566 



land has himself told their story in part, 

 but only so far as they conflicted with 

 their rivals of the White-Cross, under 

 whose superiority they finally sunk. 

 The destruction of the Templars is one 

 of the basest acts of scandal, oppression, 

 and cruelty, that stain the pages of his- 

 tory scandalous and base as they often 

 are. Though suppressed, and their re- 

 venues conhscated the very purpose 

 for which the order was oppressed they 

 contrived to hang together, and to per- 

 petuatea succession. The Grand Master- 

 ship is still held by a French nobleman. 

 A sketch also of the Teutonic Knights, 

 who were forced, with the rest, to quit 

 Palestine in 1293, is still required. 



Modern Fanaticism Unveiled. Under 

 this general title the author's efforts are 

 directed to the exposure of some here- 

 tical extravagancies on the part of Irv- 

 ing and Erskine, and the miraculous 

 pretensions of Miss Mary Campbell, of 

 Gareloch. Mr. Irving has, it seems, 

 entrenched upon the limits of orthodoxy, 

 in some of his discussions on the Human 

 Nature of Christ. Stripped of technica- 

 lities, and extricated from perplexing 

 phraseology, the sum of his doctrine 

 seems to be, that Christ, as a man,' with 

 the passions of man, had a disposition, 

 and even desires, to commit sin, but re- 

 sisted was liable to offend, and prompt- 

 ed to do so, but never actually com- 

 plied was susceptible, but abstained 

 was tempted, but triumphed. The 

 whole discussion seems to us merely 

 idle, and certainly not worth the indig- 

 nation expended by the author, who un- 

 dertakes to lift the veil of fanaticism, 

 though, doubtless, Mr. Irving, in the 

 indiscretion with which he commonly 

 enforces his sentiments, has indulged in 

 some startling and offensive language. 

 He has printed, it appears, that Christ 

 took/ flesh of man and woman an ex- 

 pression which the Unveiler calls blas- 

 phemy ; but which, compared with the 

 general tenor of Irving's book, seems to 

 us to have been simply a slip. 



Mr. Erskine has puzzled himself 

 about the Gift of Tongues, and suffered, 

 apparently, his own to run a little 

 before his wit ; while Miss Mary Camp- 

 bell makes no ceremony about the mat- 

 ter, but lays claim at once to the actual 

 possession of the apostolical gift. The 

 good lady, at Fernicary, babbles away 

 she knows not what, but no matter, 

 Mr. McDonald, of Port Glasgow, has 

 the convenient and corresponding gift of 

 interpretation, and together they ac- 

 complish we know not what. The au- 

 thor, upon close examination, can find 

 no analogy between these same gifts, as 

 enjoyed and exerted by Miss Campbell, 

 and her coadjutor, and those of the 

 apostles, and broadly discredits them ; 



Monthly Review of Literature, 



[MAY, 



nor will the lady's " Miracles of Heal- 

 ing," in the author's opinion, bear the 

 test any better and likely enough. 

 The volume is written, however, with 

 spirit and earnestness, and is obviously 

 the produce of a vigorous understand- 

 ing ; but its contents are not at all cal- 

 culated to weigh with his opponents, 

 and all others, we suspect, will trouble 

 themselves little about the matter. The 

 interest is merely local. 



Standard Novels. Vols. I. and //. 

 Modern novels are published at so high a 

 rate, that they can come within the com- 

 mand of few, except through the circu- 

 lating libraries. This is the first attempt 

 to bring any of the last forty or fifty 

 years except the Waverley ones with- 

 in the reach of numbers, to whom the 

 possession might often be desirable. The 

 Waverley series, of course, suggested 

 the publication ; but it is considerably 

 cheaper, but little inferior as to paper, 

 and not at all so as to the ornamental 

 part. The three-volumed novel is com- 

 prised within a single volume, and if 

 the Pilot be thought to present too full 

 a page, Caleb Williams is not liable even 

 to that objection. The selection may be 

 safely trusted to the publisher, whose 

 large experience fully enables him to 

 ascertain what has generally proved most 

 attractive. Prefixed to Caleb Williams 

 is a short Memoir of Godwin, by his 

 daughter, Mrs. Bysshe Shelley. Mr. 

 Godwin's father was a dissenting preach- 

 er at Norwich, and he himself preached 

 somewhere in the neighbourhood of Lon- 

 don for about five years. Since that pe- 

 riod, during a lapse of fifty years, he has 

 been before the world as a literary man, 

 and, as Johnson said of Goldsmith, in 

 his epitaph, nihil tetigit, quod non orna- 

 vit. He is now 75. 



The Dramatic Annual ', l>y Frederick 

 Reynolds The Dramatic Annual is fairly 

 indictable for trespass in any literary 

 court in the kingdom The Annuals are 

 now definitively recognised as the recep- 

 tacles of variety the contributions of 

 numerous scribblers, in prose and verse, 

 and at least of materials that have not 

 been printed before, while Reynolds's 

 Dramatic Annual, as he calls it, is simply 

 a consecutive story, the characters and 

 incidents of which are conceived in the 

 most tawdry taste of the most tawdry 

 milliner's novel. It is full of stale puns, 

 vapid jests, and coarse caricature, for the 

 most part a rechauffee of his own stupid 

 memoirs. The hero is a stage-struck 

 youth a scribbler, not a performer . 

 who, by the advice of the manager, sets 

 out on a tour " in search of character," 

 and proves about as successful as the man 

 who visited the continent, for the pur- 

 pose of importing useful inventions, and 

 brought home a knife-grinder's wheel, 



