The Quarterly Reviews and Blackwood's Magazine. The Leonard Scott Publishing Co., 41 Barclay St., N. Y., Continue their authorized reprints of THE FOUR LEADING QUARTERLY REVIEWS: EDINBURGH REVIEW, (Whig), LONDON QUARTERLY REVIEW, (Conservative), WESTMINSTER REVIEW, (Liberal), BRITISH QUARTERLY REVIEW, (Evangelical), The Reprints of the Four Leading Quarterly Reviews and Blackwood's Magazine, which have been established in this country for nearly half a century, are regularly published by The Leonard Scott Publishing Company, 41 Barclay St., N. Y., as soon after the receipt of the sheets from abroad as the printers can do the work. The Leonard Scott Pub. Co. are the legitimate successors of the founders of this series, which from the outset up to the present time has been received with favor by the press and the public generally, on the ground of presenting the best foreign periodicals in a convenient form and at a reasonable price, without abridgment or alteration. 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No premiums given to clubs. Circulars with further particulars may be had on application. THE LEONARD SCOTT PUBLISHING CO., 41 Barclay St., New York. NEW SERIES.-BI-MONTHLY. THE NEW ENGLANDER. NOVEMBER, 1880. VOL. III.-No. 18. NULLIUS ADDICTUS JURARE IN VERBA MAGISTRI. AGENTS: AMERICAN NEWS CO., 39 & 41 CHAMBERS ST., NEW YORK CITY. M. SAFFORD & CO., NORWICH, CONN. A. WILLIAMS & CO., 283 WASHINGTON ST., BOSTON, MASS. NEW HAVEN: W. L. KINGSLEY, PROPRIETOR AND PUBLISHER. TUTTLE, MOREHouse, and TAYLOR, PRINTERS. THE NEW ENGLANDER. No. CLVII. NOVEMBER, 1880. ARTICLE I.-THE LIGHT OF ASIA. The Light of Asia; or the Great Renunciation, being the life and teaching of Gautama, Prince of India and founder of Buddhism. (As told in verse by an Indian Buddhist.) By EDWIN ARNOLD, M. A. Boston: Roberts Brothers. 12mo, 1880. THE poem by Edwin Arnold, bearing the above title, made its appearance in England in July, 1879, and was brought out for the American market by Roberts Brothers, of Boston, in the early part of the present year. It is a very brilliant production. In the rich and easy flow of its verse, its grace of language and its rare felicities of thought and expression, it deserves, perhaps, all the praise which it has so freely received. Ever since the poem was first heralded to the world, there has been, somehow, floating in the air, on both sides the water, the idea that it was not simply a beautiful poem, but a revelation of a gospel older than Christianity, and from which Christianity itself may have been copied. Mr. Arnold says nothing of this, directly. His statement in his preface is sufficiently modest, and is as follows: "In the following poem, I have sought, by the medium of an imaginary Buddhist votary, to depict the life and character, and indicate the philosophy of that noble hero and reformer, Prince Gautama of India, the founder of Buddhism." That is all as if the author had no design, beyond that of telling a strange and remarkable story of the ancient years. But Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, who hastened to write a review of the book, and who may be supposed as capable as any one of understanding its esoteric meaning, opens his article in the International Review, after the following manner. "If one were told that many centuries ago a celestial ray shone into the body of a sleeping woman, as it seemed to her in her dream; that thereupon the advent of a wondrous child was predicted by the soothsayers; that angels appeared at this child's birth; that merchants came from afar, bearing gifts to him; that an ancient saint recognized the babe as divine and fell at his feet and worshiped him; that in his eighth year the child confounded his teachers with the amount of his knowledge, still showing them due reverence, that he grew up full of compassionate tenderness to all that lived and suffered; that to help his fellow creatures he sacrificed every worldly prospect and enjoyment; that he went through the ordeal of a terrible temptation, in which all the powers of evil were let loose upon him, and came out conqueror over them all; that he preached holiness and practiced charity; that he gathered disciples and sent out apostles who spread his doctrines over many lands and peoples; that this 'Helper of the Worlds' could claim a more than earthly lineage and a life that dated long before Abraham was, of whom would he think this wonderful tale was told? Would he not say at once that this must be another version of the story of One who came upon our earth in a Syrian village, during the reign of Augustus Cæsar, and died by violence during the reign of Tiberius? What would he say if he were told that the narrative was between five and six centuries older than that of the Founder of Christianity? Such is the story of this poem." Dr. Holmes has here drawn out in fine array, some of the striking parallelisms, or supposed parallelisms between the story of Gautama, founder of Buddhism, and the Christ of the New Testament. He has set forth these resemblances in a light quite as strong as they will bear, while he is silent as to all the contrasts and discrepancies between the two stories. The singular coincidences, linking the two narratives together, have long been known |