18-iG.] Milman'i Anite Bulcyn. 515 



For there are durk and deep-delved plots, tliuf 'hciipe 



Even Gardiner's lynx-eyed sight ; thy soul shall luugh. 



The queen — the Boleyn — the false harlot heretic, 



She's in our toils — lost — doomed ! ( P. 46.) 



Angelo then gives a sketch of his own story. The character of this Jesuit is 

 striking and dramatic — it" dramatic effect tan he fairly allowable so far out of 

 probability. His conduct is a course of the blacke^t perfidy. lie suborns to 

 perjury and nuirder, and exults in the prospect, not merely of the Queen's blood- 

 shed, but of her eternal ruin. This is monstrous, and totally incompatible 

 with even his own conception of virtue. 



Yet this outrage to all probability unfortunately procccd.s from Mr. Milnian's 

 determinate error. He calls it in his j)rclace, " an endeavour to embody the 

 awful spirit of fanaticism, — the more awful, because strictli/ conscientious !" 

 He then tells us, that he means this as " a profitable lesson." It can be 

 no profitable lesson to any one, to see those things asserted in books 

 which can never happen in real life; nor to be told that a man may 

 be conscientious in suborning murder, and crying out for damnation. 

 So far as the influence of the principle would extend, it nuist help men to 

 j)alliate every atrocity in themselves. Nothing is more common than the 

 hazardous belief that sincerity of opinion purifies the action; and nothing can 

 be more unprofitable than any attempt to give validity to one of the most per- 

 nicious maxims of the whole code of human error. The author then goes the 

 length of quoting Robertson, as having " tvilli justice" stated, that mankind had 

 derived more adi'antages / and sustained more injuries, from the Jesuits, than 

 from any other of the religious fraternities. It is not worth our while to weigh 

 the comparative crimes of institutions, all dangerous, superstitious, and un- 

 scriptural; but if Mr. Milman will persevere in bowing to the more than 

 dubious authority of Robertson on matters of religion, he should be prepared 

 to shew what benefits were ever done by the Jesuits to mankind ; or whether 

 their keeping schools, and giving bad editions of the Classics, were to counter- 

 balance their perjuries and conspiracies, their ferocious spirit of persecution, 

 their perpetual hostility to pure religion, their abject and desperate devotedness 

 to the worst purposes of Rome, their establishment oi an universal espionage, 

 or the known and unquestionable conspiracy against all governments, which 

 finally overthrew their order half a century ago. 



This " Order" has been again set on its feet, and we shall probably see it the 

 agent in some great convulsion of the Euroj)ean thrones. But we shall not 

 take its character from the friend and panegyrist of Hume, nor do we feel gra- 

 tified by finding his sentiments re-echoed, with however " profitable" an inten- 

 tion, by a divine of the Church of England. 



The poem then proceeds through the history to the death of Anne, who, 

 after trial, perishes on the scaffold. 



As a whole, Mr. Milman's performance will not add to his reputation. It 

 contains passages of occasional force, and there are one or two touches of 

 graceful and imaginative beauty. But the construction of its verse is heavy. 

 His ear has evidently still to learn the true rhythm of blank verse, and until 

 that is acquired, success in even the " dramatic poem" is oat of the question. 



BANK FORGERY. 



In the House of Commons an interesting conversation lately took place on 

 the Prevention of Forgeries. It was stated that the recurrence to paper circu- 

 lation had already commenced its fatal effects, in the temptation to the issue 

 of counterfeit notes, and that six miserable beings had been already capitally 

 convicted at the Lancaster Assizes. To all this, the answer of the Bank people 

 was, of course, as it has been these twenty years, that they could make no 

 note which it was not in the power of man to imitate. And what is the actual 

 consequence of this happy conception ? Why, that they will make no note 



