more true.

career of Napoleon. This is as rapid, as brief almost and eloquent, as one of Bonaparte's own bulletins, and much It constitutes a rough, red, vigorous chart of his fiery career, without professing to complete philosophically the analysis of his character. This task Emerson lately, in our hearing, accomplished with much ingenuity, His lecture was the portable essence of Napoleon. He indicated his points with the ease and precision of a lion-showman. Napoleon, to Emerson, apart from his splendid genius, is the representative of the faults and the virtues of the middle class of the age. We heard some of his auditors contend that he had drawn two portraits instead of one; but in fact Napoleon was two, if not more men. Indeed, if you draw first the bright and then the black side of any character, you have two beings, which the skin and brain of the one actual man can alone fully reconcile. The experience of every one demonstrates at the least a dualism, and who might not almost any day sit down and write a letter, objurgatory, or condoling, or congratulatory, to "my dear yesterday's self?" Each man, as well as Napoleon, forms a sort of Siamese twins-although, in his case, it was matter of thankfulness that the cord could not be cut. Two Napoleons at large had been too much.

Of Dr. Croly's book on the "Revelation" we have spoken formerly. Under the shadow of that inscrutable pyramid it stands, one of the loftiest attempts to scale its summit and explain its construction; but to us all such seem as yet ineffectual. A more favorable specimen of his thelogical writing is to be found in his volume of " Sermons" recently published. The public has reason to congratulate itself on the little squabble which led to their publication. Some conceited persons, it seems, had thought proper to accuse Dr. Croly of preaching sermons above the heads of his audience, and suggested greater simplicity; and, after a careful perusal of them, we would suggest, even without a public phrenological examination of those auditors' heads, that, whatever be their situation in life, they are, if unable to understand these discourses, incapable of their duties, are endangering the public, and should be remanded to school. Clearer, more neryous, and in the true sense of the term, simpler discourses, have not appeared for many years. Their style is in general

pure Saxon-their matter strong, manly, and his own--their figures always forcible, and never forced-their theology sound and scriptural--and would to God such sermons were being preached in every church and chapel throughout Britain! They might recall the many wanderers, who, with weary heart and foot, are seeking rest elsewhere in vain, and might counteract that current which is drawing away from the sanctuaries so much of the talent, the virtue, and the honesty of the land.

Dr. Croly, as a preacher, in his best manner, is faithfully represented in those discourses, particularly in his sermons on "Stephen," the "Theory of Martyrdom," and the "Productiveness of the Globe." We admire, in contrast with some modern and ancient monstrous absurdities to the contrary, his idea of God's purpose in making his universe-not merely to display his own glory, which, when interpreted, means just, like the stated purpose of Cæsar, to extend his own name, but to circulate his essence and image-to proclaim himself merciful, even through punishment—and even in hell-flames to write himself down Love, is surely, as Dr. Croly proclaims it," the chief end" of God! His sermon on Stephen is a noble picture-we had almost said a daguerreotype--of that first martyrdom. His "Productiveness of the Globe" is richer than it is original. His "Theory of Religion" is new, and strikingly illustrated. His notion is, that God, in three different dispensations-the Patriarchal, the Mosaic, and the Christian-has developed three grand thoughts: first, the being of God; secondly, in shadow, the doctrine of atonement; and thirdly, that of immortality. With this arrangement we are not entirely satisfied, but reserve our objections till the "conclusion of the whole matter," in the shape of three successive volumes on each of these periods, and the idea of each, has appeared, as we trust it speedily shall.

We depicted, some time since, in a periodical, our visit to Dr. Croly's chapel, and the impression made by his appearance, and the part of his discourse we heard. It seemed to us a shame to see the most accomplished clergyman in London preaching to so thin an audience; but perhaps it is accounted for partly by the strictness of his Conservative

principles. and partly by the stupid prejudice which exists against all literary divines.

We are sorry we cannot, ere we conclude, supply any particulars about his history. Of its details we are altoge ther ignorant. In conversation, he is described as powerful and commanding. Hogg, the Ettrick Shepherd, we remember, describes him as rather disposed to take the lead, but so exceedingly intelligent that you entirely forgive him. has been, as a literary man, rather solitary and self asserting -has never properly belonged to any clique or coterieand seems to possess an austere and somewhat exclusive standard of taste.

It is to us, and must be to the Christian world, a delightful thought, to find such a man devoting the maturity of his mind to labors peculiarly professional; and every one who has the cause of religion at heart must wish him God speed in his present researches. Religion has in its abyss treasures yet unsounded and unsunned, though strong must be the hand, and true the eye, and retentive the breath, and daring yet reverent the spirit of their successful explorerand such we believe to be qualities possessed by Dr. Croly.

