t rsailed, two generations later, by dramatists who wished to please the multitude. We remember no Friar Dominic-no Father Foigard-among the characters drawn by those great poets. The scene at the close of the Knight of Malta might have been written by a fervent Catholic. Massinger shows a great fondness for ecclesiastics of the Romish ? Church; and has even gone so far as to bring a virtuous and interesting Jesuit on the stage. Ford, in that fine play, which it is painful to read, and scarcely decent to name, assigns a highly creditable part to the Friar. The partiality of Shakspeare for Friars is well known. In Hamlet, the Ghost complains that he died without extreme unction, and, in defiance of the article which condemns the doctrine of purgatory, declares that he is "Confined to fast in fires, Till the foul crimes, done in his days of nature, Are burnt and purged away." These lines, we suspect, would have raised a tremendous storm in the theatre at any time during the reign of Charles the Second. They were clearly not written by a zealous Protestant or for zealous Protestants. Yet the author of King John and Henry the Eighth was surely no friend to Papal supremacy. There is, we think, only one solution of the phenomena which we find in the History and in the Drama of that age. The religion of England was a mixed religion, like that of the Samaritan settlers, described in the second book of Kings, who "feared the Lord, and served their graven images;"-like that of the Judaizing Christians, who blended the ceremonies and doctrines of the synagogue with those of the church;-like that of the Mexican Indians, who, for many generations after the subjugation of their race, continued to unite with the rites learned from their conquerors the worship of the grotesque idols which had been adored by Montezuma and Guatemozin. These feelings were not confined to the populace. Elizabeth herself was not exempt from them. A crucifix, with wax-lights burning round it, stood in her private chapel. She always spoke with disgust and anger of the marriage of priests. "I was in horror," says Archbishop Parker, "to hear such words to come from her mild nature and Christian learned conscience, as she spake concerning God's holy ordinance and institution of matrimony." Burghley prevailed on her to connive at the marriages of churchmen. she would only connive; and the children sprung from such marriages were illegitimate till the accession of James the First. But That which is, as we have said, the great stain on the character of Burghley, is also the great stain on the character of Elizabeth. Being herself an Adiaphorist,-having no scruple about conforming to the Romish Church when conformity was necessary to her own safety,-retaining to the last mo ment of her life a fondness for much of the doctrine and much of the ceremonial of that church,—she yet subjected that church to a persecution even more odious than the persecution with which her sister had harrassed the Protestants. We say more odious. For Mary had at least the plea of fanaticism. She did nothing for her religion which she was not prepared to suffer for it. She had held it firmly under persecution. She fully believed it to be essential to salvation. If she burned the bodies of her subjects, it was in order to rescue their souls. Elizabeth had no such pretext. In opinion, she was little more than half a Protestant. She had professed, when it suited her, to be wholly a Catholic. There is an excuse, a wretched excuse,-for the massacres of Piedmont and the autos-da-fe of Spain. But what can be said in defence of a ruler who is at once indifferent and intolerant? If the great Queen, whose memory is still held in just veneration by Englishmen, had possessed sufficient virtue and sufficient enlargement of mind to adopt those principles which More, wiser in speculation than in action, had avowed in the preceding generation, and by which the excellent l'Hospital regulated his conduct in her own time, how different would be the colour of the whole history of the last two hundred and fifty years! She had the happiest opportunity ever vouchsafed to any sovereign, of establishing perfect freedom of conscience throughout her dominions, without danger to her government, or scandal to any large party among her subjects. The nation, as it was clearly ready to profess either religion, would, beyond all doubt, have been ready to tolerate both. Unhappily for her own glory and for the public peace, she adopted a policy, from the effects of which the empire is still suffering. The yoke of the Established Church was pressed down on the people till they would bear it no longer. Then a reaction came. Another reaction followed. To the tyranny of the establishment, succeeded the tumultuous conflict of sects, infuriated by manifold wrongs, and drunk with unwonted freedom. To the conflict of sects, succeeded again the cruel domination of one persecuting church. At length oppression put off its most horrible form, and took a milder aspect. The penal laws against dissenters were abolished. But exclusions and disabilities still remained. These exclusions and disabilities, after having generated the most fearful discontents,-after having rendered all government in one part of the kingdom impossible,-after having