A great deal that is interesting to the student of general history lies imbedded in language, and Mr. Wright, in a very agreeable Introduction, has summarized the chief matters of value in the collection before us, which comprises the printed copies of sixteen ancient MSS. of various dates. As far as we have had time to examine it, the book seems to have been edited with care and discretion, and Mr. Wright has added much to its value by timely and judicious notes.
Most of the vocabularies here printed (many of them for the first time) were intended for the use of schoolmasters, and throw great light on the means and methods of teaching during the periods at which they were compiled. Mr. Wright tells us that there exist very few MSS. of educational treatises of the fourteenth century, (during which teaching would accordingly seem to have been neglected,) in comparison with the thirteenth and fifteenth, when such works were abundant. To all who would trace the history of education in England and follow up our common-school system to its source, the editor's Introduction will afford valuable hints.
The following extracts from Mr. Wright's Introduction will give some notion of the archaeological and philological value of the volume.
"It is this circumstance of grouping the words under different heads which gives these vocabularies their value as illustrations of the conditions and manners of society. It is evident that the compiler gave, in each case, the names of all such things as habitually presented themselves to his view, or, in other words, that he presents us with an exact list and description of all the objects which were in use at the time he wrote, and no more. We have, therefore, in each a sort of measure of the fashions and comforts and utilities of contemporary life, as well as, in some cases, of its sentiments. Thus, to begin with a man's habitation, his house,—the words which describe the parts of the Anglo-Saxon house are few in number, a heal or hall, a bur or bedroom, and in some cases a cicen or kitchen, and the materials are chiefly beams of wood, laths, and plaster. But when we come to the vocabularies of the Anglo-Norman period, we soon find traces of that ostentation in domestic buildings which William of Malmsbury assures us that the Normans introduced into this island; the house becomes more massive, and the rooms more numerous, and more diversified in their purposes. When we look at the furniture of the house, the difference is still more apparent. The description given by Alexander Neckam of the hall, the chambers, the kitchen, and the other departments of the ordinary domestic establishment, in the twelfth century, and the furniture of each, almost brings them before our eyes, and nothing could be more curious than the account which the same writer gives us of the process of building and storing a castle." p. xv.
"The philologist will appreciate the tracts printed in the following pages as a continuous series of very valuable monuments of the languages spoken in our island during the Middle Ages. It is these vocabularies alone which have preserved from oblivion a very considerable and interesting portion of the Anglo-Saxon tongue, and without their assistance our Anglo-Saxon dictionaries would be far more imperfect than they are. I have endeavored to collect together in the present volume all the Anglo-Saxon vocabularies that are known to exist, not only on account of their diversity, but because I believe that their individual utility will be increased by thus presenting them in a collective form. They represent the Anglo-Saxon language as it existed in the tenth and eleventh centuries; and, as written no doubt in different places, they may possibly present some traces of the local dialects of that period. The curious semi-Saxon vocabulary is chiefly interesting as representing the Anglo-Saxon in its period of transition, when it was in a state of rapid decadence. The interlinear gloss to Alexander Neckam, and the commentary on John de Garlande, are most important monuments of the language which for a while usurped among our forefathers the place of the Anglo-Saxon, and which we know by the name of the Anglo-Norman. In the partial vocabulary of the names of plants, which follows them, we have the two languages in juxtaposition, the Anglo-Saxon having then emerged from that state which has been termed semi-Saxon, and become early English. We are again introduced to the English language more generally by Walter de Biblesworth, the interlinear gloss to whose treatise represents, no doubt, the English of the beginning of the fourteenth century. All the subsequent vocabularies given here belong, as far as the language is concerned, to the fifteenth century. As written in different parts of the country, they bear evident marks of dialect; one of them—the vocabulary in Latin verse—is a very curious relic of the dialect of the West of England at a period of which such remains are extremely rare."—p. xix.
Sermons, preached at Trinity Chapel, Brighton. By the late REV. FREDERICK W. ROBERTSON, M. A., the Incumbent. Second Series. From the Fourth London Edition. Boston: Ticknor & Fields. 12mo.
