When we first saw the advertisement of Mr. Wines in the public journals, it struck us that the theme he had chosen for his lectures was a dry one, and that it would scarcely be found to interest the general public; but we were greatly in error. It was not only an unhackneyed subject, of intrinsic interest, but it was one that had never before been treated in the manner in which it was presented by Mr. Wines. We are no longer surprised that the lectures should have drawn together overflowing audiences in Philadelphia, nor that they were received with the most marked approbation in our own metropolis. Although the chief authority whence the materials of the discussion are drawn is the Bible, a book in every body's hands, yet the facts in the record are brought by Mr. Wines into such new and sometimes almost startling relations, that while they impart important instruction on a subject venerable by its hoary antiquity, they have yet all the charms of novelty to recommend them. Even acute and diligent students of the Scriptures, after listening to his discourses, must confess that they have not exhausted its riches, especially so far as they treat of the great principles of social organization and constitutional government. Indeed, one of their best fruits will be to send the hearer with a keener spirit of inquiry, and with increased patience and industry of investigation, to the 'Lively Oracles.' The lectures are conceived in a liberal and philosophical spirit, and evince an ardent attachment to, and a firm faith in, our republican institutions. They are written with thorough scholarship and learning, and in a style always lucid and vigorous, often glowing and elegant. In a word, Mr. Wines takes hold of his subject like a man who is conscious of his strength, and he almost invariably carries the sympathies and convictions of his audience along with him, even when advancing opinions quite out of their ordinary habitudes of thought. He has shown how thoroughly a subject, which has been commonly regarded as belonging exclusively to scholars, can be brought within the grasp of the popular mind. Whatever currency his elaborate and most interesting disquisitions on the laws and government of the Hebrews may have, will be so much subtracted from the strength of infidelity, and added to the cause of sacred learning and religion.
The lecturer commenced with a reference to the magnificent sepulchral remains of an unknown city on the banks of the Ganges, in Central India, as an emblem of the uncertainty which accompanies most of our researches into the events of remote antiquity. The writings of the best of the Greek historians were represented as filled with contradictions, and with mutual charges of error and falsehood; and several striking instances of historical doubt were adduced; as, whether the famous Trojan war ever actually occurred or not; whether Semiramis lived two thousand or seven hundred years before Christ; and whether the Great Cyrus fell in battle near the snowy Caucasus, or died in peace in his palace at Persepolis. The noble historic record of Moses was contrasted with the confused and incredible fictions which disfigure all other ancient annals; and a just eulogium was passed upon its clearness and consistency. Mr. Wines's brief but clear analysis of the political and social institutions of the various ancient Asiatic dynasties, as also of Egypt, Sparta, Athens, and Rome, fully established his main position in reference to them, that they knew nothing about the true principles of civil liberty; but were, at all times, governed either by arbitrary men or arbitrary laws. A sober, rational, well-poised, and well-guarded national freedom was nowhere to be met with in the ancient world, except in Palestine, under the occupancy of the Hebrews; and all antiquity did not afford a single example of a state, where the PEOPLE exercised any just influence in public affairs, till we come to the Jewish republic. The far-famed Spartan Institutes were discussed with merited severity. Their barbarous and even brutal characteristics were drawn in strong relief, but without a single darker shade than truth required. It was admitted that the Spartans were the bravest, the most warlike, the best skilled in the art military, the most politic, the firmest in their maxims, and the most constant in their designs, of all the people of Greece; but in making them so, Lycurgus had stripped them of almost every quality of men, and caused them to put on the fierceness of savage beasts. The war-laws of ancient times were sketched in vivid but truthful colors. One cannot but regard with horror the spirit of barbarity and cruelty that reigned in almost every ancient nation. Death or slavery was the inevitable portion of the vanquished. Cities reduced to ashes; sovereigns massacred in cold blood, and cast out a prey to dogs and vultures; children crushed to death at the breast; queens dragged unworthily in chains, and outrage and humiliation added to the rigors of captivity; these were but the common consequences of victory. And to crown all, the horrible practice of poisoning the arrows to be used in battle was almost universal. The general military regulations of Moses were examined and contrasted with those of the other nations; and, though undeniably severe when compared with the war-laws of our day yet most essential modifications, tending to the progress of refinement and humanity, were introduced into his military code. The severities exercised toward the Canaanites formed no part of the general war-system, having been employed by special warrant and for a specific purpose—the punishment and prevention of idolatry and unnatural lusts.
