contamination, remain in their own hallowed mould for the consecration of Achilles' tears. And now, let the heroes contend in the games, and every heart be joyful-while he decides the victory, and bestows the prize-in honour of the shade that once animated that dearest dust. The pomp fades away; and then comes the final transport of passion -its last agony-truculent as its first-just as in external nature we see the tumult of the elements collecting all its violence for the explo. sion in which it dies. Achilles having tost, till midnight, on his sleepless couch, rushes off to the lonely seabeach, and raves there," till the ruddy morning rises o'er the waves." Into his savage spirit no pity is breathed by "the innocent brightness of the new-born day." Its rising glory but aggravates his gloom; the general joy embitters his own peculiar loss; and his wrath flames up to a fiercer height, now that its object is again exposed before his eyes in the blaze of light. There stands the monument of Patroclus-suddenly heaved aloft by the Grecian army; and there lies his murderer. Thrice round it he drives the corpse-and then the Avenger, having exhausted his heart, sinks down into sleep. Patroclus had already visited him in a dream-all the prayers of the phantom had been religiously fulfilled; and we can believe that the sleep of Achilles was passionless as that of death. But he awakes from that oblivion --and again we hear "the voice of loud lament, And echoing groans that shake the lofty tent." His companions in arms are preparing the unheeded repast; Achilles is r 'feeding on his own heart." That such unrelenting wrath should longer abide in such heroic bosom, is now displeasing to the Gods. Nature has had its dreadful indulgence, and must be restored to sanity; nor will heaven suffer a dead son to lie longer out of the reach of his parent's tears. Throughout all the Iliad, the Immortals have been coming and going before our eyes; and now they appear, like "blessed angels pitying human The silver-footed mother, Jove-sent, beseeches her son to vent cares." Simple-and sublime! and now we feel more than ever the grandeur of the opening line of the Iliad. ΜΗΝΙΝ ἄειδε, Θεὰ, Πηληϊάδεω ̓Αχιλήος. We are prepared now for the Interview between Achilles and Priam. He, who abhorred as the gates of hell the man who said one thing and did another, has pledged his word to his immortal Parent that he will ac cept the ransom-and we know that himself; that all the beauty of his he will do so in a manner worthy of bright as the day. The being whom, character will again break forth as for some time past, we have been shuddering at with fear, we shall ere long regard with love-and then be due to the noblest of heroes. conscious of the perfect admiration Yet Homer, reverent of humanity, is afraid, even in the mightiness of his power, that he may offer violence holy skill does her High Priest preto nature. And therefore, with what pare the way to his ministrations at child: but Priam rages in the impoher altar! Achilles is gentle as a tence of grief. The wretched old' man plays the tyrant in his palace, more imperious in his misery than he ever had been in his joy; more self-willed, now that they are all dead, and wrested from his sway, than when surrounded by his princely sons, and his tributary princedoms. How unlike his wrath to that of Achilles! But the heavens look down with pity on his grey and almost discrowned head, and under their guidance he ‹takes his way, with good omens, to the Tent of the Destroyer. It is the Will of Jove that all those agonies of the old and young-the weak and the mighty should cease; that for a while there should be a truce to sorrow and that the peace of heaven, with healing under its wings, should descend on earth. A "Right on to the Tent marched the old man." Achilles was not now singing to the harp old heroic songs; for the ear was cold that used to listen to his music and his poetry. Patroclus was dead-and therefore mute was Achilles. Automedon and Alcimus still ministered near; and in midst of all that silence, like a nightvision, entered the figure of Priam. Achilles' self stood aghast at sight of the Apparition. For a moment he recognised not the kingly supplicant embracing his knees, as some homicide driven from his native land; but soon knew he that it was even very Priam himself, "kissing those hands, terrible, homicidal, which had slain so many of his sons." Those lips had already done their work, even before one word had found its way through them from that broken heart. Still but not stern-stood Achilles, like a statue. He feared to stir hand, foot, or figure, lest he should disturb or dismay the old King, whom his wrath had thus prostrated into the posture of a