The Press. — London, England, 1858-10-09 00:00:00

984 THE PItE S S, OCTOBER 9, 1858. Liturgical services consisting of composed prayers, of portions of lloly Writ, collects, epistles, gospels, along with hymns, the sermon, the service being aided by sacred music. This variety acknowledged by the Church has been too often neglected by the writers of volumes meant to assist in religious contempla tion, and it is the merit of this little work (261 pp.) that its author has given much matter within a moderate space. We must, however, frankly say that Mr. Shepherd's prose is better than his poetry. Ile is not a practised versifier, and he does not appreciate the niceties of rhythm with a delicately poetical ear, and many of his stanzas are rough. The idea, however, of the volume is excellent. It is a commentary of a practical kind on the life and character of David, under the heads Of "His Innocence and Peace," " Manhood," "Exile," "Flesh and Spirit," " Do mestic Troubles," " Holy Meditations," &c. &c., thirteen chapters being devoted to the vicissitudes of David's life. Mr. Shepherd perfectly under stands the character of David. He writes of him : David was a man of no ordinary character. Divested, indeed, of that spirituality which belongs to him as a chosen instrument in the hands of Divine Providence for the carrying on his great purpose of the redemption of the ir.rld by the seed of the woman, as a patriot, a a•atesman, a king, a warrior, or a poet, he may bear comparison with any of the loftiest or most mighty of the worthies of Greece or Rome. He was not only a patriot who drew into one the scattered and divided tribes of Israel, as did Egbert the opposing kingdoms of the Heptarchy in our own country, and thus became the founder of a royal line of kings and an united kingdom, but his dominion was made typical of an everlasting kingdom. He stands out pre-eminent and distinct from all others ; that in him, and in his line, was concentrated the first, full, clear personal identification of the great promise, which, announced in Paradise, and repeated and enlarged in various degrees, and nnder different circumstances, by types, and revelations, and prophecies, to individuals, and heads of families and tribes, was at length limited to one tribe only, and then to one family in that tribe, the tribe of Judsh, and the family of David. For the promise of the redemption had been given to our first parents as the common heads of the human race in general terms, expressed by the victory of the seed of the woman over the old serpent. That is the character of David considered ob jectively in the Jewish history, but in our age it is the subjective character of David which comes home most strongly to the feelings of men. As Mr. Shepherd truly says,— But high and distinguished u David thus was beyond other men, as placing his family above all other families and tribes of Israel, and making his a name of peculiar distinction throughout all ages to the end of time, the Spirit of God has caused his history to be written as that of a man highly favoured indeed of God, and raised up for great and important purposes; but a man of like passions with ourselves, liable to sin, and guilty of grievous and actual transgressions; and not only subject to the ‘icissi titles of human life, but one who experienced trials most distressing, and calamities and sufferings in a degree not less painful and humiliating than were his successes glorious and triumphant. These facts are recorded with all the plainness and sincerity of truth in the Old Testa ment, and the record affords a strong collateral evidence of the authenticity of a revelation, which needed not " the meretricious aid of ornament " to recommend it to the adoption and acceptance of even the loftiest genius. These views of David's life and mission are ably elucidated in detail in this volume, and the com mentary is full and interesting. We know of no living poet who could " im prove" the Psalms of David, as they stand in the F.nglish Bible, by rendering them into verse. We prefer them as they are to any ornamentation of them by the application of sound ; and we be lieve that an overwhelming majority of critics would agree with us in that opinion. We are aware, however, that there are some persons so enslaved by sound that they would like the whole Bible put into English verse, and reduced to the level of a hymnological collection. The Psalms of David as they stand are most sublime and affecting poetry, and considered metrically they may be taken as blank verse of the noblest kind. Even with reference to their language, as apart from their though.:, we could never lower them to mere prose compositions. If however, it should be attempted