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    Atw. 10, I860.] ®&* *****«? ^_

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    allingham's poems. Poems. By William All...

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    STELLA AND VANESSA. Stella anil Vanessa....

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    Mackay' S Progress Of The Intellect. The...

    might ( and the murder of those five sons of Saul was to all intents and purposes a hideous Moloch sacrifice ) , yet we seem to see a softening rather than a savage spirit in the story of Abraham , and wo must protest against a cannibal conclusion out of mere metaphors , such as " drinking the blood of the slain , " or the promise that the anakim " should be as bread to the people . " Mr . Mackay thinks that great legend of the sun standing still in the Valley of Ajalon to point to a great Baal sacrifice offered there by Joshua . We

    rather agree with Spinoza in regarding it as a grand old poetical mythm , in which Jehovah ' s superiority to the sun-god of the Canaanites was attested before earth and Heaven , and the lord of the sky was forced to stand still and witness and assist the slaughter of his own worshippers . It was in the strength of a rather purer faith that the Jews became what they were , and , like the Mahometans afterwards , they preached it with their swords . Mr . Mackay ' s estimate of the Hebrew character—of what it was in itself , and of what the religion was—is doubtless far nearer the truth than the ordinary orthodox one , yet

    he has given orthodoxy an advantage over him in these chapters of which it will not fail to avail itself . It will point to his overstrained metaphors , which it will parallel with his treatment of Homer , and for a time it will be able to set aside and ignore the real massive value of his book . Permanently to injure it will be beyond the power of orthodoxy or of anything else . However , in a second edition Mr . ' Mackay may reconsider himself ; and , in the mean time , at his weakest he is no slight adversary , and where we differ from him he has given us abundance of serious matter , which we feel we have not fairly considered . If for a time the old Hebrews have to endure a harder

    judgment than they earned by their actions , no more than they have brought upon themselves by their arrogance , and for a time , perhaps , it is as well they should endure it . The truth lies probably between themselves and Mr . Mackay . It is no answer to point to a few really great and noble men among them whoso minds were lifted out beyond their age . Men of that kind there have been at all times , and among all peoples : — " Who shall say , " says Mr . Mackay , " how soon the human intellect first began to feel rightly about God ? " Fragments of Greek , thoughts of

    great men , we find incorporated in every theologic system ; rising out like the moon ' s mountains into the sun , and shining like light islands out of the dead level of the gloom around them . What wo really most want ( Mr . Mackay makes us feel it more than ever ) , is a good edition of the Bible . Noble as our translation is , it was made by divines who read it all with the shadows inverted—by the theories of later ages . We must have a new translation made by scholars whose only purpose shall be to find out , not what the words may moan , but what the waiters meant . Who they were ; how they lived ; what they made of the world

    about them ; what belief , what knowledge , what moral habits of thought and action they brought with them into their writings ; so and so only wo may expect a safe deliverance out of our Egypt . Where are the men who will do this for us ? Who s there with heart pure enough and head strong enouah to undertake such a work as this in the face of what the English world will give him for his pains ? Till we read Mr . Mackay ' s book we despaired . 13 ut if this was possible , more may be possible . Let us keep heart and pray for the good time , and work for it as God has given us gifts to work for it ; above all , let us be faithful to ourselves , nd not be ashamed of confessing to the truth .

    We mu"t leave Mr . Mackay ' s excellent chapters on the rise of Philosophy and on the curious parallel of its history with that of Theology . Wo can only recommend them to careful perusal as by far the ablest summary which we have ever read . As a specimen of his stylo and of his conclusions , we will take an extract from the close of the second volume : — " If in moral Inequalities them bo anything which can rsaily disturb the serenity of the Divine Mind , tasking it

    not merely to forbear but f . o forgive , the forgiveness ( of course not to be expected from a lower sourue ) is surely a ( Vco gift to the repentant— unpurchaseable by bloodshed—uninfluenced by magical exorcism ; and if human waywardness had deliberately proposed to cast a slnr on the sublime act of self-devotion which closed the career of Jesus , the object could scarcely have been more ellvctually attained than by construing it as an enchantment or spell , through which the real mental change , he died to promote might be superseded by a mere profession of paradoxical" belief . The expressive sign or