slave. Yet-think not that he felt any remorse-for he was the prince of "souls made of fire, and children of the sun, with whom revenge is virtue." "Think on thy father, O Achilles! like to the gods!" Words that like arrows pierced his heart! For the Destroyer knew that never more was he to see the face of Peleus. He thought of far-off Phthia, and Pity "her soulsubduing voice applied" to his mournful and melancholy spirit. The plead ing of Priam was indeed most pathetic-but we cannot believe that more than a low indistinct murmur from his lips was heard by Achilles. There was a confusion before his eyes→→→→ and in his spirit of Priam and of Peleus-one image-one phantom mysteriously combined of two fathers left utterly desolate. But the last words of the kneeler he did hear" I have endured to draw to my mouth the hand of the man that slew my children." And then, Achilles took Priam by the hand, as tenderly almost as if it had been the hand of his own father, and "gently pushed away the old man," that he might not abide another moment in that attitude of abasement; but even, in worst affliction, might rise up to the bearing proper to a king, taking pity on his hoary head and hoary beard!" How consolatory that address to the royal supplicant! and how dignified! Admiration of the fearlessness of the old man mingled with pity of his sufferings; and what a princely expression of profoundest sympathy," Come, sit down beside me on this seat !" Priam is again about to be enthroned. The momentary abjectness of misery gives way to a kingly comfort; and the shades of Patroclus and of Hector would have rejoiced in Hades to behold such a spectacle. The great soul of Achilles speaks in the heroic homily with which he soothes the sorrows of the King. A high moralist he becomes, in the midst of their common misfortunes-common not to them alone-but to all the human race. "Thus, then, have the gods spun the destiny of miserable mortals!" He reconciles his illustrious guest, as well as himself, to all that has befallen, and to all that is about to befall them, by religion; and he ennobles their reconcilement by the sublimity of the fiction in which the "truth severe" is expressed, and shadowed forth the moral providence of Heaven. But, elevated as is the mood in which Achilles converses with the father of Hector, they both feel as men; and the peculiar character and passion of each breaks out suddenly in the midst of that divine dialogue. Priam, though calmed by the pouring out of his own sorrow, and by the sympathy of the "Lord of Fears," is all at once seized on by a longing to see and to receive, and to embrace the dead body of his son. "Do not at all make-me-to-sit-down on a seat, Jove-nourished one! in so long as Hector lies uncared-for-in the tent; but quick as possible ransomed-restore-him, that with these eyes I may behold him; and do thou receive the ransom magnificent, which we bring to thee; and mayst thou enjoy it, and return to thy father-land!" "Him, the swift-footed Achilles, sternly eyeing, addressed-Provoke me no more, old man! I myself purpose ransomed-to-restore Hector!' And yet this finest touch and trait of nature has been found fault with by the critics! "I believe every reader," says Wakefield, "must be surprised, as I confess I was, to see Achilles fly out into so sudden a passion, " I T 1 Sotheby's Homer. without any apparent reason for it." -though it was to order in the He then explains the proper mean herald" to take from the beautiing of the passage. Priam, percei fully-polished car the unbounded ving that his address had mollified ransom of Hector's head"—to enjoin the heart of Achilles, takes this op- the women to wash the corpse apart portunity to persuade him to give from Priam, that the passionate old over the war, and return home, man might not, by giving sudden especially since his anger was suffi-vent to his agony, provoke him ciently satisfied by the fate of Hec-(Achilles, who knew well his own tor. Immediately Achilles took fire WRATH) to slay the ki king, and vioat this proposal, and answers: Is late the behests of Jove" and to it not enough that I have restored lift it with his own hands up upon thy son? Ask no more, lest I retract the bier on the car that was to convey that resolution! In this view we it to Troy. In the tenderest offices see a natural reason for the sud- of humanity to the living and to the den passion of Achilles." This is dead, aware of the danger of his own very bad. It represents Priam as fiery spirit! In self-knowledge, if cunning and crafty even in his dis- not in self-control-a philosopher traction; and why should he have and a hero, idos ImOTÍ desired a cessation of the war? All 26 MHNIN älds, Osa, Tinanïaded MAX(2ños. his sons were dead-Hector