virtue which first caught our attention on opening this book led us to expect a fair fulfilment of hope so excited. And we have not been disappointed. Every page of the work might be looked upon as the reflection of the days of our life. Each is marked by an event, a feeling, a meditation, a hope, a sorrow. The real now stands before us in the strong, unmistakable outline of truth, and now the ideal glides past us in all the shadowy hues of imagination. Now it is youth disporting, and now it is age reflecting. We hold that no poet can exist without a fine perception of the beauties of nature, and here we find her portraiture in all the varied phases of her loveliness. The sunshine and the shade of life alternate so happily as to brighten the influence of each other on the spirit. The world, essentially so sorrowful, owes no mean obligation to him who paints cheerfulness with sunbeams, but it owes a still greater debt to him who, opening out the chastening and holy uses of adversity, seeks to reconcile man to his lot. Feeling this we cannot but give our most serious commendation to the latter portion of this volume, in which piety is linked with poetry. Religious feeling can never exist without elevating the understanding, and the very dignity of the subject serves to ennoble even the simplest mode of its expression. There may be many secret and touching strains among these " Rhymes," many lively and piquant sallies, many turns of epigrammatic wit, but these must all yield in point of sterling value to the holier and purer hymnings of a muse not heathen but Christian born.

Metaphysical Analysis, Revealing in the Process of the Formation of Thought a New Doctrine of Metaphysics.

THE mind of man has ever been an enigma and a mystery to itself. It looks abroad and surveys the world above, and scales the skies, backwards to the beginning of time, forward to its end; ay, and far beyond that end, for it penetrates even into eternity; and yet all the while it is a stranger to itself. The exercise of its own faculties having the peculiar effect of carrying the mind out of itself, diverting its own powers from its own state of existence, and thus the operation of its own functions having the strange result of keeping it in ignorance of itself.

Just then on the principle that the eye, which takes cognizance of every other object, cannot behold itself, so has it been argued with the mind. But what if after all it should be proved that the mind is rather acted upon than acting? This is a startling position, but it is the position of our author. In proportion to their importance should men be slow in admitting new creeds, but just in the same proportion with their importance should they be analyzed and investigated. We have here a new creed of metaphy

sics. We are bound to admit that it is original, and that it is advanced with all the clearness, the fairness, the perspicuity, of which a subject so diversified in its bearings is susceptible. It demands, as its own just due, the attention of men of mind, of science, and of letters. It is not an ingenious subtlety, a beautiful prismatic bubble emanating from a lively imagination, but is put forth with all the claims of a demonstration. It is not to be supposed that a new system, which, instead of being based and built upon the old, commences its operations by razing them to their foundations, can be received without a stern judicial trial. All that the projector can claim is a fair hearing, and to this he is entitled by the originality of his reasoning, by the solidity of his arguments, and by the importance of his subject.

Since the first hour when man began to contemplate himself has the world been lost in the mazes of metaphysics. Materialism and idealism have divided the ranks. As may be always unhesitatingly believed, when clever men take the parts of opponents, much weighty argument has been adduced on both sides, and when we see equal intellect embracing opposite opinions, it is worse than idle to denounce those opinions as puerile. The very contradiction which they elicit entitles them to our respect, and the merit of the champions says much for the merit of their cause. So powerful have been the arguments on both sides that each might have achieved the paradoxical triumph of converting the other. Hence we might almost be led to infer the necessity of a new system. It may be that both have been in error, and that it has been reserved for our author to found a new school in which all rival differences shall be merged. Ours is not an age for men to go on in beaten tracks, and a new light may have sprung up which may establish metaphysics as a science capable of mathematical demonstration. We do not attempt a definition, because we feel that an author should be heard for himself, and we know that partial views injure far more than they benefit, and often darken far more than they enlighten. Let men of competent attainment consult this book and judge for themselves. It is not a thing to fall idly to the ground. It is either a great truth or a great error. If the one it ought to be established; if the other, refuted. The volume is not a lengthy one; its statements have the merit of conciseness. The author knows perfectly well what he means himself; he has not the slightest degree of vagueness or uncertainty in his own mind, and he states his views with logical accuracy. Whether or not he may end in convincing others, he has begun by convincing himself. Such a work as this ought not to have been anonymous, but it is of the less consequence, as if the author has not given a name to the work the work will give a name to its author.

Belisarius. A Tragedy, in Five Acts. By WILLIAM R. SCOTT. THE name of this impressive tragedy will at once recall the fearful incidents on which it is founded to the recollection of our readers, who must not, for the sake of its interest, admit the heresy of one historic doubt. Belisarius, the great, the brave, the generous, the merciful, will stand at once before them in all his victor pride, and all his civil dignity. They will see him at the head of armies, feared by his enemies, honoured by his friends. They will remember that he it was who supported the tottering throne of the Emperor Justinian, leading captive kings through the streets of Constantinople, and having medals struck in commemoration of his glory. They will remember Belisarius at the summit of his prosperity, exalted above measure, having achieved his own greatness; and then they will carry on their thoughts to a blind beggar whose mendicity sits like tattered rags upon his nobility, whose sightless orbs are upturned appealingly to that heaven they can no longer see, whose grey hair floats on the wind, whose faltering footsteps are led by a little child, whose feeble voice asks charity of the passers-by, and they will say, "This, too, is Belisarius!"

