IV. (human Hymnolocft . THE CHRISTIAN EXAMINER. VOLUME LXIX. FIFTH SERIES, VOLUME VII NOVEMBER, 1860. " Porro si sapientia Deus est, Terus philosophus est amator Dei." — St. Augustine. BOSTON: BY THE PROPRIETOR, A i WALKER, WISE, & CO.'S, 245 Washington Street, LONDON: EDWARD T. WIMTKI ELD, 178 Strand. 18 60. Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1860, by THOMAS B. FOX, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. University Press, Cambridge : Printed by Welch, Bigelow, and Company. 18G0.] Old Faith and ZVS w Knowledge. 401 and satisfactory as those which it takes away once were. Each age must accept its work and office in the authentication of the grounds and compass of faith, in the form in which the exacting task comes to it. We recall gratefully the toils of the Benedictines copying the letter of the Scripture on the diamond pa& of Lvory, or on the spacious folios of parchment, and touching the ornamental characters with the exquisite tints of blue and gold. But now that thai mechanical toil is spared us, and the (lull lead, and the cheap ink, and the paper bleached from beggars^ rags, have made the record to have no cost, the same skill must go to its interpretation, the same love must he lavished upon its spirit. There is one fact, at least, to reassure the weak or the fearful. There are men, not few nor singular, who have faced all this destructive work of criti- cism, have weighed all its blows, and have yielded everything that it lias hroken or rendered unserviceable ; and who arc all the stronger in their faith in things divine and holy, all the more stout in their loyalty to Christ and his truth, all the more hopeful of the cause and the kingdom which is com- mitted to Jlim. Having centred all upon Christ, — his grace and fulness, — they have found peace and strength. They may seem to deal rashly or threateningly with the belief or the things believed, that are dear to others. But it may be well to heed in season their warnings and appeals as they try to dissever the substance of truth from traditions and supersti- tions, lest the cradle of faith should prove to be the grave of religion. Note. —In a note to Dr. Williams's Review of Bunsen's Biblical Re- searches (page 75 of the American edition of "Essays ami Reviews**), Dr. Palfrey i- represented, by a reference to his work on the Jewish Scriptures, estricting the idea of revelation to Moses and tin Gospels? to the exclu- sion of "the Psalms and Prophets and Epistles.** This is an oversight or an error on the part of Dr. Williams. Dr. Palfrey recognizes no Buch difference between the GrOSpelfl and Epistles. 34 R 8 1933 ' German Hymnology . [Nov. Vu Art. IV. — GERMAN HYMNOLOGY. 1. Geistliche Gedichte. Von Nicolaus Ludwig, Graf von Zinzen- dorf. (Spititual Poems. By Count Zinzendorf.) Stuttgart. 1845. 2. Geistliche Lieder. (Spiritual Songs.) Von Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock. Leipsic. 1839. 3. Geistliche Oden und Lieder. (Spiritual Odes and Songs.) Yon Christian Furchtegott Gellert. Leipsic. 1757. 4. Worte des Herzens. (Words of the Heart.) Von Johann Casfar Lavater. Zurich. 1771. 5. Versuch eines allgemeinen evangelischen Gesang- und Gebetbuchs. (Essay towards a universal Evangelic Hymn and Prayer-Book. By Chevalier Bunsen.) Hamburg. 1833. In our last number we gave some specimens of old German hymns, with interspersed historical and biographical notices, from Luther down to Zinzendorf. In this paper we shall attempt a short survey of the history of German hymnology, showing the working out of the idea of the hymn in German hands, and remarking upon some of the chief characteristics of the German hymns, as tried by the standard of the ideal itself. The work of Bunsen, named in the above list, the fruit of a sixteen years' labor, reminds us of the singular com- bination of poetic enthusiasm and plodding patience which marks our German brethren. Their scientific and reflective thoroughness in whatever they undertake goes with them even into poetry and piety, and not least strikingly is it exemplified in that department which requires so fine a fusion of both those elements, the constructing of hymns and hymn-books. The name of Klopstock marks the era when the longing of the German national genius to understand and supply its wants in the hymnological direction began to express itself distinctly ; but it had long been at work more or less ob- scurely, in the struggles of mystic, moralist, and dogmatist to mould into an effective shape the elements of sacred song. What is the true and great idea of the Hymn, — what is its purpose, as the German heart, and, we may say, the Christian heart, quickened by the Reformation, has so long been seeking, more or less consciously, to fulfil it ? 1800.] German Hymnology. 