to enrol the great quarrel between Henry II. and Thomas à Becket. Because the Archbishop was a Saxon, and his monarch a Norman, M. Thierry has no hesitation in resolving their struggle for power into a national contest between the two races. It is absurd to ascribe the popular affection which Becket attracted to a political, instead of a religious cause; history really does not justify such a conclusion, and M. Thierry has altogether failed in the attempt to establish it. With the close of his eleventh book, M. Thierry concludes the strictly historical portion of his work; and the remaining half of his last volume is filled with a dissertation on the ulterior destiny of the various races of population connected not only with the Norman Conquest of England but with the Norman dynasty of France. Of this dissertation, the section which refers to the amalgamation of the Anglo-Normans and the native English, is the only portion which strictly appertains to M. Thierry's declared subject; and here we have frequent occasion to observe, that it might have profited him to have studied a class of authorities, which he seems to have overlooked or despised, our modern writers, whose researches have illustrated the progress of our constitution. He might have referred the division of our parliament into two chambers, to an epoch at least as early as the reign of the second Edward, (see Rot. Parliament, vol. i. p. 289.) instead of mistaking the middle of the fifteenth century (vol. iii. p. 532.) for the probable era of the separation. And farther he would not have declared (p. 527.) that it is not known. what share the deputies of the towns had' in the parliament which followed the insurrection headed by Wat Tyler, nor even whether they were present at it.' This ignorance is the more remarkable, because it was in that same parliament that the Commons, in the bold and energetic remonstrance which is still extant on the rolls of parliament (5 Ric. II. p. 100.), charged all the public disorders upon the abuses of the royal administration. On the remainder of M. Thierry's dissertation upon the fate of the various races of population in Great Britain, Ireland, and France, it is not our intention to dwell. There certainly is some ingenuity and much curious research applied to his idea of examining the different masses of population that may be found lying in a sort of strata, according to the direction in which the stream of national conquest and emigration has flowed.' To the inquisitive student, whose previous information has fortified him against the danger of REV. OCT, 1825. M. Thierry's L M. Thierry's errors and prejudices, the perusal of these volumes altogether may suggest many new ideas, and yield both amusement and instruction: but the work is little suited for the general reader. ART. VI. Hymns. By John Bowring. 18mo. pp. 143. London. Hunter. 1825. WE had expected from Mr. Bowring's acquaintance with Spanish poetry, that he might have drawn from its sacred fays, a higher and a more devotional tone of inspiration than we find in the generality of English hymns. He has disappointed us. These verses, which he is modest enough to hope may be hereafter blended with the exercises of domestic and social worship,' and may be the attendants of meditative solitude,' are unfit for either purpose. Their pretensions to poetical merit are of the most insignificant description; but the defect that frustrates the purpose, for which no doubt they were well intended, is their want of unction, fervour, and simplicity, which constitute the charm of such aspirations. It must, indeed, be owned, that the difficulty of combining melody with forms of prayer, is one of no ordinary kind, which some of our most distinguished lyrical poets have in vain endeavoured to overcome. We are all prepossessed from early years, with the beauty of the Scripture dialect, and we feel that every effort to imitate it, tends only to mark still more strongly the difference between divine and human inspiration. Dr. Watts's Hymns alone have succeeded in filling the mind as well as the ear, because they adhere as closely as possible to the language of the sacred writers. Mr. Bowring has unfortunately taken for his models some vapid German and Swedish parodies of the old monkish rhymes, and, accordingly, he has produced a volume of cold, dull, and inharmonious hymns, which Handel himself, were he living, could scarcely mould to his immortal music. Did the author understand Peter of Dresden's Bethlehem Hymn, when he translated the following verses? • Sine serpentis vulnere, vulnere, De nostro venit sanguine, Hallelujah. In carne nobis similis, similis, The The serpentis vulnere assuredly refers to original sin, from the stain of which Peter properly says the Saviour was born pure, although his veins were filled with human blood. The translation is not only erroneous