and the spirit of equality breathed forth in the doctrines | cient establishment; and the bitterness of this cup has of the christian dispensation, having been infused into not yet passed away. And if the ancient church disthe people, the middle classes rapidly arose, and as-cipline forbade religious freedom, the new codes were sumed a prominent station in society. As the light of compelled to tolerate the propagation of the most science was diffused, and the benefits of education were destructive and licentious dogmas. Infidelity stalked extended to the multitude, they acquired a knowledge | naked through the world. Availing themselves of the of their natural rights, and became inquisitive concern- great engine with which this revolution in religion had ing the authority of their rulers. It was not probable that in this improved condition of intellectual man, he should tamely submit even to the mild dominion of the priesthood; and the sovereign pontiffs, long before the days of the tenth Leo, felt that their temporal power could not survive the growing intelligence of the people. been effected, and protected by the genius of universal toleration, the disciples of the philosophists and illuminati poured forth from a teeming press their blasphemous doctrines, subversive alike of religion, morals, and all social institutions. Although religion advanced with her hundred banners, the Holy Sepulchre could not be protected from the infidel. The opinions of men became unsettled; there was no longer any reverence for the institutions of antiquity; and though age called to age from the bottomless abysses of time, her hoarse voice was lost amid the tumult of noisy innovation. The Papal hierarchy, seated on the seven hills of the Cæsars, had been shaken to its foundations; and the fragments of its temporal power, like those of the monuments of the palmy days of imperial Rome, were crumbling in the dust. The storm of revolution now began to roll back from the altar to the throne, Retortis Littore Etrusco violenter undis, Ire dejectum monumenta regis; and the restless spirit of revolution sought out the ruins of other establishments, upon which to erect a trophy to the rights of man. At this propitious period the art of printing was discovered, and there was no temporal power so firmly established, or so securely intrenched as to resist its powerful assaults. It was perhaps unfortunate for mankind, that the first eruption of the volcano, should have been beneath the altars of religion. It would have been far more salutary, if the revolution in government had preceded instead of following the revolution in religion; for the clergy, having been the first who were assailed by the spirit of innovation, were placed unwittingly in an attitude of hostility to the projected reformation, and were opposed to the assertion of what were deemed popular rights. Unhappily there was a divorce between the people and the established clergy, and thus those, who, by their superior prudence and intelligence were best calculated to bear upon their consecrated shoulders the ark of the covenant, and conduct it to the promised land, were proscribed and denounced. It became necessary, therefore, for the people, unaided by these lights, to institute new forms of worship better adapted than the old to the spirit of the age. But after the attachment of men to the sacred institutions of their forefathers had been shaken, and the hierarchy had been weakened, it was long before they could be united in any settled form of worship, as a substitute for that which they had thrown down. And in their journey to the land of promise, there was no cloud of smoke by day, no pillar of fire by night, to conduct them in their weary pilgrimage. The ark with its holy symbols was no longer with them, for the people had turned to the left hand, while the Levites pursued the right. Having lost the priesthood, they were no longer restrained by authority in religious matters. Hence the necessity of universal freedom of opinion, the true spirit of religious liberty; but, alas! like all boons bestowed upon erring man, it was the fruitful source of abuse and misery in the fruition. We have intimated that it would have been better if the revolution in governments had preceded the revolution in religion; because, after the result had been attained, | and the storm had wasted its fury, the disturbed elements of society might have once more blended peacefully together beneath the auspices of a common religion. It was only by the abuse of the privileges conferred In consequence of this separation of the clergy from the by the first or religious revolution, that designing men people in the religious revolution of the sixteenth cen- were enabled to produce the second or political revolutury, it was not effected without a strong infusion of tion. The freedom of religious opinion enabled the bitterness. Under the new doctrine of freedom of reli- philosophists and infidels to propagate their destructive gious opinion, which, on account of this separation, it doctrines, and poison and corrupt the morals of a whole became necessary to establish, a thousand new creeds people. At the head of this band of ruffians was the sprang into being; but, forgetful of their common origin, detestable Voltaire. "Let us contemplate the wretch," they were not less hostile to each other than to the an-exclaims a beautiful writer, filled with holy indignation, It soon became apparent that man, in the pride and excess of his newly acquired powers, was rushing madly forward to another revolution, which