principles; but what we have most to the United States an opposite theory consider in them are economical and is a common truism. It is a fact that military questions, the purse and the sword deciding their issue. Dr. Arnold devotes some pages to the expense of war, and the burdens it lays upon a nation, discussing incidentally the question of the right of one generation to tax another, by carrying on its contests through the medium of loans. He instances the wars of the last century, and the first fifteen years of the present, in which Great Britain contracted a debt of £700,000,000, to pay the interest of which more than half of her present revenue is appropriated. Though he does not absolutely object to this mode of making posterity pay part of the expenses of war, he thinks that it has been carried beyond all bounds of prudence and justice heretofore. The fourth lecture treats of the laws of war and military operations. The humanity of the author is well exemplified in this portion of his book. The fifth and sixth lectures relate to internal history, principally of that of England, in which a fine analysis is given of its two great parties, the popular and the anti-popular, from the age of Elizabeth down to the Revolution of 1688. The strange mixture of political, per sonal and religious considerations which this period of English history exhibits, is rendered clearer to the apprehension of the common student than in any other work we have seen. The seventh lecture treats of England since the Revolution, and is full of valuable thought and information. The last lecture is devoted to a discussion of the credibility of history, and to a few other questions which the subject naturally suggests. The American edition of this work, is handsomely printed and carefully edited. Professor Reed's notes, which consist principally of further elucidations of Dr. Arnold's views by extracts from his other writings will be found quite interesting. We think that he might have made the notes more valuable by throwing in, here and there, a criticism or argument of his own, when his author's principles clash with Ame-. rican ideas, as in the speculations on Church and State; but on this point we do not insist. Dr. Arnold's notions of a state are too theoretical to find a practical exemplification anywhere; and in when governments have assumed their ultimate end to be moral, morality as well as life and property have equally suffered. It is a fact, that the connection of religion with political power, has had no good influence in making states or subjects moral or religious. It is a fact that the subordination of physical to religious ends, in the action of states, has produced moral evil by the physical suffering it has created. However much we respect Dr. Arnold's character, and his opinions as an exponent of his character, we think that in this case zeal vitiated his judgment, and that he overlooked the great practical truth, which has been expressed with so much eloquence by a prominent English liberal statesman, that "the whole history of the Christian religion shows, that she is in far greater danger of being corrupted by the alliance of power, than of being crushed by its opposition. Those who thrust temporal sovereignty upon her, treat her as their prototypes treated her author. They bow the knee, and spit upon her; they cry hail! and smite her on the cheek; they put a scepere into her hand, but it is a fragile reed; they crown her, but it is with thorns; they cover with purple the wounds which their own hands have inflicted on her; and inscribe magnificent titles over the cross on which they have fixed her to perish in ignominy and pain." We publish the foregoing article, first, because of our high respect for the accomplished critic through whose kindness it has been presented to us— and, secondly, for the useful synopsis it presents of the work to which it relates. There are some peculiarities in this volume of lectures, however, which our contributor has substantially overlooked, of too grave an import to receive the same treatment at our hands. Our ardent admiration for the gifted Professor whose death nearly the whole civilized world united in deploring, would probably have prevented our uttering one discordant note to mar the harmony of such a universal sentiment, if we had been personally compelled to entertain original jurisdiction of the subject of the foregoing article. After what has been stated, however, in the preceding pages, and to all of which we substar tially subscribe, we feel it our duty to express an opinion or two about these lectures, which will not harmonize with the prevailing tone of published opinion upon the subject. In doing so, we should exceedingly regret being instrumental in depreciating any person's estimate of the moral and intellectual symmetry of Dr. Arnold's character, for which he was so justly distinguished during his life, and for which, more than anything else, in our judgment, his fame will be cherished. We propose to speak of him at present merely in his professional character-as an interpreter of history-and in viewing him in that capacity, we wish to point out what seem to us capital defects in the spirit and philosophy of some of these lectures. In the first place, the learned Doctor is an open, pertinacious and of course, though unconsciously, a sophistical advocate of a constitutional religion. He maintains that, as it is the business of government to secure the largest happiness of every individual under its control; and as every man's spiritual are his highest interests -most seriously involve his happiness-therefore Government should see that he is properly preached to and prayed for, according to a form of faith which the legislators of the country should judge to be efficacious and should properly authenticate. Whately and of Macauley, is a problem to honest men. Near the conclusion of the Inaugural Lecture, another proposition "with its darkness dares affront the light," scarcely less extraordinary than the one to which we have been glancing. We will quote it in its author's own language: history, which cannot indeed be confidently relied on, but which still impresses the mind with an imagination, if not with a conviction, of its reality. I mean, that modern history appears to be not only a step in advance of ancient history, but the last step; it appears to bear marks of the fulness of time, as if there would