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MONTHLY REVIEW OF LITERATURE. 



SATURDAY EVENING. BY THE AUTHOR OF " THE HISTORY OF NATURAL 



ENTHUSIASM/' 





WITH the simplicity characteristic of a strong and expansive mind, the 

 author of this singularly powerful and comprehensive work has embodied, 

 under the most unassuming and homely of titles, a series of profound 

 and interesting views on the state and progress of religious knowledge, 

 the great truths and hopes it disseminates, its onward impulse, and the 

 popular errors by which it is impeded. In the performance of his laudable 

 and laborious task, the writer, we think, has amply fulfilled the high promise 

 held out to us in the " Natural History of Enthusiasm/' and will greatly add to 

 the widely diffused and well earned reputation which he had previously ob- 

 tained. It is a production which bears throughout the impress of original and 

 discursive intellect ; and, to convey our idea in a word, it may be considered, as 

 applied to religious disquisition, like the writings of Wordsworth in our poetic 

 literature, both in its familiar and imaginative spirit. Thus, with the specula- 

 tive reasoning of the philosopher, the enlightened piety of a Christian, and the 

 compressed argument of the logician, there is a tone of enthusiasm, as well in 

 the style as in the sentiments of this writer not often to be met with, in treating 

 of purely moral or religious subjects. In this more imaginative power, indeed, 

 he may be thought to have somewhat too freely indulged ; trenching closely on 

 the borders of hypothesis and disputed creed, to the prejudice of his more calm 

 and elevated opinions on the great interests of religion it is his object so strenu- 

 ously to enforce. Perhaps the same exciting influence lends to his phraseology 

 an occasional peculiarity and quaintness, with its terseness and originality, 

 qualities from which neither his ideas nor opinions can be said to be wholly 

 free. Layman, as he states himself, his manner of expression, whether in words 

 or in periods, seems less purely English than that of many eminent divines, the 

 style of some of whose compositions, indeed, presents the best models we pos- 

 sess of our language. But these trivial drawbacks are amply compensated by 

 the high and masterly power with which he has here discharged the charac- 

 ter of a public instructor ; though, in his simple title, ( he would seem to dis- 

 claim, in his preface, more than that of a familiar friend and companion, treat- 

 ing, withal, of high themes, by a " Saturday Evening" fireside. But if we grant 

 to him this quiet unassuming office, we would observe, to borrow his own en- 

 thusiastic mariner, that, in doing its pious duties, his presence, we trust, will 

 be felt in the cottage or the palace like that of the angel-guest of Adam ere his 

 fall to warn, to counsel, and to open, as far as human eye may reach, the vast 

 prospects of futurity. To an undertaking of this kind, the author of " Satur- 

 day Evening" has brought requisites of no common kind-; he has dwelt on 

 subjects most calculated to impress the popular mind to conciliate to eradi- 

 cate error, and to impress on all the great duty of venerating the religion of 

 Christ, and of cultivating good will, peace, and charity towards one another. 



CARACTACUS. A METRICAL SKETCH IN TWELVE PARTS. 



WE cannot but consider an undertaking of this nature, in these degenerate 

 days, as scarcely a less proof of heroism in the writer, than of the British hero 

 himself, in seeking to deliver his country from the Romans. To write a blank 

 verse epic in twelve parts, and to celebrate a series of campaigns that occurred 

 before the period of state bulletins or of bullets, and of which such scanty re- 

 ports were given in the ancient British gazettes, must be, we opine, the very hie 

 labor, hoc opus alluded to by Virgil, as to signification of infernal toil. But the 

 greater the obstacles presenting themselves in a national achievement of the 

 above kind, the more brilliant must be the merit of that poet who celebrates the 

 early renown of his country's heroes, and defenders of other days. Without 