threatened to engulph all existing establishments, social, moral, and political. Freedom of religious opinion had been attained, but the price was yet to be paid. There was no establishment so sacred as to escape the indiscriminate ruin. The veil of the temple was rent asunder, and breaking into the innermost recesses of the sanctuary, these frantic levellers of the second or political revolution placed their sacrilegious hands upon the horns of the altar, questioned the attributes, limited the powers, blasphemed the name, and denied the existence of the unavenging Deity! The French philosophists, fostered by a profligate nobility, whose ruin they precipitated, had corrupted the national morals by their licentious writings. The social virtues had been shaken by the speculative productions of the learned Encyclopædists. In the wild delirium of infidelity, denuded beauty usurped in the city of Paris the worship of the Deity! And the whole frame-work of society, "like the city of Persepolis, perished amid the vapors of wine, and by the seducement of courtezans." Yet a moment, and the lilies of France were as scarlet. as he looked upon his bust. "Behold that repulsive | beginning to expand with unwonted energy, the reforcountenance, over which modesty has never spread her glow, and those eyes, like two extinguished volcanoes, yet glimmering with the lurid glare of lust and hatred. That mouth, extending from ear to ear, and yawning like a fearful chasm; those lips compressed with malice, ready to pour forth the bitterness of sarcasm, or the mad ravings of blasphemy. Alas! what mischief has he not entailed upon us? Like that poisonous insect, the scourge of the garden, which attacks none but the most precious plants, Voltaire, with his rankling sting, never ceases to wound those two germs of society, women and young men. He infuses his poison into them, and thus trans mits it from generation to generation. The great wickedness of Voltaire consists in the abuse of his talents, and the prostitution of a genius given him for the praise of God and virtue. He cannot, like so many others, allege in extenuation of his crimes, inconsiderateness, the seducement of the passions, or the frailty of our nature. His corruption is of a character peculiar to himself; it is seated in the innermost recesses of his heart, and is upheld by all the powers of his understanding. A sacrilegious wretch, he braves God to destroy his creatures. With unexampled frenzy the insolent blasphemer has dared to declare himself the personal enemy of the Redeemer. In the depth of his nothingness he applies a contemptuous epithet to the Saviour, and pronounces that law which he brought upon earth infamous. Abandoned of God, he knows no restraint. Other blasphemous railers have astonished virtue, Voltaire shocks vice. He surrenders up his imagination to the enthusiasm of hell, which lends him all its powers to lead him to the uttermost excesses of wickedness. A wretch, who would have been banished from Sodom, he is crowned at Paris. Insolent profaner of his native tongue and of the greatest names of France, he is the most contemptible of mankind next to those who admire him. When I contrast what he might have done with what he has done, his unrivalled talents only inspire me with a holy indignation, which I have no language to express. Hesitating between admiration and horror, I feel sometimes as if I would hike to erect a statue to his memory—by the hands of the common hangman." mers shook the temporal and spiritual power of the Roman hierarchy, which had swayed its sceptre over the civilized world from the age of Constantine. So with the second revolution, or the revolution in government, which unsettled and upheaved the foundations of society. In his farewell address to the people of this country, the first president, whose patriotic heart yearned for the perpetuity of our institutions, but whose sound understanding taught him to apprehend their speedy dissolution, exhorts us to indulge cautiously the belief that sound morals or integrity can be preserved without the aid of religion. He made law, order, and government repose upon morals, and held religion to be indispensable for the protection of morality. Whenever opinions utterly subversive of religion, and publications destructive of morals are freely tolerated, as in the period immediately preceding the French revolution, it follows as a necessary consequence that the bonds of society become as bands of flax before the flames of revolution. The world has not yet recovered from the effects produced by the writings of the philosophists. The Deity seemed in regard to that fated people, to have withdrawn for a season his superintendence of human affairs, and left to men the inevitable consequences of their own depravity. The morals of the French people had already been corrupted. There remained for Voltaire and his school nothing but to deny the existence of God. Alas! for them there was no God. He had already abandoned them! Since the invention of printing the influence of men of genius over the public mind is incalculable. That which the great reformers and their associates effected in the religious world in the sixteenth century, Voltaire, Rousseau, Diderot, D'Alembert and their abettors repeated in the political world in the eighteenth. How frightful then is the responsibility of men of talent? What tremendous agency do they not exercise over the destinies of the children of men? And how important is it, that the public press should vigilantly guard the public morals, and restrain the publication