Many, and with some plausibility, have objected to poetry, that it gives wrong views, and deludes us with false impressions and expectations of life, perplexes the mind with its dreamy illusions, and dethrones wisdom for the sake of imagination. We find even Shakespeare refers to a poet as a madman, and as one who "Gives to airy nothing A local habitation and a name.' We do not deny that there is a wisdom to which poetry is hostile, the wisdom of the senses, which makes physical comfort and gratification the supreme good, and wealth the chief interest of life; but passing over this topic, it is impossible sometimes not to remark that the fictions of genius are often the vehicles of the sublimest verities; and its flashes frequently open to our mind new regions of thought, and throw new light upon the mysteries of our being. If, then, truth can sometimes be detected even in the boldest fictions of the poet, may we not much more expect it in his delineations of actual life, for the present life abounds in the materials of poetry, and it is the noble prerogative of the poet to detect this divine element among the grosser labours and pleasures of our earthly existence. This fe is not wholly prosaic ; to the gifted eye it abounds in the poetic. The affections, which extend beyond ourselves far into the dim vistas of futurity; the workings of mighty passions, which seem to arm the soul with an almost superhuman energy; the innocent and irrepressible joy of infancy; the bloom, buoyancy, and dazzling hopes of youth; the wisdom, valour, and fortitude of man; woman, with her beauty, grace, and gentleness, and those looks and tones which only a mother's heart can inspire: these are all poetical. It is not true that the poet paints a life which exists only in his fervid imagination. He only extracts and concentrates, as it were, life's ethereal essence, arrests and condenses its volatile fragrance, collects its scattered beauties, and prolongs its more refined, but evanescent joys; and in this he does well, for it is good to feel that life is not only occupied by cares for subsistence and physical gratifications, but admits, in measures which may be indefinitely enlarged, of sentiments and delights worthy of a higher being. This power of poetry to refine our views of life and happiness is more and more needed as society advances. It is needed to resist the advances of heartless and artificial manners, which threaten to make civilization tame and uninteresting. It is needed to counteract the tendency of physical sciences, which being now sought, not as formerly, for intellectual gratification, but as a means of multiplying physical comforts, requires a new development of taste and imagination to preserve men from sinking into an earthly, material, and epicurean life. But to return,-Mr. Campbell's first work was the well-known " and deservedly popular Pleasures of Hope," and, indeed, in this splendid poem the beauties of a highly polished versification, -that turn of expression which united the sweetness of Goldsmith with the soundness of Johnson,-a structure of language alike remote from servile imitation of our more classical poets, and from the babbling and jingling simplicity of ruder minstrels; new, but not singular; elegant, but not trite;-justified the admirers of this beautiful work in elevating its author to a pre-eminent station among living poets. Nor did Mr. Campbell suffer the admiration excited by his first essay to subside or be forgotten. From time to time the public was favoured with exquisite lyrical effusions, calculated rather to stimulate than to gratify their craving appetite. The splendid poems of "Hohenlindon," the only representation of a modern battle which possesses either interest or sublimity; of the "Last Man," in which the decay and gloom of the expiring moments of time is depicted with the most awful minuteness; of "Lochiel;" the ode "To the Mariners of England," and many others, replete either with animation or with tenderness, seemed to declare their author destined to attain the very summit of the modern Parnassus. Indeed, of this author's lyrics it is impossible to speak too highly, uniting, as they do, with the most exquisite melody of versification, and singular felicity of diction, the greatest force and grandeur both of conception and of expression. The only remaining production of Mr. Campbell's muse to which we shall advert is" Gertrude of Wyoming." The pathos of this beautiful poem has, perhaps, never been equalled. The exquisite tenderness of its representations of domestic life, its beautiful pictures of romantic seclusion, and the delightful harmony of colouring and of expression, which serve to unite the whole for the production of one effect, are not marred throughout the whole length of the poem by the intrusion of any one discordant or disagreeable impression. To conclude, if there are faults in Mr. Campbell's writings, they are so trivial as to allow us to say with Horace, "Cum plura nitent in carmine, non ego paucis Offendar