for the concurrence of a learned man so generally respected, to give greater weight and dignity to his transactions; and yet more, since Reuchlin, being acquainted with the Jews' language, would have confirmed the decision of the Colognese against the Jews, by participating in it. This requisition was however revolting to the honourable man; he saw through the whole plan as well as through Pfefferkorn, and therefore declined his request under pretence of pressing business, yet did not neglect to exhort him to an amicable, not rash, but gentle arbitration in the affair, wrote out, at his request, on a sheet of paper, some deficiencies in the imperial mandate, and took leave courteously.

"Pfefferkorn met every where, even from the ambiguity of the mandate, with the greatest resistance, partly among the magistracy, partly among the ecclesiastics, and found himself compelled to beg for a new mandate, by which he might have power to destroy all Jewish books except the Bible. The emperor, who would not act hastily, as he was not acquainted with the case, committed it to the archbishop Uriel of Mentz, and through him issued a mandate to the universities of Cologne, Mentz, Erfurth, Heidelberg, and to individuals acquainted with the Hebrew language-Reuchlin, Hochstraten, and the priest Victor of Korb, to investigate this matter. Reuchlin received from the archbishop the mandate of the emperor, and enclosed with it his letter to the archbishop, with the command to give his opinion, whether it was right and beneficial to Christianity to destroy the books in use among the Jews concerning the writings of Moses, the Prophets, and the Psalms?"

Poems, by VIATOR.

The world's appreciation of an author's talents is best proved by the demand for his works, and in the instance before us it is with pleasure that we find our own estimation of Viator correspondently reciprocated by the public. We have before taken occasion to point out the peculiar features of this poet's mind, and those peculiarities are quite as strongly marked in the additional poems which are now presented to us as in those previous ones, on which we founded our own opinion, and which have obtained for the author his present reputation. In many of these poems Viator follows his subject; is gay, airy, fanciful, or tender, according to his theme; and we hold this to be a rare faculty, this throwing the mind and its powers into the service and expression of the poetic sovereign of the moment: but in others of these tuneful efforts there is a character of originality which has asserted his full potency: in the midst of lines of serious description, we are startled with some sudden flash of wit, which gleams across the eyes like lightning over the horseman's path;-it strikes the more for its unexpectedness. In this province of his fancy, instead of assimilating with his subject, he seems to take a wayward pleasure in making his subject subservient to his own spirit, and the originality that results is a marked feature in his writings. We will instance this peculiarity by a few stanzas from a merry romance, entitled, "Sir Guion de Broke."

"Sir Guion de Broke was a terrible knight,

With a host of retainers he rode to the fight:

How he harried the enemy's border!

A customer awkward was he for a foe,

The work was soon done-'twas a word and a blow;
There was no one could keep him in order.

His steed and his harness were both black as jet,
On the top of his casque was a sable plume set,
That seemed nodding to every beholder;

Harsh and loud was his voice, and his brain rather dim;
As a face carved in brass, his visage was grim;
He might have been thirty, or older.

Now tremor and fear shook the knees of the best,
As he pricked o'er the plain with his lance in his rest :
They thought it extremely unpleasant

To engage hand to hand with this terrible knight,
And be mown down by him like grass in the fight,
Or be spitted like partridge or pheasant.

'Sir Wizard! Sir Wizard! now this you must do ;
You must bother Sir Guion and make him look blue,
Because he s the plague of one's life.

You must vex and torment him with glamour and spell,
But whatever is done, only mind it's done well-
You must palsy his arm in the strife.'

Master Ugo looked up, Master Ugo looked down,
And settled the folds of his magical gown,

As he smiled with a horrible grin ;

I'll palsy completely his arm in the strife-
By Jove he shall marry a TERMAGANT WIFE!
Thus Sir Guion we'll nicely take in.'

Sir Guion no more is a quarrelsome knight;
His retainers are idle, he stays from the fight;
Nor harries the enemies' border.

No longer an object of dread to his foes,

He shivers no lances, he deals no hard blows;
His WIFE keeps him strictly in order!"

