Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 3 September 1848

by Various

We were attracted to this novel by seeing the words "fifth edition" on its title page. After reading it, it is easy to account for its popularity. It is at once a most exciting romance and a defence of an unpopular religious body. The author (said to be Professor Sewall,) belongs to the Oxford School of Episcopalians, or to adopt his own view of the matter, to the one Catholic church. The object of the novel is to present the ideas of Church and State held by that class of religionists who are vulgarly called Puseyites. This is done partly in the representation of character and narration of incident, which constitute the romance of the book, and partly by long theological conversations which occur between a few of the characters. The interest of the work never flags, and it is among the few religious novels which are not positive bores to all classes of readers. In respect to its theology, it gives the most distinct view of the doctrines of the High Church party of Oxford which we have seen. The author is as decisive and bitter in his condemnation of Romanism as of dissent. He considers that the peculiar doctrines and claims which distinguish the Roman Catholic church from the Church of England are novelties, unknown to the true church of the apostles and the fathers. He has no mercy for the Romanists, and but little for the young men of his own school who favor the Papacy. Those who are accustomed to associate Puseyism with a set of sentimentalists, who mourn the Reformation, wish for the return of the good old times of the feudal ages, and give Rome their hearts and Canterbury only their pockets, will find that such doctrines and practices find no favor in the present volumes. The greatest rascal in the novel is a piece of incarnate malignity named Pearce—a Jesuit, whom the author represents as carrying out the principles of Romanism to their logical results in practice.

But if the reader will find his common notions of Puseyism revolutionized by the present novel, he will be a little startled at its real doctrines and intentions. The author has the most supreme and avowed contempt for liberal ideas in Church and State; and for every good-natured axiom about toleration and representative government he spurns from his path as a novelty and paradox. There is nothing dominant in England which he does not oppose. The Whig party he deems the avowed enemies of loyalty, order and religion. The Conservatives, with Sir Robert Peel and the Duke of Wellington at their head, he conceives destitute of principle, and the destroyers of the British empire. There is not a concession made to liberal ideas within the present century which he does not think wicked and foolish. The manufacturing system and free trade, indeed the whole doctrines of the political economists in the lump, he looks upon alternately with horror and disdain. He seems to consider the State and Church as an organized body for the education of the people, whose duty is obedience, arid who have no right to think for themselves in religion or politics, for they would be pretty sure to think wrong. All benevolent societies, in which persons of different religious views combine for a common object, he considers as productive of evil, and as an assumption of powers rightly belonging to the church. Indeed, in his system, it is wrong for any popular association to presume to meddle with ignorance and crime, unless they do it under the sanction and control of the church. He considers it the duty of a church minister to excommunicate every man in his parish who is guilty of schism—that is, who has the wickedness to be a papist or dissenter. But it is useless to proceed in the enumeration of our author's dogmatisms. If the reader desires to know them, let him conceive the exact opposite of every liberal principle in politics, political economy and theology, which at present obtains in the world, and he will have the system of "Hawkstone."

A good deal of the zest of the novel comes from the throng of paradoxes in which the author wantons. He has a complete system of thought to kill out all the mind of the English people, and render them the mere slaves of a hierarchy, and all for the most benevolent of purposes. In his theory he overlooks the peculiar constitution and character of the English people, and also all the monstrous abuses to which his system would inevitably lead, in his desire to see a practical establishment of the most obnoxious and high-toned claims of his church. He is evidently half way between an idealist and a sentimentalist, with hardly an atom of practical sagacity or knowledge of affairs. The cool dogmatism with which he condemns the great statesmen of his country, is particularly offensive as coming from a man utterly ignorant of the difficulties which a statesman has to encounter. It is curious also to see how extremes meet; this theory of absoluteism "fraternizes" with that of socialism. A person reading, in the second volume, the account of Villiers' dealings with his tenantry, and his new regulations regarding manufactures, would almost think that Louis Blanc had graduated at Oxford, and left out in his French schemes the agency of the church, from a regard to the prejudices of his countrymen.

