looked towards her, as if he could take delight in none but her, while she, on the other hand, continued graciously playing with him, embracing him, and cherishing him with her heavenly lips,"

&c.

As regards the circumstances attending the nativity of Christ, we are told

that

"We may suppose Saint Joseph, who was by profession a carpenter, might probably have made a partition or small enclosure for the little party. . . and taking what hay he could find in the manger, diligently spread it at our Lady's feet... Hence the ox and the ass, kneeling down, and laying their heads over the manger, gently breathed upon him, as if endued with reason, and sensible that the blessed infant stood in need of their assistance to warm and cherish him... Joseph likewise worshipped him; after which he stripped the ass of his saddle, and separating the pillion from it, placed it near the manger of the blessed Virgin, to sit on; but she, seating herself with her face towards the manger, made use of that homely cushion for support. In this posture our Lady remained some time immovable, gazing on the manger," &c.

At the Circumcision :

"Among other things was this, which has not hitherto been mentioned, that his blessed mother, when she laid him in the manger, having no pillow with which to raise his head, made use for that purpose of a stone, which it is not unlikely she may have covered with hay. This I had from a devout brother, who said it in spirit! A cushion or pillow, we may very piously imagine, would much rather have been her choice, had she possessed one."

Then again, at the Offering: "What do you think the Virgin did with all this quantity of valuable gold? Did she hoard it up, or put it out on usury? Did she lay it out in the purchase of houses? No; she was too great a lover of poverty for that. In her zeal for that blessed estate, and with her intimate knowledge of her son's will, both revealed to her within, and exhibited by infallible tokens without (since perhaps he turned away his eyes from the gold as if with aversion), she expended the whole, as I judge, in a few days, for the use of the poor, for it was distressing for her to have such a sum in her possession," &c.

During their sojourn in Egypt: "Whence did they procure a subsistence for so long a period? Do you suppose

that they passed their time a-begging? No. We are told by several sacred writers how ingenious, as well as industrious, our blessed Lady was at her needle and distaff, and that she was extremely diligent in working for the support of her beloved son and spouse. This queenly Virgin was so in love with poverty, that she passed her time in sewing and spinning. . . . And when Jesus came to be about five years of age, may we not devoutly believe that he carried messages for his mother, going about in quest of work for her, for what other page can we suppose she had? And did he not also carry back the work when done, and in his mother's behalf ask at least for half of the price, and receive payment."

On the return from Egypt:

"They had given notice throughout the neighbourhood some days before of their intention to depart, that they might not seem to steal away in a clandestine manner, which might have looked suspicious. . . . One of the company, who happened to be rich, called the child Jesus to him, and bestowed a few pence upon him, The holy child is not a little abashed, yet, out of love to poverty, he holds out his little hands, and takes the money, for which he returns thanks !'"'

And after this:

"As he grew up from his twelfth to his thirtieth year, he was not remarkable for any actions which in the eyes of the world bore any appearance of manly worth. They were greatly astonished, and laughed at him, calling him an useless fellow, an idiot, a nobody, a youth of no sense and spirit; neither did he apply to any learning, so that it became a kind of proverb to say, that he was but a grown-up child," &c.

In the Temptation in the Wilder

ness:

"The angels say, 'What wilt thou that we prepare for thee?' To which he replies, Go to my dearest mother, and if she have anything at hand, bear it to me; for of no food do I so gladly partake as of that which she prepares. Then two of the number set out, and in a moment are with her. They respectfully salute her, and bring a mess of pottage, which she had got ready for Joseph and herself, and a piece of bread, with a linen cloth, and other necessaries. Perhaps, too, our Lady procured, if she could, a small fish or two," &c.

