From the Metropolitan. THE "FRIEDHOF," OR COURT OF PEACE.* "SWEET sister, come, and let us roam away o'er the fine arched bridge, Whose blue eyes spake of Heaven and prayer; The court of peace, where the lindens grow." "Come, come, let us hie to the free broad road--the folks are all passing that way, With cheerful voices and gayly decked-for you know it is festival day. The harps are twanging beneath the trees, and there's nothing save joy and singing; And we shall hear, o'er the valley lone, all the bells so merrily ringing." "No," said the girl with the golden hair, Whose blue eyes spake of Heaven and prayer; The court of peace, where the lindens grow." "There are whispering leaves down this green lane amid the old crofts and trees; It is long and winding, but sweet accents float to allure the good honey-bees ; It leads to the solemn, cloistered pile, and over the beautiful plains Whose blue eyes spake of Heaven and prayer; The court of peace, where the lindens grow." This brother and sister were parted wide; but when fleeting years rolled by, 'Mid the chequered scenes of a roving life-in hut or 'neath gorgeous dome, Whose blue eyes spake of Heaven and prayer; The court of peace, where the lindens grow." Home of the prodigal! rest for the weary! the path of the just below 'Mid the vain world's show, and will onward lead to the court of Heaven at last. The court of peace, where the lindens grow." * Or "burial-place," in German. From Hogg's Instructor. THE LATE REV. ARCHIBALD ALISON, LL.B. BY GEORGE GILFILLAN. "Oh lady, we receive but what we give! THIS late distinguished divine has left two separate claims to reputation-first, as a speculator on the beautiful, and, secondly, as Ours is the wedding-garment-ours the shroud." a writer of sermons. In the former field, that he is entirely original no one can believe As to Wordsworth, association is the grand who remembers Akenside's exclamation-key to much of his poetry, which without this ""Tis mind alone, bear witness earth and heaven;" an exclamation containing in it the essence of his theory, that beauty, namely, consists in trains of thought and feeling suggested more or less directly and vividly by external objects. It seems now, too, to be generally admitted, that from the kindling love of his own views he has carried them too far, and left too little room for those quick instinctive perceptions of the beautiful which arise so early, and break forth so suddenly, as hardly to come within the strict limits of his theory. Let us grant, too, that Lord Jeffrey, if not so minute and copious, has been more eloquent, and more distinct, guarded, succinct, and memorable in his exposition of the view. But to Alison be the praise of first announcing, in a popular form, the astonishing conceptions, which had passed before for the reveries of half-insane poets and philosophers, that the universe is a great mirror to the mind of man--that the star must, stooping, increase its lustre at the soul --that the sun is but half-lit till the human eye mirror it, and the human spirit breathe on it—and that, in contemplating the fairest scenes, we are ourselves half-creating their loveliness. To the first broaching of such views of the beautiful we owe not merely the illustrations they have received from the pens of the prose philosophers, who have explained, modified, or defended them-the Dugald Stewarts, Browns, and Jeffreys-but also the account to which they have been turned by the poets. Who has forgotten the fine letter addressed by Burns to Alison? Coleridge has wrought the leading thought of the system into the well-known lines were a spring shut up and a fountain sealed. Many of the objects which he presents to view are such as are generally called beautiful; but how much, through this fine principle, has he added to their effect! He has poured out the riches of his mind upon the scenery of the "Lakes," till Windermere has kindled into new lustre under the poet's steadfast look, like a red western heaven glorifying its waters, till Helvellyn has echoed his solemn voice, and Skiddaw stood more sublimely in the majesty of his mind, and the Brathay murmured more musically in his verse, and Grassmere grown more romantic under the still pressure of his brooding eye, and the Duddon in all its windings felt the witchery of a poet's presence and the consecrating influence of a poet's song; and the tarns of a hundred wildernesses been surrounded with golden circles of glory, which can never fade or die away! To the waste and seemingly meaningless parts of creation he has given a voice, an intelligence, and a beauty. Crabbe has written much on the same principle, with this difference, that the objects selected by Wordsworth are those of nature, while the others are generally of art, or of the humbler and coarser of creation's works. In some measure has he thus, even more than the great Laker, substantiated the power of