistic views) 'the crowning labour; it would be the culminating honour, it would be the blessed consummation of the Catholic reformation to be the means in the Divine economy of terminating that wicked, immoral, and godless alliance which, under present circumstances, exists under the title of the Union of Church and State.'

How far it is consistent for any man to lend his personal support to an alliance which he pronounces 'wicked, immoral, and godless,' by continuing to accept the advantages which it secures to him, is a question which his own conscience must be left to determine; but it is at least satisfactory to find that Mr. Orby Shipley and his friends have begun to feel the inconsistency of their present position. Whether in the event of the Judicial Committee condemning their distinctive principles, as it has already condemned their symbolic practices, and deciding against Mr. Bennett as it has done against Mr. Purchas, they would secede from the Establishment, is not very clear. What is clear is, that they regard the present relation of the State to the Church as hindering the work of the 'Catholic' restoration, and therefore seek disestablishment as the first essential to the realization of their ideal. But this cannot be brought about at once, and in the meantime circumstances may force on a separation. Perhaps, however, it is more as a menace to the bishops than as an indication of any serious purpose that Mr. Shipley tells their lordships that the 'conspicuous want of success which has attended Episcopal hindrance to the Catholic revival has certainly postponed, but has not at all removed the prospect of impending schism.' We are left to infer, therefore, that if the attempts to repress Ritualism should be crowned with more success than has hitherto attended them, we must be prepared for schism, which, Mr. Shipley says, would be an untold evil to the Church; adding, and in this we agree with him, 'that the present state of abnormal antagonism, in any Christian sense, is less harmful, it is hard to believe.' If, however, this calamity should come, he gives the Episcopal Bench to understand that on them the responsibility will rest.

'If they precipitate a schism, either by actively hostile legislation, or by unconstitutional illegality, or by the continuance of vexatious antagonism, the sin of schism will rest upon their individual consciences. Neither those who see below the surface from without, nor those within, who can feel the pulse of the Catholic Party,[210] and know its deepest sentiments, need to be told that the scandal of Episcopal sanction and apology for the desecration of the Blessed Sacrament in Westminster Abbey, and the dishonour done to God's Holy Word, by entrusting the revision of the Authorized Version to heretics and schismatics, out of which this scandal arose, has done more to render such a schism possible than any other act of the English bishops during the last half century.'

These thunders will not disturb the serene complacency of the Episcopal Bench, nor are such petulant utterances to be regarded as indicating any serious idea of separation, but their insolent and lawness tone is eminently characteristic of the party. They have formed their ideal of the Church, and in defiance of all authority, whether civil or spiritual, they are determined to work it out. They know and confess that they are at variance with the bishops, whom they have promised 'reverently to obey,' 'following with a glad mind and will their godly admonitions, and submitting themselves to their godly judgments;' but they have a convenient theory as to the necessary limitations of the obedience they are bound to render, by which they satisfy themselves that they are right in their resistance to the authority which they have in the most solemn manner bound themselves to accept. The bishops 'are, it may be, good results, but still they are results of a bad, vicious, immoral system; of a system which is utterly un-Catholic;' they have pronounced against the Catholic revival from beginning to end, and having thus set themselves against all that 'priests of the Catholic school' are doing, they have condemned themselves, and forfeited all title to unlimited obedience, by condemning these developments. In other words, the want of harmony which they confess exists between the mind of the Episcopate and the mind of the Presbyterate is a sufficient reason why priests should refuse their allegiance. The conclusion is not that which suggests itself to ordinary minds, but these men are so thoroughly convinced that they have Catholic truth, and are doing a great Catholic work, that they seem to suppose themselves superior to the laws by which ordinary mortals are governed. They may seem to be arrogant and overbearing, they may indulge in railing and vituperation, they may condescend to a style of controversy, happily altogether cast aside by Christian gentlemen, but everything is done in the interests of the Catholic revival, and these are to be advanced at all costs. Mr. Shipley candidly avows that their aim is to 're-Catholicize the Church of England,' and he appears to think that because that object cannot be secured without disobeying the bishops, there is sufficient reason why they should be disobeyed. After enumerating the changes that require to be made in the election of bishops and the remodelling of Convocation, he says:--

'We have again to make confession the ordinary custom of the masses, and to teach them to use Eucharistic worship. We have to establish our claims to Catholic Ritual in its highest form. We have to restore the Religious Life, to say Mass daily, and to practise Reservation for the sick. Looking at these and other more or less pressing needs of our communion, I confidently ask, "Can these and suchlike wants, in the providence of God, be restored to His afflicted, and to this extent indigent, Church, if we admit the theory of limitless obedience, not, observe, to the Episcopate combined in a Sacred College, but to any or to all the individual members of the Bench of Bishops?"'

The simplicity of this is no doubt beautiful, but its weakness is manifest. 'Limitless obedience' no one expects them to render; but the justification of their refusal to obey at all, on the ground that disobedience is necessary to their design of revolutionizing the character of their Church, has certainly the merit of novelty. They seem to imagine that the first essential to success is audacity, and expect that they will prevail, in virtue of their blustering self-confidence and contemptuous treatment of all opponents. But the ultimate result of such a policy cannot be doubtful. A party which sets up a plea of liberty to excuse the violation of distinct obligations, whose Catholicity has in it not a single element of true charity, which seeks to subject others to authority while it disclaims all authority that comes into collision with its own ideas and designs, which brands every man, however eminent and good, who will not bow down to its idols as a heretic or an infidel, is not a party that is likely to exert any permanent influence. The age is tolerant, disposed to permit great latitude of opinion, perhaps too ready to sympathise with those who are resisting constituted authority, but it is not to be cajoled by the specious sophistries of men who, professedly contending for liberty, are seeking only to establish a new priestly despotism.

But if we have no fears of Anglican Catholics being able to shape the future of the Church of England according to their wishes, neither can we look hopefully on the condition and prospects of the Evangelical party. Thirty years ago it was the most popular and influential, if not the most numerous section of the Church. Its most sanguine friend would hardly pretend that it holds the same position to-day. We have already marked incidentally the disadvantage under which it lay in contending against a party full of the passionate zeal and energy of youth, and with ability equal to its earnestness, its members claiming to be par excellence, the assertors of Church principles and the champions of Church interests, skilful in adapting themselves to the wants of different classes of minds, fertile in expedients, and indefatigable in labours. Under any circumstances, it would have been no easy task to have maintained an equal struggle against such adversaries, hampered as the Evangelicals necessarily are by their position in the Church. Still they had many compensating advantages, and had they known how to avail themselves of the forces at their command, they might not only have held their ground, but have been to-day masters of the situation. In the great conflict which has been going on between authority and freedom, the reactionary forces are not the strongest, and had the Evangelicals been prepared fully to identify themselves with the cause of liberty, they need not have feared the result of the struggle. They had on their side the prestige of the noble work which they had done in rousing the Church from torpor and idleness, and in regaining for her much ground that she had lost, in quickening the spiritual life of the nation, in promoting social and philanthropic movements at a time when they were not viewed with so much favour as at present. As the representatives of Protestantism in the National Church, they were able to rally to their support a strong national sentiment, not always very intelligent or reasonable, but deep and passionate in its hatred of everything that has on it the taint of Romanism, and only too easily roused in opposition to any party which could fairly be suspected of Popish sympathies. Their position, too, seemed to mark them out as the connecting link between the Established Church and the Nonconformists. Their theological views, if not identical, were in close sympathy with those of Evangelical Dissenters: they were frequently brought into association in Christian work, and had often to fight side by side against the common foe; and though there never was a chance that the Nonconformists could be won back to the Church, kindly and intimate relations might have been established with them, which would have told greatly to the credit of the party by whom they had been promoted. Yet with all these circumstances in its favour, the Evangelical party has been declining. Its enemies point to it with triumph, and exaggerate the weakness over which they rejoice. Its friends reluctantly confess it, and find the explanation in the wickedness and degeneracy of the age.

The tone of a recent gathering of the leaders of the party at Islington shows that they are conscious of the fact, and alive to the necessity of making some strenuous effort, perhaps of effecting a considerable change in their policy, in order to recover the ground that has been lost. To outsiders, however, the real causes of their weakness may be more apparent than to themselves, and we shall therefore attempt to explain a state of things which we unfeignedly regret. The Episcopal Church, whether Established or not, must be one of the most powerful religious forces in the country, and we must desire to see its influence wielded by men whose theology is that of the Reformers, who recognise the rights of the individual conscience, whose creed is derived from the Bible and not from Church tradition, who preach salvation by faith in the living Christ, and have no confidence in priests and sacraments. It would therefore be cause of sorrow to us, as it will assuredly in the issue prove disastrous to the Church and injurious to the nation, if the Evangelical party should be overborne in the present struggle, its power crippled, or its character so modified as to impair its usefulness. We are fully alive to its defects. As Nonconformists, we have little for which to be thankful to it; but not the less should we deplore the loss of what has been the most spiritual element in the Church, and therefore we can only regard with sorrow the state of things of which we have to speak.

