perception. The Tears of the Artists, which we are now to characterise, is cast in rather a dramatic mould. The scene lies on board of a ship called the Pillars of Hercules, which, with the Belgic, was employed to restore the works of art to Italy. The chief interlocutor is a passenger (we suppose a Frenchman) who comes fresh from the scene of degradation, in which the spoliation of the Louvre had left "false, fleeting, perjured," but still captivating and ill-fated Paris; and in the silence of a gloomy night, when "Sighs the enchanted gale through the air, The swelling surges still the impression bear; Alcides' pillars feel the latent swell, And foregone tempests menace as they fly;" he gives way to the feelings of his heart in a soliloquy of indignant sorrow. "For he had seen the stern embattled band While captive France must bow the head or bleed! P. 4. The overflowings of a grief-struck heart are interrupted by a beauteous apparition, which the wanderer greets with rapture in these lines. "Vision of glory! dost thou visit me, Still, spreading, brightening, beaming Heaven's own light, Oh! spare my aching sight, thy beauties shade, Or dies the victim by their splendor made! To Love, to Fate, this ardent prayer I make, Oh! let me never sleep if now I wake! Or in oblivion all my senses steep, So may I never wake if now I sleep! Goddess! I know thee now, that witching smile P. 9. Venus, for the vision reveals no less a personage, is highly indignant at the removal of her image from "Gallia's laughing court," where she so long had reigned supreme; and the poem concludes with her imprecations of vengeance on the ravishers of her statue. "Those impious lips which dar'd command the deed, No more the bosom's hidden love reveal, Nor roseate blushes paint the glowing cheek; No languid eyes the tale of passion tell, No voice low murmuring soft confession speak, Corroding cares and lonely griefs oppress; Atè uncheck'd assert her baleful power, Lift her dark rod, and whelm them in distress, "She said-and sinking through the parting wave, The ready Tritons lift the pearly shell, Fit temple for the goddess, own'd her sway, p. 14. ART. V. Discourses on the Evidence of the Jewish and Christian Revelation; with Notes and Illustrations. By Sir HENRY MONCREIFF WELLWOOD, Bart.D.D. F.R.S. Edinburgh. Constable and Co., Edinburgh; Longman, and Hamilton, London. 1816. 8vo. THE character in which this author comes before us would serve as a good excuse for many more faults than his performance exhibits. Superior to the desire of literary distinctions, and seeking for the praise of usefulness alone, he has no disappointment to fear, as he aims at nothing of which the goodness of his ends and the fitness of his means do not assure him. The subject he has selected for the em ployment of his leisure hours, is one which no Christian can No. XV.-VOL. III,—Aug. Rev. D regard with indifference, and it is worthy the attention of every man of learning. This publication professes to be no more than an epitome of the works of those celebrated divines whose labours have so effectually established the truth of our religion; but the selection and arrangement of the arguments are judicious, and the whole is well adapted to the perusal of ordinary readers, to whom those learned works are inaccessible. It is fitted to convey, to a very numerous class who greatly want it, a clear idea of the process by which Judaism and Christianity are usually defended; and sufficiently comprehensive to answer every purpose of those for whose use it is designed. Though it may not have added much to the mass of evidence already collected, it will not be the author's fault if the nature of that evidence be not from this time more generally known. The reader will be able to judge, from the Reverend Baronet's truly modest Preface, whether the character we have here given of the work corresponds, or not, with his own opinion of it. He certainly has not exaggerated the merits of his performance. "In the following discourses, the author has had no other object, than to collect the leading facts on which the evidence of the Jewish and Christian revelation depends; and to represent them in a connected view, within such a narrow compass, as should render them accessible to common readers. They contain sketches, and nothing more, of what has been much more completely discussed by Mill, Wetstein, Jones, Sherlock, Lardner, Michaelis, Watson, Paley, and many others; though he is not aware that the several parts of the argument in the following discourses have been before stated in a continued series. He has availed himself of whatever has been written by others, without reserve; and is at least as sensible as his readers can be, that he has no claim to any personal merit from such a compilation. He has arrived at that period of life, when the humblest sphere of usefulness should he more interesting than any degree of literary reputation. And his object will therefore be gained, if the following discourses shall be found to contain any thing which shall serve to add to the information, or to remove the doubts, or to confirm the faith, of the least informed who shall peruse them. He is sensible that they have not the correctness which, with more leisure, he might have given them; and that there are sometimes repetitions, and frequently a diffuseness, which might have been avoided. They have been written at intervals, in the midst of many avocations; and he has only to express his hope, that their defects shall be ascribed, not to the subject, but to the author. However he may have failed in the execution of his plan, he allows himself to believe that his general object will not be thought unworthy of attention. He is persuaded that Judaism and Christianity are inseparably conjoined as the revelations of God; and that every thing which is most important to mankind, and to every individual,-to the prosperity of the present world, and to every expectation beyond it,-depends on the influence and progress of genuine Christianity." We transcribe the following passage from his discourse on "PROPHECY," with the greater willingness, because it will serve, at the same time, as a specimen of the author's style, and as an illustration of a subsequent part of this article. "There is a prophecy addressed to the Jews, which is twice delivered by Jeremiah, in these words: Though I make a full end of all the nations whither I have scattered thee, (saith the Lord,) yet will I not make a full end of thee.'" The prophet Hosea predicted of the Jews, that they should be wanderers among the nations.'