essays in the "Memoirs of the Academy of Inscriptions." Not only does the paper bring us new accessions of knowledge; but, what is more important, inferences which had escaped former inquirers, are derived from much that was familiar. This essay is, throughout, in Mr. De Quincey's best stylea style singularly lucid whenever he chooses to move without putting his singing robes on. Michelet has told the story of Joan of Arc in that strange dialect which, we suppose, he regards as eloquence. He commences by an essay on the authorship and the influence of the book known by the name of "Thomas à Kempis" (Institution of Christ), and of those of the French work which was founded on it, "The Internal Consolation;" and he then tells us that Joan was this book embodied-was a living legend-was poetry of the highest kind. In Mr. Michelet there never is an absence of diligence-there is often a just feeling of whatever is good and generous; but his style is absolutely the worst in which a man of genius has ever communicated with the publicextravagant raptures at everything; no one scene told in straightforward earnestness delirium tremens simulating madness, almost undistinguishable from it. That the historian should have to record much that the philosopher would call insanity that even the most sober acts of policy should assume to him this character, and be commented on with such view, is quite intelligible. We may agree with or we may differ from such comment; but that he who draws up the record should feel it necessary to express in his language maniacal sympathy with each of his heroes and heroines is, we think, in discord with the exercise of that calm judgment which the indolent reader has a right to expect. Michelet's answer may be, that the reader has no right to be indolent, and that the historian's business is but to give such pictures as he best can of the incidents which are brought before him by his subject; that the moral judgment which they call into exercise is rather for his reader than himself; and that, without the perpetual excitement of the imagination, the narrative would become languid, and incapable of in any way animating the reader into the kind of mental exertion necessary to perform his part. Allowing great weight to such considerations, we yet think that between the mere annalist and such a scene-painter as Michelet, something intermediate would be better than either. Mr. De Quincey divides the story of Joan of Arc into two parts, which cannot be easily brought into one view the first, when, acting under the impulses of her own strong conviction, she inspired others with confidence-when, feeling the important advantage which the fact of actual coronation would give Charles VII. over his rival, she succeeded in effecting this object; and, this being done, regarded her mission at an end. The other, when she reluctantly allowed herself to be an instrument in the hands of mere politicians; and was moved, not by what she regarded as divine inspiration, but by such poor motives as the exigencies of the moment suggested to those whose instrument she was. The first of these periods was exultation-victory- triumph; the second, defeat humiliation-to her, deathto every one else concerned, utter disgrace. All this is well told. The closing essay in the volume is the best, and one which well deserves to be read with care. The subject is, Popular Superstition. A number of stories, most of them fully authenticated, "Of calling shapes and beckoning shadows dire. And aëry tongues that syllable men's names, On sands, and shores, and desert wildernesses," are here brought together, and are told with the same power and the same entire earnestness of manner that so im presses the reader of Scott's "Demonology and Witchcraft." It is really a matter of astonishment to us-though, perhaps, in part to be accounted for by Mr. De Quincey having brought together essays written at very different periods of life-to find such great contrasts of style as are exhibited in these volumes. But throughout, even where we are most dissatisfied, there is the element of very considerable mental power; and if we feel that, using no other forms than those which elevated prose supplies, he has sometimes failed to produce the poetical effects at which it would seem he is aiming, it must be remembered that it is an experiment in which no man, without the aid of the forms which poetry demands and justifies, and the involuntary sympathics which they call up as if by magic, has ever succeeded. THE DEDICATION OF THE TEMPLE. Εἰ γὰρ τὸ καταργούμενον διὰ δόξης, πολλῶ μᾶλλον τὸ μένον ἐν δόξη.—2 Cor. 111. 11. "All put on a gentle hue, The night is more beloved than day."