be no future history beyond it. For the last eighteen hundred years Greece has fed the human intellect; Rome, taught by has been the source of law and govern Greece, and improving upon her teacher, ment and social civilisation; and what neither Greece nor Rome could furnish, the perfection of moral and spiritual truth, has been given by Christianity. changes which have been wrought have arisen out of the reception of these ele "This leads us to a view of modern The But races so such force of character that what was old ments by new races; races endowed with in itself, when exhibited in them, seemed to become something new. gifted are and have been from the beginning of the world few in number: the mass of mankind have no such power; they either receive the impression of foreign elements so completely that their own individual character is absorbed, and Now, it is unnecessary in this counthey take their whole being from withtry to argue the absurdity of forcing higher elements, they dwindle away when out; or being incapable of taking in the people to submit their spiritual edu- brought into the presence of a more powcation and direction to the caprices of erful life, and become at last extinct altopolitical parties, or to the diversified gether. Now looking anxiously round judgments of five hundred members of the world for any new races which may Parliament. Any person having the receive the seed (so to speak) of our preremotest acquaintance with the true sent history into a kindly yet a vigorous functions of government, would per- yet new, for a future period, we know not soil, and may reproduce it, the same and ceive at once that there is probably no where such *are to be found. Some aporganization in the world more unfit, in pear exhausted, others incapable, aud yet the first place, to determine disputed the surface of the whole globe is known points of religious faith than a legisla- to us. The Roman colonies along the ture, and none more incapable of prop- banks of the Rhine and Danube looked agating those that are established than out on the country beyond those rivers as a political administration. In this counwe look up at the stars, and actually see try, not enough speak tolerantly of the with our eyes a world of which we know doctrine to give it respectability. But nothing. The Romans knew that there how any doubt should remain, even in did not know; how vast it might be, was was a vast portion of earth which they England, upon the subject after the a part of its mysteries. But to us all is utterly overwhelming arguments of explored: imagination can hope for no What may be done hereafter by the Sclavonic nations, is not prejudged by this statement; because the Sclavonic nations are elements of our actual history, although their powers may be as yet only partially developed. new Atlantic island to realize the vision of initiated such mighty, innumerable and Plato's Critias: no new continent peo- incommensurable results as these? If pled by youthful races, the destined reour wars are not so bloody and terrible, storers of our worn-out generations Eve; is it not something to have learned the rywhere the search has been made, and the report has been received; we have way of dispensing with them, not only the full amount of earth's resources before without sacrificing our rights, but actuAnd we us, and they seem inadequate to supply ally by dignifying our race. life for a third period of human history." beg to ask, are not the details and results of such agencies developing themselves in every form and in every direction about us every day, the proper material of history? We certainly think that the lecturer would have been much nearer the truth, if he had said that modern history had taken its first step instead of its last. It is a foolish fantasy, which will not bear a moment's scrutiny, and weakens our faith greatly in the evenness and reliability of its author's judgment. What this can mean we confess ourselves at a loss to determine. The volume of history closed? no future history beyond? Surely this is a fantasy, not an historical theory. Greek and Roman civilizations and Christianity, he assures us, have fed the human intellect up to the present time, and made history. But such gifted races are few in number, and "now looking anxiously round the world for any new races which may receive the seed (so to speak) of our present history into a kindly yet vigorous soil, and may reproduce it the same and yet new for a future period, we know not where such are to be found." If we had been determined to blunder on either side of this question, we should have said that history had just begun. It has always been our impression that history is a record of the experience of nations, and the philosophy of history is the induction from those experiences of general laws for man's future progress and happiness. If our interpretation be correct-and we believe our author adopts substantially the same-we beg to know when was the world more pregnant with startling experiences, with unanticipated transitions and results, than in the last half a century? The capacity of man has never begun to be measured, nor will it until that freedom of industry and that strength of will which both spring from the largest individual independence, and are the common product of our political experiment, have had time to develope in him the resources of his nature. There is scarcely a fact in all the history of antiquity so impressive or so justly entitled to be of record, as the yet elementary achievements of the Magnetic Telegraph. What event in the career of Alexander the Great presents a more exalting or exalted idea of ingenuity, power, heroism and philanthropy, than are de veloped in the first successful attempt to cross the Atlantic ocean by steam? What two achievements, recorded either in ancient or modern history, have In the third Lecture will be found a somewhat more practical illustration of our author's theory of historical interpretation than either of the foregoing. After an eloquent and forcible statement of the processes of Napoleon's rapid elevation to the control of European politics, he thus proceeds: 'Earthly state has never reached a prouder pinnacle than when Napoleon, in that mighty host, unequalled in all time, June 1812, gathered his army at Dresden, of 450,000, not men merely, but effective soldiers, and there received the homage of subject kings. And now what