largest powers, would be replete with interest and instruction. It is interesting, in the fairy-land of fiction, to watch the transit of the classic into the romantic fable,-to see Jason and Medea reappear as venturous knight and sage princess,-to find the Fates transformed into duennas keeping watch over Proserpine, and to recognise Cerberus in that 'hideous giant horrible and high,' who guards the melancholy castle of King Pluto. It is yet more so, in the higher provinces of thought, to trace the transmigration of error or of truth into forms familiar to a later age, and to observe the resumption, as in a new element, of conflicts apparently decided long since. What tradition long reported concerning that terrible engagement between the utmost strength of the Roman and the Hun, philosophy exhibits as true respecting the more subtile struggles of human opinion. It was said that, on the night after the battle,―above the vast plains of Châlons, stretching with their heaps of dead miles away into the darkness on either hand-the ghosts of the slain warriors arose, and, marshalled in the upper air, renewed, with unearthly arms and hate, the strife which death had interrupted. Thus has the antagonism of rival modes of thought perpetuated its contest, while the early champions or propounders of either principle are sleeping the sleep of death below. 'Non enim hominum interitu sententiæ quoque occidunt.'

A comparative survey of the modifications of opinion such as we propose, would furnish many a valuable lesson. It would illustrate, in its course, that substantial identity of human nature which makes one kindred of all times and countries. It would point out those common wants and common hopes which, under every superficial difference, are the foundations of man's nature, somewhat as science finds the inorganic crust of the earth unaltered by varieties of clime, and trap and basalt, porphyry and granite, everywhere the same, whether crested by the branching palm, or mantled shaggily by stunted firs. It would separate between the original and the stolen property of modern speculation, and bring about such a general gaoldelivery of plagiarisms as might well remind us of those grotesque

mediæval pictures of the last judgment, in which the fishes appear bearing in their mouths the heads, arms, and legs of the drowned men they have devoured. It would show how often the prophetic words of the confessors and the martyrs of reform in religion or in science—which seemed to be shed like an untimely product on the earth-to be scattered by winds, and trodden into mire by the hoof of beasts, have been in reality conserved, and made to utter their voice in another form to another generation, even as the withered leaves in the fabled island of the Hebrides were said to be changed into singing-birds as soon as they had fallen to the ground. Such an inquiry would occupy a space in the kingdom of mind as comprehensive as that of physical geography in the kingdom of nature. It would be the metaphysical 'Cosmos' of the mysterious microcosm

-man. As the botanist can trace the course of certain races of the human family by the presence of particular plants, which are only found where they have trodden, so would our investigator pursue the history of a certain order of mind by those modifications of mental product, and those practical and moral fruits, which uniformly spring up in its train. As the zoologist has always derived, from

the examination of monstrous and aberrant forms, material to extend his knowledge of the regularly-developed organism, so the misshapen creations of mental extravagance or disease would throw light for the philosopher on the sources of man's danger, on the true power and province of man's mind. As the votary of science learns to distinguish between the physiological and the morphological import of the organs of a plant, when he finds the same vital function which belongs to the leaf in one species, carried on by the stem in another, so would it be with our inquirer, if possessed of a sagacity equal to his undertaking. He would find the intellectual life of successive periods fostered, now by one class of men, and now by another, that no order or institution can be declared the necessary organ by which society shall breathe or feed,—and that he must often look for the vitality of an age, not in the professed centre of its culture, but in some portion of its growth which, to a superficial

eye, would appear only an unsightly excrescence, or an unimportant appendage. He would learn, too, to anticipate, from the revival of old errors, the revival of old reactions appropriately modified, and would contemplate with wonder that beneficent provision by which the most baneful opinions appear, almost invariably, accompanied by their antidotes-the excess of the evil provoking a healthful antagonism, so that the poison and the medicine grow side by side, as the healing trumpet-tree is said always to raise its purple blossoms in the neighbourhood of the deadly manchineel.

From the somewhat enigmatical title of Mr. Kingsley's tale, we had looked for a contribution, which we felt sure would be of value, in the direction now indicated. It appeared to be his purpose to indicate the substantial identity of the past and the present strife waged between that wisdom of this world accounted foolishness by God, and that preaching of the cross so often accounted foolishness by man. The past conflict he has depicted fully, and with admirable skill. But its parallel with the present antagonism of similar parties is but generally hinted at in a summary remark or two on his last page.

