rocks-an interval which many think might (and there appears much to justify them in that opinion, for the history of a giant animal creation, unwitnessed save by the Creative Mind in its action or development, could have no bearing of importance on man) for any thing to the contrary contained in the Sacred Text, be passed over in silence, or be fairly included, between the first and second verses of the Book of Genesis.

They would permit, nay exhort us to, the study of the works of creation, as exhibited in existing races; but denounce, as impious, inquiries into the natural history of the past. But the wondrous records of ancient creations force themselves upon our notice wherever we turn. They furnish proofs the most astonishing of Creative Power and Wisdom, of a Divine Mind and Supreme Intelligence, presiding over the destinies of the earth and its inhabitants through all time, filling all things living with plenteousness, and by means of all the revolutions and changes to which the earth has been subject, preparing it for the abode of our favoured race.

Instead of studying the works of the Creator in the light in which palæontology exhibits them, as parts of one comprehensive plan, in which the present and the past are included, shall we limit our investigations to the physiology of existing races, from an unworthy fear that the earth's history, written on tables of stone by the finger of God himself, may prove contradictory to that volume in which He has revealed to us the origin, early history, and future destinies of the human race? There are, however, men of perverse minds, who from the study of natural science, even thus limited, will draw with the atheist arguments against the existence of a God, or with the deist arguments against that truth which it is the object of Revelation to make known to us, that as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. Arguments may be drawn from astronomy,once as much dreaded as geology, though now considered safe and innocent, for a past duration of the earth as long as that of which geology offers the proofs. Arguments may be drawn from the anatomy and physiology of existing races in favour of the transmutation of species, progressive development, and self creation; and chemistry may furnish facts which can be urged in the support of these doctrines. The ancient natural history of the earth furnishes the best means of refuting them. Rightly studied the records of the past negative such conclusions, they demonstrate that each new species introduced upon the earth commenced its existence with all its physical characters entire, and continued unchanged as it came from its Maker's hands

through the whole period of its duration. We may therefore conclude, even had we no divine record to guide us, that man, the last born of creation, was equally the subject of a special act of Creative Power, and that he did not derive his being from any of the lower animals by means either of fortuitous development or development by descent. Surely a science which renders such services in the confirmation of truths of the highest importance to mankind, ought not to be stigmatized as dangerous, because it asserts for the earth and for the lower animals, though not for man, a higher antiquity than we have been accustomed to ascribe to them, not on the authority of the Scriptures, but of our misinterpretation of the language in which they speak on subjects connected with physical science. On such subjects they adopt the language of accommodation to our ignorance of physical truth, to popular notions, and sensible appearances. No other language could they speak, unless it were intended to reveal the whole system of laws by which the universe is governed, as well as those truths on which our happiness depends.

Between laws for the government of matter,—the laws of gravity, chemical combination, and vitality, and laws for the government of immortal and responsible, of fallen and redeemed beings, there is no connexion. Of the mysteries of nature we have discovered much, and may hereafter discover more, though it is probably denied to man in his present state to know the whole. The mysteries of God's providential dealings with man, we could not have known without the aid of Revelation, and they have been revealed. Physical and moral truth, though common in their origin, the Fountain of all Truth, are independent in their course, and we do not serve the cause either of God or man by confounding their limits, and attempting to place them in incongruous union, or unseemly opposition.

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ART. II.-1. Life of Jean Paul Friederich Richter, compiled from various Sources; together with his Autobiography, translated from the German. London: Chapman. 1845.

2. Flower, Fruit, and Thorn Pieces; or the Married Life, Death, and Wedding of the Advocate of the Poor, Firmian Stanislaus Siebenkäs. By Jean Paul Friederich Richter. Translated from the German by Edward Henry Noel. London: Smith. 1845.

ALMOST every European nation in which the cultivation of letters has been followed by its natural results, can exhibit, at the least, one product of grotesque growth, whose ramifying eccentricities shall enforce their permanent impress upon the memories of all men possessing the faculty to discern, though they may lack the penetration to admire, the "irresponsible product of a bizarre and fantastic nature." Rabelais, in France; Cervantes, in Spain; Casti, in Italy; Ben Jonson, Butler, and Swift, in England; have lived in the memories of mankind from the day of their book-baptism, as acknowledged writers of genuine breed, though of a family not overstocked with scions, and boasting but a few offshoots. Of these latter, Sterne, in our own country, and Jean Paul, his contemporary, in Germany, may be considered as emblematic types. Both of those incomparable writers drew, almost exclusively, from the contemplation of the microcosm within, the images there represented to their vision, as in "cunning reflex" from the objects of the world without: both revelled in the exhibition of their own psychological subjectivity: were alike ostentatious of their wondrous artist-power of combination: gloried in the literary (and, in Jean Paul's case, literal) sans queueism of their reputations, and the altogether Lupercalian cut of their spiritual raiment. Beyond this, the points of character are rather of contrast than of comparison; and, on closer inspection, the diversity will be found to increase in proportion with the intensity of the regard. The most devout aspirations of Paul are ever soaring to the mighty and to the infinite his gaze is as that of a chained eagle, skyward, into the lofty inaccessible regions of mind; the majesty of his nature disdains the rock upon whose surface he is rivetted and linked: his soul is ever struggling after the freedom that never comes in life, save as the foreshadow of an angel that shall unbar the portals or Paradise.

