VI.

They laid him in the tomb

Thou followedst still-and morning's earliest ray
And midnight's latest gloom

Still found thee watching where the Saviour lay;

The earth was there thy bed, the cave thy home,

Till the sealed grave was rent-the stone was rolled away.

VII.

The Victor Victim rose

And what, true Saint, was then thy meet reward?

The eye that watched his woes

Was first to hail the rising of the Lord!

O when were tears so pure, so blest as those

Which gushed, when at his feet she knelt-gazed-wept-adored!

Pp. 313–315. If we were in a true critical humour, we should be inclined to visit the engraving, after Titian, to which these beautiful stanzas are attached, with our severest strictures. It is in the painter's loosest style; and, to our untutored eyes, savours very strongly of indelicacy. The figure of the Saviour borders on the ridiculous; and Mary's attitude is absolutely so. With this exception, the embellishments generally are well chosen, and well executed. We admire especially the vignette, "The Head of Christ crowned with Thorns," after Lawrence; West's picture of "Christ blessing little children;" "Nathan and David," after the same artist, by Sangster; "The Deluge," after Poussin; and "Judas returning the Thirty Pieces," after Rembrant.

In parting with Mr. Dale, we would suggest to him the propriety of confining his contributions exclusively to those which are written by members of the Church of England. We do not know, as we observed in our review of the first volume of the Iris, that we have any right to quarrel with a name, so long as the writer bearing it offends not our moral or religious creed. Yet it strikes us, that there is enough of talent among churchmen to adorn the Iris : and would not a clergyman of the Establishment be in quite as good company with associates of his own persuasion, as with those who have not a feeling in unison with his own? We are well assured that no dissenter of them all, would insert a contribution from Mr. Dale to an annual of their own manufacture; and it is surely a spurious liberality, that gives to an adversary what would be equally acceptable to a friend.

The Amulet is introduced by a lovely picture, after Lawrence, of "The Countess Gower and her Child ;" and the engravings, with one or two exceptions, do infinite credit to the several artists. We have no room,

however, to particularise. The literary portion of the work is only inferior to that of the Iris; as it is but justice to say, that it surpasses its rival in its embellishments. Its main fault, and it is common to all the Annuals, is too great a sameness in its yearly contributors. The same names occur constantly; whereas, an abundant variety might be easily supplied by a little extra exertion on the part of the editor and

proprietors. Novelty is charming; and though Mrs. Hemans, L. E. L., Miss Jewsbury, &c. &c. are very pretty songstresses indeed, yet they occupy too great a space in all the annuals year after year; while a rising aspirant, whose name happens to be unknown to fame, seeks in vain for the proud distinction of "writing for an Annual."

Passing by the prose articles, which, however excellent, are too long to be extracted entire, and will not admit of abridgment, the poetry of the Amulet presents us with the two following pieces, among many more of equal, if not superior merit.

THE POOR MAN'S DEATH BED.

BY CAROLINE BOWLES.

Tread softly!-bow the head

In reverend silence bow!
No passing bell doth toll,
Yet an immortal soul

Is passing now.

Stranger! how great soe'er,
With lowly reverence bow!
There's one in that poor shed,
One by that wretched bed,
Greater than thou.

Beneath that pauper's roof,
Lo! Death doth keep his state;
Enter-no crowds attend-
Enter-no guards defend

This palace-gate.
That pavement damp and cold,
No whispering courtiers tread;

One silent woman stands,
Chafing with pale, thin hands,
A dying head.

No busy murmurs sound;
An infant wail alone :-
A sob suppressed—again

That short, deep gasp-and then
The parting groan!

Oh, change!-Oh, wond'rous change!
Burst are the prison bars!
This moment there so low
In mortal pangs-and now
Beyond the stars!

Oh, change!-stupendous change!
There lies the senseless clod:
The soul from bondage breaks,
The new immortal wakes-
Wakes with his God.

Pp. 109, 110.

DARKNESS.

BY THE LATE REV. R. POLLOK, AUTHOR OF 'THE COURSE OF TIME.'

