laying himself out in the work of faith, the patience of hope, the labour of love. Let my soul be with these Christians, wheresoever they are, and whatsoever opinion they are of. "Whosoever thus doth the will of my Father which is in heaven, the same is my brother and sister and mother.""

And we add, capping this declaration with our heart's heartiest approval, let every one that readeth this say Amen. We regret that our space will not allow us to transfer to our pages the fine anecdote of the casual interview between the venerable Charles Simeon, then a young Calvinistic clergyman, and the aged apostle of Methodism, so creditable to the wisdom and piety of both. Our readers who may not be acquainted with it are referred to the memoir of Simeon by Carus.

Unlike many, unlike most enduring celebrities, Wesley was successful, popular, appreciated during his lifetime, nor had to wait for posthumous praise. This was doubtless owing in part to the practical bent his genius took, which was calculated to win popular regard, but also to the unequalled excellence he displayed in the line he had chosen. The man who was known to have travelled more miles, preached more sermons, and published more books than any traveller, preacher, author, since the days of the apostles, must have had much to claim the admiration and respect of his contemporaries. The man who exhibited the greatest disinterestedness all his life through, who has exercised the widest influence on the religious world, who has established the most numerous sect, invented the most efficient system of church polity, who has compiled the best book of sacred song, and who has thus not only chosen eminent walks of usefulness, but in every one of them claims the first place, deserved to be regarded by them and by posterity as no common man. A greater poet may rise than Homer or Milton, a greater theologian than Calvin, a greater philosopher than Bacon or Newton, a greater dramatist than any of ancient or modern fame, but a more distinguished revivalist of the churches, minister of the sanctuary, believer of the truth, and blessing to souls, than John Wesley-never. There was in his consummate nature that exquisite balance of power and will, that perfect blending of the moral, intellectual, and physical, which forms the ne plus ultra of ministerial ability and service. In the firmament in which he was lodged he shone and shines the bright particular star,' beyond comparison, as he is without a rival.

But had not the subject of our sketch his failings? Of course he had; but it is not our business to discuss them now. Had we not possessed acuteness enough to detect them ourselves, to say that we were familiar with Bishop Lavington's shrewd, humorous,

and

and thoroughly clever book, with all the added venom of Polwhele's annotations, would be quite enough to show that few faulty features of his proceedings had escaped our notice. We admit that he was an enthusiast, but only to the degree in which a man more than ordinarily filled with the Holy Ghost would be an enthusiast. We allow that he was fanatical at times; but this only amounts to the confession that he had some taint of human infirmity, cleaving to a nature in the main noble, self-possessed, and wise. We put our finger on one instance of fanaticism;the ordination of some of his ministers by the Greek bishop Erastus, a person of questionable pretensions, and who, not knowing one word of English, performed the service in Greek, an unedifying rite. But fanaticism is confined to no period. This finds its parallel in our days. On the first day of the present year,' writes an American missionary from Constantinople, a religious service was held, in which Greeks, Armenians, Hebrews, Italians,' and English sang at the same time, to the same tune, in their different tongues, a hymn of praise, to the great delight of those who shared in the medley, and to the seeming approval of all the religious publications which have recorded the occurrence. To ourselves it always seemed an instance of gross fanaticism and folly. It is not reasonable, therefore not right. The fanaticism of John Wesley rarely went beyond this. His faith in humanity was so great that anything man would aver he would receive. Some absurdities were sure to spring from so capacious a belief; and having nothing to suspect in himself, he never suspected others. He was perhaps the only public man that ever lived of whom it could be said, he habitually formed too favourable an opinion of those about him. The consequences were sometimes annoying, but the cause was a virtue, not a blemish. His greatness was so tempered with goodness-his nature, so sturdy and conscientious, was nevertheless so overlaid with an unslumbering genial godlike sympathy for his race-a golden thread of pervading kindness runs so unbrokenly through his life-that no one who can appreciate the force of rare ability, combined with a spotless character and sweetness of disposition, can wonder how he became so early a celebrity

Οἱ τὸ μυρίον κλέος

Διῆλθε κᾐπὶ νύκτα καὶ πρὸς ἀπ,

and that his name is now the symbol of all that is holy and just and good. Say, gentle reader, as you pass his tomb, in the lan.guage of the Sicilian muse—

Χαιρέτω οὗτος ὁ τύμβος
Κεῖται τῆς Ἱερῆς κοῦφος ὑπὲρ κεφαλῆς.

ἐπει

VOL. III.NO. V.

E

FINE

FINE ART AMONG THE JEWS.

By the Rev. JOHN SMYTHE MEMES, LL.D., F.A.S.L.,

Hon. R. N. I. Scot. Ass. R.S.S., Hon. Mem. of the Royal Scottish Academy, one of the Hon. Foreign Presidents of the African Institut of France, &c.

THE patriarchal families grew into a people and a nation amidst the highest civilization of the ancient world. Joseph commenced his Egyptian servitude, almost immediately afterward to assume the most brilliant position under the throne, in the thirty-fourth year of Osirtasen I, of the sixteenth or Tanitic dynasty. The connection of the Jewish race with Egypt thus began by constant residence nearly seventeen centuries before the present era. This truly great man died in the first or second year of the reign of Osirtasen III., of the Memphitic line of kings, B.C. 1635. During a period of nearly seventy years he had thus enjoyed the confidence of at least four of the sovereigns of the most enlightened and best ordered kingdom then-or perhaps in some respects even now-existing on the earth. The advantages thus procured for the advancement of his own countrymen by facility of access to the knowledge of art and refinement did not altogether cease on the demise of Joseph. For the space of sixty years longer of uninterrupted tranquillity the Israelites continued to enjoy that protection and those opportunities originally obtained through the prudence of their powerful and respected patron."

