cannot but think that fresh discoveries of important truth would appear to the mind of man in revelations so vivid and distinct that all men, of equal intellectual capacity at least, might profit by them. We believe that clear conceptions can always be expressed in perspicuous language; and that if these modern philosophers had really grasped new and just ideas, a thing to be expected as the world grows older, they could state them as intelligibly and convincingly as their predecessors in the great business of making the world wiser. But the language of the "learned Gravina" breathes the very spirit of these latter days, when he speaks as follows of a poet whose obscurity most evidently springs from the frequency of his historical and local allusions. "I discern in Dante a great mystery. I have not the key to it; but I see afar off the day when it will be possessed, and his work will be regarded from a far higher point of view." We should hardly imagine that the difficulty of understanding Dante would decrease as we leave his epoch farther and farther behind us in the gloom of antiquity. But these words "great mystery" have a fascination for many, springing from a principle so deeply implanted in human nature that it were vain to contend against any mode in which it may temporarily manifest itself. All things change and pass away in this fluctuating world, even fashions of philosophy: the love of the marvellous and vague will assume some new phasis after a while, and the time will come when men will be satisfied with the degree of mystery in which God has left his own bright nature and dealings involved, without wrapping them in the mists that arise from their own busy fancies.

We cannot but wish too that Signor Maroncelli had announced his system with the prepossessing grace of modesty. The passage we quote must justify this wish.

"The work which I composed embraced all the fine arts. It was, properly speaking, a new general theory of poetry, not adapted to a transition state, as that of Hermes Visconti of necessity was, but at once stable and progressive; stable in such a way that it will be more and more confirmed in proportion to the progress of the moral, political, and religious condition of man in the present age, and beyond it, even to the greatest advancement which the future may attain."

But the second volume of the work before us communicates many interesting facts; and in the details which Signor Maroncelli gives us, over which no exciding knife was held by the

censor, we behold the petty tyranny of which these unhappy gentlemen were the victims, in all its glorious absurdity. Cruel, yet ridiculous, were many of the barbarities to which they were subjected; and the humblest individual who reads of them may despise in his heart the "good Franz," under whose sway such things were permitted, by whose very autograph some of them were sanctioned. Truly the sons of Austria may not blame the children of Israel for having worshipped a golden

calf.

There are times when the contemplation of the state of things under such a despotism kindles a hope of better days. It seems as if the trodden worm must turn; as if a tremendous power of reaction must at length be roused, as if the cry of the oppressed must make itself heard at the footstool of Almighty Justice. Without metaphor, we feel as if human beings could not and would not endure for ever a bondage so galling. But alas! we look more narrowly, and we behold a tyranny so complete in all its parts, so perfect, so systematized, that hope dies within us. If slavery cannot breathe in England, freedom cannot breathe in Austria. In the national character, in the very constitution of the Austrian, there seems to be an adaptation for slavery; he is a beast of burden, a very donkey in his nature, stupid, obstinate indeed, but helpless against the panniers and the cudgel. An ignorant people cannot appreciate freedom; and how can knowledge get at an Austrian? The principle of subjection in his very soul makes him a welldisciplined sentinel, an admirable police officer, a most faithful secondino; nothing will tempt him to swerve from his obedience, and from his childhood his enjoined task is to stand guard with the musket on his shoulder, against the entrance of the scholar, the philosopher, the philanthropist, within those dark. domains. Austria is a slave: Italy is the bondwoman of a Helot.

But Italy yet remembers that there is such a thing as liberty. Austria has worn her chains till she frets in them no more, and habit has lightened their weight; while Italy yet struggles, and they chafe to the quick. If there is hope for suffering Europe, it is here. While there are still signs of life, while there is consciousness, resistance, effort to be free, there is hope. In Austria liberty is locked down in cold, silent, motionless death; in Italy she is filleted and bound for sacrifice, but the victim that eyes the free woods and plains in utter desperation,

may yet burst the thongs, spurn the priests, and bound from the very horns of the altar. The most vague notions of liberty if they excite interest, aspirations, and struggles, may result in the study of its nature, in a more distinct conception of its peculiar advantages, in more judicious and successful exertions to obtain it. And how curious, how beautiful, how edifying is it to watch "th' eternal art educing good from ill!" to contemplate the vast yet delicate machinery of human events slowly evolving the fairest of blessings from the darkest of calamities, by processes we can neither anticipate, control, nor comprehend! In these times of affliction, we see many of the worthiest sons of Italy wandering away in exile, learning to exchange their own sweet language, that flows like melted Latin, for the harsh tongues partly of barbarous origin, and pining with homesickness under the foggy skies of Britain, or among the still remoter strangers of another hemisphere. It is not likely that all these unhappy men are to lay their bones in a foreign grave. Some will perhaps return at length to their beloved Italy; and what will they carry back? What boon have they as the reward of their expatriation? All seeming evil is for some good purpose; why are these patriots scattered among the nations of the earth? It remains to be seen whether they are not sent as it were from home to school; whether they will not profit by having lived under liberal governments; by having had opportunities of studying the constitutions of free nations in actual operation; by having come close to that which requires close inspection to be understood. Many a beautiful theory, many a fair political fabric, conjured up in their youthful imaginations, may have faded; but it remains to be seen if, when their passions have cooled, their judgments have been. ripened, and their experience enriched by observation, they will not carry home a treasure of more enlightened views, more rational projects, a better knowledge of the objects to be aimed at, and the dangers to be avoided in seeking to enfranchise their countrymen. We shall see if they are not fitting themselves to become the wise legislators of a free people.