403 The Hymn lias been happily described as '* the voice of the Christian heart in Bong." "The heart of the Christian con- gregation uttering itself in song," may stand as a good sy- nonyme for the hymns of the Church. The Church may be regarded as a household, a fold, or a camp. Hymns are the songs that cheer the family ; lull the flock to rest, or had it On after the Shepherd through wild and rocky places : that BUStain, stimulate, and steady the heart of the army of mar- tyr-, with the consciousness of the great Providence overhead, the spiritual fountain within, and the triumph which awaits the faithful. The early Christians felt themselves to he a band of armed covenanters. In their militant pilgrimage they cheered the way, lightened the toil, enlivened the loneliness of many a pass, and nerved themselves for many a conflict, by songs of encouragement and admonition, hymns which recited stirring truth, or psalms which breathed the home-longing after God and holiness and heaven. There was one leader, one warfare, and one crown. Such has been the significance of the Hymn at every revival of the primitive religion. So it was in Saxony, — so it was in Bohemia, — so in Scotland, — so in England, — so have we seen and felt it at intervals in our own land. Whenever the Church has come out from the wilderness of trouble and persecution into comfort and repute, music, sharing the common degen- eracy of the rest of the service, has too generally tended to become more a remembrancer of the past than a quicken, t to tin- present and the future, — instead of waking the soul and calling it up to heaven, has come down to charm the carnal ear of dreaming indolence. Between ceremony ami contro- versy, how hard it is to get back again that old feeling, at once of catholicity and of individual accountableness, which alone can make the Church hymn the song of the pilgrim army of the one God, under the one Captain, marching on to one vic- tory, triumph, and salvation ! The influence of Protestantism upon hymnology is a curious and instructive subject, and one which connects itself through- out with the study of German hymn-writing and hymn-writers. Protestantism, as a contest for opinion or organization, can 404 German Hymnology. [Nov. hardly produce a true hymn. It can do that only as it is an impulse of self-defence, a struggle for the very life and free- dom of the soul. That, indeed, is what Protestantism was, with Luther, in the beginning, though he himself, as he grew strong in ecclesiastical influence, sadly degenerated from that old simplicity ; and after his death Protestantism became to a very great extent an essentially unmusical thing. When Luther appeared, the popular heart had been long yearning for the opportunity to utter itself in vernacular song. As early as Charlemagne, we find the beginning made of translating church hymns into the vernacular, under the Im- perial auspices. In the thirteenth century, we find one Brother Berthold complaining that heresy was propagating itself by putting songs into the people's mouths, and calling on the orthodox to make safe and sound ones for their children in self-defence. The fifteenth century was greatly busied in translating Latin hymns. Thus, it has been said, was the Reformation already announcing itself from afar. But Luther found the people ready to take these hymns and use them. The time was come when, in this revival of the old simplicity of the faith, they too, like the first disciples, were to teach and admonish each other in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, — not merely to be sung to, but to sing to each other, and to sing all together, as a band of brethren and sisters in the Lord. This practical use of the Hymn, as the song of the Christian pilgrim and soldier, which was made so prominent in the hymns of the Reformation, though often sadly lost out of sight in the subsequent successes and struggles of Protestants, was never more signally illustrated than in the Moravian hymnol- ogy with a notice of which we closed our former paper, and which, through the Methodists and Montgomery, has infused a spirit into English hymnology that' is destined never to die. With Klopstock, who was born in 1724, begins a new period of German hymnology. His name opens that era when the influences of the age of Frederick the Great, the age of free- thinking, of rationalism, the age of Lavater and Rousseau, told upon the hymns as upon the faith of the Church. It was the period of what the Germans call the " watering [dilution] of the hymn-books." The great revival of poetic aspiration and I860.] German Hgmnology. 