In Euripides on, the other hand, beautiful, chaste, and moral. the favorite topic is their weakness and subjection to power of passion. Even when virtuous, they are still lorded over by their feelings, though those feelings happen to run in the right direction. Indeed the contempt in which Euripides held women, 'the ' debased coin,' as he calls them, of humanity, is well known, as well as his wish that the gods could have suffered men to perMore needs not be petuate their species in some other manner. said in illustration of his moral inferiority to his two elder brethren, whilst his perhaps superior success in depicting strong passion is readily allowed. That there were some in Athens who adhered to the spirit of the older tragedy, and regretted the decline both of poetical taste and of moral sentiment which was visible in the Euripidean drama, is apparent from several of the comedies of Aristophanes -if we may call them comedies; but the word thus applied is as apt to mislead when applied to the writings of Aristophanes, as the word tragedy when applied to the more serious dramatists of Athens. The Frogs of Aristophanes is entirely devoted to the aim of showing the inferiority of Euripides to Eschylus; the Spirit of Sophocles is of too calm and exalted a character to enter into the arena. Our remarks, sufficiently desultory, have also been sufficiently protracted. We shall only add, that the English public have reason to thank the translator of Müller's book. It is a very readable translation, which is more than can always be affirmed of translations from the German. Why did he not venture on the bolder task of translating Müller's metrical version of the Eumenides? Was it from diffidence in his own powers of composing blank verse ? or from an unwillingness to make that difficult play too accessible to the tutor-less student? Art. III. An Exposition upon the Second Epistle General of St. THIS HIS is the second of a series of Expositions' which the reverend editor has undertaken to reprint, in consequence of the approbation extended to his republication of Greenhill's Exposition of Ezekiel. The series is intended to comprise 'expositions on separate books of Scripture, by the most eminent 'divines, chiefly of the seventeenth century, which from their 'scarcity and expensiveness have become nearly inaccessible to theological students;' and a notice of the first work comprised in it-Greenhill's Exposition of Ezekiel, may be found in the second volume of our present series. Of the reverend Thomas Adams, the author of this exposition, scarcely any memorials,' says his present editor, exist except his writings,' the dates of which cover an interval of fifty years. In a volume of sermons of the date of 1614, we are informed that he preached them at Willington, in Bedfordshire, of which parish, it is not improbable he was then the rector.' He published another volume of sermons in 1618, when he was 'preacher at the church of St. Gregory, near St. Paul's,'-one of the churches which were destroyed at the fire of London, and which has not since been rebuilt. The Exposition of the Second Epistle of Peter, which bears the date of 1633, but affords no indication of the church in which it was delivered, is considered by Mr. Sherman to be the author's chief work. The high estimation in which he holds it, as well as the plea which he puts in for a candid consideration of some acknowledged blemishes, may however be best stated in his own words. 'No one can read it without perceiving in every page the features of a powerful and independent mind. His ideas, which are remarkably original, are clothed in the most vigorous style,-classic lore ornaments and beautifies them,-while the spiritual and practical tendency of the whole is paramount. In the editor's estimation few works of the kind have ever appeared in which so much useful theological knowledge has been conveyed in such striking phraseology. The prayerful student cannot fail to rise from its perusal mentally enriched and spiritually edified, and therefore better qualified to discharge the responsible duty of preaching to the people the unsearchable riches of Christ. It is to be regretted,' adds Mr. Sherman, after stating that the author appears to have been a sufferer for his conscientious attachment to the order and services of the Church of England, that in the writings of those who remained in the Establishment as well as those who seceded from her pale, intolerant expressions sometimes occur. The editor, if it had been possible, would gladly have excluded all such sentences from this and other expository works which have fallen under his review; but in many instances they are so interwoven with some of the best parts of the exposition, that omission would have rendered him liable to the suspicion of party bias, and abridgment was impossible without injustice to the work. All he has ventured to do iu such cases has been to soften their asperity. The reader, however, will know how to make allowance for the sufferings which both parties had endured, the violent manner in which controversies were then carried on, and the fearless and coarse expressions which were then in common use.'-Pref. pp. iii., iv. We must acknowledge that it is not without reserve we can either subscribe to the opinion here expressed respecting the merits of the work before us, or admit the relevancy of the editor's extenuatory plea in application to this or any other modern reprint, for devotional use, of an early theological writer. We will take the latter subject first. The allowance to be made for the defects of an early work is a matter affecting, we conceive, not so much the work itself as the author personally, and is a very proper question for the consideration of the literary historian, whose duty is to judge of individuals by the age in which they have lived, its habits, and admitted principles and rules of conduct. But very different is the question we are called to consider, when the work of a previous age is with all its faults republished for the instruction or edification of the present. The age may excuse or palliate the faults of the author, but the work is put into competition with the writings of (at least in some respects) an improved age: and it is too much to claim for it in this point of view the allowance fairly conceded to its author. The blemishes, whatever they may be, are acknowledged hinderances to its usefulness, they neutralize or counteract it to the extent that they prevail; and whenever it is found necessary either in publishing a new work or republishing an old one, to extenuate or ask allowance for faults, a corresponding presumption will and must arise to the disadvantage of the work itself. It may or may not be desirable, that a work so speckled should be published or reprinted that is another question-but it is right that in discussing its