Valentine, when she comes in, is followed by her mother, and subsequently by Andrew. In a short time it becomes known that Morin has committed suicide. Edgar de Norval and the journalists all arrive, the former to join in the lamentations of Madame Guilbert and her daughter, and the latter to be reproached as his murderers-with how much truth, we leave the reader to decide. Martel, too, turns most unfairly against his former allies, and informs the spectators if it had not been for journals he should have been a poet! He does not inform us how much criticism it requires to destroy the poetic faculty, which we regret, for the knowledge might have been useful. We might, perhaps, have thereby discovered what portion of animadversion would prevent Madame de Girardin from writing another "Lesson to Journalists." Neither does Martel explain if it were by a critical process he had been rendered the poor and contemptible thing he was. For, let it be remembered, that Martel was not only not a poet, but an exceedingly base and bad man. This highly consistent and very interesting play terminates by Valentine declaring she loves her mother better than ever, and by Edgar de Norval taking on himself the editorship of "La Verité," which Martel gives up. He descends into the arena, and makes himself the accomplice of journalists, in order to conquer them. He knows he shall be sacrificed, and that in offering himself as an example, he must become a victim; but, like another Curtius, he generously throws himself into the gulf before him, and trusts that his grateful country will one day bless his misfortunes, and comprehend his love! Edgar de Norval is, therefore, most likely intended as the representative of Monsieur Emile de Girardin, the husband of the authoress, and who is the editor of "La Presse" newspaper in Paris. In this fact, in all probability, is to be found the history of the writer's bitterness against the journalists of France. The same whip that lashed her hero "Martel" out of poetry having lashed her husband into editorship. M. Emile de Girardin had the great misfortune about two years ago to kill, in a duel, Armand Carrel, one of the leading political writers of his day. Respected by all parties and greatly beloved by his friends, the journalists of the same political opinions as himself made his death the subject of bitter invectives against the adversary who had deprived him of life. The circumstances of M. de Girardin's life which would least bear inspection were dragged to light. Private pique possibly, therefore, instigated the tirade of Madame de Girardin against journalism. M. Jules Janin has published in the "Artiste" a most courte ous, generous, and gentlemanlike letter on the subject of this play. Nothing can exceed the beauty of his defence of the Parisian press. We feel for Madame de Girardin while we read it. He upbraids her so forcibly, but praises her so nobly and so delicately, that we think some compunction must have visited her heart when she read it. M. Janin has certainly overrated the literary merit of her work, but this gentleness of judgment under the circumstances reflects infinite honour on his gallantry and generosity. For ourselves after the best attention we could give to Madame de Girardin's work, and a fair consideration of all the known and conjectured facts on which it is founded, we reluctantly pronounce it inadequate either to the cure or exposure of the evils of the press. Its whole style of sentiment stilted and unnatural. The subject, in itself incapable of dramatic action, feebly drawn, poor in outline, with no depth either of reason or argument to compensate for the want of wit, and the utter dearth of morality. The only virtuous man victimized in futurity, and the impersonation of talent in Morin accompanied by such disgusting immorality, profaneness, and heartlessness, that if journals push such men from our path, we have to bless their action with the same degree of warmth with which men hail the blast of the desert or the convulsions of the Andes as purifying the physical, and not involving them in the process. In propitiation of this mighty power thus recklessly braved by Madame de Girardin, and with the intention of indicating the nobility as strongly at least as this lady has attempted to show the degradation, we subjoin the following lines on the Press by the late Rev. T. Greenwood, B.A., Trinity College, Cambridge. We trust that time will develope more golden arrows from the same glorious quiver, which have long lain in repose since the gifted writer passed to God. "The Press! the venerated Press! Freedom's impenetrable shield; "Unfetter'd! Who or what shall bind? Rends, Samson-like, their feeble ties; VOL. XXV. NO. XLIX. K "Fetter the Press! Attempt to throw "Look to the past! When despots bade, 'Twas but to mock, not shun such ire. Daring to wait the stern rebound, Power has been crush'd and grandeur drown'd. "Look to the future! What has been, Instructs us what is yet to be; A pause but seems to intervene The Press is by its nature free ; And every effort to enslave, Courts but the overwhelming wave! ""Twill come, 'twill come,-that ample tide, Which o'er the delug'd earth shall roll: A sea of knowledge deep and wide, Impetuous if it meet control. Genius shall to the flood allure, And science keep the waters pure. "While all that hate shall melt away, Like clouds before the morning sun, His course in god-like pomp to run. I turn, her humblest worshipper, ART. VII.