such complicated questions in natural history as this, and this is by no means the most considerable feat of the kind he has exhibited, even in the first volume, as we hope to make apparent in a future number. C. W. W.

ART. II.-MUTUAL INFLUENCE OF NATIONAL LITERA

TURES.

Select Specimens of Foreign Literature. (A Serial Work.) Conducted by GEORGE RIPLEY.

Boston.

MR. RIPLEY has deserved highly of his countrymen, by presenting them this series of well-executed translations from some of the best European authors. As their reputation is already extensively established, instead of passing them under review, we shall avail ourselves of the publication, to offer some remarks on the influence of one national literature upon another. The critical and historical speculations suggested by the subject, may be interesting to our readers; while the discussion may be found to yield some practical illustrations, adapted to the circumstances and prospects of our common country.

That every nation, like every individual, has an intellectual and moral character, original and peculiar to itself, may be regarded as an established axiom. Consequently, the literary productions of every nation must be more or less characterized by the stamp of its peculiar genius. If we could imagine among nations a long continued abstinence from mutual intercourse, we must also suppose several sorts of resulting literatures, as diverse from each other, in kind if not in degree, as are those of China and Europe at the present day. A state of things like this would assuredly depress the general standard of thought and language throughout the world. No nation, any more than a solitary individual, can be imagined to inherit from nature, and to centre in itself, so proud an affluence of thoughts, emotions and expressions, as to place it beyond the reach of improvement from foreign sources. In the same manner as the private members of society are induced to lay aside many a rude peculiarity, to suppress many a narrow prejudice, and to catch many a bright idea and generous emotion by means

of constant interchanges in life, so is the intellect of a whole nation, by coming into contact and collision with the intellect of other nations, enabled to elevate its own habits of throught, to seize npon more effective modes of expression, and to winnow its literature from national or accidental imperfections.

It is evident, however, that a process of this kind may be carried too far, and that a nation may indulge so extravagant a passion for foreign models, as to sacrifice that charm and vigor of originality, for which scarcely any acquired accomplishments can be regarded as an equivalent. For to recur to our comparison drawn from private life. No individual ought to extend his love or deference for society so far, as to sacrifice a certain originality and independence of character. If he only learns to avoid offensive eccentricities, and gives general proof of having breathed the air of good company, his native peculiarities may not only be forgiven but admired. It is thus in the intellectual intercourse of nations. We shall see, in the historical survey now to be presented as an illustration of these remarks, how nations, which have united a firm self reliance with a suitable degree of flexibility to foreign impressions, have at'ained the highest literary rank; and on the other hand, how their literature immediately degenerated, at the moment that they either disdained, or too devotedly sought for influences from abroad.

Our first example shall be drawn from the ancient literature of the Hebrews. That literature is the consecrated drapery of heaven-inspired truths. Yet, as the personal style of Isaiah differed from that of Daniel, or the style of St. John from the style of St. Paul; as David prophesied in the language of the palace, and Amos in that of the herdman's lodge, so a reverent and discriminating inspection will not fail to perceive that the Hebrew literature, like that of all other nations, was more or less subjected to the great law of circumstance. Springing forth, as it did, along a line of two or three thousand years, during which the fortunes of the nation were frequently varying, we shal! find it approximating to the highest standard of excellence, according as the inspired writers united with the wonderful peculiarities of the Hebrew mind, a liberal susceptibility to exterior impressions; and then again receding from that lofty standard, either through an injudicious imitation of oreign models, or an entire exclusion of all foreign influ

ences whatever. Accordingly, behold it first under Moses, the deserved admiration of subsequent ages. To the noble fountain of his own native Israelitish literature and a remoter east, Moses applied a mind, rich, as St. Stephen informs us, in the wisdom and learning of the Egyptians. The union of these two magnificent streams resulted in the production of the Pentateuch,-in the same manner as the influence of two mighty rivers sometimes throws up an island, covered with majestic forests and fragrant and beautiful bowers. For what has ever equalled the sublime pictures of creation and nature in the Pentateuch-the lovely simplicity of its descriptions of patriarchal and pastoral lifethe vivid and graphic reality of its narratives-its authentic charts of the primitive genealogy of nations and the concise, comprehensive and intelligible texture of its legislative phraseology? To the same period is generally referred the composition of the book of Job, which vies in lite rary excellence with the Pentateuch.

