princes and of gods. He not only anticipates the discoveries of Columbus, but his speculative tenets are such as, to judge only from internal evidence, must have emanated from Paris in the eighteenth century. He is a monstrous collection of thoughts, passions, and follies, gleaned from some three thousand years of the world's existence. We nowhere remember to have met with so unaccountable a personage as here stalks before us in his gaudy robe- the wise Magian-the great Arbaces-the Hermes of the Burning Belt-the last of the royalty of Egypt!'

But this glaring figure of Arbaces must not attract all our attention, nor lead us to forget the charms of this very delightful novel. For it is, indeed, a charming performance; so well is the story told, so effectively, so dramatically; and so much is the dialogue distinguished by its elegance and sprightliness. Glaucus and Ione have obtained our sympathy and our admiration; but Lydia, the blind girl Lydia, has won our love. Her story is touching; the feelings assigned to her are natural, while they have the charm of novelty; she is one of the most pleasing creations of modern romance. As a novel of ancient times, written to illustrate the state of social life under the empire, The Last Days of Pompeii' has met with some severe criticism. He has modernized his Romans, it has been said. His gamblers are black-legs from the neighbourhood of St. James's; Bond Street has given up its coxcombs to re-people the desert streets of Pompeii; his Claudius, his Sallust, his Pansa, are all Englishmen in a Roman costume. In this censure we cannot acquiesce. We first require of the artist that he should throw life into the dead forms of ancient times; he fulfils our wish, and we then complain that the spirit he has infused into them is too much akin to that which we are familiar with in our own contemporaries. But where else but in the world around him could he find the living spirit that he wanted? What history has not given him, he could gather only from that humanity which lies open to us all. We may be assured that the novel which takes us back into classic times will be either cold, stiff, formal, or it will very much remind us of our

own.

6

We should be disposed to say that in The Last Days of Pompeii' Sir Edward Bulwer reaches his maturity as an artist, and that in Rienzi,' the novel next in succession, he reaches his maturity of mind as a man of observation and reflection. Liberty was the very subject of his romance, yet there are no violent outbreaks, no rhodomontade; the strain of his remarks is temperate, judicious, sagacious. In portraying the character of Rienzi himself, he has not ventured-to use an expression of more force than elegance-to take the bull by the horns. He has shrunk from

encountering the very diverse, wild, irregular spirit of the man. He has gone upon the usual principle of sustaining the dignity of his hero, and to this dignity much truth has been sacrificed. Rienzi, the buffoon with nobles-the scholar with studentsorator with the people-pietist with the pope-inspired alternately by Livy and the saints-knight, tribune, religious enthusiast-obtaining power by the tricks of a charlatan, using it with the virtue and sternness of an elder Brutus-at once a modern Italian and a hero of the old republic-this man, so multiform, was a difficult subject to parade, as under a canopy of state, through the long procession of three volumes. Even that notorious vanity-a personal vanity, however, which so mingled with his patriotism, that, as his own pride grew, his estimation of the grandeur of Rome grew with it-even the well-known inflation of spirit which prosperity produced, as well in his first successes as in his second triumph, is in a great measure disguised. It will serve to shew how the novelist, in treating his subject according to the plan he had adopted, has been obliged to tone down the representations of history, if we quote the short passage in which he has related a notorious instance of this last-mentioned trait in Rienzi's character. In that ceremony of his knighthood wherein the tribune sinned so grievously by bathing in the porphyry vase sacred to the memory of Constantine, it will be remembered that he brandished his sword to the three quarters of the then known world, exclaiming each time, And this, too, is mine!' Questo è mio The anecdote could not be passed over, and is thus related in the novel :

6

'While his eye roved over the crowd, the gorgeous assemblage near him, the devoted throng beyond; as on his ear boomed the murmur of thousands and ten thousands in the space without, from before the palace of Constantine (palace now his own!) sworn to devote life and fortune to his cause; in the flush of prosperity that yet had known no check; in the zenith of power, as yet unconscious of reverse, the heart of the Tribune swelled proudly: visions of mighty fame and limitless dominion-fame and dominion once his beloved Rome's, and by him to be restored, rushed before his intoxicated gaze; and in the delirious and passionate aspirations of the moment, he turned his sword alternately to the three quarters of the then known globe, and said, in an abstracted voice, as a man in a dream, 'In the right of the Roman people, this too is mine!'-Vol. ii. p. 177.

That portion of the novel which is devoted to love is but small; perhaps for that reason it interested us the more highly. The passion between Adrian and Irene, the sister of Rienzi, is delicately and finely portrayed. We cannot resist the pleasure of quoting a passage expressive of a generous sentiment, which

every lover, of both sexes, must have felt, we think, on first becoming aware that he was the object of affection. Irene is watching over the sick couch of her lover :

:

'Words cannot tell, heart cannot divine, the mingled emotions that broke over her when, in some of these incoherent ravings, she dimly understood that for her the city had been sought, the death dared, (the plague was in Florence,) the danger incurred. Not an impulse of the human and the woman heart that was not stirred; the adoring gratitude, the meek wonder thus to be loved, while deeming it so simple a merit thus to love;-as if all sacrifice in her were a thing of course;to her a virtue nature could not paragon, worlds could not repay!'

