done much for the literature of his country by his admirable translation.

Before we close this article, we can only say, concerning the true power and living spirit of Coleridge's writings,' seek, and ye shall find.' shall find.' His works are solid with meaning. They suggest truths, and leave them to be drawn out by the reader. Goethe has said, that a work which leaves nothing to divine, can be no true, consummate work; its highest destination must be to excite reflection and no one can truly love a work till he has been compelled to follow it out, and complete it in his own mind.'

It has been said that Coleridge's works are fragments;that they have no unity. We think it is not so. His works, taken singly, are fragments; put together, they make a whole. His poetry is a part of his philosophy. It is the golden clasp, that connects the chain. It is his philosophy, after he has breathed into it a living soul. In his Aids to Reflection,' he says, 'religion is not a theory, but a life;' so it is with his philosophy and in his poetry he shows this. He shows how it changes the whole man, and opens the inward perceptions. In fact, throughout his whole poetry his Christian philosophy flows, like the sap, into every branch, and leaf, and blossom. Those who would study the one, then, should study the other. They are the productions of one mind. They unfold the same principles,—and explain and support each other.

Again, in his poetry we find perfect truth. Nature is represented as it really is; not dry and dead, but full of meaning. It not only has form, but life. He never veils Nature, but unveils it, that we may see the light from within. Matter is to him full of spirit. It is an instrument in God's hand to develope the soul. Harmony and loveliness, in the book of Nature, are the counterparts to God is Love,' in the book of Revelation. The Creation is an embodying of God's character. All its varied works are the symbols of his attributes; and we must look through them to Him. God is omnipresent, and the unfolding of a flower is a direct revelation from the Most High. Adam walked with God in the garden.' Earth is not now more distant. He is with us, though we may not be with Him. In our Father's house are many mansions.' This world is one, and He fills it; but to know Him and feel Him, we must become spiritualized, and possess a power superior to the senses. 6 The kingdom of God is within us.' It is

this, which gives such value to the writings of Coleridge. It is this, which makes him, not merely a moral writer, but strictly a religious writer. Not that he always writes upon religious subjects, but that he writes upon all subjects in a religious way. He has the religious spirit; the heavenly spirit; the spirit of love. Thus his writings are good; they purify, they elevate, they quicken, they impart himself.

The works of such a writer are of no country; they are the world's. They belong to no age, but to all men of all ages. They contain truth,-and truth is eternal. They are written with reference to the life to come, and have therefore a spiritual power. For the character of such a writer, we can hardly feel too great a reverence. He has brought out the inner man. He has made the senses do homage to the spirit. He has drunk in from Nature and Revelation, till they have expanded and beautified his soul. He sees the subtle analogy between the spiritual and the natural, and makes the one illustrate and develope the other. He feels the superiority of the inward to the outward, and therefore never sinks himself into mere materialism, but reaches upward to the Infinite. The eye of his soul is not upon the opinions of others, but upon truth, and he crushes the hardest problems, and pierces the most hidden depths, that he may know things as they are. His eye is upon God, and he feels that God's eye is upon him, and he looks with profound awe upon His moral government, and seeks humbly to illustrate the ways of His Providence. Thus he has done much good. At the time when the tide of skepticism was sweeping over the continent of Europe, he stood forth like a bulwark. At a time when the feelings of mankind were tending to materialism, he still reverenced the Unseen, as the Eternal. And in all his works he has sought to give information, that opens to our knowledge a kingdom that is not of this world, thrones that cannot be shaken, and sceptres that cannot be broken or transferred.'* His work, then, has been a holy work,--and it is now nearly completed. The circle of his earthly life must ere long be finished. The light of the material world will fade before the light of a higher. The soul that has transmitted to us beauty and truth, will pass away,-but the beauty and truth will remain, and it is for us to make them our own.

* First Lay Sermon. P. 11.

ART. VIII.-Outre-Mer.

Outre-Mer, a Pilgrimage beyond the Sea.

II. Boston. 1833-1834.

Nos. 1. and

THIS work, only two numbers of which have yet appeared, is obviously the production of a writer of talent, and of cultivated taste; who has chosen to give to the public the results of his observation in foreign countries, in the forin of a series of tales and sketches. It is a form, which, as every reader knows, has been recommended by the high example and success of Mr. Irving; and, in recording only such circumstances as suit his fancy, an accomplished traveller is certainly more likely to preserve the proper measure of spirit and freshness, than when he enters on the task of preparing an elaborate and formal narrative. It must not be supposed, that, in adopting. the form of Mr. Irving, the author has been guilty of any other imitation. They have both entered on the same field, in different directions, and without the least hazard of crossing each other's path; and we are much inclined to wish that other writers, who possess the requisite leisure and accomplishments, would follow their example.