was the principal adversary of this tremendous power? by whom was it checked, and resisted, and put down? By none, and by nothing, but the direct and manifest interposition of God. I know of no language so well fitted to describe that victorious advance to Moscow, and the utter humiliation of the retreat, as the language of the prophet with respect to the advance and subsequent destruction of the host of Sennacherib. When they arose early in the morning, behold they were all dead corpses,' applies almost literally to that thousand horses perished, and the strength memorable night of frost in which twenty of the French army was utterly broken. Human instruments no doubt were em ployed in the remainder of the work, nor would I deny to Germany and to Prussia the glories of that great year 1813, nor to England the honor of her victories in Spain, or of the crowning victory of Waterloo. But at the distance of thirty years, those who lived in the time of danger, and remember its magnitude, and now calmly review what there was in human strength to avert it, must acknowledge, I think, beyond all controversy, that the deliverance of Europe from the dominion of Napoleon was effected neither by Russia, nor by Germany, nor by England, but by the hand of God alone." It is the last resort of an infirm faith and a shallow philosophy to ascribe human accidents to special interpositions of Divine Providence. For what result here stated or to be conjectured was it necessary that Providence should interfere on this memorable occasion? Was it because 20,000 horses were frozen? But in another lecture the author gives us an account of the siege of Genoa by the English in the beginning of the century under Admiral Keith, when "twenty thousand innocent persons, old and young, women and children, died of starvation," through that officer's inhumanity. Was that Providential? If Napoleon were too powerful for man to curb, could not some obscure ball, under Providence, have left him upon the fields of Marengo or Jena, without the lives of so many thousand wretched and innocent victims being required to expiate his crimes, he surviving, was it not a nearer approach to superhuman agency to arm him with his dangerous influence than to disarm him. Providence is not so sterile of resources as to be compelled to reach its ends by such circuitous routes. There is in fact no blasphemy more shocking than that of pretending to know the motives of the Supreme Being, and to imagine his universal and everlasting laws are ever suspended to repair by special interposition some consequence against which he had not provided in the great plan of his creation. The possibility of such a thing annihilates his Omniscience and his Omnipotence.* It is a painful office to trace the imperfections of noble men, and the temptations to blindness in this instance are as great as the obituaries of the century perhaps have presented. But the defects of which we speak we notice only in connection with his professional character, and they are such as in a public teacher we cannot overlook or forgive. Irrespective of them, this volume has substantial merits to which, in our judgment, public criticism has done more than justice. Posterity will probably settle in the conviction that with all his learning, his amenity and his capacity, he lacked the discipline which comes from the active struggle, hand to hand and foot to foot, with armed error. Clear and demonstrable opinions on speculative subjects are rarely formed without conflict. Ex-parte deliberations rarely exhaust any subject having complex relations. The lecturer always has it in his own way with his audience, and if his arguments were inconclusive or sophistical there were none to gainsay them. Dr. Arnold, in our judgment, has not escaped those infirmities to which his profession is so exposed. For that reason we think his historical writings rather suggestive than instruc tive, and his theories often fancies rath er than inductions, so far as they have taken their shape from the operations of his own mind. The absurd results to which this faith in special Providences sometimes leads, was very adequately illustrated during the late Presidential canvass. A very prominent divine of New York city, at one of our fashionable watering places, remarked publicly that he looked upon the nomination of Theodore Frelinghuysen to the office of Vice President, as Providential. The opinion was doubtless based upon his probable success, and the influences which he supposed the candidate's religious character would probably exert upon the councils of the nation. Now this foolish and impertinent statement committed its author to one of two conclusions, either of which would be equally painful for him to embrace-either Mr. Frelinghuysen's defeat was Providential, or Providence has not power to elect him. Of course the latter horn of the dilemma cannot be accepted. We may therefore conclude that the Reverend gentleman esteems the defeat of the Chancellor, and the exclusion of his exalting influences from the councils of the nation, as Providential—a conclusion pregnant with the farther conclusion, that the prevailing candidate was Providentially chosen. THE ALCAIDE OF MOLINA. BY CALEB CUSHING. Imitated from the Spanish. "Tambien soy Abencerrage." With hand upon his scymetar and fury in his eyes, Molina's brave alcaide rushed forth from the gay Alhambra; "I go to meet the Christian bands of proud Castille," he cries, "And leave the Zegris here to play the lute or dance the zambra. "Of Bencerrage's line am I-and if Granada boasts In all her hundred warrior-tribes a nobler race or braver, Then march they to the Vega with their banners and their hosts, And, charged by Aragon's fierce knights, see which will soonest waver. "The dulcimer let others touch-be mine the sword to wield, "Be it that in Castille I live, from palaces afar, Far from the Jenil's golden stream, far from the crystal Darro; "Yes, here amid the pleasures of Granada and of home, Ye waste the precious hours of life in songs, and games, and dances, "I leave the Alhambra's festive halls, I leave the craven hearts, "What boots a brave man's presence? what avails a brave man's word? "Ye drive me from Granada forth, ye sons of noble sires, Degenerate sons, who drive me forth, because the sacred fires "I care not for your lowering looks, I scorn your utmost wrath; "No Zegri of you all shall say a stain rests on my name; |