brought the state to the very brink of ruin, have, in our times, been removed; but, though removed, have left behind them a rankling which may last for many years. It is melancholy to think with what ease Elizabeth might have united all the conflicting sects under the shelter of the same impartial laws, and the same paternal throne; and thus have placed the nation in the same situation, as far as the rights of conscience are concerned, in which we at length stand, after all the heartburnings, the persecutions, the conspiracies, the seditions, the revolutions, the judicial murders, the civil wars, of ten generations. fore. The next House of Commons would have been more unmanageable than that which preceded it. The tyrant would have agreed to all that the nation demanded. He would have solemnly ratified an act abolishing monopolies for ever. He would have received a large supply in return for this concession; and within half a year new patents, more oppressive than those which had been cancelled, would have been issued by scores. Such was the policy which brought the heir of a long line of kings, in early youth the darling of his countrymen, to a prison and a scaf fold. This is the dark side of her character. Yet she surely was a great woman. Of all the sovereigns who exercised a power, which was seemingly absolute, but which in fact depended for support on the love and confidence of their subjects, she was by far the most illustrious. It has often been alleged as an excuse for the misgovernment of her successors that they only followed her example;-that precedents might be found in the transactions of her reign for persecuting the Puritans, for levying money without the sanction of the House of Commons, for confining men without bringing them to trial, for interfering with the liberty of parliamentary debate. All this may be true. But it is no good plea for her successors, and for this plain reason, that they were her successors. She governed one generation, they governed another; and between the two generations there was almost as little in common as between the people of two different countries. It was not by looking at the particular measures which Elizabeth had adopted, but by looking at the great general principles of her government, that those who followed her were likely to learn the art of managing untractable subjects. If, instead of searching the records of her reign for precedents which might seem to vindicate the mutilation of Prynne, and the imprisonment of Eliot, the Stuarts had attempted to disco-ing that illustrious group of which Elizabeth Elizabeth, before the House of Commons could address her, took out of their mouths the words which they were about to utter in the name of the nation. Her promises went beyond their desires. Her performance followed close upon her promise. She did not treat the nation as an adverse party;-as a party which had an interest opposed to hers; -as a party to which she was to grant as few advantages as possible, and from which she was to extort as much money as possible. Her benefits were given, not sold; and when once given, they were not withdrawn. She gave them too with a frankness, an effusion of heart, a princely dignity, a motherly tenderness, which enhanced their value. They were received by the sturdy country gentlemen, who had come up to Westminster full of resentment, with tears of joy and shouts of God save the Queen. Charles the First gave up half the prerogatives of his crown to the Commons; and the Commons sent him in return to the Grand Remonstrance. We had intended to say something concern is the central figure,--that group which the last of the bards saw in vision from the top of Snowdon, encircling the Virgin Queen "Many a baron bold, And gorgeous dames, and statesmen old We had intended to say something concern- ver the fundamental rules which guided her conduct in all her dealings with her people, they would have perceived that their policy was then most unlike to hers, when to a superficial observer it would have seemed most to resemble hers. Firm, haughty,-sometimes unjust and cruel in her proceedings towards individuals or towards small parties, she avoided with care, or retracted with speed, every measure which seemed likely to alienate the great mass of the people. She gained more honour and more love by the manner in which she repaired her errors, than she would have gained by never committing errors. If such a man as Charles the First had been in her place when the whole nation was crying out against the monopolies, he would have refused all redress; he would have dissolved the Parliament, and imprisoned the most popular members. He would have call-tier, the orator, the poet, the historian, the ed another Parliament. He would have given some vague and delusive promises of relief in return for subsidies. When entreated to fulfil his promises he would have again dissolved the Parliament, and again imprisoned his leading opponents. The country would have become more agitated than be philosopher, sometimes reviewing the Queen's guards, sometimes giving chase to a Spanish galleon,-then answering the chiefs of the country party in the House of Commons,then again murmuring one of his sweet lovesongs, too near the ears of her Highness's maids of honour,—and soon