The Pays d'Outre-Mer was the name, by which the Holy Land was known to the pilgrims and crusaders; and the author describes himself as a pilgrim of the Land beyond the Sea. This land filled the visions of his youthful fancy, and when he first beheld its shores, it was with the same emotions, with which the wandering palmer used to hail the bounds of Palestine. It does not appear, however, that in roaming over classic ground, he felt as if he were undergoing penance; on the contrary, he seems to have pursued his journey with a tolerably cheerful spirit, and when it was fairly over, to have sat down to embody and preserve the recollection of the scenes he had passed through. We first behold him mounted on the summit of that locomotive ark, a French diligence, making himself merry with the aspect of his equipage, and the official personages to whom the reins of its government were confided, until he finds repose and shelter in the Golden Lion Inn, at Rouen. This was the first European city of importance he had visited, and he thus describes the feelings with which he gazed on its magnificent cathedral.

'I rambled on from street to street, till at length, after threading a narrow alley, I unexpectedly came out in front of the magnificent Cathedral. If it had suddenly risen from the earth, the effect could not have been more powerful and instantaneous. It completely overwhelmed my imagination; and I stood for a long time motionless, and gazing entranced upon that stupendous edifice. I had seen no specimen of gothic architecture before, save the remains of a little church at Havre; and the massive towers before me,-the lofty windows of stained glass,-the low portal, with receding arches and rude statues,-all produced upon my untravelled mind an impression of awful sublimity. When I entered the church, the impression was still more deep and solemn. It was the hour of vespers. The religious twilight of the place, the lamps that burned on the distant altar,-the kneeling crowd,—the tinkling bell, and the chant of the evening service, that rolled along the vaulted roof in broken and repeated echoes,-filled me with new and intense emotions. When I gazed on the stupendous architecture of the church, the huge columns, that the eye followed up till they were lost in the gathering dusk of the arches above, the long and shadowy aisles,the statues of saints and martyrs, that stood in every recess,— the figures of armed knights upon the tombs, the uncertain light, that stole through the painted windows of each little chapel, and the form of the cowled and solitary monk, kneeling at the shrine of his favorite saint, or passing between the lofty columns of the church,—all I had read of, but had not seen,—I was transported back to the Dark Ages, and felt as I shall never feel again.'

At the Table d' Hôte of the Golden Lion, the pilgrim encountered a venerable personage, thoroughly versed in all the legendary lore of the city of Rouen, who related to him the story of Martin Franc and the Monk of St. Anthony,' which he professed to have found in an old manuscript of the public library. We would not question the veracity of the merry antiquary, who deserves to be regarded as the Dr. Dryasdust of this venerable city; but we strongly suspect, that the learned man has confounded his Oriental manuscripts with Norman ones. His story is, nevertheless, a good one; but its length forbids us to extract it, and we should only mar the whole by offering a portion of it to our readers.

The author next takes up his abode in the village of Auteuil, in a Maison de Santé; not to ascertain to what extent the healing art had been carried by its keeper, but because it

affords a secluded and agreeable retreat in the sultry months. of summer. Here he possessed himself in much quietness,' and he has preserved a record of some of the circumstances, which are magnified into events in the annals of a village. The reader will be struck with the beauty of the following passage, in which the living reality is set before him by the quiet accuracy of the description, while the scenes themselves are brought together, as we often find them in the course of life.

'I was one morning called to my window by the sound of rustic music. I looked out, and beheld a procession of villagers advancing along the road, attired in gay dresses, and marching merrily on in the direction of the church. I soon perceived that it was a marriage festival. The procession was led by a long orang-outang of a man, in a straw hat and white dimity bob-coat, playing on an asthmatic clarinet, from which he contrived to blow unearthly sounds, ever and anon squeaking off at right angles from his tune, and winding up with a grand flourish on the guttural notes. Behind him, led by his little boy, came the blind fiddler, his honest features glowing with all the hilarity of a rustic bridal, and, as he stumbled along, sawing away upon his fiddle till he made all crack again. Then came the happy bridegroom, dressed in his Sunday suit of blue, with a large nosegay in his button-hole, and close beside him his blushing bride, with downcast eyes, clad in a white robe and slippers, and wearing a wreath of white roses in her hair. The friends and relatives brought up the procession; and a troop of village urchins came shouting along in the rear, scrambling among themselves for the largess of sous and sugar-plums, that now and then issued in large handfuls from the pockets of a lean man in black, who seemed to officiate as master of the ceremonies on the occasion. I gazed on the procession till it was out of sight; and when the last wheeze of the clarinet died upon my ear, I could not help thinking how happy were they, who were thus to dwell together in the peaceful bosom of their native village, far from the gilded misery and the pestilential vices of the town.

'On the evening of the same day, I was sitting by the window, enjoying the freshness of the air, and the beauty and stillness of the hour, when I heard the distant and solemn hymn of the Catholic burial service, at first so faintly and indistinct that it seemed an illusion. It rose mournfully on the hush of evening,died gradually away,-then ceased. Then it rose again, nearer and more distinct, and soon after a funeral procession appeared, and passed directly beneath my window. It was led by a priest, bearing the banner of the church, and followed by two boys, VOL. XXXIX.-NO. 85. 59