SIR EDWARD BULWER LYTTON.

PERHAPS the leading authors of the age may be divided into three classes. 1st, Those who have written avowedly and entirely for the few. 2ndly, Those who have written principally for the many. And, 3dly, Those who have sought their audience in both classes, and have succeeded in forming, to some extent, at once an exoteric and an esoteric school of admirers. Of the first class, Coleridge and Wordsworth are the most distinguished specimens. Scott and Dickens stand at the head of the second; and Byron and Bulwer are facile principes of the third. Both these last named writers commenced their career by appealing to the sympathies of the multitude; but by and by, either satiated by their too easy success, or driven

onward by the rapid and gigantic progress of their own minds, they aimed at higher things, and sought, nor sought in vain, a more select audience. Byron's mind, in itself essentially unspeculative, was forced upwards upon those rugged and dangerous tracts of thought, where he has gathered the rarest of his beauties, by intimacy with Shelley, by envious emulation of his Lake contemporaries, and, above all, by the pale hand of his misery, unveiling to him heights and depths in his nature and genius, which were previously unknown and unsuspected, and beckoning him onward through their grim and shadowy regions. He grew, at once, and equally, in guilt, misery, and power. An intruder, too, on domains where some other thinkers had long fixed their calm and permanent dwelling, his appearance was the more startling. Here was a dandy discussing the great questions of natural and moral evil; a roué in silk stockings meditating suicide and mouthing blasphemy on an Alpine rock; a brilliant and popular wit and poet, setting Spinoza to music, and satirizing the principalities and powers of heaven, as bitterly as he had done the bards and reviewers of earth. Into those giddy and terrible heights where Milton had entered a permitted guest, in "privilege of virtue;" where Goethe had walked in like a passionless and prying cherub, forgetting to worship in his absorbing desire to know; and on which Shelley was wrecked and stranded, in the storm of his fanatical unbelief; Byron is upborne by the presumption and the despair of his mental misery. Unable to see through the high walls which bound and beset our limited faculties and little life, he can at least dash his head against them. Hence, in " Manfred," "Cain," "Heaven and Earth,” and "The Vision of Judgment," we have him calling upon the higher minds of his age to be as miserable as he was, just as he had in his first poems addressed the same sad message, less energetically, and less earnestly, to the community at large. And were it not unspeakably painful to contemplate a noble mind engaged in this profitless "apostleship of affliction," this thankless gospel of proclamation to men, that because they are miserable, it is their duty to become more so; that because they are bad, they are bound to be worse; we might be moved to laughter by its striking resemblance to the old story of the fox who had lost his tail.

In the career of Bulwer, we find a faint yet traceable resemblance to that of Byron. Like him he began with wit, satire, and persiflage. Like him, he affected, for a season, a melodramatic earnestness. Like him, he was at last stung into genuine sincerity, and shot upwards into a higher sphere of thought and feeling. The three periods in Byron's history are distinctly marked by the three works, "English Bards." "Childe Harold," and "Cain." So "Pelham," "Eugene Aram," and "Zanoni," accurately mete out the stages in Bulwer's progress. Minor points of resemblance might be noted between the pair. Both sprung from the aristocracy; and one, at least, was prouder of what he deduced from Norman blood, than from nature. Bulwer, like Byron, is a distinguished dandy. Like him, too, he has been separated from his wife; like him, he is liberal in his politics. And while Byron, by way of doing penance, threw his jaded system into the Greek war, Bulwer has with better result leaped into a tub of cold water!

With

Point and brilliance are at once perceived to be the leading qualities of Bulwer's writing. His style is vicious from excess of virtue, weak from repletion of strength. Every word is a point, every clause a beauty, the close of every sentence a climax. He is as sedulous of his every stroke, as if the effect of the whole depended upon it. His pages are all sparkling with minute and insulated splendors; not suffused with a uniform and sober glow, nor shown in the reflected light of a few solitary and surpassing beauties. Some writers peril their reputation upon one long difficult leap, and, it accomplished, walk on at their leisure. others, writing is a succession of hops, steps, and jumps. This in general is productive of a feeling of tedium. It teases and fatigues the mind of the reader. It is like crying perpetually upon a hearer, who is attending with all his might, to attend more carefully. It at once wearies and provokes, insults the reader, and betrays a certain weakness on the part of the author. If in Bulwer's writings we weary less than in others, it is owing to the artistic skill with which he intermingles his points of humor with those of sententious reflection or vivid narrative. All is point: but the point perpetually varies from gay to grave, from lively to severe;" including in it raillery and reasoning, light dialogue