rest. Bishop Middleton's work on the article may still continue to be read with interest as a meritorious essay, and he will ever have the great credit of having been the first to reduce the subject to a system; but the sounder definitions and theory of Mr. Green must render his work the text-book, henceforth, of the philosophical and accurate scholar. The worthy bishop had one great literary defect; he did not know when he was beaten. Hence, whenever his theory is at fault, as oftentimes it is, he sets up the most absurd defences; and in no one instance, that we remember, does he fairly give in, and confess that his theorem fails. From this cause, his book, useful as it is in piloting the student where all is tolerably plain sailing, utterly fails to bring him through any formidable straits whatsoever. Again, the rationalizing conclusions which Rosenmüller and others have built upon the allegation, that particles of design, in such passages as ἵνα πληρωθῇ τὸ ῥηθὲν διὰ τοῦ προφητοῦ κ. τ. λ. are used KẞаTIK@ç merely, will find their best answer in the calm and temperate discussion here bestowed upon them. On some minor points, we should differ in view from the writer, but they are chiefly matters rather of detail than of principle.

;

It only remains to speak of works of general illustration and the consideration of these will very suitably bring to a close an article which will appear, at first sight, to recommend a somewhat confined line of study, with a view to the Greek text of the New Testament. While, however, it has confessedly been our object to prevail upon the student to adopt a very direct, and even matter-of-fact method of critical study, we by no means wish to exclude from view altogether many sources of illustration besides those we have mentioned; and we will now explain what place we would give to them. What we aim at, then, in the revolution which we would ain bring about in New Testament study in the original, is not, by any means, to discourage breadth and variety of research, but to secure that depth and solidity on which alone these can safely be based. Illustrative reading presupposes something to be illustrated; collateral reading, some principal line for it to run parallel to ; and that something must be a rightly-directed, methodical, and critical study of the Sacred Text in the original. Let this be forthcoming, and stand firmly up as the stamen, the warp' of the web of theological study, and there is no limit to the amount of subtemen, woof' of every texture and colour, which may with advantage be worked into it. All that is then needed, is discrimination in the choice of materials. Here, then, will come in with admirable effect, the results of all chance and occasional theological reading, such as every student must more or less be led into. The writings of Fathers, however unsys

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tematically and pro re natá studied, will now render up ample and available illustration, for we shall know where to place it. And our perusal of later works will teem with precious fragments of criticism in like manner, not now floating vaguely and without purpose, but ever tending towards one central line, and forming and crystallizing about it. The habit of noting and recording such illustrative passages, cannot be too highly commended: an interleaved copy of the Greek text supplies the readiest means of carrying it into practice. By this means, the student will find, after a while, that, in George Herbert's words, ❝ he hath compiled a book, and body of divinity,' and will fully acknowledge the truth of what the same revered though quaint authority adds on the subject, viz., that though the world is full of such composures, yet every man's own is fittest, readiest, and most savoury to him.' We cannot pretend to sketch anything like an exact scheme of reading, with a view to such a 'composure,' and must content ourselves with the suggestion of some principles of selection, and the enumeration of a few works which may be recommended for their bearing on particular parts of the Sacred Text. As a general rule, then, we would repeat our caution against 'running commentaries;' a 'commentarius perpetuus' is very apt to be a 'perpetual' clog upon our apprehension of the text: set treatises are a far more valuable kind of criticism. And while recognising as splendid exceptions the Catena Aurea' of S. Thomas Aquinas, long since translated as a companion to the Library of the Fathers, the 'Catena Patrum Græcorum,' edited by Dr. Cramer, and Theodoret's 'Commentary on the Epistles,' we would deprecate any exclusive use of even these,—any leaning upon them as all-sufficient guides. Euthymius Zigabenus, a Constantinopolitan monk, has left us a useful compendium of the earlier catena. On particular parts of the New Testament we would mention-on the Gospels generally, Mr. Isaac Williams's now well-known volume, and, with some reservation, of course, the Commentaries of Olshausen; on the earlier history of our Lord's life and ministry, Williams's 'Nativity;' Dr. Mill on the two first chapters of S. Luke; on S. Mark, the Greek Catena, (ut supra, supposed to be by S. Cyril of Alexandria,) as of especial beauty; on S. John's Gospel, Euthymius (ut supra); on the Epistles generally, Theodoret (ut supra); on the Epistle to the Romans, Bull's Harmonia and Examen (i. e. on Justification'); we know no commentary on it of equal value, after S. Chrysostom, who, of course, should be studied, if leisure permit, both for S. Matthew and the Romans. On the other Epistles, we know of no one modern book that can be commended; it is a want which we have already incidentally noticed. Finally, on the Apocalypse, Dr. Todd's

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Lectures, as clearing the subject from a host of conflicting theories, and at least opening the way to the sounder interpretations of the earliest ages.

