is discussed more freely and clearly than we have elsewhere seen. Are we presumptuous in saying, with especial eye to the interests of the candidates for writerships,, that a judicious selection from the Greek text of the "Metaphysics" would be an admirable addition to the admirable logical course, even if "jibs" should add a new petition to the Litany-"a dialecticâ Aristotelicâ libera nos Domine ?" And where could so competent an editor be found as the author of this translation?

We can hardly leave Oxford literature without alluding to the historical works which Oxford men have lately produced. Dean Milman's "Latin Christianity," and Mr. Froude's "History of England" are the most splendid specimens of Oxonian literature in this line. We have space but for a few words on the latter work.

Mr. Froude's has been a strange career, indeed. In the extreme Protestant historian we can still see cropping out the intense sympathy with medievalism which was once felt by the young author of one of the "Lives of the Saints" with the Littlemore imprimatur. The panegyrist of Henry VIII.--the keen exposer of the delinquencies of the clergy, can still walk up the cathedral aisle, and gaze, enraptured, upon the marble crusader, and hear the church bells, "that peculiar creation of medieval age, falling upon the ear like the echo of a vanished world." It was a singular scene when the "Nemesis of Faith" was brought into the hall of Exeter College, and, under the tall

form and fine face of Walter de Stapleton, committed to the flames by the hands of a tutor. The stern old founder seemed to smile approval. But the young fellow of Exeter has paid off the insult to his book and the act which drove him from the society to which he belonged. The "Hesitation at Oxford," "The Submission of Oxford," "The Burning of Duns Scotus in Peckwater," and other portions of the history are keen satires upon the spirit of the university. But the mother who was obliged to drive the erring son from her home, must still gaze upon his work with a sigh of admiring regret. Certainly, Mr. Froude's style is superior even to Lord Macaulay's. There is not the same perpetual liquid lapse-the same

VOL. LI.-NO. CCCIV.

monotonous brilliancy. We travel over patches of short, jerking, broken sentences; but then we are rewarded by noble prospects. The hissing sarcasm, the fierce hatred of Mr. Froude are something different from the Whig prejudices and gentleman-like antipathy of Lord Macaulay-darker, intenser, more terrible. The peer is a great master of pageants; but his gorgeousness is a general mistiness of splendour, enveloping a few first-rate figures: the fellow of Exeter restores the colours of the past, and groupes in all accessories and particulars. Lord Macaulay's rhetoric is like a pyrotechnist, shedding such a coloured light as he wishes over the scenes; but Mr. Froude's is like a wave which exhibits the most graceful swells and curves, the most dazzling brilliancy of spray, the most delicate variety of tints simply in virtue of the laws which are rolling it onward to the shore. The conviction of Anne Boleyn, the scene upon the Thames, the pageant in the city, the appearance of the Queen, are as much above any kindred scene in Lord Macaulay, as a Greek tragedy is above George Barnwell.

"There she sate, dressed in white

tissue robes, her fair hair flowing loose over her shoulders, and her temples circled with a light coronet of gold and diamonds. Most beautiful, loveliest, most favoured, perhaps, as she seemed at that hour, of all England's daughters, alas! 'within the hollow round' of that coronet

Fatal gift of greatness! so dangerous ever; so more than dangerous in those and law, and tradition are splitting in the social earthquake. And what if into an unsteady heart and brain the outward chaos should find its way, converting the poor silly soul into an image of the same confusion, and at length there be nothing left of all which men or women ought to value save hope of God's forgiveness. Three short years have yet to pass, and again, on a sumleave the Tower of London, not radiant mer morning, Queen Anne Boleyn will then with beauty, on a gay errand of coronation, but a poor wandering ghost, on a sad, tragic errand from which she will never more return; passing away out of an earth where she may stay no

tremendous times, when ancient order,

27

longer, into a presence where, nevertheless, we know that all is well-for all of us, and, therefore, for her."-Froude's History, vol. i. p. 435.