maculis; quasant incuria fudit, Aut huinana parum cavit natura." REVIEW OF BOOKS. Astronomy and Scripture; or some Illustrations of that Science, and of the Solar, Lunar, Stellar and Terrestrial Phenomena of Holy Writ. By the Rev. T. MILNER, M. A., 12mo. pp. 384. London: SNOW. Astronomy is indeed a science of wonders; facts are here far stranger than fiction. The mind is overwhelmed and seems to love itself; it dwells for a short period on the grandeur and vast sublimity presented for its contemplation, but the glory is too great, and it turns back much relieved to the spot on which it is called more directly to exercise its powers. And yet, with all their loftiness, are the statements of philosophers founded on irresistible data; had they indulged speculation respecting the celestial bodies forced upon their notice, they never would have conceived the ideas they have now derived from actual research and investigation; they are too grand even for a speculating mind. So it is that astronomy above all other departments of science exalts the mighty Creator, and proclaims his wisdom, goodness, and power who "telleth the number of the stars, and calleth them by their names.' Astronomy and religion must always go hand in hand, to separate them is to do violence to our very constitution. Where is the man so utterly depraved and polluted as to be able to ponder on the realities of the unbounded universe, and yet experience no feelings of veneration and awe for the great and all powerful Architect? We are always gratified when we find the existence of these feelings and principles acknowledged and cherished, and still more so when we behold them reduced to their proper standard and regulated according to the teaching of the sacred scriptures; and therefore we are well pleased with the volume before us. We have perused it with delight. A thorough master of his subject, Mr. Milner possesses also the capability of divesting it entirely of its technical abstruseness, and of presenting it to the uninitiated in a popular and intelligible form; and yet he does not content himself by taxing the credulity of his readers or by simply informing them that the various propositions laid down by astronomers have been demonstrated by the higher branches of mathematics, but he furnishes them with easy and satisfactory solutions which they themselves can fully understand and follow. He has brought forward and arranged with good judgment a large assemblage of interesting historical facts, developing the Ptolemaic and other spurious and imaginary systems; and has fully detailed the experiments that led to the confirmation of the Copernican principles. Every fresh fact in astronomy to which the attention of his readers is directed, is illustrated by scriptural references, and is shown to be by no means inconsistent with the statements of revelation; and in this, we think, he has well succeeded. He has not tampered with the sacred writings by forcing upon them an ingenious construction, which they might peradventure bear; but has allowed them to speak their honest and obvious meaning; and he yet proves that infidel objections drawn from the wonders of astronomy, are sophistical and valueless. To those of our infidel opponents, who neglect broad, safe, and solid foundations which include and support their superstructure, and who cavil at seeming contradictions, while they are unable to effect the smallest breach in the mighty rock on which Christianity rests, we should be disposed to the silly objections they urge in reference to Joshua commanding the sun to stand still, which say they "is always stationary," to reply that that great commander spake thus-." Sun stand thou still upon Gibeon;" and we are not aware that the sun is, or was, ever known to maintain its position over one particular spot. But we do not bind ourselves to this construction. We are willing to allow that Joshua was unacquainted with the true system of astronomy. He required the day to be lengthened, and the only necessity for his loud adjuration was that they around him, both the victors and the vanquished, might learn that the God of the latter was subject to the Lord Jehovah, and that the former might know that which they so often seemed to forget, that they were wholly dependent on their Divine Protector; and if Joshua, having the knowledge, had spoken in the unintelligible harshness of philosophy, it would have been absurd and unmeaning. But we must direct our readers to the able volume before us, they will gain a good and thorough insight into astronomy by its perusal; and what is more valuable, will find their minds deeply impressed with the sterling value of the Bible and the beauties of sound religion. We heartly hope it may meet with an extensive sale. J. Unwin, Printer 31, Bucklersbury, London. A Magazine of Theology, Literature & Science. No. 3.] JULY, 1844. CONTENTS. [PRICE 1d. WHAT do we mean by Christianity? We mean not the monstrous human perversions, the irrational crudities, the sectarian prejudices, the