will be for ever happy in their mutual love, without the absurd and useless formality of the marriage ceremony. Happily for her, he fails in his schemes; she flies to Scutari, where she enters one of the hospitals as nurse, and he joins the army in the Crimea. Eventually he is mortally wounded, and is conveyed to the hospital where she is performing the work of Christian charity. Here the two lovers meet again; she tends him during his illness, supports him in the hour of death, and he breathes out on her bosom his last words of burning passion. The whole winds up with a quotation to the effect that we hope heaven may have mercy on a bold rider's soul, or else it will fare but ill with many of us. This is but a rough sketch, and yet we think it speaks for itself. We feel confident that there are few young people of either sex who could venture to read this book with perfect impunity. For it is impossible to deny that it is written with great talent. The author is unmistakeably a scholar and a man of taste, and some passages it would be difficult to parallel for beauty of style from Adam Bede or Esmond. But in utter want of morality it may fairly compete with the worst novels of the French school. It would be difficult to conceive a more perfect balance of the beauties and advantages of vice against the homeliness and inconvenience of virtue. The captain has his faults, to be sure; but then, how much there is to set off against them! His physical strength is enormous; he knows not what fear is; even his most violent bursts of passion are ennobling, like the eruptions of the volcano, terrible but grand withal; and then his love, how chivalrous, how absorbing! How willing he is to resign, in its behalf, fame and friends and the world, that he may carry off the lady of his affections to some lone spot where they may be to each other all in all! How mean, on the other hand, the good clergyman looks by his side: how poor his talents, how stale and insipid his moral precepts, how rapidly his virtuous expostulations crumble to pieces before the keen sarcasms and withering sneers of his noble foe! Something like this would seem to be the silent recommendation of the author, and he will doubtless win many converts among those who prefer passion to principle, and mere sentiment to firm religious conviction. No novel ever set forth a more eloquent exposition of the dictum of the Greek philosopher, that man is the measure of all things, in the most earthly and sensual interpretation of the words.

But there is an objection which is frequently adduced in defence of novels of this class. Can we deny, it is said, that there is very much evil in the world? and is it not the duty of the writer of fiction to set before us man as he is, and not man as he should be? Granted; but is it the duty of the writer of

fiction to varnish over the loathsomeness of evil, to set forth vice as noble and laudable, to deride virtue as puritanic and ridiculous? Is it the duty of the writer of fiction to teach that what the world calls vice is really virtue, and what the world. calls virtue is really a mean and despicable form of vice? Is it his duty to preach that transitory flashes of goodness may atone for the most constant and hardened profligacy; and that weakness of judgment, or want of moral courage, can outweigh the real and hearty endeavour to do God's service? If this be not the expressed purpose of the author of " Sword and Gown," it is most assuredly the tendency of his work.

"Recommended to Mercy," is a novel of a different class. The plot of the story is this. A young girl, the daughter of a country doctor, who has been altogether neglected by her parents, forms an acquaintance with an officer whose regiment is in the town. He persuades her to run off with him, and carries her to India, whither his regiment is bound. In India she lives some time with him as his mistress, and at length returns to England in his company. His uncle, an old man without children, sends for him to reside with him at the property which is eventually to come to his nephew. Helen Langton is settled in a small cottage on the outskirts of the estate, where she is visited by her lover, who by this time is beginning to weary of her. Pressed hard by his uncle, the young soldier finally consents to take a wife; but, after they have lived some years together, he sees reason to suspect her fidelity, turns her out of his house, and in a passion of rage repairs to London, where he falls in with his former mistress. Their intimacy is renewed, and lasts till his death, when he makes a will leaving all he has to Helen, unless she can prove his wife's innocence. She leaves no stone unturned to effect this; devoting her energies, meantime, to various other objects, especially the rescue of fallen women like herself. With great labour she at length succeeds in obtaining the requisite proofs, and restores the whole estate to the injured wife.

In some respects this novel is inferior to the other. It has no artistic ability whatever, and bears marks of having been written carelessly, and in haste; but in tone it is undoubtedly superior. Yet, even on this point we must find fault with it; and, in the first place, we would deprecate the choice of the subject. It is a subject which needs to be treated with the greatest delicacy, or otherwise it is only too liable to do great mischief. Here, we confess, we think that the author has failed. He has written more in the style of a moral essay than of a work of fiction. In the main, we would unhesitatingly condemn the pre-Raphaelite style of novel-writing, and in the present case more than in any other. Topics which we should instinctively shun are dwelt on at unnecessary length; and

there is often a special circumstantiality in the when, and the where, and the how, which is most objectionable. But we have another charge to bring against the author: the repentance of Helen Langton does not impress us in the least as he has described it; and we fear that many readers would be far more impressed with the narrative of her fall. Now this is a fatal mistake in a novel which is written with a purpose, and we presume that the novel of which we are speaking is intended to fall under this class. It is rather worse than if it had not been written with a purpose at all, for it only creates contempt for the seemingly insipid cant of the heroine. We would remark, for the benefit of those who have read "Recommended to Mercy," that all it contains worth reading has been already written far better, artistically and morally, in that admirable story of the repentant Magdalene, in the "Diary of a late Physician."

We have yet another criticism which applies with equal force to both these novels. We do not so much complain of the presence of what is bad, as of the absence of what is good. A novelist proves false to his duty if he neglects to hold up, for the admiration and guidance of his readers, noble and pure and true characters. We turn from the toils and anxieties of this hard, cold world, to the ideal scenes of the dramatist and novelist; and what shall the perusal avail us if we do not find there something better, and higher, and more admirable than the worldliness and vice from which we have fled ? Or if we have the good fortune to live apart from untoward influences, how can our uprightness and purity of heart be effectually fostered by the poet and novelist, if they can give us no better example for our instruction than the cold, mean, earthly beings who are so rife in the world around us? We lay the greater stress on this point, because there is no principle which is more uniformly disregarded by the novelists of the present day, and none in which a brighter example has been set them by those two lords of the imagination and the fancy, William Shakespeare and Walter Scott.

