exhibit. They show the visitor the whole, but it is only to point out imagined incongruities. They tell him that the most valued pictures are mere copies, the most striking adornments seldom genuine, the whole in wretched taste,―nay, more, do hint, with not a few omniscient shrugs, that every timber in the structure is crumbling with dry-rot, and the building likely enough at any moment to tumble on the heads of its inmates. Such is, in fact, the upshot of the elaborate criticism bestowed by Baur and by Zeller on this portion of the New Testament. Dr. Baumgarten proposes to occupy the wide intermediate space which lies between conclusions so defective in comprehensiveness, on one side, and candour on the other. Acknowledging the inspiration of the book, he endeavours to enter into its design as a whole,—to elucidate the sequence of its incidents,—and to trace the progress of the infant Church under the promised conduct of its ascended Head. Some purpose it must have, unless (as he somewhat drily remarks) we are to admit that lack of unity and design is among the credentials of an inspired history, and that the Divine Author, to whom it must ultimately be referred, is not a spirit, but a something. In this worthy enterprise he has been in great measure successful. His solution, for example, of the seeming discrepancies in the three accounts of Paul's conversion (which our Tübingen adversaries have pointed out with such malicious glee), is at once simple and conclusive. On the other hand, a somewhat novel interpretation which he gives of Acts ix. 5, appears to us highly improbable, and inconsistent with the context. His observations on the apparent contradiction between the doctrine of Paul and of James, are admirable. So also is his thoughtful estimate of the position sustained by the Apostle of the Gentiles in relation to the law. Much of his argument is directed against the notion, revived in our time, that we have, in the precedent of Paul, authority for setting aside all the Old-Testament Scriptures. The book is no mere sterile tract of frigid and technical criticism. The author writes as one who can feel as well as think. He sometimes kindles with his subject into a warmth which is to his praise as a man, however inconsistent with the fancied dignity of that critical erudition whose coldness seems never to have felt, or whose pride is ashamed to express, the emotions of a devout heart. The discussion of thorny and perplexing vocables is relieved by elucidations, scenery, and facts drawn from the contributions of history and travel. On the whole, there is an equableness and fair proportion in the constituent elements of his commentary, which we could wish were oftener exhibited in works of the kind. We had marked passages for extraction, but our space forbids us to allow to Dr. Baumgarten the opportunity we would otherwise gladly concede, of speaking for himself. His book is worthy of translation, or rather of something better. It should be re-written in English, if anything be done with it in our tongue at all. German works, translated literally, are generally repulsive to English readers. The number of those who read German is daily increasing. Unless a German writer be re-cast, and made to deliver himself, as far as possible, as he would have done had he been an Englishman, he had better be left to utter his native gutturals in private audience with the Teutonic student. A translation which fails to cast off the cumbrous complexity of the German sentence, is unjust alike to either language:-those who know German do not want it, and those who do not will not like it. If we are adequately to convey the thoughts of one nation to the other, it must be, with few exceptions, through the medium of reproduction, or, as the Germans call it, Bearbeitung, rather than translation. We take our leave of Dr. Baumgarten, with cordial thanks for a most conscientious and valuable contribution to our theological literature. On' Balder.' LET not the reader, misled by similarity of sound, imagine that the Balder who gives name to this poem has anything to do with that Baldur of Scandinavian mythology-the Osiris of the north -the benign deity who died, and whom all powers, men and things, save envious, wicked Loke, united to weep back to life. Still less should it be supposed that the hero of this drama is an impersonation of the author of it, or even his ideal of what the true poet, hero, or 'king of men,' ought to be. Balder is a tragic representation of genius without faith. Poetry teaches indirectly; its moral should not fringe but interfuse it. In our day there is an unhealthy admiration of mere power, a morbid craving for intellectual gifts, as though they were the highest. In such pursuit, or for such possessors, all would seem permissible; and the old landmark, parting fas and nefas, is, for them, taken out of the way. A much applauded fallacy tells ambition that it has only to be true to itself (as though there were only an I-the favourite ego-and no thou, in the universe), that its work is worship, and, in