This reticence may have proceeded from æsthetic or from prudential considerations. Cyril of Alexandria, with his bitter worldly heart and oily sanctimonious phrase, with his capacity for business and for hatred alike enormous, is a shadow among shadows. But the Bishop of Exeter, into whose body the soul of Cyril has unquestionably transmigrated, is a living reality in lawn. It might not be pleasant to approach too nearly that ecclesiastical mud volcano, which, always growling and simmering, may explode in an instant with such terrific force its bespattering baptism of abuse. Again, Mr. Newman, like Porphyry, aspires to be a religious man without being a Christian, and in behalf of an ambitious and unintelligible religious sentiment, assails the Old Testament and misconceives the New. Like Iamblichus, too, many of our sceptical spiritualists are credulous votaries of the theurgic pretensions of our time. They find the gospels incredible, but they have surrendered to

the Poughkeepsie Seer. Their reason rises in disdain against the claims of an apostle, but falls prostrate before an American rapping. Their faith resembles that of Dr. Johnson, who refused to credit the report of the earthquake at Lisbon, but could believe in the Cock-lane ghost. These spiritual manifestations of our own day are the counterpart of those pretended marvels which deluded the Alexandrian adepts who were too wise to receive the faith of the Nazarene. If Mr. Kingsley had pursued his parallel, therefore, he would have had work enough upon his hands. The two foes he had so faithfully portrayed would have united against him. The bigots would have assailed him on the one side, and the infidels on the other. In the hands of adversaries so embittered, his reputation could scarcely have escaped the fate of his heroine Hypatia.

But no one acquainted with the spirit of Mr. Kingsley's writings will readily believe that he has in any undue measure the fear of man before his eyes. He is more likely to have paused where he has done, from deference to what he deemed the dictate of taste, than from any cautious heed to the presentiments of timidity. He considers, probably, the history he has revived as a parable, which, like all parables good for anything, carries its main lesson on the surface. He would urge, with some truth, in his justification, that the moral of a story should be suggested rather than obtruded, -that a romance is not the place for a homily,-that the painter is only indirectly the preacher,-that those who have ears to hear will hear with advantage, and those who have not will never be prosed into wisdom. Still we think that some farther application of the results brought out by this study of the past should have been attempted. A concluding chapter, embracing some such thoughtful and suggestive summary, and indicating the real analogies and distinctions between the old conflict and the new, would greatly have enhanced the value of the book.

In point of style, Mr. Kingsley differs widely from Mr. Maurice and Mr. Trench, with whom, in matters of opinion, he appears to

possess much in common. Mr. Maurice is easy and natural; his flowing language carries the reader with him right pleasantly, and there is a pellucid simplicity about the sentences severally which is not a little charming. But the effect of the whole is marred by a want of definiteness. Much is suggested, little is established. An ingenious succession of side-lights are thrown upon the subject, but in some way they perplex each other. We miss that vigorous and telling summary of results, without which we may be dazzled or amused, but are left uninstructed after all as to the contemplated conclusion of the whole.

Mr. Trench, again, is less defective in this respect, though accustomed sometimes to invest his theme with an unnecessary abstraction, and apt to handle it in a large aerial manner, imposing enough, but unsatisfactory to such as desire to see eloquent philosophical generalizations always well supported by the evidence and detail of facts. The style of Mr. Trench, where his subject allows him full scope, is stately, rich, and full-a kind of ecclesiastical antique,now breathing out some pensive imagination—

'To the Dorian mood

Of flutes, and soft recorder,'—

and now again rising into grandeur, coloured by the many-slanting hues of his cathedral window-Fancy. It is characterized more by beauty than by power, yet it possesses so much of the former as never to be wholly destitute of the latter. Its appeal is that of taste and learning to a circle comparatively limited.

Mr. Kingsley, on the other hand, addresses a larger auditory in another tone. His vehement and daring nature has marked out a course for itself. He is thought to have been even too oblivious, at times, of the smooth-shaven proprieties of the starched and whiteneckclothed nicety of ecclesiastical conventionalism. In fact, he would seem, at one time, to have taken the Carlyle fever, and to have had it very badly indeed. But the sickness did not with him, as with poor Sterling, develope into a life-long disorder. Mr. Kingsley got over