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There is another large class of Christian books, which bears the marks of learning, correctness, and an orderly understanding, and by a general propriety leave but little to be censured, but which display no invention, no prominence of thought, or living vigour of expression; all is flat and dry as a plain of sand. It is perhaps the thousandth iteration of commonplaces, the listless attention to which is hardly an action of the mind; you seem to understand it all, and mechanically assent while you are thinking of something else. Though the author has a rich immeasurable field of possible varieties of reflection and illustration around him, he seems doomed to tread over again the narrow space of ground long since trodden to dust, and in all his movements appears clothed in sheets of lead.

It would be going beyond my purpose to carry my remarks from the literary merits to the moral and theological characteristics of Christian books; else a very strange account could be given of the injuries which the gospel has suffered from its friends. You might often meet with a systematic writer in whose hands the whole wealth, and variety, and magnificence of revelation shrink into a meagre list of doctrinal points, and who will let no verse in the Bible tell its meaning, or presume to have one, till it has taken its stand by one of those points. You may meet with a Christian polemic, who seems to value the arguments for evangelical truth as an assassin values his dagger, and for the same reason; with a descanter on the invisible world, who makes you think of a Popish cathedral, and from the vulgarity of whose illuminations you are glad to escape into the solemn twilight of faith; or with a grim zealot for such a theory of the Divine attributes and government, as seems to delight in representing the Deity as a dreadful King of furies, whose dominion is overshaded with vengeance, whose music is the cries of victims, and whose glory requires to be illustrated by the ruin of His creation.

It is quite unnecessary to say, that the list of excellent Christian writers would be very considerable. But as to the vast mass of books that would, by the consenting judgment of all men of liberal cultivation, remain after this deduction, one cannot help deploring the effect which they must have had on unknown thousands of readers. It would seem beyond all question, that books which, though even asserting the essential truths of Christianity, yet utterly preclude the full impression of its character; which exhibit its claims on admiration and affection with insipid feebleness of sentiment; or which cramp its simple majesty into an artificial form at once distorted and mean; must be seriously prejudicial to the influence of this sacred subject, though it be admitted that many of them have sometimes imparted a measure both of instruction and consolation. This they might do, and yet at the same time convey extremely contracted and inadequate ideas of the subject. There are a great many of them into which an intelligent Christian cannot look without rejoicing that they were not the books from which he received his impressions of the glory of his religion. There are many which nothing

would induce him, even though he did not materially differ from them in the leading articles of his belief, to put into the hands of an inquiring young person, which he would be sorry and ashamed to see on the table of an infidel; and some of which he regrets to think may still contribute to keep down the standard of religious taste, if I may so express it, among the public instructors of mankind. On the whole it would appear, that a profound veneration for Christianity would induce the wish, that, after a judicious selection of books had been made, the Christians also had their Caliph Omar and their General Amrou.

2. COMPARISON OF COUNTRIES IN ANCIENT AND MODERN TIMES.— (CONTRIBUTIONS TO ECLECTIC REVIEW.")

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A curious and reflective mind will not fall on many subjects more attractive than the relation of ancient regions, such as history and monuments have recorded them, to the same regions viewed in their modern and present state. It is striking to consider how widely they are, as it were, estranged from their primitive selves; insomuch that the mere local and nominal identity has less power to retain them before us under the original idea fixed on the place and name, than their actual condition has to present them as domains of a foreign and alien character. They are seen divested to so great a degree, of that which had created a deep interest in contemplating them, that we consign them to a distant province of our imagination, where they are the objects of a reversed order of feelings. We regard them as having disowned themselves, while retaining their ancient names and their position on the earth. We say divested to so great a degree; for if the regions be eminently remarkable for natural features-mountains, rivers, defiles, and peculiar productions— these do, indeed, continue to tell something of ancient times. In keeping under our view a groundwork of the scenes we had meditated on, they recall to us by association what once was there, and is there no longer. But they do so to excite a disturbance by incongruity. What is there now, rises in the imagination to confound or overpower the images of what was there then. So that, till we can clear away this intrusion, we have an uncouth blending of the venerable ancient and the vulgar modern.

