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continually speaks of critical questions in the line of Biblical literature, as settled, which are subjects of the most strenuous controversy. He has a partisan predilection for the most ultra theories, and reasons from them as established, when a scholarly modesty would dictate a little reserve. He makes sometimes the strangest generalizations and formulas, which a tyro in philosophy could hardly be guilty of. For instance, he classifies Pantheists in two categories. One class hold, he says, that "the sum total of finite spirit is God;" the other, that "the sum total of material things is God." It must be a hasty reading, or a sad incompetency for metaphysical appreciation, that would lead a man to publish so superficial a statement. We certainly never heard before the faintest rumor of such a school as the class first named, and we were amazed to find Mr. Parker ranging the author of the "Vestiges" under the latter head. Surely he ought not to complain of the judgement of "infidel" against himself, when he can make such a childish classification of that much abused theorist.

Some of his careless statements are quite amusing. This is rather a good joke: "So Protestants and Catholics, Unitarians and Trinitarians, Universalists and Partialists agree in the main parts of their theology: they all substantially unite in their idea of God," &c. Only an unimportant difference between Channing and Hopkins, Ballou and Emmons! Again; 66 a few heretical Unitarians have differed from the main church on the arithmetic of Deity, not on the ethics or psychology thereof." Priestly and Dewey accord with Calvin and Payson on the spirit of God's government and the objects it contemplates! But wait: "The belief in the devil is a New Testament doctrine and an Old Testament doctrine. Catholic and Protestant, Trinitarian and Unitarian, Partialists and Universalists, agree in this. No Christian sect has ever denied his existence." The only thing wanting to complete the richness of this statement is a reference to the writings of Father Ballou and the numbers of the Trumpet that maintain the sacredness of his dark lordship's personality. Furthermore, we read that the Bible doctrine "knows no God immanent in the universe and yet transcendent thereof." One would think that the proem to the fourth Gospel, the conversation at the well of Sychar, and one or two expressions of St. Paul, might have lingered in Mr. Parker's memory.

We do not think we shall utterly fail in charity to Mr. Parker if we speak of the faults of his style, and call attention to his sad degeneracy as a writer since he published the "Discourse of Religion." He is miserably diffuse and repetitious. He expands and developes an idea till he drains its life out, and wearies every reader who likes to be complimented with a presumed capacity to do a little thinking for himself. Each successive publication marks a growing coarseness of taste, the more painful when contrasted with the sweet37

VOL. X.

ness and purity of passages in his earlier writings, and a decpening violence of invective and indifference to the honor of the English tongue. He seems ambitious to justify Mr. Lowell's picture of him as "the Orson of parsons." When he gets his enemies within reach, "He bangs and bethwacks them,-their backs he salutes With the whole tree of knowledge torn up by the roots; His sermons with satire are plenteously verjuiced, And he talks in one breath of Confutzee, Cass, Zerduscht, Jack Robinson, Peter the Hermit, Strap, Dathan, Cush, Pitt (not the bottomless, that he's no faith in.)

*

For he seized the idea (by his martyrdom fired)
That all men (not Orthodox) may be inspired."

It is painful to notice this decline of a writer who was so competent to wear the other characteristic which the same poem applied to him, "Almost Taylor's profusion, quite Latimer's sense." But Mr. Parker seemes to have lost the idea of reserve power in writing, or to distinguish between moral indignation based on reverence of holy truth, and spasmodic and satirical denunciation, in which rhetoric sometimes foams at the mouth, or executes the contortions of a St. Vitus's Dance. Ought not a scholar to abase himself in shame for insulting our ample language with frequent statements of God as the Infinite" Norm," or as " Exploitering" the race? Does "squelch " belong to the family of indispensable words? Is the phrase "riding cockhorse on grandam's crutch" forcible or witty in a sermon? Can it be that any minds are transcendentalized into toleration of the phrase, with which Mr. Parker has sickened us even to loathing, in his repeated allusions to God as the "Infinite mother" of the world? Or what can we say of his continued references to Dr. Dewey, except that they are brutal? There are some exquisite passages in these volumes, gleams of the beauty and tenderness which sweetened the heresies of his earlier work on Religion. He writes best and most powerfully when he is least controversial,-in discourses like that on Speculative Theism, or "Love and the Affections." He should believe that he is most forcible when he is least vulgar, strongest in his calmer passages, most effective in the pages that flow serenely out of his soul, rather than in those which spirt from his hatreds, and boldest in his generous utterance of mighty principles, instead of in the audacities of personal assertion and flippant scorn, which in a reformer, no less than in the pugilist, must be christened impudence. Would that so much religious conviction and capacity were united with a more just estimate of the office and ministries of the Christian faith! Would that such powers for good were better organized and balanced, so that our reverence for the philanthropist would not require such large deductions for defects of temper and method which vitiate his his influence and postpone his success !