Here then we have the finest elements for the composition of a tragedy. If reverse of fortune, opposition of position, the widest extremity of separation between the highest and the lowest stages of man's condition upon earth, can command our sympathies and our interest, they must do so in the life of Belisarius, at least the Belisarius of poetry. Were we to image to ourselves the most affecting of human spectacles, it would not be despairing love or maternal anguish, it would not be disappointed ambition or bodily torture, it would not be affection bending with breathless anxiety to catch the parting sigh from the lips of the dying, nor even the despair of that affection for the dead, but it would be the spectacle of old age in poverty, the mournful aspect of the once high and noble, the once great and proud, begging their bread. In Lear alone can we find the parallel of Belisarius, in both of which the climax of human suffering and dramatic power appear to us to have been reached.

If, then, our dramatist has done well in fixing on a theme the exalted nature of which shames into puerility the more selfish passions, he has done also well in sustaining the dignity of his subject far above the reach of inferior interests. Mr. Scott has shown his judgment in not seeking to excite those minor sympathies beyond their just amount as necessary accessories, which could not have failed to deteriorate from the one engrossing feeling. It was just that Belisarius should stand alone, great in the greatness of

his sufferings, as well as in the lofty spirit with which they were endured. The operation of those passions by which his fate is accomplished does but fill in the canvass, and however well and gracefully they may be arranged, we behold in them but the subordinates which enhance the primary interest, but do not subdivide it. This is as it should be. The great general of armies in his stage of beggarhood and blindness should stand alone. Mr. Scott has preserved this concentration of interest to the end. The catastrophe is as much a proof of his judgment as of his power. The happiness of the subordinate characters would have seemed an outrage on the irreversible fate of the sole hero, and therefore is there a just harmony in the fearful winding up, which is in strict keeping with the high-toned severity of the whole conception. It would indeed be wretched taste to throw sunshine on a crowd, or to paint the mourners at a funeral in wedding garments. As it now stands the final scene is in strict keeping with the subject, and the whole tragedy presents us with a solemn harmony.

Nimshi. The Adventures of a Man to obtain a Solution of Scriptural Geology, to gauge the Vast Ages of Planetary Concretion, and to open Bab-Allah, the Gate of God. Hugh Cunningham, 193, Strand.

SUCH is the wordy title of the work before us. It is truly a literary curiosity. Professedly written to make all things plain, it in reality renders more mysterious that which is already too mystical. The language coined for the occasion is such that no individual in Christendom can comprehend. A glossary, however, is considerately appended at the end of the second volume, which glossary we seriously recommend those who think of perusing Nimshi to learn by rote ere they commence the formidable undertaking.

This eccentric gentleman, who undertakes to " gauge the vast ages of planetary concretion," will not become popular, because he is above the comprehension even of scientific readers. A literary friend of our own once submitted a manuscript to the late Mr. Coleridge for perusal, with a view to obtain that writer's opinion of his forthcoming work. Coleridge returned the production, frankly acknowledging it to be above his comprehension. Our friend thought he must indeed be a brilliant genius to be above the comprehension of so deep a thinker as Coleridge. We, however, ventured to suggest that this incomprehensible elevation (!) of thought and expression would prove fatal to the literary bantling of our friend. Time proved the truth of our conjecture.

Save us, say we, from the man of one idea, more particularly if

he has worked that idea out on paper, and presented it to the public, by which we mean his publisher and some half dozen intimate acquaintances. Such an one, like Abernethy, refers you upon all occasions to the page and line of his book, from which there is no appeal. All disputable points are, in the estimation of the man of one book, there settled. Like one of the thousand universal quack nostrums of the day, it is to cure all incurable diseases.

The author of Nimshi will, however, have his admirers.

66

How

can an individual be without them who for ever has at the tip of his tongue such expressive and intelligible words as the following: Anchoretical," "Antagonisticalism," "Bellionically," "Continentalizing," "Dataicalism," "Delenifically," "Geoponics," "Masoretically, Protoplastic,' Samatological," "Theomanciate," "Ubiquitareanism.

99.66

39.66

Yes, those who admire that most which they least comprehend will be in ecstasies at the appearance of Nimshi.

"Allow me to immerse the summits of my digits into your pulviverous utensil, that it may cause a felicitous titillation in my olfactory nerves," once said a pedant to a gentleman who was seated beside him, the said pedant simply meaning by this verbiage of words that he wanted a pinch of snuff. The company present tittered, except one old lady who cast her eyes upwards in admiration of the vast talent and eloquence displayed in the above memorable speech. Now the author of Nimshi is not a bit less circuitous in asking questions or giving explanations (?) at which people titter or laugh outright, save and except one old lady, who clasps her hands together and exclaims, "How grand! What eloquence! What a book! What a splendid man!"

The author of The Vestiges of Creation, Buckland, the Dean of York, Sedgwick, and Lyell, must, ere they again appear in print, be brought to the feet of this geological Gamaliel for further instruction.

Our intuitively scientific author disdains to study books; he sallies forth in search of truth on barren rocks, and lonely recesses deep in the bowels of the earth; he retires to mountainous solitude, and solitary caves, where he holds communion with supernatural beings. Here he meets with strange adventures, and most extraordinary enterprises-to wit, he suffocates a tremendous shark with a puncheon of rum; visits a floating island inhabited by human beings; has a most desperate encounter with a gigantic conger eel; blows the brains out of sundry enormous boa constrictors; swims across rapids just above an awful cataract; wrestles with his satanic majesty; is honoured by having a tete-a-tete with Adam, Moses, Gabriel, and other Scripture heroes; in short, sees such wonders and performs such acts that will at once convince the reader that the author of Nimshi has studied Baron Mun