colours which met the eye, however unconsciously, of one in whose life we feel an interest; and, even if no actual results are produced, there is, as one of the profoundest historical students * of our day well observes, a satisfaction and instruction in treading the soil and breathing the atmosphere of the illustrious dead, if only to be sure that we have left no stone unturned, no step unapproached, by which we can be brought more nearly into contact with what is now the only unchangeable witness of the events which have themselves passed away. It is true that this feeling is easily carried to excess, and we cannot but think that in many instances Mr. Howson's illustrations are chargeable with the error of overshadowing, not elucidating, a narrative which for the most part flies with the lightest possible touch over ground which in these pages is described with a minuteness appropriate only to historical events drawn on the largest scale.

There are, however, scenes in the Apostle's life, such as the address on the Areopagus, the tumult in the theatre of Ephesus, the rescue on the staircase of the Antonian fortress, the shipwreck at Melita, in which the sacred narrative not only admits but invites every elucidation of topographical details. This, in all these cases, Mr. Howson has amply and faithfully furnished ;† and even where the need is less urgent, much will be forgiven, and much even required, by the intense and universal interest which attaches to every portion of such a life. We have already intimated that the chief instruction to be derived from this work lies beyond the immediate scope of our essay in which we have chiefly dwelt on the central and essential scenes of sacred history in Syria and Arabia. Something indeed of an enduring connexion must always exist between the Apostle's life and the two great cities of Damascus and Antioch‡ which witnessed its two most critical moments. The night journey, too, from Jerusalem to Antipatris is reproduced by Mr. Howson from the narrative of Dr. Eli Smith with a vividness as new and interesting as it is exact and certain.§ But it is not on Palestine but on Asia Minor and the Mediterranean Sea that the geographical labours of St. Paul's biographer must be chiefly expended. We gladly close our rapid sketch by turning for a moment to those regions -the true complement of the wide sphere of sacred geography. There is hardly a headland, or bay, or island in the long coast of unrivalled beauty from the Bay of Issus to the Triopian *Palgrave's History of Normandy and England.

Vol. i. pp. 402-406; vol. ii. pp. 83, 259-262, 347-351.

Vol. i. pp. 95-97, 131-137, 143. The traditional site of the conversion at Damascus (which is elaborately discussed by Quaresmius) is perhaps one of the few points of the kind which Mr. Howson has not exhausted.

§ Vol. ii. pp. 275-277.

promontory

2

༡

2

9

9

promontory, which has not received vab passing glory from the most illustrious native of that vast geninsulas Ando we may safely say that in the elucidation of those missionary fourneys, first of their kind in the world's history, there is no respurce of topographical knowledge from Chandler and Beaufort, from Tournefort and Hamilton, from numismatic collections dor Admiralty charts, that Mr. Howson has not successfully ransacked,Classical no less than biblical scholars may turn with advantage to his pages for the intricate divisions, never beforbiso clearly set forth, of the provinces of Asia Minor, the graphic [descriptions, never before so fully compiled, of the deep glens of Cilicia and the wild upland hollows of Pisidia and Lycaonia* The passage of the Apostle, from Troas to Tyre, alternately by land and sea, is faithfully portrayed in every particular, as every modern travellers who embarks from Beyrout to Constantinople can testify and with that attention to the times of the year, the month, and the week, which always gives so much vividness to la narrative where they can he recovered, Mr. Howson fhais ieqabled us to see the successive points in the coast on the precise day, and in all probability by the precise lights and shades of sunlight and moonlight under which they were presented to the Apostle. Most of all, he deserves our gratitude for having set before us, with all the additional illustrations which his own learning land observation has supplied, the joint results of the independent investigations of Admiral Penrose and Mr. Smith of Jordan Hill, with respect to the last voyage from Casarea tooPuteoliansit would be impossible to speak of this in detail. It may be sufficient to refer to the ingenious explanation of the difficulty cof Phoenix, the, haven of Crete, which lieth toward the south-west and north-west,' and to the lucid summary of the arguments by which the identity of Melita with Malta fhis set at aqest for evat пotod odt itol oved threddow guia aroll9761t vos ylfad woThere are two remarks, suggested, by Mr. Howson's labours which may form a not unfitting conclusion to this inddequate, retrospect of Sacred Geography.We constantly hear complaints, as elsewhere so in this department of knowledge, that the advance of science destroys that pleasing intercourse with the past, especially with the sacred past, which was unhesitatingly enjoyed, by all who lived in the days of crusades and pilgrimages. We would not wish for a better answer than to Open My Howson's pages, and contrast his illustrations, whether pictorial or written, with the pictures and descriptions which voltou to 990gin, gut zot thadband rodions to porn t ludoi od ad volt! pp. 524 milions to vol. 11. pp. 205-230. Veli pp/330-3330s 9d 9mit mo ts Vol. 351433716999