Viator is in

The air of piquancy and spirit in this old ballad style of writing is very attractive, and is peculiarly the author's own. deed among the poets, but he is alone among them.

Switzerland; consisting of Twenty-seven Subjects and Descriptive Letterpress, Scenes, Incidents of Travel, and Picturesque Costumes, principally in the Bernese Oberland. Drawn from Nature, and on Stone, by GEORGE BARNARD.

We never felt the incompetency of words to express colour and delineate form more forcibly than now, when, taking up our pen to speak of these exquisite views we would fain convey some faint reflection

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of their effect upon our own page. Switzerland must certainly have been one of Nature's holiday works, rich as it is in picturesque variety. The grandeur of its glaciers and the sweetness of its sun-lit valleys, the majesty of its mountains, the loveliness of its lakes, with its ever-changing aspects of interest, render it one of the most attractive countries in Europe for the tourist and if for the tourist, so also for the artist, and most eminently has Mr. Barnard proved it to be So. The views which he has here spread out before us are marked by taste in the selection, and power in the execution. They are pictures in the highest sense of the word. Some of these scenes depict grandeur reposing in sublimity; others the most felicitous contentment of nature. We consider Mr. Barnard peculiarly happy in the sort of shadowy rest which he has thrown over some of these scenes. He seems to us to possess great mastery in the use of his shade, over which there is a calmness, a quietness, and a repose, which are as poetry in his pictures; while others again seem bathed in a flood of light, more dazzling, if not more attractive. We have been greatly pleased, too, with the happy style in which he has introduced his figures, in their picturesque costume: the chaste tone of the surrounding scenery throws off the gaily-attired peasantry with singular effectiveness. The clear atmosphere seems actively to circulate round well-defined bodily objects, and we could almost imagine that light, that strange quality of matter, is shining through the paper. The variety in the subjects is also very marked, and the distinctive character of their treatment proves Mr. Barnard to be above all mannerism, that besetting sin of the artist. We have, indeed, for some time back looked upon Mr. Barnard as a rising man in the world of art: some of his pictures which we have had the pleasure of meeting with have been so rich in imaginativeness, so stamped by artistical skill, so exquisite in colouring, and so fine in pictorial effect, that we know that they need but to be seen to ensure him reputation. The patrons of the art ought to visit Mr. Barnard's studio, and enrich their own galleries with his productions. It is high time that England should be cured of the ophthalmia which induces blindness to the merits of the living, and, by way of compensation, heaps idolatry on the dead. In this instance, at least, we hope to see the artist enjoy the living fame which this work is well calculated to ensure him.

The Influence of Aristocracies on the Revolutions of Nations; considered in relation to the present circumstances of the British Empire. By JAMES J. MACINTIRE.

With the melancholy truth staring us in the face, that there is existing at this moment an amount of fearful destitution in our country, that beggary and starvation are goading and lashing on a vast number of our fellow-countrymen into a vortex of anarchy, violence, and rebellion, and that the actual ravening for bread is becoming a fierce impulse to the commission of crime; with this sad spectacle before our eyes, we say, we are ever willing to do our part in bringing before the responsible classes of the community (and fearfully responsible

they are) every fresh view of the sufferings of the people and their possible consequences, that the literature of the day presents. It may be that by smothering the complaining wail of destitution we also block up the sources of relief, when a timely listening might call power to its post of duty for the fructification of measures of philanthropy and justice. Therefore it is that, without pledging ourselves to any side, save that of humanity, we call the attention of our readers to works from every party which may be employed in placing the real distress of our labouring classes in its true light of suffering sorrow before our eyes, in the hope that being displayed in its various aspects a Christian legislature may be the more strongly stimulated to endeavour after remedial mitigation; and in this, as we think the path of our own duty, we shall take a brief view of the line of argument adopted by our author.

