so obscure, that it is impossible in any way to unravel its mysteries, or to make it bear upon the question. Indeed it is astonishing to us how a man of Mr. Thruston's abilities could have at once departed from his plain and natural style. Instead of stating and specifying properly and clearly every one of his assertions and every one of his arguments, instead of stripping the subject from all heterogeneous matter, and presenting the whole simply and positively to the reader, Mr. Thurston passing from one thing to another, entangles the thread of his argument, takes for granted many positions which though true, are not properly stated or proved, and therefore cannot be admitted before they are so stated and proved; and what is more, introducing so wide a space between the assertion and the proof which is to support it, that even the mind of a chancery lawyer could hardly follow the train of his ideas and the flight of his imagination. Thus for instance, in the early part of the book he states the distinction of predictions, page 19, 20, 21, and it is much beyond the 100th page that he comes to speak of their being fulfilled. It is true that this was the case in point of fact; for a considerable time did actually pass between the predictions which Christ made to Peter, and the denials of this Apostle; and had Mr. Thruston contined himself merely to a simple statement of the historical facts recorded by the Evangelists and received them as they are, we should not have had any thing to urge against the arrangement. But when our author takes upon himself to put a different construction on the text of the Gospels, when he endeavours to prove that Christ made six several and distinct predictions, predictions which were afterwards severally fulfilled by three denials and three apostasies of Peter, then surely we should have imagined that the arguments in favour of so many predictions should have gone pari passu with the proofs in support of the fulfilment of them, and the whole presented to the reader without breaking the narrative by the enumeration of intermediate events. As the matter now stands, the reader having lost sight of what has been said before is unable to go on without referring to passages long turned over, and whilst he endeavours, to recollect what he has forgotten, forgets the very passage which has caused him to take so much trouble. Besides so great a fault, the book appears to have been written in a species of hurry which in many places renders it very obscure, and now and then bursts forth in contradictions. Thus in page 2nd, he talks of fulfilment of a double prediction and three fold denials, and in page 6, he says that Peter reseived three distinct warnings of the guilt. Again-In page 34, Judas finds that our Saviour did know of his attempt to betray him, and two pages after he is represented as supposing he might conceal his villany from him. It is true, that these and other faults of the same kind betray a wildness of imagination, which too full of its subject, disdaining every species of constraint-but it is equally true, that they render the perusal of the book a perfect task, and deduct much from the merit of originality which the production before us really must be allowed to possess. And though we are willing to give to Mr. Thruston every credit for the ingenuity and erudition which he has displayed, yet we should recommend him in good earnest to revise the book with accuracy, and adopt quite a different mode of arrangement. Whenever we may be inclined to engraft upon any part of the Scriptures, an explanation different from that which has been generally received, the first duty of an expositor is to adopt both method and perspicuity. If a reader is to puzzle his brains to find out the meaning of the exposition, he may as well be satisfied with the commentaries of ancient and approved expositors. If in an exposition of the Scriptures a point of taste could for a moment be admitted, we should be disposed to enter our protest against the opinion of Mr. Thruston, that the interest excited by this portion of Scripture would be considerably diminished, were we to diminish the prediction of our Lord and the fall of the Apostle to a single denial. As far as relates to the prediction of our Lord, we must confess one simple forewarning to give us a more awful idea of his prophetic than a repeated prediction of what was at last but a private event, and which, though furnishing a most striking admonition to the Christian of every age, related but to an individual. That Peter should at three several times solemnly deny his Lord, under the pressing circumstances of each occasion, is perfectly probable; but that he should six times deny him argues rather apostacy through inclination, than apostacy through fear. It was not the love, but the courage of Peter which was to undergo so severe a trial. Whoever shall be tempted to read the volume before us will be convinced that Mr. Thruston possesses a vivid and a powerful imagination united with no small insight into human nature. The doctrines which he labours to establish by his new mode of interpretations are sound and good; but from the same principles of exposition applied in other cases, the most unwarrantable and fatal errors might also result. Originality is but a very questionable qualification in an interpreter of Scripture, truth is an essential. When therefore we think that we have discovered any new sense in an important passage of Scripture, so far from being primâ facie enraptured with our ingenuity, we should be inclined inclined rather to distrust our judgment; and instead of running wild upon an hypothesis, however novel and ingenious, it would rather become us to submit to the severest scrutiny of calm and dispassionate research. We trust that Mr. Thruston will not be discouraged in the prosecution of his labours; he has both piety and genius, but he has yet to learn precision in statement, accuracy in deduction, and sobriety in reasoning. There is much intricacy to unravel, and many excrescences to reduce. Would he be a successful commentator upon Holy Writ, he must rein in his ima gination, and ever apply to himself the advice represented to have been given to him who would direct the horses of the Sun, Parce puer stimulis, et fortius utere loris. ART. VI. Charlemagne. An Epic Poem. By Lucien Buonaparte. Translated by the Rev. S. Butler, D.D. and the Rev. F. Hodgson, A.M. 2 Vols. 4to. Longman, and Co. 1815. HAVING considered the history, the machinery, and the struc ture of this extraordinary Poem so much at length in our last number, we shall now proceed to view it divested of its original garb, and presented to us under the form of an English translation. The gentlemen who have undertaken this task, stand deservedly high in the estimation of the literary world: Dr. Butler, the editor of Eschylus, as a powerful and distinguished scholar, and Mr. Hodgson, the translator of Juvenal, as a clas sical and an animated poet. We consider Lucien peculiarly fortunate in being enabled to submit his Poem to the hands of such translators, who cannot fail to add lustre, even where they found it not, and to attract the attention of the public to a Poem, which would otherwise have had very little interest in the eyes of the English reader. The first six Cantos were placed by Dr. Butler in the hands of the Rev. John Maunde, by whom it was originally intended that the whole work should have been translated; before however he had completed even these, he fell a victim to a lingering and a hopeless disease. He died, leaving them incomplete: Dr. Butler however from the imperfect state of Mr. Mande's translation, and the perpetual alterations made by the author in the original Poem, was forced to undertake the laborious task of F new VOL. IV, JULY, 1815. new casting nearly the whole of the six Cantos, so that not a twentieth part of Mr. Maunde's composition remains. In addition to these Dr. Butler took the 7th, 8th, 15th, 16th, 18th, and 19th, as his moiety of the work; the remainder was entrusted to Mr. Hodgson. We shall now proceed to give a general outline of the events and the conduct of the Poem, as it appears in the English garb, selecting such parts as will in our opinion reflect the greatest credit upon the translators. We shall not repeat the criticisms upon its structure, which we gave in our last number, but shall leave it to our readers to apply them, as we advance in our outline of the history and the details. The Poem opens with the union of the Lombards with Didier their king, and the Iconoclast Greeks under the walls of Spoleto. Longin the Ambassador of Constantine Porphyrogenetes assures the Lombard monarch of his master's zeal in their cause, while Rodmir, the disappointed lover of Armelia, now wedded to Charlemagne, urges the immediate advance of the allied host to the very gates of Rome. While the crafty Didier pauses, the bands of Longin take Spoleto by storm, and murders its venerable prelate at the foot of the altar, while he defends the image of his Saviour. The Latins are warned by a voice from heaven to betake themselves and not their wives and children, but their images to Rome. This introduces a description of the Church of St. Peter, and the sacred tapestries, with the ceremony of pouring ashes on the Pontiff's head. We are next iransported to Paradise, where the Virgin Mary offers a prayer to the Almighty for the success of the Church against the Lom bards. LXXI. In idle songs Apollo's sons have praised The Gods fantastic, which their hands have raised: The poles are shaken: but Jehovah, God, LXXII. Type of the Trinity, and God alone, Sudden a flaming triangle is shown, Which, glittering like the star, whose piercing light In one sole essence joined, and yet apart,' LXXIII. "The Godhead speaks; and Heaven's remotest bound "AGAINST THE CHURCH, WEAK MAN SHALL NEE'R PREVAIL, And wide in Heaven the hymn of triumph swells. Shot from his triple crown, with triple beam." Vol. I. P. 38. The second Canto introduces us to Paris, and the field of May: Egbert the future monarch of England, Alphonso of Asturia, and Monclar of Narbonne receive their knighthood from Charlemagne. Roland (the Orlando of Ariosto) in his phrenzy, pours out an invective against the king for having forsaken Adelinda his former wife, and having taken Armelia the daughter of Didier to his arms. Though restrained from further violence by his friend Oliver, his accents penetrate the conscience of the guilty monarch. The third Canto comes in again to Heaven, and opens with the hymn of the Blessed to the Virgin. The twelve disciples now pass before our view, and Peter unfolds to the heavenly hosts the events which are to take place in the present struggle. Elias is dispatched to Mount Cassin, a famous monastery in the kingdom of Naples, to whose cloisters several princes of the seventh and eighth centuries retired. XIX. "Hail, regal cloisters! hail, retired abode! Monarchs by you are levelled with the mean." Vol. I. P. 80. |