archy" demands completer and more generous praise. It does a work that not even Dr. Stanley's long-expected volume will make superfluous. Not that we claim for Mr. Newman Dr. Stanley's wondrous power to humanize historical events. But, if Mr. Newman is sometimes so sharp a critic as to appear ill-natured, certain it is that Dr. Stanley's criticism is too good-natured by far; so that, in reading his first volume of the Jewish Church, the reader never feels quite sure whether he is reading about something which took place in Judea or only in the doctor's teeming brain. Indeed, the function of this truly generous and poetic soul is somewhat premature. It would be well if criticism could "first do its worst" upon the records, before the fragments are built up again into a consistent whole. But very little of Professor Newman's work will have to be done over. His studies into the character of the Pentateuch; the relative position of the priests, the prophets, and the kings; the character and influence of various men,-are worthy of all praise. His estimate of David's character is very broad and fine. His estimate of Solomon's sagacity is this:

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"The sagacity attributed to him seems to have been threefold: wisdom in the administration of justice, which consisted chiefly in cleverness to discover truth, when the evidence was insufficient, doubtful, or contradictory; wisdom in general government, as to which the actual results prove him to have been most lamentably deficient; and wisdom of a more scholastic kind, such as was evinced in the writing of proverbs and books of natural history. Of his merit in the last, no means of judging exist; but those chapters of the Proverbs which are regarded as his genuine writing are the production of no common mind, and explain how, in that age, he was regarded as intellectually towering above other kings."- History of the Hebrew Monarchy, p. 145.

And, speaking of the function of Judea in the progressive march of history, these are among his words:

"Such was the unexpansive and literal materialism of the later Rabbi, out of which has proceeded nearly all that is unamiable in the Jewish character. But the Roman writers, who saw this side only of

the nation, little knew how high a value the retrospect of the world's history would set on the agency of this scattered and despised people. For, if Greece was born to teach art and philosophy, and Rome to diffuse the processes of law and government, surely, Judea has been the wellspring of religious wisdom to a world besotted by frivolous or impure fancies.. To these three nations it has been given to cultivate and develop principles characteristic of themselves: to the Greeks, beauty and science; to the Romans, jurisprudence and municipal rule; but to the Jews, the holiness of God and his sympathy with his chosen servants. That this was the true calling of the nation, the prophets were inwardly conscious at an early period. They discerned that Jerusalem was as a centre of bright light to a dark world; and, while groaning over the monstrous fictions which imposed on the nations under the name of religion, they announced that out of Zion should go forth the law and the word of Jehovah." History of the Hebrew Monarchy, p. 369.

As a writer on political economy,* Professor Newman's. greatest merit is, no doubt, that of popularizing the results of those that have preceded him. But this he does, not as a mere book-maker, but as a genuine philanthropist. And so doing it, his work is truly admirable. For he takes the truth from places where the common mind would never find it out, and without losing any thing of its force; but, as it were, increasing its vitality, he makes it free to all. But he is by no means bound, even in these respects, not to be wise above that which is written. Thus, for example, he is bold enough to make a vigorous attack upon Ricardo's theory of rent, declaring it to be of such an abstract nature, that it never can be verified. We wish that this book could be published in America, if only for its chapter upon "More Leisure and Higher Culture," which would be a valuable contribution towards the solution of the eight-hour question which is now exciting so much natural and healthy interest among the laboring classes of the North. Professor Newman's other writings on political and social subjects are, "An Address to the Middle Classes on the need of Political Reform," a pamphlet written

* Lectures on Political Economy. John Chapman : London, 1853.

in 1848, during the alarm of Chartist insurrection. and after the first successes of extreme democracy on the continent; a pamphlet on the national debt, denying its morality and demanding its extinction; "Catholic Union," a volume of religious sociology, abounding in good thoughts, but, as a whole, not satisfactory,-opposed to communism, but advocating a protective union in both labor and expense; "Crimes of the House of Hapsburg" against its own liege subjects; and a compilation of Kossuth's American speeches. The motive of these books is never intellectual, but always moral and benevolent. Professor Newman's object always is the same. The goal of his ambition is to benefit his fellow-men.