The institution of slavery was next discussed at considerable length; and an interesting and instructive contrast was drawn between the condition of bond-service as it existed among the Hebrews and in the other nations. The relation of slavery is so ancient that its origin is lost amid the shadows and uncertainties of early legendary traditions. It is, however, a most curious fact, that probably more than one half of the human family have at all times been in bondage to the other, and have been looked upon as the rightful properly of their masters. Gibbon estimates the slave population of the Roman Empire at sixty millions, fully a moiety of the whole; and the proportion of the slaves to the free citizens in Greece almost exceeds belief, being, according to the accurate Mitford, more than four to one. In reference to Eastern nations, we are without these exact statistics; but we have every reason to believe that the slave population was immense. In all these nations the slaves were reduced to the lowest possible depression; and were, in every sense, at the absolute disposal of capricious, greedy, imperious, and merciless owners. They might be tortured, maimed, or put to death, without let or hindrance from the civil power. Mr. Wines gave a variety of deeply interesting details in illustration of these positions. Moses did not abolish slavery; he could not do it, without a miracle wrought upon men's minds. He was too wise to make the attempt, when failure would have been the certain consequence. But he so modified and softened the relation; he so fenced it about with checks, and restrictions, and guaranties; that it was disarmed of most of the evils flowing from it in other countries. Servitude, under the institutes of Moses, at least so far as Hebrew servants were concerned, resembled the system of apprenticeship in vogue in this country, where a child is bound out for a certain number of years for a stipulated compensation, to be paid to the parent at the end of that period. In no nation, either ancient or modern, has slavery existed under so mild a form, and guarding the rights and persons of the slaves with such jealous care, as among the ancient Hebrews. These topics, and some to which we have not had space to allude, were discussed in the opening lecture. In his second, the learned Professor drew a portrait of the illustrious Hebrew sage and law-giver, developed the general policy of his laws, and traced the obligations of other nations, in their legislation and philosophy, to his institutes. Moses was described as possessing, in an eminent degree, all those endowments, natural and acquired, which form the character of a consummate chief magistrate of a nation; an intellect of the highest order; a perfect mastery over all the civil wisdom of the age; a judgment cautious, penetrating, and far-reaching in its combinations; great promptness and energy in action; patriotism that neither ingratitude nor rebellion could extinguish, or even cool; a persuasive eloquence; a hearty love of truth; an incorruptible virtue; and a freedom from selfish ambition, and a greatness of soul, in which none of the most admired heroes of ancient or modern times has ever surpassed him. These positions were proved and illustrated at large; and the lecturer concluded his sketch with a beautiful parallel between the military and civic character of Moses and Washington; both were men whom their compatriots placed in the highest position, and both managed their authority so as to produce the 'greatest good of the greatest number.'
In entering upon his account of the political system of Moses, Mr. Wines insisted, with great earnestness, that all the essential principles of civil liberty and constitutional government were as thoroughly embodied in his constitution, as they are in ours; and in fact, that that great charter of human freedom, the Declaration of American Independence, which, like the writing on the wall of Belshazzar's palace, has troubled the thoughts of many a tyrant, and caused his knees to smite one against the other, was but an echo from the deep thunders of Mount Sinai. His great maxims of policy were remarkably sound and judicious. The entire and absolute political equality of the whole body of citizens; the discouragement of a spirit of war and military conquest; the appointment of agriculture as the chief employment of the nation; the universal education of the people, especially in the knowledge of the history, constitution, and laws of their own country; a firm union of hearts and sentiments; and the indispensable necessity of a well-contrived and well-guarded system of checks and balances between the several departments of the government; these were the organic principles on which he founded his civil polity. The lecturer laid down the proposition broadly and without qualification, that there never was a nation, ancient or modern, in which the people stood upon so perfect a level in regard to political rights and influence as the Jews under the Constitution of Moses. Property in the soil is the natural foundation of power, and consequently of authority. Hence, the natural foundation of every government is laid in the distribution of its territory. If the prince own the lands, as was the case anciently in Egypt, and is now in many Eastern governments, such prince will be absolute; for the people, holding of him, and at his pleasure, will be in the condition of slaves rather than of free men. If the land be shared among a few men, the rest holding as vassals under them, as in the feudal system, the real power and authority of government will be in the hands of an aristocracy, or nobility, whatever power may be lodged in one or more persons, for the sake of greater unity in counsel and action. But if the lands be equally divided among all the members of a society, the true