to render them in English verse, the adapter should carefully consider his own poetical resources. When an actor thinks of taking up as a specialty the delineation of French. Scotch, or Irish character, there is always the prime necessity of being a good general performer, and being thoroughly conver sant with the business of the stage ; and trans lators and adapters in poetry should first possess the " accomplishments in verse " before they attempt to render the poetical thoughts of others. A more arduous poetical task could scarcely be undertaken than to give a lyrical rendering in English verse of the 'Psalms of David. Even Tennyson, with all his sweetness and richness of diction, would not, in our opinion, be equal to such a labour. The mind of our present Lau reate is too delicately fashioned, his sense of the exquisite too often borders on the finically fasti dious, to suit him for the office of rendering the Psalms of David into lyrical verse. Milton, Dryden, Gray, and Byron had that command over grand and swelling harmonie s o f soun d , and that familiarity with the laws of metre, requisite for the task. Gray was cold and classically frigid, and both Dryden and Byron wanted that spirituality of soul required for giving full utterance to the upbraidings of a religious con science. In saying this, we do not forget that in Tennyson's " Morte d'Arthur " there are some noble expressions of the grandest rhythm in blank verse ; as, for example, the opening of that fine fragment : So all day long the noise of battle rolled Among the mountains by the winter sea, Until King Arthur's table man by wan Hal fall'n in Lyoness about their Lord King Arthur. And again : Not like that Arthur who, with lance in rest, From spur to plume a star of tournament, Shot through the lists at Camelot, and charged Before the eyes of ladies and of kings. Byron also, even in the "Hebrew Melodies," which are not amongst his greatest proofs of power, has given some exquisite specimens of metrical mastery. Mrs. Grant of Laggan used to say that she could never hear or read the lines, Oh I weep for those that wept by Babel's stream, without her eyes filling with tears. The last stanza of that poem is certainly most affect mg:— Tribes of the wandering feet and weary breast, How shall ye flee away and be at rest. The wild dove hath her nest, the Ms his cave, Mankind their country—lsrael but the .grave I The two concluding lines, with the pause in the middle of the last, are very fine as specimens of pathetic utterance ; and " The Siege of Sen nacherib " is a familiar instance of Byron's com mand of swelling verse. Dryden's notion of turning the " Paradise Lost" of Milton into prose verse, with rhymed couplets varied by triplets and an occasional Alexandrine, is an instance of bad taste, and one might therefore doubt whether he could appreciate the austere and noble simplicity of the Psalms of David as they now stand in our Bible. We are, however, firmly convinced that any English lyrical form of the Psalms would not improve their grandeur or sublimity of effect. If sweetness and pathos were aimed at by the adapter of the Psalms, he should take special care with the euphony of his verse. The first Psalm put into verse by Mr. Shep herd is the eighth—" Domine, Domine noster' appointed to be read at Evening Prayer on the first day of the month. Here is the way in which Mr. Shepherd presents it : PSALM VIII. O Lord, oar Governor, bow excellent In all the earth thy name ; Who far above heaven's foftiest firmament, Haat set thy glory's fame. Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings, thou Hast power and strength ordain'd ; And, to bring down the proud avenger low, Haat all thy foes reatraiu'd. When to the heavens I lift my wondering eyes, The work of thine own hands, And muse upon the moon, and sun, and skies, Ordained Is) thy commands : Lord, what is man, that thou for him dust care, Or visit as thine own ? For him—though made less than the angels are -- . . . I Thou dost with honour crown, And niatrat him have o'er all thy works control, That he might subject keep All sheep, and oxen, beasts and leather'd fowl, And creatures of the deep. 0 Lord, our Governor, bow excellent, In all the earth thy name ! The first stanza is unmusical; the first and third lines do not scan to one metre ; there is a need less anapaest in the third line; and the Ton tion of the " bast" thrice in the first es is unpleasing. In the fourth stanza, the juxta position of " thoug.h" and Thou" produces false concord ; and several ether blemishes lull "The same faith may have made a hero of "Gustavus Adolphus and a few others. But " how many heroes have had no faith at all? Was " not Frederick of Prussia a