able that the name of God is not once mentioned in it, though it distinctly introduces the efficacy of prayer and of national humiliation, and the certainty that punishment will overtake the wicked; and it teaches faith in some implied promise or assurance that Israel should not be forsaken. Various reasons have been assigned for its reserve; amidst which one thing at least is clear, as professor Stuart has remarked, namely, that if a Jew in later times had wished to palm upon his countrymen as ancient and authentic a narrative which he had composed himself, he would have taken care not to raise suspicion by silence on points which every Jew must instantly have noticed. Mr. Rawlinson, with great skill, as it appears to us, as well as by a comparison with ancient monuments and secular historians, has forcibly shown the verisimilitude of the story. Different arguments affect different minds; for our own part, the character of Ahasuerus, in its accurate correspondence with that of Xerxes, as drawn by Herodotus and others, is more convincing than all the rest. It may seem too refined an argument, - perhaps, to some, too subtle a kind of evidence; but it is one extremely difficult to construct. We question whether any tolerable portraiture of a human character which was properly ideal, has ever yet been drawn by poet, philosopher, or writer of fiction. There has always been an act of the memory as well as one of the imagination. The portrait has been drawn from nature; imagination has only compounded several likenesses into one. Much less, then, is it probable that an historian, and a writer of fiction, unacquainted with each other, should draw, the one an historical, the other an ideal, picture of the same personage, and that there should be even a moderate agreement between the two; an exact correspondence can be accounted for only on the supposition that both drew from an original model. We have mentioned but a few instances, which are barely sufficient to show the nature of Mr. Rawlinson's argument. Other coincidences no less striking are adduced both from profane history and the cuneiform inscriptions. There are three lectures upon the New Testament history; in which the evidence to its truth is argued, from internal evidence, from that of adversaries, and from the testimony of the early Christian converts. This ground has been so well trodden that we cannot expect much originality. Yet there are some remarks which are fairly entitled to that distinction. Strauss, and other modern opponents of the gospel history, for example, ashamed to ascribe the entire religion to imposture, have introduced the mythical explanation. The gospel myths, we are told, grew up in the space of about thirty years, between the death of Jesus and the destruction of Jerusalem. These are the words of Strauss; but the theory is destroyed in the following sentences:— "But in the Epistles and the Acts there is evidence that through. out the whole of this time the belief of the church was the same the apostles, themselves the companions of Christ, maintained from the first the reality of those marvellous events which the evangelists have recorded. They proclaimed themselves witnesses of the resurrection-appealed to the miracles and signs which Jesus had wrought, and based their preaching altogether upon the facts of the gospel narrative. There is no historical ground for asserting that that narrative was formed by degrees; nor is there any known instance of a mythic history having grown up in such an age, under such circumstances, or with such rapidity as is postulated in this case by our adversaries. The age was an historical age, being that of Dionysius, Diodorus, Livy, Velleius Paterculus, Plutarch, Valerius Maximus, and Tacitus - the country was one where written records were kept, and historical literature had long flourished; it produced, at the very time when the New Testament documents were being written, an historian of good repute, Josephus, whose narrative of the events of his own time is universally accepted as authentic and trustworthy. To suppose that a mythology could be formed in such an age and country, is to confuse the characteristic of the most opposite periods -to ascribe to a time of luxury, over-civilization and decay, a phase of thought which only belongs to the rude vigour and early infancy of nations." (p. 222.) The last argument in the book is, we are obliged to say, the weakest. It is, that miraculous powers existed in the church till nearly the close of the second century. There is good evidence, our author thinks, that the ability to work miracles was not confined to the apostolic age; and to the "existence of these powers" he assigns "that speedy conversion of thousands upon thousands, that rapid growth of the church in all quarters which would otherwise be so astonishing." But the evidence fails upon examination. He quotes from the Martyrdom of Ignatius the well-known passage in which the bishops, the elders, and deacons of Asia crowded about him, expecting that he would impart some spiritual gift. The words, whether intentionally or not, are those which Paul makes use of in the epistle to the Romans (i. 9.), xápioμa πvevμatiкòv, from which he infers that they expected to receive miraculous powers from the martyr. But this is perfectly gratuitous; and we are surprised that Mr. Rawlinson should have accepted an interpretation on which our best scholars have ceased to insist. To go no further, Dr. Vaughan of Harrow, in his brief but valuable notes on the epistle to the Romans, just put into our hands, says, "these words may include miraculous gifts, for the communication of which the presence of an apostle seems ordinarily to have been necessary; see Acts viii. 14-17: but more generally, any kind of spiritual blessing, increased knowledge, hope, strength," &c.; that is, as Paul himself goes on to say, "that ye may be established, that is, that I may be comforted together with you by the mutual faith both of you and me." It would surely be far more worthy of the primitive clergy of Asia to crowd round the dying saint in the hope of receiving con solation such as this, than in the superstitious vanity of either seeing a miracle or being endowed with the power of working one. Papias and Justin Martyr are also cited; and possibly in their time miracles were still wrought; for they lived among the persons on whom our Lord had conferred the power of working miracles, or who received them on the day of Pentecost, and during a few subsequent years; and these persons, it is possible, though we have no certain proof of the fact, may have continued to exercise their miraculous powers after the close of the apostolic canon. But when we come to a later day, all is mere hearsay. Irenæus (we are quoting Mr. Rawlinson,) speaks of miracles as still common in Gaul when he wrote, which was nearly at the close of the second century. Quadratus the apologist is mentioned by a writer of the second century as exercising them. The writer in question