Again, there are seen in those territories striking relics of the human labours of the remote ages; which are thus brought back more impressively to the imagination than by the most prominent features of nature. But these disclaim more decidedly still, in the name of that departed world to which they entirely belong, all relationship with the existing economy of man and his concerns. They are emphatically solitary and estranged amidst that economy. Their aspect, in their gloom and ruin, is wholly to the past, as if signifying a disdain of all that later times have brought around them. And if, in some instances, man is trying to avail himself of some parts or appendages of them for his ordinary uses of resort or

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dwelling, we may, by a poetical license of thought, imagine them loathing the desecration. Still, as the vulgarities do obtrude themselves in contiguity, the contemplatist cannot wholly abstract himself from the annoyance.

Some of those scenes of ruin, indeed, and especially and preeminently the tract and vast remaining masses of Babylon, are placed apart by their awful doom, as suffering no encroachment and incongruous associations of human occupancy or vicinity. There is no modern Babylon. It is secluded and alone in its desolation; clear of all interference with its one character as monumental of ancient time and existence. If the contemplative spectator could sojourn there alone and with a sense of safety, his mind would be taken out of the actual world, and carried away to the period of Babylon's magnificence, its multitudes, its triumphs, and the divine denunciations of its catastrophe.

Egypt has monuments of antiquity surpassing all others on the globe. History cannot tell when the most stupendous of them were constructed; and it would be no improbable prophecy that they are destined to remain to the end of time. Those enormous constructions, assuming to rank with nature's ancient works on the planet, and raised, as if to defy the powers of man and the elements and time to demolish them, by a generation that retired into the impenetrable darkness of antiquity when their work was done, stand on the surface in solemn relation to the subterraneous mansions of death. All the vestiges bear an aspect intensely and unalterably grave. There is inscribed on them a language which tells the inquirer that its import is not for him or the men of his times. Persons that lived thousands of years since, remain in substance and form, death everlastingly embodied, as if to emblem to us the vast chasm, and the non-existence of relation between their race and ours. A shade of mystery rests on the whole economy to which all these objects belonged. Add to this our associations with the region from those memorable transactions and phenomena recorded in the sacred history, by which the imagination has been, so to speak, permanently, located in it, as a field crowded with primeval interests and wonders.

It may then be that Egypt surpasses every tract of the world (we know not that Palestine is an exception) in the power of fascinating a contemplative spirit, as long as the contemplation shall dwell exclusively on the ancient scene. But there is a modern Egypt. And truly it is an immense transition from the supernatural phenomena, the stupendous constructions, the frowning grandeur, the veiled intelligence, the homage, almost to adoration, rendered to death, and the absorption of a nation's living powers in the passion for leaving impregnable monuments, in which after their brief mortal existence they should remain memorable for ever,-to the present Egypt as described by Mr Lane.' But this Egypt, as it is spread around the wonderful spectacles which remain to give us partially

1 This extract is taken from a review of Lane's "Modern Egyptians."

an image of what once it was, disturbs the contemplation by an interference of the coarse vulgar modern with the solemn superb ancient. At least to a reader who has not enjoyed the enviable privileges of beholding those spectacles, and so practically experiencing how much they may absorb and withdraw the mind from all that is around them, it would seem that the presence of a groveling population, with their miserable abodes, and daily employments, combined with the knavish insolent annoyance of the wearers of a petty authority, must press on the reflective spectator of pyramids, temples, and catacombs, with an effect extremely adverse to the musing abstraction in which he endeavours to carry his mind back to the ancient economy. As to advantage to be derived from contrast, there is no need of it. And, besides, the two things are too far in disproportion for contrast. Who would let hovels and paltry mosques come into comparison at all with the pyramids and the temple of Carnac ?

