Volume 53 — THE BRITISH QUARTERLY JANUARY 1871 (continued 8)

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

or such unequal lines as

or,

or,

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:

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:—

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':—

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 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:—

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 Clœlia 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,' Baillie. 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,—

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,—

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 œcumenicity 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.