Professor Newman's reputation as a linguist was already made when he began to translate Greek and Latin poetry. If his translations add nothing to that reputation, surely they can take nothing away. They belong to the domain of taste, and not to that of scholarship. His "Odes of Horace," which are translated into metres partially akin to those of the original, have been well received. Not so his translation of the "Iliad" into a compromise between the ballad measure and a peculiar metre of his own. The result is neither poetry nor prose. And this result is one which human nature never can endure. Prose is natural, and poetry is natural. Either of these forms of expression is à sufficient channel for the transmission of ideas. But any go-between refuses to transmit the thought intrusted to its charge. The mechanical effect upon the sense destroys the effect of the idea on the mind. In reading Mr. Newman's "Iliad" aloud, the sound obliterates the meaning; and when we read it to ourselves, still with the mind we can but feel its unpoetic jog. If Professor Newman's mind lacks any thing of universal breadth, it is upon the side of the imagination. Indeed, he says himself, "I am destitute of creative, poetical imagination." And James Martineau would make this fact account for all the wonders of his great experience. But a translation of the "Iliad" would not seem to need creative imagination. And with negative and critical imagination he is very well. supplied. We must look for a solution of these difficulties to the fact, that Mr.

Newman has attempted to decide on a-priori grounds what ought to be Homeric poetry. But, although his work may not subserve the purpose as a poem for which it was designed, it must be. of the greatest value to the teacher and scholar. We can but wish, that with the same strong words and noble renderings, minus a few of the expressions that we cannot understand, it might be recast into the finest prose translation that the world has ever seen. This it would be; and if the laboring men, for whom it was intended, enjoy it. now, we think they would enjoy it better then.

But the most vital interest attaching to this man is that arising from the steady and consistent growth of his religious life. In the book entitled "Phases of Faith," we have a history of the progressive steps by which he passed from Calvinism into a purely theistic faith. This book was written after "The Soul; its Sorrows and its Aspirations," which represents the last result of these investigations; but, in the logical order this is its predecessor. The processes of demolition must precede those of reconstruction.

The style of this book does not compare favorably with Dr. Newman's terse and nervous sentences, that make the "Apologia" delightful, where otherwise it might be very dull; though it is always clear and earnest, and it always rises with the subject, sometimes to great heights. But, where the subject-matter is so crammed with interest, there is less need of adventitious skill. An earnest man, once fairly launched upon the current of the book, will find himself swept on full fast enough, though the breezy rhetorician's art fills not his idle sail. And yet there is a sort of earnestness from which Professor Newman and his book will get but little sympathy; a sort of earnestness which, just because it never had a doubt or trouble of its own, refuses to believe that any one need ever have a doubt or trouble. Men who are built after this pattern are ready to condemn all sorts of earnest introspection. This passion for the truth affects them as a terrible disease. Still less can any thing like sympathy be sought for where the motto is, "He that doubteth is damned," but where it is forgotten that the great apostle added, "if he eat.”

It was because Professor Newman doubted certain things, that he refused to swallow them whole. But should this stamp of persons deign to read his book, though not convinced by any of his arguments, it is not easy to conceive how they would manage to deny his perfect candor and sincerity. It was a great deal harder for him to walk over that road than it is for them to rock themselves to intellectual sleep in beautiful, soft cradles, handed down from immemorial days. He took no step that did not wound his feet. He did not find it pleasant, when they whom he had trusted would not trust him in return. He did not willingly forsake the home in which he had been reared, which was so full of great ancestral memories. He gave up no creed or dogma without going just as far as honesty would let him go in his attempt to rationalize its meaning. He strained the tether of opinion till it broke. He is as orthodox to-day as it is possible for him to be, believing as he does in God, and asking for his love and approbation. But the bigot has a short way of dealing with this manner of experience. The bigot will not read such books as this. He will read Mr. Rogers's reply, and he will say that Mr. Newman is "an infidel." But why? Does he not believe in God, in his dear love and sympathy; in man, in his capacity for truth and righteousness; in prayer, in immortality, in inspiration, and in social equity? Yes: he believes in all these things; he believes in them with all his might, with all the pure flame of his noble heart and generous disposition. But he believes in these things because he feels and knows them to be true; not because he has heard some one say this, nor because he finds it written in a certain book, nor because once in Judea a gigantic soul lived in these thoughts as in an atmosphere of perfect faith and love. They were not true because he lived upon them. He lived upon them, believing them to be the truth. He did not make the atmosphere, but in it he found himself sustained and strengthened and renewed from day to day. But into the heart that knoweth its own bitterness; into the soul that has had sorrow none the less, but more, for all its lofty aspi rations, the words of Francis Newman will carry a great