but absurd. The point of the contrast in the second verse, as here quoted, is laboriously weakened, if, indeed, not wholly lost, in Mr. Bowring's lines. Honest Peter of Dresden is in truth as fatal to the muse of Mr. Bowring, as Peter Bell was to that of Wordsworth. We might search ineffectually among the records of verse for any thing so exquisitely silly as the following hymn: go In dulci jubilo to the house of God we'll O Jesu parvule- fondly do I turn to thee, O patris caritas! O nati lenitas, Of course our observations refer only to the versification of Mr. Bowring, and must be understood with a due reserve for the reverence which belongs to the sacredness of the theme. It cannot, however, but strike the reader as one of the most material blemishes of these Hymns, that though they are, perhaps, very sincerely devoted to the purposes of religion, they tend rather to degrade than ennoble it, by the familiarity of tone which occasionally pervades them. This, perhaps, to some of his readers, might seem rather ornamental than otherwise, but we cannot suppose that even a charity-boy is to be found who would deliberately chant such solemn nonsense as the following lines: O how cheating, O how fleeting, Is all earthly beauty! Like a summer flow'ret flowing, O how cheating, O how fleeting, L 2 'Tis : 'Tis an air-suspended bubble, He who with poetic fiction Sway'd and silenced contradiction, Soon is still'd by death's infliction.' We confess that we have never before heard of a flow'ret flowing the phrase is new, and the alliteration irresistible. The image, too, of a bubble suspended in the air, blown about in tears and trouble, a bubble in tears! a bubble in trouble! and broken by a flying stubble! may, perhaps, in Mr. Bowring's taste, be very correct and felicitous. But we take leave to say that, to us, it appears to be of that class of writing which is usually called bombast. We are incapable of understanding the three last lines above quoted. For the sake of illustrating them, we have, for a moment, supposed them to be carved as an epitaph on some poetaster's tomb,thus: He who with poetic fiction Sway'd and silenced contradiction, Now is still'd by death's infliction ! And for a poetaster, be it said, a good epitaph these lines would make; but they are in a hymn! and preceded by other lines, which render them the most ludicrous nonsense in whatever way they are taken. The author exclaims: O how cheating, O how fleeting, Is all mortal wisdom!' Therefore, he concludes that the man who has so little wisdom as to use poetic fiction' in silencing contradiction' must soon go off to the other world. This is one way of understanding the lines. Another mode is to suppose that the author meant all mortal wisdom' to be 'poetic fiction,' but that it is a perfectly harmless thing, until it is used for the purpose of silencing contradiction,' and then instantly it is followed by 'death's infliction.' The commentators leave the unfortunate reader in doubt as to which of these constructions should be preferred; for our own parts we are inclined to the belief that neither is very intelligible. 6 We must do Mr. Bowring, however, the justice to say, that the whole of this hymn is a translation from the German, and although we have not the original before us, we are willing to hope that he is not wholly answerable for this bêtise. And in order order to prove that our remarks have not been framed in a spirit of ill will towards him, we gladly subjoin the following stanzas on the Rest of the Righteous, which are marked by simplicity and tenderness. It is to be regretted that his volume contains so very few other compositions of this description. ART. VII. Memoirs of the Life of the Right Honourable Richard Brinsley Sheridan. By Thomas Moore. 4to. pp. 719. London. Longman and Co. 1825. Or all the public men who flourished about the time of the American war, there is not one whose character has descended to us, clouded by so many shades of doubt, as that of Richard Brinsley Sheridan. Those who were best acquainted with his principles, while he lived, scarcely knew whether in the latter part of his career he ought to have been ranked among the Whigs or the Tories, for he occasionally lent his assistance to either party, and was distrusted by both. He seldom omitted any opportunity of advocating the popular cause in the House of Commons, yet we suppose that it would be impossible to find in the whole series of courtly memoirs an instance of more parasitical conduct towards a Prince, than that which was pursued by Sheridan in his intercourse with the present Sovereign. He applied all the instrumentality of adulation, and of his remarkable convivial talents, in order to insinuate himself into the good graces of that illustrious person, and as soon as he established his influence, he exerted it entirely for selfish purposes. With |