And flings to shore his mustered force,

Burst, with loud roar, their answer hoarse,

"Woe to the traitor, woe !"

Ben-an's gray scalp the accents knew,
The joyous wolf from covert drew,
The exulting eagle screamed afar,....
They knew the voice of Alpine's war.

The shout was hushed on lake and fell,
The Monk resumed his muttered spell.
Dismal and low its accents came,

The while he scathed the Cross with flame;
And the few words that reached the air,
Although the holiest name was there,
Had more of blasphemy than prayer.
But when he shook above the crowd
Its kindled points, he spoke aloud :......
"Woe to the wretch, who fails to rear
At this dread sign the ready spear!
For, as the flames this symbol sear,
His home, the refuge of his fear,
A kindred fate shall know;
Far o'er its roof the volumed flame
Clan-Alpine's vengeance shall proclaim,
While maids and matrons on his name
Shall call down wretchedness and shame,
And infamy and woe.".....

Then rose the cry of females, shrill
As goss-hawk's whistle on the hill,
Denouncing misery and ill,

Mingled with childhood's babbling trill
Of curses stammered slow;
Answering, with imprecation dread,
"Sunk be his home in embers red!

And cursed be the meanest shed

That e'er shall hide the houseless head,

We doom to want and woe!"

A sharp and shrieking echo gave,

Coir-Uriskin, thy goblin cave!

And the gray pass where birches wave,
On Beala-nam-bo.

Then deeper paused the priest anew,
And hard his labouring breath he drew,
While, with set teeth and clenched hand,
And eyes that glowed like fiery brand,

He meditated curse more dread,
And deadlier, on the clans-man's head,
Who, summoned to his Chieftain's aid,
The signal saw and disobeyed.

The crosslet's points of sparkling wood,
He quenched among the bubbling blood,
And, as again the sign he reared,

Hollow and hoarse his voice was heard:
"When flits this Cross from man to man,
Vich-Alpine's summons to his clan,
Burst be the ear that fails to heed!
Palsied the foot that shuns to speed!
May ravens tear the careless eyes,
Wolves make the coward heart their prize!
As sinks that blood-stream in the earth,
So may his heart's blood drench his hearth!
As dies in hissing gore the spark,
Quench thou his light, Destruction dark!
And be the grace to him denied,
Bought by this sign to all beside!"
He ceased: no echo gave agen
The murmur of the deep Amen.

Then Roderick, with impatient look,

From Brian's hand the symbol took :

Speed, Malise, speed!" he said, and gave The crosslet to his hench-man brave.

"The muster-place be Lanric mead.....
Instant the time.....speed, Malise, speed !".
Like heath-bird, when the hawks pursue,
A barge across Loch-Katrine flew ;
High stood the hench-man on the prow,
So rapidly the barge-men row,

The bubbles, where they launched the boat,
Were all unbroken and afloat,

Dancing in foam and ripple still,

When it had neared the mainland hill;

And from the silver beach's side

Still was the prow three fathom wide.

When lightly bounded to the land,
The messenger of blood and brand.

THE

BOSTON REVIEW,

FOR

AUGUST, 1810.

Librum tuum legi, et quam diligentissime potui annotavi quae commutanda, quae eximenda arbitrarer. Nam ego dicere verum assuevi. Neque ulli patientius reprehenduntur, quam qui maxime laudari merentur.

Plin.

ARTICLE 4.

Lectures on the Evidences of the Christian Religion, delivered to the senior class, on Sundays, in the afternoon, in the College of New Jersey. By the Rev. Samuel Stanhope Smith, D. D. President of the College. Philadelphia; Fry and Kammerer. 12mo. pp. 408. 1809.

IN

(Continued from page 419, vol. viii.)

N the third lecture Dr. Smith, having divided the Evidences of Christianity into two kinds, positive and direct, and collateral and presumptive, proceeds to examine, and answer Hume's argument against the credibility of miracles. In the fourth lecture he treats of the character of the witnesses of the miracles and resurrection of Christ; and the reasons for confiding in their testimony. Of the fifth and sixth lectures, the subject is the rapid propagation of Christianity, under circumstances apparently the most unfavourable; and a comparison of this with the progress of the reformation, the success of modern missionaries, and the establishment of Mahometanism. The design of the seventh lecture is to shew, that the charge of credulity cannot be urged against those who embraced Christianity, and that the natural love of mankind for the marvellous would not have contributed to its reception. The eighth lecture treats of demoniacal miracles and the supposed power of demons, to which there is an appendix concerning demoniacal possessions. On these subjects the author adopts the opinions of Farmer, that all miracles are to be referred to