This is a passage eminently characteristic of the author in his higher moods. It embodies his strong view of Anne Boleyn's guilt, and it inweaves one of his strange religious speculations -"Well for all of us, and, therefore, for her!" Who told you so, Mr. Froude? We need hardly inform our readers that Mr. Froude is a perfect worshipper of Henry VIII., who, he thinks, would have been as good as he was great had he only been cast in a world where there were no women. But is he not laughing in his sleeve at the simplicity of his readers when he remarks on the odious precipitancy of the nuptials with Jane Seymour, immediately after the execution of Anne-"The precipitancy with which he acted is to me a proof that he looked on matrimony as an indifferent official act, which his duty required at the moment; and if this be thought a novel interpretation of his motives, I have merely to say that I find it in the statute-book." (Vol. II. p. 502). We can only strongly recommend the chapter on the Irish Rebellion, with its quaint opening story of the vision of Brigitta, and of Pander's opinion, that the land in the west, where "most souls was damned," was this Ireland of ours.

We must now endeavour to bring the divergent lines of these hurried reviews to one point.

First, then, as a general rule the strong point of Oxford men would seem to be thorough getting up and appreciation of particular authors. If Herodotus is to be elucidated and illustrated, Mr. Rawlinson comes forward and knows all that can be known of him; Augustine has melted into Pusey's mind; Mr. Mozley has untwisted every fibre of the predestinarian argument in his writings; Dr. Thomson puts before us a tissue, which looks as smooth and complete as possible; no tags, no ruffled ends; but it is made up of threads which he has collected from his favourite authors; Sir Alexander Grant strives to nestle behind Aristotle's brain, and to think through it; the purely human element of St. Paul's mind has been dissected with wonderful minuteness by Professors Stanley and Jowett.

The weak point of Oxford men seems to be also very marked. It is a kind of logical madness. Put them on a premiss, and they push down the inclined plane to a conclusion, however perilous or extravagant. So Newman began with the authority of the church and ended in ultramontane Romanism; so his brother_started with the inward light, and ended in "phases of my faith;" so Mr. Congreve pushed out from Mill, and finished by sitting in prostrate reverence at the feet of Comte, and by writing, only two months ago, a pamphlet, in which he speaks of Christianity as a phase of religion through which it is unnecessary for India to pass;" so Mr. Jowett sets out from Hegel, but he has not yet arrived at his journey's end; so, in poetry, Mr. Arnold lays down the premisses of Greek tragedy, and pushes them to the conclusion of writing a Greek tragedy in English; so, in history, Mr. Froude writes upon the principle of believing state papers and acts of parliament, and he is so consistent that he does believe them even when they contradict the strongest dictates of common sense and natural feeling. It is manifest that all these phenomena have a cause. The sterner discipline of the place is too logical. Logic is a guide from premiss to conclusion; but if the premiss be false, how desperate is the downward path: yet what cares the logician, so his conclusion be formally valid. And thus it is that ordinary minds are better off than these subtle academicians. They have, indeed, like those accomplished men, false premisses in abundance; but common sense comes in, and the very want of intellectual consistency is their best protection.

On the whole, then, Oxford has reason to be proud of her position in relation to literature. Perhaps our great Irish university might look to her with a little envy in this respect. Our questionable success in the one department of the India Civil Service examination, compared with our superiority in all other competitive trials, must arise from some weakness in the literary or philosophical training of our youth; for, in the mathematical and scientific departments, we are too preeminent for any suspicion of failure.

At the same time, we are content with our position. There is something morbid, perhaps, in the way in which Oxford intellect blossoms off into literature. If we hardly produce so many books; if we have few Froudes or Milmans, Arnolds or Thomsons, we have, at least, no Newmans, no Jowetts, no Congreves. Our sound and temperate theology and philosophy train the teachers of our youth too thoroughly to suffer them to go after some ignis fatuus, and

drag their pupils after them. The conceit and "donnishness" of the younger Oxford tutor-authors is unknown. And when our men go into the great university of life-with the Fitzgeralds and O'Briens to the pulpit; with the Napiers, Whitesides, Lawsons, Martins, and Cairnes to the bar; there are few, indeed, who have practical reason to regret that so many years were spent in the severe but salutary discipline imposed by the University of Dublin.

HIS THEOGONY.

Ir is a strange combination of Talmudic legends and old Cabalistic philosophy, whether that be of Egyptian or Chaldaic origin. Add to this a dash of Neo-Platonism, a tinge of Greek materialism, blended together in a mind purely scientific and practical, and you obtain a fair impression of the Swiss philosopher of the sixteenth century.

