"Gulbasto Momarem Evlame Gurdilo Shefin Mully Ully Gue, most mighty emperor of Lilliput, delight and terror of the universe, whose dominions extend five thousand blæstrugg (about twelve miles in circumference) to the extremities of the globe; monarch of all monarchs, taller than the sons of men; whose feet press down to the centre, and whose head strikes against the sun; at whose nod the princes of the earth shake their knees; pleasant as the spring, comfortable as the summer, fruitful as autumn, dreadful as the winter. His most sublime majesty proposes to the man-mountain, lately arrived at our celestial dominions, the following articles, which by a solemn oath, he shall be obliged to perform."

The articles consist of several provisions-the chief being that Gulliver shall not depart from Lilliput-that he shall render himself useful while there-shall especially aid the emperor against his enemies of Blefuscu— and shall, on the observance of said conditions be allowed daily as much meat and drink as would be sufficient for 1728 Lilliputians. Gulliver swears to the conditions, and then the chain which had been fastened to his legs in sleep, is unlocked, and he is set at liberty. Swift makes his hero conclude the account of the treaty with a passage which contains a piquant parody on the grave descriptions of travellers:

"The reader may please to observe, that in the last article of the recovery of my liberty, the emperor stipulates to allow me a quantity of meat and drink sufficient for the support of 1728 Lilliputians. Some time after, asking a friend at court how they came to fix on that determinate number, he told me that his majesty's mathematicians, having taken the height of my body by the help of a quadrant, and finding it to exceed theirs in proportion of twelve to one, they concluded, from the similarity of their bodies, that mine must contain at least 1728 of theirs, and consequently would require as much food as was necessary to support that number of Lilliputians. By which the reader may conceive an idea of the ingenuity of this people, as well as the prudent and exact economy of so great a prince."

The High and Low Church parties of the time of George the 1st, are pointedly satirised in the picture of the High and Low Heel parties of Lilliput; and the prince, afterwards George 2nd, is ridiculed for his characteristic trimming in the portrait of the imperial heir' who had one high, and one low heel to his shoes. But the most skilful satire is that of the Big and Little Endians. The Lilliputians broke their eggs at the smaller end, the inhabitants of Blefuscu at the larger. Both asserted they were right in their interpretation of the 54th chapter of the Blundecral, which declared that all true believers should break their eggs at the convenient end. Six rebellions had been raised in Lilliput, and 11,000 persons had suffered, death,-all for the precious right of breaking their eggs at the larger end, according to ancient custom. The Blefuscu

people being Big-Endians, were at war with the emperor of Lilliput as an abettor of heresy. England and France - or the Protestant and Roman Catholic states-are ridiculed under these figures. Gulliver is, at length, pressed to assist in the war, and performs the famous feat of drawing to shore 50 of the Blefuscu men-of-war ships. The emperor desires him to draw all their ships to the Lilliputian shore, to reduce Blefuscu to a province, and compel all the Big Endians to break their eggs at the smaller end! Gulliver, however, refuses to be made the instrument of completely enslaving that people the emperor is offended with him—and, thenceforth, intrigue against him is rife in the court, and is headed by one who had been all along his enemy-Skyresh Bolgolam, the highadmiral. An important accident brings the plot against him to a crisis: the royal palace is on fire, and Gulliver puts out the fire in a natural way, which in spite of his having saved her life, the queen declares to be unpardonable. Modern taste is offended with these strokes of Swift; but his strong mind had wondrous skill in adapting them to the exposure of the ridiculousness of pride and false delicacy.

Gulliver had secret information by a courtier that his enemies are now bent on his destruction. They are proposing, either to set fire to his house at night, to poison all his shirts and sheets, to put out his eyes, or to starve him gradually to death. He takes his determination-makes his escape to Blefuscu, where he is well received, and the pigmy monarch of that country offers him greater honours than he had ever received in Lilliput-but he sees a boat, keel upwards, in the sea, is assisted in securing it is then allowed to depart in it-comes up with an English vessel, and so reaches his own country, once more.