professed infidel, a " profligate, a friend and admirer of Voltaire ? " To these two arguments the present " History of Frederick the Great " is to constitute a detailed answer. Mr. Carlyle replies to the first objection by denying the fact, by asserting that Silesia and the slice of Poland belonged to the King of Prussia by right. Whether this can be made out will appear when the third and fourth volumes are published. Meanwhile, let the reader peruse the following general remarks upon the subject, and judge whether or no Mr. Car lyle is still what he was. Speaking of a pam phlet published in 1766, under the title of " Matinees du Roi de Prusse," in which Fre derick is represented as declaring to his nephew that the success of the Hohenzollerns was owing to their adroit Machiavelistn, Mr. Carlyle, pro nouncing the pamphlet an impudent forgery, goes on to say : It is very certain if Beelzebub made this world, our paw phleteer and the huge portion of mankind that follow him are right. But if God made the world, and only leads Beelzebub, as some ugly muzzled bear is led, a longer or shorter temporary dance in this divine world, and always draws him home again and peels the unjust gains off him and ducks him in a certain hot lake, with some intent to lodge him there to all eternity at last—then our pam- phleteer and the huge portion of mankind that follow him are wrong How the Hohenzollerns got their big territories and came to what they are in the world will be seen. Probably they were not any of them paragons of virtue. They did not walk in altogether speekless Sunday pumps, or much clear-starched into consciousness of the moral sublime, but in rugged practical boots and by such roads as there were. Concerning their moralities and conformities to the laws of the road and of the universe, there will much remain to be argued by pamphleteers and others. Men will have their opinion—men of more wisdom and of less; Apes by the Dead Sea also will have theirs. But what man that believed in such a universe as that of this Dead• Sea pamphleteer could consent to lire in it at all? Who that believed in such a universe and did not design to live like a Papin's•Digester or Porcus Epicuri in an extremely ugly manner in it, could avoid one of two things—going rapidly into Bedlam or else blowing his brains out? It will not do for me at any rate, this Infinite Doghouse—not for me, ye Dryasdusts, and omnipotent Dogmonsters and Mud•go;la, whoever you are. One honourable thing I can do—take leave of you and your Dog•establirhment. Enough ! As to the second objection, which is to be re futed in detail in the course of the work—the objection, namely, that Frederick, being an in fidel and a profligate, did nevertheless accom plish heroic actions—readers who are acquainted with Mr. Carlyle will easily guess what the tenor of that refutation will be. For those who are less acquainted with him we extract this passage : Frederick is by uo means one of the perfect demigodal; and there are various things to be said against him with good graund. To the last, a questionable hero ; with much in him which one could have wished not there, and much wanting which one could have wished. But there is one feature which strikes you at an early period of the inquiry, That in his way he is a Reality ; that he always means what he speaks; grounds his actions, too, on what he recognizes for the truth ; and, in short, has nothing whatever of the Hypocrite or Phantasm. Which some readers will admit to be an extremely rare phenomenon. We have endeavoured in this article to give our readers some conception of the scope of this important work. Of its vivid narrative, its busy and crowded scene, and, in particular, of the minute biography of Frederick Wilhelm which it contains, we have not had space to speak. We shall have some account of these things to give in our next number. The Sweet Psalmist of Israel ; or, the Life of David, King of Israel. Illustrated by his own Psalms newly Versified in various Metres. By the Rev. William Shepherd, B.D. Lon don : Bell and Daldy. AMONGST the best sort of devotional works are those which furnish strong vehicles of ardent religious aspiration along with either historical or didactic illustrations of Scriptural Truth. The varieties of mood in which the religious spirit seeks to commune with the Creator should be carefully attended to by composers of works of piety. Prayer is so intense and solemn an exercise of the faculties, that the minds of ordi nary mortals cannot long remain in so exalted a condition; and it is necessary to alternate the mode of keeping the spirit employed in its reli gious exercises. The Church has felt this obligation, and wisely provided for it in the