its originality to two different principles: the Bible first, and then the spirit of the north. The Bible has formed Shakspeare: Cervantes owed to chivalry his finest inspirations. The genuine, the popular, oratory of modern Europe is, pre-eminently, that of the pulpit: next come our parliamentary discussions, which originated with the Wittenagemot. Bossuet and Mirabeau, Tillotson and Burke,—these are our Ciceros. They stand up for interests which are common to every human heart; their eloquence finds a ready echo, alike in the bosom of the peasant, and in that of the Monarch; their arguments are quickly understood, and their earnest appeals immediately responded to. Modern political speakers, confined, as they are, within the limited space of a comparatively small room, and addressing not above five or six hundred persons at a time, may wish they had lived in those times, when the forum itself was not large enough for the orator's audience, and when a whole commonwealth crowded together round the rostrum from which Tully poured forth his eloquence; but, as far as reasoning goes, as far as the subject-matter is considered, the advantage is unquestionably on the side of modern public speaking.

Then the power of the pulpit was quite unknown to the ancients: if a Demosthenes could, by his discourses, stir up into a flame the minds of his countrymen, the nature of the topics he touched upon could never have secured to him the popularity of a Massillon, a Baxter, or a Wesley.

Dis

Turn to whatever portion you choose of modern history, you will see the Bible displaying its calm and healthful influence. Ariosto has very wittily turned into ridicule the spirit of chivalry, and the warlike tendency of the middle ages; but Tasso, Dante, and Milton have evidently, though in some cases imperfectly, drawn from the wells of Christianity. torted views of scriptural truths drove to arms the Anabaptists, fired the imaginations of the fifth-monarchy men, and marshalled the Florentine republicans round the banner upon which they had inscribed the words, Christo imperante.

Moral philosophy and political science have often, perhaps, withdrawn themselves from that biblical influence which, on the contrary, almost universally pervades literature and the fine arts. The paintings, the statuary, of Spain and Italy, the development of modern music, and of ecclesiastical architecture, attest sufficiently what we would set down here as an esthetical truth. On this last subject, architecture, a contemporary French writer has the following remarks :—

"All architecture is symbolical, but none so much so as the Christian architecture of the middle ages. The first and greatest of its objects is to express the elevation of holy thoughts, the loftiness of meditation, set free from earth, and proceeding unfettered to the heavens. It is this which stamps itself at once on the spirit of the beholder, however little he ma himself be capable of analyzing his feelings when he gazes on those farstretching columns and airy domes. But this is not all: every part of the structure is as symbolical as the whole; and of this we can perceive many traces in all the writings of the times. The altar is directed towards the rising of the sun, and the three great entrances are means to express the conflux of worshippers from all the regions of the earth. Three towers express the Christian mystery of the Triune Godhead; the choir rises, like a temple within a temple, with redoubled loftiness; the shape of the cross is in common with the Christian churches even of the earliest times. The round arch was adopted in the earlier Christian architecture, but laid aside on account of the superior gracefulness supposed to result from the crossing

of arches. The rose is the essential part of all the ornaments of this architecture: even the shape of the windows, doors, and towers may be traced to it, as well as the accompanying decorations of flowers and leaves. When we view the whole structure, from the crypt to the choir, it is impossible to resist the idea of earthly death leading only to the fulness, the freedom, and the solemn glories, of eternity."

Heathenism has long struggled for mastery over the tendencies we are here endeavouring to explain; but its real power expired with the last convulsions of the Roman empire, and imagination is conscious that it must be acted upon by, higher inspirations. Michael Angelo's "Day of Judgment" is far above Corregio's "Venus :" all our modern operas put together cannot be compared to Marcello's Psalms, or Mozart's "Requiem." But our business here is with French literature; and it is enough to say, that the old Greek dramatists could never have written Athalie, Polyeucte, Le Cid. Even in his tragedies grounded upon the fables of pagan mythology, Corneille has embodied sentiments and ideas which have their reason in Christianity alone; and let no one accuse us of systematic subtleties: Racine must not be considered as a mere imitator of Euripides; Corneille has done something more than copy Lucan or Seneca. Certainly, the

chaste language, the copious flow of words, the elegant, harmonious versification, all these outward forms which distinguish the two great French dramatists, were borrowed from antiquity; but the Bible claims their ideas, their knowledge of the human heart, the moral character of their dramatis persona. In the justly-celebrated tragedy of Les Horaces, for instance, we have this beautiful line :—

"Faisons notre devoir et laissons faire aux dieux.”