The decline of the Evangelical party is attributed by many, both friends and foes, to a growing distaste for evangelical doctrine. The age, we are often confidently told by those in whom the wish is father to the thought, has outgrown the old theology; it is too intelligent to rest in the dogmas which were once received without question; the leading spirits of the time are known to be unbelievers, and that fact itself is sufficient to make unbelief a fashion among a class who desire to be esteemed intellectual. Very sorrowfully we admit there is some ground for these statements, but they are only half-truths. The philosophic and scientific movements of the day, have undoubtedly affected theological opinion; the spirit of inquiry has become more searching in its investigation; the rebellion against the bondage of creed has, in some instances, led to an indifference to all forms of belief; and in general, doctrines that were thought to be established, are discussed with freedom, and rejected when they do not stand the more severe tests by which they are proved. Orthodoxy counts for less in the estimate of Christian character, and there is less disposition to condemn any man because of his inability to accept all its shibboleths. But all this does not indicate that the power of the Gospel is diminishing; and, indeed, there are many things that point in the opposite direction. Preaching quâ preaching may be less influential; but the preaching which is a power at all, never was a greater power than it is at present. Men chafe against the notion that it is their duty to hear a certain number of sermons, even though they be made up of platitudes rendered additionally wearisome by the style in which they are delivered; but where a preacher has a message from God, and knows how to deliver it he is quite sure of having a large audience. Nor is it at all likely to be diminished by the fact that his sermon is decidedly evangelical and even strongly dogmatic. We have popular Ritualist as well as popular Evangelical preachers; but the discourses of the former are in their leading features as decidedly evangelical as those of the latter. Indeed, at the conference at Islington, it was frankly admitted that whatever might be the actual condition of the party, the doctrines for which it contends were never so widely preached by the clergy as at present. Certainly, the Nonconformist Churches know no decline, nor is their prosperity to be traced to any abandonment or concealment of evangelical doctrines. Congregationalists, accustomed as they are to breathe the atmosphere of freedom, and unfettered by the restraints of any formal creed, have, perhaps, felt more of the influences of the age than any other body of Christians; but no one who is acquainted with them would assert that they have at all faltered in their loyalty to the Gospel. Perhaps one of the best proofs of this is to be found in the essays in 'Ecclesia.' Their writers speak with great frankness; they admit many defects in their system, and suggest various changes; they are anxious, as far as possible, to adapt themselves to the wants of the age; but withal, there is a consistent adherence to the essential principles of the old theology. Changes in the forms in which doctrines are expressed, differences in the modes of expounding and defending them there are, but change as to the root-ideas there is none. And Congregationalism upholding the great truths of the Trinity, the Godhead of our Lord, and the Atonement, and basing all on the authority of Scripture, not only maintains its ground despite the opposition it has to meet from the renewed activity of the Established Church, but is on the increase.

If, then, the Evangelicals are decreasing in numbers and influence, the cause must be sought in some errors in their policy, and not in the increased unpopularity of the principles they profess. We are confirmed in this view by the refusal of some of the best men of the day to identify themselves with the party, even though they hold the principles. It would be invidious to name living men; but there is one recently passed from among us, to the great loss not of his own particular Church only, but of all Christian Churches, who affords, perhaps, the most striking illustration of the remark. Others there are, of whom the late Canon Melville may be taken as a type, whose High-Church ideas are sufficient to prevent them from uniting with a party with whom in doctrinal sentiment they have much in common. But the Dean of Canterbury, we need not say, had no such hindrance. Mr. Ryle himself is not more free from any tinge of ecclesiasticism, as he certainly is not more heartily and thoroughly Evangelical, than was Dean Alford. Yet the latter stood aloof from the Evangelical party; and they, we fear, did not desire his union with them. His case was a typical one, and enables us to understand the enfeebled state in which the Evangelicals find themselves. They did not like the Dean's breadth of view; they regarded the opinions on the subject of inspiration, to which his Biblical studies had led him, as unsound and dangerous; they did not understand, what was one of his marked characteristics, a large-hearted sympathy with goodness even in the professors of a false creed. So, though he was educated in the school, and (as the Rev. E. T. Vaughan truly says) though he 'preached the Gospel which they preached with a force and simplicity which they might well have wished to emulate,' they looked coldly on him, and he could find no home in their midst.

Here, then, is one great secret of their loss of influence. Their ideas of Evangelical doctrine are narrow and rigid, and they are maintained with an intolerance which is at once repulsive and inconsistent. We complain that the 'Catholic' champions of authority should demand for themselves that individual liberty for which Protestantism contends, but it is still more intolerable that these Protestants of Protestants should set up a claim to infallibility, and brand all those who do not agree with them as traitors to the Gospel. By maintaining the verbal inspiration of Holy Scripture, insisting on a particular theory of the Atonement as alone Evangelical, committing themselves to a particular scheme of prophetic interpretation, and adhering to those old ideas of the religious life which make worldliness to consist in certain outward acts which are therefore forbidden to the spiritual man, rather than in the world-spirit which can make everything common and unclean, and which is the evil to be resisted, they have placed themselves in direct collision with the culture of the age--even that part of it which retains a hearty allegiance to the Gospel. But when with these extreme views is combined a spirit of intolerant conservatism, when new modes of thought, and even new forms of expression are regarded as dangerous novelties, when all wisdom is supposed to be summed up in the determination to walk in the old paths and to meddle not with those who are given to change, and when those who dare, even in relation to subjects that do not affect the essentials of the faith, to take independent ground are treated as enemies of the truth, it is not difficult to account for the weakness of the party. A creed that is not only unpopular, and in some points illogical, but which can be regarded as the creed only of a section, and that not the most intelligent section of Evangelical Christians, and which is yet set forth as the only true representation of the Gospel, must alienate many; but a spirit of exclusiveness, a Pharisaic pride of orthodoxy, a dislike of free inquiry, are sure to alienate still more.

It may be said, indeed, that the dogmas of the Anglican school are still more narrow and extreme, and its intolerance still more arrogant and exclusive; but this does not mend the case. The intolerance of the Anglicans is extreme enough, but then it is consistent. Their system is based upon the assumption of a special sanctity and authority belonging to their Church party. The name of 'Catholic' which they arrogate to themselves is itself an insult to all other Christians. For them, therefore, to abjure the spirit of exclusiveness would be to renounce their own principles. But the Evangelicals are in a very different position. They are the children not of the bond-woman, but of the free. They rest their doctrines not on an appeal to authority, but to reason. The Scripture is their one rule of faith, and they recognise the right of every man to interpret its teachings for himself. When, therefore, they attempt to put a bar on all progress, when they claim for the traditions of their school a position hardly less authoritative than that which their opponents demand for 'Catholic' tradition, when they discover a spirit of watchful jealousy in relation to all the intellectual movements of the day, and seem afraid of the light which science and philosophy have to shed upon the difficult problems of human life, they are untrue to themselves and their principles. Their watchword is, 'The Bible and the Bible only as the religion of Protestants,' but with them there is a reserved condition that the Bible must be interpreted as Puritans and Reformers interpreted it. They are afraid of the liberty to which they owe their existence, and are continually throwing themselves back on that Church authority which, if it is to be accepted at all, will pronounce in favour of their opponents.

It is this ignorance of their true strength which has betrayed the Evangelicals into errors of policy which have been fraught with serious injury. As Protestants, they ought to have been the most liberal party in the Church; the most desirous to secure the greatest liberty compatible with loyalty to truth; the most ready to welcome every advance in scholarship that might help to a more thorough understanding of the Word of God; the most candid in examining and pronouncing upon the conclusions which modern Biblical criticism has reached; the most anxious to establish cordial relations with Nonconformists outside the pale of the Church. Unhappily, the very opposite of this has been the case. They have left to others the duty of practically developing those Protestant principles of which they claim to be the representatives, and have again and again employed their influence in favour of the party of reaction. The spectacle which they have presented in the ecclesiastical controversies of the last few years has, indeed, been humiliating in the extreme. They have been the most timid in every panic,--the first to raise the cry of danger,--the most eager in the assault, whether upon Rationalists within or Dissenters outside the Church--the facile instruments of the High Church party, whose leaders have gladly accepted their aid, knowing well that any prestige or advantage that might be secured must remain with those who were the consistent champions of authority. At present they are the most zealous champions of the Establishment, and their organ the most Erastian in its tone of any of the journals of the day. Yet there is no party which owes so little to the Establishment, or would have so glorious a future before it if the union between the Church and the State were dissolved. Except during the brief interval when Lord Palmerston scattered mitres so lavishly in its ranks, it has had but a scant share of the higher honours of that Church which owes so much to the devoted labours of its members. Even of the more important parochial charges, but a small proportion is held by the Evangelicals, many of whose ablest men are the incumbents of churches dependent entirely upon voluntary contributions for their support. If the Evangelical leaders would make a careful estimate of the exact position of the two parties in the Church, and of the amount of the national revenues which go to the maintenance of that which they are continually telling us is deadly error as compared with that which is devoted to the support of their own principles, we think they would be inclined to doubt the wisdom of the position they take in relation to the Establishment. That they who ought to have the most confident faith in the spiritual forces of the Church, and whose own experience affords ample proof that that faith would not be misplaced, should cling the most tenaciously to the union with the State, with all its painful and compromising conditions, is surely a strange phenomenon. Yet this is not the worst of the case. Unfortunately, their zeal for the Establishment is not allied with charity, and their characteristic intolerance marks their treatment of those Nonconformists who feel themselves constrained to seek the dissolution of an alliance which they believe to be contrary to the mind of Christ and injurious to the interests of truth. Apparently unable to understand that this difference of opinion is perfectly consistent with the preservation of Christian unity and mutual respect, they have resented the assertion of Nonconformist principles as a personal injury, and have urged it as a sufficient reason for withdrawing from Christian intercourse with those who have been guilty of so flagrant an offence. They expected that Dissenters would purchase their friendship by unfaithfulness to their own principles, and have been disappointed and indignant when they have discovered their mistake. If Nonconformists will play the rôle of poor relations, content to receive a patronizing notice on the platforms of Bible and Missionary Societies, and for the sake of this to suppress their own convictions, they are willing to be on terms of kindly intercourse with them; but that they should presume on this, and venture to assert their religions equality, is more than they will tolerate. The inevitable result has been a division between two parties who have much in common, and whose union would have been a tower of strength to Evangelical Protestantism.

