and with France, the commencement of the great struggle in the Netherlands, the war with the Turks, and, lastly, the domestic relations of Philip, and the dark history of the unfortunate Don Carlos. The narrative on all these subjects, most interesting in themselves, is precise, and, as we have stated, in parts only too copious. It will be no more than fair to give the reader a specimen or two of our author's style of displaying his material. It has been well remarked, that the story of Egmont has in it every element that can move the human heart to pity, and inspire it with profound detestation of cruelty and faithlessness. No man of his day was more truly brave and chivalrous. His sword had ever been at the service of Philip. He had gained for him the brilliant victory of St. Quentin. He was even a staunch Romanist, and had been treated by Philip with the greatest apparent cordiality. But his death had been determined upon, and the condemnation of himself and Count Horn was pronounced by Alva and the terrible Council of Blood. The following is our author's account of the execution ::- "Egmont was dressed in a crimson damask robe, over which was a Spanish mantle fringed with gold. His breeches were of black silk, and his hat, of the same material, was garnished with white and sable plumes. In his hand, which, as we have seen, remained free, he held a white handkerchief. On his way to the place of execution, he was accompanied by Julian de Romero, maître de camp, by the Captain, Salinas, who had charge of the fortress of Ghent, and by the Bishop of Ypres. As the procession moved slowly forward, the Count repeated some portion of the Fifty-first Psalm, 'Have mercy on me, O God!' in which the good Prelate joined with him. In the centre of the square at Brussels, on the spot where so much of the best blood of the Netherlands has been shed, stood the scaffold, covered with black cloth. On it were two velvet cushions with a small table, shrouded likewise in black, and supporting a silver crucifix. At the corners of the platform were two poles, pointed at the end with steel, intimating the purpose for which they were intended. "The low sounds of lamentation which, from time to time, had been heard among the populace, were now hushed into silence, as the minister of justice appeared on the platform, approached his victim, and with a single blow of the sword severed the head from the body. A cry of horror arose from the multitude, and some, frantic with grief, broke through the ranks of the soldiers, and wildly dipped their handkerchiefs in the blood that streamed from the scaffold, treasuring them up, says the chronicler, as precious memorials of love and incitements to vengeance. The head was then set on one of the poles at the end of the platform, while a mantle, thrown over the mutilated trunk, hid it from the public gaze." The following extract, which, characteristically enough, also relates a tale of blood, has reference to the fate of the survivor of two noblemen sent to Spain as a deputation from the Flemish Lords. The facts relating to this treachery have only recently been made known from the archives of Simancas; and from these documents we learn that minute directions for the murder were given under the hand of Philip himself. "The problem to be solved was, how to carry the sentence into Brief Literary Notices. 537 effect, and yet leave the impression on the public that Montigny died a natural death. Most of the few Ministers whom the King took into his confidence on the occasion were of opinion, that it would be best to bring the prisoner's death about by means of a slow poison administered in his drink, or some article of his daily food. This would give him time, moreover, to provide for the concerns of his soul. But Philip objected to this, as not fulfilling what he was pleased to call the ends of justice. He at last decided on the garrote,-the form of execution used for the meaner sort of criminals in Spain, but which, producing death by suffocation, would be less likely to leave its traces on the body. "At about two o'clock on the morning of the sixteenth of October, when the interval allowed for this solemn preparation had expired, Father Castillo waited on the Governor and the Alcalde, to inform them that the hour had come, and that their prisoner was ready to receive them. They went, without further delay, to the chamber of death, attended by the Notary and the executioner. Then, in their presence, while the Notary made a record of the proceedings, the grim minister of the law did his work on his unresisting victim. "No sooner was the breath out of the body of Montigny, than the Alcalde, the Priest, and their two companions were on their way back to Valladolid, reaching it before dawn, so as to escape the notice of the inhabitants. All were solemnly bound to secrecy in regard to the dark act in which they had been engaged. The Notary and the hangman were still further secured by the menace of death, in case they betrayed any knowledge of the matter; and they knew full well that Philip was not a man to shrink from the execution of his menaces. "The corpse was arrayed in a Franciscan habit, which, coming up to the throat, left the face only exposed to observation. It was thus seen by Montigny's servants, who recognised the features of their master, hardly more distorted than sometimes happens from disease, when the agonies of death have left their traces. The story went abroad that their Lord had died of the fever with which he had been so violently attacked." The Epistles of St. Paul to the Thessalonians, Galatians, Romans with Critical Notes and Dissertations. By Benjamin Jowett, M.A., Fellow and Tutor of Balliol College, Oxford. Two Vols. London: Murray. 