Dearer to him than bowers of Paradise,
The eastern heaven of love.

Far round me lay

One harvest of ripe roses, sending out
Their vaporous dews in one invisible cloud
Of odorous bliss. The silence and the calm,
The coolness and the shade, the sweet low sound
Of the still flowing fountain, and the breath
Of a faint wind that panted through the thickets,
Were beautiful. They sank upon my soul,
Like dews on withering flowers. They quickened me,
And freshened all my thoughts-and then a voice
Came from the garden, silver-toned and clear,
But melancholy sweet, and often choked
By stifling sobs, as if the bulbul wooed
And languished for his rose, or as the dove
Gurgles around his mate, or sadly mourns
His widowed nest, and makes the twilight wood
Responsive to his sighs. Slowly it came
On through the vaulted alleys, till a group
Of maidens, veiled and fearful, from the bowers
Stepped cautious forth."—pp. 123–126.

The last specimen we select, is in quite a different style and

measure.

There is nothing can equal the tender hours

When life is first in bloom;

When the heart, like a bee in a wild of flowers,
Finds every where perfume;

When the present is all, and it questions not,
If those flowers shall pass away,

But, pleased with its own delightful lot,
Dreams never of decay.

O! it dreams not the hue, that freshly glows
On the cheek, shall ever flee,

And fade away like the summer rose,
Or the crimson on the sea,

When far in the west the setting sun
Goes down in the kindled main,
And the colours vanish one by one,
But never revive again.

O! life in its spring-time dances on
In smiles and innocent tears;

It casts not a look to the moments gone,
But hails the coming years;

They shine before its fancy's eye,
Like eastern visions, bright,

Gay as the hues in the western sky,
At the coming on of night.

Thus happy in all their bosoms feel,

And in all their fancy dreams,
Their quiet moments onward steal
Like the silent flow of streams,
Gliding through tufted flowers away
To the far and unknown sea;
So on with a flight that cannot stay
Their days of innocence flee.

But soon-too soon their hearts shall know,
The future was falsely bright,
And its gay and far-deluding glow

Shall change to the gloom of night;
O! then with a fond and lingering eye
They shall turn to the early hours,
When life, as their moments hurried by,

Was a wild of sweets and flowers." pp. 143-144

The preceding extracts are favourable specimens of the poetry of this little volume-but even they are far from being exempt from the prevailing blemishes of Mr. Percival's style-want of perspicuity and distinctness, of condensation and simplicity.

ART. VII.-The Life of Hugo Grotius, with brief Minutes of the Civil, Ecclesiastical, and Literary History of the Netherlands. By CHARLES BUTLER, Esq. of Lincoln's Inn. London. 1826.

MR. Charles Butler, of Lincoln's-Inn, is sufficiently known in this country by his "Reminiscences." The generality of our readers are perhaps less familiar with his previous works, and particularly his controversies with the British Laureat. It is enough for our purpose to mention, that he is less distinguished as an able conveyancer, than an ardent and intrepid volunteer in the battles which are still fought for Papacy in England; and we may add that he is not likely to yield to the reasoning of an opponent who treats of theology like a mere dilettante-who is, besides, a poet-and moreover, so little disposed to reconciliation and tolerance, that he could not refrain from thundering VOL. I.—NO. 2.

58

against Catholicism, even in the 'Carmen Nuptiale' of the Heiress of the British crown, in such strains as the following:

Think not that lapse of ages shall abate

The inveterate malice of that harlot old.

A biography of Hugo Grotius, from Mr. Butler, and not at the head of a new edition of any work of that great man, but in a separate composition of 259 pages while there existed already a Life written by a member of the French Academy,* of which an English translation had been published as early as 1754, not to mention several biographical sketches that bear the recommendation of such names as Barbeyrac, Bayle and Chalmers, and a vindication of Grotius in two volumest-would seem naturally to create an expectation that Mr. Butler's little volume should contain more, and tend to more than its title page purports— and so it does. For although the extraneous historical matter which fills a large part of this publication, may be imputed as much to haste and carelessness in the composition as to a disregard to the true character and province of biography; yet, it may be remarked, that much of this matter-the whole documentary part, and almost all the quotations, though they have but a remote connexion with the personal history of Grotius, yet bear very directly upon the religious questions in which Mr. Butler takes so lively an interest. We think, however, that even supposing him to have some covert design of this sort in the present publication, he might as well have omitted his epitome of history, from the times of Charlemagne to the year 1815. We admit, however, that it was indispensable to such a design that he should comment upon the controversies of Arminius with Gomarus-give an account of the proceedings of the famous synod of Dortenlarge more upon Grotius' religious works than upon those on which his enviable fame is, at least, as much founded-introduce St. Vincent de Paul-lay much weight upon the Jesuit Patau's opinion, in regard to Grotius-refer to his own previous publications;-and lastly, give, in an Appendix, an "Account of the Formularies, Confessions of Faith or Symbolic Books of the Roman Catholic, Greek and principal Protestant Churches," and a sketch "of the attempts made for a re-union of the Calvinistic Churches to the See of Rome." Under this latter head are brought forward Bossuet's correspon

