spite of admonition, of intreaty, of tears-of ill-requited, though devoted, love!'

Oh, stop!' cried Geraldine, this is cruel! Do you think yourself the only sufferer? Do you think that my heart is less torn than your own? Can you not feel that it is far more terrible to inflict pain than to endure it?—and on me falls this double load. Oh! Hervey, if we are about to part for ever, let it be in kindness!' "If we are to part for ever,' repeated he: est love, tell me, would you be mine,—could you return my affection,— if our faith were still the same?'

Geraldine, first and dear

"It is simpler and better to tell the truth,' said she, gently and mournfully. Were I still a Protestant, I could return your affection ;-and now,' added she, as the tears gushed from her downcast eyes, be generous, and leave me!'

Oh, my God!' cried he, clasping his hand to his forehead, 'keep thou my senses, for I know not what it is right to do! Geraldine, let us not part! be mine; and let the secret of your unhappy change remain within your breast and mine: I will never reproach you!'

Geraldine trembled violently, yet disengaged herself from the arms that were thrown around her, and said, 'Whatever I am, I must be that openly; yet where I can yield I will do so. Let me have the free and open exercise of my religion. I will use that indulgence with moderation, and bless you for your goodness.'

I dare not! I dare not,' exclaimed he with increased agitation. 'I have promised not to make this concession: the promise was exacted of me; I cannot grant it, my best love. I grieve-'

Then, my Lord,' said Geraldine, if we cannot meet upon equal ground, we must decidedly part. I ask of you nothing but toleration: you ask of me a dereliction of principle. I cannot submit to despise myself, which the moral coward must ever do; and whatever I am to God and my own conscience, that I will dare to be before the assembled universe!' Her dark eyes flashed, and her cheeks glowed, as she said this in a tone which brought the colour likewise to Lord Hervey's face.

But,' said he, imploringly, do not reject this in the first moment of indignation. Think calmly, when alone, of all that really and intrinsically would be yours. Think also of all that must mar the domestic peace and public integrity of the man who, in these days of controversial conflict, openly unites himself to a Roman Catholic! Think of the conspicuous part I have taken in this war of opinions, and that I am born the heir-'

Lord Hervey,' interrupted Geraldine, I request that you will add no more. Enough and more than enough has been already said. We never can be more than friends, but we may continue to be such, respecting and forbearing one another. Farewell!'

"Oh! give me one of those first dear looks,' cried he. Let me for once for the last time-my loved, lost, Geraldine-farewell!'”

The length of the preceding extract prevents our insert

ing any of the account of the proceedings of the Reformation Society Meeting, which is exceedingly well-sketched, and taken partly from speeches actually delivered at meetings of this description. Can it be credited, that a man calling himself a Christian minister should be permitted, in an assembly calling itself Christian, to revile Christian ministers of another denomination, after this fashion: "Indeed! Indeed! my heart weeps tears of blood for Ireland. My unhappy country has become a den of wild beasts; yes, the Romish priests are wild beasts-they are hyenas!!" Yet these words were recently spoken by a Reverend performer, at a public meeting in Exeter Hall.

We must now sum up in a few words. The bias of the works above-noticed, particularly of the last two, is of course in favour of Catholicism; but we hold it to be wholesome in a Protestant country like this,-where the reformed faith has been nurtured artificially in wealth and ease, and sheltered by the protection of the law,-to suggest to Protestants, whether it is not their duty to make themselves better acquainted with the faith of their forefathers, than the generality appear to be; and at all events to refrain from that ignorant reproach and vulgar abuse which unhappily continue to be employed so largely in the service of "No Popery?" We will frankly confess, that we regard as Utopian the discovery of that imaginary limit between faith and reason for which Mr. Gordon recommends search to be made; nor can we entertain hopes of the success of any of those schemes for the union of the several Christian persuasions, which benevolent peace-makers have from time to time broached,-such as the establishment of a common liturgy, and the like. The simple consideration of the natural diversity in the composition of men's minds ought to convince us of the fitness of a corresponding variety in the forms of religion. The numerous Christian sects should be as the children of the same parents, each characterized by the same leading features, but bearing a different modification of the parental image :

"Facies non omnibus una,

Nec diversa tamen, qualis decet esse sororum."

It is perfectly natural that the Catholic faith, in all its antiquity, its pomp and its mystery, should be most grateful to

sensitive and imaginative minds; it is quite intelligible also, that those under the habitual guidance of their understanding should prefer Protestantism as a more reasonable mode of faith. But the difficulty of Protestantism is to preserve its consistency of principle, and yet to hold fast the essence of religion. It is a mistake to suppose, that Luther and the early Reformers contended for the liberty of private judgment; on the contrary, they were dogmatists as much as the Church of England, which, intrenched within her Thirty-nine Articles and acts of uniformity, is founded upon a principle exactly the reverse of liberty of conscience. If the reformed churches cannot show that they rest on a different foundation from that of ecclesiastical authority, they must be considered as mere plagiarists of Rome, and acting on the very principles against which they protest;-if, on the other hand, the reins are thrown loose to the impetuosity and wildness of private judgment, it is hard to say how much of Christianity will be preserved in the career of reason. The example of the theologists of Germany will sufficiently illustrate our meaning, without referring to the ignorance and conceit of some sects. among ourselves, which it is difficult to place under any intelligible category, as regards either their faith or their understanding.