of licentious works, or, if that be impracticable, labor at least to counteract their baleful influence? We have endeaOne of the necessary consequences and afflictive re- vored to show that the revolutions of the sixteenth and sults of the reformation was the toleration of doctrines of the eighteenth centuries were the mere results of the utterly subversive of religion, morals, and society; and discovery of the art of printing, and consequent imthe invention of printing and cultivation of letters have provement of intellectual man; or, in other words, that placed at the disposal of the wicked, irresistible means the press, by whose agency they were effected, is, in the of poisoning the manners and morals of a whole people hands of men of genius, a resistless agent for weal or in the very gush of the fountain. The mind of man no woe. If it sometimes improve the heart by informing the sooner became unfettered, freedom of religious opinion understanding, it not unfrequently happens that it is no sooner became his priceless heritage, than straight- prostituted, first to sap public morals, and then to overway he proceeds to the most signal abuse of these ines- throw the establishments which repose upon them. The timable blessings. Who shall control the powers of the ardent Milton, glowing with his customary eloquence free and gifted intellect? Springing into life from amidst in defence of unlicensed printing, exclaims: "And the gloom of Barbaric ages, like the electric flame from though all the winds of doctrine were let loose to play the dark bosom of the tempest, if it sometimes invigo- upon the earth, so truth be in the field, we do injuriousrate and purify, it is as often the herald, and the mes-ly to misdoubt her strength. Let her and falsehood senger, and the agent of desolation. Does the imprisoned eagle demand a whirlwind to lift him in the clouds? No-he only asks that his ligaments may be loosed, and that his wings may be unfurled. Aided by the formidable power of the press, and impelled by the restless and feverish condition of the public mind, then grapple: who ever knew truth put to the worse in a free and open encounter?" This is unquestionably a sound argument in favor of unlicensed printing in a political sense. But in the present condition of mankind the philosophic mind cannot adinit its truth as applicable to social man. If the understandings of all men were as in the midst of the awful experiment. We have already remarked that the sagacious Washington doubted the stability of this government, and the characteristic of this truly great man was unerring sagacity. And ardent patriots have latterly been startled by the frequent and violent assaults upon the bonds of the Union. In stronger governments the centripetal power prevails, and the tendency of power is to the centre; but in our free institutions the repulsive power predominates to an alarming extent, and our most formidable enemy, as well as our national tendency, is licentiousness. Impatience of restraint, love of novelty, laxity of morals are alike opposed to the interests of true religion and the perpetuity of free institutions. Infidelity and licentious clear as that of Milton, and if all men of sound under- | cause, but we have fallen upon better days. We are standing were so enamored of truth as to embrace her under all circumstances, we could safely admit the argument. But while the understanding of a vast majority of mankind is clouded by prejudice or overshadowed by ignorance, wisdom and truth may cry aloud in the streets, and few will hearken. The Bible contains in itself every lesson of morality and every rule of action: it is filled with the wisdom of inspiration, and breathes the spirit of eloquence; it is engrafted upon the civil code of every civilized nation, its copies are multiplied and circulated to almost infinite extent, it is the text book of religion, its lessons are enforced from the altar and the desk, it is to be found near every hearth and in the chambers of affliction and death; it has stamped upon it the broad seal of the Everlasting, and was de-ness have increased in these latter days with frightful livered to man amid the thunders of Sinai; it has its thousands and its tens of thousands anointed for the propagation of its wholesome truths; and yet such is the perversity of man, such is the inability of the most imposing truths, revealed by the Deity himself, to wrestle with error, that myriads have been and still are seduced from the paths of truth and morality, by the apostles of untruth and infidelity. rapidity, and unless they be checked in their reeling and riotous career, they must ultimately stalk amid the disjointed fragments of desecrated altars and broken charters. Hence, it is the FIRST DUTY OF EVERY CHRISTIAN AND OF EVERY PATRIOT TO OPPOSE EVERY THING, WHICH TENDS TO CORRUPT PUBLIC MORALS OR TO PROMOTE LICENTIOUSNESS OF OPINION. Time is not the great destroyer. Man is immortal, and his political and social establishments would, but for his licentiousness, endure until the voice of the Archangel, like to a passing-bell, proclaimed the funeral of time. The infidel Volney, while contemplating the ruins of the wilderness, which once blossomed as the gardens of Jericho; the unbelieving Gib. bon, overshadowed by the ruins of the capitol, and meditating amid the fragments of mouldering columns, -beheld the FRUITS OF LICENTIOUSNESS. And the silent monitor within might have whispered to these unbelievers, that such as themselves had desolated empires. From the two great revolutions of which we have spoken