association, and illustrated the doctrines of Alison. Byron, too, knew this secret well; and "Childe Harold," in some points his noblest work, is glorified, not so much by its brief and burning pictures of natural scenery, nor by its sweet and mighty eloquence, nor by its bursts of lawless passion, nor by the mournful solemnity which shadows all its confessional pages, nor by the abruptness of its transitions from poet-vorite theory, so many agreeable, lovely, and ical to personal lamentations, but by the art noble things; the Cain-spirit would now with which the poet has spread out all the gather all abortive undertakings, unhappy gloom and all the glory thereof in the light thoughts, guilty and monstrous deeds, bruised of ancient and modern associations, of Gre- and broken wings of imagination, frightful cian, Roman, or Italian story. Ebenezer shapes of nature, which, not to call "ugly," Elliott is another example of what we mean. is a high effort of faith-shapes of thought Never till he snatched his red-hot poker pen, more terrific still--dreary and ominous sounds had we any idea that the blue lights and scents going up from fields and lands of smoky visages, the din and soot of foundries, pestilence the seeds of murder, and the gore could have inspired and immortalized a world of suicides-the breath of blasphemers, and poet; for, in spite of our sage critic in "Cham- the hearts of traitors-and present such an bers," we do opine that all genuine poetry is offering, himself shuddering, to an incensed at least colored by the special atmosphere Heaven. through which it first begins to burn, and that Elliott had been no poet at all if he had not felt the action of a furnace on his mind, as well as that of his mind on a furnace. Our view of association does not go quite to the extent of supposing that all things are made, though it does go to the extent of supposing that all things are modified by its influence. Heaven. To collect such an infernal broth into a Canidia cup has not yet been effected by the darkest spirit, although some writers have failed in the attempt less from inclination than from power. Far better for men to be accounting for and accumulating images of the beautiful, than to be (as in France) artistically handling and reproducing the horrible and the bad." It is, therefore, more the healthy, mild, genial, and Christian tone of Alison's work, than its depth or power, that we admire. His book, unconsciously, is the best treatise on the goodness of God that we remember. The being must be good who has scattered beauty through his world in such universal profusion, that, go down into whatever dark mine, you find beauty sparkling before you in the silver or the golden ore-that, penetrate into whatever ocean depth, you find it growing in the coral, or reposing in the shellthat, in the heart of the forest, it is there, forming the pine cone, or so intermeddling with every motion of the fallen leaf, as to make it, amid all its wild whirlings a thing of beauty-that, when you have climbed the loftiest eminence, beauty has climbed it before you, and waits for your coming, in the Whatever may be thought of Alison's "Essay on Taste," as a speculation, there is one view in which it is incomparable-we mean, as a fine and delicate selection of beautiful objects-of objects of which all men are pleased to be reminded. There is scarcely anything in art, or nature, or thought, that is sublime, beautiful, or attractive, but we find inserted in some part or other of its pages. It is a great nosegay of flowers. It is pleasant, in this world of care and woe, to light upon such certain places," where all things for a season, by their richness, variety, harmony, and the soft evening light of genius in which they are shown, seem to stand up on a hedge of roses, excluding us from, and from us the harsh realities of the present, the recorded mistakes and miseries of the past, and the tremendous uncertainties of the future-sparkling silence of the snows, or in the aswhere the "beautiful is not vanished," and where we can at times imagine that "it is a happy world, after all." Nay, in reading Alison's book on "Taste," we are standing by the side of an altar, whereon all the fruits and fatness, all the beauty and elegance of earth, are being offered up, as in Cain's bloodless sacrifice, to heaven. But the spirit of the offering is not that of the first murderer; over all the gifts and all the glories thereof there are sprinkled the rich drops of pious feeling; and rude and ruthless were the hand which should indignantly or contemptuously throw down the altar, and scatter the lovely fruits to the winds of the wilderness. Assuredly, in an age like ours, no bad man would willingly collect, even to support a fa pect of the sun, shorn of all but light and beauty-nay, that its gleam is the true ghost of the grave-the joint tenant of the shroud, and that destruction and