children of the bond woman, and not of the free-and then say if it can be the interest of Government to keep alive such feelings in so many of its subjects. It may be true, that we are still powerful enough to subdue their insurrections, if they attempt to rebel. But is it not distressing, that there should still be persons, who, in opposition to the decided opinions of our greatest Statesmen, and even of our greatest Churchmen, * urge us most unnecessarily to persevere in measures which give any degree of excitement or plausibility to such insurrections?-insurrections which cannot be quashed without a world of misery, which, even when quashed, leave the seeds of future and worse insurrections; and where, even in victory, there is no heart for triumph-bella plus quam civilia-bella nullos habitura triumphos. We trust, however, that from our dear bought experience of the mischiefs of intolerance; from the humanity and justice, as well as prudence of civilized times; from the amicable intercourse between the different sects; from a general sense of the unimportance or uncertainty of the theological controversies by which the Clergy endeavour to get Christian against Christian; from the conviction, how little it can be the interest of Government to make any political distinction between its subjects on account of their religion, more especially when so great a proportion of our countrymen are Dissenters, and even Catholics;-we trust that, from these and other causes, all our fellow-subjects shall henceforth be treated as Englishmen, and all the various sects feel an equal interest in the peace and prosperity of England.

These are the observations which have occurred to us on the perusal of this interesting performance. To the author and to his cause, we heartily wish success; and shall conclude with his own eloquent peroration. p. 147.

All ranks and descriptions of men now profess to abjure the principles of persecution, whether negative or positive, in as far as this can be accomplished in consistency with the principles of selfdefence, against the influence of any foreign jurisdiction. Even many of the established clergy, whom the esprit de corps might naturally render favourable to religious disabilities, have evinced themselves equally tolerant as the most enlightened of the laity. We have lately heard the Supreme Court of an Established Church, which, in the days of Queen Anne, acted upon the most illiberal principles, address the Throne, in the genuine spirit of Christianity towards their Catholic brethren. + We have also had every proof which it was possible for the Catholics of this country to afford us, that they have

* See the first Article in the 17th volume of this Journal, ut supra. + Vide Addresses of the General Assembly of the Kirk of Scotland in 1813.

[at least kept pace with the members of the Church of England in improvement and liberality of sentiment.

Experience has demonstrated that pains and penalties and disabilities irritate and inflame; whilst lenient and liberal measures conciliate and unite, in the social charities and public duties of life, the members of every different religious communion. We have a striking illustration of this in the blessings which have resulted from the union of Scotland and England. Before that happy event, it was dreaded, not only by the shortsighted, but by many of the wise among the Scotch, as destructive of their Church establishment. An immense majority of Episcopalians, who they had every reason to believe were at that time implacably hostile to Presbytery, were to legislate for their country. It was therefore deemed reasonable to suspect, that although Policy might lead them to avoid any open attempt, Zeal would dispose them to adopt indirect means to substitute the splendid forms of the Hierarchy for the simple rites of Presbyterian government. They had formerly made the attempt; and it was natural to imagine, that, under more auspicious circumstances, they would endeavour to accomplish their favourite project. The objection, to say the least of it, was specious and plausible; and time might perhaps have verified their fears, if the same degree of ignorance, with its concomitant illiberality, had continued to exist. But, although it has not lessened their attachment to their respective modes of ecclesiastical discipline, the progress of knowledge has rendered them more tolerant to each other, and induced them to overlook those things in which they disagree, and value each other for those pleasing and useful qualifications which adorn the characters of the good in every community.

When we contemplate such happy consequences in this case, why should we dread such opposite effects from the eligibility of a very few Catholic gentlemen to our national legislative assembly? Is the dislike of the Catholics to our Protestant system more deeply rooted than the hatred which the Episcopalians manifested in the reign of Anne towards the Presbyterians of the North? Is it blended with one half of the contempt which was then displayed? Is it now connected with more, or even so much, bigotry and intolerance? Is the Catholic Church, upon the whole, so far removed as the Presbyterian community from a resemblance to the Church of England? Is it in consequence more able and willing to subvert the ecclesiastical establishment, and undermine the Protestant ascendency in the British realm, than were the Episcopalians of former times to extirpate the Presbyterians? Truth, reason, policy and generosity, answer in the negative; and call upon us to concede their claim to our Catholic fellow-subjects. The concession will allay the animosities of every religious denomination. It will strengthen and perpetuate their union as a political body. It will evince the wisdom of universal religious liberty; and for ever confirm the rights of conscience, as not controllable by human laws, nor amenable to human tribunals. '

ART. IV. Lectures on Dramatic Literature. By W. A. SCHLETranslated from the German, by JOHN BLACK, Esq. 2 vol. Baldwin & Co. 1815.

GEL.

THE HIS work is German; and is to be received with the allowances which that school of literature generally requires. With these, however, it will be found a good work: and as we should be sorry to begin our account of it with an unmeaning sneer, we will explain at once what appears to us to be the weak side of German literature. In all that they do, it is evident that they are much more influenced by a desire of distinction than by any impulse of the imagination, or the consciousness of extraordinary qualifications. They write, not because they are full of a subject, but because they think it is a subject upon which, with due pains and labour, something striking may be written. So they read and meditate,—and having, at length, devised some strange and paradoxical view of the matter, they set about establishing it with all their might and main. The consequence is, that they have no shades of opinion, but are always straining at a grand systematic conclusion. They have done a great deal, no doubt, and in various departments; but their pretensions have always much exceeded their performance. They are universal undertakers, and complete encyclopedists, in all moral and critical science. No ques