-COLERIDGE. WHERE falls the moonlight fairest? On tall ships But where falls moonlight fairest? On a fane, A dream of spires, and terraces of gold, Of days I thought when the Crusader gave Hung up the helm, and habergeon, and glaive, The dark old tongue of beauty through the Psalter; Long-treasured memories of a soldier's soul. Of all magnificence of thoughtful stone Of Time's superbest temples many a one, Typing the Infinite, though reared by man ; To whose high brows, like many crowns, are given I look'd, albeit 'twere an English June, On Solomon's temple with amazèd eye, The great round rosy oriental moon* Tinging the paleness of the immaculate sky; "The moon which hung over our head displayed colours of fire and of the rose."Lamartine's Voyage, &c. "Solomon held a feast, and all Israel with him, seven days and seven days."—1 Kings, viii. 65. I saw the glorious moonlight raining through The lateral windows. * What a wealth was there What rich orfevyry of barbaric air!t From Gihon, peradventure, golden-bright, Unto the liquid lyre of Eden's river, That panteth forth on its four chords for ever The air was taken with a faint fine sense Of eastern gums, of cedar, and of nard; With calm deep eyes, of passionless regard; A little space, and this magnifical And profuse beauty, beyond fancy's showing, Well might it task angelic harps to swell Two "holy ones and watchers" of that throng Whilome with coming of his stormy feet, The younger seraph first his anthem sung, "Glory to God upon God's holy mountain, Keep the wild spirit of the world in tune! But graven first on yon empyreal blue A faultless flower, created ere it grew !tt . แ ↑ "I have prepared with all my might for the house of my God onyx stones, and stones to be set, glistering stones."-1 Chron., xxix. 2. The curious reader may find, in the first book of "Raleigh's History of the World,” a chapter of the place of Paradise," in which, among a variety of theories, there are some given which identify it with the lands reached by the navies of Hiram and Solomon. S" So was he seven years in building it."—1 Kings, vi. 38. Compare the imagery in Hosea, xiv. 5. "Westward with the gate Shallecheth."-1 Chron. xxvi. 16. Καὶ τὸ ἀριὴλ πηχῶν τεσσάρων καὶ ἀπὸ τοῦ ἀριὴλ. κ. τ. λ. Ιxx.; Ezek. xliii. 15. The altar is here called Ariel, . e., the hearth of God; the same appellation is extended to the city of Jerusalem.-Isaiah, xxix. 1 tt "All this, said David, the Lord made me to understand in writing by his hand upon me."-1 Chron. xxviii. 19; c. f. Ex. xxv. 40; Gen. ii. 5. I mark'd the anointed singer year by year Gather the waifs wash'd up by war's wild tide; And still he stored an appanage that shamed Imperial spoils his songs of thought divine, There with adulterous beauty made to shine, And yester morning from the vaulted fire Over Heaven's crystal storiest downward borne. Jeduthun's harp and Heman's sounding horn ;‡ "Praise our good God!" on many a tube and chord, To crash with grander touches than before, That measure paled with awe Dan's lion brow, T Look'd on a prouder pomp than ever dyed Then from the Holiest, the brightly dark, Make this house living-on the Presence roll'd, And on the brazen scaffold left the King, "It is time to baptise poetry in Jordan, for she will never become clean by washing in the waters of Damascus."-Cowley, Pref. to Davideis. † Amos, ix. 6. 1 Chron. xxv. 3, 5. "The trumpeters and singers were as one, to make one sound; they lifted up their voice with the instruments of music, and praised the Lord, saying, for He is good.”— 2 Chron. v. 13. Zebulon shall dwell at the haven of the sea."—Gen. xlix. 13. "Dan is a lion's whelp."-Deut. xxiii. 22. "Rejoice, Issachar, in thy tents."-Deut. xxxiii. 18. "The children of Issachar, which were men that had understanding of the times, to know what Israel ought to do."— 1 Chron. xii. 32. tt "Joseph is a fruitful bough."-Gen. xlix. 22. "Blessed of the Lord be his land for the chief things of the ancient mountains."--Deut. xxxiii. 13-15. "And of Asher he said, under thy shoes shall be iron and brass."-Deut. xxxiii. 24, 25, margin. "Brass and iron were here melted, being in great plenty in this country."— Bishop Patrick, in locum. Wiser than wrinkled men, who watch the disc Where, white as their own hair, the cataracts fall In flower and leaf he reads a history writ,* Thousand sweet silent tongues, one central thought! Dreams that the very dreamer hath forgot; But still that awful sea of wisdom breaks To the sweet tune call'd poetry by men; A luminous robe of words, the glory then He spake glad words that trembled into woe; He rose, and blest the host with happy hand; The torrents, motionless on their rocky stand, So hung the cloud before a thousand eyes, Ceased the fair spirit; and angelic creatures Something like sorrow in their temperament— "Yea, let Magnificats proclaim the birth, Of this fair place, the joy of all the earth,' This dim-bright place, where faintest odours flow And faintest hues as from Heaven's windows fall, "The heavenliest thing of all that is not Heaven! His visible ark, man's dovelike soul to win This alludes to Goethe's beautiful speculations on the idea of the general form of a plant, which has been considered by competent judges the leading idea of modern botany.— See Whewell's Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences, vol. i. pp. 30-32. In these lines the writer has spoken with some recollection of Cousin's "Critique on Locke" in his History of Modern Philosophy, lecture xvi. |