death may well say, "We have heard the fame of it with our ears." But to return. Alison, as a writer of sermons, has a fame, if not so dazzling, at least as enviable, as from his philosophical speculations. A theory, however ingenious or brilliant, may be impugned and shattered, if not overturned. But sermons which have once become classical in their reputation, may indeed be depreciated, but seldom cease to be read. Opinions vary as to Logan's sermons, but most people know them; whereas, if the truth of a philosophical treatise be over thrown, it requires all charms of style to save it from neglect; and perhaps we are justified in predicting, that a century hence not more than three books of a philosophical kind will continue to be read for their mere literature, and these are "Brown's Lectures,' "Sir W. Drummond's Academical Questions," and "Fichte's Destination of Man." Whatever may or has become of the special opinions advocated in those works, we are persuaded that the richness of language, fertility of illustration, minuteness of analysis, and fine philosophic and poetic enthusiasm of the first; the energy, terseness, boldness, and eloquence of the second, and the power (as of a painter of spirits) of depicting thinnest abstractions, the fervor of feeling, and the grandeur of sentiment of the third, will secure them readers, after the metaphysical writings of Spinoza, Hobbes, Locke, Stewart, Reid, Ballantine, and many others, are no more regarded (save for their substance, which has gone into other and more convenient forms) than the autumn shells whence the kernels have been extracted. Alison's sermons appear to us to be fine expressions of a certain form and feeling of Christianity, and in this light possess considerable chance for continued life. As compositions, expressing refined sense to refined people, colored in their diction, and often poetical in their spirit, they retain, and may long, a certain place. He is not a clear or strong reasoner, nor an overbearing declaimer, nor a searchingly practical preacher. His sermons are undoubtedly superior to Blair's and Logan's, but not by any means equal to Taylor's, Barrow's, or Hall's. They are the result of a judgment sound, not subtle-of an intellect, calm, clear, and equable-of a fine and sensitive taste-of imagination rather cultivated than copious-of acquirements select rather than extensive-of full command of beautiful diction-of a genuine and glowing love for the works of nature-and of an enlightened and cheerful piety. But we miss altogether the short and striking things, the charm of unexpectedness, the evangelical richness, and the practical savor, which meet us in the first class of Christian authors. We read his elegant pages with delight, but few burning embers cling to our memories or our hearts. Alison's best discourses are those on the seasons of the year-fine, fresh joy-breathing descants on the works of God, full of a bright and balmy devotion, and an exhilarating and sunny spirit, which reminds you of the "glad prose" of Jeremy Taylor. He gives admirably the gay leap of spring from the "detested trance" of winter-the broad brightness of the golden summer-the mellow and sombre interest of autumn; and if he fails at all it is in representing the sterner features and barren magnificence of winter, that skeleton among the seasons. We much prefer Foster's sermons on the same topic. He discovers a profounder sense of the beauty and meaning of nature—a more passionate love for it-hangs a weight of personal interest on all his cogitations-and when he approaches autumn and winter, those dark seasons appear to stand up, to give him a gloomy welcome, as an energy kindred to themselves, and their pale cheeks flush with a strange joy, like the red of a fallen leaf. He absolutely revels in the images of death and desolation which are suggested by the aspects of the closing year. In Alison's sermon on the " Threatened Invasion," he brings himself into competition with Robert Hall. Both were upon their metal, aud have reached and sustained a high flight of patriotic and Christian eloquence. Both are hurried out of their wonted equability of manner by the excitement of the crisis, and their polished and rounded periods become instinct with a somewhat sterner and more Tyrtæan energy. Of the two, Alison's discourse is the more solemn and sustained, Hall's the more intellectual and brilliant. But we confess that neither comes up to our idea of a war-sermon --a trumpet-call, summoning the sons of men, by their hearths and by their altars, by their country and by their God, to do battle for all that was dear to them in their laws, and all that was sacred to them in their religion. We should have liked something rougher, sterner, more spirit-stirring still. We prefer Macbriar's sermon in "Old Mortality," by many degrees, to both Hall and Alison. Had Scott been a preacher, how much would he have made