1855. MR. JOWETT is of opinion that the text of Lachmann-the numerous and glaring defects charged upon it by Tischendorf notwithstanding has many claims to be considered as the most perfect which has hitherto appeared, and that any advance which can hereafter be made on the text of the New Testament is not likely to be so great as that by which he is separated from previous editors. The peculiarities of his edition being these: that he aims at reproducing the text, not as it ought to be, but as it was: that is, not as it may be supposed to have come from the autograph of the writers themselves, but as it actually existed in copies of the fourth century." This text is adopted accordingly, with references to the various readings of the third edition of Robert Stephens, 1550; and the authorized English translation is given on the opposite page, with what Mr. Jowett calls, "slight corrections." Of these "slight corrections," one occurs in Rom. xx. 5; where, instead of reading, " Of whom, as concerning the flesh, Christ came, who is God over all, blessed for evermore,' we are instructed, on the authority of Lachmann, to read, "Of whom, as concerning the flesh, Christ came. God, who is over all, is blessed for ever." Slight correction, indeed! And yet Mr. Jowett has thought it sufficiently important to spend two half-pages of elaborate Notes upon it! On the subject of religion generally, Mr. Jowett teaches that we can "find no vestiges of a primeval revelation, common to all mankind, nor conceive how such a revelation would have been possible, consistently with those indications of the state of man, which language and mythology supply:" that a "primitive or patriarchal religion" is but "an imaginary picture, the baseless fabric of a vision." And so he assumes, as an historical basis, the existence of "a religious principle," independently of any previous revelation, common to all the primitive peoples of mankind, and having its first developments in objects and forms of worship, varying with their race, climate, language, and physical susceptibilities. He admits, indeed, "one stream of revelation,-the Jewish;" but, on his hypothesis, that there was no primitive revelation to mankind, as such, nor even a "patriarchal religion," we are driven to the conclusion, that this stream did not begin to flow until the time of Moses. Be this as it may, according to his showing of the case, the earlier "religions of nature," as he calls them, went onward, after a manner equally remarkable with that of their supposed beginning. "Slowly the veil is drawn up; the walls of the prison-house of human nature seem to fall down, and the world within to prevail over the world without. The mystery of human nature reveals itself in the law of progress. The age of mythology succeeds to the era of the formation of languages; the age of poetry to that of mythology; to that of poetry, philosophy or history. The individual is no more identified with nature, or thought imaged by sense. A thousand links of fancy still connect them; the twilight of the human understanding does not at once pass away; it is the early morning still, not the clearness of noonday. The world itself seems to be pervaded by one universal life or mind, or to pour forth from its surface myriads of universal forms dancing in the light of heaven, or to be ever labouring in travail of some mystery which no sphinx may guess, or to be divided, between good and evil, into an upper and under world, or to be filled with giants and grotesque beings tortured into deformity, or radiant with unearthly beauty. Gradually this superhuman life subsides; the gods come down to us in the likeness of men, no longer springing up every where, but at last set within the rigid bounds of their own marble forms." And it was out of "these various forms of the religions of nature," that, "in a certain sense," philosophy arose; in particular, the philosophy of Socrates and Plato. Concerning the latter of these, we are instructed to believe, that "the germs of all ideas, even of most Christian ones, are to be found in his writings,"" that in the age of Plato or Cicero mankind had far truer notions of the Brief Literary Notices. 539 Divine Being than at any previous period of human history,"--and that, "as of the Jewish dispensation, so also of Pagan philosophy, it may be said, that it was a light shining more and more unto the perfect day.' "Even in the counsels of perfection of the Sermon on the Mount, there is probably nothing which might not be found, in letter or spirit, in Philo or some other Jewish writer;" and the language of the New Testament, though "the language of the Old Testament" in part, "is still more the language of the Alexandrian philosophy." In short, according to his showing, Christianity itself would appear to be the product of a fusion of Platonic, Oriental, and Jewish philosophy together, with the addition of another element supplied by the teaching of Christ and His Apostles, to give it a consistency, and, above all, a power, which, in the other three elements, were wanting. The following are specimens of the theology to be found in the Notes: "We cannot say that all men are regenerate or unregenerate. All things may be passing out of one state into the other, and