Iris,' gain not thy willing allegiance. Every one of these may be found, duly marshalled at the end of the Baron's Yule Feast.' But for an unwillingness to gainsay such authorities, we might have been inclined to think the poem in question a somewhat ridiculous collection of songs and stories, which are to owe their interest to the much-talked-of imprisonment. The only saving clause for our critical reputation is, that these liberal encomiums belong, in fact, to a work entitled the Purgatory of Suicides,' and not to the poem before us. Can Mr. Cooper lay his hand upon his heart and say, like his prototype, Hans Sachs, the cordwaining poet of Nuremburg, and stanch supporter of Luther under his early troubles, that in spite of his two folio volumes' of poetry, and his hymns which were a voice to all Germany, that he "never made a shoe the less, but 'has virtuously maintained a large family by the labour of his 'hands?' If not, there is something yet required to make him the credit to his mystery which he may become.

For good-humour's sake, we will end with a stirring ballad of Mr. Browning's, which brings us thoroughly back to Rembrandt and his Burgomaster:

HOW THEY BROUGHT THE GOOD NEWS FROM GHENT TO AIX.

I.

'I sprang to the stirrup, and Joris, and he;

I galloped, Dirck galloped, we galloped all three;

"Good speed!" cried the watch, as the gatebolts undrew;
"Speed!" echoed the wall to us galloping through;
Behind shut the postern, the lights sunk to rest,
And into the midnight we galloped abreast.

II.

'Not a word to each other; we kept the great pace

Neck by neck, stride for stride, never changing our place

I turned in my saddle and made the girths tight,

Then shortened each stirrup, and set the pique right,
Rebuckled the cheek-strap, chained slacker the bit,
Nor galloped less steadily Roland a whit.

III.

'Twas moonset at starting; but while we drew near
Lokeren, the cocks crew, and daylight dawned clear;
At Boom, a great yellow star came out to see,
At Düffeld 'twas morning as plain as could be,

And from Mecheln church-steeple we heard the half-chime,
So Joris broke silence with "Yet there is time!"

IV.

'At Aerschot, up leaped of a sudden the sun,
And against him the cattle stood black every one
To stare through the mist at us galloping past,
And I saw my stout galloper Roland at last,
With resolute shoulders, each butting away
The haze as some bluff river-headland its spray.

V.

And his low head and crest, just one sharp ear bent back,
For my voice, and the other pricked out on his track;
And one eye's black intelligence-even that glance
O'er its white edge at me, his own master, askance!
And the thick heavy spume-flakes which aye and anon
His fierce lips shook upward in galloping on.

VI.

'By Hasselt, Dirck groaned; and cried Joris, 'Stay spur! Your Roos galloped bravely, the faults not in her,

'We'll remember at Aix,' for one heard the quick wheeze
Of her chest, saw the stretched neck, and staggering knees,
And sunk tail, and horrible heave of the flank,

As down on her haunches she shuddered and sank.

VII.

'So left were we galloping, Joris and I,

Past Looz and past Tongres, no cloud in the sky;
The broad sun above laughed a pitiless laugh,

'Neath our feet broke the brittle white stubble like chaff,
Till, over by Dalhem, a dome-spire sprang white,
And "gallop," gasped Joris, "for Aix is in sight!"

VIII.

"How they'll greet us," and all in a moment his roan
Rolled neck and croup over, lay dead as a stone;
And then was my Roland to bear the whole weight
Of the news which alone could save Aix from her fate,
With his nostrils like pits full of blood to the brim,
And with circles of red for his eye-sockets' rim.

IX.

'Then I cast loose my buffcoat, each holster let fall, Shook off both my jack-boots, let go belt and all,

Stood up in the stirrup, leaned, patted his ear,

Called my Roland his pet name, my horse without peer;

Clapped my hands, laughed and sang, any noise, bad or good,
Till at length into Aix Roland galloped and stood.

X.

And all I remember is, friends flocking round

As I sate with his head 'twixt my knees on the ground,
And no voice but was praising this Roland of mine,
As I poured down his throat our last measure of wine,
Which (the burgesses voted by common consent)

Was no more than his due who brought good news from Ghent.'

No. vii. p. 1.

ART. III.-Venerabilis Bædæ Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum, curá ROBERT HUSSEY, B.D. Hist. Ecclesiast. Prof. Reg. Oxon. E Typographeo Academico. 1846.

A NEW edition of the Historia Ecclesiastica' of Bede, in a separate form, has long been not only a desideratum, but a vehementer efflagitatum, by students of history. The ill-edited volume of Stevenson has for some time sold at double its published price, and Smith's has been unattainable at any.