The biography of Robertson, prefixed to this volume, will gratify the curiosity which every sympathetic reader of the first series of his sermons must have felt regarding the incidents of his career. It was evident to a close observer that the peculiar charm and power of the preacher came from peculiarities of character and individual experience, as well as from peculiarities of mind. There was something so close and searching in his pathos, so natural in his statements of doctrine, so winning in his appeals,—his simplest words of consolation or rebuke touched with such subtile certainty the feelings they addressed,—and his faith in heavenly things was so clear, deep, intense, and calm,—that the reader could hardly fail to feel that the earnestness of the preacher had its source in the experience of the man, and that his belief in the facts of the spiritual world came from insight, and not from hearsay. His biography confirms this impression. We now learn that he was tried in many ways, and built up a noble character through intense inward struggle with suffering and calamity,—a character sensitive, tender, magnanimous, brave, and self-sacrificing, though not thoroughly cheerful. The heroism evinced in his life and in his sermons is a sad heroism, a heroism that has on it the trace of tears. Always at work, and dying in harness, the spur of duty made him insensible to the decay of strength and the need of repose. He had no time to be happy.
The most striking mental characteristic of his sermons is the originality of his perceptions of religious truth. He takes up the themes and doctrines of the Church, the discussion of which has filled libraries with books of divinity which stand as an almost impregnable wall around the simple facts and teachings of the Scriptures, protecting them from attack by shutting them from sight, and in a few brief and direct statements cuts into the substance and heart of the subjects. This felicity comes partly from his being a man gifted with spiritual discernment as well as spiritual feeling, and partly from the instinct of his nature to look at doctrines in their connection with life. He excels equally in interpreting the truth which may be hidden in a dogma, and in overturning dogmas in which no truth is to be found. In a single sermon, he often tells us more of the essentials of a subject, and exhibits more clearly the religious significance of a doctrine, than other writers have done in labored volumes of exposition and controversy. This power of simplifying spiritual truth without parting with any of its depth accounts for the interest with which his sermons are read by persons of all degrees of age and culture. His method of arrangement is also admirable; his thoughts are not only separately excellent, but are all in their right places, so that each is an efficient agent in deepening the general impression left by the whole. The singular refinement and beauty of his mind lend a peculiar charm to its boldness; we have the soul of courage without the rough outside which so often accompanies it; and his diction, being on a level with his themes, never offends that fine detecting spiritual taste which instinctively takes offence when spiritual things are viewed through unspiritual moods and clothed in words which smack of the senses. Combine all his characteristics, his intrepidity of disposition and intellect, his deep experience of religious truth, the sad earnestness of his faith, his penetration of thought, his direct, executive expression, and the beauty which pervades and harmonizes all,—and it is hazarding little to say, that his volumes will take the rank of classics in the department of theology to which they belong.
The Church and the Congregation. A Plea for their Unity. By C. A. BARTOL. Boston: Ticknor & Fields. 16mo.
As church-membership is in some respects the aristocracy of Congregationalism, and as it is considered by many minds to be as necessary for the safety of theology as the old distinction of esoteric and exoteric was for the safety of philosophy, the publication by a clergyman of such a volume as this, with its purpose clearly indicated by its title, will excite some surprise, and certainly should excite discussion. Mr. Bartol contends for open communion, as most consonant with Scripture, with the spirit of Christianity, with the practice of the early Church, with the meaning and purpose of the rite. He denies that the ordinance of the Lord's Supper has any sacredness above prayer, or any of the other ordinances of religion; and while he appreciates and perhaps exaggerates its importance, he thinks that its most beneficent effects will be seen when it is the symbol of unity, and not of division. The usual distinction between Church and Congregation he considers invidious and mischievous, as not indicating a corresponding distinction in religious character, and as separating the body of Christian worshippers into two parts by a mechanical rather than spiritual process. Though he meets objections with abundant controversial ability, the strength of his position is due not so much to his negative arguments as to his affirmative statements; for his statements have in them the peculiar vitality of that mood of meditation in which spiritual things are directly beheld rather than logically inferred, and, being thus the expression of spiritual perceptions, they feel their way at once to the spiritual perceptions of the reader, to be judged by the common sense of the soul instead of the common sense of the understanding. This is the highest quality of the book, and indicates not only that the author has religion, but religious genius; but there is also much homely sagacity evinced in viewing what may be called the practical aspects of the subject, and answering from experience the objections which experience may raise. The writer is so deeply in earnest, has meditated so intensely on the subject, and is so free from the repellent qualities which are apt to embitter theological controversies, that even when his ideas come into conflict with the most obstinate prejudices and rooted convictions, there is nothing in his mode of stating or enforcing them to give offence. The book will win its way by the natural force of what truth there is in it, and the most that an opponent can say is, that the author is in error; it cannot be said that he is arrogant, contemptuous, self-asserting, or that he needlessly shocks the opinions he aims to change.