coping-stone to the worship of nature: there was only one thing wanting for the complete development and exhaustion of its capacities. This was its adoption under such a form. as to exhibit its virtual negation. The Roman furnished this he absorbed all creeds into his own religion, placed them all on the same dead level, swallowed all their inconsistencies, and entertained only a political reverence for this heterogeneous lump of his own creation.* There was no real faith: hence a logical and moral necessity existed a priori for the subordination of the popular religion to some stronger element. The destinies of Rome required that this element should be the political, and there the necessities of her constitution placed it. The multiplicity of conflicting creeds, which would otherwise have been left a fermenting and putrescent mass, was thus clamped together by the strong hand of State power; and the divine was wholly subjected to the human. As soon as the constitution of the Republic lost its vigour, these discordant ingredients flew asunder by virtue of their mutual repulsion, which, freed from restraint, had now an opportunity to exhibit their energy. But in their long aggregation the divine spark had vanished, and there was neither faith nor power left in them. In this manner the Roman first completed and then undermined the religious scheme of the ancient world: prepared the way for Christianity: left no adversary possessed of real vitality to encounter the new revelation: exhibited in her own religion the outward appearance of life, but retaining only the dry bones within, which fell without resistance when Christianity stretched forth her sacred spear. True, there was an apparent struggle,—a flickering in the lamp,a political opposition,-and, on the part of the philosophers, an attempt at a hollow-hearted confutation of what they were unwilling to believe. But there was no deep sincerity in the resistance, and consequently no strength.

We are now enabled to see the profound significance of Rome in the history of the world. She completed, disinte

It is ridiculous to listen to the fustian declamation on the religious tolerance of Rome. Rome was not tolerant; but she was indifferent. By her constitution she was compelled to place all creeds on the same level, and to adopt them. When introduced in a form forbidden by the laws, the only occasion when she could exhibit tolerance or intolerance, she displayed as much of the venom of persecution, as her papal successor. Witness the worshippers of Serapis, the Bacchanalians, the Christians.

grated, and prepared for destruction, the religions of the heathen; she made straight the pathway for Christianity at its coming; and presented, for the reception of the new seed, a soil, far indeed from being virgin, but overgrown with weeds whose roots had struck to no great depth into the ground. By her subjugation, too, of all nations, she facilitated the diffusion of the Gospel; but these advantages to Christianity, resulting from the state of the Roman world at our Saviour's advent, have been abundantly expounded in many excellent works, and there is no occasion to dilate upon them here. But Christianity did not merely introduce a new and purer religion,-it required and produced a new organization of society, and new political systems. Το prepare the world for these, the overthrow of all old forms was necessary. Rome again performed her great destiny,she overwhelmed and shattered the institutions, and, at length, tired with the labour of destruction, yet having effectually performed her work, she sunk exhausted in the midst. of the ruins which she herself had created. She strewed the earth with wrecks, but she cleared the ground for new buildings. Nor was this all,-her whole vocation was not to destroy; no nation has ever yet attained the supremacy of the world, without making positive additions to civilization. Rome carried in her bosom the seeds of our modern society; these she left wherever she planted her foot.* They did not germinate until the ancient elements were all dead: they were sown in corruption, they were raised in comparative incorruption. If the soil were not favourable for their growth, they withered away and died: in the principal nations of Europe they have produced good fruit. It is only the study of the history of the Middle Ages, which will indicate to us the positive elements of new civilization in the Roman Empire, for they do not appear in ancient times. Here we may admire (and our admiration may be free from alloy,) the imperishable greatness of Rome. Every Roman colony was the nucleus and fecundating principle of modern civilization; and even her religious system, harmonizing and assimilating itself to the Papacy as it did, was requisite to ensure to the early church that unity, energy and prudence, which, under God, was the sole instrument capable of

* Cf. Niebuhr. Hist. Rom. Int. vol. i., pp. 24–5. Am. Ed. Savigny. Hist. du Droit Rom.

preserving Christianity, guiding Europe, and fostering modern civilization. The ordinary rant against Catholicism is ridiculous; it has its defects, and great and grievous in our estimation they are; but to the Papacy we owe the revivification of the world, and without it Protestantism itself would have been impossible. The Catholic church preserved for us Christianity; she cherished the early growth of our modern organization; she was the law to Europe, when Europe would have bent to no other law; she was the bulwark of Christendom against the Saracen; she saved the literature of antiquity, and by preserving the Latin language in her cloisters and temples, gave us the key to their comprehension; while, at the same time, she furnished thereby the germ and the model of our modern literature. With the faults, the follies, the enormities, or the crimes of the Romish church, egregious as we conceive these to be, we have no concern at present,-they do not come within the scope of our inquiry. Moreover, we write as students of history, not as polemics; and we can admire the worldly grandeur of the whole scheme, while we might condemn its spiritual tendencies. But let us turn to the mighty parent of the Romish hierarchy. Rome, bridged over the yawning gulf which separates the ancient from the modern world: one end is appropriated to the colossal scheme of her Republic and Empire, the other is apportioned to the imposing majesty of the Roman Catholic Church. We might say to the latter of her ancestress, and this shall be our conclusion:"Thy mother is like a vine in thy blood, planted by the waters she was fruitful and full of branches, by reason of many waters. And she had strong rods for the sceptres of them that bare rule, and her stature was exalted among the thick branches, and she appeared in her height with the multitude of her branches. But she was plucked up in fury, she was cast down to the ground, and the east wind dried up her fruit: her strong rods were broken and withered; the fire consumed them. And now she is planted in the wilderness, in a dry and thirsty ground. And fire is gone. out of a rod of her branches, which hath devoured her fruit, so that she hath no strong rod to be a sceptre to rule. This is a lamentation, and shall be for a lamentation." *