The period of quiet having elapsed, there arose up,' to quote the words of the sacred record, a new king which knew not Joseph.' The expression is remarkable. Monuments, however, coeval with the events, vindicate here the accuracy of a passage about the meaning of which the commentators and critics of the last age have recorded much unnecessary discussion:b From the unquestionable monumental sources just indicated the ingenuity and research of our own age enable us to decide that this new king' of Scripture was Ames, the first of the eighteenth or Theban dynasty, by whom the more ancient line of Egyptian monarchs had been displaced. With this revolution commences the history of the book of Exodus, and the sore bondage' of the children of

6

a See Rosellini, Wilkinson, and especially Hengstenberg, Egypt and the Books of Moses, p. 22, 8vo. ed.

b See Patrick On the Pentateuch, ed. folio, 1738, p. 170. Fagius, Grotius, Drusius, and Munster are the original authorities on the point. See also Clarus and Vatabler's Annot, in Libros Can. Vet. Test.

Israel.

Israel. During the succeeding interval of eighty-four years, though made to serve with rigour,' the people of God 'multiplied and waxed very mighty.' At length, mindful of His promises to their forefathers, Jehovah interposed for their deliverance. With a mighty hand' he brought them out in the beginning of the reign of Thotmes III., sixth prince of the Theban or Diospolitan line, the Pharaoh of the Mosaic writings. This occurred in the year 1491 B.C., after a sojourn in Egypt, counting from Joseph's captivity, of exactly 215 years; or reckoning, as seems to be the case in the Gospel history, from the arrival of Abraham, after an intercourse of 430 years with that primeval seat of art.

From these facts and dates is derived one grand inference most important to our present inquiry. No people, we thus learn, ever enjoyed more favourable opportunity not only of acquiring a taste for the Fine Arts, but also for attaining eminence in their cultivation, than the Jews. It is evident from the inscriptions still existing on monuments of that period, which, after thousands of years of silence, modern learning has once more made vocal, that Israel dwelt in Egypt, and even laboured on her public works at the time when some of the grandest and most beautiful edifices in the valley of Nile were constructed. It is true that during a considerable portion of their stay the descendants of Abraham dwelt in the house of bondage,' while art has ever been the nurseling of liberty. But when they had recovered their freedom, they thus started in the career of refinement with a knowledge of principles and an experience in practice elsewhere without a parallel. If, then, it be subsequently found that an adequate improvement is wanting, this can only be explained on the ground, so clearly obtained from Scripture, that all other interests were made to subserve the one great purpose of separating a peculiar people 'holy unto the Lord.' At the same time satisfactory explanation is thus afforded of whatever resemblances or analogies may occur between the arts of Egypt and the outward appointments of the sacred and inspired ritual of the Bible.

The history of the Fine Arts among the chosen people' seems thus to commence at so early a period in their annals, and under auspices so favourable, compared with the condition of other nations among which they have flourished, as ought to have conducted to highest excellence in the cultivation of taste. The actual result, however, is the very opposite. Never in any civilised community has artistic genius either exercised so little influence over living manners, or bequeathed remains so meagre for

C

Rosellini, Monum. dell' Egitto, fol. 1832; Wilkinson, Ancient Egyptians, vol. i.; Champollion; and Bunsen's admirable Egypt's Place, &c., vol. i. E 2

the

the admiration or guidance of posterity, as among the Jews. On a hasty and casual, or even on a first and somewhat deliberate estimate of the subject, how little prepared are we for such a conclusion! Before he has methodized and valued his materials, the Christian, familiar on other points with the inestimable treasures of the sacred volume, is apt to conceive himself in a position completely to make out all details in the labours of Moses, the erections of Solomon, or the restorations of Herod. Those even of the learned who have not particularly directed attention to matters of biblical art may imagine the chapters in Exodus or Kings, and the exaggerated comments of Josephus, equally explicit as the descriptive accuracy of Pausanias, the critical elegance of Pliny, or the scientific canons of Vitruvius. It is only when we begin to arrange and realize, when we attempt to elicit principles and substantiate practice, that we experience the difference between precepts illustrated by examples and established in the very nature of things, and descriptions without monuments or fixed science. Such respectively are the conditions of classic art, with its didactic records and exquisite remains, and the solemn but for human hand-unpreceptive accounts which we possess relative to the forms and results of perished art among the Jews. 'Time was Thou stoodst alone, within thy courts, Temple of God! and in thine ample circuit, What various habits, various tongues beset The golden gates, for prayer and sacrifice! All silent now, and Zion's holy place

Trodden under foot, and mingled dust with dust.'

Notwithstanding, however, these many difficulties by which it is beset, there are various encouragements to prosecute the subject of Jewish art. Even as a section, and far from an uninteresting portion, of biblical illustration, a review of what may here be known can hardly fail, even though very imperfectly executed, of producing useful results.

The subject naturally resolves itself into two distinct inquiries. To the first of these the present communication will be confined, because on the fulness of the details which it embraces depends the clearness of leading principles in the succeeding views.

I. The origin of Jewish Art and derivation of its types.
II. Sacred and National Art among the Jews from the
Sanctuary to the Temple and its Restorations.

I. The periods of time comprehended in these divisions respectively appear at first sight to be very unequal, but this inequality

d See Pausanias, 'Hλλάdas Пeρinynois, passim; Plinii Secundi, Hist. Nat., libri 33-37; Vit. Pol., pass., sed preser. lib. 5-7.