It

There is not, perhaps, in the whole range of Literature, to be found one other Writer in whose works the precepts of a philosophy almost divine, are so intimately and interchangeably blended in fantastic alternation, with a humour genial and genuine, as in those of Jean Paul; yet is the alliance so natural-the marriage of the two "true minds," so incapable to "admit impediments" in their hypostatic nuptials, that his wisdom and his wit, hand locked in hand, are ever pursuing their unsolitary way-one mind informing, one nature pervading, one raiment of gorgeous attire enveloping the indissoluble pair. Motley is not his only wear: no dissonance disturbs the harmony that pervades his being; the cunning patchwork of his kaleidoscopic brain is not sorted at random from the rags and tatters of a threadbare slop-mart; not a piece, but has the knap on its surface: not a pattern but is Vandyked and scolloped by no "prentice-hand;" not a seam is there unselected for its appropriate hue: the "sweet bells," that surmount his waggish brow, never "jangle out of tune." is this wonderful combination of seeming contrarieties-this incarnation and reconcilement of antagonisms in the man, which make the marvel-a very Firefish of the fancy, now swimming in a lambent liquor of flame, now disporting him on the Salamandrine shallows of hot glowing embers-everywhere equally at his ease. Air, Water, Fire, all are fitted for his sustenance: only the Earth, and its Mist-fogs, finds he bitter to his taste; but then he spits out the mouthful with such a pantomimic physick-face of well simulated nausea, that the beholders can afford to laugh, in their wisdom, at what would be matter for weeping to a Fool, in his folly. And for why? For that his humour is of the subtlest texture,-no pigmented Clown-leer is traceable on his laughter-loving cheek; no irreverent jest wakes up the broad grin of his unboisterous merriment; no perriwig-pated Pantaloon is he, to set the house in a roar the ribbald coarseness of satyric fun and frolic make no element in the composition of his nature too earnest for a Jack-pudding; too wise for a mere Merry-Andrew, his humour is of the unmixed genuine breed, begotten of a gossamer sensibility, and born of an intellect clear as the Blandusian Fount: he is the Socratic Democritus, the PrincePhilosopher of Humour, of whom the Platos of the republic of wit might repeat, "primus devocavit è cœlo." Pathos, Reverence, and Love, bore the bantling to him on outspread pinions, as he lay pining for seven long years of his youth in the penthouse of Poverty-and the creature was thenceforth his own by adoption. In this quality of true pathos, the very touch

stone of humour, Paul stands unrivalled-(Shakspeare alone excepted; for his faculties were too universal, and his attributes too Godlike, to be comprehended in any category). Let us look to the others, and search for some trace.

Cervantes?-No: kind mockery, and the vast lever-power of a benignant ridicule, that rebuked gently, even as a friend chideth, and turned aside to smile for fear of offending: gentlemanly and Christian, even in the atmosphere of Barataria : grave on the confines of the burlesque, the humour of Cervantes never reached the sublime standard of Richter's pathos. Rabelais?—the hearty contemner of his tonsured tribe-the Copmanhurst of the cloister-the Court-Confectionist in an age of coarse appetencies, disowned the weakness that wept over the frailties of mortals. Ben Jonson ?-misnamed the "rare?"-the Ketch of his own gallows; who tucked up his sleeves, and addressed him, like a "Sworn Tormentor," to his task of flagellating the bare-backs of the class knaves and retail underlings, the crawling counter-cheats and mountebanks, who winced and howled beneath the galling lashes of his many-corded whip?-Alack! this man was no other than a brutal executioner: the hod of his apprenticeship had entered deep into his soul, and his after-instincts were shaped by a divinity, angular and unbending as the kilned brick with which he worked his hateful task work-the pathos of the Plaisterer of Tenements might have been put into his pipe-bowl without adding to the curling incense any fragrance of its own! Rugged Ben! upon thy Cromwellian front stands visibly portrayed a recalcitrating foot-print-the hurried impress of soft Pity's dove, that alighted on, but left anon, the lofty Ararat of thy towering intellect-finding there but a momentary rest for her footsole. Suffering, and to spare, hadst thou in thy early days; but suffering subdued not thine unsusceptible soul; so true it is, that misery and privation avail only to exasperate the nature untamed by early education, or unendowed with the capabilities of an organism radiant with intelligence and love-most wretched men, says Shelley—

"Are cradled into Poetry by wrong;

They learn in suffering what they teach in song."

That this, one of the sweetest uses of adversity, was known also to Paul, may be seen in the passage where he affirms that "Fate manages poets as men do singing-birds; you overhang the cage of the singer, and make it dark, till at length he has caught the notes you troll to him, and can sing them without further prompting."