long enumeration of particulars. The imagination of the reader is set busily at work. Mr. Dana sees these various objects in their poetic light, freed from their ordinary prosaic dress. They are revealed in true yet fresher and nobler aspects. They are real objects, the same which we every day behold, yet transfigured, as it were, by the light which comes from the poet's imagination. We everywhere see what it is so hard to describe, the difference between what is called a fine description and the magic pen of genius. There are no unmeaning or common-place epithets. Every word is apt, and it seems instinct with a mysterious life. Let us take two stanzas at random:

"But when the light winds lie at rest,
And on the glassy, heaving sea,

The black duck, with her glossy breast,
Sits swinging silently,-

How beautiful! no ripples break the reach,

And silvery waves go noiseless up the beach."

"And where the far-off sand-bars lift
Their backs in long and narrow line,

The breakers shout, and leap, and shift,
And toss the sparkling brine

Into the air; then rush to mimic strife:

Glad creatures of the sea, and full of life!"

In a poet who reflects so profoundly on the great problems of life, death and immortality, it is refreshing to meet with sweet and soothing lessons from outward nature. What a relief are

the moon and the waves of the sea amid the terrific stanzas of the Ancient Mariner! There is nothing strange, however, in this. Every great poet loves nature. However he may delight in inward meditation, his joy is also to hold communion with visible forms, with all that wondrous panorama which the goodness of God has spread out before us. How transcendently sublime are some of Shakspeare's brief allusions to the starry heavens ! How beautiful are some of his images which he seems carelessly to borrow from various objects in nature. These, no less than human passions, come and go at his bidding. The works of Mr. Dana, in the moral impression which they are fitted to produce, deserve the heartiest praise. It is literature consecrated to the worthiest objects. There is no line, which, the author dying, would wish to blot. It is an offering of genius laid on the altar of heavenly truth. Many things could have been written only by one who had felt the preciousness of the great "Sacrifice," who knows not where to solve the bitter doubts which harass the human soul except in the message of Him who is the Light of the world. In reading many of these pages, one feels that he is in companionship, not merely with the "sweet singers" of earth, but with those who have attuned their harps in heaven.

We repeat what we said in the beginning of this notice. The productions of Mr. Dana are admirably fitted, both in style and thought, to do good to those who are learning to think and to write. Nothing can be more free from pretence and affectation. The critical remarks, for example those upon the poems of Thomson, are eminently just and considerate. The article suggested by Pollok's Course of Time, we have always regarded as a model of candid, yet profound and discriminating criticism. Such reviews teach how necessary it is to meditate long and feel deeply, before one sits in judgment on a work of genius or of original investigation. We feel thankful that we have in the English language such specimens of reviewing as that of Mr. Dana on Hazlitt's English Poets, and that of Coleridge on Wordsworth's Excursion. In mentioning the works which do honor to American literature, and which are likely to live while the language is spoken, we do not know why the list should begin and end with a few historical writers like Mr. Prescott and Mr. Irving. The poetry of Mr. Dana and Mr. Bryant constitute a solid addition to the treasures of our noble language. They repay in some degree the great debt which we owe to England. They will be read ages hence with delight and profit.

ART. IV. -DR. DAVIDSON ON THE NEW
TESTAMENT.

An Introduction to the New Testament; containing an examination of the most important questions relating to the authority, interpretation, and integrity of the Canonical books, with reference to the latest inquiries. By SAMUEL DAVIDSON, D.D., LL.D. Volume I. The Four Gospels. Vol. II. The Acts. of the Apostles to the second epistle of the Thessalonians. London: Samuel Bagster and Sons.

THE author of these volumes, the Professor of Biblical Literature and Ecclesiastical History in the Lancashire Independent College, is favorably known, not only in Great Britain but on the continent, by his extensive erudition in the department of Biblical Criticism, and by several valuable contributions to sacred learning. As the translator of Gieseler's Compendium of Ecclesiastical History, and the author of "Lectures on Biblical Criticism" and more recently of the "Congregational Lecture" on "the Ecclesiastical Polity of the New Testament," he has gained a reputation in this country also among those whose studies lie in the same channels. The work announced above is his

latest contribution to Biblical Literature, and will be the most permanent monument of his scholarship and of his diligent and patient research. The first volume procured for him the compliment of a doctorate in divinity from the University of Halle, a compliment which the author gracefully acknowledges by dedicating the second volume to the Theological Faculty of that University.

The design of Dr. Davidson in the preparation of these volumes was to forestall among English scholars and divines, the discussion of that class of critical objections to the New Testament which has marked the rationalistic movement of Germany; to do by way of anticipation for the English student, what Neander, Tholuck, Hengstenberg and others of the German evangelical school of interpretation have done in the way of controversy, and as in a life-struggle, for the defense of the genuineness and authenticity of the canonical books. This object and the reasons for it are thus set forth by the author in his preface to the first volume. "There are many well meaning men who entirely discourage the reading of such books as contain new researches into the region of theological science, especially those written in the German language. They denounce them as dangerous. They sound the alarm of heresy. They raise the cry of an infallible anathematizing ignorance. But in the meantime curiosity is excited. Men's sympathies are drawn in the direction of the accused. The depreciated books are read in spite of denouncements, or rather all the more eagerly because of them; and their essence is reproduced in English works. On this account, it seeins to be the wiser course to prepare for all the objections that may be urged against the New Testament. It is better even to anticipate the diffusion of certain subtile cavils in the field of Christianity than to decry them at a distance, or to be overwhelmed by their novelty when they are fairly imported. from other lands.