C

"

ΠΟ

6

used to occupy the Sunday evenings of our own and our fathers' childhood in Calmet's Dictionary of the Bible,' or Scheuchtzer's Physique Sacrée.' Can any one doubt for one moment the nearer approach, so far as local knowledge can give it, to the scenes of the patriarchal or apostolical history which is made by the one class of representations than by the other? And what is thus true of the mere outward image presented, is also true of the spirit in which that image is approached. To speak of the older travels, and of some modern travels, as written in a 'better' and more religious' frame of mind, because they endeavour to believe every tradition, or to seize at every confirmation of scriptural events or prophecies without regard to evidence and reason, is a mere abuse of language. The unhesitating reception which was natural in the days of our fathers has become impossible, and, if impossible, unlawful and irreligious. The discrimination of the actual from the imaginary scenes of sacred events, which is practicable now, has for that very reason become a duty and a privilege, and its reward is to be found in the truth, the vividness, the accuracy of representation and of realization, and the incidental proofs of genuineness thus conveyed, which to our predecessors were almost unknown.

Another remark of a different kind occurs on closing these volumes. If they are constructed on too elaborate a scale, they have at least this advantage, that they exhaust their subject. The existing geographical resources for St. Paul's life have been ransacked to the utmost, and it is improbable that any further materials will be added by lapse of years. But this cannot be said of the special field of sacred geography, of which, as we said at first, the coasts of Asia Minor and Greece are but the outskirts. The central region and the sea-coast of Palestine have perhaps been sufficiently explored; but in the desert of Sinai hardly any travellers since Burckhardt have left the beaten trackthe country east of the Jordan is known only through a few hasty incursions-the southern frontier of Judæa, including some of the earliest patriarchal scenes, has been investigated by but one single traveller-the key to the main topographical problems of Jerusalem lies buried under the unexcavated accumulations of many centuries- the mysterious rock, which rises in the centre of Mount Moriah, has never been satisfactorily explained —the origin of the Dead Sea and its connexion with the catastrophe of the cities is still an open question. The roll of Oriental discovery is not yet closed-there is still room for the energy of another Burckhardt, for the science of another Niebuhr, for the learning of another Robinson. And if, by the peculiar circumstances of our time, the zeal of the crusader and

VOL. XCIV. NO. CLXXXVIII.

2 c

the

the missionary are alike denied to the Eastern wanderer, yet we know from the records of the past, and we may therefore hope for the future, that there is a sphere of duty and of influence which these regions specially present-the opportunity of leaving behind such an image of the union of courage and vigour with calmness, pureness, justice, reverence, as even the vacant mind of the Syrian peasant and of the Arab chief will long retain as the likeness of an Englishman and a Christian.¦. ........ .... 、 ent i batrition ste ammale zuret alt to 2oteinatar

ART Memoirs of the Whig Party during my Time. By Henry Richard, Lord Holland. Edited by his Son, Henry Edward, Lord Holland.. Vol. II. London 1854

