measure of Right and Wrong" are two questions entirely distinct, but often confused-for Logic fled the earth with Astræa. She did. TALBOYS. NORTH. Talboys, you understand well enough the sense and culture of the Beautiful? Something of it perhaps I do. TALBOYS. NORTH. To feel to love-to be swallowed up in the spirit and works of the Beautiful -in verse and in the visible Universe! That is a life-an enthusiasm—a worship. You find those who would if they could, and who pretend they can, attain the same end at less cost. They have taken lessons, and they will have their formalities go valid against the intuitions of the dedicated soul. TALBOYS. But the lessons perish-the dedicated soul is a Power in all emergencies and extremities. NORTH. There are Pharisees of Beauty-and Pharisees of Morality. SEWARD. At this day spiritual Christians lament that nine-tenths of Christians Judaise. NORTH. Nor without good reason. The Gospel is the Standard of Christian Morality. That is unquestionable. It is an authority without appeal, and under which undoubtedly all matters, uncertain before, will fall. But pray mark this-it is not a positive standard, in the ordinary meaning of that word -it is not one of which our common human understanding has only to require and to obtain the indications-which it has only to apply and observe. SEWARD. I see your meaning, sir. The Gospel refers all moral intelligence to the Light of Love within our hearts. Therefore, the very reading of the canons, of every prescriptive line in it, must be by this light. NORTH. That is my meaning-but not my whole meaning, dear Seward. For take it, as it unequivocally declares itself to be, a Revelation-not simply of instruction, committed now and for ever to men in written human words, and so left-but accompanied with a perpetual agency to enable Will and Understanding to receive it; and then it will follow, I believe, that it is at every moment intelligible and applicable in its full sense, only by a direct and present inspiration-is it too much to say-anew revealing itself? "They shall be taught of God." SEWARD. So far, then, from the Christian Morality being one of which the Standard is applicable by every Understanding, with like result in given cases, it is one that is different to every Christian in proportion to his obedience? NORTH. Even so. I suppose that none have ever reached the full understanding of it. It is an evergrowing illumination-a light more and more unto the perfect day-which day I suppose cannot be of the same life, in which we see as through a glass darkly. TALBOYS. May I offer an illustration? The land shall descend to the eldest son-you shall love your neighbour as yourself. In the two codes these are foundation-stones. But see how they differ! There is the land-here is the eldest son-the right is clear and fast-and the case done with. But-do to thy neighbour! Do what? and to whom? NORTH. All human actions, all human affections, all human thoughts are then contained in the one Law-as the subject of which it defines the disposal. All mankind, but distributed into communities, and individuals all differently related to me are contained in it, as the parties in respect of whom it defines the disposal! SEWARD. And what is the Form? Do as thou wouldst it be done to thee! NORTH. Ay-my dear friend-The form resolves into a feeling. Love thy neighbour. That is all. Is a measure given? As thyself. And is there no limitation? SEWARD. NORTH. By the whole apposition, thy love to thyself and thy neighbour are both to be put together in subordination to, and limitation and regulation by-thy Love to God. Love Him utterly-infinitely-with all thy mind, all thy heart, all thy strength. This is the entire book or canon-THE STANDARD. HOW wholly indefinite and formless to the Understanding! How full of light and form to the believing and loving Heart! SEWARD. The Moon is up-how calm the night after all that tempest-and how steady the Stars! Images of enduring peace in the heart of nature-and of man. They, too, are a Revelation. NORTH. They, too, are the legible Book of God. Try to conceive how different the World must be to its rational inhabitant-with or without a Maker! Think of it as a soulless-will-less World. In one sense, it abounds as much with good to enjoy. But there is no good-giver. The banquet spread, but the Lord of the Mansion away. The feast-and neither grace nor welcome. The heaped enjoyment, without the gratitude. SEWARD. Yet there have been Philosophers who so misbelieved! NORTH. Alas! there have been-and alas! there are. And what low souls must be theirs! The tone and temper of our feelings are determined by the objects with which we habitually converse. If we see beautiful scenes, they impart serenity-if sublime scenes, they elevate us. Will no serenity, no elevation come from contemplating Him, of whose Thought the Beautiful and the Sublime are but shadows! SEWARD. No sincere or elevating influence be lost out of a World out of which He is lost? NORTH. Oh! Now we look upon Planets and Suns, and see Intelligence ruling them-on Seasons that succeed each other, and we apprehend Design-on plant and animal fitted to its place in the world, and furnished with its due means of existence, and repeated for ever in its kind—and we admire Wisdom. Atheist or Sceptic-what a difference to Us if the marvellous Laws are here without a Lawgiver-If Design be here without a Designer-all the Order that wisdom could mean and effect, and not the Wisdom-if Chance, or Necessity, or Fate reigns here, and not Mind-if this Universe is matter of Astonishment merely, and not of adoration! SEWARD. We are made better, nobler, sir, by the society of the good and the noble. Perhaps of ourselves unable to think high thoughts, and without the bold warmth that dares generously, we catch by degrees something of the mounting spirit, and of the ardour proper to the stronger souls with whom we live familiarly, and become sharers and imitators of virtues to which we could not have given birth. The devoted courage of a leader turns his followers into heroes the patient death of one martyr inflames in a thousand slumbering bosoms a zeal answerable to his own. And shall Perfect Goodness contemplated move no goodness in us? Shall His Holiness and Purity raise in us no desire to be holy and pure ?