There is a considerable list of novels yet remaining unmentioned. The first and second parts of Ernest Maltravers,' Zanoni,'The Last of the Barons.' But we must here pause; not out of weariness with our subject, but from a fear that these our notices, necessarily brief, may from their very brevity become wearisome. We have said enough to indicate our opinion of Sir Edward Bulwer as a novelist. As works to be reviewed, the novels which remain uncommented on would require a much more ample space than we can at present accord to them.

In the list of Sir Edward Bulwer's novels we find we have omitted one which it would be ungrateful, remembering as we do the pleasure its perusal gave us, to pass entirely without notice. We mean that beautifully illustrated volume, The Pilgrims of the Rhine.' It is one of the most pleasing and graceful of his productions. There is a peculiar tenderness in the love of Trevylyan for his frail and perishing Gertrude. Nor do we recal without a smile the story of The Wooing of Master Fox.' To those of our readers who may not court the excitement of the regular novel, and who may yet wish to have a specimen of Sir Edward Bulwer's happiest style of novel writing, we would commend The Pilgrims of the Rhine.'

390

Art. III. (1.) The Church of Scotland's Claim of Right. 1842. (2.) Proceedings of the General Assembly of the Free Church of Scotland. 1843.

(3.) A Report of the whole Proceedings of the late General Assembly of the Free Church of Scotland relative to the state of Religion in the Land; with an Introductory Narrative. By the Rev. A. MOOCHY STUART. 1844.

THE history of the Church of Scotland, from the age of the Reformation to our own, is full of interest. No similar institution has furnished the same means of practically determining whether spiritual independence is compatible with state endowments. On this account, the fluctuations in its course deserve a far more mature consideration than they have generally obtained in England, even from well-informed minds. Never has any section of the Christian Church stood in such intimate relation to the civil power, in circumstances more favourable for bringing the important question to which we have alluded to a fair issue. We scarcely need say what the result has been-on which side the scale of advantage has uniformly turned in this struggle. It has been the lot of the Church of Scotland to be engaged in contests of the most harassing nature with the civil government, almost without ceasing; sometimes sustaining the most humiliating defeats, and only enjoying its slight intervals of repose as the price of allowing its spiritual principles-the true glory and strength of every church-to become paralysed by those worldly influences, to which, from its secular connexions, it was necessarily exposed. On many grounds we deem it advisable to call the attention of our English readers to this subject, not only to the more recent events, which have ended in the secession of our brethren of the Free Church, but to the principle and current of affairs in Scotland which have been long pointing towards some such result. Even now, the real spirit and complexion of this sign of the times, and its probable consequences, are only imperfectly understood in this country.

The Reformation in Scotland was strictly a popular movement. It was favoured, indeed, by political circumstances, but it was commenced and sustained mainly by the piety and determination of a few, exercising their power over the minds of the many. The tendencies of the court were avowedly popish. The aristocracy, with a few honourable exceptions, were either hostile or indifferent. It soon became apparent that the Queen Regent and her adherents were determined to check the progress of the new opinions, and, if possible, to crush the Protestant party at all

hazards. Measures were taken with promptitude and courage to defeat these designs. A confederacy, known by the name of 'The Congregation,' was formed by the leading Protestants. Several of the nobility-some, there is no reason to doubt, influenced by a sincere wish to serve the cause of a purer faith, and others by selfish policy, lent their countenance and assistance to the association. By their united and vigorous efforts, aided by the power which the new opinions were found to carry along with them, they in the end triumphed. Romanism was formally abolished, and the reformed faith recognised by the Scottish parliament.

But while so much was happily accomplished, neither the nobles nor the parliament manifested any great alacrity in giving effect to the plan of church government which the reformed divines were anxious to establish. The erection of presbyterianism as the polity of the new kirk, the settlement of the various parishes with ministers, and the appropriation of some portion of the church property to their support, were matters of tardy adjustment; and were at length completed in defiance of the most formidable difficulties, chiefly by the zeal of the clergy themselves. The measures which the Assembly, when permitted to convene, recommended as necessary for the religious prosperity of the country, were either treated with coldness or openly resisted. By skilfully taking advantage of every change in those unsettled times, the reformed ministers gradually succeeded in securing such arrangements as gave something like stability and order to their ecclesiastical system. From the period of their legal recognition, the church courts acquired efficiency and importance. The progress of the Reformation, in the form both of doctrine and polity which it assumed, must be mainly ascribed to them. Every step in advance was extorted from a hostile court and a reluctant parliament. The privileges obtained were ceded with the most niggard parsimony. The General Assembly claimed the right to act independently within their own province, and to counsel the civil power in respect to all questions bearing on religion-a right, never formally acknowledged by the secular authorities, though circumstances frequently compelled them silently to acquiesce in it.

On the accession of James VI. to the throne, the presbyterian government seemed securely established. The disposition of that monarch was tyrannical, timid, and insincere. He detested, as events subsequently proved, the whole ecclesiastical system which he had sworn to maintain. His professions of attachment to the kirk were at first ample enough, but he could ill brook the peremptory tone of the reformed ministers, and still less their officious interference with his own proceedings and those of