and all and yet so fond was he of life-so That Wrath has now blazed its last, tenacious of his throne that he took yet even in its ashes live its wontthis favourable opportunity of elicited fires;" and he asks forgiveness of ing a promise from Achilles to spare Patroclus, that even now, and thus,has Troy! lord') sdt to c been quenched his Revenge. "But large, Obeloved Shade! hath been the rausom-nor shalt thou receive thereof thy due even in Hades.' Now all in the Tent shall be perfect peace. Priam must partake of the repast. Famished is the Woe-begone but he must eat and drink-e Niobe did in the midst of all her deac children. "Then indeed did the Dardanian chief, gaze-with-admira tion on Achilles, how large, and wha kind he was, (his stature and beauty;) for he seemed in presence like the gods: And Achilles gazed with ad miration Dardanian Priam contemplating his benevolent coun tenance, and listening to his words!' They retire to sleep-Priam on a couch graciously provided for him by the great lord" in a place safe from all intrusion of the Greeks, that he may take lis, departure without him-early in the Joan eye to see ing, with the body of his son, to Troy Achilles in the bosom of Briseiswherein not often will the hero fay his head; for we remember the dying words of Hector, T *། Achilles did not " fly into a sudden passion." But as Cowper, on the whole, well says, he was " mortified to see his generosity, after so much kindness shewn to Priam, still distrusted, and that the impatience of the old king threatened to deprive him of all opportunity of doing gracefully what he could not be expected to do willingly." He was about to do it willingly; for Thetis had told him, that such was the will of Jove., But a sudden flash of memory came across him—and he said, "No more arouse thou my soul in its sorrows.' Achilles, all his life long at least all through the Iliad took his own way in all things; and he could not bear. to be baffled in his own mode of mercy, even by the unhappy father of the prince whose body he was about-ransomed to restore. 790 ΜΗΝΙΝ ἄειδε, Θεὰ, Πηληϊάδεω Αχιλήος. But an end to all criticism alike of others and our own on the immortal interview. That was the last cloud that passed across the countenance of Achilles. "The son of Peleus from the house (tent) like a lion sprung forth." Yes like a lion Puut of 75mbps & 14117 T A LETTER TO THE LORD CHANCELLOR ON THE PRESENT STATE of the "MY LORD, dew of nemo #sd You will think it strange that one who differs so decidedly with you beitillow bad ebbs 21 + of earnest, but courteous and dispassionate enquirywers of It is difficult, perhaps impossible, Who are important points, (as to speak of plans which have not * Will very speedily appear,) should yet been fully disclosed, without deyet choose to address himself to you, servedly incurring the censure of rather than to any other individual, rashness. will not, therefore, attouching the present and prospect-tempt to discuss the probable meaof the Established sures of Ministers respecting Church ChCondition property or to hold them responsible for any of the various projects of which they have vorne e praise or the blame. On the contrary, I will take it for granted that they are sincerely disposed to respect the rights of the Church, and to make no other use of clerical property than such as may appear to them advisable for the furtherance granted that their end and aim is the of religious objects. I will take for wellbeing of the Church Establish of England and Ireland. My reasons for thus selecting you are bese. In the first place, you have taken an interest in the affairs of the Church, which separates you altogether from the other members of your party, and constrains, from me at least, the howthat, 1979 subject of me that if they touch its pos ever mistaken our views Dib 121 Session, you of the Church, renders it impossible 971 sessions, it is for the purpose of bettering itself. This is, I flatter myself, allowing the utmost which they can fairly require. It is not, I believe, denied by any one, that they seriously meditate a new distribution of Church property a distribution which would, in some measure, correct the inequalities which at present bexist. To that, therefore, I shall, in the first place, confine myself;and I am much deceived if I do not make it appear that the evils under which the Church at present labours, (if evils there be,) are not such as can be remedied by such an arrangement. bio of bus, to And here, my Lord, I may surely take for granted, that to touch Church property, even in the cautious manner in which they propose to touch it, can only be justified by a case of pressing necessity. Your Lordship knows that such a proceeding must, in 9 my