Again:

"Though it was uncertain whose mar

riage it was at Cana of Galilee, let us, for meditation sake, suppose it to have been that of St. John the Evangelist, which St. Jerome seems to affirm.... And our Lady going out to her son, who was humbly sitting, as I have said, at the end of the table, near the door of the room, she said, to him, 'My son, there is no wine, and our sister is poor, and I know not where we shall get any.' We may gather from her taking notice herself of the want of wine, that she was not there in the character of a guest, but as one who had the management of the entertainment, and observed the want of wine. Had she been sitting among the women, would she have observed the want of wine? And therefore it is probable that she was not there as a guest, but that she was engaged in arranging the entertainment, for we are told often that she was ever attentive in helping others," &c.

We must make an end somewhere, and, as these quotations are sufficient, let it be in this place; and all we need add is, that besides the extreme impropriety of the design, nothing can well exceed the ignorance of the execution. The whole account of the manger, of the hay, and of the lowest place in the room being near the door, shows an entire want of knowledge of Oriental customs and observances, such as would of itself unfit the author for his task, and has filled his work with errors of various kinds. To those who

know the manners of the East, we need hardly point out the monstrous absurdity of the observations made on the Wise Men's offering of Gold,none of which, we think, will come into the pocket of the publisher.

On Holy Virginity; with a brief account of the Life of St. Ambrose. By A. J. Christie, Fellow of Oriel Coll. Oxford.

THE dedication of this little work is as follows: In honorem beatissimæ et gloriosissimæ superque Virginis Mariæ Collegii Orielensis apud Oxonienses Patronæ istum libellum in lucem profero. J. C." We must give one extract from the author's preface, as showing his view on the subject, and how closely it agrees with the work which he translates.

"That the grace of holy virginity is a very great gift no Christian who receives the testimony of Holy Scripture can doubt. Some are so highly favoured as GENT. MAG. VOL. XXIII.

to possess this gift from their mother's womb; but those who are not so blest need not despair of being made worthy of it; for, if there be an earnest mind, God is faithful, and will not suffer us to be tempted above that we are able, but will with the temptation make a way to escape, that we may be able to bear it. In the present state of the Anglican Church it may be harder to acquire than elsewhere, still the means are the same as ever they were, and they are such as these: absti nence from the company of the other sex; that covenant with the eyes, spoken of by the patriarch Job; obedience to the Church's rules of fasting, together with a general low diet; an earnest coveting of that most excellent gift of chastity, making it a subject of perpetual prayer; and (would that it could be added with the hope of being practised) frequent confession. One more consideration may be added, namely, the habitual contemplation of the chastity of our blessed Lord himself, and of his holy mother. If we find few external helps in the present external provisions of our Church, if our churches are closed against us, and the blessed Eucharist, where we are made one with the virgin body of our Lord, is rarely celebrated, we must endeavour to fulfil the Church's requirements in private; and, so doing, we shall gain time for prayer, and be able, the more we renounce the world, to prevail with God to make up to us the disadSince then vantages under which we lie. holy virginity is, as all must admit, a great grace, wherever it is possessed, so it is equally clear that to certain persons it is in some sense a duty. It would plainly be a duty in those who are described by our Lord as Eunuchs which were so born from their mother's womb;' and in another sense it is ecclesiastically and in the abstract the duty of the clergy,† not indeed by divine obligation, but by the unvarying practice and reported decrees of

It

councils from the earliest times down to the division in the Western Church. is, indeed, difficult to say how far in the Anglican Communion modern habits may, under the reformation of the canons, be excusable, or even in particular cases

proper.

The enforcement of a rule specially suited to a pure and self-denying Church may be inexpedient at a time when comfort is the idol which we worship. It is plain, too, that women are entitled to a share in the offices of the Church in visiting the poor, ministering to the sick, and instructing the young: offices from which they might be in a great measure debarred now that celibacy in the clergy is not recognised as the rule, until, which is most to be desired, sisterhood shall again be formed by pious virgins, and endowed by the wealthy of the land. However, a Church where there is so much to justify the infraction of such important rules appertaining to the clergy, must needs be a Church in sackcloth; or, if not, ought to be. And it is but too plain that, with the loss of celibacy in the clergy, we have also lost the daily sacrifice, which elsewhere is retained, and which is so entirely connected with the former...... Peradventure, when the daily sacrifice is restored to us, the discretion of our clergy will lead them to judge that a life of selfdenying continence serves better to god. liness than that course of life to which their inclinations may dispose them," &c.