fanatical abortions, upon which its imprint has been surreptitiously im- posed-but we mean the system taught by Jesus of Nazareth and his apostles, in doctrine divine, in morality holy, in spirit beneficent, in dis- coveries sublime, and, as embodying at once the perfection of reason and the will of the Creator, in duration eternal. Into the defence of this pare, beautiful, harmonious, and glorious system, we are not now about to enter; nor to attempt its deliverance from the detestable distortions of some who would render its name a pretext for imposing shackles upon the freedom of human inquiry, and its profession a pander to the indulgence of selfish gratifications and loathsome lusts. We refer to Christianity as it came unalloyed from the hands of its heavenly Author, as it is expressed in the intelligible and consistent declarations of the New Testament, as it breathes the emanations of purity and peace-the system, which, in the glowing words of one of the greatest and most unprejudiced of modern writers, has been "attested by a train of miracles and prophecies; in which millions of our forefathers have found a refuge in every trouble, and consolation in the hour of death; which has been adorned by the highest sanctity of character and splendour of talents; which enrolls among its disciples the names of Bacon, Newton, and Locke, the glory of their species; and to which those illustrious men were proud to dedicate the last and best fruits of their immortal By Temptations, we do not particularly allude to the gross incentives which act upon the debased appetites of the unmitigated profligate, or stimulate to the disgusting orgies of occasional, or of confirmed and C habitual intemperance. Few of our readers, we opine, are like the Spartan children, who require to be deterred from such brutalities as these, by the antics of drunken and despicable Helots. We are not now writing for persons abandoned to hopeless depravity, and lost to the sense of shame. We refer to the temptations which are the most formidable, because they are not only the least revolting, but appear in the most alluring and treacherous forms-like the environs of the whirlpool displaying only the rippling of the wave which ruffles the placid surface of the sea, while the unwary navigator is unconsciously hurried to the vortex of ruin-or like the fabled apples said by the old crusaders to grow on the dismal shores of the sea of death, attractive by their colours of exquisite beauty, but inwardly full of putrescence and poison. These are the temptations to which the young men of the present day are particularly exposed, and never were these temptations so elaborately formidable. To aid their effect, the embellishments of art, and sometimes the achievements of science, are infamously prostituted. The charms of poetry, the melodies of music, the fascinations of painting, the adornments of sculpture, the energy of eloquence, the brightest brilliance of genius, the highest faculties of intellect, are all actively employed to overwhelm the power of moral principle, to lull conscience to sleep, to dazzle and then to pervert the true perception of reason, to entice the unwary into the domain of the fell destroyer, and to render smooth, pleasant, unsuspected, and flowery, the path that conducts to remediless perdition and despair. To deliver from the influence of such insidious temptations as these, what is called virtue, is inadequate, because virtue is the intended victim; it is the power or the principle (we stop not for the most appropriate term) which is to be seduced, to be subdued, and then to be destroyed: this unaided virtue, then, cannot be the safeguard. Mere reason is inadequate, because its voice is continually either stifled amidst the clamour of the passions, or won to the side of evil by treacherous and fatal error. Abstract morality is inadequate, because, irrespective of revealed religion, it has no fixed, definite principles. Philosophy is inadequate, because the very stretch to which its researches put the faculties, frequently induces a reaction which opens the widest avenues to the admission of evil; and thus it is often seen that those who are philosophically the wisest, are morally the worst. And, above all, infidelity, notwithstanding its arrogant pretensions and vociferous vauntings, is inadequate, because it lets loose the worst passions of the human heart, and because upon its principles, man is the subject of no moral government-he is unsusceptible of moral obligation-he is endowed with attributes, which, like himself, are the offspring of either necessity or chance-and he is born only to eat, to drink, to sleep, to please himself by sensual indulgences, to sicken, to decay, and to die. And since infidelity, by denying the existence of a future state, explodes the only adequate sanctions which can enforce the regulations of any moral government whatever; since it thus renders it a mere matter of contingency whether there be any moral rectitude at all; since it thus |
