mere empty display. The whole subject sweeps on with solemn magnificence, but with no idle pomp. From the depths of his soul did he speak, and his words were as fire, scorching to his enemies, and lifegiving and cheering to those who love "truth and wisdom, not respecting numbers and big names." The most inspiring view, that can be taken of the soul of these writings, is that they are, even at this day, far in advance of the social condition that exists. in this land of liberal and enlightened principles of government. The precepts, by which he would wish us to be guided, are the pure and humane doctrines of the Saviour of man. He did not fight only for the liberties of Englishmen, contending for English rights, citing the charters of English liberty, no, not he, — all mankind were alike to him, and for man alone he spake. No such Hebrew spirit animated his noble soul. He proclaimed the rights of man, as man, and asserted his rights, natural and social, without ever launching out into Utopian speculations and visionary conceptions, the practical utility of which no one can affirm, and the application of which would have worked out ills innumerable, rooting up and overthrowing ten thousand times ten thousand social rights, that had grown up with the state itself. He asserted abstractions; but with an intimate knowledge of men and their affairs, he steadily avoided violating those relative rights, to suddenly encroach on which would have been even as great a despotism as the rugged foot of feudal barbarity, with which his country had been oppressed. From the generous and life-giving precepts of the Gospel did he draw his faith. He there learned charity for the misdoings of men, as well as belief in their power to resist evil and attain truth. He there learned love for mankind, as he imbibed a stern, unyielding hate for tyranny and hypocrisy. No timid navigator, skirting along the shores and headlands, but a bold, adventurous spirit, he pushed forth upon a wild, tempestuous sea of troubles, with murky night of ignorance and superstition surrounding him. The "Telemachus" of Fenelon might have been the "first dim promise of a great deliverance, the undeveloped germ of the charter of the code," for the whole French people. But in these writings of Milton we have a full and manly assertion of those rights and duties, which all men owe one to the other, and all to society, and which are far, far beyond the simple truths conveyed in this beautiful and easy fiction. Well might the French monarch have "The Defence" burned by the common hangman! Well might he for whom "a million peasants starved to build Versailles," look down with horror and fear upon that work, for in it were truths which have roused up men to assert their rights. It was the vindication of a noble people, who had trampled under their feet the yoke that oppressed them, and had brought to punishment the tyrant who reigned over them. These works and the events that produced them have an interest to us. Englishmen may slight them, but we look on them with exultation, they are associated with our own history, they are connected with our own family legends, -and as they record the mighty struggle of the mighty with the powers and principalities of this earth, they should be reverenced and held sacred by us; they should be our household companions, as they were of those men whose blood now warms the hearts of an empire of freemen, who boast their lineage from a prouder source than kings, the Puritans of New England. The men of that Revolution have never been fully understood. He who would wish to know the justice of their cause, let him read Milton, and let him. read the real documents of the times. They have been abused and misrepresented by most historians. Mr. Bancroft, in his History of his Country, has comprehended these martyrs in the cause of democratic rights, and dared to tell the truth concerning them. They and theirs were the settlers of this country. From them came the mighty forest of sturdy oaks, which in years after were to breast the storm of royal oppression and wrath, in this their refuge; and from which tempest we,- WE THE PEOPLE, came out gloriously triumphant ! Think not ill of them. Tread lightly upon their memories as you would upon their ashes. They who perished upon the scaffold, they who found a home here, they who died upon the field in England, or, worn out with anxiety and public care, sank to rest forever in their homes, they who, like Cromwell, fought in the field and ruled in the council, and they who, like Milton, have proclaimed from the study that "man is free," have earned names that time will brighten, and have stood by truths that will secure the affections of a world hereafter. Philadelphia. B. H. B. ART. III. Zanoni. Zanoni. By the Author of Pelham, Rienzi, Night and Morning, &c. New-York: 1842. 