THE Connection of this visible with an invisible system of things, as it is one of the most awful, so is it one of the most interesting subjects of human contem plation. In every country and age, the existence of intelligent beings-inhabitants of some unseen world, yet holding mysterious intercourse with the tenants of this dim spot-has formed a part of the creed even of the rudest and most illiterate. Fancy has exhausted herself in devising the shapes and occupations of unencumbered spirits, and kindled in love or shrunk in fear from the images of beauty or of terror thus fashioned in her own secret chambers, and after models which seem like the relics of some past existence. From the Word of truth is known the occasion of all this busy toil, and the true original of those half-effaced forms which man's fallen spirit makes such bewildering efforts to regain. The angels of Light and the angels of Darkness engaged in a fearful conflict, on which man's eternal destiny depends, and in which he, too, has his side to choose, and must choose, these constitute the two real classes under which may be ranged all those lovely or fearful creations of the mind in its ever-repeated and ever-baffled, while unaided, efforts to exhibit their dim ideas still lingering within.

When the general diffusion of Christianity had made public the secrets of the spiritual world, this mass of truth mingling with the fantastic matter of popular superstition easily amalgamated with what were, in fact, only imperfect representations of its own forms: but, while it modified these vanities, itself underwent various modifications. Truth was run into the mould of opinions already existing, and took their shape while it altered their character. The existence of One evil spirit, mighty in power and terrible in hate-the sublimest, perhaps, of all conceptions, save that of God himself-was among the most important of these secrets; and it would be curious to trace the

various forms which, in different countries and at different times, it has assumed. No minute inquiry of this kind is here intended: it may, however, be observed, that in those countries where Philosophy had already busied herself about the great question of moral evil, and the connexion between virtue and happiness-vice and misery was theoretically understood--men's conception of the Adversary represented him more evidently as using sin for the great instrument of assailing the happiness of mankind, and while its prevalence readily suggested the power of the being who wielded it so as in some cases to produce an awe almost approaching to worship, this was unmingled with anything like familiarity or affection. With our barbarous ancestors of the North the case was different. Of the miseries and hardships of our fallen race they had indeed their fair share, and on the Enemy, when acquainted with his existence, they were not slow in charging them: but their connexion with moral evil was little thought of by these rude men; so that one great element of measuring the power, and of moving their own hatred of the evil one was wanting. By degrees he came to be thought of as mischievous rather than wicked-a doubtful and dangerous, rather than a hateful object.

Poetry whose business is with truth, as it exists in the Fancy, on its passage from Sense to Reason, when stripped of its gross material clothing, and not yet spiritualized, so moulding it that it may affect the Intellect through our emotions, as in the hands of Philosophy it does through our reasoning faculties-Poetry, as might be expected, soon availed herself of the popular conceptions of the fallen Archangel; and, adapting by her magic power, this creature of opinion to the passions of men and the laws by which those passions affect the mind, brought it in all the startling reality of truth before that part of man's nature of

which truth, in its reality, is the proper object. That this, as well as every other manifestation of truth, has been attended with beneficial effects, cannot, we think, be doubted; and we not only agree with Mr. Auster that it is too late to inquire whether the fallen angel be a fitting subject for poetry; but we do think it never ought to have been matter of question at all.

On the genius of the poet-on the circumstances of the time and country in which he lives, must depend the mode in which he will exhibit characters whose exhibition is required in the exercise of his art. That the present age is preeminent in knowledge is the boast of its philosophers--that it is an age of light without love is the complaint of its divines. Each views the progress of intellect with different feelings, but both are agreed as to its progress. That the divine should trace in the empire of intellect-we speak, of course, of mere intellect-the work of man's Enemy, is but natural; and, so far as the philosopher admits that popular system of religion which represents this world as a world "lying in the Wicked One," to form a proper machinery for poetry, so far he must admit the propriety of attributing to the poetic god of this world the sway of his favourite principle; while his admiration of the principle itself must incline him to view with favour any striking exhibition of its mighty workings. It is, we believe, Lord Shaftesbury who has observed, with no less truth than elegance, that true wisdom comes more from the heart than the head: but Knowledge, as distinct from this wisdom, and unregulated by it, is an engine of tremendous efficacy, and a sublime object of contemplation. A Being, then, all but omniscient, yet with out heart, is a proper subject for poetry; and, as the Enemy of mankind is such a being, the exhibition of him under this character is what the circumstances of our time might well suggest to a great

poet. Under this character he is exhi bited in the noble poem before us; and the wayward bearing, and grim and grotesque buffoonery of the Northern Demon are used by the poet for the purpose of this exhibition. To this his northern country may have inclined him, the difficulty of exhibiting sin as such, without passion, was got over, by using as the representative of its author the creature whom popular su perstition had learned to regard without moral hatred-and the creed of the poet, which, as to moral distinctions, seem to have been of the laxest, offered at least no difficulty.