It has at last appeared, and we are happy to be able to add, from a quarter from which it could least have been hoped forthe Clarendon Press at Oxford; for it is well known, we dare say, to most of our readers how the blighting spirit of party has for some time past operated to cramp, or almost to annihilate the usefulness of what, under a more liberal management, would be the most magnificent institution for the purposes of literary publication in Europe. It is not only that the greater part of its funds -funds arising from the monopoly of Bibles and Prayer-books, and the exemption from the paper duty, granted it by parliament are diverted to meet the general expenses of the University it is not this that we so much lament, though this is a grievous misapplication of revenue, as the spirit which restricts the nature of the volumes printed to impressions (not very correct) of German classics, or endless issues of third-rate controversial works, which would hopelessly cumber the floor of the warehouse, in company with the large paper Strabo of 1807, or the Raleigh of 1828

were it not that a forced sale is found for them as prize and exhibition books. Thus the resources of a Press, which is adequate, and which alone, in this country or elsewhere, is adequate to do for England what the Benedictines of S. Germain des Pres did for France, are frittered away on school and prize-books; and a most valuable amount of erudition and enthusiasm recently kindled in the University in the direction of Patristic and medieval literature is allowed to go to waste, or to find such desultory and limited employment as the generosity of individuals, or societies with narrow means, can supply. We trust we are not expressing ourselves on this subject in a peevish tone, and we are sure we are speaking in no captious spirit; if with some slight bitterness, it is what we cannot help feeling. We give credit to the gentlemen, the delegates, for good intentions, and, with this confidence, we beg to suggest to them whether their management of the great institution placed under their irresponsible control is not, to say the least, most impolitic. That glowing enthusiasm for Oxford, that affectionate love of

her localities, the inspiring associations connected with her famous names, and the entire and devout surrender of the mind to the academical system-in a word, the purifying influences of the genius loci, which has hitherto made more than half of the whole effect produced on the character of her youth, require to be sustained; and this is not the way to sustain them. The old filial piety towards Alma Mater is not encouraged by such a policy.

If those in authority really desired to retain in the loyal and hearty service of the Church and the University, those minds which are most susceptible of the temptation to forsake it, what more efficient instrument could be found for this purpose than that which the Clarendon Press would furnish? Instead of wasting long days in contriving new tests, and declaiming against disaffection and disloyalty, give to the unemployed talent which is now spending itself in speculation, or in unsatisfying and aimless reading, that healthy and steady occupation for which it is craving, and which you have it in your power to supply. There is a great demand for the fathers, for the schoolmen, for the English chroniclers, and medieval literature of every kind. This is not confined to Oxford, or to the clergy, or to any one section of society-it is universal. The current is setting in in that direction, and though it carries along with it much that is frivolous, superficial, and pedantic, it yet receives its impulse from inmost and influential sources of thought. There is nothing in it essentially adverse to the Church of England. Were it encouraged instead of opposed, fostered instead of sneered at, it would become an engine of great power in her favour. It will find its way, and the only question is, whether it shall be directed by established authority, or violently force its own channels. Had a wise and enlightened policy prevailed in that University, we might have seen ere now the rise of a new Oxford school, which might have recalled, while it improved, the laborious research and solid erudition of the critical school of the 17th century. A complete S. Athanasius might have been brought out; S. Jerome, S. Basil, S. Gregory-what an inexhaustible field of labour, of the most rewarding kind, does not the thought of the present critical condition of the editions of these Fathers, and many besides, open to the eager student. For it is no detraction from the merit of the Benedictine editors to say, that their labours are capable, with the accumulated appliances of a century and a half, of very vast improvements. Their editions are the best that are to be had, only because there have been none at all since. But they are the best only according to the standard of the critical knowledge of their time. Mere reprints of the Benedictine editions are

therefore to be deprecated. Who would think now of a faithful reprint of Gale's Herodotus, Ducker's Thucydides, or Stanley's Eschylus? Yet each of these are probably, in point of critical skill, above the average of the great French recensions of the Fathers. Of Montfaucon it is well known that he was no scholar; and Mr. Field's judgment on him in this respect is not too severe, non modo criticâ divinatione nihil pollet, sed omnis Græcæ linguæ eruditionis omnino expers atque ignarus.' 1

Again, in the history of our own country, how much remains to do! A new Wilkins' Concilia, a better Monasticon, would singly require the united strength of many hands. To what quarter could we look for a uniform series of the Latin Chronicles from Asser down to Higden, but to the Clarendon Press? and who can cease to regret that its accumulated funds had not been dedicated to some such noble and patriotic enterprize, rather than been so wantonly squandered as they have been of late on the most frivolous and alien objects?

Of the book before us, we have great pleasure in being able to approve highly in several respects. In its outward form some very judicious arrangements have been adopted. The ordinary thick paper, excellent for folios, but producing when folded into 8vo, only clumsy, swollen, unsightliness, has given place to one of a quality adapted to the dimensions of the book-the old staring type is supplanted by 'one much smaller and more distinct; and thus while the volume gains considerably in neatness, the purchaser gains in price; and a quantity of letter-press, for which a bookseller must have charged sixteen shillings, is put into his hands at half the cost.

It would not perhaps be fair to extend criticism further, on a volume which comes before us under circumstances such as this. It has been undertaken with the object of supplying the Professor's Bede class with a volume somewhat more attainable in price, and more manageable in the lecture-room than Smith or Wheloc. Two or three years back, a stranger who might happen to be lounging in the neighbourhood of Tom Gate about one o'clock, might have seen these venerable folios making their way in the direction of the Professor's room, each in the embrace of the student who had succeeded in disinterring it from the dust and obscurity of the College Library. For such was the only resource of him who had not been lucky enough to secure the Historical Society's edition on its first publication. That the old complaint of the student, the 'exemplarium penuria,' should again become a practical one in the middle of the nineteenth century, was one of those capricious turns of events which seemed to revive before our eyes the old days of L. Valla or Erasmus, when

1 Præfat. in Chrysost. Homil. in Matt.