In his second voyage the hero enters the country of Brobdingnag-a land of giants, in whose presence he is as much a pigmy, as each of the Lilliputians were in his. I must not delay to give even a brief sketch of this second part of Gulliver. Suffice it to say that it is as perfect as the first; while the contrast between the situation of the same man, who was before a giant and is now a pigmy, is most felicitously conceived, and increases our enjoyment of the satire at every page, as we proceed. The only feature of tenderness in the book is found in the portrait of Glumdalclitch -the maid who carries Gulliver in her bosom, and takes care of him. How far Swift partook of the Radicalism of Genius, in spite of his professed Toryism, begins to be strongly developed in this second part of the book. Gulliver's descriptions of the English institutions before the king of Brobdingnag, and the replies of the giant monarch, are as unlike Tory writing as anything we can conceive. But, perhaps, in the entire book, there is nothing so forcible as the narrative of that conversation in which Gulliver proposed to ingratiate himself with the king by discovering to him the invention of gunpowder and its use by engines that would enable the monarch, when beseiging any city of his enemies, to 'rip up the pavements, tear the houses to pieces, and burst and throw splinters on every side, dashing out the brains of all who came near.' What reception the proposal made is thus described:

"The king was struck with horror at the description I had given of those terrible engines, and the proposal I had made. 'He was amazed, how so impotent and grovelling an insect as I," (these were his expressions) 'could entertain such inhuman ideas, and in so familiar a manner, as to appear wholly unmoved at all the scenes of blood and desolation, which I had painted, as the common effects of those destructive machines; whereof,' he said, 'some evil genius, enemy to mankind, must have been the first contriver. As for himself,' he protested, that although few things delighted him so much as new discoveries in art or nature, yet he would rather lose half his kingdom, than be privy to such a secret; which he commanded me, as I valued my life, never to mention any more." "

"A strange effect of narrow principles and views that a prince possessed of every quality which procures veneration, love, and esteem; of strong parts, great wisdom, and profound learning, endowed with admirable talents, and almost adored by his subjects, should, from a nice, unnecessary scruple, whereof in Europe we can have no conception, let slip an opportunity put into his hands that would have made him absolute master of the lives, the liberties, and the fortunes of his people. Neither do I say this, with the least intention to detract from the many virtues of that excellent king, whose character, I am sensible, will, on this account, be very much lessened in the opinion of an English reader: but I take this defect among them to have risen from their ignorance, by not having hitherto reduced politics into a science, as the more acute wits of Europe have done. For, I remember very well, in a discourse one day with the king, when happened to say, there were several thousand books among us written upon the art of government,' it gave him (directly contrary to my inten-" tion) a very mean opinion of our understandings. He professed both to abominate and despise all mystery, refinement, and intrigue, either in a prince or a minister. He could not tell what I meant by secrets of state, where an enemy, or some rival nation, were not in the He confined the knowledge of governing within very narrow bounds, to common sense and reason, to justice and lenity, to the speedy determination of civil and criminal causes; with some other obvious topics, which are not worth considering. And he gave it for his

case.

opinion, that whoever could make two ears of corn, or two blades of grass, to grow upon a spot of ground, where only one grew before, would deserve better of mankind, and do more essential service to his country, than the whole race of politicians put together.'' There is a commentary on the Art of Government, and a test for excellence of discovery, which-whatever may be thought of the fantastic dress of the story ought to render Gulliver's Travels' a book never to be forgotten or neglected!

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(To be continued in next number.)

CRITICAL EXEGESIS OF GOSPEL HISTORY,

ON THE BASIS OF STRAUSS'S 'LEBEN JESU.'

A SERIES OF EIGHT DISCOURSES; DELIVERED AT THE LITERARY INSTITUTION, JOHN STREET, TOTTENHAM COURT ROAD, AND AT THE HALL OF SCIENCE, CITY ROAD, ON SUNDAY EVENINGS, DURING THE WINTERS OF 1848–9, AND 1849-50.

BY THOMAS COOPER,

Author of The Purgatory of Suicides.'