We should not care to have written thus fully on these points, but for the conviction that we are on the eve of important ecclesiastical changes, and that the character of the future will depend largely upon the position taken by the Evangelical party. The Broad Church dream of comprehension must remain a dream. It is beautiful, and it speaks much for the liberality of men trained amid the influences and associations of an Established Church, that they should have indulged in such a hope. But it cannot be realized. Nonconformists do not wish for a place in the National Church, and could not accept one without the renunciation of all for which they have been contending. And assuredly, the recent meetings at Sion College show that a large and powerful party in the Establishment have no desire for union with them. But if comprehension is impossible, disestablishment must come, and come speedily, and with it will come a new phase of the great struggle. 'I disbelieve,' said Mr. Orby Shipley, himself an able advocate of the separation between Church and State, 'in anything but a change in the contest of the Church militant, a change from a contest against the State without to a contest within, against Puritanism, against Latitudinarianism, against Infidelity, and against what may be termed "Lay-elementarianism in the Church."' The sacerdotal party believes that its position in this struggle will be improved by disestablishment; but if the Evangelicals are loyal to their Protestant principles, we predict that it will find itself mistaken. Disestablishment will remove the one obstacle to hearty co-operation between the two great sections of English Protestantism, and united, they will be fully able to withstand the fierce onslaught with which they are threatened. But if the Evangelicals are to play their part in this controversy, the sooner they choose their position, and resolve to hold it firmly, the better. Two great principles are daily coming more and more directly into conflict, and they must elect to abide by the one or by the other. They must abandon all tamperings with the delusive fancy of an apostolical succession, or of special virtue attaching to Episcopal ordination. They must cease the foolish coquetting in which a few of them seem disposed to indulge with High Church ideas and practices, they must show a broader spirit and cultivate closer relations with those of kindred opinions who do not belong to their party or even to their Church; in short, they must not shrink from the full development of their own principles, and they will soon regain the strength which has been lost by the timid and compromising policy of the past.

Meanwhile it is evident that the Establishment is on the eve of a great crisis. The condemnation of Mr. Purchas has goaded the High Church party, some almost to madness; and should it be followed by a decision against Mr. Bennett, it is not easy to predict the result. Indeed, be the deliverance of the Court what it may, 'there are breakers ahead.' If it be against the Vicar of Frome, it will be fatal to the hopes both of Anglican and Broad Churchmen. It will compel the former to secede, for we believe the body of them to be honest men who will not renounce principles which they hold to be the very essence of Catholic doctrine. It will teach the latter that their dream of comprehension is at an end. On the other hand, a decision in his favour will not conciliate the Ritualists, since it will still leave them subject to the restrictions imposed by the Mackonochie and Purchas judgments, while the Evangelicals in their turn will be placed in extreme perplexity. At present the Church Association is in the ascendant. We wish we could say that its deportment in the hour of victory was such as to assure us in relation to the future of the Evangelical party. We cannot wonder that it is jubilant, but wisdom would have suggested some moderation in the expression of its joy, especially considering that the decision yet to be given may prove that its exultation has been as premature as it certainly is undignified and impolitic. We read the report of the meeting at St. James's Hall to celebrate the victory with extreme pain and sorrow. The evident failure to realise the gravity of the crisis, the unseemly tone adopted towards defeated adversaries, the apparent unconsciousness of the scandal such a strife is bringing upon the Church and upon religion in general, and perhaps more than all, the disposition to rest so much on the power of the law, are all indicative of extreme weakness. Men who can talk in the style of the Dean of Carlisle clearly do not comprehend the spirit of the times or the true position of the party which they represent. They seem to think they can stamp out High Churchism at all events, in its more advanced forms. They do not appear to understand that, could they succeed, they would secure the downfall of that Establishment which they love 'not wisely and too well.' If they would think less of law, and remember that the true weapons of their warfare are not carnal, but spiritual, they would take a position more in harmony with their principles, and be more sure of ultimate success.

ART. IV.--Ingoldsby.

(1.) The Life and Letters of the Rev. Richard Harris Barham. By his Son. London: Bentley.

(2.) The Ingoldsby Legends. By THOMAS INGOLDSBY, Esq. London: Bentley.

(3.) The Bentley Ballads. Edited by JOHN SHEEHAN. London: Bentley.

'Ingoldsby,' like Odysseus, has become a name. The word, used as a nom de plume by a facile versifier, has come to indicate the kind of verse which he produced, and in which he has had hundreds of inferior imitators. Mr. Carlyle, who objects utterly to the whole herd of

'Corvos poëtas et poëtrias picas,'

as being the emptiest shams the world has ever seen, would probably regard the 'Ingoldsby Legends' as fathom-deep below contempt; but with the highest respect for the philosopher of Chelsea, we hold such things worth notice, and do not intend to allow his virtue to prevent our reference to 'cakes and ale.' Indeed, there are times when the laughing philosopher does considerable service in the removal of abuses and prejudices; and if our Democritus writes in rhyme, it does not appear that he is any the worse. The world, probably, would be none the less happy for more true mirth than we at present get. There are laughters hideous and contemptible--aye, and even pathetic. Ruin and cynicism, and scorn and spite, have their hyæna laugh; but it differs wholly from the pleasant laughter of the man to whom the world brings always joyous impulses. We English are, assuredly, a humorous race, more humorous, in all likelihood, than any other; this is shown, not only in Chaucer, Shakspeare, Butler, Sterne, Dickens, but in the incidents of our country and city life, in the quaint colloquy and light chaff of the market-place and the way-side. 'Merry England,' is an ancient phrase; and there is much merriment in our modern England that is not always observed by philosophers and politicians. We happen to have walked through most English counties, and to have enjoyed the marvellous differences of humour which exist through the breadth of the land. We have tracked Shakspeare through Central Warwick; have trodden the paths of Wordsworth and Coleridge and Wilson, in the realm of lakes; have talked with moormen on Dartmoor, and with shrimpers at Poulton-le-Sands. Everywhere we have encountered a joyous humour, inextinguishable by poverty and toil--a humour clearly designed to lighten men's hearts in their passage through a world of many troubles. Recognising this, we think that any form of humour is worth cultivation, and that a writer like Barham, who, to many grave thinkers, might seem a lover of ineffable nonsense, was not without his use in the world.

Three things may be affirmed in his favour. He caused good honest laughter, by telling stories in a ridiculous style, without writing a word to which the most absolute purist could object. He ridiculed foolish and superstitious legends, blowing them away as the winds of the vernal equinox blow the dead wood from the trees. And he proved that the position of a minister of religion, doing his duty in a manner thoroughly conscientious, was not inconsistent with a pleasant mirthfulness of temper. Of him we may say, as Rosaline of Biron--

'A merrier man, Within the limit of becoming mirth, I never spent an hour's talk withal.'

And, with all his merriment, Barham did not for a moment neglect his clerical duty; indeed, there are indications that he was a remarkably good specimen of the parson of the parish. If we found any fault with this biography, which is, for the most part, well executed, it is that Barham's life as a clergyman is too slightly indicated. His friend, Mr. Hughes, father of the member for Frome, wrote of him thus in the New Monthly:--

'It is not always an easy task to do as you would be done by; but to think as you would be thought of and thought for, and to feel as you would be felt for, is perhaps more difficult, as superior powers of tact and intellect are here required to second good intentions. These faculties, backed by an uncompromising love of truth and fair dealing, indefatigable good nature, and a nice sense of what was due to every one in the several relations of life, both gentle and simple, rendered our late friend invaluable, either as an adviser or peacemaker, in matters of difficult and delicate handling. How he managed to get through his more important duties is a marvel. Certain it is that they were well and punctually performed in every point relating to cathedral matters, as well as his engagements as a parochial incumbent and priest of the Household, which, I believe, was the nature of his office at the Chapel Royal.'

This testimony from one who knew him well, makes us regret that more of Barham's parochial life has not been revealed to us. Often there is a curious difference between the practical and the literary half of a man's career. A priori, one would not expect the 'Lay of St. Cuthbert' to be the work of a Canon of St. Paul's. More information as to Barham's clerical career would have been intensely interesting to the psychological student; but his filial biographer has refrained from entering on the subject to any extent. We are not certain as to his motive. Perhaps he thought it hopeless to persuade the world that a good parson could be a lover of fun. Well, another lover of fun was one Sydney Smith, well known to all of us, also a Canon of St. Paul's. Smith was a resolute Whig, Barham a high Tory, yet were they excellent good friends. Here is proof. Barham sent Smith some game: here is the other Canon's epigrammatic ironic reply:--

'Many thanks, my dear sir, for your kind present of game. If there is a pure and elevated pleasure in this world, it is the roast pheasant and bread sauce--barn-door fowls for Dissenters, but for the real Churchman, the thirty-nine times articled clerk--the pheasant, the pheasant!

'Ever yours, 'SYDNEY SMITH.'

The pheasant for rectors, the fowl for Dissenters--a characteristic bit of chaff from Peter Plymley to Tom Ingoldsby. In these days, after wonderful rapidity of movement, when the questions which troubled the last generation have been merged in others far deeper and wider, it is pleasant to think of Whig and Tory in the same cathedral precinct--Tory sending Whig some game, and Whig replying with a gibe at all dwellers without the orthodox limits. Few years have passed, yet the atmosphere is marvellously clearer; there is not precisely the same relation between Conformist and Nonconformist. The pheasant and the barn-door fowl are rather more equally distributed, perhaps.

Mr. Barham's son and biographer thus states his determination not to record his father's clerical life. 'With the details of his experience as a clergyman, rarely suitable for publication as such particulars are, I do not propose to deal. Of course, an outline will be given of his professional progress; but the reader must, once for all, be requested to bear in mind that it is intended, in the following pages, simply to throw together some slight records of his leisure hours and recreative pursuits.' This design has been very well executed; but we certainly think that more might be done. However, we must perforce accept the editor's view of the matter, and learn what we can of his father by sidelong glimpses of him. Taken solely as a man of letters, Barham is well worth study. Taken as husband and father, he is delightful. His correspondence with his children is equal to Tom Hood's letters to infant friends, though in quite a different style. His nonsense, prose or verse, was always pleasant nonsense. Thus he writes to his daughter Fanny:

'What do you think of Mr. Sydney Smith having offered me his residentiary house to live in, together with a garden at the back--magnificent for London--containing three polyanthus roots, a real tree, a brown box border, a snuff-coloured jessamine, a shrub which is either a dwarf acacia or an overgrown gooseberry bush, eight broken bottles, and a tortoiseshell tom-cat asleep in the sunniest corner; the whole, as George Robins would say, capable of the greatest improvement; with a varied and extensive prospect of the back of the Oxford Arms, and a fine hanging wood (the new drop at Newgate) in the distance, all being situate in the midst of a delightful neighbourhood, and well worth the attention of any capitalist wishing to make an investment....