after poring over the Talmud, or collating Polybius with Livy. We had intended also to say something concerning the literature of that splendid period, and especially concerning those two incomparable men, the Prince of Poets, and the Prince of Philosophers, who have made the Elizabethan age a more glorious and important era in the history of the human mind, than the age of Pericles, of Augustus, or of Leo. But subjects so vast require a space far larger than we can at present afford. We therefore stop here, fearing that, if we proceed, our article may swell to a bulk exceeding that of all other reviews, as much as Dr. Nares' book exceeds the bulk of all other histories. THE EXILE. BY BERNARD BARTON. THE exile on a foreign strand Where'er his footsteps roam, Though brighter skies may shine above, Still to the spot which gave him birth And elsewhere own, through all the earth, Oh! thus should man's immortal soul And mindful of its heavenly good, Seem but an exile here. Mid fleeting joys of sense and time, Should own no home but HEAVEN! From the Foreign Quarterly Review. THE daily increasing familiarity of the belligerent classes with the use of the pen will, if we mistake not, lend one important distinguishing feature to the English literature of the present age. Books such as these on our table cannot be multiplied among us without affecting, to a considerable extent, not only the general tone of contemporary thought and sentiment, but even the materials and mechanism of popular language. New words, new phrases, and a whole host of new images and allusions are, from this source, rapidly finding their way into the common stock; and the martial triumphs of the era of Trafalgar and Waterloo will probably tinge, a thousand | years hence, the vocabulary, both tragic and comic, of yet nameless nations, flourishing thousands of leagues from the scenes of their achievement. From the mere style of any people-from the prevailing character of the figures and illustrations, inwoven into almost any work of literature that ever acquired great popularity among them-one might pronounce, with a near aim,' as to the main scope of occupation, and business, and habitual feeling in the nation. Every page of the drama of Athens bespeaks, as plainly as Athenian history, a nation of political partisans and restless mariners; the high estimation of agriculture, and the proud tumults of the camp, are written with equal distinctness in the most urbane and pacific of Roman lucubrations. The languages of this country and France are, ex facie, those of the two active nations of modern Christendom. That is seen, not merely, nay not so much, in the vocabulary of either, as in the structure and march of its sentences, as compared with any of the neighbouring tongues. The stately indolence of the Spaniard is reflected in the slow sonorousness of even his billet-doux; the Italian, unless when he tortures himself into a perplexed and obscure mimicry of Tacitus, makes scarcely better progress in his liquid paragraphs of linked sweetness long drawn out,' than a pinnace floating at height of noon on one of his own beautiful lakes; the German author, no matter what ground he takes, builds up such heavy columns, and carves them with such a dreamy quaintness, that we perceive at once he belongs to a people whose literature is mainly a literature of professors-stamped, in every lineament, in spite of gallant individual efforts in the contrary direction, with the mental, and indeed corporeal, habits of a caste of pedantic recluses, who seldom have the mouthpiece of the ponderous Meerschaum pipe out their lips, unless when they mount the desk to overcloud gaping boys with metaphysical vapours, about as consistent and refreshing as those of their tobacco. A good French prose one-and vice versabook is easily converted into a good English -(we say nothing of poetry); but no skill in translation can make even treatises like Frederick Schlegel's, or tales like Ludowick Tieck's, acceptable to the readers of London or Paris: their materials, however precious in themselves, must be refondus, as the French express it, before they clearness of arrangement, that succinctness of can acquire that lucidus ordo, that direct steady garb, and life and spring of movement, without which nothing will command general attention in a country whose own literature has taken its predominant bias and colouring from men of the world and of business. We must not at present, however tempted, be seduced into a lecture on this subject; but No. 121.