With all its peculiarities and heresies, however, the novel will well reward the attention of readers of all classes. It is exceedingly well written, and contains many scenes of uncommon power, pathos and beauty. With these advantages it may also claim the honor of being the most inimitable specimen of theological impudence and pretension which the present age has witnessed.

The Planetary and Stellar Worlds: A Popular Exposition of the Great Discoveries and Theories of Modern Astronomy. In a Series of Ten Lectures. By O. M. Mitchell, A. M. New York: Baker & Scribner. 1 vol. 12mo.

Mr. Mitchell is not only an accomplished astronomer, in every respect qualified to be the interpreter of the mysteries of his science to the popular mind, but, if we may judge from the style of his book, is a fine, frank, warm-hearted, enthusiastic man. On every page he gives evidence of really loving his pursuit. By a certain sensitiveness of imagination, and quickness of sensibility, every thing he contemplates becomes alive in his mind, and an object in which he takes a personal interest. This gives wonderful distinctness to his exposition of natural laws, and his delineation of the characters and pursuits of men of science. His Copernicus, Kepler, Gallileo and Newton are not dry enumerations of qualities, but vivid portraits of persons. He seems in close intellectual fellowship with them as individuals, and converses of them in the style of a friend, whose accurate knowledge is equalled by his intense affection. So it is with his detail of the discovery of a new law, or fact in science. His mind "lives along the line" of observation and reasoning which ended in its detection, and he reproduces the hopes, fears, doubts, and high enthusiasm of every person connected with the discovery. His delineation of Kepler is especially genial and striking. By following this method he infuses his own enthusiasm into the reader, bears him willingly along through the most abstruse processes of science, and at the end leaves him without fatigue, and ready for a new start.

In the treatment of scientific discoveries, by minds like Mr. Mitchell's, we ever notice an unconscious personification of Nature, as a cunning holder of secrets which only the master-mind can wrest from her after a patient siege. The style of our author glows in the recital of the exploits of his band of astronomers, as that of a Frenchman does in the narration of Napoleon's campaigns. This is the great charm of his book, and will make it extensively popular, for by it he can attract any reader capable of being interested in a tale of personal adventure, ending in a great achievement. We can hardly bring to mind a popular lecturer or writer on science, who has this power to the extent which Mr. Mitchell possesses it. He himself has it by virtue of the mingled simplicity and intensity of his nature.

One of the most striking lectures in Mr. Mitchell's volume is that on the discoveries of the primitive ages, in which he represents the processes of the primitive observer, with his unarmed eye, in unfolding some of the laws of the heavens; and he indicates with great beauty what would be his point of departure, and what would be the limit of his discoveries. This lecture is a fine prose poem. There is a passage in the introductory lecture which grandly represents the continual watch which man keeps on the heavens, and the slow, silent and sure acquisitions of new truths, from age to age. "The sentinel on the watchtower is relieved from duty, but another takes his place, and the vigil is unbroken. No—the astronomer never dies. He commences his investigations on the hill-tops of Eden—he studies the stars through the long centuries of antedeluvian life. The deluge sweeps from the earth its inhabitants, their cities and their mountains—but when the storm is hushed, and the heavens shine forth in beauty, from the summit of Mount Arrarat the astronomer resumes his endless vigils. In Babylon he keeps his watch, and among the Egyptian priests he inspires a thirst for the sacred mysteries of the stars. The plains of Shinar—the temples of India—the pyramids of Egypt, are equally his watching places. When science fled to Greece, his home was in the schools of her philosophers: and when darkness covered the earth for a thousand years, he pursues his never-ending task from amidst the burning deserts of Arabia. When science dawned on Europe, the astronomer was there—toiling with Copernicus—watching with Tycho—suffering with Gallileo—triumphing with Kepler."

We trust that this volume will have an extensive circulation. It will not only convey a great deal of knowledge to the general reader, but will also inspire a love for the science of which it treats.

Harold, the last of the Saxon Kings. By Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton, Bart. New York: Harper & Brothers.