There is work enough cut out for you, I promise you, when you get back: eighteen jars of onions to pickle, as many double-damson cheeses to press, some dozen niggers to boil into black currant jelly, and jams and marmalades to make without end; for, unfortunately for you and all other females connected with the family, the new house is provided with that domestic curse, a roomy store-closet. So, my dear old Fan, make hay or dirt pies, which is the same thing, while you can, in comfort.'

Pater peramans, evidently. Here again is a pleasant piece of chaff addressed to the same young lady, on 'having nothing to say' in a letter:--

'As your correspondence increases, my dear girl, you will find that this having nothing to say, and being obliged to say it, will be one of the great and incipient stumbling blocks of your literary life. Nothing, in fact, is so difficult to express--that is, with any degree of propriety--as nothing; and when once you have attained a proficiency in this, your education may be considered to be to a certain extent completed. Till then many people may think, and may assure you, that you know nothing, but do not believe them. You may know, and I dare say do, very little; but to be thoroughly acquainted with nothing requires not only a great deficiency of talent far below the common run of intellect, but also a want of application which, though it is possible you may possess it in a very considerable degree, I have never yet seen in you to the extent absolutely requisite.'

So easy and regular was the course of Barham's life, that there is really nothing to say about it. As landowner, Canon of St. Paul's, parson of a City church, he moved pleasantly in society, and had only to encounter life's inevitable troubles. We remember him in our hot youth, at the long-extinct Chapter Coffee-house in St. Paul's churchyard, whose landlord bore the appropriate name of Faithful, improvising marvellous verses over a glass of antique port. Perhaps his life was almost too facile; perhaps men of serious temperament would regard such productions as the 'Ingoldsby Legends' as things intolerable: but Barham had his mission, depend on it, and if you go to a 'Penny Reading' in the country any winter evening, the chances are that you will get selections from 'Pickwick' or from 'Ingoldsby,' whatever else may greet your ear. Everybody knows Sam Weller and Tiger Tim--both typical man-servants:--

'Tiger Tim was clean of limb, His boots were polished, his jacket was trim; With a very smart tie in his smart cravat, And a smart cockade on the top of his hat; Tallest of boys, or shortest of men, He stood in his stockings just four foot ten; And he asked, as he held the door on the swing, "Pray, did your lordship please to ring?"'

Everybody also recollects that rascally 'Jackdaw of Rheims'--related, doubtless, to the graculus superbus of Phaedrus--who stole the Cardinal's ring just as his Latin predecessor stole the peacock's feathers. There is no reductio ad absurdum extant equal to this whimsical legend. Excommunication, which was slightly damaged in value by the curse of Ernulphus, came to a ridiculous end when the Cardinal Lord Archbishop of Rheims tonitrated his worst maledictions at a thievish jackdaw. 'Maledictus sit vivendo, moriendo, manducando, bibendo, esuriendo, sitiendo, jejunando, dormitando, dormiendo, vigilando, ambulando, stando, sedendo, jacendo, operando, quiescendo,' &c., &c.

'The Cardinal rose with a dignified look, He called for his candle, his bell, and his book. In holy anger and pious grief, He solemnly cursed the rascally thief. He cursed him at board, he cursed him in bed, Prom the sole of his foot to the crown of his head; He cursed him in sleeping, that every night He should dream of the devil, and wake in fright; He cursed him in eating, he cursed him in drinking. He cursed him in coughing, in sneezing, in winking, He cursed him in sitting, in standing, in lying; He cursed him in walking, in riding, in flying, He cursed him in living, he cursed him in dying: Never was heard such a terrible curse. But what gave rise To no little surprise-- Nobody seemed one penny the worse.'

When after awhile the mystery was out--when the poor little comminated jackdaw presented himself in a sad state, so that of the cathedral officers, sacristans, and vergers, and the like, it is recorded,

'That heedless of grammar, they all cried, "That's him!"'

the absurdity reached its climax. For our own part, though these humours are not of the highest or deepest order, we laugh at them. Life has its follies; Shakspeare had his clowns. In the old forgotten coaching days, there was wonderful humour at the wayside inns. Sam Weller was possible then: a railway porter has no time to be humorous. Of the Ingoldsby humour, as practised by Barham himself, there is this to be said: it was always harmless, and it was directed against absurdity and nonsense. Ingoldsby has had disciples, who have not disgraced their master, yet who have never quite equalled him in certain peculiar points. There is Hood's admirable story of 'Miss Killmannsegg,' wherein, if we remember aright, he depicts certain folks as--

'Washing, their hands with invisible soap In imperceptible water.'

There is Praed's 'Red Fisherman:'--

'All alone, by the side of the pool, A tall man sat on a three-legged stool, Kicking his heels on the dewy sod, And putting in order his reel and rod. Red were the rags his shoulders wore, And a high red cap on his head he bore; His arms and his legs were long and bare, And two or three locks of long red hair Were tossing about his scraggy neck, Like a tattered flag o'er a splitting wreck. It might be time, or it might be trouble, Had bent that stout back nearly double; Sunk in their deep and hollow sockets That blazing couple of Congreve rockets, And shrunk and shrivelled that tawny skin, Till it hardly covered the bones within. The line the Abbot saw him throw Had been fashioned and formed long ages ago, And the hands that worked his foreign vest Long ages ago had gone to rest: You would have sworn, as you looked on them, He had fished in the flood--with Ham and Shem.'

Then, again, there is Browning's 'Pied Piper of Hamelin,' a rare old story rarely versified:--

'Rats! They fought the dogs, and killed the cats, And bit the babies in the cradles, And eat the cheeses out of the vats, And licked the soup from the cook's own ladles, Split open the kegs of salted sprats, Made nests inside men's Sunday hats, And even spoiled the women's chats, By drowning their speaking With shrieking and squeaking In fifty different sharps and flats.'

There is vast difference between the three writers; the courtly epigram of Praed, and the scholarly variety of Browning, differ widely from the style of the master whom they imitate. But it is a high testimony to the literary value of what we may call the Ingoldsby method, that men so original and so desperate have tried their hands at it. A glance at the 'Bentley Ballads' shows that the same thing has been done by a great number of very different men; Sheehan and Creasy, Maginn and Mahony, Sam Lover the versatile, whom we remember delighting us with improvisations at Barnes-terrace just above the Thames, Tom Ingoldsby's son who follows his father with filial felicity, have done excellently well in this style of spirit and humour.

Indeed, to succeed in it to a certain degree, demands only abundance of animal spirits and a capacity for rhythm and rhyme. But it is clear that Barham had more than this. What, indeed, makes him perfect and absolute master of his craft, is his power of invariably catching the whimsical aspects, the humorous sides, of an event. Hood was too fond of a pun, Praed was too fine a gentleman, Browning is too subtle and curious, to attain the precise humour of Ingoldsby. Wherever we open the 'Legends' we find the frolicsome fancy of their author fresh and facile. Take the description of Winifred and David Pryce, in 'Look at the Clock!' It is a picture easily realized in the Principality:--

'Winifred Pryce was tidy and clean, Her gown was a flowered one, her petticoat green, Her buckles were bright as her milking cans, And her hat was a beaver, and made like a man's; Her little red eyes were deep set in their socket-holes, Her gown-tail was turned up, and tucked through the pocket holes: A face like a ferret Betokened her spirit: To conclude, Mrs. Pryce was not over young, Had very short legs, and a very long tongue.

Now David Pryce Had one darling vice; Remarkably partial to anything nice, Nought that was good to him came amiss, Whether to eat, or to drink, or to kiss! Especially ale-- If it was not too stale I really believe he'd have emptied a pail; Not that in Wales They talk of their ales; To pronounce the word they make use of might trouble you, Being spelt with a C, two R's and a W.'

Now in this there is absolutely nothing that will bear analysis; it is the laughing spirit of the man that carries you on, amusing you in spite of yourself, in spite of your decided feeling that really there is nothing to laugh at. But, somehow, what with the ready jingle of the rhyme, and the perfect good humour of the ridicule, amused you are.

Barham's loudest fun was generated when he had to deal with obsolete and obsolescent superstitions. He loved to laugh at the vulgar idea of the Devil--the fiend with horns, tail, and hoofs, whom Cuvier ruthlessly dismissed as 'a graminivorous animal.' Thus, in the 'Lay of Saint Cuthbert,' we find him describing a group of demons at dinner:--

'Few ate more hearty Than Madame Astarte, And Hecate, considered the belles of the party.

Between them was seated Leviathan, eager To do the polite, and take wine with Belphegor: Here was Morbleu (a French devil) supping soup-meagre, And there, munching leeks, Davy Jones of Tredegar--

* * * * *

Here's Lucifer lying blind drunk with Scotch ale, While Beelzebub's tying huge knots in his tail'--

and so on ad libitum. Again, in the 'Lay of Saint Abelard,' he gives us 'Old Nick' defeated by a saintly personage. It was--

'In good King Dagobert's palmy days, When saints were many and sins were few, Old Nick, 'tis said, Was sore bested One evening--and could not tell what to do.

He had been east and he had been west, And far had he journeyed o'er land and sea; For women and men Were warier then, And he could not catch one where he'd now catch three.

He had been north and he had been south, From Zembla's shores unto fair Peru, Ere he filled the sack Which he bore on his back-- Saints were so many and sins so few.

The way was long, and the day was hot; His wings were weary; his hoofs were sore; And scarce could he trail His nerveless tail As it furrowed the sand on the Red Seashore.

The day had been hot, and the way was long; Hoof-sore, and weary, and faint, was he; He lowered his sack, And the heat of his back. As he leaned on a palm-tree, blasted the tree.'