Creation was a chemical mystery, a separation. Space at first was chaos, or a common principle from which all perishable things came. The first separation was the universe or macrocosm, and the four elements-fire, which is the hot part of every thing; air, the moist; water, the cold; and earth, the dry. These elements enter into man, and, according as they predominate, form his temperament. Man is the little world of which the larger world is a type. To use the alchymist's ponderous words, chaos, or the great mystery, is the back of every thing, beyond which the mind of man cannot penetrate. All things will perish, not again to become chaos, but what was before chaos. The great mystery is "the mother of all the elements, and the grandmother of the stars." It gave powers of reproduction to all secondary creatures. All was created without an effort, and passed at once into being like a flower opening to bloom. All things lay hid in chaos as the statue does in the marble. All passed into form and essence by a separation. Created things

were not built out of chaos, nor gathered, but formed by combination, as two tinctures mixed form a third of new virtues. Some superfluities of creation became spirits, herbs, and stones. Just as grass devoured by an ox turns into flesh; so did the great mystery become changed, and its changes also changed.

Whatever became compact became as wood; the rest remained thin, as air and water. This separation is the greatest miracle in philosophy, and is not divine but a natural magic, never to be repeated. All things enjoy free will, and, in consequence, hate or love each other, and will till the last day, the harvest of creation.

At the creation fire became heaven and the wall of the firmament; the air became a void space; the sea, a place for nymphs and monsters; earth, a chest to hold all things that grow. Each is independent of the other, and earth is propped up by these invisible pillars.

Then came a second separation, and the stars arose from the fire, which is heaven, as flowers from a meadow, rising as a colour does in a tincture. Before this all the sky was fire. Soon the air mixed with all elements. Then salt, weeds, and fish arose from the sea; all made manifest in a moment of time. Next, the mortal and the eternal separated in the earth; and all plants, and metals, and gems appeared.

Man alone is a mixture of the eternal and the mortal; and it baffles

sages to see the mortal domineer over the eternal. Hence arises a perpetual struggle, for man desires a perfect and final separation. Man's inclination is always to evil. All the elements have a soul, which is their life, and is invisible like that of men. The fire that we see is not that soul or life, but merely a result; for it may be in a green stick as much as in a flame.

There are four elementary worlds, each with its plants and spirits, and one God eternal obeyed in all. Man knows most of the element of earth, because from that he came. All that we have is found in the other elements; even air has its stones and plants. What we account phenomena are natural sequences unknown to us.

There are more worlds than one; and we are not the noblest or the happiest of creatures. There are even more beings than merely the eternal and mortal, could we know them. Some mortal things are meant to feed the eternal; some of the eternal are for power, and others for ornament. Flowers are eternal, and will appear at the judgment as well as all things created out of chaos. When the four elements perish others will arise, or a new chaos be created as a starting point of new worlds. At present they nourish each other, and yet are self-supporting, as plants. The elementary is but an inn where the eternal resides for a time. The last day will be a conjunction, a meeting, a reunion.

Paracelsus also believed in attending spirits, prophetic genii, and ghosts which remain on the earth after a man is dead. The ghosts lead men in their sleep, and enable men to prophesy.

Life desires life, the mortal desires immortality, because it proceeded from it; hence God ordained that the invisible should become body, and then again become invisible. All things are created fumes: they end in a steam, are constantly evaporating, and when the boiling ceases the smoke ceases also. Man is a coagulated fume. What we eat melts and passes into this smoke. Life consumes all things, and digestion is but a separation. All colours and elements lie hid in every thing. The invisible becomes visible through the body, and is seen in it as fire is

in wood which it sets alight. The visible is, then, nothing but a manifestation of one side of the invisible.

In summary of these mysteries, we may say that Paracelsus believed in the simultaneous emerging of the elements from chaos, at divine command. From the four elements came again all created things, each element being a self-supporting world, and yet nourishing its fellows. All will eventually return to the great mystery of chaos.

HIS MYTHOLOGY.

From the superfluities of creation there arose sea-monsters, rock, air, and earth spirits; the melosines who dwell in man's blood, and the neuferans who inhabit the pores of the earth: each has its own habitation, and may not change. There are also giants, wood-monsters, and spirits of the night. By conjunction with men, they may converse with him, and bear him children; but each spirit turns again to whence it came, fire or water, as man does to earth.

