Or as she coyly waves her hand, to sip While rising doubts my heart's high hopes destroy Thou dost the fulness of her charms enjoy."-Sac. p. 19. Kálidása delights in nothing more than in descriptions of nature of which he was a careful observer. He has more than one picture of those oppressive Eastern noons when the stillness is more profound than at midnight, and "you almost hear the great heat-drops from nature's forehead fall," when, as he says— "The drowsy bee Sleeps in the hollow chamber of the lotus Darkened by closing petals." In the following he gives us a sketch of the quiet jungle:"All undisturbed the buffaloes shall sport In yonder pool, and with their ponderous horns Scatter its tranquil waters; while the deer, Couched here and there in groups beneath the shade Of spreading branches, ruminate in peace; And all securely shall the herd of boars Feed on the marshy sedge."-Sac. p. 42. Still more Indian is the description of the stout hunting monarch wasted by his passion: "As night by night in anxious thought I raise This wasted arm to rest my sleepless head, My jewelled bracelet, sullied by the tears That trickle from my eyes in scalding streams, Slips towards my elbow from my shrivelled wrist, So easily it spans the fleshless limb That e'en the rough and corrugated skin, Scarred by the bow-string, will not check its fall."-Sac. p. 71. The departure of the maiden from the quiet hermitage where she had lived so long is painted with much tender beauty :"In sorrow for thy loss the herd of deer Forget to browse; the peacock on the lawn 1 Ceases its dance; the very trees around us Shed their pale leaves, like tears, upon the ground." "It is the little fawn, thy foster child, Poor helpless orphan! It remembers well How with a mother's tenderness and love Thou didst protect it, and with grains of rice 'Alluding to the restless circular movements of this bird at the approach of rain. The Drama of India. Had pierced its mouth, how gently thou didst tend Mutely imploring leave to follow her."-Sac. p. 108. 339 The genius of our poet is not all of this placid and gentle nature, and at times he can burst forth in vehement passion and impatient grandeur. The picture of his hero's madness in the Vikramorvasi is one that would do honour to the literature of any age and country. We have done our best to set forward the advantages to be reaped from a study of Sanskrit; but though its devotees are increasing every year in number, it will be long before it takes the place to which it is entitled beside the study of European classics. In the meantime, those among us who have mastered it owe a duty to the rest, and we fervently trust that there will be many to follow the example of Mr M. Williams, and rob their profounder study of a few hours, from time to time, in order to give to European readers the beauties which they meet with in a form in which they can be generally appreciated. ART. III.-1. Lehrbuch d. Kirchengeschichte. v. Dr J. C. L. GIESELER. Bonn: Marcus. 1842-1857. 2. Handbuch d. Kirchengeschichte. v. H. E. F. GUERICKE, Dr u. Prof. d. Theologie, Achte Auflage. Berlin: H. Schindler. 1855. 3. Kirchengeschichte. v. Dr KARL HASE, Sebente-Auflage. Leipzig: Breitkopf u. Härtel. 1854. 4. Lehrbuch d. Kirchengeschichte f. Studirende. v. Dr J. H. KURTZ, Dritte Ausgabe. Mitau: A. Neumann. 1857. 5. Handbuch d. Kirchengeschichte. v. Dr J. J. Ritter, Funfte Auflage. Bonn: Marcus. 1854. 6. Die Grossen Kirchenversammlungen d. 15ten u. 16ten Jahrhunderts geschichtlich u. kritisch dargestellt. WESSENBERG. Constanz. Glukhez. v. J. H. v. 7. Die Kirchengeschichte in Biographien, v. FRIEDRICH BÖHRINGER. Zurich: Meyer u. Želler. 1842-1858. - A PROFESSOR Of Theology at one of the English Universities was staying, in vacation time, with a clerical friend. Whether, like a Glasgow professor of the last century, he had taken Poole's "Synopsis" with him as light summer reading, we know not. At the request of his friend, he agreed to put a few questions in the Sunday school. The first urchin that was called up had the astounding query put to him, Well, what can you tell me about the Monothelite controversy?" The perplexed lad was not more ignorant of the views of these old eastern heretics, than are most even of well-educated Englishmen of all special acquaintance with, or love for, the matters which Church History unfolds. In their minds this study is associated with all that is professionally dry and repulsive. Nor can we altogether wonder at this. We have in English no work on Ecclesiastical History to place on a level with the great works on Civil History, which the close of the last century and the present have produced. Church History has yet to find its Hallam; has still to wait for its Macaulay. Two centuries nearly have elapsed since Thomas Fuller published his "Church History of Great Britain." Many corrections, owing to the publication of documents unknown to that witty author, might now be made in his work, but in readableness he has not been equalled by any subsequent writer, either on a wider or a narrower part of the Church History field. It is exaggerated censure on the part of Hase to say of Milner, that "his book is merely popular Methodism without recourse to State of British Church History. 