sacrifice through the decree of the Council of Trent, in the article on the propitiatory sacrifice of the Mass. And truly Christ's promise to his church never shone forth more brightly than at this crisis! • The ideas of the church, the sacraments, the priesthood, and sacrifice having thus been gradually corrupted, it would be hard to visit this corruption upon one of the elements in the constitution of the church. It would be absurd even to attribute this corruption to any or all of the elements of that constitution. It is true, the bishop became and for a long time continued to be the means of strangling the life of the church in her convulsive, but vital movements. But in that state of things any government might have done the same ; at all events, to proscribe episcopacy on that account would be even worse than to proscribe royalty on similar grounds. * But I go further still : I maintain that no TolitikÒs dvip, I mean nobody who understands really and practically the Christian polity (Toliteia), the terrestrial necessities of God's kingdom on earth, will believe that we can manifest and maintain and render efficient the catholic element of a national church without the form of episcopacy, in its primitive character, as I have attempted before to define it, which (as to its purely disciplinary, not dogmatical, intention) may probably be an apostolical institution.-pp. xl. xliv. If this extract has appeared long, let our readers understand that it is the germ of Bunsen's entire theory, the text to which his entire book is related either as commentary or application. We conceive that this text is open to reflections of a very different bearing from those which he has deduced from it, and we shall attempt to show that it is so. In doing this we shall of necessity give prominence to the leading arguments which appear in subsequent parts of the work. The first thing which arrests attention in this extract, is the character of the defence set up for episcopacy. The only tenable ground,' to quote Bunsen's own cmphatic words, is that of expediency. The divine right of prelacy is carefully passed by. Bunsen even intimates that the arguments produced to prove the existence of episcopacy (prelacy] before the decease of the last surviving apostle' are bad. These italics again are his own. And he defends the episcopate on two grounds: one, which he calls the constitutional-its abolition would endanger • the soundness of the church's life, and expose her to despotism • from within or from without;' a second, that the catholic element of a national church cannot be manifested, maintained, and rendered efficient without the form of episcopacy. To these arguments we shall return presently. Another peculiarity which suggests itself to our mind, in connexion with the preceding extract, is, that an institute which our author dares not assert to be apostolical in its origin, though he NO. XII. L L a faintly hints at last, and in striking contrast to his previous admission already quoted, that it may probably (as to its purely disciplinary, not dogmatical intention) be such, should yet be considered by him as the basis of truly apostolical institutions. This is a style of argument to which we need not attempt a reply. There is a third consideration which we cannot refrain from offering in this extract as it stands—we mean the concession which Dr. Bunsen voluntarily makes respecting the working of the episcopal or prelatical system. Arguments, and the more especially when they are founded only on expediency, had need be very preponderant in favour of a system which, by an easy abuse, paved the way for the despotism of the popes.' It should, we think, be shown (whether it can be so, let the history of the church and of the world decide) that prelatical despotism is either less probable or less hurtful than any other to which the church is exposed; and whether this is an easy problem or otherwise may be to some extent inferred from another concession of our author, that it is true, the bishop became, and for a long * time continued to be, the means of strangling the life of the church in her convulsive but vital movements. We should now return to the argument touched upon in our first remark, but that justice to the author requires us first to notice some additional observations which bis letter contains on Mr. Gladstone's estimate of episcopacy. The extract we have given comprised, in brief, Dr. Bunsen's defence of episcopacy. The observations which follow show, in harmony with the first paragraph of that extract, how limited is the episcopacy which our author would venture to defend. He says ' Allow me to add, in a few words, in what way and for what reasons, I do and ever shall protest against another, and widely different view of episcopacy, and its absolute right. Let a church like that of England assert apologetically, if she please, through some of her unauthorized organs, although it may be by fathers and luminaries, that the apostolic succession of Christ's appointed ministers . is only manifest and efficient if it includes episcopacy. At all events, this does not mean that that succession is identical with episcopal succession.'-p. xlv. ‘But if at any place or time episcopacy is to be made the badge of Churchmembership, not constitutionally and nationally, (which is a lawful act of national sovereignty,) but on principle and catholically if the church, as manifesting herself and existing through episcopacy, is to take the place of Christ and the Spirit, who alone can give real churchmembership, because new life, (that is, filial thankfulness and self-devotion springing out of the divinely free will which God has set free, instead of the feeling of accursedness and despair which re sult from the bondage of self):—if covenanted salvation is to be made dependent upon this episcopacy, then I think the deathblow is aimed at that church's inmost life, the eternal decree of condemnation is passed upon her, unless she repent. For she is seeking salvation in man and not in God, in the "beggarly elements of this world,” and not in the divine Spirit, the source of all life, and the sole deliverer from death and corruption: she is attacking " the glorious liberty of the children of God," of Christ's redeemed, the newborn, the native citizens of the Lord's kingdom : she is crucifying Christ, and practically denying the merits of His sacrifice. ... If an angel from heaven should manifest to me, that by introducing, or advocating, or merely favouring the introduction of such an episcopacy into any part of Germany, I should not only make the German nation glorious and powerful above all the nations of the world, but should successfully combat the unbelief, pantheism, and