approaching, he stepped aside, not to disturb her in her pious duty; but he felt that this was the sad and solemn place where he was to take leave of her for life. He remained at a little distance, gazing at her, as she knelt in prayer by the grave, and it was not until she rose to depart that he approached her slowly and silently. He held in his hand a cross of shining mother-of-pearl, which his mother had given him when a child, bidding him present it to her to whom in future he should give his heart. When packing his portmanteaus and desk, he had stumbled on this maternal gift, so long laid by, and he had now brought it to offer it as a parting souvenir to her he loved so hopelessly. It seemed to shine with peculiar brightness in the clear moonlight. "Benjamina!" he exclaimed; and she raised her beautiful dark eyes from the grave, and recognised him. But when she saw the shining cross in his hand, she sank on her knees, and folded her hands across her breast. "Heavens! it is fulfilled!" she exclaimed. symbol of peace and redemption at this grave." "His spirit shows me the "What!” cried Veit, in deep anxiety, "at this grave ?" "At this grave I was to be released, were his last words to me, as an angel enlightened his mind at the moment of death. And see, his spirit has led you here with that holy symbol in your hand, the sign of that faith, believing in which, I shall be united to your crucified Redeemer for ever." "Praised be the name of that Redeemer!" cried the happy Veit, "and blessed be that spirit, which in death permitted you to seek redemption! Now, there is nothing to prevent our union, and I claim you as my bride in the face of the Almighty, and by this grave, where I had feared our final parting was to have taken place." They joined their hands over the old man's grave, and Benjamina then told how her departed grandfather, in his last moments, seemed to have understood that the noble predictions of David and the prophets respecting the Messiah had been fulfilled, that he had made the sign of a cross on his death-bed with his cold stiffening hand, and with a smile of ineffable happiness had yielded up his spirit in her arms. "It was ordained, and it has been wonderfully fulfilled!" exclaimed Veit, as he and Benjamina knelt together by the new-made grave. The following year, on the anniversary of that day, a happy Christian couple stood by a tomb, which was thickly strewed with fresh flowers; within that tomb reposed the aged Philip Moses, with his face turned towards the east. Benjamina clasped her beloved husband's hand in one of hers, while with the other she pressed the mother-of-pearl cross to her heart. "Now he knows the truth," said she, "and has seen the promised land, and the holy city which is lightened by the glory of God, and where the redeemed out of every kindred, and people, and nation of the earth shall be blessed for evermore!" HORACE, the man of the world, translated* and edited by the author of "The Soul; Her Sorrows and Aspirations," is a conjunction a little curious. Not but that conjunctions more curious might be suggestedsuch as if Mr. Carlyle were to undertake "Anacreon," or Mr. Leigh Hunt to compass "St. Augustine," or Bishop Philpotts to give us "Lucretius," or Mr. Charles Lever to tackle "Aristotle," or Dr. Candlish to essay "Catullus," or Mr. Albert Smith to operate upon Æschylus," or Dr. Wardlaw to close with "Aristophanes," or Mr. Thackeray to elect "Josephus," or Mr. Rathbone Greg to attempt " Ovid," or Mr. Dickens to vacate "Bleak House" for the Patres Apostolici. But then, these conjunctions are only suggested, as things in posse; and, indeed, not quite that. Whereas the coalition of the tippling, trifling, laughter-andlampoon-loving Sabine Farmer, and the sad-hearted struggler through "Phases of Faith," is a thing in esse-lying before us, an actual fait accompli, and to be had across the bookseller's counter, by all who are interested in the classics, or in want of a-crib. so many In a history of contemporary theology in England, a conspicuous place will be due to the Brothers Newman. Both are exercising a deep influence on thinking minds. Both are ultra-though each in an opposite direction. Together, they represent, emphatically enough, the restless spirit of religious inquiry by which the age is possessed. The elder brother, John, is indeed far more widely known, and exercises a far more profound, individual, positive influence than the younger, Francis. If the Franciscans are a sturdy community, the Johnians are quite as earnest, and vastly more numerous and enterprising. Both brothers are the ardent doctrinaires of Development; but the seeming sympathy is actual antipathy-the one dates à parte ante, the other à parte posttheir stations are at antipodes. The feud of principles between them is mortal as the personal feud between the Theban Adelphi. At the same time, there is, au fond, a tie of intellectual and spiritual brotherhood, which has probably been observed, in spite of all their antagonism, by those who are familiar with the writings of both. This it might be interesting and instructive to illustrate, by reference to the Romanist's peremptory polemics and the Sceptic's desolating negations; but the present