    symbol of ' atonement' recommended itself to the imagination , supplanting one trick of fancy * by another , and giving a seemingly substantial basis for hope . This hope , of which , in St . Paul , grace is the object , and faith the inward assurance or means , is the mental realization of a new golden age or spiritual union with God . But , apart from a firm trust in the general beneficence of the Creator , which needs not to be restored , since it never was withdrawn , can this transcendental presumption which arrogantly anticipates the distant goal of existence be a safe creed for an imperfect progressive being ? A large mass of error is easily embalmed and perpetuated by a little truth . If the symbol of Christ ' s death were only an eminent example of self-devotion through which his spirit could for ever dwell with us , or if it were taken only as a final cancelling of those subjective fancies which made God appear as a tyrant , and raised an imaginary barrier between Him and His creatures , its effect would be healthful . Unfortunately it has been used for the very opposite purpose of perpetuating those ancient superstitions in their most frightful form , and practically giving to Christianity a character , which , though it have an ill sound , it would be vain as well as dishonest to dissemble , that of a religion of Moloch . Alas ! it is even so . We might have hoped that when the superstitions of the old nature worship had evaporated in the schools of the Greek philosophy , theology had finished its course , and that the era of the soul ' s calm possession of herself might have commenced ; but the yet undisciplined character of humanity was not so easily to pass , into the promised land of . its maturity . The intellect , before it would set itself to study patiently in the outer and inner world the real revelation which God had offered it , must first run again the old course of the imagination ; and after ridding itself of the Gods of Olympus , fell to constructing idols of its own as unreal , if not as absurd . Confounding thought with perception the inheritors of the wisdom of Plato and of Aristotle assumed that to every act of the mind there must be some external corresponding i object . Imperfect notional generalizations , under the modest name of ideas , claimed an objective existence —from objective they soon became divine , and the first effort of philosophy ended at the Gnostic Pleroma ! in the creation of a second Pantheon . There was no food there for the soul of man , and once again the I full cycle had painfully to be completed before a J second emancipation was possible . " Philosophy in j despair reverted to her superannuated parent , and I appealing to eastern mysticism sank back into the \ arms of faith . " So far more fortunate than under the earlier system ; instead of adoring a dim impersonation of the physical forces men now adored the noblest of themselves ; but it was the old superstition after all to which they were delivered over ; and Historic Christianity has too painfully asserted the demoniac elements which linger in its nature , in the hatred , the bitterness , the bloodshed which have accompanied its evolution .

    Mackay' S Progress Of The Intellect. The...

    ? The Fall .

    Atw. 10, I860.] ®&* *****«? ^_

    Atw . 10 , I 860 . ] ®&* *****«? ^_

    Allingham's Poems. Poems. By William All...

    allingham ' s poems . Poems . By William Allingham . Chapman and Mall . A pleasant volume of poems , modestly prefaced , I and published rather with a view of ascertaining the | real position which the author has at present reached | in poetic development , than with any idea of the poems being adequate expressions of the power from which they proceed . Mr . Allingham is an apprentice to the divine art of Poesy , and does not give himself airs of having passed into mastership . There ; is strength implied in this modesty . Conscious of I his unfulfilled powers , he is more likely to reach the heights of his ambition , than if , with ludicrous yet , not uncommon vanity , he imagined the height was cleaTed because he made a spring at it . Mr . Allingham has poetical feeling , and a delicate eye for nature which occasionally recals Tennyson , whom , indeed , he unconsciously imitates in many places . Here is a littlo poem that might have been written by a younger brother of Tennyson : — " KVKNINO . " Star-shadows dot our tiny lake , Ami , sparkling ju betwctMi 'J" J j • dusky friiigt ; tins larches make , Soft slurs themselves an ; sucii ; Our boat and wt ! , not half awake ? , ( Jo ilriisiminiT down the pond , "While slowly o . 'iIIk th « Hail , ' Crake-crake , * From int'ii ' dow-fliils buyout * . ' Tim happy , circling , bounded view KmbracsuH us with homo ; J 5 ut up , through lioav « n ' H star-budding blue , Our kouIs are frei : to roam ; Whence for this veil of scouted dew That makes the earth so tnveet , A touch of astral brightness too , — A peace that is complete . " And the eamo may be said of The Pilot's Daughter , \ especially these two stanzas : —