it;

tion can come before them but they have a large apparatus of logical and metaphysical principles ready to play off upon and the less they know of the subject, the more formidable is the use they make of their apparatus. In poetry, they have at one time gone to the utmost lengths of violent effect,—and then turned round, with equal extravagance, to the laborious production of no effect at all. The truth is, that they are naturally a slow, heavy people; and can only be put in motion by some violent and often repeated impulse, under the operation of which they lose all control over themselves-and nothing can stop them short of the last absurdity. Truth, in their view of it, is never what is, but what, according to their system, ought to be. Though they have dug deeply in the mine of knowledge, thay have too often confounded the dross and the ore, and counted their gains rather by their weight than their quality. They are a little apt, we suspect, literally to take the will for the deed,-and are not always capable of distinguishing between effort and success. They are most at home, accordingly, in matters of fact, and learned inquiries. In art they are hard, forced, and mechani, cal; and, generally, they may be said to have all that depends on strength of understanding and persevering exertion,—but to

want case, quickness and flexibility. We should not have made these remarks, if the work before us had formed an absolute exception to them.

William Schlegel has long been celebrated on the Continent as a philosophical critic, and as the admirable translator of Shakespear and Calderon into his native tongue. Madame de Staël acknowledges her obligations to him, for the insight which he had given her into the discriminating features of German genius: And M. Sismondi, in his work on Southern literature, bears the most honourable testimony to his talents and learning. The present work contains a critical and historical account of the ancient and modern drama,—the Greek, the Latin, the Italian, the French, the English, the Spanish, and the German. The view which the author has taken of the standard productions, whether tragic or comic, in these different languages, is in general ingenious and just; and his speculative reasonings on the principles of taste, are often as satisfactory as they are profound. But he sometimes carries the love of theory, and the spirit of partisanship, farther than is at all allowable. His account of Shakespear is admirably characteristic, and must be highly gratifying to the English reader. It is indeed by far the best account which has been given of the plays of that great genius by any writer, either among ourselves, or abroad. It is only liable to one exception-he will allow Shakespear to have had no faults. Now, we think he had a great many, and that he could afford to have had as many more. It shows a distrust of his genius, to be tenacious of his defects.

Our author thus explains the object of his work

Before I proceed farther, I wish to say a few words respecting the spirit of my criticism-a study to which I have devoted a great part of my life. We see numbers of men, and even whole nations, so much fettered by the habits of their education and modes of living, that nothing appears natural, proper, or beautiful, which is foreign to their language, their manners, and their social relations. In this exclusive mode of seeing and feeling, it is no doubt possible, by means of cultivation, to attain a great nicety of discrimination in the narrow circle within which they are circumscribed. But no man can be a true critic or connoisseur, who does not possess a universality of mind,-who does not possess that flexibility which, throwing aside all personal predilections and blind habits, enables him to transport himself into the peculiarities of other ages and nations, to feel them as it were from their proper central point,—and to recognise and respect whatever is beautiful and grand under those external circumstances which are necessary to their existence, and which sometimes even seem to disguise them. There is no monopoly of poetry for certain ages and nations; and consequently, that

despotism in taste, by which it is attempted to make those rules universal, which were at first perhaps arbitrarily established, is a pretension which ought never to be allowed. Poetry, taken in its widest acceptation, as the power of creating what is beautiful, and representing it to the eye or ear, is a universal gift of Heaven; which is even shared to a certain extent by those whom we call barbarians and savages. Internal excellence is alone decisive; and where this exists, we must not allow ourselves to be repelled by external cir

cumstances.

It is well known, that three centuries and a half ago, the study. of ancient literature, by the diffusion of the Greek language (for the Latin was never extinct) received a new life: The classical authors were sought after with avidity, and made accessible by means of the press; and the monuments of ancient art were carefully dug up, and preserved. All this excited the human mind in a powerful manner, and formed a decided epoch in the history of our cultivation: the fruits have extended to our times, and will extend to a period beyond the power of our calculation. But the study of the ancients was immediately carried to a most pernicious excess. The learned, who were chiefly in possession of this knowledge, and who were incapable of distinguishing themselves by their own productions, yielded an unlimited deference to the ancients, and with great appearance of reason, as they are models in their kind. They maintained, that nothing could be hoped for the human mind, but in the imitation of the ancients; and they only esteemed, in the works of the moderns, whatever resembled, or seemed to bear a resemblance, to those of antiquity. Every thing else was rejected by them as barbarous and unnatural. It was quite otherwise with the great poets and artists. However strong their enthusiasm for the ancients, and however determined their purpose of entering into competition with them, they were compelled by the characteristic peculiarity of their minds to proceed in a track of their own,-and to impress upon their productions the stamp of their own genius. Such was the case with Dante among the Italians, the father of modern poetry: he acknowledged Virgil for his instructor; but produced a work, which of all others differs the most from the Æneid, and far excels it, in our opinion, in strength, truth, depth, and comprehension. It was the same afterwards with Ariosto, who has been most unaccountably compared to Homer; for nothing can be more unlike. It was the same in the fine arts with Michael Angelo and Raphael, who were without doubt well acquainted with the antique. When we ground our judgment of modern painters merely on their resemblance to the ancients, we must necessarily be unjust towards them. As the poets for the most part acquiesced in the doctrines of the learned, we may observe a curious struggle in them between their natural inclination and their imagined duty. When they sacrificed to the latter they were praised by the learned; but, by yielding to their own inclinations, they became the favourites of the people. What preserves the heroic poems of a Tasso or a Camoens to this day alive, in the hearts and