In St. Ambrose's Treatise on Holy Virginity, which follows the preface from which we have quoted, the following curious passage occurs (the date of the treatise from which it is taken being about A.D. 393):

"These haughty daughters of England,

who walk with outstretched neck and wanton eyes, walking and mincing as they go, despise the degraded and wretched woman whom deceit has lured or agonizing poverty has driven from the path of virtue, think you that their virtue would be proof, if the fear of public infamy were withdrawn, against the deed of sin, when now so many acts imply that the thought of sin is no stranger to their minds ?" &c.

It is the pious intention of the translator that the profits of this edition should be given towards the liquidation of the debt on Great Haseley church.

the events more surprising than in the ordinary circumstances of life, yet at the same time natural; the characters more strongly marked and distinctly separated than we meet with in the common intercourse of society, while both characters and incidents should group around one common centre of interest. We think this has been effected by the author of the present novel. There is such a contrast of characters as gives life and spirit to the tale-as between Hildebrand and Don Felix, and between Sir Edgar and Shedlock, while a somewhat difficult ducing a real person, and one no less task is successfully achieved of introthan Sir Walter Raleigh, among the fictitious ones, without throwing them into shadow and indistinctness by his superior prominence and splendour. This is one of the great difficulties which the modern historical novel has introduced, and perhaps succeeded in overcoming.

The character of the heroine, which is always of great effect in the plot of a novel, and which if not pleasing mars the success of the other parts, is well and delicately drawn. As regards another personage of foremost interest, we mean Donna Inez, we do not ask how it was that Hildebrand never recognised her under Rafaele, (though we did from the the assumed garb and name of Don first,) because such disguises and dramatic allowances as that have been granted from time immemorial, and which are impenetrable only to the person who ought to see through them the clearest; but the only doubt in our minds is, whether we are quite satisfied with the melancholy termination of her history; whether her great devotion, her pure disinterested love to Hildebrand, her noble courage and generous relinquishment of everything in fame and fortune that is dear to woman for his sake, did not deserve a happier fate. We do not know how it was to be achieved amid the surrounding difficulties of the plot; but that is the author's business, not ours: however, we must say that it is the only one point in the whole web of fiction that we are not entirely satisfied with; and we grant that, when in real or fabulous life two ladies are equally in love with one gentleman, and as that gentleman has not a

duality of person to bestow on his fair admirers, it is extremely difficult to bring the matter to a satisfactory conclusion; unless, indeed, a third steps in to cut the knot which cannot be untied. We are obliged, for want of space, to pass over any particular detail of the other personages, which appear to conduct and vary the story; but there is nothing in the design and execution of any part but what is very creditable to the author's talents. We think in the next edition that some little improvement might be made in softening down the sudden surprises and, as it were, abrupt starts in the narrative, and making it flow a little more evenly; but these are slight observations, and we must conclude by observing that any of our readers will be well repaid by themselves following the course of a narrative which we have not time to detail, but on parts of which we have made a few scattered observations.

Researches on Light. By Robert Hunt. THIS work contains an examination of all the phenomena connected with the chemical and molecular changes produced by the influence of the solar rays, and also embraces all the known photographic processes and new discoveries in the art: indeed it is the first history of photography that has been published. It is executed with great knowledge of the subject, and is full of interest. The plan of it is as follows: After an introductory chapter on the progress of the inquiry, previous to the discoveries of Mr. F. Talbot and Mr. Daguerre, and on the decomposition of light by the prism, the influence of the solar rays is considered on metallic compound bodies with reference to their photographic application, as silver, gold, platinum, mercury, &c. then on vegetable substances and on the colour of flowers. In the second part is considered the influence of the solar rays on vital organisation, and on simple inorganic bodies; on the germination of seeds, and the aeration of plants. The second section of this part is particularly curious, consisting of four chapters on phosphorism-influence of the solar rays on chemical combination-magnetory power of the solar rays-and thermography; an examination of all

the phenomena connected with the supposed radiation of light in absolute darkness. Such is a rude outline of the substance of this work; but it conveys no idea of the vastness of curious philosophical reasoning to be found in it; among which will be remarked the discovery of a new elementary principle, which the author calls energia, (vide p. 269,) and which he would add as a fourth to the three imponderable elements-light, heat, and electricity.

