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deny, are always unwilling. sometimes unable to conceive, we were to show them a near, visible, inevitable, but all beneficent Deity, whose presence makes the earth itself a heaven, I think there would be fewer deaf children sitting in the market-place. At all events, whatever may be the inability in this present life to mingle the full enjoyment of the divine works with the full discharge of every practical duty, and confessedly in many cases this must be, let us not attribute the inconsistency to any indignity of the faculty of contemplation, but to the sin and the suffering of the fallen state, and the change of order from the keeping of the garden to the tilling of the ground. We cannot say how far it is right or agreeable with God's will, while men are perishing round about us-while grief, and pain, and wrath, and impiety, and death, and all the powers of the air are working wildly and evermore, and the cry of blood going up to heaven-that any of us should take hand from the plough; but this we know, that there will come a time when the service of God shall be the beholding of him; and though in these stormy seas, where we are now driven up and down, his Spirit is dimly seen on the face of the waters, and we are left to cast anchors out of the stern, and wish for the day, that day will come, when, with the evangelists on the crystal and stable sea, all the creatures of God shall be full of eyes within, and there shall be no more curse, but his servants shall serve him, and shall see his face.""

We cannot more appropriately, nor we believe more acceptably to our readers, close our extracts, than by quoting the concluding two pages of the second volume of "Modern Painters," to be followed, the author promises—and we hope soon-by a third, with pictorial illustrations :—

"Of repose, and its exalting power, I have already said enough for our present purpose, though I have not insisted on the peculiar manifestation of it in the Christian ideal as opposed to the Pagan: but this, as well as all other questions relating to the particular development of the Greek mind, is foreign to the immediate enquiry, which, therefore, I shall here conclude in the hope of resuming it in detail after examining the laws of beauty in the inanimate creation; always, however, holding this for certain, that of whatever kind or degree the short-coming may be, it is not possible but that shortcoming should be visible in every Pagan conception, when set beside Christian; and, believing for my own part, that there is not only deficiency, but such difference in kind, as must make all Greek conception full of danger to the student in proportion to his admiration of it; as I think has been fatally seen in its effect on the Italian schools, when its pernicious element first mingled with their solemn purity, and recently in its influence on the French historical painters: neither can I from my present knowledge fix upon an ancient statue which expresses by the countenance any one elevated character of soul, or any single enthusiastic self-abandoning affection, much less any such majesty of feeling as might mark the features for super

natural. The Greek could not conceive a spirit; he could do nothing without limbs; his God is a finite God, talking, pursuing, and going journey:* if at any time he was touched with a true feeling of the unseen powers around him, it was in the field of poised battle, for there is something in the near coming of the shadow of death, something in the devoted fulfilment of mortal duty, that reveals the real God, though darkly; that pause on the field of Plataea was not one of vain superstition; the two white figures that blazed along the Delphic plain, when the earthquake and the fire led the charge from Olympus, were more than sunbeams on the battle dust; the sacred cloud, with its lance light and triumph singing, that went down to brood over the masts of Salamis, was more than morning mist among the olives and yet what were the Greek's thoughts of his God of Battle? No Spirit power was in the vision-it was a being of clay strength and human passion, foul, fierce, and changeful-of penetrable arms and vulnerable flesh. Gather what we may of great from Pagan chisel or Pagan dream, and set it beside the orderer of Christian warfare, Michael the Archangel: not Milton's with hostile brow and vision all enflamed,'—not even Milton's in kingly treading of the hills of Paradise-not Raffaelle's with the expanded wings and brandished spear-but Perugino's with his triple crest of traceless plume unshaken in heaven, his hand fallen on his crossletted sword, the truth girdle binding his undinted armour: God has put his power upon him, resistless radiance is on his limbs, no lines are there of earthly strength, no trace on the divine features of earthly anger; trustful and thoughtful, fearless but full of love, incapable except of the repose of eternal conquest, vessel and instrument of Omnipotence, filled like a cloud with the victor light, the dust of principalities and powers beneath his feet, the murmur of hell against him heard by his spiritual ear like the winding of a shell on the far off sea shore.

"It is vain to attempt to pursue the comparison; the two orders of art have in them nothing common, and the field of sacred history, the intent and scope of Christian feeling, are too wide and exalted to admit of the juxtaposition of any other sphere or order of conception; they embrace all other fields like the dome of heaven. With what comparison shall we compare the types of the martyr saints, the St. Stephen of Fra Bartolomeo, with his calm forehead crowned by the stony diadem, or the St. Catherine of Raffaeile looking up to heaven in the dawn of the eternal day, with her lips parted in the resting from her pain?-or with what the Madonnas of Francia, and Pinturicchio, in whom the hues of the morning, and the solemnity of eve, the gladness in accomplished promise, and sorrow of the sword-pierced heart are gathered into one human lamp of ineffable love?—or with what the angel choirs of Angelico, with the

I know not anything in the range of art more unspiritual than the Apollo Belvidere; the raising of the fingers of the right hand in surprise at the truth of the arrow is altogether human, and would be vulgar in a prince much more in a deity. The sandals destroy the divinity of the foot, and the lip is curled with mortal passion.

flames on their white foreheads waving brighter as they move, and the sparkles streaming from their purple wings like the glitter of many suns upon a sounding sea, listening, in the pauses of alternate song, for the prolonging of the trumpet blast, and the answering of psaltery and cymbal, throughout the endless deep and from all the star shores of heaven ?"