of it! What a strong, earth-shaking blast would he have blown against the foe! There had been a cry at the close, "Lead us to battle!" Or had Edward Irving been then in the zenith of his power, what an impression must he have produced by the enthusiasm of his manner, the stateliness of his chivalric form, the wild fire of his vision, the floating terror of his locks, the picturesque dye of his diction, the metaphors about war and battle which he would have culled from Scripture or gathered out of his own imagination and the old border spirit which was in him, and which would, in such a moment, have come up, flushing in blood through his pale cheek! | even as hunters sound the moors for hares. The effect had been Demosthenic! Men Unfortunately this author lies under a mistake would have seen in him the resuscitation of inasmuch as all the heroes we ever met have the Puritan leader, wielding a sword in one either accidentally crossed our path, or else hand and carrying a Bible in the other; or have met us at their own request. Although of David's heroes, "who could handle spear he happens to be as ignorant of us as though and buckler, whose faces were as the faces we were a Hottentot or a Turk, we shall, on of lions, and were as swift as the roes upon the contrary, tell him that we know him the mountains," and would have sought no thoroughly, having met him last in London, other leader to carry them into the middle carrying Professor Longfellow's bag, and in a of the fight! But Alison and Hall, two se- state of "Excelsior" enthusiasm! cluded scholars are hardly in their element when talking of carnage. They seldom catch the right martial spirit. Hall, in the closing passage, alone copes with the sublimity of the occasion; and neither could be said, in the noble language of Job, "to smell the battle afar off, the thunder of the captains, and the shouting." Alison is now a name, but a name beloved and revered, as long as soft sublimity of thought, and elegant richness of diction, vivacity of mild fancy, and felicity of cultivated taste, are qualities reputed and admired. His fame does not rest upon the prominence of one faculty, but upon the exquisite balance of many. It has been objected by a critic in the "North American Review," that we are in the habit of searching the country for heroes, Although we have never hunted after heroes, we have sometimes stumbled on a few. For instance, in the year 1828, we found ourselves stepping northward, toward the town of Crieff, at the close of an autumn evening, in the company of Archibald Alison, the subject of the present sketch. He was exalted to the sublimity of a gig, we were plodding along in the simplicity of a pedestrian; he was advanced in life, we were a mere boy, to him utterly unknown; and yet, fronting, as he did, a glorious western sky, stooping over the woods and turrets of Drummond Castle, and remembering, as we did, his achievements as a theorist on "Taste," we cannot say that our admiration of him at all then amounted to enthusiasm, or that we gazed with exalted interest on his profile cut out in the red heaven beyond. NOTICES OF NEW PUBLICATIONS. King Arthur. By Sir E. BULWER LYTTON. 2 vols. We see in "King Arthur" a consummate expres sion of most of those higher powers of mind and thought which have been steadily and progressively developed by Sir Bulwer Lytton's writings. His design is a lofty one, and through all its most varied extremes evenly sustained. It comprises a national and a religious interest. It animates with living truth, with forms and faces familiar to all men, the dim figures of legendary lore. It has an earnest moral purpose, never lightly forgotten or thrown aside. It is remarkable for the deep and extensive knowledge it displays, and for the practical lessons of life and history which it reflects in imaginative form. We have humor and wit, often closely bordering on pathos and tragedy; exploits of war, of love, and of chivalrous adventure, alternate with the cheerful lightness and pleasantry of la gaie science. We meet at every turn with figures of a modern day, which we laugh to recognize in antique garb; in short, we have the epic romance in all its licences and in all its extremes.-Examiner. Episodes of Insect Life. Prof. Nichol has done much to make astronomy a lightsome science; Mr. Miller has thrown the influ fossils of the old red sandstone. Neither, however, ence of eloquent and powerful writing around the has produced a work equal, in the particular above mentioned, to the Episodes of Insect Life.-Tait's Magazine. Mordaunt-hall. By the author of EMILIA WYNDHAM Like the former productions of this clever writer, "Mordaunt-hall" strongly engages the attention and sympathy of the reader. It contains sketches of domestic life and every-day characters as forcible and faithful as those of Miss Austin, at the same time that the principal persons in the tale are invested |