we were pressed out of measure, above strength, insomuch that we despaired even of life; but we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God who raiseth the dead. For our rejoicing is this, the testimony of our conscience." Was there ever, in his eventful history, a situation of peril or pf suffering, in which he was not sustained and cheered by the voice of an approving and rejoicing conscience ? Under its bliss-inspiring influence, the dungeon at Philippi, at the midnight hour, was even as the gate of heaven : and at Rome, in the prospect of a speedy martyrdom, he could say with undisturbed serenity, “I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought a good fight: I have finished my course : I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for ne a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, shall give me at that day; and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing." These concluding words intimate, that the joyous an. ticipations thus expressed, were not peculiar to the Apostle, but were such as all who love the Saviour are authorised to cherish. They have been adopted, with serene composure, or with seraphic joy, by thousands and tens of thousands of departing Christians; whose dying experience attested, that to them death had lost its terrors and its sting. Directing the eye of faith to Jesus on the cross, making atonement for their sin; to Jesus before the throne, interceding for his peuple; and to Jesus in his glory, exercising uncon. trolled authority over the invisible world and over death ; they have seen no cause of trepidation in a departure from the present life: but have exulted in the prospect of being the inhabitants of another and a happier province of their Redeemer's empire, rendered attractive by his presence, and irradiated by the beams of his glory. May our end, like theirs, be peace and joy! And cannot the Gospel and the grace of Christ accomplish that for us, which it has already effected for them? Not more secure from change are the promises of the Saviour, recorded in his word, than the dispositions which reign in his heart. Let us then, with an entire reliance, entrust to his love and to his care the interests both of our mortal bodies and of our never-dying spirits. With a conscience sprinkled by his atoning blood, and purified by his word and spirit, may each of us be enabled through life and in death to exclaim, " I know in whom I have believed, and I am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed to him until that day.”' p. 42. It is due to the Author of these valuable lectures, to state, that they have been longer on the shelf than we could have wished, or than comported with the estimate we had formed of their intrinsic merit. We wish them, what they deserve, a very extensive sale. Art. V. Specimens of the Russian Poets, with Introductory Remarks. Part the Second. By John Bowring, F.L.S. 12mo. pp. xx. 274. Price Ss. London. 1823. W E are glad to meet Mr. Bowring again on the neutral ground of poetical literature; for, while we honour his zeal, and commend his manly frankness, in the cause of the theological opinions he has espoused, we cannot but regard his religious productions with the more jealousy, on account of the talent which they display, and the estimable qualities of his character. These will, to a certain extent, give currency to compositions which it is impossible for us not to consider as highly exceptionable in their religious tendency. The blame, we are far from laying on the Author's design or motives in the publication alluded to: it devolves on his opinions, of which we think just so much the worse for this palpable exhibition of their vitiating influence on the sentiments of a man, whom, but, for his erroneous tenets, we should have hailed as an auxiliary. The present volume was written during Mr. Bowring's solitary confinement in the prison of Boulogne; and it affords a remarkable proof of the energy and elasticity of his mind under circumstances adapted at once to depress and to agitate his spirits. I shall recal,' he says, this memorable epoch of my life with gratitude and pride-gratitude to that active sympathy which my situation awakened, and pride in the ' recollection, that, in the darkest moment, no dejection, far 'less despondency, had place in my mind.' This volume is the noblest revenge he could have taken on his persecutors. So long as it has a place in our literature, it will perpetuate the disgrace which his treatment reflects on the men who at present misgovern France in the name of the Bourbon. The 'poetry,' says Mr. Bowring, which is here presented' is the poetry of a highly imitative, strongly feeling, but despotically governed people, erected upon a magnificent, sonorous, and flexible language, blending something of the wildness of oriental character with the sternness and sobriety of European precision. That the impress of our literature, and that of our neighbours, is to be most distinctly traced, is quite certain. Nearly half the poetry which Russia possesses, is