God as their immediate author; that no inferiour being has the power of suspending or counteracting the order of nature; and that what were anciently esteemed daemoniacal possessions were nothing more than natural diseases. He likewise adopts the arguments of Farmer, as far as these could be exhibited in the space allotted to these subjects. In the ninta lecture, with reference to the subject of daemoniacal miracles, he considers he prodigies wrought by the magicians in Egypt in opposition to Moses. These he of course supposes with Farmer, to have been mere impostures, though without entering into so particular an explanation of the subject as is given by that author. The tenth lecture treats of the sorceress of Endor, and the appearance of Samuel to Saul. Dr. Smith gives the two explications stated by Farmer; both that which supposes the whole scene an effect of imposture in the woman, and that adopted by Farmer himself, according to which there was a real miraculous appearance of the prophet sent by God to reprove Saul. Farmer makes it however an essential part of this latter explication, that the appearance was previous to the commencement of any pretended magical rites by the woman, immediately upon the king's saying, "Bring me up Samuel," which circumstance is not particularly noticed by Dr. Smith. In the eleventh lecture, still with reference to the subject of daemoniacal miracles, are explanations, of Deut. xii. 4. Mat. xxiv.24. Mark xiii. 22. and in a note of 2 Thess. ii. 9. in all which Dr. Smith follows Farmer. The lecture concludes with some account of the celebrated impostor Apollonius Tyanaeus. The five following lectures are on the evidence of prophecy. The prophecies selected for consideration are those respecting Ishmael; that of Moses [Deut. xxviii. and xxx.] of the fate of the Jewish nation; those concerning Tyre, Egypt, and Babylon, and the predictions concerning the Messiah, particularly those of Haggai and Daniel. In the fifteenth lecture, which treats in general of the predictions concerning the Messiah, is the following passage.

"It is a circumstance particularly deserving your attention, that there was no civilized nation of antiquity, in which were not found traditions concerning a divine personage who should appear upon earth, to teach men the true knowledge of God, their duties, and their hopes, and to restore the reign of righteousness and peace to the world afflicted with miseries and crimes. This was a natural consequence of the piety and prophetick character of the father of the race after the deluge. Instructing his 14

VOL. IX.

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children, who were destined to be the founders of the future nations of the world, in the principles of piety and virtue, he would be especially solicitous to instil into their minds this sublime and blessed hope, which was given by God as the consolation of man in the depth of his affliction after the fall. If the Mosaick history the world be true, if Adam after his fall, received this consolatory promise; and if Noah were a good man, and a prophet; then ought we to expect to find this original prediction and promise, with more or less clearness, among the traditions of all the primitive nations of mankind; and, finding it among all nations, as we do, it may justly be considered as an absolute verification of the account of Moses, and of the existence of this prophecy from the beginning; for we can hardly conceive of any other mode in which it could have been so universally diffused. It received further elucidation and extension in the progress of time, by succeeding patriarchs and prophets. The knowledge of it became more definite by the dispersion of the Jewish nation, who carried their sacred writings with them in all their wanderings. At length the precise period, at which the Messiah should appear, became fixed and settled in prophecy. And, at the moment that his birth was announced, the world was waiting for the event with anxious and universal expectation.”

These expressions are much too strong and unguarded. Dr. Smith goes on to say:

"The harmonious muse of Virgil has presented to us the character of the expected prince and Saviour drawn from tradition, and has exhibited the general hope and solicitude of the nations for his appearance at that time in an exquisite poem and almost in prophetick numbers."

He then gives some extracts from the Pollio of Virgil, and observes:

"What a resemblance do we perceive in these strains of the Roman poet to those of a Hebrew prophet! In the same spirit proceeds the whole of this admirable poem, which might be esteemed an almost literal translation of many of the most beautiful passages in the prophecy of Isaiah. And indeed it is far from being improbable, that Virgil was acquainted with the prophetick scriptures, as they had, long before this period, been translated into the polite and universal language of the Greeks.”

In the Pollio of Virgil, the poet is evidently speaking of some child, whose birth in the course of nature was expected in a very short time, probably that of Octavius and Scribonia. Scribonia was indeed delivered of a daughter; but as the suppositions of the poet concerning a child yet unborn must in any case have been founded in uncertainty, the fact does not appear to lessen the probability of what has just been suggested. With reference therefore to this expected offspring of Octavius, he is foretelling, it may seem, the establishment of