105 ambition, so signalized in Klopstock, led to tbc idea of re- touching and investing- with a new poetic charm tbc ehuxcb versification. Klopstock's <>wn hymns, upon the whole, illustrate tbc say- ing, bow much easier it is to criticise than to create. His aspiration surpassed bis achievement. No man has described and distinguished better tban he what belongs to the hymn and to the psalm; hut when he came to actual performance, he produced too often what would be called indeed, by a common and false taste and piety, poetical and eloquent, but what should rather be called still" and declamatory. We give one hymn as a specimen of his best style. "RESUBRECTION. " Thou shalt rise, — yea, thou shah rise, my dust ! Sleep a few days in trust, Then shalt thou, waking, Behold Heaven's morning breaking ! Hallelujah! "All shall bloom again that 's buried now! Lord of the Harvest, thou Thy sheaves shall number, The souls in Christ that slumber; Praise to thy name ! " Day of thanks ! Thou day of joyful tears ! God's day of endless year- ! When, in earth's keeping, His time 1 have been sleeping. Thy trump shall sound ! "Like to them thai dream shall we be then, With JestM entering in To share his gladn Where pilgrim toil and sadness Shall be no more ! "I shall tread, with Christ, the Holy I'! Beholding face to face The Eternal splendor, And thanks and praises render For evermore ! " Between the false and inflated fervors of the intense style of piety and poesy on the one band, and the watery dilutions of 406 German Hymnology. [Nov. the prosing rhymers on the other, there were some who kept nearer the golden mean of a pure and simple taste. The most prominent of these are Gellert and Lavater, of whom the former, however, sometimes lapsed into a sentimental prim- ness, and the latter into a didactic dryness, which may well be conceived when we are told that he wrote his fifty-four hymns in eleven days, unde^r a sense of religious duty. Of that charming fabulist and beloved German soul, Christian Fear- God Gellert, we would gladly speak longer, but must leave him here with those graceful and just lines written on looking at his portrait, which we translate from Klamer-Schmidt : — " These are the wasted cheeks, whereon No dawn of passionate desire, No wandering glimmer of the fire Of giddy folly, ever shone. This is the face that looked on death, As friend on friend he welcometh. His hollow, spiritual eye, Deep-sunken in the warning countenance, Reveals the touching history of the heart, Speaks an angelic tolerance, And, with one tear, stings vice more poignantly Than Swift or Kabner could with all their finest art." In passing on from the last century into the present, we meet three successive and striking epochs in the hymnological development of the German genius ; first, the short and bril- liant passage of that rarely gifted son of poesy, philosophy, and piety, Novalis, across the field of human vision ; secondly, the Liberation war of 1813, which was a struggle at once of faitli and freedom, a simultaneous blooming of patriotism, piety, and poesy, and which brought out such spirits as Arndt, Korner, and Schenkendorf ; and, finally, the third centenni- versary of the Reformation in 1817, which created in the Ger- man heart a wonderful renewal of the yearning for a new church life. " The spiritual poesy of the present," says Biissler, " is found in the act of moving onward. As its starting-point, we may mark the year 1817 ; as its aim and problem, the penetration of the religious poetic feeling with the objective, biblical faith of the Evangelic Church Our spiritual singers still sit 18G0.] German Hymnology. 407 solitary as al the waters of Babylon ; but their songs point across, like a prophecy, to the new Zion which is to con In fact, modern German Bymnology may be said to be rep- resented by three schools, which we may call the Romantic, the Moravian, and the Orthodox. Not that the characteristics of these Beveral classes are not often found in unison ; but there are, distinguishable, the three tendencies we have endeav- ored to name ; — one, to make the hymn a vehicle of the amount of truth, according to the creed; another, to make it the musical meditation of a pious and poetic soul ; and a third, to make it the instrument of expressing and. enkindling the social sentiment of the spiritual brotherhood. The so-called Evangelical hymn-writers of these modern times who have written expressly for the use of the Lutheran churches seem to us, with all their fervor and fluency and melody, to make the hymn too prominently an organ of set- ting forth the doctrines and duties of the orthodox religion. It becomes a rhythmical indoctrination, admonition, or exhor- tation. In aiming to be exhaustive, it becomes exhausting. The Romantic and Mystic elements, represented in the hymns of the beloved and too early lost Novalis, — in those of Riickert and Uhland, and a host of other poets who have written hymns because poetry was to them a priesthood, and piety a part of their poetic nature, — these elements are such as the Church, to be a true Church of the Christian spirit, cannot spare ; and if, as a recent German writer regrets, no Large and deep soul has yet arisen " to give the inward spirit- ual lyric the full harmonious voice of ecclesiastical commun- ion, '' nevertheless the great company of the hymn-writers, in and out of the ecclesiastical pale, are nobly heralding and in- augurating the new era of the Church universal and invisible ; and the nine hundred hymns of the little book called "In the Stillness," which we described in our former paper, are a noble band of trumpeters (an army in themselves) to this host of soldiers of the cross who, without the uniform of an external church, all recognize the word of the one spiritual Captain. We wisli we had space to let this '* storehouse of sacred jew- elry " speak for itself, as in the Song of the Sabbath, begin- 408 German Hymnology. [Not. " Peaceful, holy Sabbath-time ! Like a sweet and solemn chime From the high eternal dome, Callest thou life's pilgrim home, Bidding man, from earth's delusion, From its turmoil and confusion, From its pleasures transitory, Turn his eyes to heavenly glory." But we must content ourselves with one specimen. This is a hymn by the " Hidden One " (Die Verborgene'), as she signs herself, meaning, we suppose, one whose life is hid with Christ in God. "BE STILL! " Peace ! Be still ! In this night of sorrow bow, O my heart, contend not thou ! What befalls thee is God's will, — Peace ! Be still ! " Peace ! Be still ! All thy murmuring words are vain, — God will make the riddle plain : "Wait His word and bear His will, — Peace ! Be still ! " Hold thee still ! Though the Father scourge thee sore, Cling thou to Him all the more, Let Him mercy's work fulfil ! Hold thee still ! " Hold thee still ! Though the good Physician's knife Seem to touch thy very life, Death alone He means to kill, — Hold thee still ! " Lord, my God ! Give me grace, that I may be Thy true child, and silently Own thy sceptre and thy rod, Lord, my God ! " Shepherd mine ! From thy fulness give me still Faith to do and bear Thy will. Till the morning light shall shine, — Shepherd mine ! " 1SG0.] German Hymnology. \Q% In looking over the vast range of materia] which our subject requires us to review, we can hardly fail, one would think, to have our Bymnological, not to say our Theological ideas, some- what enlarged. What is a hymn ? It is a devout, a religious song. But it Deed not, it cannot be a versified sermon or homily, a dog- matic statement in metre, a confession of speculative faith. It will not always directly address itself to God, by name or without name, even in praise ; still less can a hymn he de- lined, as some would seem to imply, a musical prayer. A true catholicity will not find Christian hymns solely or spe- cially where the names of the Holy Persons are expressly mentioned ; but wherever the Holy Spirit breathes, and the Father's love is felt, and' a yearning is manifest for the Divine Sonship, charity will believe that it was the spirit of grace, communicated by the Father through the Son, which inspired the song, whatever men may call it, and which makes the writer, in the secret, though perhaps only fitful, aspirations of his heart, at least, one of the real Church universal and spiritual. A hymn is the song of a soul celebrating the joy with which it contemplates the works and ways of God, the admiration and delight it feels in being his creature and child, in being a part of his creation and his Church. A devout and musical meditation, then, may be a hymn, no less than a musical ex- pression of direct prayer, penitence, or praise. A cold medi- tation, indeed, is not a hymn, any more than a hot anathema is ; but that is because it is not a poem, to begin with. A meditation, however, which flows forth in harmonious num- bers, from a harmonized nature, contentedly, gratefully, and charitably contemplating the ways of the Divine Providence, — that is a hymn; and though the metre may be too particular to be sung by a choir with the voice, such pieces may be sung "with the spirit and the understanding," and accordingly they are coming to be more and more largely admitted to their silent seats in our hvninological collections. Sweet and comely and wholesome is it thus to recognize in our exter- nal and ecclesiastical provisions the presence and claims of VOL. LX1X. — 5th S. VOL. VII. NO. III. 35 410 German Hymnology. [Nov. the Church invisible b the Church of the mystic gift and grace, the Church of the spirit and of humanity. "When we study hymnology in this catholic spirit, how does that goodly Church — whose architecture is music (and not frozen, but flowing music) — the fellowship of the Christian hymn-writers, in every language, and certainly not least in the German — widen its doors and its dimensions ! But it is time we passed on to consider the leading charac- teristics — the merits and the faults — of the hymns of that language with which our paper is specially occupied. "We have compared German