To the Mosaic era succeeded the times of the Judges, when intercourse with foreign nations was rigorously forbidden. Accordingly, again, we find a poverty of literary documents to be characteristic of this period; no poetry, no didactic treatises, nothing scarcely, in short, save the meagre annals of the commonwealth in war and in peace, until the time of David. With David, and especially with Solomon his son, commenced an entirely new epoch. Conquest and commerce now brought the national mind again into contact with foreign influences. Immediately also advanced the standard of Hebrew literature. The delightful little history of Ruth is the first fruits of a transition from the rude age of the Judges to the enlightened period of the monarchy. To this era in its subsequent advancement, will the world forever be indebted for the Psalms of David, that inexhaustible repository of sacred poetry, as varied in its subjects and moods of religious sentiment, as were the tones of his own exulting or complaining harp. To the same era belongs also that treasure-house of moral and practical wisdom, the Proverbs of Solomon. Contemporary also with this, was unquestionably the Book of Ecclesiastes, a didactic poem, or colloquy, of the highest character, in which the Byron spirit of this world appears to be comparing notes with the Fenelon spirit, respecting their relative opinions and experience of the condition, prospects and

destiny of human nature; the whole closing with that unparalleled lesson for the confident and inexperienced-Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth, which, while it is adorned with a profusion of ingenious and beautiful imagery, obeys, throughout, the laws of a delicate and scrupulous taste. When were the accumulating infirmities of old age ever described with so much physiological exactness, blended with such fine touches of poetry and pathos?

Nor ought we to forget, in this connection, the inimitable idyl, or series of idyls, entitled, The Song of Solomon, combining a perfect tenderness of sentiment with the fascinating simplicity of nature, and the most exquisite music of poetry. The truth is, the good old stock of Hebrew intellect was now again released from the confinement and constraint to which it had been for several centuries subjected; a freer and a wider atmosphere was allowed to breathe in upon it; it was stimulated by the fresh contact of a mould different from its own native soil, and the result, as we have seen, was the production of fruits more than usually divine. Traces of Hebrew and Egyptian intercourse are very evident in the sacred literature of this period. Champollion, in his successful studies of the hieroglyphics, was more and more struck by the recurrence of expressions coincident with the language of the Psalms.

It is well known that portions of the Song of Solomon, referred to the Egyptian princess whom he had married, and who is called his sister-bride, in contrast to the Ammonite princess, whom he had previously espoused. Among the recent wonders of Egyptian discovery, is a well identified portrait of that very princess, and near it an inscription of the same expression, sister-bride, which occurs in the Hebrew song. In the same Hebrew poem, she is likened also to a sacred garden. Every scholar knows that these sacred gardens originated in Egypt, and were guarded by the first order of nuns. The following translation, by an elegant scholar, of the whole passage from the Song of Solomon, will recall the classical descriptions of the same subject as deduced from Egyptian sources :

'A sacred garden is my sister-bride,

A sacred garden, and a well-spring sealed;
A paradise of sweets, wherein preside

The fairest fruits which spiciest blossoms yield,
Such as in youthful Eden were revealed;

Camphor and spikenard flourish midst its flowers,
Spikenard and balsam, cane and cinnamon;
Gem-scattering fountains bathe its fragrant bowers
Of myrrh and incense, balm and origan;

While living waters leap from cedary Lebanon."

The prophets Isaiah and Jeremiah everywhere exhibit manifest indications connecting them with this most classic era in Hebrew literature. With Daniel and Ezekiel the pure standard of Hebraism seemed somewhat to decline, in consequence of the extreme oriental spirit too deeply imbibed from the Chaldeans during the Babylonish captivity. Then came a wide reaction, under the twelve minor prophets, who, spurning and denouncing every species of foreign influence, fell back upon the narrow intellectual resources of the nation, and were contented with a literary standard considerably inferior to that of the Davidean era.

During the next four hundred years, as the nation grew in importance, and came in contact with its different conquerors, we see the literature of the Apocrypha and the Rabbis assume a higher character, until at length, the Hebrew mind, shone upon by the strong and near effulgence of Grecian and Roman refinement, and still specially breathed on, as in the days of old, by the spirit of God, displayed in numerous portions of the gospels and epistles of the New Testament, the boldest stamp of literary excellence. The highest degree, and, as it were, the summary exponent and focus of that excellence, I consider exhibited in St. Paul's celebrated definition of charity, comprising the 13th chapter of the 1st epistle to the Corinthians, too familiar to all readers to require a repetition. This chapter, to a literary eye, presents a remarkable combination of qualities. To the gorgeousness and fervor of Plato, without his vagueness and mysticism, it unites the strict and acute analysis of Aristotle, without his cold, material, mechanical philosophy. The march, the logical sequence and development of the sentiments are truly beautiful, while a luxuriant abundance of ideas and images is crowded within the smallest possible compass, like the miraculous economy of an organic human body. The Apostle, seizing upon the Greek term charity, brings to its illustration a throng of Jewish recollections and sacred references. In short, the Hebrew mind, in its highest and purest state of inspiration, mingling and strug. gling with the Grecian mind, in its palmiest stage of moral