the world is supposed to have derived two invaluable blessings, freedom of religious opinion, and free political institutions. Let not our gratitude however deter us from speculating upon the ultimate operation of these transcendent gifts; let us endeavor to lift a corner of the veil which darkens the future, in order to gather a few salutary lessons. We do not limit our view to the present generation, but we speak of man, immortal in his essence, whose existence on earth will only cease when time shall be no more. In this enlarged sense man is not secure of these blessings. They are experiments in the midst of which we now are, and ti- Let it be the "first duty of every citizen to oppose morous men think the "beginning of the end now is." everything which tends to corrupt public morals, or to To have been delivered from the dominion of the priest-promote licentiousness." History with her grave and hood seems to us in the midst of fruition a blessing solemn countenance constantly admonishes us, that vouchsafed; but inasmuch as by that deliverance it whatever may have been the immediate cause of nabecame necessary to recognize and establish freedom of tional calamities, licentiousness of morals and opinions religious opinion, christianity, religion, morals, and go- has always preceded and precipitated the catastrophe. vernment have a new and formidable enemy to encoun- It is with individuals as with nations; the measure of ter in the shadowy monster INFIDELITY. And unless chastisement is, for the most part, exactly proportioned untried means be discovered to arrest the progress of to their delinquency. Man, being immortal, and cathis formidable foe in his desolating march, future gene-pable of future suffering, and the extent of his malice rations will be startled with the question, what has and of the deliberate consent of his will being only religion profited by the reformation--in what has chris-known to the Searcher of hearts, appears sometimes to tianity been benefited by universal freedom of religious opinion? It will be remarked, that throughout this article we speak of religion generally-not of creeds, ancient or modern, reformed or otherwise. With the latter we have no concern. We have been speaking of the unsettled experiment, which sprang from the first, or religious revolution: we will now proceed to the second experiment, which originated with the political or French revolution. And this latter problem is the "capability of man for self government." In this favored land it is a conceded truth, (may it be so ever!) which it is a species of treason to question. But the philosophic inquirer is not to be deterred from the investigation of wholesome truths by the partialities or prejudices of the age in which he lives. The prince of philosophers was a martyr in this escape the penalties of this universal law, at least on this side of the grave. Moreover divine justice is not unfrequently appeased by submission and penitence. Not so with nations. They never escape the temporal punishment of crimes. National affliction and national degradation as assuredly follow national crime as effect follows cause. How beautiful is the moral of the Eastern allegory in relation to punishment? "The Brahmins represent Punishment as the son of the Deity, and the security of the four orders of the state. He rules with a sceptre of iron, and from the beast of the field to the children of men, the order of nature can never be violated with impunity. He is the perfection of justice. All classes would become corrupt, all barriers would be overthrown, and confusion would prevail upon the face of the earth, if punishment either ceased to be inflicted, or were inflicted unjustly. But | by them for a season. We are not of those, who would while the Genius of Punishment, with his dark counte-liken such convulsions in the body politic to the strife nance and fiery eye, presses forward to extirpate crime, of the elements, which purify the atmosphere and rethe people are secure, if justice be impartial." From this avenging principle there is no escape, no mitigation for a guilty people; unless by a special dispensation of Providence, some inspired messenger should awaken them to a sense of impending ruin, and like the Ninevites of olden time, they should repent in sackcloth and ashes. But national worship, what is it for the most part, but sheer mockery? How often have we beheld injustice victorious, and bending beneath the weight of guilty laurels, leading subdued innocence a captive at her chariot wheels, lift up in the temple of The political revolutions, which have most afflicted the God of Justice canticles of rejoicing and thanks-mankind, have been introduced by an era of national giving to Heaven for its signal protection? In one of profligacy and licentiousness. Charles was the natural those genuine inspirations of genius, so rare with Vol-precursor of Cromwell, and Cromwell the fit successor taire, (fas est et ab hoste doceri,) he exclaims with a of Charles. The libidinous Cavalier was aptly followed just, we had almost said, with a holy indignation: store a wholesome equilibrium. Their immediate results may be flattering to the patriot and philanthropist, and man, for a time, may enjoy a greater share of freedom. But in their ultimate effects, it is very questionable whether society is really benefited. We would rather compare these political shocks to a paralysis in the human system, from which the patient may recover for a season with renovated health, but only to await successive shocks in accumulative frequency, until