Draw back thy golden rein, and tell my woes Who nursed me at her bosom, my poor mother! We shall be friends hereafter. 'Tis the DAY, Present and breathing round me, and the car Of my dear household-hearth-and thou, bright Athens, I loved ye as my fosterers-fare ye well! Take in these words, the last earth hears from Ajax- I'll whisper to the dead! We cannot resist the pleasure of annexing another specimen of criticism on a well-known stroke of art in the Electra :— At length the pretended Phocians enter, bearing the supposed ashes of Orestes; the chief of the train addresses himself to Electra, and this is the most dramatic and touching scene in the whole tragedy. When the urn containing, as she believes, the dust of her brother, is placed in the hands of Electra, we can well overleap time and space, and see before us the great actor who brought the relics of his own son upon the stage, and shed no mimic sorrows-we can well picture the emotions that circle round the vast audience-pity itself being mingled with the consciousness to which the audience alone are admitted, that lamentation will soon be replaced by joy, and that the living Orestes is before his sister. It is by a most subtle and delicate art that Sophocles permits this struggle between present pain and anticipated pleasure, and carries on the passion of the spectators to wait breathlessly the moment when Orestes shall be discovered. We now perceive why the poet at once, in the opening of the play, announced to us the existence and return of Orestes-why he disdained the vulgar source of interest, the gross suspense we should have felt, if we had shared the ignorance of Electra, and not been admitted to the secret we impatiently long to be communicated to her. In this scene, our superiority to Electra, in the knowledge we possess, refines and softens our compassion, blending it with hope. And most beautifully here does Sophocles remove far from us the thought of the hard hatred that hitherto animates the mourner-the strong, proud spirit is melted away-the woman and the sister alone appear. He whom she had loved more dearly than a mother-whom she had nursed, and saved, and prayed for, is a nothing" in her hands; and the last rites it had not been hers to pay. He had been "By strangers honoured, and by strangers mourned." Admit me All things had vanished with him- vanished in a day"-"vanished as by a hurricane"-she is left with her foes alone. cries) "to thy refuge-make room for me in thy home." (she In these lamentations, the cold, classic drama seems to warm into actual life. Art, exquisite because invisible, unites us at once with imperishable nature-we are no longer delighted with poetry-we are weeping with Truth.' Agreeable it is to know, that one who sees and shows, with such clear vision, the subtle charms of poesy, intends to touch on Love, as an element of the Grecian female character. We have our own notions on that theme, and shall wait to compare them hereafter with Mr Bulwer's. Meanwhile we shall suggest, as before, a few points for reconsideration. In the trial of Orestes,* we hold with Müller, that the votes are equal before the presiding goddess gives her ballot for acquittal. Compare the future pornsouas (v. 705) with v. 723. This, indeed, is the right significance of the calculus Minerva. It means when judgments are balanced, mercy is wisdom. Sophocles, as reported by Athenæus, seems to us to insinuate most correctly that Eschylus was not so great an artist as himself. We cannot concede to Mr Bulwer that this is the 'criticism 'of ignorance.' (p. 466.) Says Mr Bulwer:-' Æschylus is artful 'as a dramatist to be read, Sophocles as a dramatist to be acted.' On this very principle, Æschylus was an inferior artist. He wrote, as he was perfectly aware, for a non-reading public. 'Longinus,' says the author, 'rightly considers pathos a part ' of the sublime, for pity ought to elevate us.' (p. 465.) The pathos of Longinus is passion, and should not be confounded with pity, as one source of the interest awakened by the tragic Muse. Comedy still demands some words. But since Aristophanes is merely approached by Mr Bulwer, in the part of his work now published, we must tarry for the promised sequel. The accomplished author will pardon us for closing the present paper with a protest against certain pecularities of idiom, which we were sorry to find countenanced by so popular a pen. A few of these may plead in their behalf the rare authority of old writers in our tongue. They belong, however, in actual usage, either to the North American dialect, or to such assassins of her Majesty's English at home, as a master of composition must regret to have upon his side. We complain, for instance, of expressions like these:-Irregulated—in stealth-reverent for reverend—to neighbour-to concentre, as a verb active-to prodigalize-to border, for to border on. We think that impatient of conquest cannot mean impatient to conquer. We don't like arriving to the things we have been in the habit of arriving at. The adverbs both and only are now and then misplaced. False antithesis is too frequently admitted. Cause is once at least put for effect (p. 345.) A verb of one number is often forced to do duty with a nominative of another,* Mr Bulwer is not yet talented-a pseudo-participle which no one will use who is not ripe for any atrocity-but he progresses at a fearful rate. These are, it is true, slight matters in themselves; but at a time when purity of taste is not in the ascendant—at a time when a single class of readers is able to push Poems' into the fourteenth edition, and Prize Essays' into the ninth or tenth thousand, which are not more repulsive from the impudent extravagance of their doctrine than from the base tinsel of their style-at such a time, the man of real genius should be more than ever on his guard against sanctioning, by his negligence, the adulteration of our noble language. 