church membership? And the Mosaic rite | requirements. It was appointed by God of circumcision, which was the initiatory rite himself, and the penalty of being "cut off" of the Israelitish church, and which was per- attached to its non-observance; circumstances formed on infants of eight days old, at once sufficient to demonstrate its relative importoccurs to dictate a conclusive affirmation. ance. But the christian dispensation being antitypical, or spiritual, any merely ceremonial observance cannot be an essential part of its requirements. If, then, infants were eligible subjects for an essential of the Mosaic dispensation-which, however inferior as compared with the christian dispensation, was still the church of God at that time— how much more are they eligible as the subjects of a mere ceremonial appendage to Christianity? new "L'Ouvrier" and "Annette" both attempt to overrule the force of this precedent; "L'Ouvrier," however, deals with a proposition we do not affirm, namely, "that baptism and circumcision are interchangeable or substitutionary from the Jewish to the Christian dispensation." What we are concerned to maintain is, the analogy between the two rites the similarity of the relations they bear to the respective dispensations to which they belong. Christianity was the covenant" in regard to Judaism, or the "old covenant." It was, therefore, both orderly and expedient to adopt a different initiatory rite, whose concurrent types should more truly represent the spiritual appliances of the system. "Annette" attempts to evade the force of the precedent by arguing for a distinction | between the posterity of Abraham as a nation and as a church; but we beg to submit that the children of Israel were representative of a church in their political as well as their social capacity, and thus as a nation; therefore there is no foundation for the distinction "Annette" contends for, and the argument which the precedent furnishes stands intact; indeed, this argument becomes an argument à fortiori, when the different geniuses of the two dispensations are taken into account. The Mosaic dispensation was ceremonial and typical throughout, and as such the rite of circumcision was an essential part of its In conclusion, we call the attention of our readers to the apposition of two remarkable precepts of our Lord: Mark x. 15, "Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child shall not enter therein;" and John iii. 5, "Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of God." In each of these texts there is a condition attached to entrance into the "kingdom of God:" the one is birth "of water" (which phrase is generally allowed to allude to baptism by water); the other, an infantile character or nature. Now, in view of these conditions we would suggest the eminent propriety, beauty, fulness, and scriptural harmony of the ceremony of infant baptism, which unites these two remarkable types of spiritual conditions on that occasion, which of all others is most representative of admission into the kingdom of heaven, viz., initiation into the church, the Lord's kingdom on earth. BENJAMIN. Philosophy. WHICH WAS THE GREATEST POET, MILTON OR SHAKSPERE ? "COMPARISONS are odious;" and in the question whether Shakspere or Milton, each superlatively great, be the greater, there appears something forbidding and ungenerous. The truth is, each is incomparable in his sphere: one as a dramatic poet, the other as an epic; one as the confidant and oracle of Nature, the other of Revelation. Thus viewed, a distinction is discernible, not of measure or capacity, but of divergency. Parnassus had two tops, and two only. Gladly would we place the fame of Shakspere on Hyampea; that of Milton on Tythorea. But the query before us admits of no distinguishing epithets; we are shut up to the consideration, which of the omnific and glorious twain absorbs in his own character most of the quality or qualities comprehended in the simple and unqualified term, "poet;" and, while thus restricted, we must proceed as well as may be, albeit the proceeding bears some analogy to debating whether father or mother be the greater parent; or to a man, blear-eyed and at infinite distance, attempting to resolve how one star differs from another star in glory; or to a discussion as to whether the gleams of the sun, "the all-kissing Titan," are as effulgent in Great Britain as in her antipodes. "L'Ouvrier," evidently coyed (who would not be?) at bringing such kingly spirits into compare, has certainly done little, save so far as bare utterance of opinion suffices, to place Milton "in the exalted position of England's greatest poot." After a careful study of his paper, we can detect nothing calculated to lead an unbiassed inquirer to such a conclusion. Much that is advanced either concerns a common possession of the two poets, or else the superiority discriminated is purely advenient-comes wholly from "the breath of outward circumstance" -from the theme, the form, the occasionimposed necessity-or, above all, from profounder scholarship, and not, we ween, in anywise from affluence in any of the essentials of a poet. It were impertinent, however, to follow "L'Ouvrier" into detail in order to show his virtual neutre ity. Better at once attempt to adduce what we deem positive 66 reason why for Shakspere, considered