he finally perish. "Je n'ai cessé de voir tous ces voleurs de nuit, Qui, dans un chemin creux, sans tambour et sans bruit, Greece was subdued by the Roman power, Rome was overthrown by hordes of barbarians. Yet it is admitted that these people were invincible while they were virtuous, and only perished when they had become licentious and corrupt. No matter what agency may have been employed in their desolation, we always find punishment, the avenger of crime, leading on the invader, and bruising guilty nations with his rod of iron. The warning is repeated throughout Holy Writ. The most sublime, the most affecting passages of Scripture, eloquently depict the lamentable consequences of national depravity. The most pathetic of the prophets, as he sat by the gates of the city, lifted up his voice in grief over the fallen fortunes of Israel, and spake of the sufferings and captivity of Judah. And invariably he attributes the afflictions of his people and their national degradation to their crimes and licentiousness. When the fair and fertile "valley of Siddim, once well watered, even as the garden of the Lord, became an arid and dismal wilderness, condemned to eternal sterility; when the graves of the once proud cities of the plain were dug by the thunders of heaven, and they were buried beneath the sluggish waters of that sea which holds no living fish in its bosom, bears no skiff on its surface, and sends not, like other lakes, a tribute to the ocean;" it was, in the expressive language of Scripture, BECAUSE OF THE INIQUITIES OF THOSE CITIES. We are not of the number of those who consider political revolutions always beneficial to mankind, although popular rights and privileges may be extended by the stern and formal Puritan. The morals, the literature, the religion of the English nation had become utterly depraved, and the interposition of the "Genius of Punishment, the avenger of crime, the security of the four orders of government," became necessary to chastise and to correct. The sufferings of the nation were terrific, but its crimes had been enormous. But as if to teach mankind a lesson, which tradition could never forget, the crimes of the French people were permitted to accumulate, until Paris rivalled Sodom in iniquity. And perhaps the sudden and consuming wrath which fell upon the city of the plain, was mercy compared with the protracted sufferings of this abandoned people. If the world shuddered at the enormity of their crimes, nations grew pale at the prolonged intensity of their sufferings. The Avenger of Crime again exacted the full measure of retribution. A fact, which strikes us with great force in these latter ages, is the rapidity with which revolutions have been effected: a circumstance equally worthy of notice is the facility with which in modern times the morals of a whole people have been corrupted. This proceeds, as did the two great revolutions of which we have spoken, from the invention of printing, the agency of the press, that powerful engine, powerful alike for evil and for good. If revolutions thus destructive of the tranquillity and happiness of nations have been preceded by the prevalence of licentiousness, it becomes an important inquiry to ascertain the causes of the corruption of public morals. Alas! it is a matter of history. Prometheus stole the living fire from Heaven to inspire, to create a being like himself. But man, ever rebellious, has, in latter times, snatched the consecrated flame from the altar to fire the social edifice, and sought immortality in the enormity of his crime, and in the memorable beauty and sanctity of the building. With strange indocility and ingratitude, with unaccountable waywardness and perversity, he exerts the divine attributes of mind bestowed upon him by a munificent Creator, to mislead and destroy his creatures. There are no periods in the history of England and France, in which corrupting and licentious writers were SO freely tolerated, as those which immediately preceded the frightful revolutions that shook those kingdoms to their foundation. A licentious press has never failed to corrupt the people who tolerate the nuisance. The close contact into which the nations of the earth have been brought by the cultivation of letters renders | regret and alarm, the sensation this author has created. the action of the press electric. The attention of His example is even worse than his precept. Seduced nations is no longer confined to the enemy within; from the path of duty by inordinate vanity, and bowing there must be a warden at every gate, a watchman down before those conventional orders in Britain, which upon every tower. The electric influence imparted to one in his closet he seems to despise, Mr. Bulwer fails to extremity of the chain is instantaneously felt through- fulfil his destiny. With creative powers beyond those out the lengthened links. As the powers of man have of any living writer, with a free command and a beau expanded, his dangers have increased. If to improve tiful fluency of language, deeply versed in the knowthe understanding were in equal degree to purify the ledge of political and social institutions, "learned in all heart, if the tree of knowledge always bore the fruit of the wisdom of the Egyptians;" the world had reason to virtue, we would not be compelled to deplore the la- require of this gifted man, that he should assert his mentable facility with which whole divisions of the proper station, and stand forth the eloquent champion human family have been latterly corrupted. Unfortu- of rational freedom, and like a