Nothing can be more eloquent, as nothing can be more true, than the quotation with which we dismiss this volume from our hands. Without reference to the age or position of the author, it is one of the most marvellous productions of modern times; but when we consider the fact, very generally understood, that the writer is a very young man, and in circumstances which render the ordinary rewards and stimulants of authorship valueless, we know not which the more to admire, the vigour, purity, and ripeness of thought which have combined to produce such a work; or the noble, generous, and fearless devotion of those high powers to prove that art is only to be valued as it shall contribute to the glory of Him who is the source of all power, harmony, and beauty. Whether the author has always succeeded in conveying to the ordinary reader, or whether any force of language could so convey, his lofty and original conceptions is to us, we confess, a matter of some doubt. Others, again, though we are not of the number, may doubt if he have fully established the theory he set out to prove; but the chivalry, for such it is of the highest because the holiest order, which has instigated the attempt, can scarcely be dimmed even by failure; while success, to however modified an extent, must contribute largely to the moral well-being of his fellow-men and to his own undying fame.

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Notices of Books.

1. Tales from Boccaccio with Modern Illustrations, and other Poems. London: Bentley. 1846.

2. The New Timon, a Romance of London. London: Colburn. 1846.

SATIRE, we thought, had now-a-days scarcely a name to live; not that nothing remains for its shafts, but that the prudishness of modern manners had repudiated the form of composition as unpolite and coarse. The style of the time is flattery-we are all of us lovers of pleasure rather than of truth-puffing of all kinds is in high flower-manly criticism is scarcely possible: positive censure were alarming, shocking --almost revolution and sedition against the state of cliquism, both in politics and literature. Much surprised, therefore, have we been, in finding the two popular publishers of the time each issuing his satire, differing in form, in merit, and execution, indeed: but alike in aim and purpose-to expose, according to the views of each writer, the follies and vices of the time. Sufficient power is manifested in both productions to justify the respective publishers in the experiment: but, of the two, the" Tales from Boccaccio" comes recommended by the greatest amount of daring and novelty, both in spirit and form.

By those who perceive no more than the externals of literature, and have not learned that in its every phase it is a manifestation of the age's intelligence, Boccaccio has been esteemed an immoral writer; but those who have deeper insight have accepted Boccaccio as a pioneer of religious reformation. In exposing the vices of the Roman clergy he had a delicate and difficult task to perform; but those who are best acquainted with the "Decameron" will be the first to acknowledge that he performed it, on the whole, with much prudent reserve and cautious respect. The writer before us, indeed, and we think justly, gives Boccaccio credit for a vein of irony in his composition of that wonderful work which shows that, at any rate, he had no tendency to exaggeration, but rather cunningly suggested censure than blurtingly expressed it. The laity had to be relieved from a priestly authority that no longer represented the sincerity which it was ordained by precept and example to illustrate, and to Boccaccio's genius was en

trusted the duty of undermining its foundations and exposing their awful rottenness; better so, than that the building, for the want of such exposure, should topple down suddenly, and the temple bury, without warning, the worshippers in its fall and ruin.

In the execution of his important mission it was, of course, impossible for Boccaccio to overlook the absurd pretensions to celibacy made by the Romish clergy. Had it been a real celibacy, however nature might have revolted against such enforced constraint-whatever might have been the resulting evil-the priesthood of Rome might have claimed credit for sincerity, and been honoured as martyrs for the self-sacrifice implied in the abstinence which they observed. But it was no such thing-it was mere hypocrisy. The law proposing it was one which relieved them from a yoke which they im-posed upon the laity-from the burthen of a duty, while they retained the privilege of indulgence and enjoyment in even a fuller measure, stopping short, in fact, at no licentiousness, which at length was flagrantly exhibited, without remorse or shame, by almost all without exception. Such a horrid and unnatural state of things excited the indignation of every honest mind, and to the earnest and right-thinking among his fellow-citizens Boccaccio appealed in his admirable tales.

The "Tales from Boccaccio" before us are a few versified from the "Decameron," upon a peculiar principle. They are accompanied, as the title page suggests, with "Modern İllustrations"—that is, the narrative starts off in digression and reflection, and alludes to persons and things of the day we live in. It would appear that the author thinks that the Puseyism of the day requires a Boccaccio plaster, and it must be confessed that he exhibits the prescription with no little vigour. We cannot say that we altogether approve of the extensive personality in which his poems indulge; but no doubt can exist that the volume exhibits ability of no ordinary kind and degree. The variety of talent is also extraordinary. It can scarcely be conceived that " The Abbot of Florence," and the story of Salvestra," could have been written by the same pen. If they were, the versatility is as remarkable as the amount of genius displayed in these two free and easy but striking and eminently meritorious productions.

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The Abbot of Florence" is a direct attack by Boccaccio on the pretended hypocritic celibacy of the Romish clergy, and the correlative licentiousness in which they indulged. This practical exposure Boccaccio corrected with a doctrinal one the abuse of the dogma of purgatory-thus hitting two