The heathen Pantheists are told of the inhabiting, by the Word, of a human body, in order to make use of it as an instrument to convey the knowledge of God to man; and that where sin had abounded, i.e. in the human body, there grace might abound more.

'The Word was made man, in order that we may be deified; He manifested Himself through the body, in order that we may attain to the idea of the Invisible Father; He suffered contumely from man, in order that we may inherit immortality. He sustained no injury, it is true, being impassible, incorruptible, the very Word and God; but He keeps and preserves suffering mankind, for whom He underwent these sufferings, by His own impassibility.'1

And S. Athanasius ends with an exhortation to all to purify their hearts and lives according to the doctrine of Christ and the example of the saints; that they may thus read the Scriptures with profit, and, as far as is possible, attain to the knowledge of God.

In conclusion, we can only again congratulate our readers on the appearance of a volume which contains much that is of real value, and the study of which may benefit so many. It is not sufficient that fundamental truths should be stated once or twice only, and then be considered as fully vindicated; it is well that they be repeated from time to time in a form adapted to the needs and requirements of the age; and as far as Bishop Kaye has done this, he has fulfilled the apostolic injunction to hand down the form of sound words, and has done his duty as a good and faithful ruler of the Church of God.

1 Kaye, p. 304.

174

ART. V.-History of Europe, from the Fall of Napoleon in 1815, to the Accession of Louis Napoleon in 1852. By SIR ARCHIBALD ALISON, Bart. Blackwood: Edinburgh."

To speak of the vast differences in dignity and importance between one subject and another, in the wide range of literature, may very easily end in mere verbiage. The remark acquires more force, if we note the different attitudes which the mind, often unconsciously, assumes towards any particular study. There are certain subjects to which in themselves men yield a general homage, there are others wherein the mind preserves an impartial independence,-others on which it looks down with a careless indifference. No author perhaps obtains a wider hearing, or is listened to with a spirit of readier docility, than the historian;-men are often disposed to pay only too much deference to the dignity of his office. The reader may suffer from doing so; but it furnishes a solemn caution for the historian, to take heed how he uses the pen of the ready writer. He is only the more deeply responsible for what he says, if he knows, that for the vast majority of his readers, 'to hear is to believe,' often also to obey.' The wider too the subject which he takes in hand, the stronger is the antecedent influence which he exercises over them. The historian of a nation, yet more of many nations, sits on a more exalted judgment-seat, and vindicates for his words a far wider acceptance than men would dream of giving to the narrow and local lucubrations of the chronicler of a county.

Sir A. Alison has sought to take his stand on a very lofty height; and his former historical work will obtain a wide circulation for this its sequel, and perhaps win from many a simple and trusting adoption of the views contained in it. It remains, however, to be seen whether the present volume will not have the effect of diminishing his influence, and of throwing some doubt on the general soundness of his opinions. Meanwhile, the very popularity of his preceding history will procure for many an erroneous notion, or false conclusion, in the present one, a more general acceptance than would have been accorded to them if the other had not gone before, to shed a portion of its own light on its successor. The great reputation of the earlier work is accounted for without much difficulty. A lively and vigorous narrative of a period more full of rapid and stirring change and momentous events than any other in the

world's history, deserved the popularity which it won; and the same merit will doubtless again be discerned in those portions of the present work, which may draw forth the especial powers of a writer whose facility in narration far exceeds his profoundness as a thinker, or his wisdom as a judge. His deficiency in these respects is unfortunately brought out by the very character of the period of which he has in the present instance undertaken to write the history. Unlike the former, it is a time of quiet; not less full, however, of change, or of changes less momentous; but one requiring (if we may resort to comparisons which are often only misleading) the deep sagacity of Thucydides, in a far greater degree than the superficial brilliancy of Livy. Here and there only is a gleam of the vivid light which casts such unnatural splendour on the previous age of turmoil and violence; and only in such transient glimpses are the real powers of the author made manifest. The last romantic episode in the chivalrous career of Murat is conveyed in language very different from that which records the gradual workings of national legislature and public opinion.

Still it is a subject which more fully than the former reveals the writer's mind, and his own individual convictions; and it does in fact display an array of notions, and a system of philosophy, very greatly at variance with those which are acknowledged by any considerable numbers at the present day. So complete an isolation from any of the ordinary opinions of the time, might scarcely have been anticipated; at all events, far greater power of argument, and depth of analysis, and originality of thought, might reasonably have been looked for. Such preconceptions we had formed before coming to the perusal of this volume: and though it would have been vain to look for any entire concurrence in his conclusions, we had expected to encounter the vigour and energy of a keen antagonist, the force and impartiality of (to say the least), a candid and independent thinker; we had invested him with all the dignity wherewith the heated imagination of the Knight of La Mancha invested his Windmill' foes; we can scarcely do more than confess that our deception may not have been so signal as that of the would-be restorer of chivalry.

