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    SIR E, BULWER LYTTON'S NE.W POEM.* thousand

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    THE REFORMATION.*

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    ruptcy , purchases the mill and adjoining premises , offering : to etain its late possessor as managing mnn and head-overseer luljiver , for the sake of his family , consents , at the same fcme hurhng an unavailing curse at the head of his employer , calling ; Ins chidren Tom and Maggie to witness liis sojemri declaration ot unremittinghatred towards the fancied destroyer of his life and prospects . He thus endeavours to muke each member of his family participate m Ins feelings - as far as Tom is concerned , he only too readily succeeds ; not so Maggie , —Her finer perceptions at once detect the inconsistency , nay , even criminality , of such unchristian anathemas , lime wears on , and Maggie , still struggling with her inward burden , at length fancies she has discovered the key to true happiness—selfthe vaisearch after the

    renunciation . Yes ! she will cease n means of gratifying her own idle pleasures , and enter the valley , of humiliation . " For the future she will look at herself out of herself , as the " insignificant part of a divinely-guided whole , " and by resignin « - herself to patience escape the pain of sorrow . Our heroine does not at once perceive the fallacy of this reasoning , —it is reserved for experience to enlighten her thereon . Some time after -. this , Maggie accidentally meets Philip Wakem , whose unhappy affliction , in the shape of deformity , had , during her childhood , called forth all the deep feelings and sympathies of her nature , but between whom and herself a barrier had arisen m consequence of their fathers' animosity . This young man , who is ardently attached to her at once undertakes to combat , not only her resolution to carry on no correspondence unknown to her parents , but also her doctrine of renunciation ; He immediately draws a distinction between resignation and stupefaction , between the detevininatioJvto bear sorrow with a calmunbended front , which is still sorrow ,

    in-, flicting the same amount of torture upon the individual notwith- . standing that it is received unresistingly , and the mere dulling of the senses to all outward impressions , and the shutting out the knowledge cf oiir fellow-men . Maggie feels there is some truth in her lovdr ' s logical definitions , though she cannot see in what way they can be made to bear upon the question whether a child , is justified in admitting of concealment from her parents ; ultimately , however , her feelings predominate over her principles , and the two are plighted to each other . We have not space to follow the authoress through all the subtleties of her heroine ' s character , and the dangers to which she is exposed in consequence of a too vivid and treacherous imagination . After her father ' s death , Maggie refuses the shelter liberally offered her by her mother ' s relations , and , signifies her intention of going forth alone into the battle of life , confident m the ultimate triumph of her own unassisted endeavours . Then comes the last bitter trial , the great

    temptation by which the strength of her moral resolutions is put to its final test , and an opportunity is offered her of proving the superiority of reason and principle over the lower attributes of passion and impulse . There are two paths before her , the right and the wrong ; there can be no doubt upon her mind , no confusion of ideas as to which may be the right or which the wrong;—the twoopen paths stare her in the face , bearing unmistakeable signposts indicative of their separate destinations . But our . heroinei has received no training to fit her for combating with the evil which now assails her , has imbibed no strength from the example of others , and cultivated no power of self-control to aid her in the moment when yielding to her own desires will only too surely lead her to destruction , and so she falls ,, dragging along with her an innocent and light-hearted girl , betrayed at once by the lover , she idolized and the woman she trusted , and plunging ? all connected wilh her into misery and disgrace . It is in vain that at the

    eleventh hour she recoils from the consequences of her own misdeed , and concentrates all her energies in one grand final effort for the mastery of the right , and flies precipitately from the consummation of her treacherous act ; repentance comes too late . Slanderous tongues have been busy with her fair name , do shelter and protection awaits her beneath her brother ' s roof ; her only alternative is to bow before the storm , and submit to the universal odium and niisconstmction her conduct has entailed upon hor . All this is admirably worked up . The authoress ' s command of Language enables her to depict the several stages of this great self-struggle with wonderful intensity and , accuracy . She suiters no thread to escape her in the complicated meshes of human feeling ; but in all her characters dives into the very root and core of nil their thoughts , actions , and emotions , presenting us with an insight into these hidden mysteries , which years of practical experience could scarcely have accomplished .

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    IiN the . fourteenth century began that Iteactipn against the corruption of Uio sources of Popular Instruction which led to its fuller development in the sixteenth . The indolence , ambition , and corruption of the clergy had followed on the -wealth of the Church , which , by degrees , had accumulated to an enormous amount . At the commencement of that century it was at least ten millions sterling 1 per annum ¦ —ton times the sum of the whole civil revenue of the kingdom . Tlio clorgy , also , wore jn possession . Of more than half the landed property of the kingdom , Besides all this , an immense revenue was flowing daily into the treasury of tlio Church , and the clergy claimed exemption f ' rpm the ordinary taxation of the country . Tlio Pope Intel acquired the habit