* Mr. De Burigni

+ Hugonis Grotii Manes, ab iniquis obtrectationibus vindicati, vol. ii. 8vo. 1727, said to be published by Mr. Lepman. The biographical notice of Barbeyrac is in the edition of the Treatise on War and Peace, with notes of Barbeyrac. London. Folio. 1738.

dence with Leibnitz, touching the re-union of the Lutheran Protestant to the Roman Catholic Church, and the opinion of the faculty of theology of the Helmstadt University, in regard to the marriage of a Lutheran Princess with a Catholic Archduke, together with an account of the correspondence which not long afterwards took place between the Archbishop of Canterbury and Dr. Dupin, and which is recorded in the English translation of Dr. Mosheim's Ecclesiastical History. This is, indeed, any thing but biography, according to Dryden's definition of that species of writing-and we know of none that comes more nearly up to our own opinion of it. "Biographia, or the History of Particular Men's Lives," says Dryden, "comes next to be considered which, in dignity, is inferior to the other two (Commentaries or Annals and History, properly so called) as being more confined in action, and treating of wars and counsels, and all other public affairs of nations, only as they relate to him whose life is written, or as his fortunes have a particular dependance on them, or connexion to them. All things here are circumscribed, and driven to a point, so as to terminate in one; consequently, if the action or counsel were managed by colleagues, some part of it must be either lame or wanting, except it be supplied by the excursion of the writer. Herein, likewise, must be less of variety for the same reason; because the fortunes and actions of some man are related, not those of many.' Mr. Butler has surely taken the license of "excursions" in a very unlimited sense. He may plead that his title-page announces, along with a biography of Grotius, "Brief Minutes of the Civil, Ecclesiastical, and Literary History of the Netherlands." But he reduces the literary part to nine "negative" lines, at the conclusion of his work; where he says that "after most diligent and extensive searches, both in British and foreign markets, he has not been able to discover materials for it."t

But we have not taken up our pen to find fault with Mr. Butler. We have the best feelings, and a respect approaching to veneration, for his great age, for the comparatively mild disposition which he has almost universally displayed in his controversial writings, and for his rare toleration, united as it is with an unalterable attachment to his religion. We confess ourselves awed into an unwillingness to discover any latent foible, such as self-complacency or self-praise in a writer who brings forward the testimony of a man like Dr. Parr, who, in a letter addressed to him, says "I know, and I shall ever be ready to admit, and even to maintain, that your talents are of a very * Life of Plutarch. Walter Scott's edit. of Dryden: vol. xvii. pp. 58-59. + Life of Hugo Grotius. p. 189

high order; that your knowledge is extensive, various and profound. That in subjects of theology and law, you have holden up many useful truths; that your natural disposition is marked by genuine kindness, and that in private life, your virtues are numerous, enviable, and exemplary." "I had no time to tell you that your style is correct, perspicuous, pure, often elegant, often impressive, never turgid, and never affected."+

Besides, Mr. Butler had only to decline the title of a biographer to acquire an indisputable right to bring forth his views and opinions under whatever form he pleased. As it is, we could not refute, nor even comment upon them, without omitting entirely that part of the work upon which we intend to dwell exclusively, viz. the personal history of Grotius, and without taking up particularly (and of course at considerable length) the question, whether that illustrious scholar inclined to Catholicism-what were probably his real religious opinions, and what was the extent of the concession he would have been willing to make, in order to effect an union between the principal dissenting portions of Christians. We might have found in the few pages of Mr. Butler, grounds enough to contest some of his conclusions. We need only to transcribe here Ménage's Epigram, which Mr. Butler himself quotes, in proof of the uncertainty of Grotius' religious opinions.

"Smyrna, Rhodos, Colophon, Salamis, Chios, Argos, Athenæ, Siderei certant vatis de patria Homeri:

Grotiada certant de religione, Socinus,

Arius, Arminius, Calvinus, Roma, Lutherus."-p. 187.

Nay, more-we have Mr. Butler's own example of a writer pleading warmly for the re-union of Christians, without having the least notion that such a thing is practicable. We copy his own words in a letter to Dr. Parr, dated January 28, 1822, and Dr. Parr expresses himself still more strongly upon this subject. "The acknowledgment of the pious Jeremy Taylor," (says he) "that the attempts of Grotius, Cassander, and others for what Jeremy, in his learned phraseology, calls a synchretismus, never will succeed. And in another letter, he observes, "you may find from my letter to Mr. Denman that I neither expect nor desire any external union between the Church of Rome and England. It cannot be effected without concessions, which neither of them ought to make." And lastly, in a third passage, "alas!" he cries, "all my wishes for synchretism have, at last, fainted away from despair."||

*Mr. Butler's Reminicences. Boston. 1827. p. 195. Ibid p. 207. Ibid. p. 215. || Ibid. p. 229.

+ Ibid. p. 234.