With these suggestions, we take our leave of the subject. We have studiously confined ourselves-not without an effort, not without risk of seeming to ignore the great truths, that holiness and prayer are, after all, the golden keys of sacred mysteries, to the merely critical aspect of the sublime study of which we have been writing. But, in truth, we trust and thankfully believe, that deeper stirrings than our feeble pen is master of have for some time past been awakening scholar and sage alike, within the bosom of our own Church, to those awful and reverential regards for holy things and words, to which alone we should, without trembling, commit the critical study of the written word. We shall be abundantly satisfied if but to a single student thus minded we have smoothed the pathway to the fountains of revealed truth; and proportionately grieved if we should prove the means of leading any to approach them in a hard, cold, and merely critical spirit.

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Art. II.—1. The Poets and Poetry of America. By RUFUS WILLMOT GRISWOLD. Philadelphia.

2. Poems. By WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT. Philadelphia.

3. Poems. By N. PARKER WILLIS. Philadelphia.

4. Poems. By RALPH WALDO EMERSON. London: Chapman, Brothers.

It is a truth which applies as fully to poetry as to other arts, "that whatever is to be truly great and affecting, must have in it the strong stamp of the native land; and this not of a law, but of necessity, from the intense hold on their country of the affections of all truly great men." Shakspeare is English; no denizen of any other country could have written a page of his plays. Dante is Italian; intensely Florentine. Schiller is German; Tegner is Swedish. The recognition of this nationality in all original minds is one of the pleasures of extensive reading, and of a large acquaintance with foreign literature. It gives a zest to every French chanson, that it is so thoroughly French; to a Spanish ballad, that it could not have been written out of Spain, away from the chivalry and the turmoil of its old intestine wars. It is the charm of Burns's Scotch scenery, his delineations of character, grave and gay, that they so vividly bring Scotland and the Scotch before us. Citizens of the world are not poets, though the extended sympathies implied in the term have their uses and advantages in other callings. The dreams and visions, the glories and illusions of youth-the faith, the history, the traditions of his country, the worship of native hills, and groves, and streams, linger by the poet all his life long. With mankind at large, these impressions fade before new, and therefore stronger, interests. But the poet is for ever looking back; he never loses his childhood; he does not let the past slip away from him, but gathers up the years as they fall, and is child, and youth, and man, all in one. And childhood is best remembered, and the earliest impressions are the deepest. Walter Scott, in the last failing year of his life, murmured of Tweed and Yarrow, of the sports and the traditions of his youth, in sight of the magnificence of Italian landscape and association; for what is country but home, and home glorified in the poet's dream-what is it, but his most living and glowing type of heaven?

In our own continent, however, each language has been the

slow product of the thoughts of its people. A thousand local circumstances give it its peculiar genius, and every national tongue insensibly adapts itself to express, with the greatest accuracy and perfection, the prevailing feelings and principles it is called upon to clothe and develope. In attempting some notice of the Poetry of America, we must not forget that the Americans have not the advantage of a language founded on those peculiar ideas of republicanism and freedom of thought which form their boast and pride. But a short time has elapsed since they were first an independent people, and they have to express their national sentiments in a tongue whose structure little sympathizes with them, in a tongue whose foundations were laid in the feudal ages, which has been built up in a profound reverence for forms and creeds, for kings and rulers, which has been strengthened and buttressed by rigid philosophy and severe dogmatic divinity, and decorated by the ornaments of fancy, chivalry, gallantry, and pastoral graces which successive ages brought with them. It is with this engine, and their taste formed on this literature, that our neighbours have to express unfettered liberty, uncontrolled will, freedom of opinion, and independence of conscience. It is hardly to be wondered at that they should feel themselves hampered and clogged in their powers of expression on their favourite themes, that their eagle should soar with unsteady wing, that Liberty' herself should be checked in the bray of her trumpet-tones by the uncongenial order and sweetness of her too harmonious instrument. It may be too early to look for it, but we think it will readily be admitted that, as yet, America has formed no new phase, has given no fresh transatlantic grace to our common tongue. The language is often very excellent English-nervous, elegant, expressive Englishbut we do not find any foreign graces, any original collocation of words of which we can say, 'This is American,' as in reviewing our own literature we can pronounce, This is Elizabethan,' or this is of the chivalrous tone of Charles the First's time, or this belongs clearly to the so-called Augustan age. Neither in the constitution of their language, nor in any point but one, on which we shall soon touch, do we recognise nationality in the great body of American poets. They all mean to be national; they are patriotic. They talk of liberty, and Washington, and Bunker's hill, with an admirable repetition and perseverance; but the celebration of these circumstances of their country's pride does not constitute that strong stamp of the native land which we have wished to define as giving to the universal poetry of a country its national characteristics, and which, in the way we mean, shows itself as much in a love-song as in a hymn of victory. There are, as we have already intimated,