V. THE TRANSFIGURATION: LOCALITY, DURATION, AND CHRONOLOGY OF THE PUBLIC LIFE OF JESUS.

1. THE Light with which Jesus is described to have been invested-whence came it? He was transfigured before them,' says our authorised translation of Matthew and Mark; but the expression in the Greek is uɛrauoppw0nmetamorphosed. Not an outward illumination, therefore, is intended to be described; but an irradiation from within-an effulgence of the beams of the Divinity through the veil of the IIumanity, would seem to be represented. This was the crisis, say some divines, commencing that purifying change of the corporeality of the Redeemer which was necessary, and which was continued up to the time of his ascension into heaven. But we know of no possible purification of matter. If the Deity be in Nature, it is always pure. The churchyard or burial-ground needs no mummery of 'consecration'-the human body needs no purifying. Such an idea is narrow and confined, and could only have been conceived in an ignorant age. It is in the spirituality of Christ's mind that the noblest idea of purification is developed. 'But it was to manifest his glory,' say the orthodox. Then why was not that glory manifested in the presence of the multitude, instead of only in the presence of three disciples, and for what purpose was it manifested, if they were 'charged to tell the vision to no man' until after the resurrection?

2. The Apparition of the Dead, at the Transfiguration-how are we to conceive of it? Can departed souls become visible to the living? And if these had bodies, whence had they them? According to Scripture we are not to have restored bodies till the general resurrection. If it be replied that Elijah, who was one of the apparitions, went to heaven in a fiery chariot without dying, and was transfigured as he went up the apparition of Moses has still to be accounted for. The last chapter of Deuteronomy informs us that he died and was buried in a valley in the land of Moab.' What was the object of the appearance of these departed spirits? Talking' with Jesus, is all that we are told of their object by Matthew and Mark; but Luke adds of his decease, which he should accomplish at Jerusalem.' Moses and Elias had no need to come to reveal this; for, according to all the first three evangelists, Jesus had predicted his own death and sufferings a

But

week before this vision. They came to strengthen and prepare him for his passion and death,' say some commentators. But what strength or preparation did he receive from them, if the recital of the agony in Gethsemane's garden be true?

3. The Voice out of the bright cloud (the Schekinah undoubtedly was in the mind of the writer) reminds us of the same incident in the narrative of the Baptism. But again our reason is revolted at the anthropomorphic or human likeness this gives us of the Divine Being. Real, human accents,audible, man's speech!-how this jars with our conceptions of the Infinite!

In both ancient and modern times, be it observed, attempts have been made to take the Transfiguration, more or less, out of the region of reality. Tertullian, at the end of the second century, pleads that it should be regarded as a vision, as the fruit of ecstasy, in Jesus and his disciples. But the word opapa-vision, in Matthew, is often used in an external sense, in the New Testament. Some divines have regarded the narrative as the relation of a dream, since Luke says the disciples "were heavy with sleep." But during the Gethsemane passion the disciples are also asleep. That feature in the two narratives seems only intended to heighten Christ's portrait by a display of his exemption from the ordinary weakness of humanity, either in glorification or suffering. Others have proposed to consider the whole narrative as susceptible of a natural interpretation: there was a flash of lightning, say they, there was a peal of thunder ;-or, two men (Essenes, says Venturini) his secret allies, were talking with Jesus while the disciples were asleep, they saw them just when they were awaking, the first rays of the morning sun fell on Jesus, and the bright cloud or mist fell on the two Essenes, who, as they went down from the mountain top, pronounced the words This is my beloved Son,' &c. Such modes of interpretation, we may say with Strauss, have justly lost all repute: it is time they were done away with, and that we should proceed to investigate the records of the supernatural and miraculous in the New Testament, with the same spirit of philosophic criticism that we bring to bear on any other ancient records.

