table. Charles had taste to be delighted with his wit, and sense to profit by his wisdom; and when men asked, at the papal or other courts, who was that so agreeable companion of the accomplished King of France, his preceptor in the sciences and his best counsellor in the arduous affairs of government, they were told of the poor and low-born Irish heretic, John Scotus Erigena.

Before Charles's death, it is certain he had refused compliance with a second threatening interdict from Rome, issued by Honorius's successor, and ordering him to be banished from the Paris university; what followed Charles's death, is not so certain. An evident confusion of identity, in the minds of many old as well as modern writers, between the philosopher and another John Scot (an Englishman who lived in the reign of Alfred, taught at Oxford, and was slain by the monks of the abbey of Ethelingey, where he was abbot), has brought Erigena over to England in his latter years at the earnest entreaty of Alfred; has appointed him professor of mathematics and astronomy in the schools of Oxford; has taken him thence to a tutorship in the abbey of Malmesbury; and finally, at the close of the century, has there murdered him with the iron writing-bodkins of his scholars, urged to the deed by heretic-hating monks. The true Johannes Scotus, there is not much reason to doubt, had meanwhile quietly breathed his last in Paris. The well-known Anastasius, librarian to Charles the Bald, wrote of him in 875 as for some years dead. • Wonderful

is it,' says the Bibliothecarian, how that barbarous man-who, placed at the extremity of the world, might, in proportion as he was remote from the rest of mankind, be supposed to be unacquainted with other languages-was able to comprehend such deep things, and to render them in another tongue. I mean John Scotigena, whom I have heard spoken of as a holy man in every respect.

But holy in every respect, only Death had been able to render Erigena. Once out of the way of farther mischief, it was the policy of the Roman Catholic church to appropriate to herself the fame and influence of his wonderful acquirements. His books were withdrawn from circulation, and his name inserted in the Calendar. But in after years, when the question of transubstantiation was again in the mouths of disputants, his unlucky treatise on the Eucharist was suddenly revived. choice was then left to Rome. The manuscript was at once, and for the last time, ordered to be destroyed; and the

No

name of Scotus Erigena was struck from the list of saints by the hand of Baronius. The treatise has never been recovered; but with the lessons that have been recovered from those dark ages, it becomes the more incumbent on us to associate the memory of its writer. And therefore he receives here the place, which, by the rare privilege of genius in anticipating time, he did in reality himself possess,-beside the great actors in those changes and reforms of faith, in those influences and vicissitudes of learning, who come upon the stage of English history with the reign of Henry the Second, and seldom depart from it again.

These invisible but ever-acting influences, which history so seldom deigns to dwell upon, are in truth the springs of history. The past, the present, the future, are in the hands of one overruling and guiding power: MAGNI DEI SAPIENS OPUS. The complete proportion of the grand form of Columbanus brings to its right proportion the exaggerated yet imperfect stature of à Becket; and Scotus Erigena prefigures the Wicliffes and Roger Bacons. The current of our narrative may be now resumed; nor is it necessary that it should again be interrupted.

SONNET

ON THE PROPOSED EXCLUSION OF THE STATUE OF OLIVER CROMWELL FROM THE NEW PARLIAMENT HOUSE.

O ENGLISH people, that in Time's long date,
Slow piling stone on stone, have raised on high
A stately house of freedom, where to lie
Secure and smile, though kings beat at the gate;
Do not, in this your ease, do not forget
Those your forefathers, that in times gone by
Did toil and sweat, and all their lives long ply
At the foundations of your free estate.
Hutchinson-Vane-Hampden, that with his blood
Mortared the stones, and that chief architect,
Oliver Cromwell, he whose heavy hand

Smote the false Stuart. Him would they now eject
From his well-earned honours, and o'erflood
With base neglect that ancient glorious strand!

New Books.

LOVE AND MESMERISM. By HORACE SMITH, ESQ., author of "Brambletye House," &c. 3 vols. post 8vo. Colburn.

THE FOSTER BROTHER. A Tale of the War of Chiozza. Edited by LEIGH HUNT. (Written by THORNTON HUNT.) 2 vols. post 8vo. Newby.

HERE are a brace of novels, the one by an aspirant just entering on the stage, and the other by a veteran renouncing it. In each, of course, different sentiments are pourtrayed; the one being tinged with the feelings of a past, and the other foreshadowed by the coming time. Upon this, however, we have no space to descant, and must proceed to an examination of the fictions; both having claims to attention, exclusive of those arising from their intrinsic merit. Love and Mesmerism, as being the last of a long line of productions which have afforded their age mach amusement and instruction; and the other being the first production of one whose lineal claim to genius gives promise of a bright and useful career.

Love and Mesmerism is not, as its title seems to declare, one tale, but two. Love occupying two volumes and a third, and Mesmerism the remainder of the three devoted to both the stories. Mr. Horace Smith tells us in a preface, gracefully taking leave of his old friend the public, that on closing these volumes he lays down the pen ; and adds what we are glad to hear, that he has derived solid advantages from his works, and success beyond his expectations. To him who can beguile the weary time, or withdraw the attention of the careworn from painful thoughts by a fine and wholesome fiction, the reader so benefited ought to feel the intensest gratitude, and with such a feeling, a large portion of the reading public will take leave of Mr. Horace Smith; and the same parties will be ready to make an advance of gratitude, and cordially greet Mr. Thornton Hunt.