Well, this is a Christian sentiment imperfectly disguised under the plural dieux. It is not thus that a Roman of Scipio's time would have reasoned : such resignation would have clashed with his sense of heroic resistance.

We must not only lay down, as a general principle, the Bible's renovating power applied to literature and the fine arts: we can see it exemplified in the noblest monuments of genius and intellect, among our poets, our orators, our thinkers.

Mark the difference between the Pagan and the Christian element: a heathen worns has to represent man as a being fettered down by necessity, carrying on an unequal war against nature; unconscious of his power to act freely, with dark views of futurity and of death. For the Christian, how the scene expands! the victim of a blind fatum becomes responsible, at liberty to follow out any principle, good or bad; his moral personality places him at once upon a level with his fellow-creatures; and the various relations of society constitute, therefore, the chequered field in which he is to act. Now human life exhibits to our view mirth and sorrow, weal and woe, walking side by side; every tragedy has its comic, its ludicrous, counterpart, and we seldom meet a Prince Henry without his attendant Falstaff. Here is an end of Aristotle's unities, and of the boasted regularity of the classic drama. The mixture of jest with earnest strikes us to be an

* Victor Hugo. "Some persons have said that the Greeks and Romans were only the precursors, who prepared the way for this more glorious style; that the columns of the former, and the arches of the latter, were the elements out of which, with a large admixture of other and peculiar artifices, this sumptuous manner of building was compounded." (Foreign Quarterly Review, vol. vii.)

esthetical principle much more important than it appears at first: it could not have sprung up independently of Christianity, nor in connexion with any system taking a one-sided view of the economy of human life. The literature of the middle ages displays this feature in a most characteristic manner; so do those magnificent piles constructed by the architects of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Examine closely the ornaments of a Gothic cathedral: you will commonly find in the details various samples of the ludicrous, ridiculous scenes and characters, and a number of grotesque representations, the general effect of the whole edifice being serious, and eminently solemn and impressive.

To conclude: the artistic system which owes its crigin to Christianity is moral and psychological. Its subjective character has even caused a few critics to say, that Christianity is incompatible with all but lyrical poetry. This, however, is certainly an ungrounded accusation : above the beautiful, which is the proper domain of pagan art, we find the sublime, towards whose heights the genius of modern society ought to wing its flight.

These are several subsidiary questions that might here be introduced and profitably discussed, did time allow us to take a ramble through the by-ways of literature: we shall just glance at one or two. How have Christian poets studied nature, as compared with heathen writers? From what we said in the first part of this essay, it must not be inferred that our classic models had the advantage over us, even in that respect. They viewed external objects differently, not better. Indeed, could anything but false notions grow from the stock of pantheism? Lucretius, Virgil, Homer, do`not, in their landscapes, paint trees or flowers, hills or dales, rivers or seas. For them, the smallest shrub is a god or a goddess; the various powers of nature are beings who exercise some control over the destinies of man. And how brilliant, how glowing, the poetry which sprang from the mythology of Greece, that poetry which, in later days, sparkled once more through the musical pages of Keats!

Tuning his lyre to the antique minstrelsy of Parnassus, the bard might despondingly exclaim :—

But, if we may express our own opinion, the knowledge of the true God must needs lead to a better appreciation of nature; and the objective poetry of Wordsworth or Cowper will never be inferior to that of Hesiod or Ovid.

We shall have, in the sequel, to notice the inroads of pantheism among the prominent features which distinguish contemporary French literature. It is now time that we should explain by what circumstances the public mind was prepared, on the other side of the channel, for more liberal

*Keats's Endymion.

views in esthetics, than those which had so long passed current under the sanction of Aristotle and Boileau.

On the 15th of September, 1801, the Concordat became a law of the French republic, and Christian worship was re-established throughout the country. This astounding event owed its origin to a cause quite as unexemplified, the proscription of all forms of religion by a political society, and atheism declared to be the creed of the state. Bonaparte's decree was hailed with universal joy, and for one moment all sectarian feelings gave way to the satisfaction of the whole body of believers. It was, certainly, a mere political scheme that the Premier Consul had aimed at in doing away with the last remains of sans-culottism: he, however, found an eloquent, if not a judicious, auxiliary, and the name of the young General appeared on the title-page of M. de Châteaubriand's Génie du Christianisme. Attached by his convictions to those rather obsolete ideas which we now invariably connect with the ancient régime, actuated by the noblest sentiments, M. de Châteaubriand thought that the times called for a new apologetical exposition of Christianity; and he likewise thought, no doubt, that the best way of attracting the unbeliever's attention to the doctrines of the cross was, by strewing the narrow path with flowers.

