thing of about ninety stanzas in a species of Faery Beppo School. The Emperor Elfinan has no taste for the society of the ladies of Elf-land, and ventures to flutter round the more solid forms of the daughters of earth. This dissipation is strongly resented by the people and parliament, and the Emperor, to pacify the public clamour, consents to an aerial alliance with a fairy-who, sad to say, has the same unnatural penchant for mortal society, to which her intended lord has so lamentable a leaning.

Among the minor pieces there is nothing sweeter than the Faery song, which Mr. Milnes has with a melancholy significance chosen for the exhibition of Keats's autograph. "Shed no tear! O shed no tear ! The flower will bloom another year. Weep no more! O weep no more! Young buds sleep in the root's white core. Dry your eyes! Oh! dry your eyes! For I was taught in Paradise

To ease my breast of melodies.

Shed no tear."

The present volumes form a most attractive addition to English Biography-we cannot doubt but that they will be greedily read by all lovers of the study of character, certainly by all admirers of Keats. They will invite and recall many readers to his poems. Another collateral result we anticipate with an almost equal pleasure—they will lead many to realize for the first time by their own knowledge the rumour they had heard that we have among us a true poet also in his Biographer. The young spirit of America has seized hold of Mr. Milnes's lyre with a heartiness of admiration which we believe is only a precursor of what he deserves and what assuredly sooner or later awaits him at home.

ART. VI.-SCOTTS DISCOURSES.

Two Discourses. The Kingdom of the Truth: The Range of Christianity. By A. J. Scott, M.A. London: J. Darling, Clerical Library. 1848.

"To be of no Church is dangerous" said Johnson oracularly, in allusion to Milton's abstinence from outward communion with any Christian Society. And there is doubtless a sense in which this is true; when such isolation from the religious associations of mankind is an effect of apathy or scepticism. The same course, however, may be dictated by exactly the opposite state of mind, and indicate rather redundancy than defect of faith and love -a faith so earnest and conscientious, that it cannot find entire satisfaction in the doctrines and usages of any one among many sects,-and a love so tender and diffusive, that it discovers something to sympathise with in all. We believe, there are not a few minds, which, if they could shake off from themselves the trammels of existing relations, and were at liberty to form their religious connection anew, would have some difficulty in determining where to cast their lot; for in the combination of elements presented by each Church in turn, they would find some attractive and others repellent to their feelings. The parts which go to make up the organic whole of Christian unity, have been torn asunder, and lie dispersed in the scattered limbs. In each of these we can discern some true life, but life that is defective-the absence of the genuine principle being replaced by what is accidental or extraneous. it requires great vigour and courage of mind, a rare union of qualities, to take an isolated position and pursue a truly independent and self-relying course. It is easy to be eccentric and exclusive; it is difficult to be at once original and wise-true to the impulses of a strongly-developed individuality, and at the same time considerate and reverential for other forms of thought. The mass of men work best in some kind of regulated companionship. They have not enough of inward force and self-discipline, to be safely left to their own unaided and uncontrolled

Yet

guidance. Where conscience is not warped or thwarted, and they are open to receive freely all fresh and higher influences-it is within the limits of some prescribed duty, and by the help of a few simple formulas, that they assist most surely and steadily the work of human progress, and diffuse most widely and deeply the silent efficacy of truth. Every one must judge for himself, in which of these two ways he is best able to fulfil the task which God has confided to him. With good men, it is but a diversity of means in compassing the same end. There is room, as there is a call, for labourers of both descriptions. One class rouses and stimulates; the other appropriates and applies. If all belonged to the former, society would be in a process of perpetual disintegration; if all to the latter, it would crystallise into fixedness. Men therefore are always wanted, who will step out from the multitude, and dare to stand alone, and by the attractive force of their own will and affection, draw the floating elements of society into new combinations:-and the demand for such men becomes more pressing, as old beliefs lose their hold of the popular mind, and old formulas become inapplicable to the social energies that once acted through them.

