Who

reservation, admits their claim to admiration. This inextricable bias appears even to influence his manner of composition, While all the other assailants of the Roman empire, whether warlike or religious, the Goth, the Hun, the Arab, the Tartar, Alaric, and Attila, Mahomet, and Zengis, and Tamerlane, are each introduced upon the scene almost with dramatic animation-their progress related in a full, complete, and unbroken narrative -the triumph of Christianity alone takes the form of a cold and critical disquisition. The successes of barbarous energy and brute force call forth all the consummate skill of composition;-while the moral triumphs of Christian benevolence-the tranquil heroism of endurance, the blameless purity, the contempt of guilty fame and of honours destructive to the human race, which, had they assumed the proud name of philosophy, would have been blazoned in his brightest words, because they own religion as their principle, sink into a narrow asceticism. The glories of Christianity, in short, touch on no chord in the heart of the writer; his imagination remains unkindled; his words, though they maintain their stately and measured march, have become cool, argumentative, and inanimate. would obscure one hue of that gorgeous colouring in which Gibbon has invested the dying forms of Paganism; or darken one paragraph in his splendid view of the rise and progress of Mahometanism? but who would not have wished that the same equal justice had been done to Christianity; that its real character and deeply penetrating influence had been traced with the same philosophical sagacity, and represented with more sober, as would become its quiet course, and perhaps less picturesque, but still with lively and attractive descriptiveness. He might have thrown aside with the same scorn the mass of ecclesiastical fiction which envelops the early history of the church, stripped off the legendary romance, and brought out the facts in their primitive nakedness and simplicity—if he had but allowed those facts the benefit of the glowing eloquence which he denied to them alone. He might have annihilated the whole fabric of post-apostolic miracles, if he had left uninjured by sarcastic insinuation those of the New Testament; he might have cashiered, with Dodwell, the whole host of martyrs, which owe their existence to the prodigal invention of later days, had he but bestowed fair room, and dwelt with his ordinary energy, on the suffering of the genuine witnesses to the truth of Christianity, the Polycarps or the martyrs of Vienne.

"And indeed, if, after all, the view of the early progress of Christianity be melancholy and humiliating, we must beware lest we charge the whole of this on the infidelity of the historian. It is idle, it is disingenuous, to deny or to dissemble the early depravations of Christianity, its gradual but rapid departure from its primitive simplicity and purity, still more, from its spirit of universal love. It may be no unsalutary lesson to the Christian world, that this silent, this unavoidable perhaps, yet fatal change shall have been drawn by an impartial, or even an hostile hand. Christianity of every age may take warning, lest by its own narrow views, its want of wisdom, and its want of charity, it give the same advantage to the future unfriendly historian, and disparage the cause of true religion.

The

"The design of the present edition is partly corrective, partly supplementary corrective, by notes, which point out (it is hoped, in a perfectly candid and dispassionate spirit, with no desire but to establish the

truth,) such inaccuracies or mis-statements as may have been detected, particularly with regard to Christianity; and which thus, with the pre1 vious caution, may counteract to a considerable extent the unfair and unfavourable impression created against rational religion: supplementary, by adding such additional information as the editor's reading may have been able to furnish, from original documents or books, not accessible at the time when Gibbon wrote.'

In the course of his reading Mr. Milman has been much indebted to the German translator and annotator, Wenck, whose criticisms and diligent research have all the characteristics of his countrymen's patience and minuteness. To Guizot's French edition of Gibbon, he is still more beholden for analysis, and general conclusions, some of them hasty, however, and unjust to the historian, with whom and truth the English editor deals with exemplary good faith. It is at the same time extremely gratifying to find a Frenchman of exalted attainments and of first rate information in regard to the progress. of civilization, and historical data, and facts, putting himself forward as a champion to confront the sceptic who has found so many disciples in a country notorious for its scorn of revealed religion,coming forward and expressing heartfelt displeasure, and urging strenuous reproof of the many signs of dishonesty and malignity on the part of the author of the "Decline and Fall."

Before closing these few hasty and general observations relative to this reprint of Gibbon's great work, which we unhesitatingly pronounce to be the only one which can at all be safely put into the hands of youth or of wavering readers and thinkers as to the origin, the early ages, and the influences of Christianity, we must enrol our approbation of the editor's method of procedure, although we see it suggested in a leading quarterly journal that a different tplan might with greater advantages have been adopted. In the review alluded to, it is intimated that had Mr. Milman prefixed to his edition a cautionary dissertation, pointing out the general defects of Gibbon's reasoning, instead of opposing him in detail by a note here and there, he would have best answered and fulfilled his chief design, of rescuing Christianity from the misrepresentations and the scoffs of the historian. Now we cannot acquiesce in this opinion; for, however useful such a preliminary essay might have been as a dissertation on the evidences of Christianity, how few of the readers of the history would peruse and digest it?-how few would turn from the ever recurring sneers and perversions to seek for the general key of correction? It was a new edition of Gibbon's great work, corrected and illustrated, that was wanted; and without the detail of desultory notes, when occasion required, we cannot conceive that any particular benefit could have resulted from the present reprint over the many that preceded it. Let us have in an appendix, if the editor thinks proper, his combined evidences and

compressed corrections of an infidel work, of astonishing splendour and power; but do not let it be shorn of its progressive, earnest, able, and graceful annotations, that constantly greet the eye, that allay the anxieties of the sincere but timid, and that piece-meal lay bare the most fatal of all poisons.