It is that

Light, heat, and energia are the three principles, or the modifications of an elementary first principle, detected in the solar rays; the first acting on the organs of vision, and enabling us to distinguish external objects, and giving colour to all. The second is that principle which regulates the solid, liquid, or gaseous states of matter, and which maintains this planet in the condition which is essential to the well-being of its inhabitants; and the third, energia, that power which effects all the changes, whether chemical or molecular, which are constantly in progress. agent which is for ever quickening all the elements of growth, and maintaining the conditions of a healthful vitality; and it is no less energetically employed in the processes of corruption, which, indeed, are no other than the necessary changes of matter in its progress from one state of organization to another. "There are several questions," the author observes, "ofthe greatest importance which remain for the investigation of philosophers; among them the most important are the following:-is energia absorbed by material bodies? Does it influence their internal constitution? Is it radiated from bodies in the dark? or at all concerned in the production of any of those changes which have been attributed to dark rays? and lastly, is this power at all connected with the production of the phenomena of electricity?" At present the question is involved in much obscurity, but if we regard the elements of the solar rays as distinct in character, though mostly connected in action, until we can prove them to be identical, we shall free it from a large amount of that complexity which has been thrown around it, by endeavouring to reconcile the chemical

action of this energia with the undulating theory of light, &c.

The Thornton Romances. The Early English Metrical Romances of Perceval, Isumbras, Eglamour, and Degrevante. Selected from MSS. at Lincoln and Cambridge. Edited by James Orchard Halliwell, Esq. F.R.S. &c. (Printed for the Camden Society.)

THIS is a very seasonable and interesting volume; and the Members of the Camden Society are under no trifling obligation to Mr. Halliwell, for the pains he has taken in so carefully preparing for the press the four curious and valuable Romances which

it contains.

Of these Romances, that of Perceval is of European interest, the first authorship of which is attributed to Kyot or Guiot of Provence, whose work no longer exists, except in the Norman version of Chrestien de Troyes, who again is accused by Wolfram von Eschenbach, the author of the German Perceval, of spoiling the story. Goerres and other German critics regard the original Perceval as the commencement, and not the least important portion, of that mystic cycle of romance on the subject of the "Holy Graal," of which Titurel forms the very centre or jewel; and which is completed by the Lohengrin. With this, however, the English Romance has little to do, for in it the great work of Chrestien (upwards of 20,000 lines) is reduced to about one tenth of the size, while the story is oc

This Romance is printed from the Thornton MS. at Lincoln; as is also the second Romance, Sir Isumbras, of which an edition was printed by Copland and reprinted by Mr. Utterson. The next Romance, Sir Eglamour, elegantly analysed by the late George Ellis in his Early English Metrical Romances," is here printed from a Cambridge manuscript. This is the case also with Sir Degrevant, the fourth and last, and in many respects most interesting, in the collection. It is certainly unequalled for the glimpses which it affords us of the manners of the times, and the state of society at the period when it was written. Had the work been published with miniated pictures, such as perhaps existed in some copies of the MSS. of this Romance, it could scarcely have afforded us such vivid pictures of the costume, architecture, cookery, and domestic arrangements, such minute touches of every-day life, as are furnished by the musical and frequently alliterative verses of the author. As a representation of manners, a sketch of society, it is really unrivalled; while it exhibits no few traces of the hand of an artist and the feeling of a poet. Surely there is something exquisitely pathetic in the following confession of his love, which Degrevant makes to his 'squire, and in his avowal that he loved the lady "for herself alane."