-Vermischte Schriften, grösstentheils Apologetischen Inhalts, von A. Tholuck, Dr. der Theologie und Philosophie, Konsistorialrath und ordentl. Professor der Theologie an der Königl. Universität Halle, Wittemberg &c. &c. (Miscellaneous Writings, principally in Defence of Religion, by A. Tholuck, Dr. of Theology and Philosophy, Counsellor of the Consistory, and Professor of Theology in the Royal University of Halle, Wittemberg, &c. &c.) Hamburg, 1839. THERE are few subjects upon which more ingenious remarks have been made, more curiosity excited, and more real ignorance displayed, than the religious phenomena of the intellectual but visionary people to whom Europe is indebted for so many interesting discoveries in science, history and philosophy, to which also it must refer so many pernicious sophistries and specious delusions. When the barrier was first removed which the ungenerous policy of Napoleon had for many years interposed between Germany and our own country, many bright hopes were kindled in the spirits of enthusiastic students in England, dissatisfied as they necessarily felt with the cold, superficial philosophy taught in our universities, and struggling with impotent effort against the formal dogmatism of the theologians of the last century.. The cloudy genius of Coleridge found in the strange atmosphere of German mysticism congenial nutriment, and reflected in distorted splendor rays of most attractive but mysterious brilliancy. Nor did the minds of other great writers, such as Scott and Wordsworth, escape the fascination. With regard to the effects in other departments of literature much valuable information has been communicated in the pages of this Review, and in the writings of Carlisle and others; but the theology of Germany has been as yet but partially and incompletely investigated; although the very audacity of its attempt, the singular varieties of its productions, and the immense reputation of its professors for erudition and ingenuity, ought to have engaged more philosophic and candid minds in a work that well repays the labours of research. English writers on the subject have either fallen into the snare of disguised infidelity, and translated and disseminated by their personal influence some of the most dangerous works which prepared its way, or have been impeded by a bigotted adherence to mere external forms in their attempts to analyze the productions, and appreciate the real tendency, of the theological writings of Germany. Neology in the mean time has made most alarming advances. Originating, as we shall presently show, in the study of English freethinkers and Socinians, it soon assumed a very different aspect, and attained to a more syste matic developement in the works of the learned Germans, and when reimported into the country of its real birth it was regarded as a stranger, and dreaded as an unknown and most perilous foe. To give a concise but comprehensive view of its early origin, the causes that prepared its success, its gradual and continual developement and present extent, will be the principal object of this article; the materials being principally drawn from a dissertation in the second volume of Tholuck's Miscellaneous Writings. But we have first a few remarks to make, which we trust will not be uninteresting, upon the position which the learned and pious author occupies among the polemical writers of the present epoch, and the circumstances under which he commenced his honorable career. When we had terminated our youthful studies in the noble university, to which its scions are indebted for so much unmingled good, we well remember the intense interest with which we looked towards the kindred Saxon nation-kindred in blood, in manners, to a considerable degree in intellect, and, above all, in religious faith. Forewarned of danger we certainly were, but could hardly believe that the countrymen of Luther, the descendants of the pious reformers, had utterly abandoned the faith of their true-hearted ancestors. We conceived it indeed possible that ritual observances and Church establishments had been partly remodelled and partly abolished, nor in our youthful presumption were we fully aware of the importance of these outposts of the faith, but we could not be induced to believe that the interual spirit had departed. We expected to meet with much vague mysticism, visionary systems, and presumptuous speculations, upon subjects above the reach of human understanding, but still we trusted that far beneath the stormy agitations of the upper waters a mighty under-current of true religious faith was pursuing its onward course, and would finally prevail. With these feelings we visited the schools of Germany, and what was the result of our observations? Most embarrassing certainly, full of anxious doubt, of fear, at times of despondency, yet not altogether uncheered by rays of hope. Whether that hope was itself a delusion, a mere subjective feeling, derived not from the real aspect of the world, but from principles of faith grafted early in the heart of a Churchman, and intertwined with his very existence-a feeling that casts the hues of its own brightness over the emptiness and falsehoods of a society which is entirely sunk in materialism or practical infidelity, these are questions which can hardly yet be clearly answered, since the solution depends in a great degree upon the future.. When we were in Germany we heard Deism taught openly in the theological schools. De Wette's Einleitung-a |