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tains not far from fifty plates, in the highest style of artistical beauty, and more than twice as many wood-cuts of coins, buildings, and single features of natural scenery. The typography is perfect, and the publishers have spared no expense to carry out the design to the utmost extent that can be desired for use or ornament. While it is a luxury to read volumes of such faultless taste and elegance, they furnish ample material for the profounder work of exegesis; and they are all the more valuable, because the authors have kept clear of debatable ground, and have produced, not a work which can be deemed the property of a sect or party, but one which neither derives nor loses value from their position as members of the Church of England, and professors of a peculiar modification of Christian doctrine.

As regards style, we might, were we in a fault-finding mood, speak of the lack of simplicity and directness. Undoubtedly the story is told in more words than is absolutely necessary. Imaginary or barely possible incidents are sometimes dwelt upon with needless prolixity, and the preaching vein is occasionally worked to waste. But these are minor blemishes, compared with the conscientious fidelity, the openhearted candor, and the earnest piety, the traces of which are manifest on every page. The authors are thoroughly enamored with their work, and evidently had in view, not a mere book-making enterprise, but the honor of divine revelation, the extended influence of the precepts of their religion among the followers of Christ, and the awakening of a more earnest spirit of investigation, as regards the history and records of the Christian faith. We close our grateful notice of their labors by such extracts as our limits will allow, from their admirable Introduction.

"After we have endeavored, with every help we can command, to reproduce the picture of St. Paul's deeds and times-how small would our knowledge of himself remain, if we had no other record of him left us but the story of his adventures. If his letters had never come down to us, we should have known indeed what he did and suffered, but we should have had very little idea of what he was. Even if we could perfectly succeed in restoring the image of the scenes and circumstances in which he moved, even if we could, as in a magic

Christ, of whom I tell you even weeping;' that noble freedom from jealousy with which he speaks of those who, out of rivalry to himself, preach Christ even of envy and strife, supposing to add affliction to his bonds, What then? notwithstanding every way, whether in pretence or in truth, Christ is preached; and I therein do rejoice, yea and will rejoice;' — that tender friendship which watches over the health of Timothy, even with a mother's care;that intense sympa

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thy in the joys and sorrows of his converts, which could say, even to the rebellious Corinthians, 'ye are in our hearts, to die and live with you;' that longing desire for the intercourse of affection, and that sense of loneliness when it was withheld, which perhaps is the most touching feature of all, because it approaches most nearly to a weakness. When I came to Troas to preach Christ's gospel, and a door was opened to me of the Lord, I had no rest in my spirit, because I found not Titus my brother; but taking my leave of them, I went from thence into Macedonia.' And when I was come into Macedonia, my flesh had no rest, but I was troubled on every side; without were fightings, within were fears. Nevertheless God, who comforteth those that are cast down, comforted me by the coming of Titus.' 'Do thy diligence to come shortly unto me; for Demas hath forsaken me, having loved this present world, and is departed unto Thessalonica; Crescens to Galatia, Titus unto Dalmatia; only Luke is with me."

Nor is it only in the substance, but even in the style of these writings that we recognize the man Paul of Tarsus. In the parenthetical constructions and broken sentences, we see the rapidity with which the thoughts crowded upon him, almost too fast for utterance; we see him animated rather than weighed down by that which cometh upon him daily, the care of all the churches,' as he pours forth his warnings or his arguments in a stream of eager and impetuous dictation, with which the pen of the faithful Tertius can hardly keep pace. And above all, we trace his presence in the postscript to every letter, which he adds as an authentication in his own characteristic handwriting, which is the token in every epistle; so I write.' Sometimes as he takes up the pen he is moved with indignation when he thinks of the false brethren among those whom he addresses; the salutation of me Paul with my own hand, if any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be Anathema.' Sometimes, as he raises his hand to write, he feels it cramped by the fetters which bind him to the soldier who guards him, 'I Paul salute you with my own hand, remember my chains.' Yet he always ends with the same blessing, 'The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you,' to which he sometimes adds still further a few last words of affectionate remembrance, My love be with you all in Christ Jesus.'"