purely as a poet, we should claim the highest rank. Unless a man be born a poet, he will never attain the true spirit of poetry," said good and learned John Wesley, well nigh a century ago. "We believe that Nature makes poets," lately wrote the excellent author of "The Art of Reasoning," in these pages. Now, divest Milton of all but his native purple (of which we proudly own he possessed no scanty measure); at least, reduce his culture, his acquisitions, to those of the rural swain of Warwick; strip him of much academical training-of much booklore-of Sophocles, Euripides, Virgil, Ovid. Ariosto, Dante, Tasso, of Spenser, of the "thousand-souled" himself, and of Cowley: place the twain on equal ground, and then pronounce which is the greater. Milton, bred a scholar, constantly environed by polished society, could hardly fail, with gifts even slightly above mediocrity, to make a figure in the world. On the other hand, it had been no marvel if, combined with a yet larger measure of natural endowment, it had been an unknown or forgotten name, that of a butcher's son, who, it is recorded, was, in early youth, "very much given to all unluckiness,"-to deer poaching, to indiscreet courtship and premature marriage at eighteen: wandering, subsequently, an adventurer to the metropolis; and, after rising by show gradation from the meanest post, becoming even at last only the principal of a London theatre. But because his name does live, despite all drawback; because that in compositions framed primarily to please the auditory of a playhouse at the close of the sixteenth century, there is preserved and hoarded "an inexhaustible mine of virgin treasure," we concede to him the "highest pinnacle of poetical fame." That Shakspere, destitute of the eminent erudition of Miltor. and living two generations before him, should at this day sustain a comparison with the great Puritan; nay, that he should have cũ his side the majority (we believe) of these best fitted to judge of poetical excellence, seems to us a sufficient establishment of our position. "The name of Shakspere," writes Hallam, "is the greatest in our literature: it is the greatest in all literature. No maa ever came near to him in the creative powers of the mind; no man had ever such strength at once, and such variety of imagination.” 66 Professor Aytoun, in his recent lectures, characterized the greatest poet as one whose works are the most widely apprehensible, most universally influential, recognised, and esteemed. In this regard Shakspere stands incontestably foremost; for of Milton it has been justly remarked, that "he is more admired than read." Shakspere, equally admired, is no less read and studied. He possesses a perennial fund of interest, alike for the meanest capacity and the highest; while yet none can say, I have exhausted him." From the peasant to the prince; from the alien Kossuth, in his prison at Buda, to the compatriot De Quincey, in his study at Lasswade, every mind rejoiceth at his word, as one that findeth great spoil." His lessons of wisdom-of wistful instructionare neither scant nor light; while his beauties, literary, artistic, intellectual, moral, are multitudinous as dew-drops in a morning. And then what writer is quoted, whether in oral or written discourse, as Shakspere? His glittering and profound apophthegms pervade, with the cheer and freshness of sunshine, the eloquence of the senate, the forum, and the pulpit; familiar everywhere as household words, the rapt effluence of this diaphonous oracle. Few will fail to recollect the mention of the preacher who, while declaiming with pious fervour against all plays and playhouses, unwittingly cited an entire passage of "Othello!" The utterances of the butcher's son have become in large measure the texture and woof of the English tongue. Dryden says, "They who accuse him of wrote all his works within some fifteen or wanting learning, give him the greatest sixteen years, and before his forty-eighth commendation. He was naturally learned. year. He needed not the spectacles of books to read nature." This "natural learning" we take to be the fundamental and chief characteristic of a great poet; and we deem it abundantly clear that Shakspere evinced more of it than Milton.. Nor are the intuitive powers of the Bard of Avon superficial or circumscribed. They range with equal felicity over the whole extent of being; from "the poor beetle that we tread upon" to the "raven lion, when he roars with sharp constraint of hunger;" from the imperturbable sailor boy to the "uneasy head that wears a crown;" and from the brutal Bardolph to the philosophic duke; from the "pied daisy" to the "frosty Caucasus;" from the "gentle rain of heaven" to the "swift sulphureous bolt that splits the unwedgable and gnarled oak." Throughout all nature his insight is transcendent, his "creative power and intellectual energy wrestling as in a war-embrace," seeming to pierce all things. "The philosophy of Shakspere (we again quote Hallam) -his intimate searching out of the human heart, whether in the gnomic form of sentence, or in the dramatic exhibition of character, is a gift peculiarly his own." "I know not," writes Carlyle, "such a power of vision, faculty of thought, if we take all the characters of it, in any other man. Such a calmness of depth, placid, joyous strength; all