"It is the writer's belief that the books of the New Testament are destined ere long to pass through a severe ordeal. The translations of various continental works which have recently appeared in England, and the tendency of certain speculations in philosophy, indicate a refined skepticism or a pantheistic spirit which confounds the objective and the subjective, or unduly subordinates the former to the latter. Many are disposed to exalt their intuitions too highly, to the detriment of the historical, as Kant did in his Pure Reason.

"These observations will serve to show why the author has gone with considerable fullness into objections that have been urged in modern times against the New Testament books, and especially against the Gospels. He thinks it highly probable that such objections will appear in one shape or other in this

country. Hence he has partially anticipated their currency. It is true that they are known to a few English scholars even now; but they are destined to be more widely inculcated. Perhaps most of those who are at present acquainted with them are able to set a right value on them without having their minds injured; but the circumstances of the case must change in proportion as the skeptical considerations in question are revealed to a wider circle, unless pains be taken to send a sufficient antidote along with them."

In accordance with this plan, Dr. Davidson has entered into the discussion of preliminary and critical questions relative to the books of the New Testament, with more thoroughness and minuteness of detail than any English writer who has preceded him in this department. Indeed one who would follow the intricacies of rationalistic criticism upon this subject can take nothing for granted, unless perhaps it be his own conscious existence. He is in the position of the Protestant minister who was waited upon by a conceited youth-a recent proselyte to Rome-with the request that he would show from the New Testament what was the true Catholic church founded by Christ; but when he had proved that that church was not the church of Rome, it was demanded that he should prove that the will of Christ is expressed in the New Testament; and when this was accomplished, evidence was demanded that Christ spoke in the name and by the authority of God; and thus the questioner retreated step by step until in order to answer the original inquiry as to the teaching of the New Testament on a specific point, it was necessary to prove the existence of God. Dr. Davidson has anticipated this retrogression by beginning at the lowest foundation, and meeting every objection and inquiry which can by any possibility be raised. It is somewhat characteristic of his mind to refine upon a subject to an extent which is tedious to minds not similarly constituted or not equally interested in the topic under discussion. His work on ecclesiastical polity is an example of this, but in the volumes before us the exceedingly critical habit of his mind appears on every page. All that pertains to an Introduction in the German use of the term is embodied in this work. There is much here that the ordinary Biblical student will never find occasion to use; and there is everything here which the most critical student of the New Testament could desire in an armory for the defense of the Gospel. Viewed as a whole, the work is an honor to English scholarship and an invaluable help to Biblical criticism.

The first volume opens with a dissertation on the Gospel of Matthew. After a brief notice of the writer, and of the persons -Jewish converts-for whom in the first instance it was designed, the author enters into a very elaborate and learned investigation of the language in which this Gospel was written, and the result

to which he comes, contrary to the conclusion of Hug and others, is that Matthew wrote his Gospel in Hebrew, or rather in the Aramæan or Syro-Chaldaic language, at that time the vernacular tongue of the Jews in Palestine. This is in accordance with the most ancient historical testimony and with internal marks in the Gospel itself. A brief enumeration of the characteristic pèculiarities of Matthew's Gospel succeeds this disquisition. Among these some of the more important are, the mode of narrationin which the order of time is sometimes sacrificed to the highest doctrinal impression-and the Judaic conception and presentation of the character and mission of Christ. While Matthew exhibits Jesus as the son of David, the great Teacher and Prophet, "the substance of type and prophecy in the ancient dispensation," he does not rise to those more spiritual views of Christ which abound in the Gospel of John. The phrase Buoikɛta tur obgarōr Βασιλεία τῶν is a peculiarity of this Gospel, for which other New Testament writers use Βασιλεία θεοῦ. The reader who is curious in such investigations will be greatly assisted by Winer's Grammatik des neutestamentlichen Sprachidioms.

The next point which Dr. Davidson considers, is the authenticity or Apostolic origin of the Gospel of Matthew, and this is followed by a discussion of its integrity and of the time and place of composition. Under the two former heads the student will find some valuable suggestions for the exposition of difficult passages in the Gospel.

The same general course of inquiry is pursued with reference to the other Gospels; but only the results to which the author comes, can be given here. Mark's Gospel was intended for Gentile converts. Hence it does not partake of the doctrinal character of Matthew's, but is purely historical. Its style is concise and graphic, pictorial rather than didactic, and with little consecutive method. Luke wrote his Gospel primarily for the instruction of Theophilus, who was probably a Gentile believer, but also with the higher design of providing for the church a complete and an authoritative history of the life and doctrines of Christ. In the narration of events, he is more circumstantial and exact than either Matthew or Mark, though his records of the discourses and parables of our Lord are much briefer than Matthew's. The Greek of Luke is more pure and classical than that of either of his predecessors. In discussing the authenticity of Luke's Gospel, Dr. Davidson collates with good judgment the historical facts and allusions of the evangelist with Josephus and other contemporary writers. The result is satisfactory for the sacred historian. But we must protest against the implied concession of the infallibility of Josephus as an historian, whenever there seems to be a discrepancy between him and the evangelist. By the canons of historical criticism Luke is entitled to