ART. XII.

1.-Hope Cretes, a Metrical Romance. London: Sherwood. 1838. 2.-Axel, from the Swedish of Esaias Tegner, by G. R. LATHAM, M.A. Hookham.

3.-Tranquil Hours: Poems by MRS. EDWARD THOMAS. Saunders and Otley.

4.-The Poems of Richard Monckton Milnes, Esq., M.P. 2 Vols. Moxon.

5.-Geraldine, with other Poems, by M. F. TUPPER, Esq., M.A. Author of "Proverbial Philosophy." Rickerby.

THE remark is trite, that the mere fact of attempting to compose metrical verses, to put ideas and language into a poetic form, is evidence of praiseworthy qualities in the person who thus occupies himself, of a mind alive to beauty of sentiment and melody of expression. To be sure, the sensibility of the composer, and of him who feels pleasure in reciting his own verses, may be very imperfect or very morbid; but still the general presumption is such as has now been stated. We are sorry to add, however, that there appear to be some exceptions to this prevailing rule; that a man may be such a fool as to attempt stringing a certain number of syllables and words together, which, in as far as the collocation and beauty of thought or of expression are concerned, bear no more resemblance to poetry than nonsense does to knowledge, or doggerel jargon to awakening and harmonious wisdom. Such at least is the " Metricai Romance" before us. What motive possessed the author when he commenced, what prospects could sway him when he proceeded with such a deplorable performance, or who may have been his advisers when he was induced to adventure before the public, it is impossible for us to guess, and, indeed, unnecessary to speculate about: for folly, stupidity, and hopeless presumption are here too manifest, as one or two specimens will sufficiently indicate; and who can find satisfactory explanations for the vagaries of these qualities?

Some glimmerings about the simplicity of our Lake poets, and the sympathies which they and others, Cowper, for example, have evinced towards most familiar things, perhaps have tempted the author to sing of ordinary, thence of loftiest themes, with marvellous self-assurance, and apparently without a suspicion of the attempt being most contemptible. Just to convey an idea of the small

beginnings of Hope's history, and to show to what sublimity the thing is carried,--let the reader behold him and his mamma, in their humble cottage-dwelling by the wayside, where, as we are informed, she provided refreshments for travellers; or in Scottish fashion, provided, as we take it, "entertainment for men and horses." Then think of the great promise which Cretes at a very

early age gave:—

"He had a memory most rare;

A sermon, whole, would seize,
And bear it to his mother home,
And thus her humour please.
My lammie, come, this lady give
The heads of the discourse,
A something here I have will buy
My Hope a sugar-horse."

Some moralists, as well as certain writers on education, disapprove strongly of rewards in the shape of sugar-horses, or any other sugar shape being made the incentive to good actions.

A stern rule, however, may be permitted for the sake of such exquisite conceptions and tender expressions as distinguish the foregoing and the following verses :

"Then Hope began-Zounds! what a river

Of words both short and long

Poured forth with unction, sense, and sound,
From text divine and strong.

How sweet!-But we must hasten to inform the reader that after a considerable variety of ups and downs, change of condition, change of sentiment, and change of principles, a strong metaphysical tendency, and unprecedented philosophizings, set in under some curious circumstances. We cannot spare time to explain the context of the specimen we now quote, farther than to say, Hope is seated in his mother's hedge public-house.

"Ere he had read a dozen verses,
He looked as if confounded,
Coughed, and began again,-reverses,
Accents and tones, and sounded

His voice through all the scale from A,
Up to some alto one,-

It would not do,-at last, an awe

Seized hold of him. My son,

We have only further to state that this, not drunken or demented writer, but unmatched fool, proceeds to discourse of the Deity, his attributes, and the most solemn themes that can engage the minds of men in similar strains; the only apology that can be offered for his profanity and trash being an idiotic inconsciousness that such are the only features or qualities of the romance.

Perhaps the authors of the other pieces named at the head of this article may consider themselves ushered into unbecoming society, by thus having them ranged with the worthless stuff already described. We hope, however, they will regard the combination as affording a foil rather than as introducing a disgraceful brother into their company. In fact there is no fellowship, no kind of fraternity between Mr. Certes and any other in our list.

"Axel," at least as read in Mr. Latham's translation, is a poem, like the "Frithiof" of the same author and the same translator, of singular spirit and vividness, couched in as far as the English is concerned in language which none but a master of poetic diction could employ. Mr Latham actually revels among the proprieties, the beauties, and the energies of our tongue. As to the poem itself, forcible and rapid as is its story, it is rather to be admired on account of its descriptions than its actually experienced feelings on the part of the actors. It is what others have felt, rather than the resistless bursts of passion, that we detect. In short, had the poem been more dramatic and less scenic, we think we should have liked it better. As it is, however, it is a welcome contribution to our stock of translations, conveying as it does various indications of its northern origin. The story is simple, the characters, properly, but