    of issuing his mandates , and having them obeyed by priest and people in England . The Pope dared to name cardinals to English benefices , and to meet the emergency a statute was framed in 1358 , and another in the following year . In connection with this matter occurs one of the earliest notices of Wycliffe in . our annals . The Parliament had to address remonstrances to the king on the subject . In 1373 a new one represented that the grievance was more intolerable than ever ; and this remonstrance , by command of the king , was presented to the Pope , but without effect . Next year , the Parliament caused an exact estimate to be made of the number arid value of English benefices held by aliens . The picture of abuse that it presented was so broad and dark , that it was resolved to send a second Commission to the Papal court . The name of John Wycliffe stands second in the list of the commissioners appointed for this purpose . ¦ Dr . Hanna , who has already distinguished himself by a Life of ¦ Dr . Chalmers , has compiled a portable history of this great reformer and of the Huguenots , uniting with it an account of Protestantism in France down to the time of the Massacre of St . Bartholomew . Concerning the latter event he accepts the modified version of Professor Soldan , that that terrible act Avas not altogether so premeditated as generally supposed ; there was a gradation and accumulation of motives that led to that awful catastrophe . In regard to WyclifFe , the author has greatly depended on the two biographies of Dr . Vaughan ; not neglecting , however , other sources of information . The"Reformer , after his appointment on the royal commission , began , to show a bold front , and spake freely against the papacy—so freely , that five separate bulls were launched against him . But the thunders of the Vatican proved harmless . Wycliffe , in his teaching , repudiated the civil and political dominion claimed by the Pope y asserted the right and duty of the state to exercise entire control over ecclesiastical property , to the extent of withholding or permanently withdrawing her endowments from the Church ; condemned the use by the Church of her spiri t ual arms for temporal purposes , such as enforcing the payment of her revenues ; denied any power in the Church absolutely and unconditionally to bind and loose , to pardon or to condemn ; affirmed-that the censures of the Church had power and effect only so far as they were inflicted on what was truly sinful and censurable in the sight of God , and were not otherwise to be regarded ; and averred that ecclesiastics , nay , even the Pope himself , might warriintably . be impeached and corrected by their subjects , both clergy and laity . And these teachings Wycliffe corroborated with his acts , and called on those he taught to disregard the spiritual anathemas that would be directed against such practical measures . Then came his translation of the Bible , and his consequent defence of the right and duty of all men to read it . Herein Wycliffe met with greater difficulty than any he had yet encountered . Nevertheless , it gave him opportunity to appeal to the texts of Scripture , and to carry the war into the doctrinal province of the Church , which , hitherto he had not attacked . It would , however , says Dr . Hanna , " be difficult to frame a creed from his writings , like that of Augsburg , or the Thirty-nine Articles , or the Westminster Confession . " He condemned transubstantiatiou ; but he believed in purgatory . Altogether he disapproved of persecution . " Christ , " said he , ¦ " . wished his law to be observed willingly , freel y * that in such , obedience men might find happiness . Hence he appointed no civil punishment to be inflicted on the transgressors of his commandments , but left the persons neglecting them to the sufferings which shall come after the day of doom . " Perhaps there is as much need , as ever for the enforcement of these verities . Clearly there is , wherever the authority of the papacy prevails . The recent bloodshed ii . Perugia and Florence sufficiently demonstrates that a corrupt Church is as ready aa ever for a new St . Bartholomew manifestation , if such were possible . On a smaller scale , much evil may yet he inflicted on the conscientious . On , that account publications like the present are exceedingly useful ; and Dr . Raima ' s book has , indeed , superior claims to consideration , as combining the facts and views derivable from the beat authorities and ' most able writers on the high argument which ho has undertaken to develop and illustrate .

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    AN elaborate didactic poem of some two or three lines devoted to the celebration of English parliamentary eloquence , has recently excited some curiosity in the pages of JJlavkivood , and is now anonymously republished in a separate volume , inscribed to Lord Lyndhursit . It boars evident marks in its style-of being the production of Sir Edward Bulwor Lytton , nnd is now generally understood' to have proceeded from hie pen . Its merits are , at any rate , of no ordinary kind , and the work ought wot lo bo permitted to pass into circulation without i \ critical analysis of its contents ,

    and some appreciation of its excellence . In those days the didactic Conn of poetry is not popular ; indeed , wo have hoard it disputed whether such works are poems at nil . They ore admitted to be sometimes mlminiblo ossaya in verse , lufc too much wanting in the emotional element to bo . juutly characterized na poetic . T | iis , however , was not the opinion ot Greek and liouinu critics , who were willing to porrnib the Miiho $ a wider rwtgo than is at present recognised . That range has been confessedly lunilMig itself within narrower houndnrioa , in proportion us tlio distinction between prose and verse has obtained . Certain arguments , it » b now agreed , better suit the former ; and a troutiae on the oratory

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    356 The Leader and Saturday Analyst . [ April 14 , 1860 ,

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    * 7 t , i / vl {(/' fl « nd the MKj / utnnts ; or , tSMcftea 0 / the Jtluc <{ f ( ho MOjoi'ma * tion in j £ n

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    * SV , Mcp / ien ' ti , A 1 ' ooid . Qi'MtmUy published In " Ulaokwood ' a Magazine . William BlUckwood and Bone ,

    Sir E, Bulwer Lytton's Ne.W Poem.* Thousand

    thousand SIR E , BULWER LYTTON'S NE . W POEM . *

    The Reformation.*

    THE REFORMATION . *

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), April 14, 1860, page 356, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2342/page/16/