translation. Their leading authors have travelled, and have taken back with them the treasures they found; and they have done good service. The most obvious resemblance is to the German school: and to the honour of the Germans be it said, that their influence on the civilization of Russia has been most extensive and salutary. Their patient industry, their general intelligence, their social habits of life, have so interblended them with the Russian people, working a silent but an effective 1 change, that the whole mass will become leavened with their longsuffering, their industrious, and intellectual virtues. The necessary result of an habitual intercourse with foreign nations,—an intercourse established by Peter the Great, and most wisely encouraged by all his successors, -was the introduction of models which placed the poets of Russia, as to form at least, on a level with the most cultivated people of the South. Their language easily lent itself to all the varieties of versification, and without the gradations of advancing improvement, they adopted a style of poetical composition which they have found no reason to modify or change. • On the whole, the present volume will possess a character much more decidedly national than the former. A variety of poems connected with the earlier history of Russia, and others representing the peculiar habits of the Russians, are introduced. The national songs especially will, I trust, excite some attention. These are the poetry of the people. These are the fragments whose authors are never raised from the darkness of oblivion -—these are the joy and the study of the peasantry, their consolation in the dreariness of their wintry dwellings, conveyed from tongue to tongue through many a generation. These are no subjects for criticism ; for criticism cannot reach them it cannot abstract one voice from the chorus, nor persuade the village youths and maidens that the measure is false, or the music is discordant. The forms of versification, though some of them are rude and irregular, I have endeavoured to preserve as a part of their original charm. I have heard them sung in the wooden huts of the cottagers ; and have been cheered by them when the boor has wbirled by me in his uncouth sledge over the frozen snow. The rude melody, often gentle and plaintive, in which they found utterance, still vibrates in my ear. I ask for them no admiration - they are the delight of millions. The fame of the Iliad is nothing to theirs.' If Mr. Bowring means Pope's Iliad, we agree with him; and surely, he cannot be serious in comparing the most popular of all ancient poems,-one which forms the epitome of the language and literature of classical Greece,-a poem the delight of five and twenty centuries, itself the fountain-bead of a thou nd streams of verse, --with any thing that can be furnished by the infant literature of Russia. It is Chevy Chase to Paradise Lost,—" Guerrino Meschino” to Dante. In Boulogne prison, the recollection of these Russian songs would come to his mind linked with a variety of pleasing associations, the charm of which would be exaggerated by contrast, . But we who receive them through the medium of translation, divorced from the plaintive melodies which gave them half their expression, have no other means of judging of them than by their intrinsic merit; and though they may not be, as compositions, subjects for ciriticism, still, unless they are recommended by some of those touches of pathos, or gentle sentiment, or beautiful simplicity, which give a grace beyond the reach of art' to some of our old ballads, the mere fact of their being the delight of millions, would not render them worthy of notice-any more than the senseless carols and ditties which are heard with delight by our own villagers. Waiving our Author's indiscreet comparison, however, we are ready to admit that these poems have highly interested us; and, as exhibiting the early development of poetical literature in a nation bursting into civilization,' they must be regarded, if not with admiration, yet, with satisfaction and some portion of surprise. If the boors of Muscovy are really capable of receiving delight from the originals, they would certainly seem to be considerably in advance of a large proportion of our English rustics. The following occurs among the National Songs.' Query, how would it be received by a village audience in Zomerzetshire? 'On an oak there sate Borne by winds of heaven. Sat the mourning mate; How she groan'd and sigh'd Weep not-why complain, Little turtle, love?' The next we shall transcribe, has more the air of a native ballad, and is in a more popular style of sentiment: an English ear misses, however, the clink of rhyme. Sing, O sing again, lovely lark of mine, In the prison tower the lad sits mournfully, To his father writes-to his mother writes: Sing, O sing again, lovely lark of mine, From the prison tower thus the prisoner wrote, Come, attendant! come-come my faithful nurse- 'Sing, O sing again, lovely lark of mine, Sitting there alone amidst the green of May.' |