Wetterhorn, Ascent of the, or Mount of Tem-
pests,-Athenæum,

Wolff's Mission to Bokhara,-Spectator,
World surveyed in the XIXth century,-
Athenæum,

Wandering Jew, the,-Eclectic Review,

Young England, British Quarterly Review, 120

LUTHER'S CORRESPONDENCE AND CHAR- | only an imperfect but perhaps false idea of

ACTER.

From the Edinburgh Review.

Dr. Martin Luther's Briefe, Sendschreiben und Bedenken vollständig aus den verschiedenen Ausgaben seiner Werke und Briefe, aus andern Büchern und noch unbenutzten Handschrifter gesammelt, Kritisch und Historisch bearbeitet. Von Dr. Wilhelm Martin Leberecht De

Wette. 5 vols. 8vo. Berlin.

many points of character; and will certainly suggest an exaggerated estimate of all the ordinary habitudes of thought and expression. The latter will often fall as

much below the true mean of such a man's merits; and what is of more consequence, must depend-except in the rare case in which some faithful Boswell continually dogs the heels of genius-on the doubtful authority and leaky memory of those who report it. Letters, on the other hand, if (Dr. Martin Luther's Entire Correspond-intended for the eye of the world, will exthey be copious, unpremeditated, and not ence, carefully compiled from the various editions of his Works and Letters, from other Books, and from Manuscripts as yet private. Edited, with Critical and Historical Notes, by Dr. Wilhelm Martin Leberecht De Wette.)

hibit the character in all its moods and phases, and by its own utterances. While some of them will disclose to us the habitual states of thought and feeling, and admit us even into the privacy of the heart, others, composed under the stimulus of great emergencies, and in those occasional auspicious expansions of the faculties, which neither come nor go at our bidding, will furnish no unworthy criterion of what such a mind, even in its most elevated moods, and by its most deliberate efforts, can accomplish.

If ever any man's character could be advantageously studied in his letters, it is surely that of Luther. They are addressed

*

to all sorts of persons, are composed on an | Wartburg, if they were translated in the immense diversity of subjects, and, as to the smple, sinewy, idiomatic, hearty mother mass of them, are more thoroughly unpre- tongue of the original... A difficult meditated, as well as more completely sug- usk I admit.' He is speaking, of course, gested ex visceribus causa, as Cicero would of Luther's German letters. Almost all, say, than those of almost any other man. however, from the Wartburg are in Latin. They are also more copious; as copious Of late years they have received consid. even as his great contemporary Erasmus, eable attention. M. Michelet, in his very to whom letter-writing was equally busi-pleasing volumes, in which he has made ness and amusement. What appear volu- Luther draw his own portrait, by presenting minous collections in our degenerate days- a series of extracts from his writings, has those of Sévigné, Pope, Walpole, Cowper, derived no small portion of his materials even of Swift, dwindle in comparison. In from the letters; while all recent historians De Wette's most authentic and admirable of the Reformation, especially De Aubigné edition, they occupy five very thick and and Waddington, have dug deep, and with closely-printed volumes. The learned immense advantage, in the same mine. compiler, in a preface amusingly character- Not only do they form, as De Wette says, istic of the literary zeal and indefatigable a diary, as it were, of Luther's life,' research of Germany, tells us, that he has gleichsam ein Tagebuch seines Lebens,' unearthed from obscure hiding-places and but here better than in almost any history, mouldering manuscripts more than a hun- because more minutely, may the whole dred unprinted letters, and enriched the early progress of the Reformation be present collection with their contents. By traced. himself, or his literary agents, he has ransacked the treasures of the archives of Weimar, the libraries at Jena, Erfurt, Gotha, Wolfenbüttel, Frankfort on the Maine, Heidelberg and Basle;' and has received 'precious contributions' from Breslau, Riga, Strasburg, Münich, Zurich, and other places. There are many, no doubt, which time has consigned to oblivion, and perhaps some few which still lie unknown in public or private repositories-undetected even by the acute literary scent of De Wette, and his emissaries. But there are enough in all conscience to satisfy any ordinary appetite, and to illustrate, if any thing can, the history and character of him who penned them.

Even in a purely literary point of view, these letters are not unworthy of comparison with any thing Luther has left behind him. They contain no larger portion of indifferent Latin, scarcely so much of his characteristic violence and rudeness; while they display in beautiful relief all the more tender and amiable traits of his character; and are fraught with brief but most striking specimens of that intense and burning eloquence for which he was so famed. Very many of them well deserve the admiration which Coleridge (who regretted that selections from them had not been given to the English public) has so strongly expressed. 'I can scarcely conceive,' he says, a more delightful volume than might be made from Luther's letters, especially those written from the

As we conceive that Luther's character could be nowhere more advantageously studied than in this voluminous correspondence, we propose in the present Article to make it the basis of a few remarks on his most prominent intellectual and moral qualities.

No modern author, in our opinion, has done such signal injustice to Luther's intellect as Mr. Hallam, whose excellent and well practiced judgment seems to us, in this instance, to have entirely deserted him. Luther's amazing influence on the revolu

* We cannot mention the name of Dr. Wad

dington without thanking him for the gratification we have derived from the perusal of the three volumes of his History of the Reformation, and expressing our hopes that he will soon fulfil his promise of a fourth. Less brilliant than that of D'Aubigné, his work is at least its equal in research, certainly not inferior in the comprehensiveness of its views, or the solidity of its reflections; and in severe fidelity, is perhaps even' superior. Not that, in this last respect, we have much to complain of in D'Aubigné; but as he has great skill in the selection and graphic disposition of his materials, so he sometimes sacrifices a little too much to gratify it-as, for example, in the dramatic form he has given to Luther's narrative of his interview with Miltitz—(Vol. II. P. 8-12) There is also a too uniform brilliancy, and too little repose about the style.-But it were most ungrateful to deny the rare merits of the work. We only hope its unprecedented popularity may not deprive us of another volume from the pen of Dr Waddington. His History of the Reformation is in our judgment very superior to his previous work, which we had occasion to notice, in less favorable terms, in our account of it in this journal.