66 Gospel, or that the Evangelists copied from one another. We have exhibited the famous hypothesis first proposed by Eichhorn, improved by Bishop Marsh, and finally elaborated by Eichhorn again. We must confess that the prolixity and profundity of this scheme are of themselves sufficient to condemn it, and that it is quite a relief to turn from it and other like speculations to our author's very simple but comprehensive and sufficient hypothesis. It is this: The Lord Jesus Christ SPOKE IN GREEK, and the Evangelists independently narrated His actions and reported His discourses IN THE SAME LANGUAGE which He had Himself employed." This position is made good; and when our author proceeds to notice the occasional use by our Lord of Syro-Chaldaic expressions, which have been hastily seized upon by some as proofs that He usually spoke in this tongue, he shows how naturally this would occur in perfect consistency with the fact that the Saviour's usual language was Greek. He modestly suggests, too, the probable inducements which may have led our Lord in the several instances to recur to the old tongue. These suggestions are worthy and pleasing. That Matthew's Gospel bears no marks in itself of being a translation, but, on the contrary, has every appearance of being an original, and that all internal evidence that can be brought to bear on this question is in favour of this, is clearly shown; ample external evidence is also adduced that the Greek Gospel was received as genuine close upon the times of the Apostles. After all this, the question may be put in wonder, "What ground can there be for maintaining a contrary hypothesis ?" All that can be urged is from external evidence alone, and this, when examined, proves to be of a very meagre character. Eusebius, in his History, quotes a saying of Papius, Bishop of Hierapolis, in Phrygia, in the early part of the second century, to the effect that Matthew wrote his Gospel in Hebrew. This saying Mr. Roberts ably criticizes, and shows it to have scarcely any value, especially when it is remembered that it is the saying of one whom Eusebius himself characterizes as apódρa oμipòc tòv vovy: but Papius, being one of the most ancient Fathers, was reverenced by all who followed him, and his opinion too easily received without question; so that, in truth, the array of testimonies to the fact that this Gospel was originally Hebrew can honestly be reduced to that of a single writer, and he a man of very poor ability." Mr. Roberts notices, too, Dr. Cureton's muchparaded Syriac Gospels, and shows that they are in all probability a mere copy of the Greek. In his remarks on Dr. Cureton's unguarded professions and assertions we entirely concur. 66 We sincerely thank Mr. Roberts for throwing so much light on this vexed question. We have derived much pleasure and confidence from reading his book. With him we rejoice and are comforted in the belief that we have the "ipsissima verba" of our gracious Lord. We heartily commend his book to all who have heard of this question, and who wish to know assuredly what is the true Word of God. H. G. Poetic Section. BRITISH POETRY. IN very childhood our estimate of right and wrong, of moral beauty and deformity, is based mainly on our knowledge gleaned from the fields of child-lore. This lore, so attractive and so powerful, embraces exciting rhymes of valiant little giant-killers, of loving little babes, and most loving little redbreasts; of enthralling Cinderellas, of detestable Bluebeards, of simple, trustful, but most basely-deceived little Ridinghoods. Shipwreck and Robinson Crusoe; Utopia and the men of Lilliput; voyages round the world; encounters with cannibals; and improbable combats with impossible dragons, griffins, and goblins, gather round the standard of our fluttering imagination. As we grow older, David and Goliath are our wonder, and Joseph and his brethren become our chiefest study, and the injunction, "See that ye fall not out by the way," is, like the Caliph Vathek's terrible eye, full of strange, mysterious, and prophetic meaning; our unfledged passions move uneasily, longing to leave the nest and pierce the cloud. The way is the grand mystery. Always uncertain, always unseen, always attractive. Oh, child-heart! hope's pure palace! cease not to look thus hopefully into futurity. The way may be, at times, through terrible darkness; thou mayest have to endure the baptism of sorrow, and drink the cup of disappointment; but the way has an end-and its end is PEACE. By-and-bye THE WORLD is our study-the great, wide world unveils. With an eye already growing accustomed to the glare of the footlights, tinsel, and rouge, we gradually lose sight of the fancies that held us in fairy thrall, and at last our reflections are gathered from the world as it is, ripe, unmasked, matured. Then, as actors in the great drama, we feel that to play our part well we must study well the plot. Just so is it with literature. First, the wonderful, the altogether unreal, the wildly imaginative, is unfolded. Then the observant, coupled with exaggeration, and varnished with the ideal. Lastly, the true, the unmasked, the reflective, the dramatic. In the period of ballad poetry, England had arrived at the second stage of literary development. Greece and Rome rose by the same gradations. We are only a higher development of them. Our history is but another slide which Time is swiftly passing through his magic lamp. The light is stronger because the sky is clearer; the colours are more pure, because living water, not stagnant, is mixed with them; the subject is more real, because wisdom is more universal; but the slide moves on, and what we are will be the "have been" of some far-off essayist, who shall reflectively examine the painting, as it hangs dust-endowed in the hall of history. Emerging from the second period of our national poetic life, the period of minstrels and ballads, we come upon the drama, with its crowd