which earth must roll as certainly as through its own shadow-night; more a retribution of unmitigated wrath than a sharp and sudden surgical application, severe and salutary as cautery itself. Now that we have before us a trinity of such revolutions, we have better ground for believing that they are no anomalous convulsions, but the periodical fits of a singular subject, whom it were far better to watch carefully and treat kindly than to stigmatize or assault. Bishop Butler, walking in his garden with his chaplain, after a long fit of silent thought, suddenly turned round and asked him, if he did not think that nations might get mad as well as individuals. What answer the worthy chaplain made to this question we are not informed, but we suspect that few now would coincide with the opinion of the bishop. Nations are never mad, though often mistaken and often diseased; or if mad, it is a fine and terrible frenzy, partaking of the character of inspiration, and telling, through all its blasphemy and blood, some great truth otherwise a word unutterable to the nations. What said, through its throat of thunder, that first revolution of France? It said that men are men, that "God hath made of one blood all nations who dwell upon the face of the earth," and it proved it, alas! by mingling together in one tide the blood of captains and of kings, of rich and poor, of bond and free: it shattered for ever the notion of men being ninepins for the pleasure of power, and showed them at the least to be gunpowder, a substance always dangerous, and always, if trode on, to be trode on warily. What said the three days of July, 1830? They said, that if austere unlimited tyranny exceed in guilt, diluted and dotard despotism excels in folly, and that the contempt of a people is as effectual as its anger in subverting a throne. And what is the voice with which the world is yet vibrating, as if the sun had been struck audibly and stunned upon his mid-day throne? It is that, as a governing agent, the days of expediency are numbered, and that henceforth not power, not cunning, not conventional morality, not talent, but truth has been crowned monarch of France, and, if the great experi ment succeed, of the world.*

It is of Dr. Croly as a prose writer principally that we

* Alas! alas! This was too evidently written in 1848.

mean to speak. His poetry, though distinguished, and nearly to the same extent, by the qualities of his prose, has failed in making the same impression. The causes of this are various. In the first place, it appeared at a time when the age was teeming to very riot with poetry. Scott, indeed, had betaken himself to prose novels; Southey to histories. and articles; Coleridge to metaphysics; Lamb to "Elia ;" and Wordwsorth to his "Recluse," like the alchemist to his secret furnace. But still with each new wound in Byron's heart, a new gush of poetry was flowing, and all eyes watching this martyr of the many sorrows, with the interest of those who are waiting silent or weeping for a last breath; and at the same time a perfect crowd of true poets were finding audience, "fit though few." Wilson, Barry, Cornwall, Hogg, Hood, Clare, Cunninghame, Milman, Maturin,Bowles, Crabbe, Montgomery, are some of the now familiar names which were then identified almost entirely with poetical aspirations. Amid such competitors Dr. Croly first raised his voice, and only shared with many of them the fate of being much praised, considerably abused, and little read Secondly, more than most of his contemporaries, he was subjected to the disadvantage which in a measure pressed on all. All were stars seeking to shine ere yet the sun (that woful bloodspattered sun of "Childe Harold ") had fairly set. Dr. Croly suffered more from this than others, just because he bore in some points a strong resemblance to Byron, a resemblance which drew forth, both for him and Milman, a coarse and witless assault in " Don Juan." And, thirdly, Dr. Croly's poems were chargeable, more than his prose writings, with the want of continuous interest. They consisted of splendid passages, which rather stood for themselves than combined to form a whole. The rich bugle blooms were trailed rather than trained about a stick scarce worthy of supporting them, and this, with the monotony inevitable to rhyme, rendered it a somewhat tedious task to climb to the reward which never failed to be met with at last. "Paris in 1815," however, was very popular at first; and "Cataline" copes worthily, particularly in the closing scene of the play, with the character of the gigantic conspirator, whose name even yet rings terribly, as it sounds down from the dark concave of the past.

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His prose writings may be divided into three classes; his