Demons and saints were the favourite themes of Tom Ingoldsby's laughter; he jeered alike the Romish miracle-monger and the anthropomorphic fiend. A volume might be written on the way in which the popular and vulgar idea of the devil has gradually arisen. It is clear from 'Paradise Lost,' that Milton favored the mediæval notion that the Pagan divinities were really fiends; and it can scarcely be doubted that the hirsute Pan gave the first sitting for that portrait of the devil which Coleridge completed, when he wrote

'His coat was red, and his breeches were blue, With a hole behind for his tail to come through.'

At such matters we can smile contemptuously; but in earlier centuries, when the Pagan superstition had still some vitality left in it, it was a serious matter to the Christian convert. Pan might meet him at the corner of a lonely woodland, and strike him with a panic dread. Worse than all he might be allured by the terrible enticements of Venus. To this day, Friday has a tradition of ill-luck, because it is dies veneris--vendredi. That the goddess of evil pleasure still came among men as a female fiend was a firm belief of the Middle Ages. Hence have we the legend of the Venusberg, chosen as a theme by more than one living poet, the version we prefer being unquestionably Lord Houghton's; hence also that of the betrothal ring inadvertently placed by a bridegroom on the finger of a statue of Venus, which finger, on his return, he finds bent, and the ring irremovable. This latter story is told with prosaic prolixity in the final volume of Mr. Morris's 'Earthly Paradise.' It must be remembered that the change from Paganism to Christianity was often effected in curious ways; that the worship of Apollo, the sun-god, was, by a play upon words, diverted to Elias the prophet; that temples of Venus were, as a rule, dedicated to the Virgin. Probably that worship of the Virgin Mary to which Romanists cling so fondly originated in a weak desire to satisfy proselytes by giving them one goddess in exchange for another. Any way, the belief in Venus endured so long that, in 1614, in the good city of Frankfort, a learned lawyer named Kornman, published a work called 'Mons Veneris,' which dealt with the legends about her as if they were based on fact. Of such legends let us name one only; an English story, told by William of Newbury. In the reign of Henry I., a peasant passed at midnight, near a hill, not far from the town of Burlington. To his amazement, he heard sounds of revelry therefrom, and saw a door open in the hillside, and, entering, beheld a vast chamber, where men and women held high festival. A cup was handed him, full of some liquid, which doubtless would have the effect of Circe's magic wine: with singular presence of mind, our peasant threw away the wine, and ran off with the cup. All the rabble rout of Venus pursued him, but the swift-footed ploughman brought his prize safely to Burlington. Somebody (probably the mayor, who should have been knighted for it) sent the cup to the King, and the King made it a present to the Queen of King David of Scotland; but King William of Scotland returned it to Henry II. of England. Whether it is still among the royal plate is a point to be determined by 'Notes and Queries.'

The growth of letters and of science changes all this; just as Venus vanished a few centuries ago, Old Bogy also--the foe of our infancy--has vanished from modern nurseries, nor do very many children of elder growth believe in an archdemon of the graminivorous type. Hence the fun of 'Ingoldsby' that ridiculed superstition of this sort is likely to lose its interest in time. We fear, however, that his laughing caricature of Romish absurdities--as in 'The Jackdaw of Rheims'--will scarcely lose its point at present. The Pope may be reduced to 'the Vatican, and a garden,' but the Papal superstition still clings closely to multitudes of men, especially of the Celtic race. That race, as M. John Lemoinne has just said of his French kindred, is feminine, and seems unable to accept a manly religion.

The 'Ingoldsby Legends' are peculiarly adapted to the palate of youth. They make fun out of trifles and vulgarities. One can hardly understand a man of high culture caring much about them after forty. Then the humour of Shakspeare's clowns, of Cervantes, and Sterne, and Elia, becomes more enjoyable than the 'Ingoldsby Legends' or the 'Pickwick Papers.' Then you prefer Autolycus to Sam Weller. The strong point of Ingoldsby is his gay high-spirited boyishness; but this quality is only attractive under certain conditions. It may, perhaps, be roughly stated that a man will care to read Ingoldsby so long as he cares to play cricket. It is, in fact, the eager buoyancy and rather perspiring fun of the cricket-field which one finds in the rollicking strophes of the 'Legends.' When their writer knocks over a saint or a demon as if he were a wicket, you almost expect to hear the shout of, 'How's that, umpire?' Indeed, the book is a loud book, scarcely to be tolerated, one might think, in a quiet library. Yet was its author a quiet haunter of libraries, and we find in one of his letters how he received in one a royal visitor:--

'What think you of a visit from, and confabulation with, the Queen of the Belgians. On Saturday, I was in the library at St. Paul's, my custom always in an afternoon, with a book-binder's 'prentice and a printer's devil, looking out fifty dilapidated folios for rebinding. I had on a coat which, from a foolish prejudice in the multitude against patched elbows, I wear nowhere else, my hands and face encrusted with the dust of years, and wanting only the shovel--I had the brush--to sit for the portrait of a respectable master chimney sweeper, when the door opened, and in walked the Cap of Maintenance, bearing the sword of, and followed by, the Lord Mayor in full fig, with the prettiest and liveliest little Frenchwoman leaning on his arm. Nobody could get at the lions but myself. I was fairly in for it, and was thus presented in the most recherché, if not the most expensive, court-dress that I will venture to say the eyes of royalty were ever greeted withal. Heureusement pour moi, she spoke excellent English, however, and rattled on with a succession of questions which I answered as best I might. They were sensible, however, showed some acquaintance with literature, and a very good knowledge of dates.'

Her lively Majesty might have been felicitated on finding Tom Ingoldsby as a guide to the library of the great cathedral. But to return to the 'Legends.' Besides their extreme boyishness, their redundancy of pulsation, there is a deficiency in them which must prevent their becoming classic. They are devoid of poetry. Master of the grotesque as he was, Barham had no mastery of the picturesque. Keen to see and seize the humorous aspects of affairs, he had none of that deeper humour which creates character. A real poet who had written some fifty or more eccentric legends, could not have helped inventing or describing certain individual characters in the course of his work. He must have done it unconsciously, must have done it if even he had tried to avoid it. There are two tests on the very surface of the true poet. If he describes a scene, you see it; if he describes a man, you know him. Barham's grotesque descriptions are often remarkable; indeed, his legends somewhat remind us of the hideous gurgoyles of old churches, wherein tradition sayeth the old ecclesiastic architects depicted their enemies, making of them waterspouts, that during rain they might seem to vomit. The men who carved those gurgoyles could not have sculptured an Apollo; and of Barham it may be said that, though he wrote laughable stories with supreme felicity, he never produced a line of poetry. He appears, indeed, to have regarded only the surface of life. There is nothing in his published works to show that he had an original idea, or that he cared about ideas. Of course, having given us the 'Ingoldsby Legends'--a piece of work absolutely unique, and quite unlikely to meet with a readable rival--he will be forgiven if he had a contempt for ideas; but one feels some desire to know whether such fertility of fun was not the upper stratum of something stronger and finer. Tom Hood's fun, for example, grows out of his profound melancholy, as under Etna's laughing vines the volcanic fire is sleeping. Shakspeare's fun grows out of his masterful knowledge of the world, of men, of women. In a play of his you seem in some city of chivalry and romance, where the great knight passes to deeds of high emprise, and the lovely lady smiles on him from her balcony, and the troubadour sings of 'the Lord of Oc and No;' and all the while you hear the chaffer of the market-place, the chatter of street gossips, the insignificant laughter of loitering louts. Fun that has no root in something deeper seems morbid and hysterical; and we cannot help believing that there was more in Barham than his writings reveal, than his most intimate friends knew, than perhaps he knew or even guessed himself.

Dr. Maginn, a man like yet unlike Tom Ingoldsby, wrote these four lines--part of a poem which we have no means of obtaining:--

'For those who read aright are well aware That Falstaff, revelling his rough mates between, Oft in his heart felt less the load of care, Than Jaques, sighing in the forest green.'

Maginn had, if we may judge from appearances, higher poetic instincts than Barham; his 'Homeric Ballads' are a very remarkable contribution to the literature of Homeric translation; but he unwisely expended himself upon periodical writing, and has left nothing behind him worthy of his powers. It is, we think, a subject for congratulation, that the cheap magazines of the day are so anxious to please the populace, that a first-rate writer has absolutely no chance with them, and is obliged to do work worthier of him. The shilling magazine has to suit the taste of the railway reader, who wants to be amused during the hour in which Great Western or Great Northern accepts him as a parcel to be delivered at a friend's house by dinner-time. How this is done we need not say, as anybody who likes to expend a shilling can judge for himself; but it is so done as to render it absurd for men of the calibre of Barham and Maginn to write for the majority of these magazines. This we take to be an advantage. Such men are obliged to work harder--and better.

Another instance of a man with something nobler in him and better than he ever gave the world, or even his friends, is Theodore Hook. Until his private diary came into the hands of those who knew him best, they had no knowledge of the depths of passionate remorse for a wasted life which lay beneath the too brilliant surface of his character. 'In every page,' wrote Lockhart,

'We trace the disastrous influence of both the grand original errors perpetually crossing and blackening the picture of superficial gaiety--indications, not to be mistaken, of a conscience ill at ease; of painful recollections and dark anticipations rising irrepressibly, not to be commanded down; of good, gentle, generous feelings, converted by stings and dartings of remorse into agonies of torture. If we were to choose a motto for this long line of volumes, it would be a maxim so familiar to himself, that it is repeated over and over in his tales of fiction--hardly omitted in any one of them--"Wrong never comes right."'

Theodore Hook laboured under the double disadvantage of an irremovable load of debt, and of an illicit connection which effectually prevented his marrying a woman who might have directed his marvellous powers into their true channel. The consequence was that he lived a false factitious life; worked terribly hard to produce income necessary for him to meet wealthy peers on apparently equal terms; was always pestered by money-lenders; yet all the while his daring spirit maintained an external gaiety unquenchable. At the very time when his spirit seemed highest, when his wit was memorably brilliant, when at club or country house he was amazing every one by his victorious vivacity, there occur in his diary entries that show a broken spirit, a wounded heart, an infinite regret for the past and despair of the future. Such was the inner condition of a man whose conversation had such unique sparkle, that men dined at the Athenæum for the chance of being allowed to draw their chairs to his little table in a favourite corner (Temperance Corner) after dinner--so that the diners at that club fell off more than 300 a year after his disappearance from his wonted seat.