This conclusion will assuredly strike all those who weigh it as notoriously false the Encyclopædists on the one hand, and the Roman Catholics on the other; Voltaire and Nonotte had conspired to throw a ridiculous garb around our holy religion, to conceal its features under a grimacing mask; but was there no better refutation of those profanities than a code of taste applied to Christianity? Not thus did the Apostles and the Reformers act: a bottomless chasm separated St. Paul from Paganism; between Leo X. and Luther gaped an abyss; yet, instead of stopping and attempting to fill it up, both Luther and St. Paul leaped over it, clearing it at once.

M. de Châteaubriand's Génie du Christianisme is, therefore, to be considered simply as a new ars poetica; an improvement upon Horace and Boileau. The author endeavours to show what resources Christianity (Romanism, I should say) offers, as a poetical principle, to the artist, the man of letters, the critic: he lays down, in fact, the whole system of romantic literature. The main fault of the work arises from the plan adopted by the writer. He is continually hesitating between two trains of ideas now he reasons like a theologian, the very next moment he bursts forth as a poet. This gives to the whole an air of awkwardness; and we are sometimes inclined to think, that M. de Châteaubriand himself must have often felt the impression of embarras.

Then, what a variety of scenes, of descriptions, of arguments, adduced under the comprehensive title, Christianity! We might certainly apply to the Génie du Christianisme the ambitious proposition, De omni re scibile et de quibusdam aliis. Chivalry, extreme unction, the migrations of birds, politics, church-bells, almost everything, furnishes the author with an eloquent chapter, or a brilliant descriptive paragraph.

161

PERILOUS POSITION :-SURROUNDED BY THE TIDE.

RAMBLING along the coast at Ilfracombe, Madame D'Arblay visited the promontory called the Capstan; and, neglecting the return of the tide, got imprisoned in the cavern of a rock, amidst a terrible storm, with no companion but her dog Diane. We quote part of the fearful account :—

"I darted about in search of some place of safety, rapidly, and all eye; till at length I espied a small tuft of grass on the pinnacle of the highest of the small rocks that were scattered about my prison; for such now appeared my fearful dwelling-place. This happily pointed out to me a spot that the waves had never yet attained; for all around bore marks of their visits. To reach that tuft would be safety, and I made the attempt with eagerness; but the obstacles I encountered were terrible. The roughness of the rock tore my clothes; its sharp points cut, now my feet, and now my fingers; and the distances from each other of the holes by which I could gain any footing for my ascent, increased the difficulty. I gained, however, nearly a quarter of the height, but I could climb no further; and then found myself on a ledge where it was possible to sit down; and I have rarely found a little repose more seasonable. But it was not more sweet than short; for in a few minutes a sudden gust of wind raised the waves to a frightful height, whence their foam reached the base of my place of refuge, and threatened to attain soon the spot to which I had ascended. I now saw a positive necessity to mount yet higher, coûte qui coûte; and, little as I had thought it possible, the pressing danger gave me both means and fortitude to accomplish it; but with so much hardship, that I have ever since marvelled at my success. My hands were wounded, my knees were bruised, and my feet were cut; for I could only scramble up by clinging to the rock on all fours. When I had reached to about two-thirds of the height of my rock, I could climb no further. All above was so sharp and so perpendicular, that neither hand nor foot could touch it without being wounded. My head, however, was nearly on a level with the tuft of grass, and my elevation from the sands was very considerable. I hoped, therefore, I was safe from being washed away by the waves; but I could only hope; I had no means to ascertain my situation; and, hope as I might, it was as painful as it was hazardous. The tuft to which I had aimed to rise, and which, had I succeeded, would have been security, was a mere point, as unattainable as it was unique, not another blade of grass being anywhere discernible. I was rejoiced, however, to have reached a spot where there was sufficient breadth to place one foot without cutting it, though the other was poised on such unfriendly ground that it could bear no part in sustaining me. Before me was an immense slab, chiefly of slate; but it was too slanting to serve for a seat and seat I had none. My only prop, therefore, was holding by the slab, where it was of a convenient height for my hands. The support, besides affording me a little rest, saved me from becoming giddy, and enabled me from time to time to alternate the toil of my feet. Glad was I, at least, that my perilous clambering had finished by bringing me to a place where I might remain still; for with fright, fatigue, and exertion, I was almost exhausted. The wind was now abated, and the sea so calm, that I could not be sure whether the tide was still coming in. To ascertain this was deeply necessary for my tranquillity, that I might form some idea what would be the length my torment. I fixed my eyes, therefore, upon two rocks that stood

of