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"In conclusion, the authors would express their hope that this biography may, in its measure, be useful in strengthening the hearts of some against the peculiar form of unbelief most current at the present day. The more faithfully we can represent to ourselves the life, outward and inward, of St. Paul, in all its fulness, the more unreasonable must appear the theory that Christianity had a mythical origin; and the stronger must be our ground for believing his testimony to the divine nature and miraculous history of our Redeemer. No reasonable man can learn to know and love the Apostle of the Gentiles without asking himself the question, 'What was the principle by which through such a life he was animated? What was the strength in which he labored with such immense results?' Nor can the most sceptical inquirer doubt for one moment the full sincerity of St. Paul's belief that the life which he lived in the flesh he lived by the faith of the Son of God, who died and gave himself for him.' 'To believe in Christ crucified and risen, to serve Him on earth, to be with Him hereafter; these, if we may trust the account of his own motives by any human writer whatever, were the chief, if not the only thoughts which sustained Paul of Tarsus through all the troubles and sorrows of his twenty years' conflict. His sagacity, his cheerfulness, his forethought, his impartial and clear-judging reason, all the natural elements of his strong character are not indeed to be overlooked: but the more highly we exalt these in our estimate of his work, the larger share we attribute to them in the performance of his mission, the more are we compelled to believe that he spoke the words of truth and soberness when he told the Corinthians that 'last of all Christ was seen of him also,' that by the grace of God he was what he was,' that whilst he labored more abundantly than all, it was not he, but the grace of God that was in him.'"

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ART. IX.-1. The History of Henry Esmond, Esq., Colonel in the Service of her Majesty, Queen Anne; written by himself. By W. M. THACKERAY, Author of Pendennis, &c. New York: Harpers.

2. The History of Pendennis, his Fortunes and Misfortunes, his Friends and his Greatest Enemy. By W. M. THACKERAY. New York: Harpers.

3. The Book of Snobs. By W. M. THACKERAY. New York: Appletons.

4. The Luck of Barry Lyndon. By W. M. THACKERAY. New York: Appletons. 2 vols. 16mo.

THERE are few novelists who combine creative powers and a knowledge of the human heart with the faculty of delineating actual life and manners. The pathos and sublimity of Richardson, wellnigh smothered as they are by pompous sentiment and a cumbrous phraseology, are among the miracles of literature; but for any picture that he has left us of English life in the eighteenth century, he might have been destitute of eyes and ears. Scott was doubtless a keen observer of manners as well as of men; but poetry and romance-writing spoiled him for depicting the tamer features of modern society; and he was fain to acknowledge that the "bow-wow" style was that which he managed best. Smollet's characters, admirable as they are, are mostly oddities; and his scenes, with all their humor, are the extravagances of nature, not its ordinary displays. The creations of Godwin, like the conceptions of the transcendental philosopher, are all evolved from his own ich; they are possibilities, deduced by à priori reasoning from the first principles of metaphysics. Miss Burney, on the other hand, gives us clever sketches of society, but she never penetrates below the surface; she makes us familiar with the company at Ranelagh and Vauxhall, but not with the more secret motives of conduct. In short, there are, as it seems to us, but three English novelists,- Fielding, Jane Austen, and Thackeray, who both reveal the springs of action, and exhibit its outward aspects and local peculiarities; whose characters are types of classes, and in whose works we find reflected various phases of human nature as well as of English life.

We can have no hesitation in putting Fielding at the head of the English novelists. Nor has he inferior claims to the first place among English humorists. Humor, indeed, is the very element in which all his instincts and perceptions act. By it, he distinguishes truth from falsehood, right from wrong. He scents a falsehood by its absurdity; he detects roguery

by the ludicrous figure it makes in the disguise of honesty. He has no stern moral code by which to judge men; he never picks up stone to throw at a sinner. Like the amiable Parisienne in the "Paysan Parvenu," he is heartily in love with virtue, and not at enmity with vice; "aimant de tout son cœur la vertu sans inimitié pour le vice." With hypocrisy alone he is at war; for hypocrisy is always the great antagonist of humor. Yet even in this contest he will give no unfair blow; he leaves Humor to fight the battle alone. Virtue and Morality may assist as bottle-holders; but they are not allowed to engage as principals. And when at length the wretched Blifil is driven from the scene, it is not with execrations, but amid shouts of jubilant laughter.

This unity of feeling and conception is the source of Fielding's exquisite art. He has an unwavering faith in his own genius, and in every impulse of his nature. He never mocks himself; he does not show us a gem, and then depreciate it. He delights to deck his Amelia and Sophia with all the beautiful qualities of womanhood, as a lover adorns his mistress with flowers and pearls. He exhilarates himself with draughts from his own imagination; and we can well believe what he tells us, that no one ever laughed or wept so much in reading his books as he himself had done while writing them. His pathos is as natural and as genial as his humor; the one parts from the other, and returns to it by imperceptible gradations, like the showers and the sunshine of April. The story flows gently on through an agreeable succession of incidents and scenes; and the harmonious tone that thus pervades them gives to his works a charm that belongs to no other novels in the language.

In placing Jane Austen in the same rank with Fielding and Thackeray, we do not expect to meet with general assent. In this country, at least, her writings have not acquired popularity. This may, perhaps, be owing to the narrow limits and almost unbroken level of the society which she paints. She has none of those bold conceptions which stamp themselves indelibly on the mind. There is no Parson Adams or Squire Western, no Becky Sharp or Major Pendennis, in any of her novels; no characters whose strongly marked features

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