is one quoted by Eusebius, the credulous Eusebius. Such testimony at second hand is altogether unsatisfactory-" Tertullian, Theophilus of Antioch, and Minucius Felix, authors of the same period, are witnesses to the continuance to their day of at least one class of miracles." The class of miracles here alluded to is that of casting out devils; which we need not say, standing alone, and neither flanked by other miracles nor attested by miraculous effects in the person cured, is the least satisfactory kind of supernatural influence that could have been adduced; inasmuch as, granting all the phenomena, there may have been no miracle,-nothing more than the ordinary operation of the Holy Spirit as now exhibited in Ireland and other places. There is, we are persuaded, no such evidence as ought to convince a cautious inquirer, however humble (and humility is a part of caution in such a case as this), that any one of the apostolic fathers wrought miracles, or distinctly claimed for himself the power of doing so. And as to the rapid progress of the gospel, its triumph is a far more glorious achievement without miracles than with their assistance. So taught St. Paul, when he implored the Corinthians to covet earnestly the best gifts, and answered them that the best of all gifts was charity. So taught Paul's Master, when he said, "Blessed are they which have not seen and yet have believed." In saying this, what are we maintaining but the trite position that moral assent is a higher and nobler exercise of the understanding and the heart, than an assent, however cordial, yielded to the testimony of the senses? But this is a small matter, a single fly in a rich perfume; not enough to mar the savour of the ointment. We are too much indebted to the Bampton Lecturer for his addition to our historical evidences, to be disposed to captiousness. He has opened a vein which, in our time at least, will not be exhausted, and has shown his successors how to work it. It seems, in the providence of God, as if the bane and antidote should grow in the same field, and ripen in the selfsame hour. Strauss and his followers had scarcely completed their theory of a mythic interpretation of that which ages had reverenced as authentic history, when voices burst from the mounds of Babylon and Nineveh to condemn their folly. The voices grow louder year by year. It is now not merely the substantial truth, but the verbal accuracy of sacred scripture, and that too in some of its most astonishing and, so to speak, least credible statements, that are already verified; and, to conclude in the forcible words of our author "Perhaps a time may come, when through the recovery of the complete annals of Egypt, Assyria, and Babylon, we may obtain for the whole of the sacred history that sort of illustration which is now confined to certain portions of it. God, who disposes all things after the counsel of his own will,' and who has given to the present age such treasures of long-buried knowledge, may have yet greater things in store for us, to be brought to light in his own good time. When the voice of men grows faint and feeble, then the very 'stones' are made to 'cry out, Blessed be the name of God for ever and ever; for wisdom and might are his. He revealeth the deep and secret things; he knoweth what is in the darkness, and the light dwelleth in Him.' THE POET LAUREATE. Idylls of the King. By Alfred Tennyson, D.C.L., Poet Laureate. The Grandmother's Apology. By Alfred Tennyson. 1859. In Memoriam. Eighth Edition. London: Moxon and Co. 1859. THE "Idylls of the King," albeit it is the great poem of the present day, will not perceptibly augment the fame of its author, or extend his popularity. It has too little that is akin to real life and its sympathies, to take much hold of the public mind. Those who have long idolized the name of Tennyson; those who deem themselves the initiated, and who receive with blind adoration whatever falls from his pen,—will continue to magnify the "Idylls" as an immortal poem; but the million will return a different verdict. In the next generation the poem will be what Milman's "Samor" and Southey's "Roderick" are now-works not wholly forgotten; but seldom opened, and scarcely ever purchased. The plan of the work is a good one. Four stories-each in itself complete, while all the four form parts of a connected history-give us, when taken together, a tolerably distinct idea of king Arthur, his court, and his Round Table. These stories are named after four ladies of Arthur's court; but although the heroines are thus brought into the foreground, their knights are, in truth, the chief personages in the history; and the portraitures of Arthur, Lancelot, and Geraine occupy the greatest space on the canvass. Enid is the wife of prince Geraine; and like Elaine the only other blameless female character-is a tame and insipid sort of person. The prince finds her in a ruined tower, dressed in a "faded silk," and being pleased with her appearance, proposes, the same afternoon, to marry her; and does, in fact, wed her on the third day following. He then, shortly after, becomes uxorious :: "Forgetful of the falcon and the hunt, Forgetful of the tilt and tournament, till the people "begin to babble," and his wife herself feels ashamed of her husband's weakness. This part of the story is poorly conceived, and is immeasurably surpassed by Prior's de scription of Solomon under similar circumstances. Enid, conscious of the eclipse of her lord's influence and fame, grieves over it, and blames herself for fearing to tell him of his loss of reputation. In uttering her lamentation in the night, the words, me, I fear that I am no true wife !" are overheard by her husband; who attaches the worst meaning to them, and his love gives place to hatred. He takes a strange and sudden resolution, on the instant, to sally forth, like Don Quixote, in search of adventures,-taking his wife with him as a substitute for a squire. He rides forth, and meets three knights in full armour, whom he instantly kills, Enid standing by. An hour after, a second three, one of whom is a giant, appear, and these share the same fate. The six chargers, laden with the six suits of armour, are then committed to Enid, with the injunction, "Drive them on before you :" "and she drove them through the wood." Another encounter, with a whole troop of the followers of earl Limours, leaves the prince slightly wounded; so that, bleeding secretly beneath his armour, he at last becomes faint, and falls from his horse. Earl Dosrin and his troop approach, and carry both the prince in his swoon, and Enid, into that earl's castle. Here the earl seeks to gain Enid as a wife, and on her refusal, strikes her. The prince, who had recovered from his swoon, and lay silent by, leaps up, kills the earl, and carries his wife off; promising that he will never doubt her more. And so ends the first story. The second, of "Vivien," is the worst portion of the book ; the most strained and unnatural. Vivien is one of the ladies of |