Love is a story of modern Venice, and we cannot say that it possesses the usual vigour of the author's conceptions and delineations. It was originally planned as a drama, and much of it reads with the lightness, not to say flimsiness, of the libretto of an opera. The characters and incidents are common-place, and the story neither interesting nor original. Notwithstanding these defects, there is much in it from the scholarship and descriptive powers of the author that render it readable. should have been sorry to have parted with the author with the reminiscences this story might have left; but he has acted wisely in finishing with Mesmerism, a tale which, though short, is worthy to be ranked with those gems of the language that are printed and reprinted for suc

We

"the

cessive generations, and upon which Walker, and Sharpe, and such publishers, confer immortality by ensconcing them amongst British Classics" and the "Standard Authors." It is beautifully conceived and gracefully developed: uniting the fanciful, the spiritual, and the real, in a manner not exceeded by Fouqué himself. Its object is amiable and just, being an exposition of the sufferings engendered by the homage paid to conventional forms and the neglect of the realities of goodness. The prejudices and vulgar misjudging violence of the many are admirably exposed, and the physical suffering, but spiritual triumph, of the truly good are beautifully pourtrayed. To produce this effect, nothing is overstrained; there are no violent diatribes against the rich; no maudlin sentiments towards the poor. It is the production of a man well versed in the world and mankind, and who having acquired feeling has lost none of his sensibility and humanity. It is the work of a wise old man, who satirises without malice, and who comprehending the weakness and errors of human nature, still sympathises with it. Mesmerism is but lightly touched upon in it, though there are some dialogues respecting it which convey much information, and which will tend at least to procure for this wonderful subject a patient investigation. Every work of Mr. Smith's shows him to be a diligent reader and scholar, and he always applies his learning gracefully and judiciously. This tale shows him also wise and beneficent, and thanking him for it, in the words of the theatre, we "respectfully bid him farewell."

The Foster Brother is also a tale of Venice, but of the middle ages, and ere her Doges had become but "Lord Mayors," her commerce a mere coasting trade, and her gorgeous palaces lodging-houses for foreigners. The author has at once flown at the loftiest quarry-t -the historical novel, which to all the powerful delineations of the human passions should add the interest of great events and momentous struggles. To say that he has perfectly fulfilled the great claims thus selfimposed, would be to flatter him: but if he has not done this, he has shown great capacity, and given strong assurance of future excellence. He scorns all vulgar arts; is above all common-place trick: he disdains to fascinate the attention and move the feelings by any of those arts of exaggeration with which the commonest romance writer can trepan his reader. His aim is to delineate human character; to trace with a firm hand human creatures, and by legitimate means place them in situations to dramatically pourtray them. He has a picturesque and lively imagination, and draws with the hand of a painter the scenes wherein his characters are set. He has a nice and delicate perception, and occasionally a felicity of language, especially in description, which shows he is mentally as well as bodily the descendant of his father. Happy phrases and expressions burst out which remind one of the old and highest writers of fiction. The story is interesting, and the passion high, and the whole sentiment liberal and noble as one. should expect from one connected with the producers of our finest.

recent literature. He has made a good beginning, and must proceed, and we should like to see him try English ground for his next production, feeling assured that his delicate perception of character and powers of delineation, will enable him to throw aside completely the factitious aid which distance of scene and remoteness of time afford the romance writer.

THE FALL OF NAPOLEON; an Historical Memoir. By LIEUT.-COL. J. MITCHELL, H.P., &c. 3 vols. post 8vo. G. W. Nickisson.

To examine with the acumen and impartiality of a philosopher into the claims of those who have engrossed an unusual share of notoriety; to separate the false applause given by the idle, the impassioned, and the interested, from the award made by the competent and the disinterested, is a very valuable service. It is fulfilling the office of time, and rendering that justice which posterity is supposed to perform towards its progenitors. In so far, Colonel Mitchell's book will be taken up with unusual interest; his theme is a fine one: extending over a long period, and embracing a wide circuit of human circumstances. The subject is well worthy of elaborate consideration, and as nothing is more injurious to morals than misapplied praise, it is of the greatest advantage to strip the laurel from the brow of the impostor, and thus remove the incitement to erroneous emulation and misdirected energy. There are several modes of pursuing such an examination. But the fairest, and therefore the most effectual, is the one pursued by Colonel Mitchell, and that is to test the examined by his own creed of morals and his own standard of merit. It is hardly just to make the individual the stalking-horse for an attack on a set of principles, and compare Alexander to a highwayman, or Napoleon to a brigand. There can be no doubt that war is an evil of the greatest magnitude; that it corrupts the individual, and is deeply injurious to the cause of justice and virtue: but these questions had better be settled on their own merits, for the question with the individual is not what is actually right or wrong, but what he esteems so. A man may be very erroneous without being criminal, and doubtless this is the case with most warriors, who shed human blood rather as mistaken barbarians than villains. In so far as the principle of Colonel Mitchell's book goes, he is right. Here is a military man examining the military proceedings of another military character, and testing his abilities and conduct by a standard which he himself would acknowledge. So far the admirers of Napoleon can have nothing to complain of, nor can they pass over the book as the production of a tame civilian, who, without passion or sense of glory, indulges in the vain idea that human nature can be sobered to the utter extinction of warlike furor. Colonel Mitchell has shown, in his interesting life of Wallenstein, that he is deeply imbued with martial feeling, and full of the esprit du corps. He has also great ability as a writer; he is exceedingly well informed: has a warm, animated style, a clear