It is unfortunate that the early career of men of letters is often turned awry by the well-meant interference of their relations. A boy of genius, who happens to appear in the midst of a steady, stolid, respectable family, is usually regarded as a 'black sheep.' They try to make him work in some regular groove, and, of course, he fails. If they are very determined, he quarrels with them, and then, too often, he runs headlong into debt, or love, or both, and burdens himself in such a way that he has to toil for freedom through the best years of his life, and possibly never emancipates himself. Of course, it is always hard to say whether the young gentleman is right who fancies himself a genius. Dr. Holmes, in his latest novel, has a capital sketch of a young poetaster who 'eventuates' behind the counter of a store. Such youths require Darwinian compression; but there are just a few of higher mould, with the irrepressible vocation for pen and ink which nothing can cure, who would do better if some way could be devised to give them a chance in literature. Perhaps when the school boards have leisure to consider the subject, they will try to discover a way of developing those latent powers, mathematical as well as poetical, which often exist in regions wholly unexpected. Inspectors of schools might be directed, after they have registered the triumphs of the clever boys, to investigate the habits of the stupid ones. A great poet or mathematician is almost certain to seem stupid in his boyhood.

It may appear that we have tried the 'Ingoldsby Legends' by too high a test; and, indeed, it is a very unpretentious production. Its originator was wholly modest, and did not dream of placing himself in the foremost seats of the literary amphitheatre. He knew the true value of his invention. It is designed for those who would rather laugh than think. It may amuse children at any rate, and there are certain fortunate folk who, to the end of their lives, can be children now and then--can listen to merry rhyming, can believe for the moment that in Fairyland there are mock turtles and March hares, that the dogs there have no ears because the dog's ears have been used up on the little boys' Latin grammars, and the sheep no eyes because the little girls have used up all their sheep's eyes in looking at their sweethearts; can imagine that in Ghostland one may dine comfortably with one's doppelganger. There are times--'weird winter nights,' as Shelley calls them, warmed with merriment, and joyous summer days in which the nightingale seems ebrious with ozone--when there is a necessity for nonsense of one sort or another. It is this necessity which Ingoldsby and his followers supply. Possibly some good is effected by the fact that the occupants of lofty positions have deigned to play with these toys; that the occupants of deaneries and canonries (ecclesiastic port-wineries, if we may venture to coin a phrase) have found in such matters Attic salt for their filberts.

Apropos of Ghostland, just named, Barham was a great lover of spectral stories, and the reader who cares about such will find in his memoir some of the best we have ever seen. As to anecdotes, the book is brimming over with them. Of course, one meets with one or two that have been met before; but an old story, like an old friend or an old coat, is sometimes more enjoyable than a new one. Barham was at Paul's School with some men as well known as himself, among them being Sir Frederick Pollock, Nestor of lawyers, and Richard Bentley, Nestor of publishers. Another of his comrades was Charles Diggle, afterwards Governor of Sandhurst College. Of him and Barham we find a good story:--

'The two boys having in the course of one of their walks discovered a Quaker's meeting-house, forthwith procured a penny tart of a neighbouring pastry-cook; furnished with this, Diggle marched boldly into the building, and holding up the delicacy in the midst of the grave assembly said, with perfect solemnity,

'"Whoever speaks first shall have this pie."

'"Friend, go thy way," commenced a drab-coloured gentleman, rising; "go thy way, and----"

'"The pie's yours, sir!" exclaimed Master Diggle, politely; and placing it before the astounded speaker, hastily made his escape.'

It was very improper, certainly; and we cannot help hoping that the Head Master of Dean Colet's famous school heard of the impertinence, and administered to the 'nether-urchin' of the future military pedagogue the sharp flogging which he undoubtedly deserved. But one cannot help laughing at these schoolboy absurdities; and the naughtiest boys, if looked after by a schoolmaster like Tom Hood's,

'Who never spoilt the child and spared the rod, But spoilt the rod and never spared the child,'

often turn out the ablest men. There is incipient power in these wayward vivacities of youth.

Musical amateurs of the present day of the strenuous class that elicited Charles Lamb's verses beginning--

'Some cry up Haydn, some Mozart, Just as the whim bites; for my part I do not care a farthing candle For either of them, or for Handel'

will doubtless deem Lord North an utter barbarian. George III. scolded him for never going to the concerts of ancient music. 'Your brother, the Bishop,' said the King, 'never misses them, my Lord.' 'Sir,' answered the Premier, 'if I were as deaf as my brother, the Bishop, I would never miss them either!'

Of Lord Thurlow we believe it was that Theodore Hook declared that nobody could be as wise as Thurlow looked. Whether he had much wisdom is a moot point; but strength of will he possessed in an enviable degree, as the following anecdote shows:--

'Lord Thurlow had applied to George the Third on behalf of his brother for the Bishopric of Durham, and having somewhat unexpectedly met with a refusal, he bowed, and was about to retire without pressing his suit, when the monarch, wishing to soften his decision as far as possible, added, "Anything else I shall be happy to bestow upon your relative, but this, unfortunately, is a dignity never held but by a man of high rank and family."

'"Then, Sire," returned Lord Thurlow, drawing himself up, "I must persist in my request--I ask it for the brother of the Lord High Chancellor of England!"

The Chancellor was firm, and the King was compelled to yield.'

This we take to have been highly creditable to Thurlow: it was a courageous assertion that the aristocracy of genius is at least equal to the aristocracy of birth. Here is an amusing story of clerical ignorance from Barham's diary:--

'December 3.--Dined for the first time with Dr. Sumner, Bishop of Llandaff, who told me, as a fact, that Dr. R----, a fellow of Eton, had some time since ordered one of his ponds to be cleared out. A great number of carp, tench, eels, &c., were taken in the course of the operation. The doctor was at dinner with some friends, who had been viewing the work, when a servant came in, to inform him that in draining off the water the men had found a chalybeate. "Have they indeed?" cried he, with much interest; "I am very glad to hear it. Tell them to put it along with the other fish for the present."'

In those days Eton was not famous for its erudition, and a fellow of that famous corporation was likely to be a better judge of the 'other fish' than of the chalybeate. Dr. R---- would probably have known exactly the right way to dress a red mullet from the Avon or a Coniston char.

Here is a good story of Dr. Thomas Hume, an intimate friend of Barham's:--

'They had walked together to the office of one of the morning newspapers, and there the doctor silently placed upon the counter an announcement of the death of some friend, together with five shillings, the usual charge for the insertion of such advertisements. The clerk glanced at the paper, tossed it on one side, and said gruffly, "Seven and six!"

'"I have frequently," replied Hume, "had occasion to publish these simple notices, and I have never before been charged more than five shillings."

'"Simple!" repeated the clerk, without looking up; "He's universally beloved, and deeply regretted! Seven and six."

'Hume produced the additional half crown, and laid it deliberately by the others, observing, as he did so, with the same solemnity of tone he had used throughout, "Congratulate yourself, sir, that this is an expense which your executors will never be put to."'

We hope that unlucky clerk could understand the rebuke that he received; but to us it appears that sarcasm is generally thrown away on such people. They are pachyderms.

The book contains some capital stories of poor Theodore Hook, that marvellously wasted intellect. His great power lay in impromptu, of prose or verse, spoken or written. No man has ever equalled him at a paragraph or a squib, except as to the latter, Garrick and Coleridge. Nobody was ever so exquisite a conversational wit. And certainly no one has ever possessed his power of improvisation in English. He threw off stanza and strophe as fast as a knifegrinder's wheel throws sparks. He scintillated always. Coleridge, after an evening in his company, declared he was as great a genius as Dante. His felicity was invariable. When he was improvising at the piano, after luncheon, at his Fulham villa, enter the ancilla, to say Mr. Winter, the tax collector, has called. Ejaculates Hook:--

'Here comes Mr. Winter, collector of taxes; I advise you to give him whatever he axes! He isn't the man to stand nonsense or flummery. For though his name's Winter, his actions are summary.'

But how could Hook stand the tremendous dissipation to which he foolishly condescended? Here is a specimen of his way of living:--

'After a dinner given by Mr. Stephen Price, of Drury-lane Theatre, all the guests, with the exception of Cannon and Theodore Hook, having long since retired, the host, who was suffering from an incipient attack of gout, was compelled to allude pretty plainly to the lateness of the hour. No notice, however, was taken of the hint; and, unable to endure any longer the pain of sitting up, Mr. Price made some excuse, and slipped quietly off to bed. On the following morning he inquired of his servant--"Pray at what time did those gentlemen go last night?" "Go, sir!" replied John; "they are not gone, sir; they have just rung for coffee!"'

To revert from anecdotes of this class to the special theme of our article. Poetry is one thing, and verse-writing is another, and there may be very good verse-writers who would not condescend to be poetasters. In the present day there are a multitude of foolish persons who have discovered that breeze rhymes with trees, and that there are as many syllables as they have fingers in a line of blank verse. So they flood the shilling magazines with their silliness, and some of them raise money enough to pay for the publication of a volume of their trash. Within a few days from this time of writing we have had occasion to look through about a score volumes of this class, and only one contained anything that could be called poetry--and that one came from San Francisco. Now, why cannot people with a faculty for verse write it sensibly, without trying to be poets? Why can they not give us something manly, something humorous? Lockhart and Maginn wrote fine verse, but would have smiled at the notion of being called poets. Barham never wrote a line of poetry, in the severe sense--but what immense amusement has the world received from the rhymed stories of Ingoldsby!

ART. V.--The Downfall of Bonapartism.

(1.) Documents Authentiques Annotés. Les Papiers Secrets du Second Empire. 4e édition. "Fiat lux." Bruxelles: Office de Publicité. 1870.