That Protestantism, in so far as it recognises freedom of inquiry, is more favourable than the ancient faith to the cultivation of the physical sciences, and the development of industry and the useful arts, is an opinion generally received, and in support of which many facts may be adduced. But the notion that the Catholic religion is essentially hostile to political liberty, is, we suppose, by this time, pretty well exploded. The examples, in our own times, of Poland, Belgium, the South American republics and of Ireland are conclusive proofs that there is nothing in Catholicism to prevent its alliance with popular principles. Yet is the British legislature still so fettered by the trammels of ignorance and prejudice, that the Queen's Catholic subjects, though perhaps numerically exceedings of any other one persuasion in the United never yet obtained their entire liberation oppression. But jus

from t tice, the

: and in the meantime,

"in quietness and in confidence will be their strength." Happy for society will be the dawn of that day, when religion shall cease to be degraded by a connection with temporal advantages-when men's conduct, rather than their creed, shall be the subject of inquiry to their neighbours-and when theological controversy shall be made subservient to the excellent maxim,-" In necessariis unitas, in dubiis libertas, in omnibus caritas!"

ARTICLE III.

VIC

Les Voix Intérieures (The Inward Voices). Poesies par VicTOR HUGO. 1 vol. Paris, 1837.

PRIOR to the publication of which we are about to treat, Les Chants du Crepuscule were the latest poetic manifestation of Victor Hugo; and in reference to them it was elsewhere said, "The Muse of Victor Hugo is a setting star. The beams that "she radiates are melancholy as a remembrance. Fame, who "had soared hovering so noisily around the poet, vanishes "like a tone that has not found its correspondent chord. "The uncontested influence which he so recently exercised over a contemporaneous generation, has died rapidly away, "like an usurped power. The time is come for subjecting "this influence to examination; for investigating the sources, "the secret, the parent thought of this influence, without fear "lest some unforeseen revelation, some new burst of poetic "light, should teach us that we have, by our analysis, pro"faned the inviolability of a powerful and active life. The "intellect of the author is still fruitful, but the life of the poet "is fulfilled; the circle of his manifestations is exhausted. "He may reproduce, may imitate, may translate himself un"der new forms; but he has no longer anything to create, "he has no new chords to touch. The 'Lays of Twilight'

are the song of the swan. We shall perhaps hear yet one "word of resignation-but it will be the last; the poet's fare

"well! The few spirits who do not forget will yet respond "lovingly to that lay: then night will come; the dark night "of indifference and oblivion, that shrouds men and things, "that effaces, in these years of transition, so many cherished "names, so many reputations and hopes." The Voix Intérieures have, we think, justified a presentiment which those who had attentively followed the literary course of Victor Hugo needed no spirit of prophecy to conceive.

Les Feuilles d'Autonne, 1831, were in many respects, in our opinion at least, the poet's apogee. In them were found melancholy, graceful ease, spontaneity, sweet and heartfelt thoughts; inspirations sublime in their simplicity and genuinely christian, of piety towards childhood, of charity towards the poor; there were likewise here and there gleams of futurity, glimpses, however feeble, of that wondrous unity which reveals God through creation, and some divinations of that universal soul which breathes, if the expression be allowable, throughout all nature; and this clothed in a language almost always poetic, free from exaggeration, less loaded with imagery, less symbolical, and in some sort more straight-forward than that of his other works. Ever since the poet has regularly declined. The Chants du Crepuscule although replete with beauty, are upon the whole an inferior collection. The Voix Intérieures appear to us again a step below the Chants du Crepuscule. Of the dramatic essays that have appeared during the interval we do not speak: it is not as a dramatist that M. Victor Hugo will be remembered by posterity; but these likewise are inferior, and very inferior, to their predecessors.

Not that the Voix Intérieures do not contain beauty, and even great beauty: it could not be otherwise. Whatever literary reaction may assert, in that spirit of classicism which seems at the present day to be making its way into French criticism, Victor Hugo has been, and still is a powerful poet. We find passages in this volume, as in all his others, that discover lyric inspiration; of this we should desire no better proof than the Ode à l'Arc de Triomphe. We find, whenever he sits down by the family hearth and speaks of infancy, (he, the father of four delightful children,) those sweet, tender and simple touches, for which all mothers love Victor Hugo,-as