things imaged in that great soul of his so true and clear, as in a tranquil, unfathomable sea!" Coleridge, the greatest genius of his day" logician, metaphysician, bard"— after fifty-five years' disciplined scholarship, thus writes:-"At every new accession of information, after every successful exercise of meditation, and every fresh presentation of experience, I have unfailingly discovered a proportionate increase of wisdom and intuition in Shakspere." The spontaneity, too, of Shakspere is more manifest. Though-after the fashion of Moore in the production of “Lalla Rookh" Milton enforced not upon himself for years a sort of formal incubation; it is, nevertheless, indubitable that, during a considerable portion of his life, his great work, "Paradise Lost," was gradually forming and exuding through the sublimating alembic of his transcendent mind. Shakspere, contrariwise, To the theme, no less than to the form, of his greatest work Milton owes much. "The subject of Paradise Lost' (says Hallam) is the finest that has ever been chosen." "Milton oweth his superiority in majesty of thought and splendour of expression to the scriptures: they are the fountain from which he derived his light; the sacred treasure that enriched his fancy, and furnished him with all the truth and wonders of God and his creation, of angels and men, which no mortal brain was able either to discover or conceive," wrote Dr. Henry Felton, in 1709. Furthermore:- "Milton drew, sometimes, out of other men's wells. Shakspere found, forsooth, his plots in Cynthio's novels, and the skeleton of some of his speeches in Plutarch; but where (asks Gilfillan) found he his sentiment, his imagery, his language, the flesh and blood with which he clothed those dead bones, and the magic of the word of genius by which he made them living men?" The muse of Milton affects theocracy, hovers around whatever is revealed of the Eternal himself—of primeval man-Eden, his pristine abode, and the maleficent power which induced his fall-of the glory of heaven, and the diabolism of hell. In these, truly, is the culmination of greatness; but unfolded, we apprehend, by the inspired word, not by Milton. These have, we grant, shed around our poet a halo of majestic dignity and splendour wholly wanting in every other, but which, as a reflected lustre, can by no means be accounted to him an excellence in our estimate of him strictly as a poet. Yet, "Can there be greatness greater than this?" ejaculates "L'Ouvrier," as if the subject were the poet, the instrument the music, or as if the condor were the chiefest warbler because it towers as heavenward as the peak of Chimborazo. The muse of Shakspere affects things of lesser moment, ranges a wider field, and is, in general, in nowise indebted to the theme. Yet Shakspere, says Dryden, "is always great when some great occasion is presented to him." Poetry stands prominently out, whether he touches the minutest terrestrial object or the greatest, whether it be "the poor harmless fly, with its slender, gilded wings," or the mighty sun, "which fires the proud tops of the eastern pines." The breath of his genius calls forth from an apparent "wild of nothing" reality and beauty, and extracts jewels from reptile loathsomeness and insignificance. Milton reduces and transhapes; Shakspere transmutes, and yields gold from granite. We should naturally look for a more imposing presence in a well-born Londoner than in one born of a lower station, and bred amid 1 the rusticity of a midland county; and the feelings with which we should approach a secretary of the commonwealth would be far different from the feelings with which we should approach the proprietor of a playhouse; an effect produced solely by virtue of accidental position, and not from any, even a cursory estimate of respective character or natural capacity. Such was the relative position of Milton and Shakspere in life; and something analogous seems to obtain now in respect of their poetry. But in equity, in the furtherance of a meet and truthful solation to the question propounded at the head of this article, let any prepossession in favour of Milton, originating by the association of his name with all that is esteemed great among men, be specially canvassed and bounded. What more awing and august, considered in itself and its symbolic significance, than the diadem of Victoria? Ye have we unappealable-yea, sacred warranty-that in a flower of the field dweils more true poetry than in that! Shakspere is as a rose, Milton as the crown. But enough. In concluding these imper fect remarks we are desirous of intimating that we have spoken of these dazzling luminaries in the world's literature through feelings of much diffidence, because necessitated to speak in some sort to the disparagement of surpassing greatness. In unfeigned admiration of Milton as a poet, and especially as pre-eminently a Christian poet, we yield to none; and, had the two names been connected in any other way for discussion, we should, probably, have been found on the other side. Milton we know as a great man among great men; as an eminently learned man, a politician, a Christian; but chiefly as a poet. Of Shakspere, as to his manhood, his acquisitions, his principles, his achievements in life, if aught can be told, there is surely nothing to boast of; he is, in sooth, ALL poet. MILTON.