Mr. Macintire's position then is this-that food is power-and it is with pain that we make the admission-since this can only be fact where the necessities of existence elevate the corporeal above the intellectual man. That it is true of the world of lower animals which he has called upon to attest his correctness, cannot be doubted, but we see not how this could have established his argument, since the bodily faculties which are in common between us are their all, but our inferior part. Passing, however, from the brute creation, historical reminiscences and retrospective views of Rome, France, Spain, are elicited as illustrative examples. Returning to our own country, our author traces the influence of the aristocracy as the effect of those large grants of land which the Conqueror bestowed upon his followers, and deprecates the perpetuation of the system in the extensive colonial allotments which may ensure to future generations other climes positions of tantamount importance: from this he passes to an eulogistic consideration of the wiser democratic policy of North America in the distribution of her land, allotting to every man, on equitable conditions, a share proportionate to his family and means: then follows a consideration of the connexion between taxation and revolution, an exorbitant amount of the one leading directly to the other, and so conducting on to a fatal inference, he considers that England is at this moment in that state of fearful calm which so often precedes and is the harbinger of the most direful storms; that the lull doth but precede the tempest, and that the fearful silence of brooding desperation must soon be startled from its impassive quietude, and rouse England with the war-cry of Revolution-a consummation we devoutly hope an overruling Providence will yet avert.

A work of this class will of course be judged according to the different political views of the perusers. For our own part, we rejoice that the culture as well as the nature of the mind of its author has far better fitted his work for a refined and educated class than for that of the enthusiastic but unreasoning declaimer, since those who are capable of thinking and reasoning can never be made to think and reason too deeply or too much on points in which the well-being of their country and their countrymen are so deeply involved; while, on the other hand, lighting up the blaze of enthusiasm is little better than putting a match to gunpowder, ensuring the destruction of good as well as of evil,-and perhaps of a most disproportionate amount.

In noticing one of the minor points of social injury which calls aloud for reprehension and concealment, we entirely concur in Mr. Macintire's strictures on the abuse of educational benevolent foundations, and would be among the first to hail their restoration to their legitimate destination. We know of no more debasing feature in the character of the times than this tendency of the opulent to grasp at and appropriate positions and opportunities designed only for the indigent, and right glad should we be to see every foundation school founded and bequeathed to us by the piety and liberality of our ancestors expelling the sons of the better classes to yield their places to the really and truly " poor scholar." It is a shame in the comparatively wealthy to receive alms at all, much more those designed for the poor! A revolution in such things as these would be desirable indeed.

The Christian Philosopher, or the Connexion of Science and Philosophy with Religion. Illustrated with Engravings. By THOMAS DICK, LL.D., Author of the "Philosophy of Religion," &c. Eighth Edition, revised and enlarged.

It is pleasing to find such a work as this in its eighth edition. It is by such productions that the minds of our rising youth are to be formed and armed against the seductions of a false philosophy now, unhappily, everywhere abounding. There are enough specimens of wonderful skill and benevolent contrivance in this beautiful world to demonstrate the wisdom and goodness of its great Creator; and though men are but too prone to pass them by heedlessly, yet still they seem to stand as waiting to attract the attention and direct the mind to such reflections as they were beneficently intended to inspire. Dr. Dick, whose works are so advantageously known to the public, has greatly improved the present edition of his "Christian Philosopher," by the addition of many new facts and additional illustrations. Had we space, we would have presented our readers with some specimens of his happy and lucid manner of pointing through earth, air, and sea, to the manifestations of divine power and goodness; but we shall do better by directing attention to the work itself, as one which any parent may feel happy in having it in his power to present to his family.

A Voice from the Vintages, on the force of Example, addressed to those who think and feel. By the author of "The Women of England." Mrs. Ellis, whose pen has been so often and so beneficially employed in conveying important lessons, has in the volume before us engaged in the discussion of the temperance question. She first considers the peculiarities of intemperance as a vice; and secondly, as it operates upon individual character. She then investigates the claims of moderation, and of total abstinence, for the latter of which she pleads, and for its adoption offers various encouragements. The great benefits which have resulted in many instances from total abstinence, should July, 1843.-VOL. XXXVII.—NO. CXLVII.

M