merits, both faults and excellencies should be alike subjected to examination. With regard, then, to the exposition before us, we admit the originality and vigor which breathe throughout, the great variety of classical illustration with which its ample pages are filled, the substantial soundness (in the ordinary conventional signification of the term) of its theology, and the spiritual and practical tendency of very many of its parts; and we hope that the respected editor will have no reason to regret its republication. But it is, at the same time, disfigured with many and grievous faults. Considered as an exposition, great deduction must be made from its value. Admitting that it is the expositor's province, as distinguished from the commentator's, to unfold the application of revealed truth to the principles and practices of the age or society in which he lives, this application, it must on the other hand be granted, should be naturally deduced from the sacred text, and made not only with strict impartiality, but in the spirit of the gospel. But it will hardly be pretended, that the present exposition can be so characterized. The polemic-nay the Ishmaelite breathes throughout. He is ever on the watch to see what the text under consideration will furnish against this or that party or class of men. Through this feature of the Exposition, it must, as orally delivered, have greatly failed to convince and persuade those at whom its inuendoes and denunciations were aimed; while its present value as a book for devotional use is thereby greatly impaired. In other respects also the work is very repulsive to the improved taste of the present times, many of the best and most spiritual passages being debased by an habitual play upon words, which detracts very much from their devotional value, and such is the vulgarity, approaching not infrequently to something worse, with which the exposition abounds, that passages repeatedly occur which parents not over scrupulous, would feel compelled to pass over in reading to their families. We had marked some instances of a less offensive kind for quotation, which on consideration we deem it better to omit; but pages 47, 48, 49, 72, and 360 may be referred to in illustration of our meaning. To the care exercised in securing the correctness and beauty of the new edition, it would be injustice to refuse the meed of approbation; but while in its present form the volume will, we doubt not, still continue to be useful to preachers as a storehouse of weighty and various observation, and, if used with due discrimination, an occasional model of striking and pungent application, we cannot but regret that, if it were to be reproduced in a cheaper and more attractive form for modern use, equal pains should not have been taken in excluding or modifying the more offensive passages or expressions of the work. Art. IV. Festus, A Poem. London: Pickering. 8vo. pp. 360. POETRY is one of the great elements of nature, and there is no more fear of its ceasing in its life and in its manifestations, than there is of the sun ceasing to set and rise, the wind to blow, or the ocean to dash its fresh billows on the rocks and sands of habitable earth. While the heart of man lives poetry must live. It is as necessary to prevent our souls from stagnating in indifference, or festering in the corruptions of sense and avarice, as it is for the sun to send its vital force into the dormant clods, for the tempests to shake the waving boughs of the forest, or for the tides to shrink and swell the mighty sea with its daily agitations. When men say that all poetry is past, that the sources of fancy and of feeling are exhausted, that the novelties of nature and of mind are all ransacked and made common as the dust, they forget what millions of hearts are beating amongst them, what new hopes are springing in fresh bosoms, what new careers of love, of passion, of ambition, and of triumph, or of crime and remorse, all elements of immortal poetry, are just beginning. They forget how new nature is yet to thousands and tens of thousands of glittering eyes and ardent bosoms, and how sweet are the first tastes of existence, and the dreams of life yet to come in its strength and new fervor. They forget to how many of these must come, satiety, disappointment, doubt, despair, and prostration of all the affections, and the idols of the affections: and where these are there are the lights and shadows of poetry, the gay or the stern impulses of song that shall thrill through the heart of humanity, because it is raised from the bosom of humanity while it throbs with delight or trembles under the shock of ruin. To say that there is no nascent poetry is to say that the heart of man is dead. It is to mistake winter, or the deep hush of a summer's noon, when nature sleeps or dreams, for death and annihilation. No; poetry can never cease, and, therefore, poets, men capable of receiving and conveying its inspirations, men with a physical and an intellectual organization mighty to feel and to utter, the oracles of choicest truth, can never cease either. They may come scattered, few and far between,' or rising in glorious groups and constellations, but come they will, sure as heaven spans the earth in its new beauty, sure as rainbows shall proclaim ancient prophecy, and guarantee the auspicious course of future years. We shall meet them in our path as young giants were met in the primeval days by wondering men, exulting in their strength, and in the brightness of creation, or we shall hear of them as we hear of new islands suddenly lifting their heads from the sea, to which future men shall cling and build on them all their hearts and hopes. Whenever great poets cease amongst us let us tremble for the continuation of our national renown. We had lately the pleasure to introduce to the notice of our readers the beautiful poetry of Moile in his State Trials;' poetry as remarkable for its perfect harmony as for its strength, and for its rich polish as for its noble and philosophical spirit. We are proud to reflect that while the herd of critics who are ever ready to hail mediocrity with their fluent praise, but who are struck dumb in the presence of the royalty of genius, 'severe in youthful 'beauty,' were suffering the pathetic loveliness of Anne Ayliffe, the grappling vigor of Sir William Stanley, and the living sarcasm of the Queen of Scots to entomb themselves in the dust of their studies, we proclaimed with exclamations of delighted surprise the discovery we made of such a golden wedge of pure poetry; and it is no little satisfaction to see our hearty joy and approbation now as fervently echoed in all its fulness by Christopher North in Blackwood's Magazine for October. We shall now call something more than a moment's attention to a young poet of a very different character, but of not the less extraordinary pretensions. |