The sylphs, the salamanders, and the undines, are all of this philosopher's manufacture; for with Christianity he blended a poetical pantheism, which the occult sciences had handed down from Pagan times, and of which the superstitions of witches and goblins preserved remembrance. In every thing he saw spirits: they moved in the dew-drop and in the spray of the torrent, murmured in the fire, and spoke to him in the wind and in the echo.

The gnomes, or mountain spirits, he says, have flesh and blood as men, and are not mere essence, like the beings of the air and fire. They delight in guarding riches, either in mountains or mines, where they count it over with all the pride of successful capitalists. The devil himself, though said to abound in riches and to reward his followers, is, according to Paracelsus, the poorest of creatures, but infinitely skilful in all arts, which he can teach to his favourites; he does not require a bond sealed with your blood, as some have written.

These pigmies live long, but have not the gift of immortality. They appear in sudden flames to miners, whom they vex with blows and scorchings; warning them of danger

by knocking, or disclosing a treasure. They can appear small or large, foul or fair; but have latterly become extinct or invisible, though once common among men. Some thought them good spirits sent from God; others, the souls of suicides, wandering till the judgment, having given themselves to the devil; others have thought them mere phantasies, disclosing treasure; a few, the creations of enchantment. We should be inclined to think them explosions of fire-damp, or will-o'-the-wisps floating round the damp mouths of mines, seen by errant woodmen, and hunters tracking the boar.

They could not but by God's will bring either fortune or misfortune. A few thought them the souls of men who had buried treasure, and kept guard till it was discovered, founding the opinion on the perverted text "Where your treasure is, there shall your heart be also.' These, said the alchymists, were the gods of the early nations mentioned in the first commandment.

The mountain of Uvus, in Italy, was once full of these spirits; and this was the kingdom and paradise of the nymph Venus-so the cabalists interpreted old mythology.

These pigmies loved those who loved them, and hated those who hated them. Woe to the man who signed their bonds and yielded himself to their power. Knowing men's thoughts and wishes, they were easily ruled by those who had faith: but if the wretched necromancer who backed their bills, angered or disobeyed them, they either maimed or killed him. Sometimes he was found dead, with blue face, staring eyes, and twisted neck, just as those whom the devil, who had not this power, drove to suicide and despair.

These elementary spirits were God's messengers and executioners: they warned and admonished man, watched and defended him, and could even deliver him from prison. They answer, in fact, to the guardian angels admitted by many modern Christians as real beings. They were the same as night-mares, haunting the sick man, and increasing the melancholy of the hypochondriac.

Paracelsus, though a needy man, wrote much about hid treasure. He relates the signs which indicate its

locality. Strange noises were heard round the spot; and those that went by, particularly on Sabbath nights, were cast into cold sweats, and felt their hair stand on end. Meteors fell round the house, and bellowings of wind shook the roof at midnight. These noises were oftentimes indications that somebody's mortgage was nearly up, and the devil was about to call in the money. Sometimes it was the soul of a wicked man forced to wander round the house of clay it had just quitted. Sometimes it was a stray devil driven from a possessed body, and now looking out for a vacancy. If the treasure was human, it could be recovered, but not so easily if it was the coin of nymphs or sylphs.

The seekers used divining rods, which deceived them by pointing indiscriminately to lost money, or magical mirrors and crystals. These were to be dug for when the moon transits Taurus, without ceremonies or incantations, with faith, courage, and cheerfulness. The pigmies, unwilling to lose their treasure, had many ways of baffling mortals: now they would flame in visions; and now, just as the spade reached the casket, turn it into clay or wood. This, however, when forced by fire, turned to its former essence.

The searcher, however, had always some escape for self-delusion, for he either thought what he saw was only the metal in a changed form; or if he could not re-change it, would attribute it to the failure of some one ingredient in the spell.

The spirits, if suddenly surprised, had no power to change the treasure, and fled, foiled and baffled. But if they had time, they sank the gold deeper, and out of reach. The greater the noise they made, the greater the treasure. Hid treasure was often searched for, not from covetousness, but to render ancient houses and castles habitable, and to free them from the sound of clanking chains and hollow groans.

Paracelsus not only believed in those mine spirits, whom the light of Sir Humphrey Davy's lamp for ever scared, but in the possession of devils, apart from pure epilepsy.

He recommends that they should be driven out by prayer, and not by dangerous incantations, which did