-His infinite Love towards His creatures kindle no spark of love in us towards our fellow-creatures! NORTH. God bless you, my dear Seward-but you speak well. Our fellow-creatures! The name, the binding title, dissolves in air, if He be not our common Creator. Take away that bond of relationship among men, and according to circumstances they confront one another as friends or foes-but Brothers no longerif not children of one celestial Father. TALBOYS. And if they no longer have immortal souls! NORTH. Oh! my friends-if this winged and swift life be all our life, what a mournful taste have we had of possible happiness? We have, as it were, from some dark and cold edge of a bright world, just looked in and been plucked away again! Have we come to experience pleasure by fits and glimpses; but intertwined with pain, burdensome labour, with weariness, and with indifference? Have we come to try the solace and joy of a warm, fearless, and confiding affection, to be then chilled or blighted by bitterness, by separation, by change of heart, or by the dread sunderer of loves-Death? Have we found the gladness and the strength of knowledge, when some rays of truth have flashed in upon our souls, in the midst of error and uncertainty, or amidst continuous, necessitated, uninstructive avocations of the Understanding-and is that all? Have we felt in fortunate hour the charm of the Beautiful, that invests, as with a mantle, this visible Creation, or have we found ourselves lifted above the earth by sudden apprehension of sublimity? Have we had the consciousness of such feelings, which have seemed to us as if they might themselves make up a life-almost an angel's life-and were they "instant come and instant gone?" Have we known the consolation of DOING RIGHT, in the midst of much that we have done wrong? and was that also a corruscation of a transient sunshine? Have we lifted up our thoughts to see Him who is Love, and Light, and Truth, and Bliss, to be in the next instant plunged into the darkness of annihilation? Have all these things been but flowers that we have pulled by the side of a hard and tedious way, and that, after gladdening us for a brief season with hue and odour, wither in our hands, and are like ourselves-nothing? BULLER. I love you, sir, better and better every day. NORTH. We step the earth-we look abroad over it, and it seems immense-so does the sea. What ages had men lived-and knew but a small portion. They circumnavigate it now with a speed under which its vast bulk shrinks. But let the astronomer lift up his glass and he learns to believe in a total mass of matter, compared with which this great globe itself becomes an imponderable grain of dust. And so to each of us walking along the road of life, a year, a day, or an hour shall seem long. As we grow older, the time shortens; but when we lift up our eyes to look beyond this earth, our seventy years, and the few thousands of years which have rolled over the human race, vanish into a point; for then we are measuring Time against Eternity. TALBOYS. And if we can find ground for believing that this quickly-measured span of Life is but the beginning-the dim daybreak of a Life immeasurable, never attaining to its night-what weight shall we any longer allow to the cares, fears, toils, troubles, afflictions—which here have sometimes bowed down our strength to the ground-a burden more than we could bear? NORTH. They then all acquire a new character. That they are then felt as transitory must do something towards lightening their load. But more is disclosed in them; for they then appear as having an unsuspected worth and use. If this life be but the beginning of another, then it may be believed that the accidents and passages thereof have some bearing upon the conditions of that other, and we learn to look on this as a state of Probation. Let us out, and look at the sky. THE ISLAND OF SARDINIA. THE opinion of Nelson with regard to the importance of Sardinia,-that it is "worth a hundred Maltas," is well known; and that he strongly recommended its purchase to our government, thinking it might be obtained for £500,000. We can scarcely believe that Nelson failed to make an impression on the government, and conjecture rather that it was with the King of Sardinia the precious inheritance of a Naboth's vineyard. We do not remember to have met with a Sardinian tourist. Travellers as we are, with our ready "Hand-Books" for the remote corners of the earth, we seem, by a general consent, to have cut Sardinia from the map of observable countries. "Nos numerus sumus -we plead guilty to this ignorance and neglect, and should have remained unconcerned about Sardinia still, had we not, in the work of MrTyndale, dipped into a few extracts from Lord Nelson's letters. Extending our reading, we find in these three volumes so much research, learning, historical speculation, and interesting matter, interspersed with amusing narrative, that we think a notice in Maga of this valuable and agreeable work may be not unacceptable. The very circumstance that Sardinia is little known, renders it an agreeable speculation. The ignotum makes the charm. Our pleasure is in the fabulous, the dubious, the unexplained. In the ecstacy of ignorance the reader stands by the side of Mr Layard, watching the exhumation of the unknown gods or demons of Nineveh. "Ignorance is bliss,"-for the subject-matter of ignorance is factfact isolated-or the broken links in time's long chain. The mind longs to fabricate, and connect. Were it possible that other sibylline books should be offered for sale, it would be preferable that Mr Murray should act the part of Tarquin than publish them as "Hand-Books." In truth, curiosity, that happy ingredient in the clay of the human mind, if so material an expression be allowed, is fed by igno rance, but dies under a surfeit of knowledge. Now, to apply this to our subject-Sardinia. The island is full of monuments, as mysterious to us as the Pyramids. There is sufficient obscurity