In what class of narrative, then, will philosophic criticism direct us to place this of the Transfiguration? We have seen that its supernatural features are repugnant to reason. The witnesses for the entire occurrence as an historic fact-where are they? We cannot forget that the real authorship of the Gospels has never been established. And, if it had, the three Gospel writers who record the Transfiguration do not tell us how the circumstances were made known to them. None of them are named as witnessing the Transfiguration; and-strangely enough-John, who is one of the three disciples named as witnesses of it, and is also said to be the author of the fourth Gospel,-does not say a word about it!

Excuse me, one moment, when I say to you that I wonder how any man can hold by orthodoxy when he has once dared to think for himself. I do not wonder, while he has not dared to think, or while he represses the struggling desire to begin to think. I know what that state of mind is, by wellremembered experience. But how can reason reconcile these difficulties which perpetually start before us in the Gospels? Is it possible that this can be the Revelation, made in compassion to His lost and fallen creatures, by the God of Goodness? Is it possible that He would have puzzled us over and over again, while proclaiming that He was directing us? Have left us with all this web of difficulty to unravel? John, a witness of the Transfiguration, saying not a word of it; and Matthew, Mark, and Luke never

informing us how the circumstances came to their knowledge! John, on the contrary, detailing the most striking miracle that could be performed before men's eyes-the resuscitation of a man from the grave; and yet the other three evangelists neglecting to say one syllable of such a miracle, although manifesting diligence in the record of numerous acts of Christ comparatively unimportant! I need not go on to name, over again, these difficulties. Why, if Four Gospels were written by inspiration,' to strengthen the testimony for us that we might be left without excuse if we did not receive it, why do not the writers confirm each others' accounts? Answer us, orthodox bishop, priest, or curate!—on the peril of your soul, and on the peril of ours, if your doctrine be true,-answer us! We speak the language of passion, now, in the deep earnestness of our hearts; and since you do not answer us-1 -never have answered us, except with quibbles,-we resort again to that guide which, you say, we ought to distrust though God gave it us, -and which we have ever found our best director-Reason.

say.

This guide enables us to detect the sure mark of Legend in this narrative of the Transfiguration, namely,-disagreement with itself. "Tell no man till the Son of Man be risen again from the dead," Christ is represented to 'Why then say the Scribes that Elias must first come?" say the disciples. "Elias truly shall first come"-is the commencement of the reply put into the mouth of Christ. How could the disciples ask that question, if they had just seen Elias? Are we to conceive of them, here again, as being the most stupid lumps of clay Christ could find in the country? But how, again, could Jesus have answered them as he is said to have done, if they had just seen Elias talking' with him? Legend forgets itself. Men of the nineteenth century need but this answer.

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But, in a book of Legends, one story will be sure to give contradiction to another. This mark of Legend is also detected here. "Elias truly shall first come," says Jesus, according to Matthew (ch. 17. v: v. 11, 12, 13,) and restore all things. But I say unto you, that Elias is come already, and they knew him not, but have done unto him whatsoever they listed! Likewise shall also the Son of Man suffer of them. Then the disciples understood that he spake unto them of John the Baptist." Yet, John the Baptist, according to John, (ch. 1. v. 21.) said he was not Elias!

We are told the Gospels were written by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and that early. Is it not more likely that not one of them is the work of one writer only-but that they have received accretions at different dates, according as the spirit of Legend developed itself? Thus the Jew regarded the closing words of Malachi as a prophecy, and the words found in the first verse of our 3rd chapter of Malachi also as applicable to Elijah. The earliest writers in the Gospels, confident that all the prophecies concerning Messiah must have been fulfilled in the history of Jesus, pourtrayed John the Baptist as the figurative Elias, warning the people to prepare the way' for Messiah. But, in aftertime it would not be deemed sufficient that Elias had appeared figuratively; and then the story of his appearance at the Transfiguration was formed. Thus Legend piles up her wonders,-never pausing to correct herself-never reflecting how one part of her store of marvels contradicts another.

The Mythical origin of the Transfiguration story is evident. Messiah must fulfil his types. Moses was illuminated from Sinai-Jesus on a mountain. Moses took three friends with him, Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu -Jesus has three disciples, Peter, James, and John. Moses and his