Progress being established by Gioberti as the natural law of mankind, everything that relates to man should, in his opinion, be governed by that law. Death itself respects it; why should not we? The present life is the beginning of a purer and more progressive life beyond the grave, in which all things were intended to bring us forward in holiness and perfection, the enjoyments of heaven and the torments of hell alike. The doctrine of hell's stagnant condition and useless tortures is the most anti-dialectic and pernicious invention of man's corrupted imagination.

These are some of Gioberti's views concerning religion and the Church. His two works on the Catholic Reformation and the Philosophy of Revelation are truly remarkable, much more so than the "Essays and Reviews," or "The Progress of Religious Thought in the Church of France."

Admitting all

the fundamental doctrines of the Catholic Church, the author reasons upon them, and explains their manner of being, by a strict application of the same principle upon which his philosophical system stands, Ens creat existentias. Mysteries and miracles, grace and sin, redemption, angels and demons, paradise and hell, are represented as necessary parts of a whole, within whose circle the most divergent existences unite as in a common focus. It looks very much like an attempt and not an unsuccessful one to reconcile all religious opinions and systems with each other, and bring them to acknowledge the one Catholic Church. And really, if such a church exists, we do not see how all the good, of whatever religion or tongue, can refuse to recognize it, and bow at the feet of Jesus. So much is said about a Broad Church and the Church of the Future, that the aspirations of many are longing to see it established on earth. We direct them to the above works; they may judge whether the kingdom of heaven they are looking for is already in their midst. Gioberti certainly believed it was. Hence all his efforts to make it known, and gather all men within its boundaries. He claimed it as a right and a fact that he belonged to the Catholic Church, not in the sense in which the word is understood by Protestants, but in its true, original meaning. Neither his understanding of the dogma, different from that generally ad

mitted, nor his opposition to the ecclesiastical authority by which his views were condemned, did he consider sufficient to annul the fact of his being a Catholic. He was not wrong in supposing that his voice would not have been listened to, that his influence on his fellow-countrymen would have greatly diminished, had he not stood his ground, and asserted such a right. A simple priest, who in his quality of priest, though persecuted or excommunicated, speaks to Catholics, if only his conduct be above reproach, will do more good among them than a host of Protestant missionaries, with loads of Bibles and tracts, were they ever so learned and virtuous. The faith of the Catholic in the Church is independent of the priesthood; he fully understands the difference between them, though often unable to define the nature of either. A society of Catholics will adhere and remain faithful to the Church, even when no minister of religion has for centuries visited them, as has been the case in China. Gioberti shared in that faith, and wrote accordingly.

In his investigations, he abandoned the analytic method as insufficient, and always proceeded by synthesis. Such innovation in theology was not generally approved, partly as being dangerous to preconceived opinions and settled prejudices, and partly as not being understood by those who were commissioned to teach theology. Gioberti's language and style are pure and eloquent; and, notwithstanding the excessive use he made of strange words, chiefly derived from the Greek, he is considered as one of the most elegant Italian writers. Seldom does he strictly adhere to his subject; but he makes digressions so numerous, that, though always exceedingly beautiful and entertaining, they are none the less a hinderance to the clear understanding of the main arguments. Of his finished works, the Teorica del Sovranaturale, the Primato, and the Rinnovamento are in our opinion those which do him most honor, and the Gesuita Moderno and its Apologia those which do him the least. Had they not been written, the philosopher's reputation would have been purer. Evidently dictated in a hurry, and with a mind excited by contradiction, like all literary attempts to justify a first blunder, they show how a great man can sometimes forget himself, when he en

deavors to defend his own opinion rather than truth. We do not intend to say that truth in them is intentionally misrepresented, far from that. But we think that facts are made to serve a particular cause; and, being considered independently from certain other facts, consequences are drawn from them which are not entirely in accordance with truth. They evidence, besides, a disposition to interpret everything for the worse, and judge of motives, which disposition we cannot reconcile with Christian principles. Their success was complete; but we rather fear it was owing more to the prejudices and passions of the vulgar they flatter and arouse, than to the intrinsic merit they otherwise possess. We sincerely wish we could tear that page from Gioberti's history. Though we knew him only for a short time, yet, like everybody who enjoyed that privilege, we loved, admired, and almost worshipped the man. His unaffected modesty, his affable nature, his frank and pleasant address, had an irresistible power that rendered it impossible not to become attached to him. His external appearance, far from diminishing, increased the affection one felt for him. He was tall, his complexion fair, and his manners refined. The forehead was high, the eyes soft and penetrating, the lips thin, and animated by that kind of benignant irony which is a scourge to vice without being an offence to the vicious. Habitually gay, cheerful, and cordial, the tranquillity of his mind was reflected by the unalterable calm of his countenance. Young men loved him with truly filial affection; their admiration for his wisdom and their confidence in his integrity were boundless. They had no secret with him, and there was nothing he could not obtain from them. One of the charges brought against him before his imprisonment was, that he had it in his power to revolutionize all the youth of Turin. The charge was true; only his enemies should have added, that he was incapable of using it for unholy purposes.

