to the saints, as well as to the Creator? that the sacrifice of the mass can be offered as often as people like to pay for it? that, instead of one Tamb for many people, there may be many masses for one person? that the censer of incense may be enkindled whenever the priest chooses to officiate, and with whatever fire he likes to employ ? We ask, why? and by what authority all this is done? but no answer can be given, more satisfactory than that which Aaron gave to Moses, when he said, "I cast the gold into the fire, and there came out this calf!"

It is only where ignorance of what Judaism actually was prevails, that any religious system, assuming to be analogous to it, can stand. Let the true features of the Jewish hierarchy be once fully laid open to the public eye; and then, any other hierarchy which may have been represented as bearing affinity to it, will be compelled to withdraw its claims, and to have its pretensions to relationship considered as a legend of the olden time. In fact, nothing corresponding with Judaism can again be established in our world. Its types were types of things which are now in heaven, and which cannot again be brought down to 'the earth. They are embodied in the offices of Christ's priesthood, and can never again be required or allowed in the services of men. The heavenly things themselves are presented to our view, and the earthly things, which were the patterns of them, as being no longer necessary, are for ever withdrawn. Christ himself, the Apostle tells us, were He on earth, would not be a priest. He was not a descendant of Aaron, and therefore could not legally officiate in the temple, in which the Levitical priesthood offered gifts according to the law. He ministers in the true tabernacle, which the Lord pitched, and not man. He is entered" not into the holy places made with hands, which are the figures of the true; but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us." There is now the Shechinah of glory, pervading and enlightening with its radiance every part of the celestial temple,; there is the mercy-seat to which all nations are now invited to come, and from which, for Gentiles as well as Jews, the copious streams of pardon and salvation flow; there are the cherubim, not carved in beaten gold, but living in the constant exercise of high intelligence, of burning zeal, of reverential awe, and reverberating widely as the beams of the divine radiance extend, the unceasing cry, " Holy! holy! holy! is the Lord of hosts!" and there, more glorious than Aaron, with blood more precious, with purity more spotless, with titles more numerous and dear to men, with many crowns upon His head, and the names of His people upon His heart, has the great High Priest of our profession entered, to minister for us.' pp. 128-131.

Art. IX. 1. The Amulet. A Christian and Literary Remembrancer. Edited by S. C. Hall.

2. The Literary Souvenir. Edited by Alaric A. Watts,

3. The Remembrance. Edited by Thomas Roscoe, Esq.

UPON the whole, the literary character of these Annuals is, we think, far better sustained than could have been ex

pected, notwithstanding the very large quantity of floating talent, if we may be pardoned the expression, which is available for the purpose, and the perfection of facility to which the art of composition has been carried. Compare any one of these volumes with the prose and verse miscellanies of a century or fifty years ago, and the superiority of modern talent, in vivacity, range, and piquancy, must be admitted. What is mediocrity. now, would have been deemed excellence even in the days of Dodsley. The number of our female writers, who are, perhaps, the best contributors to these Annuals, is not a little remarkable, and, as we imagine, unprecedented. During the last century, a few illustrious ladies challenged admiration by the singularity of female authorship. Mrs. Carter, Miss Talbot, Mrs. Sarah Trimmer, and Mrs. Hannah More, appeared in the character of learned or instructive and pious writers. To them succeeded Mrs. Barbauld, Miss Edgeworth, Miss Hamilton, and other writers on Education. Among our novelists, the Authoress of Cecilia, Mrs. Radcliffe, Mrs. Inchbald, and the Authors of the Canterbury Tales, stood pre-eminent. Nor have we forgotten some other names which might be added to the enumeration. But, for these, we have drawn upon our early recollections, or have gone back far into the eighteenth century. Now we have only to open an Annual, to find the names of Mrs. Hemans, Miss Mitford, Miss Jewsbury, Mrs. Hall, the Author of Selwyn, Miss Lawrance, Miss Bowles, Mrs. Howitt, Mrs. Hofland, Miss Landon, Miss Roberts, Mrs. Sherwood, and we know not how many more, while those of Miss Porter and Mrs. Opie seem to link together the present race of writers to those who are going off.

But, amid all this literary opulence, there is a strange dearth of any thing deserving of the much abused name of poetry. We find abundance of smooth and pleasing versification, and some versification which, though not smooth or musical, is yet pleasing from the elegant sentiment; we have much that rises to the degree of pretty, and other pieces that may be termed good. But it is too evident, that the Writers, for the most part, have either not done their best, or have adopted very indistinct or erroneous notions of the qualities of true poetry. In many instances, the failure is wilful, arising from negligence or indolence; in others, it may be ascribed to the blighting effects of injudicious flattery; in some, to want of ear, or sheer perversity of taste. We should hardly have thought it possible, that Mrs. Hemans could have written such vapid and commonplace lines as some that bear her name. She might, by maintaining her rank as a lyric poet, have contributed to raise the standard of poetry, and to discountenance mere rhyming; but she has coined her genius into the small currency of verse, and

brought her credit into depreciation by the inferior mintage. Miss Landon, too, had she fallen into judicious hands, had she been taught the art to blot, had she been initiated into the secret that versification is an art, not a knack, and that it must be tried by the ear, not by the eye,-might have produced poetry which would have outlived much of the current verse of the day. Miss Bowles-we were about to find fault with her negligent versification, and capricious disregard of rhyme, by which, if she does not offend, she disappoints the ear, although she always touches the heart; we were going to protest against her half rhyme half blank-verse, which always gives the idea of a want of skill or of proper pains;-but the following beautiful stanzas will not submit to our criticism: the fault may be detected, but it is not felt.