-B it is certain, that the first popular works in | down the sword and take up the pen,' as the our language came from the pens of authors distinguished in active life; and that, in every succeeding age, the originally uncloister-like character of English composition has on the whole been sustained. With few exceptions, even our poets have been men trained and exercised in stirring occupations-certainly all our dramatists and novelists worth notice have been such; and every one of these masters has enriched the national exchequer wih coins stamped in the mint of his own calling. It is this that gives to all our literature that air of practical pith, shrewdness, and sagacity, by which it is brought much nearer, in general effect, to the literature of France, than, in spite of far more intimate kinsmanship of blood-and, we may add, as to many of the most important branches, of opinion and sentiment-it is ever likely to approach the German; and it is this same old-established custom of drawing largely on professional dialects (as we may call them) that leads us to anticipate extended and lasting effects from those literary habits which appear of late years to be taking such a deep root among our soldiers and sailors. Who would have fancied, thirty or twenty years ago, that A. D. 1832, one of the most successful periodical publications in the country should be a magazine devoted exclusively to naval and military topics, written entirely by officers of the united service, and edited by a sprightly veteran, minus a leg? or who, that knows that such is now the fact, and knows also that many of the most popular histories, novels, tales, and descriptive essays of all sorts, have for some years past been supplied to the London market by Halls, Napiers, Marryatts, &c.*-in short, gentlemen who took their only degrees under such tutors as Nelson and Wellington-can doubt that the habitual feelings and expressions-the Tow and grau-the wit, whim, and humour even-of the modern camp and cockpit, are at this moment settling themselves into the great body of our written speech, in the same fashion that the histrionic habits of our early dramatists familiarized the national ear, two hundred years ago, and for ever, to the technical glossary of the green-room? Continuations are proverbially hazardous; but the second group of Captain Hall's adventures, like that of Don Quixote's, completely sustains the spirit of the first,-nay, we think it will be generally considered as justifying our prediction, that the story would become more and more interesting as it advanced into the maturer experiences of its hero. He, above all the rest of those who lay song has it, deals in the peculiar diction and imagery of his original craft, and it is with especial reference to him that the preceding observations have been made. He is known to be skilful in various departments of physical science, and master of the lore proper to his profession; and he has, we need not say, surveyed the globe from China to Peru,' with his own microscopic optics, as well as all the stars in both hemispheres, with one of Dollond's best portable telescopes; but, judging from his writings, we should not suppose his general reading to have been extensive. He makes no pretensions to being a scholar, properly so called, and, therefore, in bringing his views of men and things before the world, has not that copious supply of ready-made figures and expressions which persons of regular literary education and habits can always depend upon; he is thrown continually on his own proper personal resources, and, to the infinite advantage of himself and his readers, turns the log-book at his elbow into a lexicon. The same circumstance, indeed, gives an air of extraordinary freshness to his views and opinions themselves, as well as the language in which he developes them. Whatever he writes about, however hackneyed the topic, we always feel that here is a shrewd clever man thinking for himself, and from himself, and listen to him with a degree of attention and interest which we should find ourselves quite unable to bestow on an exposition of even the very same thoughts, in a more rounded and flowing sequence of what the antiquary of Monkbarns calls pyet words.' almost venture to apply to him part of Ben Jonson's famous lines: We may "His learning savours not the school-like gloss That most consists in echoing words and terms, Nor any long or far-fetch'd circumstance, Of all the worth and first effects of arts. That it shall gather strength and life with being, And live hereafter more admired than now." Nothing more true than that "le style, c'est l'homme;" in his there is often a sharp turn, a hard corner, an ungraceful twist or projection; but it is all genuine bone and muscle *See the Poetaster.' Jonson pretends to be describing Virgil, but how could even a commentator ever doubt that he was in fact drawing an exquisitely graphic character of a poet as unlike Virgil as any one great poet can be to another-Shaks peare? Of whom else would Envious Ben,' have said That which he hath writ Is with such judgment laboured and distilled Through all the needful uses of our life,— That could a man remember but his lines, He should not touch on any serious point But he might breathe his spirit out of him!' no gummy flesh, far less any padding; and we prefer it to the smooth, oily, well-balanced sing-song in which one mere literateur echoes another, as much as we do a real young face, even with irregular features, to the most finished beauty in a barber's window. There is a critical digression in one of these little volumes which we must quote,-first, because the writer does not often poach on our manor,—and, secondly, because the passage is a capital one, and will fall in very advantageously with what we have been saying about his own style. Nobody is fonder of a paradox than the captain. Who has forgot his bold, blunt assertion, at the opening of a chapter in the former series, that "it is highly for the benefit of humble-born sea-officers that the scions of