into that reverence which evermore walks softly and fearfully, is meek, and modest, and reserved, as feeling unworthy to approach its object, yet hungering and thirsting to be near him.

Accordingly, in a book written some centuries ago, we read of a wisdom which begins with fear. This wisdom our author seems to have renounced. Probably he started above it; started with the perfect love which casteth out fear. He seems, indeed, to entertain a good degree of contempt for those who are so bigoted as to begin with fear; and expressly tells

hath

A heart of kindness, reverence and love,

But dare look God in the face and ask His smile."

Following out this principle, he every where practices a familiarity with sacred things which is really the grossest form of irreverence; a familiarity which is far worse than the most violent antipathy, because it fondles and caresses but to desecrate and degrade. His manner towards such things is, emphatically, hail, fellows, well met! He evidently belongs to that class of worshipers whose motto is, "let us go boldly to the throne of grace;" and who do go boldly, as if their Maker were their equal. Nay, well-bred gentlemen treat their equals with a far more distant and ceremonious respect than these worshipers do their Maker. We may, indeed, say this manner proceeds from love; but it is only that kind of love which prompts to the violation of its object. Aversion to our Maker is apt to be at least distant and reserved, and is therefore far less offensive, evinces much less ignorance even, than the confidence which implies no distrust of ourselves. And yet this author has the coolness to

assure us,

"All that is said of Deity, is said In love and reverence."

Why, he hasn't reverenee enough to feel his want of it; is so totally empty of it as to think himself brimful of it. He is, in short, so far from having reverence, that he even knows not what it is!

Now, nothing is so petrifying to the religious sensibilities as this moving amongst sacred things without corresponding emotions; the more we inspect and handle such things without confessing their sacredness, the more do we become hardened against them; and when we get so fond of them as to hug and kiss all the sanctity off them, our love has obviously fallen into dotage, or something worse. It is often unsafe for us to see, until we are prepared to adore; many things ought to be hidden from the eye until the heart is made ready for them; for fools do but wax in folly by gazing at what angels fear to look on. According ly certain truths seem to have been veiled from the understanding, on purpose that they might first make a lodgment in the heart. They come as mysteries-truths enveloped in awful obscurity-to affect us through finer senses, deeper avenues than the understanding knows of; to inspire us, in ways past our finding out, with certain sentiments; so that the mind has to become humble, and reverent, and submissive, in order to know them. They thus begin at the heart-the centre of our being-and build outwards; while, if they began at the surface-the understanding -to build inwards, they would only obstruct and foreclose the ground they were building on; block up their very access and passage to the heart. Indeed, the mind is made apprehensive of them only by this moral or religious preparation; without this, all the knowledge it gets of them only "puffeth up ;" and wo be to the hand that shall dare to strip them of their holy mysteriousness-dissect and anatomize them to the understanding-before we have learnt to revere them; for after we have learnt to revere them, we shall hardly wish to see them dissected and anatomized. When they have wrought their appropriate effect in subduing, chastening, and humbling us, then the understanding acting subordinately, may also act safely. But until they have done this, the understanding, acting independently, acts but to err; for Providence, ever wiser and kinder to us than we can be to ourselves, will have us act by faith, not by knowledge, and has so ordered things that we see but to stumble, and the better our sight the more we stumble, unless

our path be strewn with light from heaven.

We have sometimes almost doubted whether Milton did not overstep the bounds of strict propriety, in making so free as he did with holy names and persons in this respect, however, Milton is modesty itself compared to the author of "Festus." That our author may not have been aware of his irreverence, and so not have intended it, is really no excuse for him. We have known men who sincerely thought themselves perfect; but their sincerity, in our judgment, only made against them; for nothing but the most overweening conceit of themselves could ever have made them sincere in such a conviction. Men may sincerely think themselves very religious, when they have no religion at all; but, if they had any right feelings or principles in regard to themselves, they would not, in face of the admonitions and assurances given them, fall into such a piece of presumption. It is by preferring the voice that speaks within them, to the voice that speaks from above, that they get thus deceived and betrayed. It is one of the lies which they are all the guiltier for being duped by.