hymnology to an ocean. When we look out over this ocean, and before we listen to its music, we are struck not only with the multitude, but with the length, of its waves. We mean the enormous and alarming length of the German hymns, considered especially as hymns to be sung. They tell of a race of writers almost as prolix as they are prolific. We should say that in Knapp's Treasury of Evangelic Song the pieces seldom contained less than six stanzas, oftener reaching to twelve, and quite often to the old Scotch sermon length of nfteenthly, the stanzas, too, being very generally from six to eight or ten lines long. They cer- tainly illustrate remarkably the singular union, in the German spirit, of patience and enthusiasm. And yet one would think these qualities must be greater in the writers than in the read- ers or singers of such hymns. They show too, however, how much more important a place in church service singing holds among the Germans than with us. " Teaching and admonish- ing each other in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs," they do certainly mean to fulfil this part of the Apostle's injunction as well as the other, "making melody in your hearts to the Lord." One of the rocks on which the German hymns are often in danger of foundering is too great explicitness. The eloquence damages the poetry, and both injure the practical and devo- tional impression. With all their faults, however, the German hymns have many and marked charms. The first thing that strikes one, on entering into the spirit of these hymns, is the childlike simplicity they breathe. This is one of their most pervading 18G0.] German Hymnology. 411 and peculiar traits. It is true, close in the neighborhood of this beauty is a blemish into which it sometimes runs. The childlike, without the manly, degenerates into the childish ; and from this weakness the German hymns are by no means always exempt. On the whole, however, a simplicity, at once manly and godly, prevails in the greal mass of them, and gives them a national and a noble distinction. We nanark next, as akin to the simplicity, and growing out of it, the strength and fervor of faith which they manifest, — faith both in the holy principles of religion and in the holy and divine persons. Often, indeed, the very thoroughness and intense earnestness with which they address themselves to the cherished office of magnifying the Lord, in all his char- acters and attributes and ways and works, becomes almost, if not quite, prosaic, in its very force of purpose ; but, withal, they certainly move on as seeing things invisible, and they " lay hold on eternal life " as a veritable, if sometimes too exclusively as a future reality. A third trait w T e note, as also part and parcel of the child- like spirit, is the familiarity of the German hymns, — what Mrs. Browning, speaking of Chaucer, calls " The infantine, Familiar clasp of things divine." " The dear God," is a mode of speech, with regard to the High and. Holy One, which belongs to the German soul. The frequency and fondness with which the name of Jesus is dwelt upon, though not confined to German hymnology, may, in the degree, somewhat excessive, to which it is there carried, be set down as a characteristic of the German hymns. Not infre- quently " Jesulein," little Jesus, or Jesus dear, and other similar diminutives, are used. "Lammlein" (the lambkin) particularly in the older hymns, is often applied to the Saviour. The saying that "men are but children of a larger growth," the Germans, in matters of religious feeling, certainly illus- trate; in the better sense ; or, rather, they beautifully illustrate Wordsworth's expression : — •■ And I could wist my days on earth to he Bound each to each by natural piety." 412 German Hymnology. [Nov. A German hymnologist requires of a good hymn that it should be, — first, lyrical; secondly, objective; and thirdly, popular. The first of these requisites the German hymns have in an eminent degree. The lyric handling is always free, graceful, glowing, and energetic. The German language is peculiarly favorable to the melodious expression of simple fervor. Its words and sounds make it comparatively easy to combine, in versification, compactness with fluency. This facil- ity, however, is not always felicity. Too many of the German hymns are more eloquent than poetical, if not more declama- tory than eloquent. As an offset to what was just said of the expressiveness of the language, there is one point in which, by contrast with our own, for instance, it often fails in compass for the purposes of majesty, and affects us with a sense of the monotonous ; and that is, its not having the fine admixture of the Latin element, which, in the English language, at whose birth the Roman genius also presided, has so large and free a play. This deficiency is particularly felt when it is desired to translate