nobility should be promoted rapidly in the navy?" or his more recent oral announcement of his belief that "A party man 's the noblest work of God." On the present occasion he sets off thus: "When things are possessed of much intrinsic interest, the very multiplicity of previous descriptions will rather help than stand in the way of subsequent accounts, provided these be written with skill worthy of the subject. We may even, I think, go further, it will be in favour of the writer that his topic should have been not only repeatedly but well treated by previous authors. Who can doubt, for instance, that the Diary of an Invalid' owes its chief interest to the hackneyed nature of the topic? We are enchanted to recognize incidents and scenes the most familiar to our thoughts, trimmed up for fresh inspection by a scholar and a gentleman, who, to much knowledge of his subject, and of the world generally, superadds a rare felicity of expression, and the happy knack of giving new interest to all he touches. If a man of genius, minute and varied local information, and correct taste, were to write a book, and call it London,' it would assuredly outrun in freshness of interest, in the opinion even of the Londoners themselves, all other books of travels. Whatever talents, in short, an author may possess, their most touching and popular exercise will generally be found to lie in those departments with which his readers are most familiar. When Taglioni descends from her pirouettes, and dances the Minuet de la Cour, or the Gavotte, or Paganini leaves off his miracles of sound, and plays some simple air which is well known to every one, we feel, not indeed the same astonishment as before, but ten times more real pleasure. Thus, too, such a novel as 'Pride and Prejudice,' probably derives its greatest charm from the characters and incidents being such as we are already well acquainted with, either from personal observation, or from a thousand previous descriptions. Many writers, however, fall into the mistake of imagining that every thing will bear this degree of handling, and forget that, while the ductility of fine gold is almost infinite, every other metal has its limit. This analogy will hold in all the fine arts, and perhaps in none more than the art of composition, whether in prose or verse. When will the poets exhaust the good old topics of love and beauty? or painters fail to discover, in mountain scenery, and in the sunsets of summer, varieties of tints, and lights, and shades, far beyond all their power of colouring? On the other hand, has not the whole strength of one celebrated school of painting been unequal to impart true interest, and what has been termed graceful pleasure to vulgar images? Has not even the mighty 'Childe Harold' compelled us to withdraw much of our respect for his genius by seeking to describe what is essentially vicious and degrading?" All this is introduced by way of apology to the author's professional friends for inditing a chapter entitled "A Man Overboard!" and that persons who have, times without number, seen the two-legged, featherless, but no longer laughing animal, so situated, will hold the said attempt to be justified by the method of its execution, we do not doubt. To us, however, and to the great majority of Captain Hall's readers, no apology of this sort could be necessary on the occasion in question. That the manner of the essay is excellently clear and energetic, we, too, can feel:-but the subject-matter itself, has the charm of almost absolute novelty "After all that has been said of the exact nature of a man-of-war's discipline, and the degree of foresight, preparation, and habits of resource, which enable officers to act promptly and vigorously in the midst of difficulties, it is truly wonderful to see men of experience so completely at a loss as the oldest officers sometimes are, when the cry is given that a man is overboard. I have beheld brave and skilful men, who could face, unmoved, any other sort of danger, stand quite aghast on such ocasions, and seem to lose all their faculties just at the moment of greatest need. Whenever I have witnessed the tumultuous rush of the people from below, their eagerness to crowd into the boats, and the reckless devotion with which they fling themselves into the water to save their companions, I could not help thinking that it was no small disgrace to us, to whose hands the whole arrangements of discipline are confided, that we had not yet fallen upon any method of availing ourselves to good purpose of so much generous activity. "Sailors are men of rough habits, but their feelings are not by any means so coarse; if they possess little prudence or worldly consideration, they are likewise very free from selfishness; generally speaking, too, they are much attached to one another, and will make great sacrifices to their messmates or shipmates when opportunities occur. A very little address on the part of the officers will secure an extension of these kindly sentiments to the quarter-deck; but what I was alluding to just now was the cordiality of the friendships which spring up between the sailors themselves, who, it must be recollected, have no other society, and all, or almost all, whose ordinary social ties have been broken across either by the chances of |