LITERARY NOTICES

OF

DR. CHANNING'S PUBLICATIONS.

Analysis of the Character of Napoleon.”

"It is refreshing to turn from our state turmoils and anomalies to the perusal of the wise and candid estimate of a character which has excited the extremes of aversion and admiration-written with that purity and freshness of feeling, spirit, and eloquence, that nothing but the love of liberty and virtue can so well inspire."-Times, Jan. 29, 1828.

"A pamphlet which does honour to the name it bears."-London Mag. Feb. 1828.

"It is a very clever production, written with considerable eloquence, and by one who is evidently capable of looking steadily at the inequalities in a great man's character, and tracing them, as far as may be, to their source.”—Athenæum, Feb. 5, 1828.

"This is a just and admirable appreciation of the character of Napoleon. That Dr. Channing is not dazzled by the splendour of despotism we are not surprised, since, in his character of Milton, a more glorious name than ever belonged to tyrant or satrap, he exhibited the capacity to comprehend and pourtray the majesty of republican virtue. We recommend this pamphlet to the attentive perusal of every man in England."-London Weekly Review, Feb. 9, 1828.

"It is characterized by the same splendour of eloquence, the same soundness of judgment, the same nobility of feeling, and the same general impartiality for which all his writings are at once so conspicuous and so valuable."-Literary Chronicle, Feb. 16, 1828.

"Dr. Channing is already well known by his eloquent and able review of Milton's character and writings; and the Character of Napoleon' is executed with equal ability and effect. If our recommendation be worth any thing at all, let Dr. Channing's analysis be carefully read."-Monthly Mag. March, 1828.

"The tone of Dr. Channing has the calmness of security, the earnestness of philanthropic integrity, the chastised confidence of intelligence ripened into wisdom ;-it is that of a mind which fears nothing but error, suppresses nothing but the promptings of inconsiderate feeling, desires nothing but the good of its kind. This incomparable essay, for the combination of intellectual and moral excellence it presents, rises in our estimation immeasurably above any recent production in the literature of this country."-Scotsman.

"Remarks on the Character and Writings of Milton."

"Dr. Channing is manifestly a man of considerable discernment and eloquent powers, capable of taking comprehensive views, and of conveying them distinctly and fully to his readers. He is no common person, and we welcome his writings to this side of the Atlantic. Every one who reads the Edinburgh, must have been pleased with Macauley's Article on Milton; the present is superior, as it is more complete; it gives a more elevated and inspiring view of his character."-Monthly Mag.N. S. Sept. 1826.

"This is a clever pamphlet, and one which does credit to the taste of those concerned in introducing it to English readers. Milton's character and writings are ably and impartially examined, and the spirit and tendency of his productions powerfully developed. Indeed, we have rarely seen so much important and valuable information and comment crowded into so small a space. Dr. Channing commences with a consideration of Milton's poetical genius, and in asserting his dignity as a poet, enters into so glowing and eloquent a description of poetry itself, that we cannot forbear extracting it."—Literary Chronicle, Sept. 1826.

"A man of sound judgment and clear understanding; equally correct in feeling, and refined in taste."-Blackwood's Mag. Aug. 1825. Review of Discourse on the Evidences of the Christian Religion.

“Dr. Channing, one of those men who are a blessing and an honour to their generation and their country."-Quarterly Review, No. 56, p. 335.-Incidental Notice of ditto.

CHARACTER AND WRITINGS

OF

JOHN MILTON.

THE discovery of a work of Milton, unknown to his own times, is an important event in literary history. The consideration, that we of this age are the first readers of this treatise, naturally heightens our interest in it; for we seem in this way to be brought nearer to the author, and to sustain the same relation which his cotemporaries bore to his writings. The work opens with a salutation, which, from any other man, might be chargeable with inflation; but which we feel to be the natural and appropriate expression of the spirit of Milton. Endowed with gifts of the soul, which have been imparted to few of our race, and conscious of having consecrated them through life to God and mankind, he rose without effort or affectation to the style of an Apostle.-' JOHN MILTON, TO ALL THE CHURCHES OF CHRIST, AND TO ALL WHO PROFESS THE CHRISTIAN FAITH THROUGHOUT THE WORLD, PEACE, AND THE RECOGNITION OF THE TRUTH, AND ETERNAL SALVATION IN GOD THE FATHER, AND IN OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST.' Our ears are the first to hear this benediction, and it seems not so much to be borne to us from a distant age, as to come immediately from the sainted spirit by which it was indited.