Lord, are mira-some degree, unsettle the foundation rea- upon which it at present, rests, and so far endanger its existence. Whatever tomay be the prospect of improvement which it holds forth, there can be no doubt that the experiment has a tendency to impair its stabilityand should not, therefore, be made without a reasonable degree of assurance that the risk will be more than tion. These, my Lo counterbalanced by the advantages. In the first place, it must be shewn that the evil which Ministers propose to remedy is so great, as to justify a measure which perils the very existence of the possessions of the Church; and, in the next place, that there are good grounds for supposing that that evil will be remedied by the course which may be pursued, and by which these possessions must be endangered. Unless both these points are satisfactorily established, no honest and reasonable man can approve of the project of his Majesty's Ministers. It will labour under the fatal objection of unsettling every thing without any sufficient object. On that very account there are numbers whom it may gratify: -the restless, who are desirous of change; the turbulent, who are fond of disturbance; the covetous, who are greedy of gain; the malignant, who hate our venerable Church, because of those very qualities which, on the part of the wise and good, have obtained for it respect and admiration; the infidels, who consider its overthrow synonymous with the suppression of Christianity in these countries; the republicans, who desire its extinction as the speedy precursor of the subversion of the monarchy; the dissenters, who dislike it because it has retained so many ancient rites; the Roman Catholics, who abhor it because it has got rid of so many exploded absurdities:all these put together form a large class, by whom any measures having a tendency to injure our Church Establishment must be hailed with delight. But you, my Lord, I fondly believe, are not to be numbered amongst them; and it would not be doing you common justice to suppose, that any measure of Church reform which you patronise is not, bona fide, intended for the benefit of the Church-and that your intentions will then only be carried into effect when your measures are found to have been compatible with the security, as well as available for the efficiency, of our ecclesiastical institutions. I proceed at once, therefore, to state why, as it appears to me, by the present plan, their security must be impaired, while their efficiency is not promoted. The public in general must feel respect for those who commiserate the condition of many amongst the working clergy, whose remuneration would appear to be ill suited to the services which they perform, and little equal to the appearance which they must endeavour to maintain. At first view, nothing appears more equitable than a proposal to equalize Church preferments, and an arrangement by which both the labour and the emoluments of the clergy might be more fairly and evenly distributed. Nor is it, my Lord, against the equity of the proposition that I will, in the first instance, direct my argument; for I am willing to grant, that if it be found conducive to the more efficient discharge of their spiritual functions, on the part either of the higher or the lower clergy, it ought to be very seriously entertain- · ed. But is it certain that such a change in their condition must be beneficial to true religion? I know it might increase the comforts of many amongst them who are at present far from abounding in the good things of this life;-and that by merely subtracting a little from the superfluities of many who may be thought to have more than is quite indispensable for their wellbeing in the life to come. Still the question recurs, how far will all this serve to forward the great end for which the Church has been appointed? And attend, my Lord, I pray, to the issue upon which I am willing to rest the whole controversy. If it can be shewn, that what is conceived to be no more than an equitable adjustment is materially conducive to the furtherance of that great object for which the clergy have been consecrated, and set apart as a peculiar people, I object not to it. Let it, in God's name, be effected. But, if such can not be shewn;-if the proposition be made merely from a feeling of compassion for the clergy, and without any distinct foresight of the effect which it must have upon the condition of the Church, is it too much to expect of those who administer it, to pause before they sacrifice the end to the means to hesitate before they apply a remedy to the poverty of individuals, which may operate injuriously upon the efficiency of their order, and thus, instead of improving the condition of the clergy, for |