The powerful and richly-endowed mind to which we owe the two discourses on the Kingdom of Truth and the Range of Christianity, has ventured with modest selfreliance to take the bolder of the two courses referred to. Standing aloof from all Sects and Churches, throwing himself on the strength of his own convictions, and full of trust in the guiding influences of a religious spirit-he invites the world in no sectarian guise to come to hear the word of truth that he has to utter: and we understand the call has been responded to with no little interest by hearers of every denominational complexion, from the High Churchman on one hand, to the Unitarian and the simple Theist on the other. The peculiarity of Mr. Scott, as a reformer and a free searcher after truth-a peculiarity that marks significantly his relation to the times-is that there is nothing destructive in his operations -that he takes hold of one or two great positive principles, and setting them forth with singular energy and earnestness, trusts to their certain effect for the final expulsion of such

errors as have grown up around and encrusted the religious heart of humanity.

It will be asked by many, what are his views? In the usual dogmatic sense, it would not be very easy from these Discourses to give a definite reply. There is nothing said of Trinity, Atonement, Humanitarianism, or such like questions. We gather from the tenor of his words, that he regards Christianity, not so much as a dogma to be defined and apprehended by the intellect, as an influence to be imbibed into the affections and the will, and a moral effort to be sustained and carried out, engaging the powers of the entire man. The whole Truth, he argues in his First Discourse, is not to be found in the exclusively intellectual or the exclusively sentimental or the exclusively spiritual man-forms of character which successively arise and predominate in Society,but in him who under the combined influence of intellect, sentiment, and lofty spiritual feeling, feels that he was born for action, and works out the highest truth in the submission of his active powers to the law of right which exists in him as a primal element of his being and a condition of its healthy development. Christianity, again, in his Second Discourse, he does not treat as an insulated element of humanity, but as an influence that is designed to take possession of the whole of it, and spiritualise all its operations and aims, as well those which relate to the present, as to the heavenly, world. We cannot do more than briefly call attention to these interesting Discourses. Mr. Scott is no ordinary man. There is an unmistakeable impress of originality and earnestness on his words which must command attention and will produce results. His actual position is some guarantee for his sincerity and truthfulness. We shall watch his career with deep interest.

We shall best serve our purpose of calling attention to the important workings of so thoughtful and original a mind, by a few extracts. His style strikes us at first as somewhat wanting in clearness and fluency. It is like the speech of one accustomed to deliver himself extempore, in which we miss the running commentary of the voice and look of the speaker. It is heavy-weighted with thought and requires attention; but it is not obscure.

There is a truth which we have often felt, in the following passage:—

"No doubt there is an inward correspondency between humanity as God means it, and the entire reality of things. No doubt the sense of truth is the experience of this harmony. The answer is so prompt and unhesitating to a great discovery of truth, that it looks like unreasoning haste. The mind opened, as the infant's lungs to the air. Over the naphtha lake the mist seemed to sleep heavily; the torch came, and it was one blaze all over. Its nature was to be food for light. The perfection of this correspondency is the standard for us-is humanity as God means it. But we see how men are perverted from it by their false estimate of their own position towards the truth. They speak of their rights in regard to it, of the freedom of their opinion, but not of its absolute rights over them. They think to work best in a vacuum; not knowing that the weight and compression of obligation and necessity save us from explosion and destruction. They expect to conquer truth, rather than to submit to it. They are moved towards it at best by an attraction, not by duty. And then duty itself is rootless, or does not own its root, when its object is not God. Without Him, there is nothing over us to which we should thus be bound. If the feeling be there, it is the zodiacal light of an unseen sun. And, again, we may stand in need of truth not mainly that we may see, but that we may be and do. The grand obstruction is the dread of committing ourselves to practical results. He who is willing to do His will, he shall know of the doctrine. No doubt this principle has been grossly caricatured by those who hold that all infidelity is a cloak for vicious indulgence; but he would be strangely self-ignorant who thought himself prepared for all selfsacrifice to truth, because he was not drawn away by sensuality or avarice. Doubtless to be brought to this unconditional surrender is the result of that hearing and learning from the Father, of which the Founder of this Kingdom saith, that it brings men to Himself. The truth by which a man lives, becomes to him more and more a truth."-Pp. 19-21.

The following sentiment flows from an original mind, and is finely expressed :

"What is art? It is first nature. The Creator is the first artist. Some nations have called their poets Finders. The countenance of the true poet, while at work, is that of one listening or receiving. Analysis gives us laws, science. A childlike singleness takes in those single impressions from woods, seas, flowers, skies, which make us know what is beauty, sublimity; how gloom and tenderness, gaiety