1. Ulric, le Valet de Ferme, ou comment Ulric arrive à la Fortune, Par JÉRÉMIAS GOTTHELF. Traduction libre de l'Allemand. Neuchatel: Chez J. P. Michaud. 1854.

2. Ulric, le Fermier. Seconde Partie d'Ulric le Valet de Ferme. Par JEREMIAS GOTTHELF. Traduction libre de l'Allemand. Neuchatel: Chez J. P. Michaud.

3. Hans Jacobus und Heiri, oder die beiden Seidenweber. Von JÉRÉMIAS GOTTHELF. Berlin: Verlag von Julius Springer. 1851.

THERE are no books of foreign literature so interesting to us as American readers as those which introduce us to peasant life, or, more strictly speaking, to the life of the laboring class. With us this class has not yet assumed fixed limits, nor put on the picturesque character that brings it happily within the reach of art. Mrs. Stowe, Dr. Holmes, and other American writers, have succeeded in picturing our village life, and in representing its characteristics as they differ from village life elsewhere; but our landscape, at least in New England, is so far too prosperous to present striking picturesque features in its human details for the artist. Around our villages, it is the Irish log-cabin, with its heap of dirt and its air of unthrift, that gives the element of the picturesque. In our streets, it is the foreign population that forms the artistic groups at the street corners. Careless of outward appearance, it is that which has the grace of carelessness and unconsciousness. There is a pretty group of children round a wheelbarrow-load of the pink laurel (Kalmia latifolia), just brought fresh from our June woods. The children and tired-looking women gather round it with exclamations of delight, and the artist admires the coloring of the dirty, brown, rosy-cheeked children, of the gray, anxious-looking mothers, in shabby gay shawls, vying with the soft tints of the glowing laurel; — but it is all Irish color. The New-Englander, man, woman, or child, though he be stirred in the very depths of the heart at the sight of the gay flowers, whether dear to him or new to him, - does not display the feeling, but passes by without any expression of pleasure. For this reason, such books as those whose titles we have quoted above come to

us with a foreign grace, as does the carved work, the wooden cottages, the gay-colored lithographs which our travellers bring from their wanderings in Switzerland.

The writings of Blitzius, under the name of Jeremias Gotthelf, have been translated into French, and have become well known as representing pictures of humble Swiss life. They are quiet delineations of human nature, and if their costume differs from our less picturesque home dress, we find a trace of ourselves in the characters represented. They would disappoint the reader searching for startling romance, the story is so little varied in character or incident; but the interest is wonderfully kept up by the simplicity of the style, enlivened by much quaint humor. The first of the stories begins with that of a farmer's boy, who, through the care and thoughtfulness of his master, and afterwards under that of his wife, passes to a higher position. It is to the picture of Ulric's wife, Freneli, that Ruskin gives high praise. He says of these books:

"Many valuable conclusions respecting the degree of nobleness and refinement which may be attained in servile or in rural life may be arrived at by a careful study of the noble writings of Blitzius (Jeremias Gotthelf), which contain a record of Swiss character not less valuable in its fine truth than that which Scott has left of the Scottish. I know no ideal characters of women, whatever their station, more majestic than that of Freneli (in Ulric le Valet de Ferme, and Ulric le Fermier), or of Elise in the Tour de Jacob; nor any more exquisitely tender and refined than that of Aenneli in the Fromagerie, and Aenelli in the Miroir des Paysans."*

"Hans Jacob and Heiri" is the story of two silk-weavers near Basle, telling how they each had a sweetheart, how the one married his Anne Marie, the other his Catherine; how the one couple were industrious and saving, and the other thoughtless and extravagant. There are no wonderful incidents, but in the development of the story there are many wise sayings and many humorous ones. The faults and follies of these Swiss farmers and silk-weavers are sufficiently our own and those of our nation to make the lessons of this moralist striking to us. The evil of extravagance is the one most earnestly bemoaned, an evil that needs to be preached against *Modern Painters, Vol. V.

VOL. LXXI.· 5TH S. VOL. IX. NO. II.

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