+ And Amos more particularly represents the house of Jacob' as every where scattered, but constantly preserved: I will not utterly destroy the house of Jacob, saith the Lord; for lo, I will command, and I will sift the house of Israel among all the nations, like as corn is sifted in a sieve, yet shall not the least grain fall upon the earth.' "The Egyptians, the Assyrians, the Babylonians, and the Romans, by each of whom the Jews were at different periods subjugated or enslaved, have all, in their turn, long ceased to exist as independent nations. Their posterity are undistinguished and unknown in the population of modern states. The existence of the Jews, on the other hand, as a distinct and separate people, is as clearly exhibited in the latest as in the earliest ages. Hozea and Amos prophesied in the days of Uzziah, Ahaz, and Hezekiah; Jeremiah before the Babylonish captivity: and when the Jews returned to Judea, seventy years after the captivity, they had the same national character, and were the same people whom Nebuchadnezzar had driven from Jerusalem. At a later period, they were finally expelled from their country by the Romans, without mercy or distinction, and were scattered over the face of the whole inhabited world. And yet, at the distance of seventeen hundred years from their dispersion, it is no more a question, whether they are now known as a people different from all other nations, than it could have been before Vespasian led his army to the siege of Jerusalem. They are scattered among all the nations of Africa, of Europe, of Asia, and of America; and every where, and in every age, they are recognized as Jews, who form a part of the population of almost every state, but who are never confounded with any one of the Gentile tribes. They have, in every clime, and among every nation, the aspect, the manners, the distinctive characters, the usages, and the religion of Jews. "Their sacrifices, and the peculiar rights and service of their altar, were of necessity superseded and abolished, when their temple and their capital city were destroyed by the decrees of God. But they have Moses and the Prophets read in their synagogues still; and, excepting the unhappy countries in which despotism proscribes the Jewish faith as a crime to be punished with death, a Jew is as clearly distinguished from the worshippers in the churches and temples of modern states, as if he were still an inhabitant of the plain, or of the mountains of Judea. When the people of other nations have either been expelled by violence from their native soil, or have voluntarily renounced it, experience has uniformly demonstrated, that, in the course of a few generations, the distinctive marks of * Jeremiah, xxx. 11. and xlvi. 28. Amos, ix. 8, 9. + Hosea, ix. 17. their origin are insensibly lost in the characters, the manners, and the usages of their adopted countries. But the Jews are Jews in every land; and, with the exception of individuals who have deserted their faith, are as much a peculiar people in the present age as they have ever been. "If the prophecy of Jeremiah was accomplished when the Jews were restored from Babylon, and when the uations, who had before oppressed them, lost their place in the history of the world; if it was accomplished when the empire of Rome was overwhelmed by barbarians, and the Jews were still a people, while the Romans were confounded with the Goths and Vandals; if there be nothing in the condition of modern states to exempt them from revolutions which have overwhe med every ancient establishment; and if the Jews are still the separate people which they have ever been, is it possible to read the predictions of Jeremiah, with all these circumstances before us, without relying upon the authority and inspiration of the prophets? Though I make a full end, (saith the Lord,) of all the nations whither I have scattered thee, yet will I not make a full end of thee.'"-p. 138. Every thing relating to the Jews is at this time peculiarly interesting. The hearts of many among us begin to feel for the sufferings and degradation of this persecuted people, and our eyes begin to be turned towards their final restoration, which is so clearly predicted in holy writ. By whatever means this feeling and this expectation have been excited in the religious world, and whether the grounds of them be strong or weak, it is pleasing to Christian philanthropy to witness their very extensive prevalence. Whatever may be thought of the revival of their former prosperity as a nation, and their return to their native land, events, which, if ever they take place, will probably be brought about, not by human means, but by some potent exertion of supernatural agency, which man will gaze at with wonder and adoration, -surely, to relieve their temporal distresses, and to rescue them from that state of moral depravation in which they are now sunk, is an employment worthy of the hand of charity. Though the conversion of a whole nation, labouring under prejudices so strong, so inveterate, and so interwoven almost with their very existence, seems to be a work too great for man to accomplish; yet every attempt on our parts to further such a design, by ministering to their necessities and enlightening their minds, in supposed compliance with his revealed will, will probably be regarded with approbation by that Divine Being, who has given so many indications of his wish to save the lost sheep of the house of Israel." Under these impressions, we are happy to embrace this opportunity of expressing our cordial approbation of the Society, which has lately sprung up in our humane metropolis, for this truly |