"Ask not who ended here his span ? His name, reproach, and praise was man. Sacred how high, and vain how low? He knew not here, but died to know.” And now we close and crown our poetical extracts with the whole of that short piece, which first directed our attention to Gambold. He who can read it without intense interest, without recognising in every line of its sad strain, the betokenings of his own spirit in its self-questioning moods, may be sure that he has, as yet, lived only in the lower part of his nature; that there is still a world of slumbering thought and sentiment in his bosom, of which he has not the slightest conception; and one which, if awaked, would give an unearthly, and hitherto unimagined interest to this present life, and lift his Godinspired soul to that brighter and better state, which "eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man" fully "conceived." It is one of those suggestive and prophetical strains of true poetry, like the "Lines written in a Church-yard," attributed to a school-boy, and a few others, that the mind selects by a sort of elective affinity, which, when once read, are never afterwards forgotten, but are found hymning on as a vocal accompaniment to the soul in its thoughtful and antedating hours. "THE MYSTERY OF LIFE. "So many years I've seen the sun, And called these eyes and hands my own; A thousand little acts I 've done, And childhood have, and manhood known: O what is life? and this dull round To tread, why was a spirit bound? "So many airy draughts and lines, And warm excursions of the mind, "So many tender joys and woes Have on my quivering soul had power; "So many human souls divine, So at one interview displayed, "So many wondrous gleams of light, "Ere long, when sovereign Wisdom wills, Where in their bright result shall rise Thoughts, virtues, friendships, griefs, and joys." The principal prose writings in the volume under review are two sermons. One is entitled "Christianity Tidings of Joy," and Mr. Erskine says of it, "that it was preached at a time when the free grace of the gospel was not much known in England," (that is, about the middle, probably, of the last century!)" and never did any uninspired sermon give a plainer or sweeter exhibition of it." The other, on "Religious Reverence," he observes, " contains some striking thoughts, couched in most powerful phraseology." As he gives no analysis or references in support of these assertions, our readers will estimate their value according to the confidence they place in Mr. Erskine's authority. We quote one or two short passages, as being, in our opin ion, the best in the sermons, and which, being insulated ones, will explain themselves. Nothing more justly keeps man in a perpetual awe, than the inscrutability of his own soul, in its nature, capacities, and manner of acting. A tame and feeble bird, that accidentally has hatched an eagle's egg, and is afterwards affrighted at the strength and impetuous tendency of what has been fostered under its own wings, cannot find itself in a more critical case, than a man, when holding dialogue, like Adrian, with his own soul." "Could we conceive any principle so low and unelevated, that the person is able quite to come up with it, and owes it no blushing reverence of this sort; it would, at the same time, cease to be what we call a principle. A man of principle, therefore, be it of what nature it will, is a bashful man, dissatisfied with himself, and a true devotee." "He that reverences nothing, has at the same time no worth." "In becoming Christians, though we love some persons more than we did, let us love none less.' The letter addressed to E. V., Esq., though apparently written with much pains-taking, contains some affecting sentiments pleasingly expressed. Its whole strain is pensive, and contains the gems of several of those thoughts which are so beautifully developed in the "Mystery of Life." The dependence of the aspect of outward things on the state of the percipient soul; or, to use the modern phrase, the connexion between the "objective" and "subjective," is thus manifested in a description of youth. "The paradisiacal bloom that did then, to the fresh and innocent imagination, dwell on the whole face of things; the soft and solemn delight that even a balmy air, a sunny landscape, the beauties of the vegetable world, hills and vales, a brook or a pebble did then excite. And surely there is something mysteriously great and noble in the first years of our life; which being my notion, you will not be offended that I speak to you, a young man, more as young, than as man, for the former implies something very happy, and the latter something very miserable." In this, and in the following letter to a "Studious young Lady," he takes a strange pleasure in depreciating human knowledge. The following remark, however, will, to use his own expression, "keep." "There is no such lumber in the world as our last year's