affairs there had been so nearly pleasing to God that God had been moved to designate from among the New England colonists an unprecedented proportion of His elect. This admitted, the divine right of New England theocracy should logically follow; and there might still be hope for it. The work is hastily written and hardly composed at all. The first of its seven books recounts in epic temper the history of New England; the second contains the lives of godly governors and magistrates there, from the landing of the Pilgrim Fathers to the time of Sir William Phipps; the third contains lives of some sixty emigrant ministers of the Gospel; the fourth tells the history of Harvard College, and includes lives of ten eminent ministers who graduated there; the fifth sets forth the orthodox doctrine and discipline of the New England churches; the sixth records remarkable judgment and providences which have occurred in New England; the seventh tells of the Wars of the Lord,' that is, of the various disturbances which have harassed the New England churches and the New England people. The style of the book has been remarkably appreciated by M. Chevalley. He admits its pedantries and oddities andprolixities; but these, he says, in no wise affect its marvellous lucidity; nor has he found from beginning to end a single paragraph which, for all the aridity of the subjects, is quite uninteresting.

'On the other hand' (he goes on) 'it is full of happy expressions, of phrases which one might quote for the harmony of their rhythm, of passages worthy of an anthology for the solemn emotion, the enthusiasm, the fervour of spirit which conceived them and has imparted itself to the style. . . . The Magnalia is the work of a man inspired by profound conviction, who writes to communicate it to his readers; it is the work of a poet, who sets forth in prose, under the cloak of imaged history, the preoccupation, the effort, the torment, the love and the faith of his whole life.'

The Angel of Bethesda' is a treatise on medicine, little more systematic than the 'Magnalia,' but more compact. The manuscript comprises 410 quarto note pages, evidently written and added to at various times. As might be expected, it touches so often on divine interposition that it has been pleasantly described as the fountain-head of Christian Science. On the whole, how

ever, its purpose is benignly practical. In popular terms it describes the maladies prevalent in New England, and, without pretence to scientific generalisation, indicates remedies which have been found, or are said to be, useful. Some of these are still approved; many are absurd; but few, if any, would have been condemned by the medical practice of contemporary Europe. Three facts about the book are noteworthy. First, in an early chapter, he expounds a conjectural theory of disease, substantially tending toward the modern science of bacteriology; although he describes his malignant germs as insects,' too small to be observed by the instruments of his time, his conception is surprisingly like those held nowadays. Secondly, he seldom fails to distinguish between matters which he has observed and matters of hearsay; in this respect his book is authoritative. Thirdly, his account of smallpox, and of inoculation, may fairly be held a document in the history of English medicine.

The Biblia Americana' was begun in 1693, at the same time as the 'Magnalia.' The note in his diary when he conceived the work indicates both his purpose and his method :

'With many cries unto the God of Heaven, that Hee would by His good Spirit Assist me, in my Undertaking, and that Hee would employ his good Angels to supply me from Time to Time, with materials for it, I sett myself every Morning to write upon a Portion of Scripture, some Illustration, that should have in it, something of Curiositie. I considered that all the Learning in the World might bee made gloriously subservient unto the Illustration of the Scripture.'

So, omnivorous reader that he was, he added something to the notes every day of his life. The result is preserved in six folio volumes, closely written on both sides of the sheets, and interspersed with memoranda on smaller; the total number of pages exceeds 5000. To summarise such a work is impossible; one or two quotations may give some notion of its temper and style.

We have glanced already at his explanation of how the Holy Ghost descended like a dove' before the eyes of John the Baptist. In the matter of the harmony of the Gospels, he accepts the views of William Whiston, almost exactly his contemporary. At the beginning of

the Psalms he enters into a considerable discussion of Hebrew prosody, coming to this conclusion:

'I must keep to the Opinion That the Poesy of the Ancient Hebrews knew no Measure but that of the now unknown Music whereto it must be accordant.... [Certain authorities] go to resolve the Hebrew Poesy into I know not what Lyricks and Hexameters. But from the present practice of the Jews to Sing what they should Read in their Synagogues I rather gather a Concession that the Lawes of Song were the only ones that were considered in their primitive Poesy.'

In a comment on Jeremiah viii, 7, he proceeds thus: 'Among the Season-Birds we read of the Crane and the Swallow: Are the names truly translated? A. Bochart says, No, but reads the Swallow and the Crane. The Hebrew (DD) sus or rather (DD) sis is to be translated not a Crane but a Swallow;' and so on, with a long philological dissertation, in which he cites the Septuagint, Theodotus, Jerome and Symmachus; and, in support of certain onomatopoeic conjectures, incidentally refersperhaps on the authority of Bochart-to examples of relation between sound and meaning in languages so diverse as the Arabic and the Italian. To venture a final opinion on his work would require not only deep learning, but long study of his rather illegible handwriting. Casual examination suggests that, if it ever sees the light, it may conceivably prove to be an unexpectedly enlightened precursor of the Higher Criticism.