Without meaning to disparage the Treatise on Christian Doctrine,' we may say that it owes very much of the attention which it has excited, to the fame of its author. We value it chiefly as showing us the mind of Milton on that subject which above all others presses upon men of thought and sensibility. We want to know in what conclusions such a man rested after a life of extensive and profound research, of magnanimous efforts for freedom and his country, and of communion with the most gifted minds of his own and former times. The book derives its chief interest from its author, and accordingly there seems to be a propriety in introducing our re

marks upon it with some notice of the character of Milton. We are not sure that we could have abstained from this subject, even if we had not been able to offer so good an apology for attempting it. The intellectual and moral qualities of a great man are attractions not easily withstood, and we can hardly serve others or ourselves more, than by recalling to him the attention, which is scattered among inferior topics.

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In speaking of the intellectual qualities of Milton, we may begin with observing, that the very splendour of his poetic fame has tended to obscure or conceal the extent of his mind, and the variety of its energies and attainments. To many he seems only a poet, when in truth he was a profound scholar, a man of vast compass of thought, imbued thoroughly with all ancient and modern learning, and able to master, to mould, to impregnate with his own intellectual power, his great and various acquisitions. He had not learned the superficial doctrine of a later day, that poetry flourishes most in an uncultivated soil, and that imagination shapes its brightest visions from the mists of a superstitious age; and he had no dread of accumulating knowledge, lest it should oppress and smother his genius. He was conscious of that within him, which could quicken all knowledge, and wield it with ease and might; which could give freshness to old truths, and harmony to discordant thoughts; which could bind together by living ties and mysterious affinities the most remote discoveries; and rear fabrics of glory and beauty from the rude materials which other minds had collected. Milton had that universality which marks the highest order of intellect. Though accustomed almost from infancy to drink at the fountains of classical literature, he had nothing of the pedantry and fastidiousness which disdain all other draughts. His healthy mind delighted in genius, on whatever soil or in whatever age it burst forth and poured out its fulness. He understood too well the rights, and dignity, and pride of creative imagination, to lay on it the laws of the Greek or Roman school. Parnassus was not to him the only holy ground of genius. He felt that poetry was as a universal presence. Great minds were every where his kindred. He felt the enchantment of Oriental fiction, surrendered himself to the strange creations of Araby the blest,' and delighted still more in the romantic spirit of chivalry, and in the tales of wonder in which it was embodied. Accordingly his poetry reminds us of the ocean, which adds to its own boundlessness contributions from all regions under heaven. Nor was it only in the department of imagination, that his acquisitions were vast. He travelled

over the whole field of knowledge, as far as it had then been explored. His various philological attainments were used to put him in possession of the wisdom stored in all countries, where the intellect had been cultivated. The natural philosophy, metaphysics, ethics, history, theology and political science of his own and former times, were familiar to him. Never was there a more unconfined mind, and we would cite Milton as a practical example of the benefits of that universal culture of intellect, which forms one distinction of our times, but which some dread as unfriendly to original thought. Let such remember, that mind is in its own nature diffusive. Its object is the universe, which is strictly one, or bound together by infinite connexions and correspondencies; and accordingly its natural progress is from one to another field of thought; and wherever original power, creative genius exists, the mind, far from being distracted or oppressed by the variety of its acquisitions, will see more and more common bearings and hidden and beautiful analogies in all the objects of knowledge, will see mutual light shed from truth to truth, and will compel, as with a kingly power, whatever it understands, to yield some tribute of proof, or illustration, or splendour, to whatever topic it would unfold.

Milton's fame rests chiefly on his poetry, and to this we naturally give our first attention. By those who are accustomed to speak of poetry as light readings, Milton's eminence in this sphere may be considered only as giving him a high rank among the contributors to public amusement. Not so thought Milton. Of all God's gifts of intellect, he esteemed poetical genius the most transcendent. He esteemed it in himself as a kind of inspiration, and wrote his great works with something of the conscious dignity of a prophet. We agree with Milton in his estimate of poetry. It seems to us the divinest of all arts; for it is the breathing or expression of that principle or sentiment, which is deepest and sublimest in human nature; we mean, of that thirst or aspiration, to which no mind is wholly a stranger, for something purer and lovelier, something more powerful, lofty, and thrilling than ordinary and real life affords. No doctrine is more common among Christians than that of man's immortality; but it is not so generally understood, that the germs or principles of his whole future being are now wrapped up in his soul, as the rudiments of the future plant in the seed. As a necessary result of this constitution, the soul, possessed and moved by these mighty though infant energies, is perpetually stretching beyond what is present and visible, struggling against the

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