notions, which yet, in their day, were wonderfully fine and delight ful. The fruit of the tree of knowledge will not keep it is pleasant enough when you first pluck it; but, if you pretend to lay it up, it will rot." We close our remarks and extracts here; happy if our readers shall find any thing approaching to the same pleasure in reading, that we have had in making them; and in the hope that we may have done something to introduce a highly amiable, pious, and gifted man of genius, to the acquaintance of any to whom he has heretofore been unknown. J. B. ART. II. On the Origin of Allegorical Interpretation. [The subject of Allegorical Interpretation is of essential importance to be attended to in the study of the history of opinions, especially of opinions concerning religion. Some remarks have been made upon it in a former volume of the Christian Examiner (Vol V., for 1828; p. 37 et seqq.) The following article is translated from the First Part of Dopke's Hermeneutick der neutestamentlichen Schriftsteller, a work treating, as a translator might entitle it in English, " Of the Manner in which the Writers of the New Testament have quoted the Old Testament." The extract here given is, perhaps, the best written and most important portion of the book. In the discussion of its subject the writer is much indebted to the paper of Eichhorn to which he refers.] As regards the origin of allegorical interpretation, it is a fact of the greatest importance that we can trace it in various directions, and discover in all of them the same causes operating to produce it, though we can ascertain nothing respecting the time of its introduction but that this belongs to the remotest antiquity. We find it among the Greeks, Jews, Persians, Turks, and Christians; and in order correctly to determine its origin, we must discover some uniform motive for it, at least among those nations by whom it was not borrowed, ready formed. It will facilitate our inquiries to begin with the Greeks. As soon as man, awakened to consciousness, endeavours to rise above the rude state of nature, and to individualize himself as distinct from nature, he is compelled by an inward impulse to reflect on that nature which he has learned to be distinct from himself, and to observe the phenomena which it presents. He then discovers a web of causes and effects, and sees how one thing depends on another. But so many new phenomena continually occur of which he knows not the causes, and many are so imposing, that he cannot contemplate them without amazement. In his inmost soul he feels constrained to recognise something higher, he refers the being of nature to a higher being; but, as this conviction is produced by observing a variety of phenomena, he imagines various higher causes which, under the feeling of dependence, he honors as powers exalted above him. When the powers of nature have been thus personified, they are next brought into connexion and become the subjects of mythological fables. To the Egyptian, the revolutions of the Sun and the changes in the Nile became the history of Osiris. The Sun on the 21st of December grows faint, dies as it were, and is born anew. Even so Osiris is overcome by Typhon, put to death, and revives in the freshness of youth after overcoming the Evil One. Such legends originate when the mind is taking its first steps, and the images of the gods are stamped with the rudeness of the time. This is the period to which belong the creations of Homer. The only models for his delineations of the gods were men in a state of rude nature; and, if he represents his gods as infinitely exalted above men, they possess only those qualities in an elevated degree, which he deemed the chief excellences of men. strength swayed by violent passions, courage often united with brutality, which tramples on rights and humanity; arrogance, ambition, lust, intemperance, stain alike his gods and men. But the boundless charm of his unsurpassed poetry gave him an immense influence over the characters of his countrymen; his verses were in every mouth, every writer took him for his model. From the dawn of Grecian civilization to its noon, his poems were the great text-book used in the education of youth, and he was regarded as the source of all knowledge and wisdom. Meanwhile, civilization had advanced so far, morals had become so refined, philosophical speculation had reached such a height, that the difference between his ideas and those of the time was very obvious. Notwithstanding the progress of the intellect, however, the Greeks could not contemplate Homer with reference to the rude age in which he lived; their notions of his wisdom had been raised too high, and they sought to find in him the enlightened ideas of their own times. Another circumstance is to be considered. The writings of Homer were used not only as a means of training the intellects, but of forming the morals, of youth. And in this point of view he Rude |