On February 11, 1728, when he lay dying, his son, Samuel, asked him, 'What sentence or word he would have me think on constantly, for I ever desired to have him before me and hear him speaking to me. He said, "Remember only that one word Fructuosus."' His diary demonstrates how he strove all his life to cultivate what fruitfulness was in him. His life and his works make clear how perseveringly he hoped that the fruit of his labours would eventually be garnered in the harvests of the Lord.

BARRETT WENDELL.

PENGE PUBLIC LIBRARY

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Art. 3.-SWIFT'S CORRESPONDENCE.

The Correspondence of Jonathan Swift, D.D. Edited by F. Elrington Ball, with an Introduction by the Right Rev. J. H. Bernard, D.D. Vols I-III. London: Bell, 1910-12.

A CLASSICAL edition of a great author confers honour upon all concerned in its preparation, and we can easily believe that to a great publishing house no distinction is more welcome. It must be a consolation to a publisher gifted with a sense of literature to reflect that, if he has perhaps made a fortune out of the profits of much rubbish, he has at least spent some of it upon the worthy production of those great works, more often talked about than read, the sale of which can never be in proportion to the labour and money expended upon them. Not a few instances of the kind will occur to those who are familiar with good libraries, but the most recent example is seen in Messrs George Bell and Sons' elaborate edition of the complete works of Swift, an author who can never be popular in the whole range of his writings, yet whose works demand more learned editing than perhaps any other classic of his rank.

6

The issue of the Prose Works' in twelve volumes, under the skilful editorship of Mr Temple Scott and his industrious colleagues, has wholly superseded all previous editions, except perhaps for readers who prefer large type and wide margins to accurate texts and exhaustive notes. These luxuries of type and margin, however, are happily supplied, without neglecting the other more important qualities, in the edition of Swift's 'Correspondence' now appearing in six volumes, of which three are so far issued. We had thought it impossible to excel the accuracy and industry of Mr Temple Scott's annotation, yet Dr Elrington Ball bids fair to achieve this pre-eminence; but, as he is the first to confess, with a generous acknowledgment of others' help which is among his natural graces, he could never have succeeded so well if he had not been preceded by the editors of the 'Prose Works.' When the Correspondence' is complete, with (we make sure) an exhaustive index, we shall possess such a final presentation of the whole of Swift's writings, Vol. 218.-No. 434.

E

so far as they can be identified and traced, as may challenge comparison with the best editions of any English classics. The mantle of H. G. Bohn fell on worthy shoulders; and Messrs Bell are to be at once congratulated and thanked for their judgment and courage.

We are assuming that people outside the circle of serious students of literature do not read Swift. We wish we may be wrong, for, to limit our view to the letters alone, we know of no correspondence that throws a more brilliant light upon a commanding personality and upon the world in which he lived. We envy the sensations of the reader who for the first time enters Swift's world-the society of the early part of the eighteenth century-through these spacious gates. For these volumes do not give us only one side of the correspondence; a great part of letter-writing depends upon whom you are writing to, and letters without their provocations and their replies are maimed. If you may know a man by his friends, you may certainly know a correspondent by the style of the letters written to him; and none shows this more plainly than Swift. No man, assuredly, was less all things to all men,' but none knew better how to fall into the mood of his correspondentthe mood, to wit, imagined by the writer; for the genius of letter-writing consists in sympathetic imagination. You visualise your friend as you imagine he is at the moment you write; and on the fullness of the vision depends the intimacy of the letter. Swift undoubtedly had this gift essential to real letter-writing; without knowing the word telepathy, he 'saw 'his correspondents. The qualification is so obvious that Mr E. V. Lucas does not find it important to include it in the necessary equipment for good correspondence which he enumerates in the preface to his charming 'Selection from Cowper's Letters.' He rightly makes a point of the letter-writer not being a man of action, with too much to tell.

never.

'He is then in danger of becoming exciting. The best letterwriters never excite: they entertain, amuse, interest; excite A humorous observer of life, of strong affections, and possessed of sufficient egotism to desire to keep his friends acquainted with his thoughts, adventures, moods, and achievements, is, when he is without responsibilities or harassing demands on his time, in the ideal position to write such letters