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for ever superior to, and distinct from, the lower animals —and that, besides, he shall, in all probability, be renewed and elevated by a supernatural intervention. It hints, too, at our favourite thought (stated in our paper on Chalmers, in this volume), that, at death, we leave this material creation for ever, and enter on a spiritual sphere, disconnected from this, and where sun, moon, and stars are the things invisible;" that, to use the words of MacIntosh to Hall, we shall awake from this dream, and find ourselves in other spheres of existence.” And all these, and

many similar ideas, are not thrown out as mere conjectures, nor even as bold gleams of insight, but are shown to be favoured by analogy-nay, some of them founded on fact. We never read a book with more thorough conviction that we were reading what was true. Had the author gone a step or two farther still, we could have followed him with confidence. Had he predicted the absolute annihilation of matter, we could have substantiated his statement by the words of Scripture: “They shall perish, but Thou remainest; yea, all of them shall be changed and folded up as a vesture; but Thou art the same, and Thy years fail not.” Again, we say that we deeply value this admirable book, as a tractate for the times. It should be peculiarly useful to those poets who, like Mr Massey, are constantly raving about the beauty, the glory, the immensity, and the divinity of Matter, each and all being palpable delusions, since matter is neither beautiful, nor glorious, nor immense, nor divine. It will show him that the glory of the moon, the planets, and the stars may be compared to the effects of morning or evening sunshine upon the towers of an infirmary, a prison, or some giant city of sin-lending a false lustre to objects which in themselves are horrible or foul.

We must now take our leave of Mr Massey. And, notwithstanding these concluding hints, we do so with every feeling of respect, admiration, and kindly feeling: Probably since Burns, there has been no such instance of a strong untaught poet rising up from the ranks by a few strides, grasping eminence by the very mane, and vaulting into a seat so commanding with such ease and perfect

mastery. He has much yet, however, to do-to learnand, it may be, to endure. It is yet all morning with him.

Life's enchanted cup is sparkling at the brim. From early sufferings he has passed into comfort, domestic happiness, and general fame. Many veils are yet to drop from his eyes. He has yet to learn the worthlessness of human nature as a whole, the impotence of human effort, the littleness of human life, and the delusive nature of all joy which is not connected with our duty to God and

His present sanguine hopes and notions of humanity will wither, just as the green earth and blue skies will by, and by appear altogether insufficient to fill and satisfy his soul. This process we regard inevitable to all genuine thinkers and lofty poets; but the great question is, Does it result in souring or in strengthening the man? Carlyle and Foster both passed through this disenchanting process; but how different the results! The one has become savage in his despair as a flayed wild beast. The other became milder and calmer in proportion to the depth of his melancholy. And the reason of this difference is very simple. Carlyle believes in nothing but the universe. Foster believed in a Father, a Saviour, and a future world. If Mr Massey comes (as we trust he shall) to a true belief, it will corroborate him for every trial and every sad internal or external experience, and he will stand like an Atlas above the ruins of a world, calm, firm, pensive, but pressing forwards, and looking on high.*

Modern Crities.

No. 1.-HAZLITT AND HALLAM.

We have chosen the above two names as representing two opposite styles of criticism—the impulsive and the mechanical—or, otherwise, the genial and the learned. In speaking of Hazlitt, we have nothing to do with him as a man, a politician, or a historian, but simply as a critic; and, in speaking of Hallam, we have nothing to do with him as a historian, but solely as the writer of those literary criticisms which have recently been collected into a separate publication.

William Hazlitt was brutally abused while alive, and has been but partially appreciated since his death. Indeed, in many quarters he seems entirely forgotten. Sacrificing, as he did, popular applause in search of posthumous fame, he seems to have lost both—like the dog in the fable, shadow and substance seem alike to have given him the slip. Our proud and prosy Quarterlies, while showering praise on the misty nothings which often now abuse the name of scientific or philosophic criticism—those compounds of natural and acquired dulness which disguise themselves under German terminology, and are deemed profoundseldom name, or coldly underrate, the glowingly acute, gorgeously clear, and dazzlingly deep criticisms of poor Hazlitt.