tower of strength, defend nately the will of man is perverse. Hence he enjoys against the fierce war of innovation, established instituthe freedom of religious opinion, and preaches infidelity; tions. Erect between contending parties, like the pillar he exults in his political liberty, and teaches licentious- of mingled darkness and flame, he should gild with ness and insubordination. When will he learn the cheering light the pathway of the friends of peace and whole lesson of wisdom and happiness, "Sustine et order, and cast a withering shadow over the advancing Abstine?" The press then is the great engine of good footsteps of destroying anarchists. It is not enough and evil-the press is the protector as well as the de- that he should amuse or delight, he should be required stroyer of morals—the press is the shield-it is also the to instruct mankind. The British parliament, and the leveller of nations. Tremendous engine! Frightful British people, should be made to feel and to respect the power! Can it be that Providence, stretching forth his powers of his genius. Alas! with all his endowments kindly arm, has over-calculated the strength and skill, of mind, he is eminently deficient in that highest of and virtue of his people, and has intrusted them with human attributes, moral courage. Even the false gods the guidance of the chariot of light, only that they may he worships are of a secondary order. With less of consume instead of enlightening the world? ardor than the Persian, he turns from the great luminary; and with more than Babylonian idolatry, he bows down before the lesser lights. He is at once flattered and enslaved by the Aristocracy, and living but for their patronage and amusement, he adapts his morals to the lax standard of a profligate and unintellectual nobility. He is manifestly subdued by the social influences of a corrupt and corrupting metropolis. Instead of reposing with dignity upon the powers of his intellect, or lifting himself to useful eminence by their exertion, and fear yields to the seductive influence of literary ease, and inhales the poisonous influence of that artificial and exclusive society, into which he only finds admission at the price of virtue. Yet he has not received even the full wages of iniquity, and his prostituted talents are not fairly compensated. Stung by the disappointment, his wounded spirit brooding in solitude over its fancied wrongs, sometimes breaks forth with resistless violence, and scourges with merciless severity those idols whom he despises in his soul, but whom he worships in all outward observance. Forming our estimate of his abilities from his writings, when we compare what he might have done with what he has effected, we feel impelled to inquire wherefore such talents should have been so unwisely bestowed. Far be it from us to detract from the full measure of his intellect. Radiant with celestial imagery, he breaks forth in his But we must hasten to conclude an article, which has already transcended the limits of our design, by a few remarks peculiarly applicable to our own country, and addressed more particularly to the rising generation. There are deeply sowed in our soil seeds of destruction unknown to other lands; and it is therefore the more requisite for the preservation of our excellent institutions, that we, above all other people, should "oppose everything which tends to corrupt public morals, or to promote licentiousness." Influenced by such conside-lessly pursuing the high destiny that awaits him; he rations we feel impelled to censure the writings of EDWARD LITTON BULWER, though we are filled with admiration for his transcendent genius. And yet the masterly style in which the immoral tendency of his works has been exposed and denounced by one of the most gifted correspondents of the Messenger, in the January number, has anticipated our design, and abridged our task. But the manner of Bulwer is so captivating and seductive, he wields over the youthful mind such overpowering influence at a season of life when their hearts and intellects are plastic and easily shaped, that we cannot refrain from superadding our testimony to that of the able reviewer to whom we have alluded. The lettered ease, the airy manners, the loose morality, with which he invests his striking characters, are well calculated to lead the youthful to erect a false standard of taste, and to adopt a perilous laxity of morals. He labors to substitute for the manly dig-"Song of the Stars" with a wild burst of eloquence, nity of the educated gentleman the finical foppery, the showy and superficial polish of a pert and puny intellectualism. He has done much to engraft upon the Saxon solidity of our language and character that frivolous levity, which seems only to have found a home in England and America, when it had been banished from France. But he has not only offended against the lesser, he has assailed the greater morals. Considering the toleration of immoral productions as evidences of the decline of any people, we have witnessed with no little which thrills the heart and leads captive the understanding. And in that other beautiful extravaganza, "The Soul in Purgatory," how exquisitely, and yet how faithfully does he portray the constancy of woman's love? We have long since passed through the "May of youth and bloom of lustihood," and we begin to feel in our bosom the freezing influence of the snows that have fallen on our head; yet when in that beautiful fiction the "Angels string their harps in Heaven, and their music ascends like a stream of odors to the Pavilions |