Still margined with gold are the clouds of the west,
The last steps of day on the mountains are seen;
Haste, haste ye away, to the isles of the blest,
Let darkness unmingled envelope the scene.

In me,

lone and friendless, the fair eye of light
But points out a laugh to a world of scorn;
Kind, kind to the wretched, the shadows of night;
But bitter and taunting the looks of the morn.
Come, daughter of night, gloomy darkness, come forth!
Why tarry so long in the place of thy sleep?
Dost thou dwell in the cold icy halls of the north,
Or slumber the day in the caves of the deep?

Deep muffle the moon in the garments of night,
Roll back from the welkin the stars' twinkling sheen;
By fits, from thy clouds send the red meteor's light,
And let thy dread visage be awfully seen.

Sweet, sweet is thy brow, to a soul wed with grief!
The broad, idle gaze of the world in vain

Seeks for mirth in my face:-I ask not relief,

Burst, my heart, when thou wilt, but never complain.

As watches the wand'rer for way-pointing fires,
As the maid for her love by the moon's dewy light,
As the sailor looks out for the land of his sires,

So wait I the slow-coming footsteps of night.

The notes of thy minstrel, the grave watching owl,
The voice of the wind through the sad piny grove,
The roar of the torrent, the waves' distant growl,

When shrowded in gloom, make the music I love.
Oh, when wilt thou take me, dark night, to thy place,
Where the sleep-frighting footsteps of day never tread,
Where no cold eye of pride scowls on misery's face,

Where Death makes the weary and friendless a bed?

Having paid more particular attention to the two religious Annuals, we may, perhaps, be allowed to take a short glance, at parting, at some others of the class. Of those, which we have yet seen, the Literary Souvenir stands facilè princeps. Lawrence's portrait of Lady Ellis is unquestionably the most finished and beautiful engraving which has yet appeared in any of these periodicals; and it is accompanied by a series of embellishments of very superior excellence, though they must lose greatly by a comparison with this exquisite unique. Next to the Souvenir, we place the "Friendship's Offering,” which we noticed hastily in our last number. Ackermann's " "Forget Me Not" follows at some distance both in literature and illustration. The "Gem" has some very highly finished and beautiful pictures; so has the "Cameo." The "Keepsake," &c. &c. at the time of going to press, we have not seen.

Of the Juveniles, we give the preference to that of Mrs. Hall; chiefly because it really is, what it professes to be, a book of instructive entertainment for the young. The "Letter from London," "Impulse and Amiability," "The Nutting Party ;" and, among the engravings, the Frontispiece, and "Me and My Dog," are capital. Mrs. Watts has been devoting a great portion of her time to-the "Talisman;" but she has, nevertheless, not forgotten her young friends, though her catering, on the whole, has been less successful than that of Mrs. Hall. The "Infant Samuel," in the "Juvenile Forget Me Not," is a pretty picture; and its companions are generally in good taste, and well executed: but the contributions are somewhat above the comprehension of children, and so unsuited to the work.

And now, with a hearty wish for a "merry Christmas and a happy new year," to each and all the editors and readers of these said and sundry little "Trifles," we take our leave of them for the present

season.

ART. III.-The Scheme and Completion of Prophecy, wherein its Design and Use, together with its Sense and Application as the Grand Fundamental Proof of Religion, specially adapted to all periods of the World, and all stages of the Church, are considered and explained; together with an Enquiry into the Shechinah and the Cherubim in the Holy of Holies, and the Visions of the Prophets. By the Rev. JOHN WHITLEY, D. D. T. C. D. Master of the School of Galway. London: Rivingtons. 1830. 8vo. Price 12s.