is no place for such comparisons, nor beseems it Sir Nathaniel to constitute himself a judge of such matters-albeit he is not like Gallio, to whom ονδεν τουτων έμελεν. The present editor, then, of Flaccus, is none other than the stern, severe assailant of the Creed of Christendom-the most spiritual of strugglers under an Eclipse of Faith. The story of Francis Newman's lifet recals and exemplifies our laureate's darkly winged words * The Odes of Horace, Translated into Unrhymed Metres, with Introductions and Notes. By F. W. Newman, Professor of Latin, University College, London, John Chapman, 1853. † Him, inter alios, we may presume to have been referred to by the most recent, I falter where I firmly trod, And falling with my weight of cares And faintly trust the larger hope. If ever man were serious and earnest in his doubting, we believe him to be so. His is the wailing voice of one crying in the wilderness-of one who comes neither eating nor drinking; and they say, He hath a devil. Emerson, indeed, in his paradoxical way, assures us, that it is great believers who are always reckoned infidels; and that the spiritualist finds himself driven to express his faith by a series of scepticisms. But to proffer Emerson's voucher for Newman's faith were to risk allusion to Bardolph's proffered bond for Falstaff, concerning which Master Dumbleton said, he liked not the security. More consonant with public notions is the doctrine, that all scepticism is not only incompatible with spirituality, but is essentially akin to coarsest materialism-earthly, sensual, devilish. Mr. Trench, in his etymological survey of the word "libertine,”—which signified, according to its earliest use in French and in English, a speculative free-thinker in matters of religion and in the theory of morals or politics-explains its present usage by affirming, that by a sure process free-thinking does and will end in free-acting.† Were the author of "Phases of Faith" an instance of this "sure process," there would be no lack of that sympathy which we have assumed to be lacking, between him and Horace. But, with no disposition to palliate the evils of a sceptical bias, and with a lively sensibility to the withering and chilling touch it pitilessly lays on hearts most ardent and hopes most sacred, we yet demur-with Professor Newmant before our eyes to the sweeping generalisation which refuses to discriminate between a roving intellect and a wanton life, or which regards as one "common cry of curs" the mocking devilries of insensate scoffers, and the sorrowful sighing of the prisoners of hope. And therefore, as we would not "extenuate," so neither would we "set down aught in malice," nor, to use words put by Mr. Landor into the mouth of Andrew Marvel, "strangle a man because he has a narrow swallow."§ Especially since and not the least able, of Christian apologists, who allows that intellectual scepticism has taken hold of many " sincere, conscientious, and highly cultivated minds, which command our respect for the freedom and fearlessness of their inquiries after truth, though none for the decision at which they have arrived.”— Bases of Belief, p. 409. * Falstaff.-What said Master Dumbleton about the satin for my short cloak and slops? Page. He said, sir, you should procure him better assurance than Bardolph; he would not take his bond and yours; he liked not the security.- Second Part of Henry IV. Act I., Scene 2. † Study of Words. Lecture II. As to the ability or the fairness of his polemics, we say nothing. § Latitudinarian in tone as the original passage is, it will bear quoting: "A wise man will always be a Christian . . . but men equally wise may differ and diverge on the sufficiency of testimony, and still further on matters which no testimony can affirm, and no intellect comprehend. To strangle a man because he has a narrow swallow, shall never be inserted among the infallible cures' in my 'Book of Domestic Remedies." "-LANDOR'S Works, vol. ii., p. 101. there is a psychological peculiarity in Mr. Newman's habit of mind-an exaggerated development of what Wordsworth alludes to when he says, And less Than other intellects had mine been used Of record or tradition,* which very characteristic goes to prove the spiritual, or if you will the ideal, the transcendental, the unpractical warp, crossing the woof of his logical intellect; the whole web presenting a strangely involved, intertwisted, tangled appearance, which may make wise men marvel, and good men lament, and rash men rail. As a scholar, on the other hand, there is nothing surprising in Mr. Newman's selection of Horacet for translation and elucidation. The Professor of Latin at University College has a classical repute, in itself an ample warranty for this enterprise. Qualified for the labour the professor is allowed to be: the only curiosity is, that the man should have fixed on Horace, as if it were a labour of love. Insomuch that were we called upon to select a whole septuagint of translators, to render Horatian lyrics in becoming English, we should probably complete the tale of threescore and ten (beginning with names such as Bon Gualtier and Father Prout), without once thinking to include this ripe scholar but miso-epicurean. For how