Anagr. "Tuos Tecum ornasti. "While thus the dead in thy rare pages rise, Thine, with thyself, thou dost immortalize To view the odds, thy learned lives invite, But all succeeding ages shall despair, A fitting monument for thee to rear. Thy own rich pen (peace, silly Momus, peace!) Last of all we have two pages of solid Latin Hexameters, from the learned and able Dominie Henry Selyns, the most distinguished of the Dutch Reformed ministers, then in and about New York. In the Magnalia his name appears as Henricus Selijns, written thus, probably, because the Latin tongue has no letter y. Henry Selyns first came to these shores from Holland in 1660, and after a few years returned to his native land. But his loss was so much felt, and the desire for his presence, among the churches of his faith, in this country, was so great, that he came again, and remained till his death, in 1702. His Latin poem is full of learning, and was doubtless regarded as a master-piece. It closes thus: "Vive Liber, totique orbi, Miracula monstres, Quæ sunt extra Orbem. Cottone in sæcula vive; Now if all this had been a kind of fourth of July exhibition of fire works, in which the several pieces as soon as discharged, should throw a momentary glory over the occasion, and then pass off, in smoke, into universal space, nothing need be said. One of the distinguished literary men of Boston, of the present generation, recently received a complimentary breakfast, when, in letters, speeches, and songs, the saponaceous article, used on all such occasions, was freely and generously expended. That is all well enough, according to the tastes and customs of this world. But if the bright and witty recipient of these varied testimonials should carefully gather them all up, and publish them in the opening pages of his next volume, then the time would come for a free use of exclamation points. This is what was done in case of Mather's Magnalia. All these swelling lines, in prose and poetry, in Latin and English, were taken over with the manuscript to England, and made their appearance in the first edition of the work in 1702. That was an age of peduntry rather than poetry. It may not have occurred to Mr. Mather himself, or to the men of his gen. eration, that this was not exactly the thing to do, however ridiculous it now seems. But notwithstanding all the gro tesque sentences within the book, and in spite of this motley procession attending its birth; as has before been said, it is altogether the most valuable contribution, in the department of literature, which those early New England generations made to the future. In conclusion, it need only be said, that the aim of the writer, in the poetic selections made has been to give passages above the average, rather than below. Occasionally, a few lines have been chosen because they were unmistakably bad. But far more frequently the care has been to pick the best that met the eye. In the plan of the Article we stop with the close of the seventeenth century. The eighteenth century would present a much broader field and richer materials, especially toward its close. ARTICLE III.--EDWIN ARNOLD'S 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. Roberts Brothers, Boston. 12mo. 1880. THE little book before us has been the object of warm, and even passionate, admiration, as well as of sharp criticism. In the opinion of some, it is an epic of great power and the truest poem of the century; others regard it as a string of pretty words and phrases, covering a somewhat fascinating subject in a thin, and even an offensive, way. It is difficult to assign, upon two or three readings, its proper place in literature to a book whose tone is so fascinating as that of the book before us. So much depends upon expression for our first estimates of any work of art, that it is unsafe to write down at once among the permanent things a poem whose music has pleased us. Later revisions cling less to tone, and form, and color, and search more for bone, and sinew, and strength, the elements which look to eternity. One cannot at once get past Titian's tints. At the very first reading of Lycidas, its flow of music makes such sweet charm in the ear that it is hard to hear in it the uttered emotions of eternal feeling. That the Light of Asia is fascinating in style, any one may easily know who has read a half page of it. It will be difficult for a reader who has before him two hours of leisure when he takes it up, to drop it until he has finished the last line. It reminds you often of Moore, and even of Milton, of Titian, and Fra Angelico, and sometimes of Mendelssohn. You will find the color charms of Lalla Rookh, but the sensuousness of its most sensuous themes is delicate and refined beyond the pen of Moore. You will meet the landscapes of Claude Lorraine, with beautiful lakes shadowing in peaceful hearts more beauti ful heavens, the tripping flower and field descriptions of Dr. Holmes's Astræa, of the Lady of the Lake, and of the Waverly novels, the mellow rhythm of L'Allegro, and once or twice you will hear an echo from the symphonies and anthems of Haydn. It is given only to most acute criticism to judge at once of the true power of a book like this, other than of its fascinations of style, its fancies, and its music. For these things it will live, if for nothing else; but it will not be strange if the book takes hold of the present and of a long future, by a creative power of thought, which is the imagination of the inspired poets. Let me say farther that the style of the poem is not at all oriental; though dealing in oriental things, it is saturated with the thoughts and phrases, and inspirations of western civilization. But we are to deal chiefly with the philosophy of the book. It does not assume to bring much new learning to the analysis of Buddhism. Its prime authority is Mr. Spence Hardy. It assumes to go back of Buddhism to the Buddha, and it tells the story of his life and character and doctrine, in a sweet and winning way. It seems strange to believe that anything like a true Buddhist scholarship has existed in Christian nations for but a little more than thirty years. The spirit of western civilization worked on the surface of this great religion, which embraces 400,000,000 living adherents, until the present generation, when scientific methods of search and the development of comparative religion have carried the age to investigations which are yet far from complete, but which are more honest and useful than the earlier guesses, which gave us the vague notions of the system which formerly prevailed. In 1875 the Japanese government gave to the English government a complete set of the Buddhist sacred books, 2,000 volumes, in 103 cases or covers, tilling eleven shelves in the library of the India house, ten feet in length. Although the dimensions seem large, Mr. Müller says that the sacred writings proper contain but about twice as many letters as are found in the Bible. This is the Chinese canon, completed in the first century of our era, and claimed to be a reasonably fair re-production of the canon established under the patronage of King Asoka, by a council in the year 246 B. C. That this is such a re-production is not yet established by scholarship. There were three early councils to arrange the Tripitaka, which assumes to be the sayings of the Buddha, who wrote nothing himself, but whose sayings were preserved at these earliest councils by the testimony of his followers. Mr. Arnold dates the birth of this man, called by various titles, Gautama, the Buddha, Siddartha, and Sakya Muni, at 620, and his death at 563 B. C. His career is often fixed from 75 to 130 years later. The poem makes him the son of a king, in the borders of Nepaul His mother was Maya, Suddhôdana's queen. He was born of celestial quickening, surrounded by every conceivable luxury and thing of beauty, and designed by his royal father to be the king of kings, "of universal dominance," to "trample his enemies under foot." The strange circumstances of the child's birth, the boy's wonderful thoughtfulness, and his own dreams distressed his father, who feared he would forsake his home. Siddartha was kept in the presence fascinating and lovely, and in sight of everything which was of nothing else. But he got his first real glimpse of pain in a wounded swan, which his cousin's arrow brought from the air. "A wilful shaft, Which found the wide wing of the foremost swan, Broad-spread to glide upon the free blue road, So that it fell, the bitter arrow fixed, Bright scarlet blood-gouts staining the pure plumes." He caressed the bird and healed it. "Yet all so little knew the boy of pain, That curiously into his wrist he pressed The arrow's barb, and winced to feel it sting, And turned with tears to soothe his bird again." He had before witnessed the painful breath of the laboring steeds. In studying the beauties of nature he saw thorns: "but, looking deep, he saw The thorns which grow upon this rose of life : |