we add to religion, is a persuasive to irreligion. Next—if religious persons refuse to countenance what are generally reckoned innocent amusements, these amusements will not be therefore abstained from; but being thus left entirely in the hands of the worthless, will acquire a dangerous character, from which they might otherwise have been kept free. It is a great error to suppose, that whatever is not relished by a man of confirmed religious feeling, is wrong, and ought to be prohibited. You will not make a child love Greek and mathematics by taking away his tops and balls. But as he comes to relish those, these will be forsaken. Increase just religious feeling, and leave frivolous unprofitable amusements to the fate that may befall them in consequence; but do not imagine that you will promote religion by prohibiting them.

From the review we have now taken of evangelical preaching, it will easily appear that its general tendency is to elevate matters of opinion above matters of conduct; to nourish superstitious ideas of sensible supernatural influences and communications; and to place religion more in the performance of ordinances of worship than in the regulation of the heart and conduct:-to promote, in short, the abuses, instead of the uses of religion,-those abuses into which human folly, and human wickedness, have ever been most apt to run, and which it has always been among the chief objects of men of real sense and piety to counteract.

Objections made to the evangelical system are sometimes met by a reference to the exemplary conduct of its supporters; and it is asked whether a system that produces such fruits can be bad. We may admit the fact, as alleged, in regard to many of the supporters of those opinions; we can even admit that evangelical preaching may have been the means of bringing to a religious life persons for whom soberer views would have had no attractions; but to all this we say, if our objections to the evangelical system are unsound, let them be exposed; otherwise we cannot allow of even good results being brought about by false representations of religion. We believe, however, that the becoming practical conduct of persons professing evangelical opinions, has generally arisen not from the opinions in question (so far as these opinions are peculiar), but in spite of them; or rather, that the assumption of such opinions has oftener been the issue, than the commencement, of a pious and virtuous character. Persons of such a character, when not thinking for themselves (the case of the great majority of mankind, are usually ready to adopt, on credit, the set of opinions most in vogue-having most pretensions -wearing the best name-such as orthodox, or evangelical. Bring an evangelical preacher to a parish, and the greater number of well-disposed persons in it will become evangelical too.

We believe that a few years ago there began to arise, in this country, a somewhat greater degree of zeal in regard to religion, than had existed in the period immediately preceding: we shall not deny that there may have been need of the change;-this, at all events, we shall say, that real religion-the religion not of creeds, and articles, and ordinances, but of disposition and conduct-can never increase too much. But it often happens, that when the minds of men are once set a-going in a particular course, they think they cannot go too far; and, in their anxiety to make progress-every one striving to outrun his neighbour-do not always take sufficient heed as to the road in which the progress is made. People, in their eagerness to magnify religion, sometimes give it the sem-. blance that will magnify it in their own silly apprehensions and vicious taste; they then place its excellence in the semblance thus given, which they make the cause-instead of the effect of their religious zeal. Thus it has happened in the present case. We regard evangelical opinions, then, as having sprung out of an increase of religious feeling, rather than as having produced it; and an attention to facts will, if we mistake not, be found to confirm this judgment.

In the estimation, however, usually made of evangelical practice, there is a fallacy or two to be pointed out. The evangelical party claim a greater zeal for religion, in respect of their more frequent attendance on religious ordinances-stricter observance of the Sabbath-abstinence from many amusements-greater activity in promoting missions, forming of societies, circulating tracts, and the like. Now the alleged comparative supineness of the non-evangelical in these particulars, arises not from their having less zeal for the promotion of religion, but from their disbelief of the obligation of certain observances, or of the efficacy of certain means. A Roman Catholic is not a more religious man than a Protestant, because the latter does not, like the former, do penance or perform pilgrimages. A man may not be without religious principle though he does not run headlong into every project having a religious name. At all events,

so little is religious zeal an indication of sound religious tenets, that nowhere, as every body knows, is more zeal, or greater regard to devotional duties, to be found, than under the greatest corruption of doctrine.

The folly may have its day, but common sense will ultimately prevail; and all that we have aimed at, in the preceding observations, is to contribute what little assistance we can to bring about so desirable a result.

ART. VIII.-Jocelyn. Episode. Journal,trouvé chez un Curéde Village. PAR ALPHONSE DE LAMARTINE. Paris: 2 vols. 8vo: 1836.

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THEN we last noticed Lamartine's Meditations, it was in conjunction with the Messeniennes of Delavigne, and the Songs of Beranger. We then viewed him as the representative in poetry of the aristocratic and religious feeling of the country, as his companions might be considered the organs of its military and democratic spirit. Since that time Lamartine has become more decidedly entitled to that distinction,-not indeed from any material change in his own mind, but from the gradual decline and almost complete disappearance from French literature of those feelings and habits which formed the inspiration of his poetry. Chateaubriand in prose, and Lamartine in verse, seem now to be left sole heirs of that less stimulating but purer poesy which dwells on the recollections of the past, rather than the interests of the present; which, avoiding the turbulent and the passionate, seeks habitually scenes and images of serenity and peace; and by an innate disposition, and without an effort, interweaves the ideas and hopes of religion and the rites and solemnities of the Church, with all its pictures of society or solitude. For such men

'There is a consecrating power in Time,

And what is grey with years to them is godlike.' And it is a strong presumption in favour of their genius, that the earnestness and sincerity of their convictions, and the grace which their imaginations lend to their pictures of the past, or the ideal atmosphere with which they contrive to invest the present, can produce a strong effect, in a period so uncongenial, and among a people whose whole course of thought or feeling seems to have so little in harmony with theirs.