K.

16. The Cloister Life of the Emperor Charles the Fifth. By William Stirling, author of "Annals of the Artists of Spain." From the Second London Edition. Boston: Crosby, Nichols & Co. 1853. 12mo. p. 322.

The American publishers have done good service to the public in giving them this valuable and fascinating book in such an excellent edition. Nothing more definite or acurate has been hitherto available to the English reader, concerning the retirement of the great Emperor, the modern echo of Diocletian's abdication-than the pages of Robertson afford. But the picture given by the Scotch historian was a hasty transcript from an unscrupulous chronicler. The present work is drawn from authentic documents, and mostly from a Spanish manuscript that has long been secret in the Foreign Office of the French government. The author has visited the monastery at Yuste, where the monarch nominally secluded himself from the affairs of State, and has evidently spared no pains to make his work reliable and exhaustive. It is admirably prepared. The style is pure, perspicuous, and flowing, the narrative easy and graceful, the arrangement natural and orderly. Few books have been issued lately that are more valuable to the lover of the romantic side of history, or to a student of the caprices of human nature. The revelations of the personal qualities and habits of the great monarch-his haughty theories and private affability; his piety and gluttony; his superstition and gout; his indifference to the private happiness of his dearest relatives, if he could play a good political game with their hopes and hearts; his unscrupulous methods of dealing with heresy for the honor of the gospel of charity; and the subtle ways by which he kept much of the substance of power, when he nominally yielded it with disgust; open a brilliant chapter in the records of the amusing infirmities and sad contradictions that hide in the human heart.

We have omitted to call attention to a volume which Messrs. Crosby & Nichols published a few months since, entitled Reason and Faith, and other Miscellanies of Henry Rogers, author of "the Eclipse of Faith." These papers have all been drawn from the Edinburgh Review, to which Mr. Rogers has been a brilliant contributor during the last ten years. Before the "Eclipse of Faith" gave him such wide popularity, the paper on "Reason and Faith” excited much interest to know the author. It is a very able review of Froude, Foxton and Strauss, and is, we think, superior in merit to the more elaborate book by which he has become known. The other papers treat of "Thomas Fuller;" "Andrew Marvell; "Luther's Correspondence and Character;" "Genius and Writings of Pascal;" "Sacred Eloquence; the British Pulpit;" "The Vanity and Glory of Literature;" and "Right of Private Judgement." The whole makes a volume of 458 pages, published, like all that comes from Crosby & Nichols' press, in excellent style.

K

17. Autobiographic Sketches: Selections Grave and Gay, from writings published and unpublished, by Thomas DeQuincey. Boston: Ticknor, Reed & Fields. 1853. pp. 383.