Nevertheless, "Festus" comes to us a sacred poem. Men, it seems, whose honesty we dislike to question, whose judgment we wish to respect, "have been much impressed with its sacred, Christian character." When we compared our first impression of the work with their statements respecting it, we knew not what to think, and were forced to conclude that either we or they "had eaten of the insane root that takes the reason prisoner." Again we set about the poem, hoping and trying to correct our impression; but it was of no use; all our efforts to correct only went to confirm it. We have spared no pains to make our impression right, and we are satisfied it is right; at all events, if it be wrong, it is, we fear, incorrigible. Eulogy after eulogy has been written upon the poem, but no voice, so far as we know, has been raised against it. Such being the case, we shall offer no apology for canvassing its claims, somewhat severely and at length, both as a work of art, and as a code of morals. The thing may, it is true, be above, or below, or beside our criticism; nevertheless, we shall criticise it, or criticise at it. We may not, indeed, be able to kill it, but, if it be made of penetrable stuff, we shall

hope at least to bore some holes into it. Perhaps the only effect of all the wounds we can give will be to sting it into greater activity. Well, be it so; for we feel assured that the more there be to get drunk on it now, the more there will be to curse it when they get sober again; and one of nature's methods for convincing men they are fools, that is, for making them wise, is, by betraying them into follies. Of course nothing so effectually teaches children to keep out of the fire as the getting well burnt.

Most poets, when handling sacred themes, scrupulously avoid transcending the written Word. Oppressed, perhaps, with a kind of superstitious awe, they do not venture on any superscriptural announcements.

They seem to think that, in writing on such subjects, reverence, modesty and reserve are entitled to a pretty prominent place; that even the principles of art and of good taste require that these elements be not altogether excluded; that, in short, the Muses do not belong to that class of beings who "rush in where angels fear to tread." But the author of "Festus " submits to no such slavery of the mind. From the freedom with which he makes original disclosures, one would think he had been specially authorized to complete the Revelation begun by the prophets and evangelists of old. Probably he draws from the same source with them; is their compeer, not their pupil; and, his authority being co-ordinate with theirs, of course he owes them no particular deference; if he transcends their statements, it may be their fault, not his. We know not how else to account for such disclosures as the following. The Angel of Earth is represented as remonstrating against the threatened destruction of his world, on the ground of its being the altar on which was made the great sacrifice for sin. Ignorant, it seems, of what is going on in other parts of creation, he thinks the earth has been especially favored and hallowed in this event. The language in which he is answered will, of itself, sufficiently indicate the source of the answer. "Think not I lived and died for earth alone.

My life is ever suffering for love. In judging and redeeming worlds is spent Mine everlasting being." In another place he informs us, that "Who spurn at this world's pleasures lie to God;

ly "the life of youth, its powers, aims, deeds, failings; the manifold and manifest foibles, follies, trials, sufferings of a young, hot, unschooled heart that has had its own way in life." Of course, if the heart had not " had its own way in life," the delineation would not be "a sketch of world-life," as it is, since the hearts of the young are always left to their own instincts and impulses, without external guidance or restraint. Again the author says,

"It is a statued mind and naked heart Which is struck out."

Here, then, we have the human mind stripped of everything adventitious, and presented without, concealment or disfigurement, in all its native, essential, universal elements and attributes. We may be assured, then, that here is "the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth;" that the author has pierced through the accidents of local and individual nature, to what is central and universal. If, therefore, we find anything here which seems to contradict our observation, it is because we have not gone far enough into things; because we have stopped at or about the surface, while our author has gone to the centre and core. Nay, that he differs from all who have written before him, and even contradicts them, is itself a kind of proof that he is right; for is it not a fact that others have given us merely some of the clothes and skin of humanity? and must he not perforce contradict them, who grasps and unfolds the heart? Thus we may know this representation is true in proportion as it differs from all others that we have

"The mortal is the model of all men." "The hero is the world-man in whose heart

One passion stands for all, the most indulged."

Of course, therefore, the hero is as peculiar, as sui-generis, as the book itself; we have never found anything at all resembling him. Hitherto it has been our fortune, or misfortune, to see none but men of particular times and places; the man of all times and places, or of no time nor place, we have never been so lucky as to meet with save in bad books: in short, we have known men of various national and individual peculiarities; but the model, the prototype of all men, the them, we have not seen, or had not until one who was all without being any of we read "Festus." So, also, of Lucifer; he has nothing in common with any of the devils hitherto discovered; he is a touch, or rather, several touches above all that heathenism has imagined, or Christianity revealed. We, in our simplicity, had always supposed Satan the enemy of God and man, ever laboring to defeat the one and destroy the other; proud, rebellious, unteachable, and ungovernable; a liar and deceiver, seducing men away from truth and right to their own destruction. But this is all a mistake.