It is undoubtedly not a little singular, that in France, at this moment, Lamartine, the representative of religious and aristocratic feeling, occupies, by general consent, the highest rank in serious poetry. For, highly as the creative powers of Victor Hugo in Romance must be estimated by all, and brilliant and striking as not a few of his Lyrics have been, we are not aware that it has been seriously maintained,—at least certainly not, except by very young and enthusiastic critics,—that he is entitled to take rank with the poet of the Harmonies and the Meditations. And, laying Hugo aside, though the French muster-roll of poetry may at the present moment produce several pleasing, and not a few clever and sufficiently daring artists, it would be altogether

out of the question seriously to place the best of their productions beside the more thoughtful, polished, and elevated productions of Lamartine. This position, which would have been altogether denied six years ago, and questioned even at a considerably later date, is now, in as far as we can perceive, generally conceded; and in this general admission, we think is embodied a lesson which may be of advantage not only to the present day, but to many a future adventurer in the field of poetry.

For though Lamartine's elevated rank in French poetry seems to us, in the actual situation of matters, not undeserved, we may say, at once, that we are far indeed from regarding him as a poet of any great originality of mind; or one who, in an age of true poetry, would have made his voice at all heard and listened to among his fellows. He is no creator; he never opens to us any new or unexpected recesses of our nature; he seldom even presents old feelings with any striking novelty of combination or imagery. Of passion he has little or none: where scenes of passion are introduced in his works, they are merely narrated, and absolutely without interest or dramatic effect; almost his whole power lies in description. Add to the qualities above mentioned, a considerable mastery of versification,-which, in his hands, preserves a happy medium between the old rule of terminating, in every case, the sense with the line, and the modern practice of artificial and elaborate ruggedness, by which the pauses are adjusted upon the exactly opposite principle, and we have the main characteristics of Lamartine's poetry. It is evident that these constitute no very high ideal of a poet; that if Lamartine, therefore, be viewed as a great poet, his greatness must be relative, and derived from the poetical errors or insignificance of the rivals by whom he is surrounded. 'He were no lion, were not Romans hinds.' And such is, in truth, the key to the popularity of Lamartine. Guided by good sense, poetical tact, and a pure heart, he has wisely kept the beaten highway of ordinary, or at least virtuous sentiment, when others have wandered off in devious tracks in pursuit of novelty, and either lost themselves and their readers in an absolute haze of "no-meaning,' or sunk into the slough of coarse excitement and sensuality. Whilst some were endeavouring to galvanize into a semblance of life the dead and buried caprices of Hoff-some moralizing into a thousand similes' the instructive legend of Don Juan; others manufacturing feeble imitations of Faust; others building the lofty rhyme into a prodigious epic temple, to be inhabited by the Wandering Jew; and almost all, by preference, dealing with the exceptionable, the morally offensive, the physically revolting, the grotesque, the extraordinary, and flattering themselves that they were thus in the straight way to

mann;

attain 'originality;'-he, with a wiser estimate of his own powers, and a juster appreciation of the ultimate principle of right feeling and ordinary sentiments in poetry, pursued the path which he had marked out to himself from the first-the delineation of the ' common thoughts of mother Earth, her simple mirth and tears.' Madame de Staël has truly observed, that although we may feel a momentary attraction to gaze on the eccentric and irregular, the mind can only repose permanently on order and regularity; and the truth of the observation is well illustrated by the continued, if not increasing, popularity of Lamartine, as contrasted with the speedy oblivion which has already overtaken most of the productions of this modern school-productions which, it has been justly said, are addressed not so much to the head or heart as to the nerves and the kidneys. Once read, the latter are consigned to the shelf; while Lamartine, notwithstanding an occasional impression of feebleness, and not unfrequently of tediousness in description, may be resumed with new pleasure,→ and many of his pictures of domestic happiness, of the consolations of religion, of the sweet enjoyments of a country life, of the magnificence of Alpine solitudes, of the simple and active benevolence of village pastors, of the sacrifices exacted by religion or duty, and the mental satisfaction and consolation which they bestow, imprint themselves deeper and deeper on the memory.

We have already said that we do not regard Lamartine as a poet, the structure of whose mind is at all of an original character. He has fancy and feeling, but he has not imagination; and probably a consciousness of the want of this substantive and independent quality of mind-that quality round which, like a central pillar, the other gifts and ornaments of the poetical character should be entwined-has disposed him to receive with readiness, and retain with tenacity, strong impulses from the genius of many other poets or writers of congenial character. That his mind received its first poetical impressions from the Paul and 'Virginia' of St Pierre is extremely probable, as M. de St Beauve observes. It is still more plain that the works of Chateaubriand exercised at a later period a very strong influence on his views. He never, indeed, imbibed the fire of Chateaubriand's enthusiasm, nor that originality of view, by which, amidst many errors of taste, and, as most English readers will always feel, of sentiment too, the works of that writer are undoubtedly distinguished. Nay, even in that particular where

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* Nouveaux Portraits Littéraires.

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