XI. ROBERT SOUTHEY.

ROBERT SOUTHEY was born at Bristol in 1774. His father, a respectable merchant of that town, sent him to Westminster School, and he completed his education at Oxford. He was intended for the Church, but his opinions on religious as well as civil matters were not such as either to allow him to enter that sacred profession, or to hold out any prospect of success in it. He was a Unitarian and a republican, but time altered his sentiments: he became an orthodox Churchman, and an extreme Tory. After publishing his "Joan of Arc," he began to study law, but without much success, and a pension from government provided a more secure source of income, on which he retired to a residence near Keswick. He was in 1813 raised to the dignity of Poet-Laureate, and the remainder of his life was spent in assiduous study, varied with occasional compositions in verse and prose. About 1840 he became deranged, and continued in that unhappy condition till his death in 1843. His works are numerous, and all possessed of many excellences, but have never been popular. His longer poems, "Joan of Arc,' "Thalaba,' "Curse of Kehama," and others, are known only to the few; and his larger prose works, "The Doctor," "History of the Peninsular War," &c., have not found a much larger circle of admirers, notwithstanding their acknowledged merits. His minor poems, however, are more likely to enjoy a lasting fame, and his 66 Life of Nelson" is the finest biography that has appeared since the issue of Boswell's "Johnson."

FINAL DEPARTURE OF NELSON FROM ENGLAND: HIS DEATH AND ITS

EFFECTS." LIFE OF NELSON.")

Nelson having despatched his business at Portsmouth, endeavoured to elude the populace by taking a by-way to the beach; but a crowd collected in his train, pressing forward, to obtain a sight of his face:

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many were in tears, and many knelt down before him, and blessed him as he passed. England has had many heroes, but never one who so entirely possessed the love of his fellow-countrymen as Nelson. All men knew that his heart was as humane as it was fearless; that there was not in his nature the slightest alloy of selfishness or cupidity; but that, with perfect and entire devotion, he served his country with all his heart, and with all his soul, and with all his strength; and, therefore, they loved him as truly and as fervently as he loved England. They pressed upon the parapet to gaze after him when his barge pushed off, and he was returning their cheers by waving his hat. The sentinels, who endeavoured to prevent them from trespassing upon this ground, were wedged among the crowd; and an officer who, not very prudently upon such an occasion, ordered them to drive the people down with their bayonets, was compelled speedily to retreat; for the people would not be debarred from gazing, till the last moment, upon the hero-the darling hero of England!

It had been part of Nelson's prayer, that the British fleet might be distinguished by humanity in the victory which he expected. Setting an example himself, he twice gave orders to cease firing on the Redoubtable, supposing that she had struck, because her guns were silent; for, as she carried no flag, there was no means of instantly ascertaining the fact. From this ship, which he had thus twice spared, he received his death. A ball fired from her mizentop, which, in the then situation of the two vessels, was not more than fifteen yards from that part of the deck where he was standing, struck the epaulette on his left shoulder, about a quarter after one, just in the heat of action. He fell upon his face, on the spot which was covered with his poor secretary's blood. Hardy, who was a few steps from him, turning round, saw three men raising him up. "They have done for me at last, Hardy," said he. "I hope not," cried Hardy. "Yes!" he replied; "my back-bone is shot through." Yet even now, not for a moment losing his presence of mind, he observed, as they were carrying him down the ladder, that the tiller ropes, which had been shot away, were not yet replaced, and ordered that new ones should be rove immediately: then, that he might not be seen by the crew, he took out his handkerchief, and covered his face and his stars. Had he but concealed these badges of honour from the enemy, England, perhaps, would not have had cause to receive with sorrow the news of the battle of Trafalgar. The cockpit was crowded with wounded and dying men; over whose bodies he was with some difficulty conveyed, and laid upon a pallet in the midshipmen's berth. It was soon perceived, upon examination, that the wound was mortal. This, however, was concealed from all except Captain Hardy, the chaplain, and the medical attendants. He himself being certain, from the sensation in his back, and the gush of blood he felt momently within his breast, that no human care could avail him, insisted that the surgeon should leave him, and attend to those to whom he might be