The devil, it seems, is but God's

shadow:

"There is but one great right and good,

and ill

And wrong are shades thereof, not substances;"

ro that "God is all that the devil seems." In other words, Satan turns out to be only a most religious and veracious personage in disguise; the most obedient servant of God and the most untiring friend of man; incurring God's wrath that he may the better work out his will, and enticing men into sin that he may the better effect their salvation; ever breaking the word of promise to the ear, but keeping it to the hope; always uttering the profoundest truths, which seem lies, indeed, but only because they are so very profound that we cannot see their truth. To be sure, he seems the enemy of God and man, striving to defeat the one and destroy the other; but this is because he knows the shortest road to perfect holiness and happiness lies through the opposite extremes of wickedness and misery: so that, if men would reach heaven, they must not turn about, but drive faster ahead; and, instead of forsaking th

devil, try to outstrip him in the way he is going. Our author and the devil have ascertained that,

"When creatures stray

Farthest from God, then warmest towards

them burns

His love, even as the sun beams hotliest on The earth when distant most;"

and that “death is but the meeting to gether of destruction and salvation," so that when death is threatened to the guilty, the meaning is, they shall be destroy ed into salvation. Now, we would not pretend to doubt the truth of this representation; but we wonder our author should thus let out the secret of the devil's good intentions toward us, lest by so doing he might defeat them. The devil obviously can succeed in his benevolent purposes, only on condition that we be kept ignorant of them. He is, indeed, a sort of holy, beneficent traitor, who does evil only that good may come; who has to seem our enemy, in order to be our friend; whose business it is to smuggle good into us under the disguise of evil: to seduce us into righteousness, and betray us into heaven. To acquaint us, therefore, with his designs, is certainly the surest way to thwart them; it is to be feared we shall hardly consent to go along with him, after we have learnt to what a meeting of extremes he is leading us. Assuredly, if men choose darkness rather than light because their deeds are evil, they will be apt to back out of the darkness, when told what a flood of light they are approaching. Strange our author did not think of this, and conclude it best to leave the revelation of such things where the Scriptures have left it. But perhaps he thinks the time has now come for the mysteries to be opened. For the present, however, we are chiefly concerned with the book as a work of art.

The beginning of the poem seems to have been suggested by a passage in the book of Job: "Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan came also among them." The scene opens in heaven, with a hymn from the Seraphim and Cherubim to the Creator, which is followed by Lucifer in a long, loud burst of praise, ending in a prayer for liberty to tempt a certain youth among the sons of men." Of course his request, urged with so much zeal and devotion, is immediately granted; where

66

upon proclamation is made, that the destined victim of his benevolent enmity, as one of the elect, is

"Hallowed to the ends of Heaven, That though he plunged his soul in sin

like a sword

In water, it shall nowise cling to him." Next comes an announcement to the heavenly host, that the world is to end with the hero's life; at which announcehas not pried so deeply into the Divine ment the angel of earth, who, it seems, counsels as our author, is greatly distressed; but Lucifer, aware that the end of the present world is to be but the beginning of a better, is as greatly delighted.

"The world shall perish as a worm Upon destruction's path; the universe Evanish like a ghost before the sun, Yea, like a doubt before the truth of God, Yet nothing more than death shall perish." And is the whole universe, then, nothing but death? But this, we presume, is one of the profound inconsistencies which the author boasts of, probably as evincing his competency to make new revelations. Perhaps, however, while opening the old mysteries, he thought best to supply their place with new ones; and this is one of the substitutes.

The preliminaries to the temptation being all adjusted in the first scene, the second brings us pat upon the hero himself. Festus, who, though hitherto untempted, we should think had just emerged from a debauch, where he has reveled himself into satiety and disgust, comes before us musing upon the vanity of earthly pleasures, and the meanness of human life. Though blest through childhood

"With all the sweet and sacred ties of