its most selfish energy of persistence, emphatically a divine service. Now, we have had, and we have, not a few men of power amongst us whose practical labours, whose logic, whose eloquence, all have tended, by words written or deeds done, to refute this perilous error. Their gifts have been of the kind so much in demand-the conspicuous, coveted intellectual endowment, about which men burn such clouds of incense. But they say to all-whatever we possess, we lay at the feet of the Giver; our homage cannot be too lowly; we account this no shame -that to do otherwise would be the shame-and none darker; and we see true greatness rather in tone than power, and in self-sacrifice more than in self-assertion. No one can suspect, in their case, the cry of sour grapes. But in the poetic province such lesson is especially needed, so strong is the temptation to sacrifice every claim to that of art, and to subordinate the higher moral ambition to the lower æsthetic one. Yet didactic verses of intolerable mediocrity might issue, with the best intent, in floods of washy benignity, of course, utterly in vain. The lesson to be taught would make a grand theme for poetry, but only a crowned singer could hope to teach it. A man of inferior powers could not reach that height whereon the danger is most imminent, and whence alone the fire-beacon to be kindled would be widely visible. Let some large and wealthy mind study the darker possibilities of his own being-then the question may be meetly handled. Some such denizen of Parnassus-understanding by experience the peculiar temptations of high poetic temperament—knowing well all those airy illusive tongues that 'syllable men's names' in the haunted wilderness of aspirationlooking steadily down that wrong turning, the gloomy avenue of that via mala he himself might have chosen-such an one could address his brethren, and all of us, with happiest effect. Qualifications adequate to an enterprise so worthy, Mr. Yendys unquestionably possesses; to some such purpose he appears to have devoted himself in the present poem, and, in our judgment, with signal success, where comparative failure could have been no disgrace. The personages of the drama are few in number, for the story is not of stirring life among the throng of men, but of genius vanquished by misery where it sinned,-in the little world of home. Balder, the poet, Amy, his wife, and a doctor and an artist, friends of his, are the only characters. We listen to the aspirations of Balder, not after vulgar fame, but for an almost god-like power. Vast are his dreams of the royal munificence wherewith he will bless his fellows, subtile his Faust-like questing speculation, and passionate his fealty to Beauty; but with all we are permitted to see, working through, a pride that almost disdains to be of common clay with other men-would have all nature move for the behoof of one, and demands Olympian immunity from hindrance till, with universal shoutings, the top-stone of his surpassing work shall crown mankind and him. With the burning utterance of this colossal but distempered nature alternates the plaint of the nightingale singing' with her breast against the thorn'-the lament of Amy, mourning the lost love that has waned before ambition, and weary of life already, after such a loss. This interchange is a great beauty; some of her songs to her child breathe an exquisite pathos; and with their mournful repetitions, the faltering sweetness of their rhythm, and their sad, musical cadences, remind us of some of the best of our old English songs, while altogether free from any antique mannerism. On the lips of Amy, the very blank verse seems to change its nature; and the same measure which, but a page before, rolls in thunder, ebbs silverly away, and dies off in a faint lapsing melody. The author has grown in his mastery over blank verse, giving it extraordinary compass of rhythm, lyrical and dramatic; and, in force and intense compression, has improved in the latter part of this poem on the beginning, where a luxuriance sometimes riots, which the stern earnestness of the catastrophe has properly forbidden. They lose their child, and sorrow unsettles Amy's reason, while it brings out yet farther the character of Balder. He had wanted another experience for his artistic consummation: he has it. He has not even faith enough to be confident of his child's happiness; and the mind which was to outreach the stars, grovels sullenly in the 'wormy circumstance' of the grave. Throughout the body of the work, short poems and parts of poems by Balder are interspersed. There are among them pieces abounding in fresh and beautiful thought on those old themes, the Seasons, Morn, Noon, Night, and Chamouni. A kind of glee is sung, in one place, called the 'Song of the Sun,' from which we select (not without hesitation among so many) the only extract our space will allow us to give :— 'I am the sun; I am above the mountains; My joy is on me; I will give you day! I will spend day among you like a king! Rise! as men strike a bell, and make it music, |