of immortal names. Once men's passions were put in chains by skilful master-hands, men acknowledged the service done by immortalizing the doers. Whilst Poetry led a vagrant life, and went about, poor girl! with a ballad as her only garment, men admired and adored, but never protected her. When she seized the crown and grasped the sceptre, winning and ruling the smiles and tears of throbbing hearts, then Poesy was acknowledged, and her servants held in high repute. Ballads are the wild songs of our forest nooks and our primrose banks. The drama and its fellows are the organ melodies of our costly cathedral. There we sit by the soft-flowing stream, under the shade of leafy wilderness, and dream of beauty and love, of nature and her minstrelsy. Here we stand beside the altar, and above the dead, "Whose swords are rust, Whose bodies dust, And whose souls are with the Lord, we trust," and we think of man's devices and heaven's gifts. 64 The fourteenth century will ever be considered the English Homeric age, because of the man who made it brilliant,-Chaucer, the father of English poetry. 'He acquires his right to that title, not only on the ground of being our earliest poet, but because the foundations he laid still support the fabric of our poetical literature, and will outlast the vicissitudes of taste and language." He wrote five hundred years ago, without a national literature to learn from, before books were printed, and before men cared or hoped to read; and still he stands immoveable; whilst others, with greater advantages, have since written, and they with their writings are in dead darkness. From his poetry we learn of a state of society without modern parallel. Moreover, his strong intellect was well employed to our advantage. His was the era in which the Norman and Saxon races became fixed; the language was then discriminately arranged and sifted by him, and, in his "Tales," stereotyped imperishably. Gower, the friend of Chaucer, although a poet of the same era, is far from being of the same power. His "Confessio Amantis," or "Confession of Love," is dull and dreamy. If penances were fashionable, it would be worse than solitary confinement to be condemned to read within a given period this most unreadable antiquity. Chaucer, well for his fame, wrote as purely, and with as much polish, as he could; and although his "Tales" were admired by contemporary and succeeding scholars, yet not till centuries after were they diffused as they ought to have been. Reading was a luxury only attainable to the rich, therefore long written poems were sealed to the many. Some means must soon arise to spread knowledge, for the minstrels and troubadours, having suffered ignominy and reverses, were becoming scarce, and so a new race of literati appeared with the dawn of the sixteenth century, dramatists. the The art of Poetry was no longer to be confined to the feudal hall, with its retained minstrel, but according to the inevitable law of progression, was about to take a stride which should eventually lead to the highest developments of her splendour. Men should hear, if they could not read. Oral teaching should instruct those who cared not to, or could not, receive book instruction. Oratory was then about to establish a purpose, and to earn a fame, which for a time should obtain followers innumerable. Dramatic teaching, from the stage, pulpit, and platform, holds even now a high place among THE POWERS of literature. Is it not possible that, in a not far off futurity, men shall cease to worship oratory, and be their own philosophers-getting knowledge from others, seeking wisdom in themselves; painting their own ideals, and aiming at individual, manly perfection. Speech is silvern; silence is golden." 66 The first dramatist was Nicholas Udall. His first work a pageant exhibited by the Mayor and citizens of London to celebrate the entrance of Anne Boleyn into the city, after her marriage; a pageant perhaps equal in glitter, pantomimic mummery, and meaningless adoration, to our nineteenth century Lord Mayor's Show. The first regular English comedy was his play called "Ralp Roister Doister," a rollicking composition for a churchman and courtier. He was rewarded for his services to religion by presentation to a stall at Windsor in 1551. Died 1556. Ralp Roister Doister, the hero of the comedy, sings a song, the refrain of which, although afterwards used by Shakespeare, is not a fashionable one in our time. The song is worth reading. "I MUN BE MARRIED A SUNDAY. "I mun be married a Sunday; "Roister Doister is my name; "Custance is as sweet as honey; "When we shall make our wedding feast, When we shall make our wedding feast, There shall be cheer for man and beast. I mun be married a Sunday. I mun be married a Sunday." The hero quarrels with his Custance, and cries, "Master Roister Doister will go straight home and die;" and in a crude sonnet, called the "Psalmodie of the Rejected Lover," he, with some poetic and some strong matter-of-fact feeling, gives direction for his own funeral "Dirige." He will go darkling to his grave. 66 "Neque lux, neque crux, nisi solum clink, Never genman so went towards heaven, I think. As a favourite, John Heywood followed Udall. According to the Book of Payments," Henry the Eighth took him into his service as a player on the virginal. The song of "The Green Willow," which gave refrains to so many songs in subsequent times, is the best in his works. "All a green willow, willow, All a green willow is my garland. "Alas! by what means may I make ye to know For all a green willow is my garland! "To have love, and hold love, where love is so sped, From love won, to love lost, where lovers be led, Oh! desperate dolor, the lover is dead! For all a green willow is his garland! "She said she did love me, and would love me still; For all a green willow is my garland. "Now, woe with the willow, and woe with the wight No lover doth beg for this willow garland. |