The story selected for the display of this wonderful Being, and in which he is introduced as using his passionless and boundless craft to effect the degradation of human nature,* in one of its most exalted forms, is the old nursery tale of Faustus; and all the wild and strange mysteries in which the Philosophy of the dark ages wrapped her scanty store of truths, perplexing the mind with that "darkness visible" of half-conjectured reason veiled in grotesque absurdity, are employed with consummate art to aid and give effect to the display; while the light thus poured upon these darkling elements, is, with harmonious order, proportioned to the intelligence of ordinary minds by a power and variety of rhythmical expression altogether unrivalled.

The drama opens with a scene in Heaven, and the Hymn of the Archangels is a strain of such magnificence as half to justify the poet's boldness.

RAPHAEL.

The sun, as in the ancient days,
'Mong sister stars in rival song,
His destined path observes-obeys,
And still in thunder rolls along:
New strength and full beatitude
The angels gather from his sight,
Mysterious all-yet all is good,
All fair as at the birth of light!

VOL. VI.

H

GABRIEL.

Swift, unimaginably swift,
Soft spins the earth, and glories bright
Of mid-day Eden change and shift
To shades of deep and spectral night.
The vexed sea foams-waves leap and

moan,

And chide the rocks with insult hoarse, And wave and rock are hurried on, And suns and stars in endless course.

MICHAEL.

And winds with winds mad war maintain,
From sea to land, from land to sea;
And heave round earth, a living chain
Of interwoven agency.
Guides of the bursting thunder-peal,
Fast lightnings flash with deadly ray,
While, Lord, with Thee thy servants feel
Calm effluence of abiding day.

ALL.

New strength and full beatitude
The angels gather from thy sight;
Mysterious all, yet all is good,
All fair as at the birth of light.

Our first acquaintance with this noble passage, was in the Fragments from Faust, published in the posthumous works of the late Byshe Shelley-but spirited as is the version of Shelley, and spite of the prejudices of a first love, we think that Mr. Anster has surpassed him. The poetry is indeed to be found in Shelley, and it is poetry powerfully expressed, but this expression is the result of great effort, and bears the mark of being so; it wants the magic sweetness and melody of Mr. Anster's numbers; the combination of which, with the sublimity and rapid succession of the thoughts, appeared to Shelley unattainable, but which, to judge from the multiplied display of it in the volume before us, seems in Mr. Anster the result of a power of adapting the harmony of words to that of the thoughts which they express, with a truth almost approaching to the natural concord between the harmony of thoughts and that of the emotions to which they give birth; this power does not, we think, exist to the same extent in any other living poet, and nothing but the publication of the present work could have convinced us that it had not died with Coleridge.

The Hymn is followed by a dialogue between the Supreme Being and Mephistopheles the demon of the drama.

In this dialogue there is much that is offensive to a Christian's feelings, and the rather that the hint of the dialogue itself is probably taken from Scripture. On this head Mr. Anster has very naturally and with great ingenuity, though we think vainly, endeavoured to justify his author, for his argument at least goes the length of justification. Admitting, and we are not prepared to deny it, that the introducfiable as that of the Adversary, and tion of the Supreme Being is as justithat the exhibition of his daring and rebellious spirit unrestrained even by the Highest Presence is too essential a part of his character to be omitted; still, what the offence mainly consistsin is, the misrepresentation of the real relation between God and the Evil One, and in the sentiments which He, who cannot behold sin with allowance, is made to express towards its author.

In the way of excuse of his author, and in justification of the making this scene a part of his own translation, Mr. Anster is more successful; we wish that we could find room for his argument, but we feel that we have already detained our readers too long from the poem itself.

In the dialogue already noticed, Faustus has been delivered over into the Dæmon's power for a season. The next scene exhibits him in his closet wearied of intellectual pursuits, and of the vanity and vexation of spirit which wait on them; feeling those boundless desires to which faith alone can, in our sphere, give even an ideal object, and without that faith to rest on; in this state he has turned to the forbidden arts of magic, and summons the unseen dwellers of the air to his assistance. The changes which come over the spirit of the restless child of clay, and the effects of the mysterious presence of his unearthly visitants, are expressed in powerful and original poetry. This awful converse is interrupted by the entrance of a pupil, and Faustus thereby recalled to earthly cares, resumes his desponding thoughts as at first. The shifting of his attention to each of the objects about him, the eagerness with which he follows for a while the train of feelings which they suggest, and the disgust with which he turns from them one after another, are displayed with matchless