6 * In such sentences as the air is serene, the climate healthful, the seasons temperate,' and a hundred of the same cast. This fault is fast spreading in modern composition, though the very sensible Grammar of Cobbett, if we recollect aright, strongly condemns it. VOL. LXV. NO. CXXXII. க ART. VI. A Letter to Lord John Russell, M.P., on the Abolition of Church-Rates, the Cost of Parliamentary Bishops, and the Appropriation of Cathedral and Episcopal Property. By RICHARD MOORSOM, Esq. 8vo. London: 1837. placed the title of Mr Moorsom's pamphlet at the Whead of this article, because he appears to have been the person who suggested the plan brought forward by the Government, for settling the question of Church-Rates, by providing another fund from which the expense of keeping in repair the churches of the Establishment might be supplied. He states his proposal very distinctly, and urges it with much ability. In some of his opinions we may not concur, but whoever approved of the Ministerial plan must give a general assent to his doctrine; for the two schemes differ not at all in principle, although there is a considerable diversity in the extent to which the principle should be carried. We shall afterwards give the outline of his plan in his own words. Few questions, certainly, have occurred of late years more calculated to engage the feelings of the country than this of churchrates. Independently of its bearing upon the political contests of the day, and the consequent interest which it excited among the different parties that divide the people, it connected itself with the great question of an Established Church, and could hardly be discussed without bringing into the field almost all the principles upon which that question must be decided. Indeed, considered in one point of view, the two questions are identical. Whoever denies that the State ought to support one sect in preference to all others, must deny that any portion of the public revenue, in whatever way raised-any portion of public property, from whatever source derived-ought to be applied towards repairing churches, or defraying the expense of such service. But it does not necessarily follow that he who maintains the expediency of a church establishment must also hold that those expenses should be defrayed by the State; because he may think it sufficient for the State to support the ministers, and leave the congregations to repair the churches. If, indeed, he argues that the provision already set apart for supporting the ministers is sufficient to repair the churches, we shall presently find that this view resolves itself into the support of the Church out of the public funds; and therefore he is plainly arguing as the advocate of an Establishment: but, on the other hand, by throwing any portion of the charge upon the members of the Established Church . exclusively, he is taking the opposite side of the question; and thus he cannot be said to hold as consistently by either doctrine as those do who, on the one side, maintain that the whole costs of the Establishment should be provided by the whole community, and, on the other side, hold that each sect should support its own church service. It is necessary that we should first state the facts connected with this subject, some of which are matter of dispute; but others, and those the most important, cannot be questioned at all. The sum raised yearly by church-rates amounts to near L.600,000. This is expended in the repair of the fabric, in providing books, vestments, and other things necessary for the performance of the service, and in some things which are matters of accommodation and comfort, and some which are mere ornament and luxury, for those who frequent the church. It is not estimated that above L.250,000 a-year would be required for defraying all that part of the expenditure which is necessary—that is, for keeping the churches in repair, and decently performing the service. At present much of the expense is unnecessary, and that in two ways. First, there are many things paid for which ought not to be paid for at all, as ornaments of different kinds, and music beyond what is needful; secondly, there is so little control over the expenditure, so imperfect an audit of accounts, that much more is paid than the price of what is got for the money. Those great abuses are almost entirely confined to the towns; but they have been unquestionably the principal causes of the resistance to the rates. Having mentioned Church Music, we must be allowed, in passing, to say a word or two on that subject. In this Presbyterian country there are objections to all instrumental music as part of the church service-objections of a religious nature, and into these we do not enter. But we think one consideration deserves the attention of our southern neighbours, and that in reforming their Establishment they would do well to bear it in mind. The great object is usually to make the congregation join in singing to the praise of God. This, indeed, is not only the thing in view upon religious grounds, but as a matter of taste and feeling; for nothing can be more sweet, or more touching, than the chant of a whole assembled congregation. Even when they d not sing in parts, but all sound the same notes, there is an effec produced by the concert which the finest singing of a few voices never can reach. Now, there is no more certain way of preventing the congregation from joining than to have a Band or Choir. All else become mere listeners: the artists only are the performBut an organ alone has this effect, unless it is a very small ers. |