We hope that we may have called the attention of some of our readers, who are not themselves in the habit of examining novels, to the deadly nature of the books which may fall into the hands of their daughters or their sisters; and we also hope that we may have induced them to set their face, even more vigorously than before, against indiscriminate novelreading. One more remark before we conclude. Modern novels demand our most serious attention, for another reason— their influence is not only positive, but negative; they not only inculcate much that is bad, but exclude much that is good. It is not our desire to play the part of a laudator temporis acti: but from an absolute, not a relative, point of view, we think

that there is much to be desired in the mental training of the ladies of this generation. We do not speak of our own sex, because most men have their professions in life, which often leave them little time for anything else. But we do think that ladies are too apt to content themselves with a superficial education, and aim at showy rather than solid attainments. Now, a great deal of this mischievous waste of good opportunities must be attributed to excessive novel-reading of a bad kind. It is much to be lamented that young ladies cannot persuade themselves to study the works of our great English classics, instead of stunting their powers of mind with the vile trash that loads the shelves of our circulating libraries. Beneath the influence of wholesome studies such as these, strengthened, we need not add, by true religious principles, they would assuredly feel less ennui, crave less for the excitement of fashionable dissipation, acquire a more noble and steadfast character, and fit themselves better to do their duty in that station of life to which it has pleased God to call them. It is sad to think how many choose, in preference, to devour such books as "Sword and Gown," and "Recommended to Mercy."

THE FIVE HERODS: A FEW BRIEF NOTES ON THEIR HISTORY IN CONNECTION WITH SCRIPTURE.

BY THE REV. FRANCIS TRENCH.

It is not easy to retain in memory the history of the Herods, as bearing on the records of God's Word. No less than five of the name and family appear in its pages, including Philip and the two Agrippas. All were named Herod, and closely related. I have endeavoured to trace out, in the following sketch, a few points in the history of each, conducive to a clear view of their position and deeds in connection with our Lord and His Church.

Previous to the time of the Herodian dynasty in Judæa, the country was under the rule of the Asmonæan family. Aristobulus was the first of the race who assumed the name of king. It was soon supplanted by the Herods, an Idumæan family.

Alexander Jannæus succeeded his brother Aristobulus on the throne of Judæa in the year 104 B. C. The government of Idumæa was placed by him in the hands of Antipater, a nobleman of that country. His son, bearing the same name, was educated at the Court of Jannæus; but, on the taking of Jerusalem by Pompey, so ingratiated himself with the Romans, that, on Cæsar's coming into Syria (B. c. 48) he was appointed

Procurator of Judæa. He left four sons and a daughter: 1. Phasael; 2. Herod the Great; 3. Joseph; 4. Pheroras; 5. Salome.

Antipater appointed his son Phasael governor of Jerusalem, and Herod governor of Galilee.

I. Herod showed much ability in his jurisdiction; but on being charged before the Sanhedrim* at Jerusalem with cruelty to some Jewish citizens, he took refuge with the Roman governor of Syria, and finally met such favour from Antony and Octaivus that he was made king of Judæa.

Passing over all, in the history of Herod, not immediately connected with Scripture, I would only observe, that he was married ten times; that he slew three of his own sons-Antipater, son of his first wife Doris, and Alexander and Aristobulus, sons of Mariamne; and having done many other acts of dark and unbridled cruelty, on his very death-bed he ordered the massacre of the children at Bethlehem.

Josephus, the chief authority for his life, so represents his character, and the proceedings ever going on in his intriguing and blood-stained family, as to remove all surprise that he should have committed either this or any other act of similar wickedness.

The sons of Herod the Great, to whose history, for the sake of Scripture, we must attend, were: 1. Herod Philip, son of Mariamne, his second wife of that name; 2. Archelaus, and 3. Herod Antipas, sons of Malthace a Samaritan, his sixth wife; of these, Herod Philip and Herod Antipas are the two mentioned in Luke iii. 1.

*The recognition of this authority, even over the son of the ruling monarch, is a very interesting fact in connection with the prophecy, of somewhat difficult interpretation, in Gen. xlix. 10. I quote from the Commentary of the learned Dr. Gill, in which the subject is referred to :-"The sense is, that till the Messiah came, there should be in the tribe of Judah, either a king, a sceptre-bearer, as there was unto the captivity, or a governor ; though under others, as there was unto the times of Christ, under the Babylonians, Persians, Grecians, and Romans; such as Gedaliah, Zerobabel, &c.; and particularly the Sanhedrim, a court of judicature, the members of which chiefly consisted of the tribe of Judah, and the NW or prince of it, was always of that tribe, and which retained its power to the latter end of Herod's reign; and though it was greatly diminished, it had some power remaining even at the death of Christ,

on turning to that passage, I find that it does not agree with this statement, and that the massacre of the children of Bethlehem is there distinctly noticed: "Cum audisset (i. e. Augustus) inter pueros, quos in Syriâ, Herodes, rex Judæorum intra bimatum jussit interfici, filium quoque ejus occisum, ait: Melius est," &c., as before quoted.

It is singular that this classical testimony-if one could so style it, being of the 5th century should appear merely in a narrative of certain jokes and pleasantries of Cicero and Augustus.