The inference might suggest itself, that to refute the erroneous assertions and opinions of such a writer, would be a superfluous labour. In part only would such a conclusion be true. Certain, indeed, it is, that far the greater portion of the mistakes and prejudices contained in this volume, will never produce any harvest ;-their own weight will crush them; but amongst these strange notions and preconceptions there are some which will win a more ready hearing. They too will one

day come to nothing; but they chime in with too much of the present popular feeling-they are too much in accordance with the present amount of general knowledge, to be altogether effete now. There is only too much in Sir A. Alison's new history, to entitle it to be named a repository of exploded notions, of fancies in which few take interest, of judgments on numerous points altogether behind the information looked for at the hands of any writer of the present day.

Much has been said and written about the historian's office. So long as it is kept within its own proper bounds, it can scarcely be magnified too highly. The vindicator of right and justice, the handmaid of True Philosophy, History leads to that region of higher Wisdom, which it may not enter, but to which it for ever points the way.' Such was its estimate in the mind of one than whom few have had a truer or a stronger perception of its nature, however much his own foregone conclusions may have clouded his apprehension of its teaching. Is it too much to say, that of this its lofty office, of this its sacred work, Sir A. Alison has a very faint and uncertain perception? It is a hard thing to assert this of another; but his own words seem to convey this lower idea and estimation of it. Can we speak otherwise, when it is asserted, that the fall of the Roman empire, the destruction of ancient civilization, the extinction of the life of the old world, was not owing to widespread corruption, to tyranny long since grown intolerable, to a pestering mass of moral and physical misery and degradation, not to utter lifelessness in religion, to an entire abnegation of their allegiance to God, and to a refusal to recognise all things as His, to a luxurious and despotic Atheism in the rich, to a desperate and enslaved superstition in the poor? The idea. that these were the causes contributing to its dire catastrophe, Sir A. Alison has branded as a delusion :-it is a mere mistake to think so.

The fall of the Roman empire,' he affirms, so long ascribed in ignorance to slavery, heathenism, and moral corruption, was in reality brought about by a decline in the gold and silver mines of Spain and Greece, from which the precious metals for the circulation of the world were drawn, at the very time when the victories of the legions, and the wisdom of the Antonines, had given peace and security, and with it an increase in number and riches, to the Roman Empire.'-P. 31.

We may, indeed, hope that the meaning was not present to the mind of the writer, as he penned this passage; but the whole of it leaves a strong impression that he considered a continued supply of this precious material would have averted the impending ruin, or rather that but for this failure ruin was not impending at all. We are to suppose, then, that so long as

the supply of gold and silver does not fail, moral corruption and physical degradation, lawless tyranny and boundless oppression, in fine, a chaos of moral disorder, will not by its direct working bring about the utter overthrow of any nation or people; that the very riches which men have misused, the very powers of nature to which they have yielded a crouching and terrified submission, would not themselves be made the instruments of their destruction. This is indeed but the first opening up of one leading and grand idea of the paramount influence of the precious metals over the happiness and well-doing of mankind, which seems well-nigh, to the exclusion of any other, to occupy the writer's mind.

Into the questions of political economy, which the discussion of this subject involves, we do not propose to enter,-not, however, from any disposition to undervalue their importance, or to understate the influence which they exercise on the conduct of human affairs; but because there are higher points, affecting our judgment on things of far greater moment, in which Sir A. Alison has pronounced a verdict yet further removed from the standard of a true and correct decision. His verdict is indeed on all subjects enunciated with the most absolute authority; but it may be questioned, whether many minds could be found to harmonize with the mind of the writer from whom these despotic declarations proceed. Failing such harmony, this parade of authority is fruitless. Undoubtedly, many could be found to sympathise with some portion of the author's opinions and theories; but then these same would as certainly be completely at variance with other notions and dogmas to which he adheres with equal pertinacity. Doubtless he might find in far too great abundance men who would go along with him in his application of a theory of persecution, a theory by no means modified like that which Dr. Arnold was prepared to advocate, but extending to very summary arguments of fire and sword. The theory is very old, and its sway has been a very wide one-far too wide, far too prevailing still. Unfortunately it has this inconvenience attached to it, that it affords as much justification to the terrific career of Mahommed as to the more orthodox bombardment of Algiers by Lord Exmouth. Men are willing enough to receive the major premise, that the truth may sometimes require to be propagated by the sword; they are still more willing to supply, as the second step, My convictions are true:' failing the existence of any court recognised by all mankind as having power to decide onthese momentous assertions, it is difficult to grant to one persuasion the right of employing an argument which is peremptorily refused to

others.