fictions, his articles in periodicals, and his theological works. We have not read his "Tales of the Great St. Bernard," but understand them to be powerful though unequal. His "Colonna, the painter," appeared in "Blackwood," and, as a tale shadowed by the deadly lustre of revenge, yet shining in the beauty of Italian light and landscape, may be called an unrhymed "Lara.” His "Marston, or Memoirs of a Statesman," is chiefly remarkable for the sketches of distinguished characters, here and in France, which are sprinkled through it, somewhat in the manner of Bulwer's "Devereux," but drawn with a stronger pencil and in a less capricious light. To Danton, alone, we think he has not done justice. On the principle of ex pede Herculem, from the power and savage truth of those calossal splinters of expression, which are all his remains, we had many years ago formed our unalterable opinion, that he was the greatest and by no means the worst man, who mingled in the melée of the Revolution-the Satan, if Dr. Croly will, and not the Moloch of the Paris Pandemonium-than Robespierre abler-than Marat, that squalid, screeching, out-of-elbows demon, more merciful-than the Girondin champions more energetic-than even Mirabeau stronger and less convulsive; and are glad to find that Lord Brougham has recently been led, by personal examination, to the same opinion. The Danton of Dr. Croly is a hideous compound of dandyism, diabolism, and power-a kind of coxcomb butcher, who with equal coolness arranges his moustaches and his murders, and who, when bearded in the Jacobin Club, proves himself a bully and a coward. The real Danton, so broad and calm in repose, so dilated and Titanic in excitement, who, rising to the exigency of the hour, seemed like Satan, starting from Ithuriel's spear, to grow into armor, into power and the weapons of power-now uttering words which were "half battles," and now walking silent, and unconscious alike of his vast energies and coming doom, by the banks of his native stream-now pelting his judges with paper bullets, and now laying his head on the block proudly, as if that head were the globe-was long since pointed out by Scott as one of the fittest subjects for artistic treatment, either in fiction or the drama, "worthy," says he, "of Schiller or Shakspeare themselves."

Dr. Croly's highest effort in fiction is unquestionably

"Salathiel." And it is verily a disgrace to an age, which devours with avidity whatever silly or putrid trash popular authors may be pleased to issue-such inane commonplace as "Now and Then," where the only refreshing things are the "glasses of wine" which are poured out at the close of every third page to the actors (alas, why not to the readers!), naturally thirsty amid such dry work, or the coarse greasy horrors which abound in the all-detestable "Lucretia"-that "Salathiel" has not yet, we fear, more than reached a second edition. It has not, however, gone without its reward. By the ordinary fry of circulating library readers neglected, it was read by a better class, and by none of those who read it forgotten. None but a “literary divine" could have written it. Its style is steeped in Scripture.

But Croly does more than snatch "live coals from off the altar" to strew upon his style; his spirit as well as his language is oriental. You feel yourselves in Palestine, the air is that through which the words of prophets have vibrated and the wings of angels descended-the ground is scarcely yet calm from the earthquake of the crucifixionthe awe of the world's sacrifice, and of the prodigies which attended it, still lowers over the land-still gapes unmended the ghastly rent in the vail—and still are crowds daily convening to examine the fissure in the rocks, when one lonely man, separated by his proper crime to his proper and unending woe, is seen speeding, as if on the wings of frenzy, toward the mountains of Napthali. It is Salathiel, the hero of this story-the Wandering Jew-the heir of the curse of a dying Saviour, "Tarry thou till I come."

As an artistic conception, we cannot profess much to admire what the Germans call the "Everlasting Jew." The interest is exhausted to some extent by the very title. The subject predicts an eternity of sameness, from which we shrink, and are tempted to call him an everlasting bore. Besides, we cannot well realize the condition of the wanderer as very melancholy, after all. What a fine opportunity must the fellow have of seeing the world, and the glory and the great men thereof! Could one but get up behind him, what "pencillings" could one perpetrate by

the "way!" What a triumph, too, has he over the baffled skeleton, death! What a new fortune each century, by selling to advantage his rich "reminiscences!" What a short period at most to wander a few thousand years, while yonder, the true wanderers, the stars, can hope for no rest! And what a jubilee dinner might he not expect, ere the close, as the "oldest inhabitant," with perhaps Christopher North in the chair, and De Quincy (whom some people suspect, however, of being the said personage himself) acting as croupier! Altogether, we can hardly, without ludricous emotions, conceive of such a character, and are astonished at the grave face which Shelley, Wordsworth, Mrs. Norton (whose "Undying One" by the way, is dead long ago, in spite of a review, also dead, in the "Edinburgh"), Captain Medwyn (would he too had died ere he murdered the memory of poor Shelley!), Lord John Russell (who in his "Essays by a Gentleman who had left his Lodgings, has taken a very, very faint sketch of the unfortunate Ahashuerus), and Dr. Croly put on while they talk of his adven

tures.

The interest of "Salathiel," beyond the first splendid burst of immortal anguish with which it opens, is almost entirely irrespective of the character of the Wandering Jew. It is chiefly valuable for its pictures of Oriental scenery, for the glimpses it gives of the cradled Hercules of Christianity, and for the gorgeous imagery and unmitigated vigor of its writing. Plot necessarily there is none; the characters, though vividly depicted, hurry past, like the rocks in the "Walpurgis Night"-are seen intensely for a moment, and then drop into darkness; and the crowding adventures, while all interesting individually, do not gather a deepening interest as they grow to a climax. It is a book which you cannot read quickly, or with equal gusto at all times, but which, like Thomson's Seasons," "Young's Night Thoughts," and other works of rich massiveness, yield intense pleasure, when read at intervals, and in moments of poetic enthusiasm.

Dr. Croly's contributions to periodicals are, as might have been expected, of various merit. We recollect most vividly his papers on Burke (since collected into a volume), on Pitt, and a most masterly and eloquent outline of the