and not to ex subjected the creatures given to man for use, ercise his wanton cruelty. We could quote many a Puritan rebuke founded upon this reasonable plea. But suppose the whole objection lay where Mr. Macaulay places it," in the pleasure which it gave to the spectators." We are not sure that this would not be, to a reasonable and humane person, the strongest and most effective objection to such sports. A religious man, of any complexion of faith, might well deny the lawfulness of that pleasure which they afforded to spectators. Indeed, Mr. Macaulay's account, farther on, of the feelings and habits which characterized the times, furnishes full proof that there was a ferocious and cruel spirit then indulged, which it was very desirable should be softened and humanized. If the reader will revert to the long extract which we have given from his comprehensive view of the state of society in 1685, and note particularly what he says of the prevailing fondness for brutal and sanguinary scenes, we think the Puritans will stand acquitted from all blame, on Mr. Macaulay's own showing. We have no doubt of the literal truth of his painful sketch. While such ferocity and cruelty abounded, we must think the Puritan excusable, if he objected to bear-baiting for no other reason than simply because it "gave pleasure to the spectators." It was a pleasure of which it was right that they should be deprived. Mr. Macaulay seems to have been aware that his rhetoric was at issue with his conscience, and, unwilling to cancel his pointed antithesis, he adds a note to help it out. His note begins thus "How little compassion for the bear had to do with the matter is sufficiently proved," etc. And what is the proof? Why this, that on one occasion Colonel Cromwell, and on another Colonel Pride, came upon some bears, the former finding them in the height of their sport," "on the Lord's day," and the latter meeting them reserved in a "bear-garden," and both ordered them to be shot; - which was perfectly right, because it was the method of mercy. Macaulay adds, that Colonel Pride is represented by a loyal satirist as defending the act thus," etc. We need not say how, seeing that the representation is that of a loyal satirist, not of a Puritan. The other matter on which we would animadvert is Mr. Macaulay's depreciation of the integrity of William Penn. He has evidently formed but a low estimate of the character of that amiable and upright, but rather unfortunate man. He 1849.] Orthography. 267 questions those elements of Penn's nature and soul which the Quaker himself really thought were safe from censure, and which, after a fair investigation, we have found no reason to distrust. Penn did lack sagacity in reading character and discerning some traits of human nature. He did some small jobs, not merely to please others, but undoubtedly to gratify a harmless weakness of self-importance which beset him. But reproach or contempt cannot fairly be fastened upon him, and Mr. Macaulay's insinuations may pass for more with some readers than would a bald, specific charge. We are the more surprised at our author's low estimate of William Penn, because it is so unlike the high opinion formed of him, and the generous praise accorded to him, by that eminent statesman and moralist, Sir James Mackintosh, who speaks of Penn as "a man of such virtue as to make his testimony weighty." He commends his "sincere piety," though he admits the mistake in his policy. We might wish to specify two other qualifications of the perfect candor and justice of our author, if we were passing upon him a formal opinion. The spirit of censure, however, is not the mood in which we close this enchaining and instructive volume. None can appreciate more than we do the talents of the author, and the good use which he has made of them. May his six volumes grow to twelve. It is understood that the Messrs. Harper have purchased from the London publishers, or from the author, a copy of the sheets of this History as they shall be successively struck off in England, so as to afford to American readers an early opportunity to read the work, and to secure to themselves a large sale without rivalry. The proof-reader of the Messrs. Harper has altered the orthography in the American reprint, and has substituted Webster's emendation of the English language. So much has already been said in censure of this most unwarrantable proceeding in our best newspapers, that we need add nothing more, except simply the remark, that we regret and condemn it. But we cannot approve the project of a rival edition in Boston. The Harpers have purchased a certain privilege; by courtesy and fairness, they are entitled to its full enjoyment. They should have been allowed to issue another edition from their press, conformed in orthography to the English, without the interference of pub lishers in Boston or elsewhere. G. E. E. ART. VII. RELIGIOUS POETRY OF MODERN GERMANY.* WHOSOEVER studies the literature of Germany, as only that or any other literature should be studied, with a heart open to its inward life as well as a keen eye for its outward proportions, must receive, we are persuaded, the profoundest impression of the religious spirit of the German people. We use the phrase in no contracted sense, but in the widest and deepest. If by a religious spirit we mean a spirit reverently conscious of the presence of infinite, invisible power around and within us, singularly earnest in the expression of the wants which such a consciousness evokes, constantly open to the influences by which those wants must be appeased, if this be a religious spirit, then is the spirit of the German people, and of German literature, most eminently religious. The cathedral of Cologne, that mighty consolidation into stone of the thoughts and hopes and fears of the Middle Ages, that wonderful architectural poem, every line and image of which is a spiritual promise or a spiritual threat, does not more truly express the intensity of the religious feeling from which it rose than does the grand edifice of German literature. Both in the cathedral and in the literature there are, indeed, many individual works imbued with quite another spirit,gorgons, salamanders, hippogriffs, monuments of worldly pride and human decay, devices fantastic, superfluous, sometimes revolting; but one solemn power broods within the whole, subduing all incongruities, lifting us out of the sphere of our ordinary attractions, into the regions of lofty devotional aspiration. This mysterious, elevating power, we are persuaded, is especially felt by every student of those among the greater German writers who are most * 1. NOVALIS Schriften. Herausgegeben von L. Tieck und FriedRICH VON SCHLEGEL. Berlin. 