From the interesting pages of which we now take leave, we have drawn at least two happy omens for the oppressed land of song. Best of all symptoms is it to find men in the very bosom of the Catholic church professing themselves Christians in language so rational as that of Pellico in the third chapter of his Memoirs; and next best is it, to read of designs so fraught

with enlightened public spirit as those mentioned in Maroncelli's Appendix, from the 214th to the 218th page, originating with some of the most influential men of Lombardy. These designs may have failed; they may have been crushed; they may fail and be crushed again and again; but it does not seem to us that the vital principle of liberty is likely to be annihilated among the countrymen of Porro, Confalonieri, Visconti, and Silvio Pellico; and we repeat, as we close these volumes, there is yet hope for suffering Italy.

ART. V.-I. A Sermon preached at the Ordination of Charles F. Barnard, and Frederick T. Gray, as Ministers at Large in Boston, by JOSEPH TUCKERMAN; with The Charge, by WILLIAM E. CHANNING. Boston. 1834. 2. A Discourse delivered before the Benevolent Fraternity of Churches in Boston, on their First Anniversary, April 9, 1835. BY WILLIAM E. CHANNING. Boston. 1835. 3. The Necessity for a Christian Ministry in special Adaptation to the Poor; Two Sermons preached in RenshawStreet Chapel, Liverpool. With a Prospectus and Plan of the Objects of the proposed Ministry. By JOHN H. THOM. Liverpool. 1836.

4. A Sermon preached in the Second Unitarian Church in Mercer Street, on the Moral Importance of Cities, and the Moral Means for their Reformation, particularly in a Ministry for the Poor in Cities. By the Rev. ORVILLE DEWEY. New York. 1836.

OUR purpose is not to review these publications, but to make some remarks on their subject; a subject, one of the best proofs of whose importance is found in the existence of writings relating to it, so marked with dignity and power. We would give as true a portrait as we can of the actual ministry at large in this city. We hope not to draw the perfect image, but plainly to sketch the main features; a few coarse lines sometimes present the face with juster shape and expression, than the most polished engraving. Our points are the foundation of this

ministry, its true purpose and idea, its form, its action, its danger, its hope.

First, its foundation. This, in the large sense, we believe to be in the everlasting truth and law of God. We believe it the divine will that the vast chain of being should nowhere be rent, that link everywhere should join to link,— and that, in the attractive circulations of love, the countless orders of the universe should glide smoothly on in eternal progression. The chronicle of many a world that shines on high would doubtless give better illustrations of this principle than can be furnished by our poor earth.

Again, and more specially, this ministry to the poor has its foundation in Christ. Ancient wisdom, or ancient religion, gave no proper basis for it. It is cheering indeed, that, in ages of darkness, the "caves of philosophy were made to sparkle" to the sons of wealth and genius. Socrates and Plato were brilliant stars, and attracted from the few a gaze of admiration. But the whole world wanted a sun, and cried for life as well as light. With the Saviour, it was not " great souls" alone that were destined for immortality, but all souls, to him were great. His faith and hope humanity. And who needs now be told that but one expression of this faith and hope? the gospel preached unto them." It was indeed a satisfying proof of his divine sonship, and comes in after the enumeration of those works, "which no man could do unless God were with him," like the fitting close of some sublime anthem.

or rather all souls were in universal his whole life was "The poor have

Lastly, the ministry at large is based in the character of our civilization, and the necessities of present society. Not yet are we, according to the Saviour's prayer, "all one." Much of heathendom lies in the very midst of Christianity, not circulating freely so as to be likely to receive virtue from whatever leaven is in the whole lump, but existing a solid mass by itself, and visited but seldom and uncertainly by a single beam of light. What stronger reason could exist for the establishment and vigorous support of such an institution as the ministry at large? We are aware no moral position is so impregnable as to be safely shielded from the assaults of doubters and disbelievers. We know some persons have a set style of speaking on this subject. Society, they say, is a divine institution, controlled by divine Providence. The high and low, the happy and miserable, forms of degradation as well as shapes of glory, we