Prof. P.-I see a similar growth of thought, but less leisure and less ability to express it.

Rev. Mr. N. — Do you think this is a result of foreign influence ?

Prof. P.-By no means. There has been an original action among ourselves to similar results. Here, also, many minds have instinctively drawn back from tradition, and sought their faith in the soul. Here, also, the mind once set free worked in various directions, and exhibited thought in those aspects which bear abroad the names of Fichte, Schelling, or Schleiermacher. I know individuals who never heard the names of these great men, who have arrived at all of their results only with less precision in the use of means. But if it were not so, if the taunt were wellfounded which, the moment an original thought or profound feeling wells up on these subjects, traces it back to De Wette or Schleiermacher, or some other foreign influence, these invectives do but kindle in the public the desire to know more and more. An hundred have now become acquainted in some degree with Spinoza to one that knew his name before, and on all sides you hear inquiries for the works of Schelling, &c., while those who become acquainted with these intellectual giants feel that there were venturous men who, not being above the common stature, dared bar up the entrance to the cave of Polypheme.

Rev. Mr. N.—I have heard the tone adopted tówards Mr. Norton in these Letters much censured.

Prof. P.-Mr. Norton is much older than the gentleman who replied to him, and had been his teacher. But even if you could suppose that these circumstances commanded him in the field of literary debate to treat him other than an equal, Mr. Norton had forfeited all claim by the uncompromising arrogance with which he threw down the gauntlet. The letters of an Alumnus are as respectful as the laws of equal encounter demand. They are frank and gentlemanly, but decided in their tone. He writes as man to man. Mr. Norton, with an assumed indifference like a mon

arch, who in kingly condescension deigns to fence with a commoner, and who assumes a right, if he finds himself at a disadvantage, to take the battler from his foil, or call in some fresh courtier to take his place. I doubt whether the true monarch would assume this air. Rather, like Cœur de Leon, he would say, "Thou hast had all the luck," to the subject who had freedom to meet such foe on equal terms.

These pamphlets are well worth your reading, because they speak out what has been whispered so long. On both sides they show ability and earnestness; and the discussion has roused much thought and brought to light more.

Rev. Mr. N. Here is a book I think I should like, this new translation from Jouffroy.

Prof. P.-You surely will. Jouffroy is admirable for his genuine liberality, as well as his lucid order. He knows where to stop; and, if he does not satisfy you, never makes you dissatisfied. He is excellent at an

apperçu.

Rev. Mr. N.-Then it will be a good book to excite thought.

Prof. P.- Among the best. What a fair copy! We can read our own editions now without losing our eyesight. It compares well with this fair English type. Rev. Mr. N. Milnes's Poems-that I think has not been republished here.

Prof. P.-I believe not, these volumes, indeed, have scarce vitality enough to bear transplanting. In them is little genuine poetry. And the high degree of elegance and refined thought, by which they are distinguished, will carry them in their present garb to the few who need the society of such a man, such an English man as Milne. The relation between him and his reader is private; he is an interesting friend, not the minstrel of an age, or of a nation.

Tennyson, who is a genuine poet, with all his affectation, and whose little volumes are sought after with such eagerness, has never been republished here.

Rev. Mr. N. Here I see new volumes about a favorite of mine.

Prof. P.-Shelley is he a favorite of yourswhy so?

Řev. Mr. N.-Do you ask? For the inspired music of his verse, for his tenderness, his purity, his high ambition to educate his own soul and redeem the souls of others.

Prof. P.-Yet only the other day I read of "the wild and impious ravings of Shelley."

Rev. Mr. N.-Those, who so denounce him, do so from reading single passages in his works. If they entered into the spirit of them, such harsh judgment. would be impossible. They would see that, if he rebelled against God, it was against the God of the Jews, not the God of the world or the heart. That the spirit of Christ animated all his struggle against Christianity, in the corrupt form under which he saw it, and that it was his need of pure and spiritual relations, which led to his violation of the social contract. I feel confidence that none will read him enough to know him, who will not say, even if grieved or repelled by his errors, that his was a noble, aye and a most religious nature. Had he lived longer, he would have explained himself to the satisfaction of opinion as well as sentiment.