2 vols. 12mo. Or the general literary, moral, and philosophical merits of the author of Zanoni we have spoken so frequently, and at so great length, that we have no occasion to enlarge upon them again. We may say, however, that these merits do not seem to us to be so extraordinary as we once thought them. Sir Edward's Novels are not to us what they were. They please us less and less as our own experience ripens, as deepens the romance of real life, and as we become more and more earnestly engaged in efforts to meliorate the actual moral, intellectual, and physical condition of our brethren. We no longer crave, nor are we willing to submit to, the kind of excitement administered by these and kindred works. Such excitement is needed by who comprehends what it is to be a man, and who is determined to perform in the great drama of life the part of a full grown man. Such a man needs no contrivance to save him from communion with him self, or to help him get rid of time. Get rid of time! alas! his grief is that time flies so swiftly, leaving him opportunity to do so little of the good that he would! Nor is this excitement healthy. It is never good to excite the mind or the heart overmuch, save when it can find immediate vent in actions which concern real life. A confirmed novel-reader is always morbid; on some sides preternaturally sensitive, on others preternaturally callous; capable, it may be, of talking much fine sentiment, but wanting in that spiritual strength, in that moral robustness, which is equal to the performance of a useful but difficult part in real life. The less fine sentiment we have on our lips, the more genuine feeling shall we have in our hearts, and the more noble and generous actions shall we perform. He, who stops to sentimentalize about poverty, will be the last to throw his cloak over the tattered gabardine of the beggar. This is no doubt all very antiquated, and altogether oldfashioned. But we hope our young friends, seated on rich ottomans, or reclining on soft couches, with the last new novel still moist from the press, will forgive this our antediluvianism. It is with no vinegar visage, nor pietistic cant, that we tell them to throw that novel aside, to rouse themselves from their indolence, and go forth and devote the sensibilities of their hearts, the richness of their fancies, and the creativeness of their imaginations, to the great and noble work of relieving actual distress, and of upbuilding the cause of truth and righteousness on the earth. O, my young friends, there is not such an overplus of generous sentiment, of warm and noble feeling, in this cold, wintry world of ours, that you have any to waste over a Paul Clifford or a Jack Shepherd. No; go forth into real life, and let your sensibilities flow out for the actually poor and wretched; let the tear, so lovely in the eye of beauty, start at no fictitious wo. That poor mother, watching by her dying boy in that miserable hovel, needs it; those poor children, ragged, incrusted with filth, growing up to fill your penitentiaries, need it; the wrongs and outrages, man is everywhere inflicting on man, should - call it forth. Throw away the last new novel; go with me through these dark lanes, blind courts, into these damp cellars, unfurnished garrets, where poverty, vice, and crime are crowded together, layer upon layer, where breeds the corruption that pollutes our whole moral atmosphere. Here, my friends, is a volume that may excite you; here is a work which you may read. Forget your luxury; forget your luxurious ease; blush for your repinings, your sentimental whimperings, your vapors and indigestion; and remember that you are men and women; and that it is your business to make this earth a paradise, and every human heart a meet temple for the living God. Decidedly, my young friends, you have no occasion to seek excitement in Jack Shepherd or in Ernest Maltravers; decidedly, you have no time to kill between dinner and the hour to dress for the evening lecture, the evening meeting, the theatre, or the assembly. No; you have duties, high and solemn duties, and no fine sentiment, no ability to talk sweetly and pathetically of the last new novel, will weigh one feather in your favor, if you are not true to duty, in earnest to silence the groans of this nether world, and to deliver the whole creation into the glorious "liberty of the sons of God." Passing from these general observations to the author under consideration, we cheerfully admit him to be the best of his class. We have heretofore defended even his morals. Morality has two aspects, one looking towards society, the other towards the individual. We regarded his earlier works as of a moral tendency under the first named aspect. He seemed to us to have some republican sympathies; to be on the side of the people, against their masters; and to demand, in loud and earnest tones, social ameliorations. We therefore pronounced the tendency of his works moral. But we have been deceived in him. He is, after all, a mere dilettante, a mere amateur reformer. He has no true sincerity, no deep earnestness. He is not the man to live and die for the popular cause. He is, after all, an aristocrat at heart, who finds nothing so honorable as |