uncongenial this unresting, careworn, serious spirit, with the carpe diem votary of pleasure as it passes, of folly as it flies! Admirable as the Horatian poems are in refinement and in beauty of expression, they are rather, as Müller says, a pleasant pastime, or exercise of skill, than an outpouring (as in Alcæus and the Eolic lyrics) of the inmost feelings of the soul, or an expression of deep and vehement passion. Mr. de Quincey somewhere observes, that what was in fact a disease of the mind, Horace (like an English poet of similar calibre) mistook for a feature of preternatural strength, this disease being the incapacity of self-determination towards any paramount or abiding principles: so that while others are chained and coerced by certain fixed aspects of truth, and their efforts overruled accordingly in one uniform line of direction, he, the brilliant poet, fluttered on butterfly wings to the right and to the left, obeying no guidance but that of some instant and fugitive sensibility to some momentary phasis of beauty. Hence, indeed, those discrepancies in the writings of Horace which have occasioned so much critical labour to commentator and scholiast; for we are to consider his occasional effusions (and such they almost all are)—so a contributor to "Guesses at Truth" remarks‡-as * Prelude. Book VIII. Is the same selection by two other recent translators (Professor Sewell and Mr. Whyte Melville) a sign of the times? "The heart has often been compared to the needle for its constancy: has it ever been so for its variations? Yet were any man to keep minutes of his feelings from youth to age, what a table of variations would they present-how numerous, how diverse, how strange! This is just what we find in the writings of Horace. Their very contradictions prove their truth."-Guesses at Truth. First Series. merely expressing the fancy, the penchant, the seriousness, or the levity of the moment. He has his serious side; "deep moralist" is one of the titles a modern poet* has emphatically bestowed upon him; and Mr. Landor, we remember, appears to suspect him of being rather malignant and morose at heart than gay and riant, observing that his lighter touches were less agreeable to his own nature than to the nature of Augustus and Mecenas, both of them fond of trifling.† Dean Milman, in comparing the poetry of Horace with the later Grecian comedy, recognises in the former a fund of "serious thought, which is always at the bottom of the playful expression," and which is more consonant to the sterner practical genius of the Roman people; a people who, in their idlest moods, seemed to "condescend" to amusement, not to consider it, like the Greeks, one of the common necessities, the ordinary occupations of life. In Horace, "the masculine and practical common sense, the natural but not undignified urbanity, the stronger if not sounder§ moral tone, the greater solidity, in short, of the whole style of thought and observation, compensate for the more lively imagination, the greater quickness and fluency, and more easy elegance of the Greek." If he imitated the Greek, it was with originality. He owes it little but in the article of metre. Such grace and wit, such elegance and finish as his, come not at second-hand; no loan from abroad is what Margaret Fuller hailed in him as that "perfume and raciness, which makes life a banquet." He was the prototype, according to Archdeacon Hare, and hence has ever been the favourite of, wits and fine gentlemen-of those who count it a point of good breeding to seem pleased with everything, * Then farewell, Horace, whom I hated so, Childe Harold, c. iv. + Salomon.-You will, however, allow that we have no proof of gravity in Horace or Plautus? Alfieri.—On the contrary, I think we have many. Horace, like all the pusillanimous, was malignant; like all courtiers, he yielded to the disposition of his masters.... That he was libidinous is no proof that he was playful, for often such men are even melancholic.-Imaginary Conversations. It may be worth adding, in respect of the last sentence, that there are those who are sceptical as to the reality of Horace's list of favourite fair ones. Thus a recent Edinburgh Reviewer asserts that, of all the poets of the time, Horace alone had no individual mistress—that his amours, if numerous as those of Cowley, were also as fabulous-that the very names of his mistresses betray their origin; not being natives of the Vicus Tuscus, of the Palatine or the Suburra, but damsels who had been serenaded centuries before in the streets of Mytilene and Athens. "That Horace was at one time of his life a lover may be taken for granted; and we suspect Canidia to have been the subject of his passion, and that she jilted him."-See Edinburgh Review, October, 1850. Milman's Horace (Life). § Milman, whom we here quote, is speaking of the Satires and Epistles. "Horace," says Mdme. Ossoli, "was a great deal to me then (in youth), and is so still. Though his words do not abide in memory, his presence does; serene, courtly, of darting hazel eye, a self-sufficient grace, and an appreciation of the world of stern realities, sometimes pathetic, never tragic. He is the natural man of the world."-Autobiography of Margaret Fuller. |