1802. 12mo. 2 vols. The Writings of Novalis. Edited by L. Tieck and F. von Schlegel. 2. Gedichte von FoUqUE. Tabingen. 1816-1827. Poems of Fouque. 3. Siona Stuttgart. 1834-1835. 8vo. 5 vols. Sion. [A Collection of Religious Poems.] 4 Sammlung geistlicher Lieder. Basel. 1831. 8vo. A Collection of Spiritual Songs. 12mo. 2 vols. 5. Geistliche Blumenlese aus Deutschen Dichtern von Novalis bis auf die Gegenwart. Berlin. 1841. 12mo. Flowers of Spiritual Poetry from the German Writers, from Novalis down to the Present Time. 1849.] English and German Writers. 269 thoroughly national in their character and aims. By the mighty cosmopolite, Goethe, and his followers, by that great army, fighting, as Heine says, "to lead back the spiritualist German Faust to the understanding and enjoyment of the material world," this tendency was naturally subordinated. But the resistance of the German public to this proposed revolution, and the exaltation to the highest place in the popular sympathy and admiration of the heavenaspiring Schiller, show how truly the spirit of the people speaks out in the art of Albert Dürer and Cornelius, in the music of Mozart and Beethoven, in the writings of Luther, Jacobi, and Herder. And as we are permitted to say that the spirit of reality and of action pervades the literature of England, and the spirit of science that of France, so we may affirm that the august spirit of reverence and belief fills the great works of German genius. It is this spirit which gives to German writings their character of unaffected manliness. The English writer is apt to think of his readers and their opinion, as well as of his own idea; the German pours out his soul in fearless sincerity; and if we thus sometimes receive the superfluous confidences of simpletons, it is easy to be tolerant and to turn therefrom with fresher zeal to the truthful expressions of some high and noble heart. To this reverent and longing self-utterance we are especially indebted for the simplicity and force of the religious poetry of Germany, which in these respects is superior to much of our own. In the seventeenth century, while England was still ruled by an absolute government, and that mysterious potentate, the public, was yet unborn, something of the same freedom of expression distinguished the English writers, and is at chief cause of the attraction which the religious poetry of such men as Donne and Vaughan and Herbert still possesses for us. But most of our current hymns belong to a later period, and upon many of them the rationalistic, critical character of the eighteenth century is impressed. Watts, with his real piety and frequently solemn and impressive diction, and Doddridge, with his intenser feeling and occasional gleams of genius, have left us some true hymns; but too many of the productions of these writers, and of others almost equally famous, seem to have sprung from respectable rather than religious emotions, and to have been designed for the furtherance of decorous worship rather than for the expression of holy aspirations. More recent writers, excited by the spiritual movement which during the last few years has shown itself both here and in England, have poured forth some higher strains, and it would be no unprofitable task to examine and report on the significance of the writings of De Vere and Faber and Alford and Keble and Coxe. Even "The Cathedral," and its wonderfully unintelligible sequel, might afford fruitful themes for the moralizing critic. But even so attractive a topic must not longer detain us from our legitimate duty, which, indeed, is no light one, being no less than to give, in the space of a reasonable article, some idea of the character and value of a most extensive and varied department of a great national literature. For scarcely did a greater number of bards descend in that shower of poets which fell upon the ship of Cervantes, in his voyage to Parnassus, than have arisen from the fruitful soil of Germany. That poetical funnel of which Carlyle speaks, manufactured at Nuremberg in 1650, and warranted to pour the whole essence of poetical art into the emptiest head within the space of six hours, was not left unemployed. In 1749, says Franz Horn, there were found in one library three hundred volumes of devotional poetry, containing thirty-three thousand seven hundred and twelve German hymns. Of these we much fear that "Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott," and some few more of Luther's mighty, fervent songs, alone have survived the period of torpor into which the German spirit fell under the reign of the "powdered gods of the Versailles Olympus" and Gottsched their high-priest. But the noble German heart still lived, and it found for itself, when the strong arm of Lessing had banished the intruders, new and more powerful organs of religious expression, refined in taste by the elegance, enlightened by the knowledge and common sense, deepened in inward life by the outward coldness and hardness, of the eighteenth century. ད་ It is of some of these that we wish to speak; and first, of him whose voice was as the morning song of reviving spiritualism in Germany, of the loved and lamented Marcellus of German religious philosophy, of Novalis. Brief as was the career of this remarkable young man, and fragmentary as are the works he left, he produced a profound impression on the mind of Germany. All her writers unite in doing homage to his nobleness of soul, his wonderful power and subtilty of intellect. Schleiermacher, the Orthodox Plato, in one of his discourses, speaks of Novalis as "the divine young man, too |