power of such government will reside in all the members of the society, and the society itself will constitute a real democracy, whatever form of union may be adopted for the better direction of the whole as a political body. Now this last is an exact description of the provision of the Hebrew constitution in reference to property in the soil. Moses legislated for a people without land, and who had their territories to gain at the point of the sword. He was not therefore trammelled by any prescriptive rights, or long-established laws of inheritance. He was free to adopt any principle he might deem most expedient. The principle actually chosen by him was that of the equal division of all the conquered territories among the whole six hundred thousand citizens; and to render this equality solid and permanent, the tenure was made inalienable, and the estates thus originally settled in each family, were to descend, by an indefeasible entail, in perpetual succession, to all the heirs-male of the original proprietors. Such was the oldest of Agrarian laws. The wisdom of this provision was most refined and admirable. It made extreme poverty and overgrown riches alike impossible, and thus annihilated one of the greatest sources and engines of ambition. It gave every member of the body politic an interest in the soil, and consequently in the maintenance of public order and the supremacy of law over mob violence. It elevated labor to its just dignity, by making the virtues of industry and frugality necessary elements in every man's character. It cut off the sources of luxury, that corruptor and bane of states, by denying the means of it, and took away the strongest incitement to it in the example of others. It served to keep up that original equality of the citizens, which was fundamental to the legislation of Moses, and altogether conformable to its strong democratic spirit and tendency. It rendered it impossible for any Israelite to be born to absolute poverty, for it gave to each his hereditary modicum of land; a garden, an orchard, or an olive-grove. In preventing poverty, it cut off the most prolific source of emigration, and thus preserved unimpaired the strength and vigor of the state. It tended strongly to perfect the science of agriculture. And, finally, it served to bind every Hebrew to his native soil by almost indissoluble ties, and gave to the sentiment of patriotism an almost passionate fervor and intensity. The entire political equality of the citizens was proved by various other arguments, and illustrated with great copiousness of detail.
The system of checks and balances between the several powers of government, provided by the constitution of Moses, evinced the deepest political wisdom, and a most patriotic regard to the public liberties. History is full of proofs that restless and ambitious spirits are the growth of all times and nations. Now there are two principal methods of preventing the evils of ambition; either to take away the common occasions of ambitious views, or to make the execution of them difficult and hazardous. The Hebrew constitution made both these provisions in a manner equal, if not superior, to any known constitution of government in the world. Never did legislator labor with such eagle-eyed jealousy as Moses, to preserve the people from the dangers of ill-balanced power, or guard the public liberty with so many and so admirably-contrived defences against the projects of factions and restless ambition. We regret that we cannot follow the learned lecturer through his earnest and unanswerable argument in support of these positions. All who heard it will yield a full assent to the remark with which he concluded it, that the provisions of the Hebrew government to prevent faction and ambition incomparably surpass all the constitutions of the famed Spartan law-giver for the same purpose, so celebrated in ancient story; nor would they have missed their praise, had they been published by a Lycurgus, a Solon, a Numa, or indeed by any body but Moses. The great principles of the Jewish law early became known to the contemporaneous nations, and were powerfully felt in modifying their political institutions, their philosophical opinions, and their moral practices. This influence was traced in the clearest manner by Professor Wines, in respect both to ancient and modern nations. He drew his proofs from the chronicles of the kings of Media and Persia; from the history of the Egyptian Ptolemies; from the writings of Hermippas, Theophrastus, Clearchus, Longinus, and even Aristotle, as well as those of Josephus and Philo; from the public records of France and Great Britain; and from the whole structure of our own government, and the history of our jurisprudence. He maintained with great force, that it is to the laws of Moses, and not the politics of Greece and Rome, that we moderns are indebted for the great and precious principles of civil freedom. He referred to the fact as not a little remarkable, that when the presidents and professors of our colleges are most of them ministers of religion, a contrary impression is permitted to remain upon the minds of the young men, who are there receiving their education to be American citizens. He administered a rebuke to those gentlemen, because they do not give the writings of Moses a more prominent place in their systems of instruction, and because they do not more distinctly inform their pupils that the true elements of republican liberty are to be sought in his institutions; but permit the Greek and Roman authors to monopolize their admiration and their gratitude. The very nations whose achievements in arts and arms these writers so eloquently commemorate, were not a little indebted to the genius of the Hebrew legislator for those principles and qualities in their institutions which awaken our youthful enthusiasm.