"IT is of the greatest concernment in the church and commonwealth, to have a right vigilant eye how books demean themselves, as well as men; and thereafter to confine, imprison, and do sharpest justice on them as malefactors; for books are not absolutely dead things, but do contain a potency of life in them, to be as active as that soul was, whose progeny they are; nay, they do preserve as in a viál the purest efficacy and extraction of that living intellect that bred them. I know they are as lively, and as vigorously productive, as those fabulous dragon's teeth; and, being sown up and down, may chance to spring up armed men.”* Some such feeling, as dictated this sentence of our immortal Bard, seems to have influenced the learned author of the work before us. He condemns, with one sweeping anathema, repeated ever and anon with augmented violence throughout the progress of his labours, almost all modern expositors of prophecy," from Napier and Brightman down to Dr. Hales and Mr. Faber." (Sect. 7, p. 258.) The fiercest spirit of his censure is directed against those expositors especially, as having warped and bent the straight and parallel lines of prophecy to particular objects and pressing contingencies,

Who seek for the key of prophecy in the now obsolete and antiquated constitution of the German empire and its seven electors, or in the casual and shortlived effervescence of the atheistical infidelity and impiety of the French Revolution:-Sect. II. p. 86.

Dr. Whitley characterises modern expositions, with almost no exception, as "incongruous," "inadequate," "unjust," "illegitimate," " contentious," "disputatious," "litigious," "fanciful," "distorted,❞— as the low and pitiful employment of partisans ;" and tells us, moreover, that the difficulty of interpreting the prophecies, and the obscurity so much complained of,

do not perhaps arise so much from the subject itself as from defects more immediately in ourselves, and more in our power to remove,- -as from confined and inadequate conceptions of the church,-from narrow and unjust views of religion, from party zeal and undue prepossessions,—from the love of con

* Milton's Areopagitica. edit. fol. Amsterdam, p. 424.

troversy and of victory rather than of concord and of peace, and the preference of opinions or of party to the catholic faith and the whole body of the Church.Sect. I. p. 41.

Nor is he content with pointing out the deficiencies of those writers, who have mischievously misconstrued the prophecies, (from which, doubtless, the Master of Galway School is exempt,) but he condescends to enumerate the qualifications, (possessed, we presume, in his own judgment, by himself,) which entitle a man to handle so perplexed a branch of theology. Prophecy

must be approached with great reverence and with sacred awe, and be investigated with minds amply enlarged and enlightened by the spirit and truth of religion, and profoundly versed in the study and the theology of the New Testament, the apt and adequate elucidation of whose prophecies is the last result and perfection of deep piety, sound discretion, extensive learning, and of great theological tact and acquirements; but before all and above all, of just apprehensions and extensive acquaintance with the history and constitution of the Church of God,—with its vast extent and utmost limits,—with its different interests and various members, with its numerous and watchful enemies, with its ever shifting, never-ceasing conflicts and dangers. And this is a work not merely of labour and of application, but much more of candour and of impartiality, and, above all, of charity.-Sect. II. pp. 86, 87.

"Quid signum tanto feret hic promissor hiatu?" His whole "scheme" is comprised in the position, that

Prophecy, whether it is more immediately engaged in advocating the rights of the one Jehovah, against the idle pretensions and unfounded usurpations of Baal, and of the countless hordes of Deities which swarmed in and ruled the heathen world; or whether it defends the faith and cause of Christ against infidelity and imposture, is solely concerned for the honour of the one true religion, and the interest and establishment of the one true Church, without any reference to the variety of the opinions, or to the differences of parties or of denominations which may be in it.-P. 60.

And that

Having solely for its object and aim the defence of the catholic faith, and the interest and weal of the whole body of the Church, it can take no notice of its various distinctions and almost endless subdivisions, and extends not to the reformation, but only to the propagation of religion.—P. 9.

Hence we are again and again reminded by our author, that the prophecies should be applied" to the definite and particular purpose of advocating ANY and EVERY profession of the Christian faith, and of defending ANY and EVERY part of Christ's Church against infidelity and apostasy, (p. 13); for that their "object is the whole body of Christ; their aim and end the diffusion and establishment of the one true religion, which was preached by our Lord and his Apostles, and has been continued and handed down to us by those who heard them, and succeeded them in the Catholic Church: Quod semper, quod ubique, quod ab omnibus; in which all Christians of all ages and of all places are agreed." (P. 44.) Hence we are taught that prophecy "is not the advocate of national and subordinate Churches, but of the