I have read somewhere that he was on the point of becoming a Christian when he died.

-

Prof. P. That is not true, nor should he be so defended. He had learned to venerate the character of Christ, but he was no more reconciled to the idea of a special revelation than at first. This should be admitted by his friends, and his defence rested on his love of man, his reverence for the soul, and his constant aspiration to the destiny which befits an immortal spirit. If his words blasphemed the opinions of his religious contemporaries, his thoughts worshipped at the same altar, and the difference was one of phraseology. This will be easily understood by any who look with unprejudiced minds into his history.

But the clock strikes two,-good morning. I will see you again before you leave town.

DAHLIA.

ART. III. Biographie Universelle des Musiciens, par F. J. FÉTIS. Paris, 1835. ART. BEETHOVEN.

Ar any time less remarkable than the present for a general activity of the public mind, it might have seemed necessary to apologize for offering any remarks, however free from scientific detail, upon the genius and writings of a composer; but the disposition which is everywhere manifested to extend the field of individual research, and the liberality with which opinions on all subjects are now received, encourage the discussion of a topic which might otherwise have appeared to possess a merely professional interest. To the musician and the amateur, the name of Beethoven is familiar, and associated with many hours of instruction and delight; -on many ears it will fall strangely as that of one whose orbit of thought they have never crossed; but, as the musical giant of the nineteenth century, the light of whose meteor course has just expired and left Europe in amazement, - to whom his art is indebted for an impulse, which is beginning to be felt throughout the polished nations of the old world, and in every section of our own country, we may well bestow upon his genius and virtues a brief tribute of attention.

The age is fruitful of research and results, and is kept alive by a more pervading feeling of responsibility to self and society, than has ever before existed. Truth, for its own sake, is now the stone of the philosopher, the ore to which the divining rods in the hands of the many are pointing: - like the atmosphere, it is now considered the prerogative of the whole, not subject to monopoly. We are not satisfied with precedent; we demand inspiration, and love best that knowledge, which has not been garnered up in the olden time, but comes of labored thought and is born of the present hour. We go on seeking and still finding, the horizon of our first view expanding with every

step of our progress; and, as beauty is lavished around us, and as he is the greatest poet, who, by reason of his love and familiarity, weds her to himself most nearly, so he that would become the most perfect man, must discover and appropriate as much of truth as unbiassed reason will allow him to receive. This spirit of investigation is manifested most strongly in the cause of art and science; it is inducing men to look far beyond the sphere of ordinary life, luring them from the highway into paths where flowers grow; it is overcoming prejudice and removing artificial barriers of profession and society, by suggesting common objects of interest and research. Man is now estimated more correctly; genius is not suffered to languish for want of sympathy; criticism is fairer, for its standard is higher; toleration has ceased to be a virtue, and the public mind is open to every subject of utility and taste.

It is not surprising then, that while literature and the arts are receiving an increasing share of popular attention, music, the voice of beauty, the poetry of sound, should also have provoked by its mystery the study of the scientific, and of every lover of the beautiful. Like the perfume of flowers, like the moonlight and the flowing water, music is, to him who feels its power, a manifestation of the Infinite. As productive of emotion, it is intimately connected with the philosophy of the passions; as constituting a profession, we should understand its worth, and give it the consideration it deserves.

It is with reference to this growing taste for the true and beautiful, whether in character or art, which has already elicited a voice of praise from the old world, that we have chosen the memoir of a man, so obscurely great as Beethoven, for the subject of a popular article. The eccentricities of genius existed in him without affectation; they were the natural consequences of a peculiar temperament, and constituted a part of his life; for they are everywhere engrafted upon his wild and original works. The true influence