into German the noble old Latin hymns. You feel more as if Latin were a dead language, than when they pass into English. But, to return to what we were saying, the uniform fidelity of the German hymn-writers to rhyme and rhythm forms a marked and monitory contrast to a great deal of our English hymnology. Never is there any slovenliness in the rhyme or halting in the numbers. (If Watts had been a German he never would have left so many wretched rhymes.) The German faithfulness herein is worthy of imitation. Is there any reason why good taste should not be associated with devotion ? If a hymn is worth writing, is it not worth writing well? Another German critic assigns as the requisites of a good hymn these four : first, Scripturalness ; second, clearness ; third, kindliness ; fourth, propriety. The last of these we have already considered. The first is, in the German hymns, carried to a remarkable extent. In no church has the hymn been made so much the vehicle of indoctrination as in the Lutheran. The creed, in all its finest reasons and ramifica- tions, is thus made familiar as household song. The hymns of the Scotch kirk exemplify the same thing. It has been 1800.] (•> rma/n Hymnology, 413 said, that, it' the Gospels were lost, they mighl almost be re- placed by means of the quotations from them in the Fathers. We may Bay, almosl without extravagance, thai the tacts of the Gospel history mighl also be recovered through the German hymns. The third quality named by the German editor just referred to is one which, in the German hymns, is certainly and admirably conspicuous. Not only do they breathe good- will themselves, bul they recognize good-will as the reigning disposition of God towards his creature. Their "thoughts" do not " on awful subjects roll, damnation and the dead." In many it is orthodox to believe in the final restoration of all >ouis to holiness, happiness, and heaven. And we may well ask, Can there he a true and thorough Christian hymn which does not rest upon this doctrine ? Surely such lines as " There is no Gospel preached in hell," arc neither poetic nor inspiring, and so hinder the true hymn- spirit. Calvinism, in its thorough and unmitigated form, can- not produce a true Christian hymnology. We would direct attention then, finally, to a quality which seems to ns eminently to characterize the German hymns, and to be connected very closely with the foregoing, and that is, their trumpet-like strain of triumphant exultation. They cry, it is true, " The Lord reigneth, let the people tremhle," but they also cry, " The Father reigneth, let the earth rejoice." They believe, and are sure, that good is destined to conquer evil ; that the Lamb shall finally overcome all his enemies ; that death and sin shall finally be swallowed up in victory. In the words of our own poet's "Hymn to the Fast," their teaching is, that " All shall come back, each tie Of pun' affectum shall be knit again, Alone shall evil die, Ami sorrow dwell a prisoner in thy reign." It is this that makes the funeral hymns of Germany so pe- culiarly cheerful and solemnly glad. The trumpet-tone of solemn cheer that rings oul -<> sweetly in Montgomery's " Forever with the Lord, is characteristic not only of the Moravian music, but of the German hymn ^3* 414 German Hymnology. [Xov. generally. How to-uchingly it is heard in this dirge by a liv- ing hymnist, Dr. Sachse : — [On Leaving the House.] " Come forth, move on with solemn song ! The road is short, the rest is long ! 'T was God that led us in at birth, God leads us forth, — Man's home is not this house of earth. " Thou Inn of pilgrims here below ! Thou gavest joy, thou gavest woe ; Now, world, thy door forever close ! The mortal goes Home to his heavenly repose, — " Goes to a better place of rest ; His weeping friends pronounce him blest. Good night ! the noonday heavily Did rest on thee, — Farewell, the night is cool and free ! " Sound out, ye bells, with festal din, And ring the blessed Sabbath in, That calls, ' Here ends life's weary road ; Lay down your load, And rest in Christ, ye sons of God ! ' " [On Entering the Graveyard.] " Now, gate of peace, thy wings unclose ! Go in, to take thy long repose ! Ye slumberers in the earth's calm breast, Grant this new guest A little space by you to rest ! " How thick the graves around us lie ! Yet countless mansions shine on high ; And there already God's free grace Hath marked a place Where soon shall shine this faded face. " His is the kingdom and the power ; ' I come,' he cries, ' none knows the hour ! ' Yea, come, Lord Jesus, speedily ! We wait for thee ; Come, make us thine eternally ! " 1800.] Lamb and Hood. 415 May the spirit of poesy continue more and more to interpret and educate the spirit of piety! May the hymn refine and reform the creed ; the instincts of the heart correct and cure the errors of the mind ; and the voice of Christian catholic faith in song, Bounding down from generation to generation, floating over sectarian enclosures, as do the hell-tones over the churches, waken and keep alive men's yearning for the true Church, the kingdom of heaven, and at last usher in the ful- filment of its own prophetic harmony. Art. V. — LAMB AND HOOD. 1. The Works of Chaklks Lamb. In Four Volumes. A New Edi- tion. Boston : Crosby, Nichols, Lee. & Co. 1860. 