The publication of twelve volumes of miscellanies, in this country, selected by an American editor, seems to have aroused in Mr. De Quincey some interest in his productions and his literary fame. He has re-written several of his papers, and has authorized in England a collection of revised Essays and Sketches. The present volume is the first of that issue, and the thirteenth from Ticknor's press. Some of the material has appeared in a former volume on "Life and Manners," but it is recast, and is enriched with additions which no lover of DeQuincey can afford to lose. We rejoice to see that there is likely to be a proper recognition of the author's powers and claims in England. The London "Leader" lately contained an appreciative review of him from the brilliant pen of "Vivian," now known to be Mr. G. H. Lewes, author of the "Biographical History of Philosophy." The article speaks of him as the greatest living master of English prose, a judgement which, we believe, to be justified and unquestionable. We rejoice to learn, by the preface written for the English edition, that the gorgeous "Suspiria de profundis" is only a fragment of a larger work, yet to be given to the world as an elaborate attempt to add a piece of "impassioned prose," to English literature, ranging under no precedents in any language. May opium not be unpropitious to our hopes! The present volume is introduced by a letter to Mr. Fields, in which the author makes grateful recognition of the liberality of the American publishers in making him a partner in the profits of their publication.

The same house have issued a volume of "German Lyrics" translated by Rev. Charles T. Brooks. It is made up of pieces from the modern lyrists of Germany. The principal names are Count Von Auersberg, who writes under the assumed name of Anastatsias Grün, Rückert, Uhland, Freiligrath, Müller, Chamisso, Gellert, Geibel, etc. Most of the versions read very smoothly and sweetly, and competent critics, who have examined the book carefully, bear witness to the fidelity and excellence of the poetical rendering. There are some glorious gems in the volume, and it deserves a wide popularity.

We are indebted, moreover, to Ticknor & Co. for a new edition of Tennyson, in two volumes conformed to the last English edition, in which the "Princess" is re-written, and several exquisite songs added. We quote the "Bugle-Song" for those of our readers who can delight in a rich creation of genius :

"The splendor falls on castle walls
And snowy summits old in story;

The long light shakes across the lakes,
And the wild cataract leaps in glory.

Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying:
Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying.

O hark! O hear! how thin and clear,
And thinner, clearer, further going!
O sweet and far, from cliff and scar,
The horns of Elfland faintly blowing!
Blow, let us hear the purple glens replying:
Blow, bugle; answer echoes, dying, dying, dying.

O love, they die in yon rich sky,
They faint on hill, or field or river;
Our echoes roll from soul to soul
And grow forever and forever.

Blow, bugle, blow, set the wide echoes flying,
And answer, echoes, answer, dying, dying, dying."

к.

18. Passages from the History of a Wasted Life. By a Middle-aged Man. Edited by the author of "Pen and Ink Sketches," &c. Illustrated by Billings. Boston: Benjamin B. Mussey and Company. 1853. 12mo. pp. 248.

mont.

19. Uncle Sam's Palace; or the Reigning King. By Emma WellIllustrated by Billings. Boston: Benjamin B. Mussey and Company. 1853. 12mo. pp. 308.

We welcome these volumes as needful contributions to the temperance literature of our country. The first is especially designed to illustrate the perils to which the young and intellectual are exposed, and is exceedingly well suited to the purpose. The author holds a vigorous pen, pointed, we almost fear, by personal reminiscences. The wide introduction which these " Passages" have already received, must ensure them, what they deserve, an extensive circulation.

Uncle Sam's Palace partakes more of the nature of a novel. It is one of the best of its class. Mr. Samuel Beals, Jr., (familiarly called Uncle Sam,) is an extensive wholesale dealer in liquors; he becomes very rich; builds a "palace" in the country; is brought to repentance by witnessing the legitimate fruits of his business in the ruin of numerous families, and especially in the drunkenness of his own son. But, reader, buy the book, especially if you are engaged in the liquor traffic, or are, in any way, an apologist for it, buy Uncle Sam's Palace, and read it.

W. H. R.

20. Isaac T. Hopper: A True Life. By L. Maria Child. Boston: John P. Jewett & Co. 1853. 12mo. pp. 493.

It is a good deal to say of a man that he lived " a true life." Mrs. Child appears to have considered this in preparing the materials for the biography of her friend, and has accordingly devoted a large share of her volume to the pleasant task of showing what he did. This is done in part, by short biographical sketches of many of the slaves, convicts, and "poor and needy" of all classes, whom he befriended-sketches of exceeding interest, which show as clearly as

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