to make a 66 sublime." It is happy for the reader, who has not lost his natural propensity to wonder, that there is so little known respecting them, and yet such grounds for conjecture; for he may be sure that, if any documents existed anywhere, Mr Tyndale would have discovered them, for he is the most indefatigable of authors in exploring in all the mines of literature. But he has to treat of things that were before literature was. The traveller who should first discover a Stonehenge-one who, walking on a hitherto untrodden plain, should come suddenly upon two such great sedate sitting images in stone as look over Egyptian sands-is he not greatly to be envied? We, who peer about our cities and villages, raking out decayed stone and mortar for broken pieces of antique art or memorial, as we facetiously term the remnants of a few hundred years, and of whose "whereabouts," from the beginning, we can receive some tolerable assurance, have but a slight glimpse of the delight experienced by the first finder of a monument of the Pelasgi, or even Cyclopean walls. But to make conjecture upon monuments beyond centuries to count by thousands of years, and make out of them a dream that shall, like an Arabian magician, take the dreamer back to the Flood-is a happiness enjoyed by few. We never envied traveller more than we once did that lady who came suddenly upon the Etrurian monument, in which there was just aperture enough to see for a moment only a sitting figure, with its look and drapery of more than thousands of years; who just saw it for a few seconds, preserved only in the stillness of antiquity, and falling to dust at her very breathing. Not so ancient the monument, but of like character the dis The Island of Sardinia. By JOHN WARRE TYNDALE. 3 vols., post 8vo. VOL. LXVI.-NO. CCCCV. C covery of him who, digging within the walls of his own house at Portici, came upon marble steps that led him down and down, till he found before him, in the obscure, a white marble equestrian statue the size of life. If one could be made a poet, these two incidents were enough. The interior of Sardinia has been hitherto a kind of "terra incognita." Mr Tyndale must therefore have ascended and descended its craggy or wooded mountains, and threaded its ravines, and crossed its fertile or desolate plains, with no common feeling of expectation; and though the frequent "Noraghe" and "Sepolture de is Gigantes," and their accompanying strange conical stones, were not of a character to fill him with that amazement produced by the abovementioned incidents, they were sufficiently mysterious, and the attempt to reach them in some instances sufficiently adventurous-to keep alive the mind, and stir the imagination to the working out visions, and conjuring up the seeming-probable existences of the past, or wilder dreams, in such variety as reason deduced or fancy willed. On one occasion he descended an aperture, in a domed chamber of a Noraghe, groped his way through a subterranean passage, and came upon some finelypulverised matter, "about fifteen inches deep, which at first appeared to be earth, but on scraping into it were several human bones, some broken and others mouldering away on being touched." But here the reader unacquainted with Sardinia, as it may be presumed very many are, may ask something about these Noraghe, with their domed chambers, and the Sepolture. There may be a preliminary inquiry into the origin of the inhabitants. Various are the statements of different authors: without following chronological order, we may readily concur in their conclusions, that the island was peopled by Phoenician, Libyan, Tyrrhenian, Greek, Trojan, and other colonies-unless the disquisitions of some historians of our day would compel us to reject the Trojans, in the doubt as to the existence of Troy itself. But many of these may have been only partial, temporary immigrations, which found a people in prior possession. The argument is strongly in favour of the supposition that the Sarde nation are of Phoenician origin, and that its antiquities are Phoenician, or of a still earlier epoch. In descending to more historic times, we find the Carthaginians exercising influence there as early as 700 B.C., and that the island suffered severely from the alternate sway of the rival powers of Rome and Carthage. And here we are disposed to rest, utterly disinclined to follow the labyrinth of cruelties which the history of every people, nation, and language under the sun presents. If, at least for the present moment, a disgust of history is a disqualification for the notice of such a work as this before us, the reader must be referred to the book itself at once; but there are in it so many subjects of interest, both as to customs, manners, and some characters that shine out from the dark pages of history here and there, that we venture on, not careful of the thread, but with a purpose of taking it up, wherever there may be a promise of amusement. There is little pleasure in recording how many hundreds of thousands were put to the sword by Carthaginians, Romans, and, subsequently, Vandals and Goths; nor the various tyrannies arising out of contests for the possession of the island, which have been continually inflicted upon the people by the European powers of Christian times. Mankind never did, and it may be supposed never will, let each other alone. We are willing to believe that peace and security, for any continuance, is not for man on earth, and that his nature requires this universal stirring activity of aggression and defence, for the development of his powers-and that out of this evil comes good. Where would' be virtue without suffering? Yet we are not always in the humour to sit out the tragedy of human life. There are moments when the present and real troubles of our own times press too heavily on the spirits, and we shrink from the scrutiny of past results, through a dread of a similar future, and gladly seek relief from bitter truths in lighter speculations. In such a humour we confess a dislike to biography, in which kind of reading the future does cast its dark shadow before, and we are constantly haunted |