may therefore belong to both or neither. Mankind are not divided into regenerate and unregenerate, but are in a state of transition from the one to the other, or too dead and unconscious to be included in either." Again, comparing Gal. ii. 19, 20, Mr. Jowett "traces three stages in the Christian state:-1. Death; 2. Death with Christ; 3. Christ living in us. First, we are one with Christ, and then Christ is put in our place. So far we are using the same language with the Apostle. At the next stage a difference appears. We begin with figures of speech,-sacrifice, ransom, Lamb of God; and go on with logical determinations,-finite, infinite, satisfaction, necessity, or the nature of things. St. Paul also begins with figures of speech,-life, death, the flesh; but passes on to the inward experience of the life of faith, and the consciousness of Christ dwelling in us." "When it is said, that 'Christ gave Himself for our sins,' or as a sin-offering, the shadow must not be put in the place of the substance, or the Jewish image for the truth of the Gospel. Of such language, it may be remarked, (1.) that it is figurative, natural, and intelligible to that age, not equally so to us; (2.) that the figures themselves are varied, thereby showing that they are figures only, and not realities or matters of fact; (3.) that the same sacrificial language is applied almost equally to the believer and his Lord; (4.) that the effect and meaning of this language must have been very different, while the sacrifices were being daily offered, and now that they have passed away; (5.) that such expressions seldom occur in the writings of St. Paul, another class of figures, in which the believer is identified with the various stages of the life of Christ, being far more common; (6.) that, in general, the thing meant by them is, that Christ took upon Him human flesh, that He was put to death by sinful men, and raised men out of the state of sin, in this sense, taking their sins upon Himself." "We nowhere find in the Epistles the expression of justification by Christ, exactly in the sense of modern theology. But, on the other hand, we are described as dead with Christ; we live with Him; we are members of His body; we follow Him in all the stages of His being. All this is another way of expressing: 'We are justified by faith." From these specimens the reader may conjecture the strange teaching to be found in the author's Dissertation on the Atonement. We have neither space nor inclination to go into it. It is a matter for higher authority than ours, if that authority will only do its office. Nor will we further vex our readers by a rehearsal of the incorrectnesses in narrative and logic, which he charges on Evangelists and the Apostle Paul. We close this notice, as we began it, with a sigh. Lives of Philosophers of the Time of George III. Lord Brougham. By Henry By Henry Lives of Statesmen of the Time of George III. By Henry Lord Brougham. Two Vols. In these volumes the noble Lord appears as a biographer and critic. If we are to judge merely by the value and interest of the whole series, we must conclude that the author has exercised his functions with eminent success. We believe that a larger amount of important facts and personal traits, having, for the most part, an historical significance, has never been contributed by one man to the illustration of a single age. It is true the noble Lord is not original in the majority of his communications, nor quite correct in all; yet there is sufficient that is new to stimulate curiosity, and perhaps a greater degree of accuracy than might reasonably be looked for in a chronicle so varied, and reminiscences so numerous. It is clear that the author has made utility the grand design of his present effort, and this, indeed, is quite in keeping with the practical and substantial character of his whole career. It is pleasant to find the memories of our great men permanently preserved by the patient industry and practical skill of one who was the personal friend of many of their number, the rival of some, and the intellectual peer of all. Our distinguished writers may take a lesson from the noble Lord's example, and, instead of striving after a doubtful or unprofitable originality, bend their powers to the discovery and statement of literal truth, whether natural, moral, or historical. It is no great disparagement to say, that the literary merit of these volumes is lower than their historical importance. They derive more value from the interest of their subjects than from the genius of their author. Lord Brougham supplies another instance of the difficulty encountered in the attempt to sustain an equal reputation in the arena of politics and the world of literature. The obstacles in his Lordship's case have been seriously augmented by his professional education and career. The habit of public speaking is seldom favourable to the attainment of elegance of style, whose chief elements are temperance and accuracy, both of thought and language; but the practice of a lawyer at the English Bar is, perhaps, the worst species of education for one ambitious of adventuring also in the sphere of polished literature. Posterity is not likely to be either charmed or convinced by the eloquence employed to startle a modern jury from its propriety, to lull its impartial judgment, or excite its dormant prejudices. Even the advantages of classical learning and good native taste are unable to counteract this great practical and incessant draw |