Ο

UR former "exposures of the partiality, and, in some instances, culpable misrepresentations of Lord' Holland's earlier volumesi, seem to absolve us from the necessity "of taking any notice of this new one, which is, as might be expected, ejusdem farind of the same light, loose, and adul terated stuff. But, on the other hand, we think our readers have a claim upon us for the continuation of a discussion once 'begun, and which is not altogether destitute of historical interest. Indeed, a regard for historical truth renders it not a choice but a' duty, that a new dose of the poison should be met by a proportionate application of the antidote,

We must, however, renew our protest against the inconvenient practice of publishing in broken parts works which might and should be given to us in their complete state. We can very well understand the extreme reluctance that any judicious friend might have had to publish Moore's Memoirs in their present shape, or those of Lord Holland in any shape, but we cannot imagine any creditable reason why whatever was to be published at all should not have been published all together. It is strange that two noble Lords should have simultaneously

* See especially the cases (as detected in our former article) of the discussion with Lord Bathurst in the House of Lords (Q. R. v. lxxxviii. p. 520)—of Mr. Windham's opinion of Burke's Reflections' (v. xei. p. 227of the pleasure with which Mr. Pitt, Mr. Burke, and Mr. Windham saw the murder of Louis XVI. (p. 224) of the forged note imputed to Lord Hervey (p. 237)—of Bishop Stock (p. 253) of the double case of Quigly and Foulkes (p. 252)—of Mr. Pitt's insolence to Lord Wycombe (p. 258)-of the imputation against Walter Scott (p. 262) In all these cases Lord Holland has advanced, as fucts within his own personal observation and knowledge, calumnies which are proved by the evidence of dates and other incontestable circumstances to be downright misstatements. Under what delusion his lordship could have permitted himself to make such assertions, his editor, after two years' leisure for inquiry, does not attempt to explain, and it is no business of ours to account for.

{་་ ༄།

assumed

assumed the title, with such a notorious disregard of the duties, of editors. Lord John Russell, as we have had too much occasion to complain, has done worse than nothing; but Lord Holland has done nothing at all, beyond putting into the hands of the printer manuscripts which we cannot but think that-if he had even read them-he must have seen could do little credit to his father.

D

We are ready, however, to admit that some of the more offensive characteristics of the former volumes are mitigated in this, though the innate habits of inaccuracy and the spirit of misrepresentation and detraction are in no degree amended. There is nothing to be complained of on the score of indecency, the rancour of Jacobinism is somewhat subdued, and even the tone of personal animosity seems less acrimonious. The reason is obvious. The former volumes referred to periods when Lord Holland was a young man, very much heated, indeed intoxicated, with the revolutionary politics of his uncle quite a Jacobinalmost, if we are to believe himself, a traitor. In this new volume he presents himself at the soberer-or what should have been the soberer—age of thirty-three, and in the enjoyment of that great specific for smoothing down the asperities of patriots -place and power, and, above all, in a coalition Cabinet, the majority of which-Grenville, Windham, Addington, &c.-bad heen the bêtes noires of his earlier life and of his former volumes, This association does not seem to have quite overcome his personal dislike to those new colleagues, but it necessarily restrained his pen and limited his censures. He could no longer reproach Windham for his coalition with Grenville, nor Grenville with his anti-Gallican policy, nor Addington with his subserviency to the Court. These halcyon days of office were however of short duration, and a great portion of the volume is occupied with regrets on his own part and blame against almost everybody else, friends and foes, for the mismanagements which deprived him of a longer enjoyment of the emollient influences of Downing Street. The consequence is, that, whereas in the former volumes the Tories engrossed all his anger, in this his Whig friends come in for a considerable share of his ill humour. But, notwithstanding this partial diversion of his wrath,

'His great revenge has stomach for them all,'

and his vexation with his associates and colleagues by no means stifles the inveterate bias of his mind to misrepresent and depreciate whenever he can find or make an opportunity-his old political adversaries. Indeed, the only feature of the volume from which anything like amusement is to be derived is the

2 c 2

petty