    " Were it my lot , there peeped a wish , To hand a pilot ' s oar and sail , Or haul the dripping moonlight mean , Spangled with herring-scale ; By dying stars , how sweet't would be . And dawn-blow freshening the sea , With weary , cheery pull to shore . To gain my cottasre home once more , And meet , before 1 reached the door . My darling Pilot ' s Daughter ! ' This element beside my feet Looks like a tepid wine of gold : One touch , one taste , dispels the cheat , 'Tis salt and bitter cold : A fi 3 her ' s hut , the scene perforce Of narrow thoughts and manners coarse , Coarse as the curtains that beseem With net-festoons the smoky beam , Would no-way lodge my favourite dream , E ' en with my Pilot ' s Daughter . " There are many poems printed in this collection which it may have been well to write as exercises , but not so well to have preserved . " The art to blot" is only one half of the poet ' s business—the other half is the courage to destroy . The great defect of the volume , however , is that which distinguishes volumes of verse from poetry , viz ., the absence of real feeling . They are fancy pictures , not the melodious utterances of joys and sorrows which in times gone by have laid their delicious burden on his soul , and now break forth in music . This , probably , is owing to the writer's youth ; for mastery over actual emotions is the last stage in an artist ' s apprenticeship—a stage few reach . But we will not too minutely criticise ; let us , rather , quote the plain counsel he gives his countrymen who shout " Justice for Ireland ! "' Justice for Ireland ! if ye can , O host , of writers broguish ; Nor paint each fellow-countryman As blundering or roguish . Think less of oddities and rags , And more of human nature ; And , ' stead of party-words and flags , March under something greater . " Justice for Ireland ! O ye priests , jUoth Protestant and lloman ; Let each observe his fasts and feasts , But try to anger no man . Religion ' s rind is little worth , The milk is in the kernel ; All love is of celestial birth . All hatred , of infernal . " Justice for Ireland ! echoing band Of empty agitators ; Who scorn each noiseless busy hand , And canonise the praters . Well may shrewd foes in secret scoff , Nor think your mouths of corking- ; While so much steam is blowing off . There ' s little left for working . ' Justice for Ireland / brothers all , Of every creed and station ; And other counsel if ye call , For saving of the nation—Ti'is maxim in the meantime prize . Nor think its plainness humbling , Let every one bbwark of libs , And laziness , and cthumbling . " As we are upon Ireland , let us note a pretty conceit of his , in calling her the Cinderella of the sister kingdoms . 44 Ireland , the Cinderella of the three Called Sister Kingdoms , darkened with the staina Of long and sore maltreatment though she be . Amidst her ashes a sweet voice retains : And our old village was as deep imbued With music as a . mavis-peopled wood . " Lady Morgan recently called Ireland " The Magdalen of Nations "—an imitation of " The Niobe of Nations" ; but this of Cinderella seems to us a happier phrase , though not very complimentary to England and Scotland .

    Stella And Vanessa. Stella Anil Vanessa....

    STELLA AND VANESSA . Stella anil Vanessa . A Romance from the French . By Lady Dull' Gordon . Bentley . There are two aspects in which this novel may be regarded ; the one as a picture of Swift ' s life , more particularly with reference to those two unhappy women whose hearts he broke ; the other as a mere novel , representing a possible instead of an . actual history , and ranging under the same head as " novels of the season . " As a novel it is in many ways remarkable . Being the work of a Frenchman , one may look upon its accuracy of fact , names , tone , and

    manners as almost marvellous . We find here none of that daring grace of blundering , that steady bias to go wrong which characterizes Frdnch treatment of English matters . The book might have been written by a cultivated Englishman so far as accuracy is concerned . In another respect , also , it is singular : although the subject in its actual history , and especially in the inferences ono is , forced to draw , borders upon the revolting , and leads ono into physiological considerations which a Balzac would have pounced upon with the avidity of a crow upon carrion , yet the author has not only kept clear of all offence , he has so constructed his story that the offensive ideas never

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Aug. 10, 1850, page 17, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_10081850/page/17/