'Tread softly!-bow the head—

In reverend silence bow!

No passing bell doth toll,

Yet an immortal soul

Is passing now.

Stranger! how great soe'er,
With lowly reverence bow!
There's one in that poor shed,
One by that wretched bed,

Greater than thou.

Beneath that pauper's roof
Lo! Death doth keep his state.
Enter-no crowds attend-

Enter-no guards defend

This palace-gate.

That pavement damp and cold,
No whispering courtiers tread;
One silent woman stands,
Chafing with pale, thin hands,
A dying head.

'No busy murmurs sound;
An infant wail alone:-

A sob suppressed-again

That short, deep gasp-and then

The parting groan.

'Oh change! Oh wond'rous change!

Burst are the prison bars!

This moment there-so low

In mortal pangs-and now.

Beyond the stars!

But we must proceed with our criticisms; -and without naming the minor offenders, we have to complain more especially of the utter want of ear which most of our modern versifiers betray. Their composition looks very well in the page, but to read many of the lines, so as to make poetry of them, is impossible. You might as well attempt to dance slipshod or with nails in your shoes. For instance, in reading a very pretty little poem in the Amulet, The Ruined Hut,' we broke our shins over the following line:

'I trace the fate's stern, grave-ward track—

On recovering ourselves, we were induced to proceed, and reached the closing couplet-was ever such a close?

'As 'tis I seek my browsing steed,
To feel again companioned!'

The first line hisses like a squib, and the second breaks in your hand.—Then what shall we say to such rhyming as this?

Not ours to lift the veil perchance
In tender mercy drawn ;

Oh! could we look beyond, would hope
Still lead us cheerly on?'

Old Sternhold might have been ashamed of such versification. Again, sternly must we disallow the pretensions of such broken-backed metre as the following, to the honours of English

verse:

'Over the terrace the bright stars shine:
Who is there but must feel them divine?'

Here, the second line runs full but against the reader, and fairly staggers him. Take another specimen of club-footed verse.

"Of their penal doom I may not speak,

With the secrets of God it resteth still;

And though thou mourn, yet murmur not,
But place thy hope in the Righteous Will.'

This is below ballad measure. Then, again, there is the cheap expedient for saving rhyme, which consists in economically printing two lines as one, fourteen feet in length, but with the seam so visible as to betray the natural separation: e. g.

Thy dreams may wander to that land-but may not tell

its light;

No visions of the vesper-sea-may gaze beyond the night—’ Nothing is gained by this mode of printing the four lines, but spoiling the look of the page. Sometimes, however, we have a redundant syllable or two hitched in, which has the effect of rendering the metre equivocal, without making it more musical:

No shadowings of the future hours may pierce the dark tomb's cell, To tell of the land where storms ne'er come to moan from their oceanshell!'

Of the genuine couplet of fourteen feet, at which the above is an awkward attempt, we have a beautiful specimen in the Literary Souvenir, which will save us the trouble of pointing out the difference, by exhibiting at once the rapid flow, and varied pause, and touching cadence, of which, when well managed, this fine measure is susceptible: it otherwise sinks into a most languid drawl.

‹ RUTH TO HER MOTHER.

'I will not, cannot leave thee; every hope to me is dead,
But the hope to smooth the pillow of an aged parent's head!
Oh! bid me not depart from thee:-to wander by thy side,
Is now my only joy and wish, my pleasure and my pride.

‹ Bid me not seek another lord, another land or home:

I am the staff unto thy feet, wherever they may roam.
The scanty meal, the houseless head, no terrors have for me,
So I may watch and hunger, my mother dear, by thee.

I would not leave thee for the wealth of Fortune's richest smile:
Such lot were pain and grief to me, if thou wert poor the while.
I would not leave thee, though the cloud that broods upon thy brow
Were of a deeper, deadlier gloom than I behold it now.

‹ Thou sayʼst that thou art childless now,—thou hast no other son To be a link of love to us, to bind our souls in one:

Oh! who should smile with Chilion's smile, or speak with Chilion's tone,

But her whose grief for Chilion was as bitter as thine own?

‹ By the joy we both remember, by the loss we both lament,
Bid me not serve my people's gods, nor seek my father's tent :
I am an alien at their hearth, a stranger at their shrine,
I have no kindred now but thee; I know no God but thine!

‹ And He will still be with us, in our smiles and in our tears;
In the weakness of my youth, and in the sadness of thy years;
To cheer the darkness of our doom, how dark soe'er it be,"
And bless the grateful love with which my spirit clings to thee.'
(Literary Souvenir.)