Harry Cockburn thinks him ineffably inferior to Lord Jeffrey. Macaulay first steals from Hazlitt, and then puffs Hallam. Bulwer and Talfourd have done him justice; but rather in a patronising way. Horne did his best to imitate him, and paid back the pilferings in praise. But De

MODERN CRITICS.-HAZLITT AND HALLAM.

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Quincey and one or two more seem alone aware of the fact that no thinker of such rich seminal mind-of such genuine originality, insight, and enthusiasm, has been ever so neglected or outraged as the author of “The Spirit of the Age. Hazlitt was, in many respects, the most natural of critics.

, He was born to criticise, not in a small and captious way, but as a just, generous, although stern and rigorous judge. Nature had denied him great constructive, or dramatic, or synthetic power—the power of the highest kind of poet or philosopher. But he possessed that mixture in proper proportions of the acute and the imaginative, the profound and the brilliant, the cool and the enthusiastic, which goes to constitute the true critic. Hence his criticism is a fine compound-pleasing, on the one hand, the lover of analysis, who feels that its power can go no farther; and, on the other, the young and ardent votary of literature, who feels that Hazlitt has expressed in language what he only could "with the faltering tongue and the glistening eye.” When he has a favourite, and especially an old favourite author to discuss, it becomes as great a luxury to witness as to feel his rapture. Even elderly enthusiasts, whose ardour is somewhat passée, might contemplate him with emotions such as Scott has so exquisitely described in Louis XI., when looking at the hungry Quentin Durward devouring his late and well-won breakfast. Youth-hot, eager, joyous youth-sparkles in Hazlitt's best criticisms even to the last. And yet, beside all his bursts and bravuras, there is always looking on the stern, clear, piercing eye of Old Analysis. Why is it that Hazlitt, thus eminently fitted to attract all classes, has failed to be generally popular? Many answers might be given to this question. There was first the special victimisation he underwent during his lifetime from the reviews and magazines. Old Gifford was his bitterest, although by no means his ablest opponent. The power wielded thirty years ago by that little arid mass of commonplace and dried venom is, to us, absolutely marvellous. The manner in which he exercised the critical profession showed, indeed, that he was perfectly skilled in his former one, especially in the adroit use of the awl. He was ad

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mirable at boring small holes; but beyond this he was nothing. If Shakspere's works had appeared in his time, he would have treated them precisely as he treated Shelley's and Keats', unless, indeed, they had been submitted to his revision before, or dedicated to him at publication. Otherwise, how he would have ostracised " Othello;" mauled "Macbeth ;" torn-up “The Tempest;": mouthed, like a dog at the moon, against the “Midsummer Night's Dream; laughed at “Lear;” raved at “Romeo and Juliet ;” and admitted merit only in “Timon,” because it suited his morbid temper, and in the “Comedy of Errors,” because it melted down his evil humours into grim laughter. It is lamentable to think of such a man being respected by Byron, and feared by Hunt and Lamb. It is more lamentable still, to remember that he and his coadjutors were able to half-madden Shelley, to kill Keats, and to add gall and wormwood to the native bitterness of Hazlitt's spirit.

But he had other opponents, who, if not animated by all Gifford's spirit, had ten times his talent. Wilson and Lockhart bent all their young power against a writer whom both in their hearts admired, and from whom both had learned much. The first twenty-five volumes of " Black

“ wood's Magazine” are disgraced by incessant, furious, and scurrilous attacks upon the person, private character, motives, talents, and moral and religious principles of Hazlitt, which future ages shall regard with wonder, indignation, and disgust. * Ass," " blockhead," "fool,!

' ' idiot,” “ quack," * villain,” “ infidel,” &c., are a specimen of the epithets applied to this master-spirit. “Old Maga” has greatly improved in this respect since; but there is at least one of its present contributors who would perpetrate, if he durst,* similar enormities of injustice, and whose maximum of will to injure and abuse all minds superior to his own, is only restrained by his minimum of power. Need we name the laureate of Clavers, and the libeller of the noble children of the Scottish Covenant ?

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