* Ezekiel, chap. xix., vv. 10-14.

ART. II.-WRITINGS OF CORNELIUS MATHEWS. The various Writings of Cornelius Mathews, embracing "The Motley Book," "Behemoth," "The Politicians, a comedy," "Poems on Man, in the Republic," "Wakondah," "Puffer Hopkins,” "Miscellanies," "Selections from Arcturus," and "International Copyright." Complete in one volume. New-York: Harper & Brothers, 82 Cliff-street.

MD.CCC.XLIII.

We have, more than once, accorded to the writings of Mr. Mathews our critical attentions in this journal. His papers "on Copyright," and his "Poems on Man," have both been the subject of our elaborate consideration. In noticing the latter work, we declared our purpose, in regard to certain inherent qualities of originality which we thought him to possess, to examine the whole body of his writings, which were then understood to be in course of preparation for the press. They have since been given to the public, and we now proceed to fulfil the pledge made on that occasion. These writings consist of a goodly octavo of nearly four hundred pages. Mr. Mathews has been an industrious, and is an ambitious, person. He is still, we understand, a very young man; yet here we have his labors,-occupying a period of only five years,-in no less than half a dozen very dissimilar departments of production. He appears before us as critic and novelist; poet and dramatist; politician and essayist. We are of that class of persons who doubt very much the marvels of an universal genius. We believe your "Jack of all trades," is generally a person who succeeds at none; and we are for counselling all workers, in whatever craft, that one of the great sources and secrets of success, in any pursuit, is the cool selection of, and the close adherence to, one. You can no more bow at two altars, than you can serve two mistresses ;-and, in literature and the arts, the Muse is excessively jealous of all wanderings from her single worship. She accepts no divided allegiance. Proficiency is attainable only through devotion; and that devotion, as well to art, as to heaven, must be patient, exclusive and unremitting. The sacred fires must never be suf fered to go out, though for a moment, before the shrine to which we have given up the homage of our hearts; and faith and life must suffer no diversion to other or inferior objects, from that duty to which our first fresh inclinations,

and our ascertained endowments, will naturally lead us. A division of labor, according to peculiar fitness and endowment, seems as proper to the author as to any, the humblest laborer, in the most ordinary departments of mechanics.

But this necessity has relation only to him who has properly survived his beginnings, and is fairly started on the great moral business of his life. The beginner, particularly in literature, must and will try himself in every department of composition. It is Leigh Hunt who tells us, somewhere, in one of his very pleasant essays or prefaces, that when he first commenced scribbling in verse, he imitated all the masters, tried all departments of song,-the epic, the dramatic, the lyric,-left no measure unemployed, and scarcely any theme unsung. Nothing was more natural. The case was not peculiarly that of the Cockney poet. Imitation is the process by which incipient genius exercises itself,-by which it acquires confidence in its own powers,-learns the use of its tools, and prepares itself, by emulation of the tried and known, to arrive at such a conviction and mastery of its own strength, as will enable it freely to exercise a native and independent wing. It is not found, after the first few years of an author's life, that he indulges much in various composition. He generally settles down upon that department in which he believes himself most fitted to excel. Thus, the great poets, or dramatists, the Homers, the Shakspeares, the Dantés, the Miltons, etc., have usually adhered to single fields of exercise. A natural law inevitably leads to such a resolution. By addressing the constant mind to one branch of composition, the utterance becomes more ready, and the performance no less easy than perfect. With facility of expression, the thoughts acquire freedom; and the genius of the poet, unrestrained by bonds of speech, glows and exults in the untamed exultation of a confident and familiar strain. Until this facility is acquired, the genius is necessarily fettered and enfeebled. The toil of a difficult articulation, naturally impairs the freedom and the strength of. thought; and, in proportion as he finds it difficult to make his ideas malleable by speech, will be the author's readiness to abandon them, however excellent they may appear even to himself. Hence, his practice in all fields of song,-his proneness to imitate that of his predecessor,-and the readiness with which he yields himself, in the flexibility of his own gristle, to the influence of existing models. It is but