-ARTICLE III. FOR an ordinary intellect to sit in judgment on the relative merits of Shakspere and Milton, seems to indicate a degree of intellectual assurance and pride, which argues but little fitness for the task it attempts; at the same time, no one who is conversant with the poetical works of these two master SAXON minds of the human race, can avoid forming an opinion of their comparative excellence, at least, feeling that degree of personal preference which he ought to have the manliness to avow and defend. Conscious of unfitness for so great a theme, and desiring to avoid the apparent hardihood of attempt ing to comprehend and weigh the powers of a Shakspere and a Milton, I had intended to remain a silent, but deeply interested, spectator of the course of the present debate; hoping thereby to obtain clearer and more exact views for myself, before I ventured publicly to declare and defend them. Finding, however, that there is yet room for another defender of Milton's fame, I am induced to come forward and explain, as far as in me lies, the reasons which induce me to rank him above the "sweet bard of Avon," in the scale of poetic excellence; and in this resolve, I am further confirmed by the conviction that my predecessors, in their admirable articles, have rather wandered round than fairly approached the question. I hope I shall be understood as speaking the honest opinions of a friend, and not as either assuming the office of judge over my brethren, or deprecating their articles, when I say that they appear to me to be dazzled by the greatness of their theme, and to speak a panegyric, instead of asserting and establishing a claim. The articles that have appeared on the side of Milton appear more suited to promote a sudden enthusiasm, than a settled conviction; and I cannot but regret to find one writer, apparently resting much of his reasoning on the assumption, that the better man is the greater poet. measured terms, and in a way that can only excite just indignation, or cause deep pain to every charitable reader, whether belonging to, or (like myself) dissenting from, the body in question. I neither expect, nor wish for, better treatment than he has accorded to other opponents; but I hope, by calling the attention of the readers of the Controversialist to the spirit manifested by this writer, to induce them to resist the attempts made to dictate and force opinions upon them by the means of dogmatic assertion and bold abuse. Those who tell us that they have gained an eminence from which they look down on Milton, have already decided the present question; we need not seek for arguments; the opening declaration is sufficient to awe us into acquiescence, or produce distrust of their intentions. In accordance with our expectations, we find nothing in the article of E. W. S. but uncompromising assertion. "The epic grandeur, the beautiful language, the classic power, and perfect harmony of thought and symbol, to be found in Milton," are acknowledged only to be summarily condemned as "not poetry," and "merely artistic." Let the reader substitute "dramatic beauty" for "epic grandeur," and the sentence will be as true and applicable to Shakspere as it now is to Milton. I appeal to the reader, and fearlessly ask, Is he inclined to accept these auto-phatic decisions as of any value? Channing's description of the tendeney and effects of poetry is quoted as a definition; and Shakspere's poetry is forthwith asserted to agree with this test. We will not stop to show (as might easily be done) that the remarks of Channing are as applicable to the poetry of Milton as to that of Shakspere; but we will call the reader's attention to the last sentence, which E. W. S. has marked in italics. Channing declares that poetry "helps faith to lay hold on future life." Now, we ask any sincere and simple-minded Christian, if such is the Can any The character of the opening article of E. W. S., in favour of Shakspere, seems to require prompt notice. We find him declaring, in his first paragraph, with a hardihood and intellectual presumption ill-befitting the theme, that he does "not profess to have risen" to a superior height to that on which Shakspere stands; although, forsooth, he has gained a "stand-point," from which he is "enabled to look upon all the poetic geniuses of the world, ut qui infra sunt"! "This spiritual elevation," which enables E. W. S. to look down on Milton, we envy not, but rather despise; convinced, as we are, that it is but an airy altitude, as baseless and unsub-result of studying Shakspere? stantial as a dream. I feel the less hesitation in speaking thus strongly of E. W. S., because he appears to carry the same degree of hauteur, and suppositious and self-constituted superiority into all his writings. In a closing article on another topic, he has travelled out of his course to attack and asperse the liturgy, constitution, and officers of a great religious community, in most un one read the gross impurities which so often disfigure the pages of Shakspere,—can any one wade through the oaths and profanities of utterance of many of his characters, and then conscientiously speak of being taught thereby to lay hold on future life, or of receiving therefrom an "assurance" of the truth "of a higher revelation"? Most of the writers on this debate have |