(2.) La Guerre de 1870: l'Esprit Parisien produit du la régime Impérial. Par EMILE LECLERCQ. 5e édition. Bruxelles. 1870.

(3.) Napoléon Ier, et son Historien, M. Thiers. Par JULES BARNI. Paris, Germer-Baillière. 1869.

(4.) Histoire de Napoléon Ier. Par P. LANFREY. Paris: Charpentier. 1867-70. Vols. I. to IV.

(5.) Napoléon le Petit. Par V. HUGO. Bruxelles. 1852.

(6.) Romans Nationaux. Par ERCKMANN-CHÂTRIAN. Paris: Hetzel. 1868-70.

Histoire d'un Paysan, ou la Révolution Française racontée par un paysan.

Le Conscrit.

Le Blocus.

La Guerre.

L'Invasion.

Waterloo, etc.

(7.) Louis's own Account of the Fight at Dame Europa's School. Literally translated from the French. London: J. Camden Hotten. 1871.

Imperialism has fallen; and with it France has for the present disappeared from among the great Powers. With Metz in foreign hands, she is much in the same position as that of Paris when the Prussians had turned upon her the guns of Mont Valérien. Her eastern frontier is wholly exposed; she must feel as Lombardy did while Austria held the Quadrilateral.

As far as material influence is concerned, France is become a second-rate state. She must confine her aim to doing what she has so often done before--influencing the world of ideas. She did this in the Middle Ages in a way which we seldom sufficiently appreciate; she did it in a less degree during the post-Reformation period, for then her own religious wars and the preponderance of Germany had thrown her somewhat into the shade; she did it most of all when the Encyclopédistes began to claim for her a definite position as the world's teacher. This position she had not formally claimed before. Under the old régime she had been slowly getting welded together; feudalism, carried out more 'logically' in France than elsewhere, had kept her provinces almost as distinct as so many little German kingdoms. Louis XI.'s policy, indeed, did for the French noblesse much what the Wars of the Roses did for ours; and Louis XIV., by giving the higher classes a taste for Court life, drew them together and trained them to a community of habits and aims; but the mass of provincials were scarcely affected by this centralization of a single class. Louis XIV., however, did one thing more: he secured to Paris that fatal predominance which has ever since made her the arbitress of the national destinies. While saying 'l'état c'est moi,' he so arranged that very soon the Parisians could say, Paris c'est la France. The great writers, too, lent their influence to glorify the capital: the town-loving spirit was strong in them all. Paris got more and more supreme, while at the same time the efforts of Government were divided between crushing out provincial independence and meeting the ruinous expenditure of a Court always luxurious and very often warlike. Hence a tendency in the old régime to a more and more strictly personal government. Feudal liberties were crushed; feudal tyranny was aggravated. The provincial parliaments, and that of Paris into the bargain, gradually lost even the semblance of power; and the old system degenerated into despotism.

The Revolution, while superficially breaking up this system, left untouched those parts of it which some say are grounded on the peculiarities of French character. It intensified centralization, and it practised most oppressively that interference with the rights of the individual which is of the essence of personal government. The very men who so loudly proclaimed the principles of '89 were found most ready to act on rules which led them straight to the lawless tyranny of the Terror. Their 'ideas' were grand, but personal freedom was far too trifling a thing to be allowed to stand in their way for a moment. In one point the Revolution diverged from the old régime: it became intensely and deliberately propagandist--bent, i.e., on carrying forward, with the strength of the whole nation, the mission which the thinkers of Voltaire's day had assigned to themselves. We often find that the man who believes in nothing in particular is the most violent in opposing the beliefs of others. So it was with the leaders of the Revolution: they were mad to spread their doctrines over Europe; and their doctrines being those of Paris, Paris became (in Frenchmen's eyes) the recognized head, not of France only, but of the civilized world.

Imperialism was at first a reaction from despotic anarchy; the dread of another Terror made the French welcome with delight a man who seemed strong enough to be 'the saviour of society.' So it was again in 1849, when the Socialist struggle in which 13,000 Parisians perished so alarmed the successful 'bourgeois,' that to prevent its repetition they condoned the coup d'état. Ideas, it was said in 1795, were ruining France; the men of ideas had been beaten in the field; Imperialism therefore meant military glory as the basis of French prosperity. Frenchmen were content to believe that (as M. Louis Blanc said the other day at Bordeaux) 'glory and liberty are incompatible,' and deliberately to choose the former.

Of course the Imperialism of 1852 differs somewhat from that of 1804, but it is the same in its intense selfishness, and its thorough insincerity. Under the second Empire, there have been commercial treaties and alliances, and the working class has found good wages, so long as it has been content with political nothingness; but the two will be seen to be the same in principle. Each has the radical evil of depending on success in war, or peace, or both, for its stability; and this necessary instability makes them more hopeless as systems than the old régime, with all its corruptness, or even than the wild theories of the Republic.[211]

But it is needless to enlarge on the manifest causes which made a hereditary monarchy stable so long as it is not wholly intolerable. The same causes make the best of 'tyrannies' (in the Greek sense of the word) unstable. Men as 'logical' as Frenchmen are sure to feel that if such a government is not fulfilling the purpose of its creation, it had better cease to exist; and feeling with Frenchmen generally means action.

The first Napoleon had immense success on his side; he 'saved France,' in his own fashion, and so long as he was successful, very few Frenchmen cared to inquire into the soundness of the method employed. The third Napoleon had in his favour the remembrance of his uncle's success, and the fact that the règne du bavardage had failed as completely in 1849 as it had done in the days of the Directory. Both were helped, too, by the systematic lying of their newspapers, which, amid the enforced silence of all who would not speak as they did, could say what they pleased without fear of contradiction. Both, too, were able administrators: Louis points out, in 'his own Account of the Fight at Dame Europa's School'--a bitter satire on the selfish insincerity of Imperialism--how hard he worked for years, and how by repressing them with one hand and giving them employment with the other, he controlled the terrible Paris canaille. This is, in fact, his solitary claim for forgiveness. But both fell when the moment of pressure came, and the fall of the nephew is irreparable: for him there can be no 'hundred days;' even the boundless capabilities of treachery which he found in Bazaine failed to do anything but seal his fate by convincing France that, whereas the uncle shed French blood like water in support of his selfish ambition, the nephew actually paltered with the enemy, and betrayed the strongest fortress in the country, in the vain hope of securing foreign support.

It is plain to the most superficial observer that of all the things which have collapsed in France since last July, none has collapsed so hopelessly as Imperialism. When the ex-Emperor rushed into war as the only way of staving off a revolution, France showed herself (as she so often has done at critical periods of her history) culpably passive. There were complaisant prefects who assured his Majesty that his people went with him heart and soul; there were crowds, hired or not, such as can always be collected in any great city, who shouted Vive la guerre and à Berlin; but the peasantry still believed that the Empire meant peace; and when they afterwards found war come upon them, they fancied (so strong was their faith in Napoleon) that it was the Prussians who were the aggressors. Just in the same way on the eve of the Spanish war, in 1808, the servile Senate said: 'Sire, the will of the French people goes along with you. This Spanish war is just and necessary. Fathers envy their sons the glory of rushing to join your ranks, and of winning another Marengo and another Austerlitz.' And this farce was kept up at a time when the conscription had grown so odious that the Government had to imitate Louis XIV.'s dragonnades, and to quarter garnisaires upon the families of those lads who had escaped to the woods, or had fled across the frontier.

France was passive in July, 1870, as she was more than once during the first Napoleon's career; the difference is, that the nephew's army, on which he was supposed to have lavished so much thought and money, and which, since the coup d'état, he had pampered into prætorian insolence, failed him utterly both for defence and offence; whereas the uncle always had something which he could trust to fight well, if not to win battles.

Since Sedan, France, no longer passive, has worked wonders; and every step in her work has made a relapse to the old state of things more impossible. 'The man of Sedan,' it was felt all along, could never return, except behind Prussian bayonets. Had he, on that last fatal day, cut his way at whatever loss through the encompassing host, and, throwing himself on Paris, raised a levée en masse to the old cry of 'the country in danger,' matters might have turned out very differently, both for him and for France; but he could not have so acted without denying his own principles. His whole career had been an attempt to juggle with universal suffrage while practising the narrowest despotism, and now to appeal in real earnest to popular principles, and to give the pledges necessary to make that appeal a serious one, was an impossibility for the man who had eagerly snatched at the chances of war which the crafty Bismarck threw in his way, rather than honestly carry out the liberal measures which he had at last been forced to adopt. There is a point beyond which charlatanism cannot go. Thrice had the uncle felt that this kind of appeal is useless when it is contrary to a man's whole antecedents: once at Arcis-sur-Aube, when in the midst of the battle, Sebastiani said, 'Are these all your Majesty's forces?' 'Every man I have.' 'Then does not your Majesty think of raising the nation?' 'Nonsense: you're dreaming of the way they did things in Spain, or here in France, in '91. How can you talk of raising a nation whose nobles and priests have been destroyed by the Revolution, and whose Revolution has been destroyed by me?' There was nothing, he felt, left to appeal to. Again, on his return from Elba, wisdom said, 'Wait on French soil, and crush the invaders at Paris and Lyons;' but this would have necessitated an appeal to the nation and a pledge that all war except defensive war should cease, and, as Colonel Charras says, in words which seem almost prophetical of the events of last July, 'to re-establish his despotism he could not do without the prestige of victory: he thought to find it on the frontier, so thither he hastened.' A third time, when, after Waterloo, Napoleon was among the remnant of his troops at Laon, it was still free to him to show himself not only the 'child of the Revolution,' but its legitimate offspring and its protector. He still shrank instinctively from doing so: bolder, indeed, than his nephew, he did go to Paris; but with the invincible dislike of all his race to true freedom of government, he went there merely to see if there was a chance of carrying on the war without making any real political concessions.