atheism of the day, I would not do it: so help me God. Amen -We may be doomed to perish, church and state ; but we must not be saved and cannot be saved by seeking life in externals.'Pp. xlvi. xlyii. The candour and earnestness evinced in these explanations must strike the least observant reader. The explanations themselves also show how widely the episcopacy which Dr. Bunsen favours, differs from that which had been advocated in the well-known publication of his friend. Mr. Gladstone, in the closing letter of this correspondence, acknowledges that he is tied and bound by his own conscientious conviction, and by • testimony borne in the face of the world, to a theory of episcopacy • and of the visible church' quite incompatible with this. But we must remember that we have to investigate the two grounds on which Dr. Bunsen has erected his theory. His first ground is what he calls the constitutional. As first stated, it amounts to this: the preservation of episcopacy is necessary to the safety of the church. But this supposes its previous establishment. What then does Dr. Bunsen mean? Doer, he refer to those communions only which, at the time of the Reformation, retained the episcopacy which they had received from the earlier and middle ages? This can hardly be, since one main object of his book is to pave the way for the establishment of episcopacy in the Lutheran and Reformed Churches of Germany. Chapter IV. is in fact headed the principles necessary, . to the complete restoration of an Evangelical Church polity' We must confess our inability to discover his meaning in this place. If he refers to those communions only which have retained the ancient (though not primitive) episcopacy, and means to say that their episcopacy cannot be abolished without endangering their existence as state churches, we have no difference with him. We believe that those communions are constitution 6 never yet been able to charm the public-he has never produced anything like Mariana at the Moated Grange,' 'Locksley Hall,' Ulysses,' Enone,' 'Godiva,' or the Miller's Daughter,' (we mention those least resembling each other,) with which Tennyson has built himself a name. Nor do we anticipate that he will ever do so. He has now been some years before the public, and in various characters. His first poem, which (unlucky circumstance!) is still regarded as his best, was Paracelsus. We well remember its appearance, and the attention it drew on the new poet, who, being young, was held destined to achieve great things. As a first work, it was assuredly remarkable. It had good thoughts, clear imagery, genuine original speech, touches of simple pathos, caprices of fancy, and a power of composition which made one hope that more experience and practice would ripen him into a distinguished poet. There were two objections, which occurred to us at the time. We did not lay much stress upon them, as the author was evidently young. Age and practice, we thought, would certainly remove them. They were the sort of faults most likely to be found in youthful works-viz., a great mistake in the choice of subject, and an abruptness, harshness, and inelegance of versification. It was pardonable in a young man to make a quack his hero; it looked a paradox, tempting to wilful and skilful ingenuity. On the other hand, it also betokened, or seemed to betoken, a want of proper earnestness and rectitude of mind—a love rather of the extraordinary than of the true. Paracelsus was not the hero a young man should have chosen; and yet one felt that he was just the hero a young man would choose. It seems to us that what this betokened has come to pass, and that in his subsequent works we have, if not the same fault, yet a fault which springs, we take it, from the same source. His conceptions are either false or feeble. In the work which succeeded Paracelsus,' we noted a repetition of the very error itself-viz., in the attempt to idealize into a hero that great but desperate Strafford, the wicked earl,' as he was called, and as his actions prove him. Meanwhile the other fault-that, namely, of harshness and abruptness-was carried almost to a ridiculous extent; the language was spasmodic, and tortured almost into the style of Alfred Jingle, Esq., in Pickwick, as the Edinburgh Reviewer remarked at the time. Next, after an interval of two or three years, if our memory serves us, came Sordello. What the merit or demerit of conception in that poem may be, no one can presume to say; for except the author himself and the printer's reader (in the course of duty), no earthly being ever toiled through that work. Walking on a new-ploughed field of damp clayey soil, would be skating compared to it. Even his staunchest admirers could say nothing to Sordello. Great as is the relish for the obscure and the involved in some minds, there was no one found to listen to these Sybilline incoherences. Other dealers in the obscure have at least charmed the ear with a drowsy music, but Sordello's music was too grating and cacophonous to admit of the least repose. Whether Brown ing is to this day convinced of his mistake we know not, but to our ever-renewed surprise we often see Sordello advertised. That he has not burnt every copy he could by any means lay hands on, is to be explained only upon the principle which makes a mother cherish more fondly the reprobate or the cripple of her family. This much, at any rate, is significant; he has ventured on no such experiment on the public patience since Sordello. The subsequent poems here collected, as Bells and Pomegranates, are always readable, if not often musical, and are not insults to our ears. But, as we hinted, the old objections still remain. He has not yet learned to take due pains with his subject, nor to write clearly and musically. It appears as if he sat down to write poetry without the least preparation; that the first subject which presented itself was accepted, as if any canvass was good enough to be embroidered upon. And respecting his versification, it appears as if he consulted his own ease more than the reader's; and if by any arbitrary distribution of accents he could make the verse satisfy his own ear, it must necessarily satisfy the ear of another. At the same time, he occasionally pours forth a strain of real melody, and always exhibits great powers of rhyming. One of the most evenly written of his pieces happens to be a great favourite of ours, and we quote it here for the sake of its manful, sorrowful reproaches. THE LOST LEADER. I. 'Just for a handful of silver he left us, Got the one gift of which fortune bereft us, How all our copper had gone for his service! Rags-were they purple, his heart had been proud! Learned his great language, caught his clear accents, |