In his third lecture, Mr. Wines showed that to suppress and supplant idolatry was the grand design, and constituted, as it were, the very soul, of the Mosaic Institutes. He entered into an elaborate and erudite examination of the qualities and tendencies of polytheism, and of the nature, design, and limit of the theocracy. He showed that the theocratic feature of the government was not an arrangement of the commonwealth, fundamentally different from the monarchical, aristocratical, democratical, and mixed forms of government; but that, viewed as to its main design, it was nothing more than a name, or contrivance, employed the more effectually to exclude idolatry. God took the name of king, as a title that conferred honor on the Israelites, and the great object of it was to supplant idolatry, without an infringement of that essential and precious principle of civil liberty, that mere opinions are not to be cramped and restrained by the pains and penalties of the civil law. Having cleared the ground by these preliminary disquisitions, the lecturer entered upon the analysis of the constitution itself. This part of the discussion was exceedingly novel, philosophical, and luminous. Learned doctors in divinity acknowledged themselves instructed and charmed by his masterly dissection of the jus publicum of the Hebrews; the texture and frame-work of their government; the fundamental, organic law of their state. He proved, conclusively, that the government Moses instituted was a constitutional democracy, and that there were, properly speaking, neither nobles nor peasants under it, but a brotherhood of hardy and industrious yeomen, all politically equal, and having each an important stake in the maintenance of public tranquillity and order. The analogies between the Hebrew government and ours, in their substance, forms, and modes of administration, were shown to be, many of them, most close and surprising. The radical features of that ancient and venerable social compact were stated thus: Each of the twelve tribes formed a separate, and in some respects, independent state, with a local legislature and supreme court of judicature, having absolute power within the limit of its reserved rights. Nevertheless, so long as the Constitution of Moses was preserved unimpaired, there was both a real and a vigorous general government and national administration. The nation might, with strict propriety, have been denominated, 'The United States' of Israel. The government consisted of four departments; the chief magistrate, the senate, the oracle, and the congregation of Israel. This last was the popular branch, and consisted of deputies truly representing the nation, and faithfully embodying and carrying out the decrees of the popular will. The form of a legal enactment might have run thus: 'Be it enacted by the Congregation of Israel, the Senate advising, the Judge presiding, and the Oracle assenting.' There was a supreme national court at Jerusalem, to which difficult causes were adjourned from the local tribunals. And, finally, the organization of the tribe of Levi was such as to impart a vital action to the whole system, at the same time that it served as a sort of counterpoise to the democracy, and prevented its excesses. All these positions, and many others not here enumerated, were sustained with an array of convincing arguments, drawn from the sacred writings themselves.
The great Hebrew statesman foresaw that the time would come, when his countrymen, infected and dazzled by the example of the surrounding nations, would lose their relish for republican simplicity, and demand the splendors of a throne and a court. But it was neither his advice nor his wish that they should have a king. He used every means to prevent it. He reasoned; he dissuaded; he expostulated; he threatened; he uttered many solemn and fearful warnings against the dangers and horrors of despotism. If he could not wholly resist the headlong proclivity of his nation to the regal form of government, he at least postponed the issue which he dreaded; he fenced about the royal power with a thousand unwelcome restrictions; and, by his glowing and withering denunciations against every form and species of despotism, he showed how thoroughly his own spirit was impregnated with popular principles; how deep was his hatred of tyranny and usurpation; and how ardent and irrepressible his sympathy for the rights, the liberties, and the happiness of the people. Whoever, then, holds to the divine legation of Moses, and therefore necessarily believes that a constitutional and representative democracy is a form of government stamped with the seal of the divine approval, while the monarchy was but granted in anger to the mad clamors of the people, will hence derive a new and forcible argument to cherish and defend the precious charter of our own liberties, since its type and model came originally from the depths of the divine wisdom and goodness. We are glad to learn that these very able lectures of Professor Wines are to be re-modelled, extended to eight, and repeated the ensuing season. A syllabus of them lies before us, which we shall have pleasure in presenting, when the time for their delivery shall have arrived.
The Spanish Student. A Play in three Acts. By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. In one volume, pp. 174. Cambridge: John Owen. New-York: Wiley and Putnam.
With what regularly-progressive steps Henry W. Longfellow has trod the path of fame! We can scarcely call to mind an American writer who has exhibited the industry of patient acquisition, the increasing refinement of taste, the expansion of fancy, and the enhanced delicacy of execution, which have distinguished the literary career of the author of the volume before us. Nor in depth of thought, and power of expression, have Mr. Longfellow's writings fallen behind those of any of his contemporaries; while in that winning sympathy with humanity, which finds a response in every bosom, it would be difficult to name his superior. It is not however for this Magazine—which has been the source through which the best and most voluminous portions of Mr. Longfellow's poetical writings have been given to the public—to praise that which our readers know is its own best commendation. Nor can we, from the scores of pencilled and dog's-eared pages of the beautiful volume under notice, select a tithe of the passages which we indicated as we read, rather with the hope than the expectation of being able to find space for them in our crowded pages. For the beautiful story, we shall, in justice to the publishers and the author, refer our readers to the volume which contains it and its accessories, unmutilated; yet in the mean time we cannot resist an extract or two, as a sample of the execution of the verse. It is enough to 'make lovers of us all,' to read the annexed dialogue between the enamoured Preciosa and Victorian:
Prec. Dost thou remember when first we met?