So it was that, after Sedan, the nephew passed out of history: no amount of plotting can restore the man who showed himself fool as well as knave, who fell--not, like his uncle, under the blows of banded Europe--but because he had allowed himself to be wholly deceived, both as to the quality and composition of his own army and as to the dispositions of neighbouring powers. France never can forgive such a result of twenty years of personal government. But that the ex-Emperor should disappear out of history is natural enough; the marvel is that he ever became one of the makers of history. His success was due to the vitality of the Napoleonic idea, nourished as it was after the restoration by writers of all kinds--notably by the veteran statesman who now, more than any one else, has made a return to Imperialism impossible. For this total revolution in literature it is hard to give a sufficient reason. Before the restoration, literature, when not venal, was strongly anti-Bonapartist.'[212] After the Bourbons were restored, writers began to extol Napoleon as industriously as before they had decried him. This change was owing partly to French feeling against the mode of his removal: it was a great humiliation; as Madame de Staël said (deploring the return from Elba), 'It's all over with liberty if he succeeds, and with the national independence if he is beaten.' The nation felt that the peace of 1815 had compromised its independence; and, in writing down the king who had been brought in by foreign armies, literary men were acting as the mouthpiece of France. But this is not all; wounded vanity did much. Under the Empire mind had been powerless, unless, as in the case of Lacépède and other savans, it had submitted to be the humble tool of force: when Sièyes said, 'I'll be the head and that little Corsican shall be the arm,' he had quite unwittingly spoken the truth; for, in Napoleon's system, the head was nothing and the arm everything. Great, then, was the disappointment when under Louis XVIII., and still more under his successor, the head seemed almost as powerless as before. The heart (if such a word may be used of the hollow system of Popery) came into play; and, unless a man was dévôt, or seemed to be so, ability of any kind served him little. Add to this the wilful blindness of the Bourbons, who (it was soon seen) 'had learnt nothing and forgotten nothing.' Their petty despotism disgusted the nation; while the 'Memoirs of St. Helena' and a crowd of similar writings made out, with a sophistry so barefaced that we should fancy it could never have deceived even Frenchmen, that the Emperor had always acted as a dutiful son of the revolution, according to the programme which himself had laid down, that 'liberty, equality, and prosperity shall be ensured.' Will the nephew ever venture to assert, as the uncle did in 1816, that his government was a constitutional and temperate monarchy, and that the French people under it were the freest people in Europe? However this may be, there is no doubt that the claim thus made by Napoleon I. told immensely on the thought of the nation, and through it on the masses. Claiming to have saved the revolution by moderating its violence, the exile of St. Helena persistently called himself its soldier and its martyr. His wars (he said) had been undertaken to spread its civilizing influence; and the consciousness of this had made kings and princes so determined on his overthrow. We, of course, can see through the hollowness of all this: but the French writers of that day, finding France humiliated, and knowing that she had been glorious, actually came to believe, or at any rate fostered the belief, that in the days of her glory she had been free, since undoubtedly in the days of her humiliation she was fettered. No wonder the rest were deceived, since a man of consummate ability, M. Thiers, whose honesty is proved by his having refused office during some seventeen years of 'personal government,' could write such a marvellous romance as that which he gave to the world under the title of 'The Consulate and the Empire.'

Thus, by a combination of causes we may partly account for the change in the mind of France; and this change told upon the more or less educated masses. When Thiers wrote as he did; when Victor Hugo--whom a strange Nemesis afterwards urged to write 'Napoleon the Little'--sang the great man's praises in 'Lui,' and, throwing moral sanctions to the winds, declared that

'Tu domines notre siécle, ange ou démon qu'importe?'

when Beauchèsne, in 'L'Ecolier,' pathetically described the day-dreams of the boyish enthusiast; and, yet more, when Béranger sang his 'Vieux drapeau,' and his 'Serrez vos rangs, Gaulois et Francs,' and, above all, his 'Souvenirs du Peuple,' no wonder men forgot the real Napoleon, and accepted the ideal which was so persistently put before them.

Béranger was a true prophet when he sang

'On parlera de sa gloire Sous le chaume bien longtemps; L'humble toit en cinquante ans Ne connaîtra plus d'autre histoire.'

It is not easy to trace how this feeling had so penetrated downwards, and had so thoroughly laid hold of the lowest stratum, the wholly uneducated peasantry, that the first time the vote by universal suffrage was taken, many peasants thought they were voting for the old Emperor. That it did so is one more proof how soon a nation with great 'recuperative powers' loses the memory of disasters. The cruel conscriptions which drove mere boys to die in Spain under the fire of Wellington's seasoned troops--the retreat from Russia, after which 'the man of Smorgoni' was for a time as unpopular as 'the man of Sedan,' were forgotten. The heroic defence of Champagne, and the glories which preceded it, were alone remembered. This will account for the growth of the Imperial idea in the more fighting parts of France, especially in Alsace and Lorraine, which have always contributed much more than their share to the army.

How it was in La Vendée we cannot pretend to say. Napoleon there had been as ruthless in his way as the 'blues;' he had ordered that every family which could not prove that all its members were at home and quiet should lose its property, this being divided between the 'good subjects' and the occupying troops. Nor can we understand how the Southern peasants should have welcomed the nephew when they had hated the uncle. It was against them chiefly that the odious garnisaires had to be employed; and we all know how they showed their feeling in 1814 by several times nearly tearing the Emperor to pieces when he was on the way to Elba, frightening him so that he disguised himself as an English officer.

North-eastern France was Bonapartist because it was anti-Prussian, and the Emperor had thoroughly humiliated Prussia. For this special hatred of Prussia there is ample reason. The Prussian character is not loveable; even at the best it is singularly domineering and cantankerous; and during the invasions of French territory (not to speak of the bloodthirsty pursuit after Waterloo) the Prussians had shown themselves (as unhappily they too often have during this war)[213] worse than Cossacks. This special hatred of Prussians comes out continually in the Erckmann-Châtrian series. The contrast between the bitterness with which the fights at Ligny and Wavre and the final conflict at Waterloo are described is remarkable; it may almost be said to be prophetic of the merciless way in which too much of the fighting has been carried on within the past few months. 'No quarter' is the word on both French and Prussian side; and scornful hatred lurks in every phrase of the graphic account of those savage conflicts which at last left the French nominally victorious. The English, on the other hand, are 'jolly fellows, well shaved, and with the get-up of bons bourgeois.' We do not think that, even before the Crimean war, French mothers ever taught their children to hate us; whereas, mon fils tu haïras les Prussiens was a daily lesson among the peasants of the North-east.[214]

To account for the Napoleonism of the peasants in other parts, we must add to the feeling that Napoleon had glorified France, on the part of those who (we said) were only too ready to forget how he had also humiliated and ruined her, the persistent dread of the spectre rouge on the part of the vast class of little landowners, and thirdly, the influence of the priests. Both these had been made use of by the uncle. Whenever he wanted an excuse for despotism, he always got up a Jacobin plot. This was the pretence for that famous 18th Brumaire, by which 'model and prototype of all coups d'état,' as M. Barni calls it, he destroyed the constitution which he had sworn to defend.

When, as First Consul, he arrested a number of those who remained true to the Republic--among them Jourdain, the hero of Fleurus--and threatened to banish them to Cayenne, the pretext was 'the infernal machine' (very probably 'got up,' like so many more recent conspiracies), which was denounced as a Jacobin invention. Jacobinism was his apology for forming (at the beginning of the Empire) eight State prisons, and for exercising the most rigorous censorship both of the press and of the stage.

How the priests helped him may be judged from the amusingly profane addresses made to him on his accession to empire by the different bishops. The Bishop of Aix wrote: 'Like another Moses, Napoleon has been summoned by God from the deserts of Egypt,' 'God seems to have said (wrote the Bishop of Orleans), "My heart hath chosen a new ruler to rule my people; My almighty arm shall help him in his glorious work, and I will strengthen his throne. He shall reign over the seas, and the rivers shall become his servants."' In the eyes of other bishops and capitular bodies the new emperor is 'another Matthias sent by the Lord,' 'a new Cyrus,' 'Scripture hath given us, in the reign of Jehoshaphat, a prophetic outline of his reign.' This, the fitting reward of the Concordat, was the incense offered up by a servile clergy on the eve of his coronation; and it matches well with the Catechism, published by authority, and in use in all French churches in 1811.[215] After repeated injunctions as to the special duty of reverence for the Emperor and his house, the question is asked, 'Are there not yet other motives to bind us strongly to our Emperor?'--'Yes; for it is he whom God raised up in troublous times to re-establish the public worship of the holy religion of our fathers and to be its protector. He has restored and preserved public order by his profound and energetic wisdom; he defends the State by his powerful arm; he is become the anointed of the Lord by the consecration which he has received from the Sovereign Pontiff, chief of the Universal Church.'[216]

How the Pope, of whose meanly cruel treatment by Napoleon, the Count d'Haussonville gave such a graphic account in the Revue des Deux Mondes of two years ago, really felt on the subject, we need not inquire; with Napoleon the case was simple enough: 'he wanted a clergy (says Madame de Staël) as he wanted chamberlains and courtiers, and all the old things over again.' As for his being the restorer of religion, no praise was ever less merited; he told Cabanis: 'This concordat of ours is la vaccine de la religion; in fifty years it will have killed it out like a moral small-pox.' On the other hand, before the Concordat was signed there was full liberty of worship, and nearly eight millions of people were in full practice of Catholicism. His Concordat was needless, except for his own purposes; at the outset, indeed, the Assembly had borne heavily on the clergy: to force them to take oaths and then to persecute those who refused was to show an ignorance of the first principles of toleration; and one of the few things which we have to find fault with in MM. Erckmann-Châtrian's excellent novels is the way in which the 'refractory priests' are spoken of, and in which the harsh treatment they underwent is justified, because they disturbed the peace of families, and intrigued for 'royalist restoration.' But by the Constitution of the year III. Church and State had been separated, and freedom of worship restored to every one. There was no need, therefore, for any effort on Napoleon's part to secure what the Constitution had already secured; he was, as usual, working simply for himself: 'I did not despair,' (he writes from St. Helena) 'of sooner or later getting full control of the Pope; and then what a lever for moving the world, what a help towards keeping men's minds in hand!'

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