2. Memorials of Thomas Hood. Collected, Arranged, and Edited by his Daughter. With a Preface and Notes by his Son. Illus- trated with Copies from his own Sketches. In Two Volumes. Boston : Ticknor and Fields. 1860. A hearty welcome to this beautiful American edition of Lamb's Works, — evidence of a demand we are glad to believe in, and intimating the delight — how we envy them! — of a new generation forming a first acquaintance with " Elia." We greet, also, the Memorials of Hood, giving glimpses of his un- sullied private life. The temptation offered by these publications to write of two of the foremost contributors to the pleasant literature of our time, is not to be resisted, even at the risk of telling a thrice-told tale, — not much of a risk, after all, since those who have any affinity for the story can never tire of its repe- tition. Besides, it is not our purpose to speak of them chiefly as writers. We are able now to remove the always more than semi-transparent masks of the humorists, and show the sweet, brave faces of the men. Lamb and Hood had striking resemblances and marked differences. We bring them together in our admiration: we separate them, more or less, in any critical analysis. They 416 Lamb and Hood. [Nov. are "hale fellows well met" for the most part, but do not always keep side by side. We shall endeavor, therefore, to indicate wherein was the unity and the duality,- — to unite them finally in a common title to reverential respect, for higher reasons than the fascinating felicities of their pens. Of humble birth, and receiving about the same amount of early education, these " lively friends " met suffering on the threshold of manhood, and parted from suffering only at the grave. They became authors more by accident than by de- sign. Literature with Hood was soon a profession ; to Lamb it was mainly relief and recreation. The former kept the wolf from the door by the earnings of his brain ; the latter got his livelihood at the India House, adding by his writings a little superfluity to a moderate income. In rare friendships, neither can be said to have had the better of the other. But in one respect Hood was pre-eminently the most blessed. Lamb never had a home, in the full meaning of the word ; Hood was never without one. Lamb had to resign " the fair- haired girl " ; it Was only in " Reverie " that he courted and called Alice W his ; and his children were but " Dream Children." Hood's affections, on the other hand, were fully met and satisfied. He could write : " I never was anything, dearest, till I knew you, and I have been a better, happier, and more prosperous man ever since. Lay by that truth in lavender, sweetest, and remind me of it when I fail. I am writing warmly and fondly, but not without good cause. First, your own affectionate letter, lately received ; next, the remembrances of our dear children, pledges — what darling ones ! — of our old familiar love ; then a delicious impulse to pour out the overflowings of my heart into yours ; and last, not least, the knowledge that your dear eyes will read what my hand is now' writing. Perhaps there is an afterthought that, whatever may befall me, the wife of my bosom will have this acknowledgment of her tenderness, worth, excellence, — all that is wifely or womanly, — from my pen." He could say : " With such a wife to tease, and such children to tease mc, I do not get so weary of life as some other peo- ple might." The light within his domestic circle, fierce and black as might be the storm without, was never darkened. CON T ENTS. No. CCXX. Art. P\r,r. I. Marsh on the English Language 1 II. Analogues of Satan 19 III. Temporal Power of the Popes 40 IV. The Broad Church 53 V. Woman's Right to Labor 66 VI. John Calvin 73 VII. Intercourse with Japan 101 VIII. Review of Current Literature . . • . . 124 Note to Art. III. 152 New Publications Received 153 No. CCXXI. I. Paul's Argument for the Abolition of the Law II. The Women of Thackeray III. Dr. Huntington's Introduction to Bickebstetb IV. Leslie V. German Hymns VI. St. Augustine at Hippo VII. Review of Current Literati 11 157 1G7 191 218 234 258 New Publii ltions Received 310 IV CONTENTS. No. CCXXII. Art. Page I. KlTUAL , 313 n. Rural Taste in North America 340 III. Old Faith and New Knowledge 351 IV. German Hymnology 402 V. Lamb and Hood 415 VI. The World's Need of Woman 435 VII. Review of Current Literature 451 New Publications Received 471 INDEX 475 v