341 the original sources." The master of the Hull Grammar School was a thorough scholar, and too conscientious to avail himself only of secondhand materials. But his view was too narrow to admit of his doing justice to the noble field that lay before him; and though he felt as a saint, he wrote as a sloven. On highly cultivated minds his book could make little impression. Dr Newman, in his bitter hatred to the Church which he abandoned, has told us that Gibbon is the source whence most Englishmen derive what knowledge of Church History they possess. The sneer may have some truth in it; but where have been the contributions in the English language to Church History from the Church to which Dr Newman has joined himself? Some meritorious compends of Ecclesiastical History for professional use have, of late, issued from the English press, among which that of Hardwick, though not unfrequently sacrificing both vigour and accuracy to the affectation of point, is decidedly the best. But for the unprofessional reader, desirous either from devout interest in the past fortunes of Christ's Body, or from general views of intellectual improvement, to make himself acquainted with the bygone eras of Church History, there is, as yet, no work of native growth to supersede Milner. Hopes were once entertained that Scotland would furnish a history thoroughly adequate to the wishes of cultivated and serious minds. One whose name must ever be dear to the numerous students whom he trained for professional work-whose name must ever be venerable to the readers of this Review, which he first edited, Dr Welsh-gave to the world the first volume of a History of the Church, based upon his lectures. All who profited by his, alas! too brief professorial career, would agree in ascribing to him a great benefit, alike in the amount of information communicated, and in the direction given to their future studies. Dr Welsh was most thoroughly conscientious in his academical labours. There never lived a professor, in whose case there were less need of a vague unreasoning trust on the part of his students. Whatever he stated might be implicitly depended on, not, indeed, as absolutely accurate (of whom, in so wide a field, could that be said?), but as the result of careful, judicial, unimpassioned research and consideration. As years rolled by, and their own independent studies reached greater development, some might indeed have wished that, while under his tuition, more space had been afforded to such subjects as the history of Christian philosophy, or of preaching, or of sacred poetry, or of ecclesiastical art. But a little further consideration would probably lead them to the belief, that if their revered instructor did not do all upon these subjects in his lectures that might have by some been wished, it was because the space at his command, in a three years' course, was limited, and because he knew that those who felt a longing to prosecute such subjects, would afterwards be fully able to gratify their desires. Dr Welsh was cut off in the prime of life, before he could fully mould a generation of students by his philosophic habits, his practice of accurate research, and his deep love for his subject. Scotland never before possessed so thoroughly qualified a professor, and, without unwisely seeking to compare men so radically different, it may be as easy to find a second Chalmers, as to meet with another Welsh. Had he lived to complete the History, of which only one volume was given to the public, Scotland would have had one man, of whom, without exaggeration, it might have been said that he had done what in him lay to make his native country what France in the seventeenth century was, and what, after Fleury's time, Germany has become in the Church History field. While, from one cause or another, our country remains thus inferior, and even the great endowments of the English Universities are found unavailing to produce a class of men, who may compete with their Teutonic contemporaries, it is pleasing to contemplate the variety and the value of the contributions to the subject before us, which, especially since Mosheim's time, Germany has afforded. A History of the Church, from the beginning to the present time, on a large scale, may be safely pronounced one of those gigantic undertakings, which no man can reasonably expect to live to accomplish. Baronius, Natalis Alexander, Fleury, Schrökh, Neander, Welsh, all quitted the scene ere their selfimposed task was finished. The original investigation of the thousand points which occur; the accurate proportionment of these, according to their intrinsic value; the casting these into a full, thorough, well-developed, picturesquely-narrated story-are beyond the compass of threescore years and ten. He who would, in any true sense of the term, be an exhaustive Church historian, must take a special country, or a particular age. Either may amply satisfy a reasonable ambition and a probable hope. The Church historian, to come up to a reasonable anticipation of his qualifications, should be one fully able to seize and to present the salient points in the aspect of the past. Whatever was most characteristic of the age; whatever moved the minds of the thinking few; whatever stirred the feelings of the unreasoning many-he must know and show. Here it may be the German discourses of a Tauler, there the Latin sequences of a Jacopone; at one time the recasting in a new form of Church music, at another era, the advance or the decline of some form of ecclesiastic art. A due proportion, indeed, must be observed; the deeper must not be thrown into a corner by the superficial; the |