The Press. — London, England, 1856-06-28 00:00:00

616 f, i ttr a t ur t. A History of the Christian Church during the First Three Centuries. By the Rev. J. T. Blunt, B.D. London : Murray. THIS is an able work of solid character and of high utility, though addressed only to a limited audience. Its style is smooth, not showy; its tone is calm, not cold. It reads as a connected history, and its chief value is the argumentative force with which Gibbon's attack on Christianity is encountered. It is not professedly polemical, though its contro versial value is considerable. It is composed in the spirit of an English philosophical divine, without any rhetorical cant, or any of that corrupting casuistry which meets us in some theological works of the time. The history was delivered as a series of lectures, but it was originally composed as a connected narrative; and we strongly recommend it to those who would like to have an antidote to Gibbonian poison upon the same shelves with the "Decline and Fall." The full merit of Mr. Blunt's work is to be felt only by trained readers. We like its quiet energy, in which there is no babbling enthusiasm. Its absence of pompous display, and its freedom from the pest of Germanised philosophy, are great merits, in addition to its logical value as a positive narrative of the progress of Chris- tiani ty. The history commences with the text, " Thou " art Peter, and upon this rock will I build my " Church,"—the author drawing attention to Onr Lord speaking then of a future event, only the foundation of the Church being laid at the time. He fixes notice on the unity of the Church, and reviews in succession the aposto• lical teaching and the early organisation of the Christians. He traverses the ground often trod before by his predecessors, and yet he arrests the attention of a thoughtful reader by a certain practical treatment of his subject, as if he wrote under the thorough conscious ness of sacred belief. He does not trifle with his theme, or put us off with ambiguous lan guage. The work is thoroughly sincere, and both the internal and external evidences of the historical character of Christianity are stated with lucid power. Those familiar with Christian history will be more satisfied with this performance than general readers. For the latter class some of the ablest passages are not sufficiently ex panded, and there is not even an attempt at the art of word-painting. The work is an argument as well as a narrative, and several of its statements are abstracts of long reasonings. One of the ablest portions is that in which Gibbon's artifice in post-dating the early ,movements of the Gospel is exposed. In the I ast century the study of the early Fathers bad fallen into contempt. Gibbon's own knowledge of them was limited chiefly to the `Apologies," and the historian wrote under the npression that he might take liberties with is readers. Accordingly, Gibbon strives to ave it supposed that the Gospel owed its uccess to the secular arm, and that until lonstantine declared in its favour it made the way. He insinuates that opinion rather tan affirms it openly. He says, with covert kill, " A considerable pottion of the globe still retains the impression it received from the conversion of Constantine." Mr. Blunt brings forward an overpowering array of wit nesses to the extension of the Church in the three first centuries, and from an examina tion of the direct and indirect testimo nies of Justin, Theophilus, Tremens, Tertul lian, Hippolytus, Origen, and Cyprian, the author proves the unfairness of Gibbon, and establishes triumphantly the fact of the strength of the Church antecedently to the conversion of Constantine. Other artifices of Gibbon arc also exposed ; and this volume may be taken as an additional reply to Strauss and German infidels, who dispute the histori eat evidences of Christianity. An extremely able analysis of the " Apology" of Tertullian iq ineoiporated itli the text of this hiotory, and the annals of persecution vre6seci jut" nvvic9 of tho tvatuu.va.t. THE PRESS. The author of this work is now no more. The manuscript has been prepared for the press by Dr. Jeremie, the Regius Professor of Divinity, and by the Rev. T. G. Austen, of West Wickham. The text is carefully sup ported with references ; and, as a judicial history of the early struggles of the Christian Church, we recommend it to the collectors of a theological library. To eloquence or bril liancy it makes no pretensions, and its absence of all kinds of affectation is not the least of its merits. It is grave as becomes the subject, and its solid scholarship is supported by strong logic. That Christianity is a stubborn historical fact, that its title-deeds are not forgeries, that its early witnesses and up holders were truthful personages, and that its marvellous story can in nowise be assimilated with lying legends of false religions, are the important conclusions triumphantly estab lished in this calmly vigorous performance. Modern Painters. Vols. 111. and IV By John Ruskin, A.M. London: Smith and Elder. (Second Notice.) WE have said that Mr. Ruskin's third volume is mainly devoted to the definition of those principles of art--with abundant literary illus tration —of which practical examples are given in the fourth volume. His examples are chiefly selected from Turner, because he conceives that of all painters Turner has, in his natural style, best understood and best expressed that truth of Nature which Mr. Ruskin maintains should be the great aim and end of Art. But there is this apparent con tradiction in the author's teaching. He holds that drawing should be at once both distinct and indistinct, minute and mysterious,—that accuracy of detail cannot be carried too far, and yet that it must melt into obscurity. With all his amplitude of explanation, and subtle refinement, Mr. Ruskin does not com pletely reconcile this apparent opposition, though his principle is intelligible, that ex tremes meet, and that the highest finish resolves itself into cloudiness and mystery. Chapter ix. in vol iii., on " Finish," should be read with chap. iv. in vol. iv., on " Turnerian mystery." In the latter the principle is laid down—the emphasis of printing is Mr. Rus kin's own—that "WE NEVER SEE ANYTHING CLEARLY." With his usual ingenuity and force he urges : The fact is, that every thing we look at, be it large or small, near or distant, has an equal quantity of mystery in it; and the only question is, not how much mystery there is, but at what part of the object mystification begins. We suppose we see the ground under our feet clearly, but if we try to number its grains of dust, we shall find that it is as full of confusion and doubtful form as anything else ; so that there is literally no point of clear sight, and there never can be. What we caU seeing a thing clearly, is only seeing enough of it to make out what it is ; this point olintelligibility varying in distance for different magnitudes and kinds of things, while the appointed quantity of mystery remains nearly the same for all. Thus : throw an open book and an embroidered handkerchief on a lawn—at a distance of half a mile we cannot tell which is which; that is the point of mystery for the whole of those things. They are then merely white spots of indistinct shape. We approach them and perceive that one is a book, the other a hand kerchief, but cannot read the one nor trace the embroidery of the other. The mystery has ceased to be in the whole things, and has gone into their details. We go nearer, and can now read the text and trace the embroidery, hut cannot see the fibres of the paper nor the threads of the stuff. The mystery has gone into a third place. We take both up, and look closely at them ; we see the water-mark and the threads, but not the hills and dales in the paper's sur face, nor the fine fibres which shoot off from every thread. The mystery has gone into a fourth place, where it must stay till we take a microscope, which will send it into a fifth, sixth, hundredth, or thousandth place, according to the power we use. When, therefore, we say we see the book clearly, we mean only that we know it is a book. When we say that we see the letters clearly, we mean that we know what letters they are ; and artists feel that they are drawing objects at a convenient distance when they are so near them as to know, and to be able in painting to show that they know, what the objects are in a tolerably complete manner; but this power does not depend on any definite distance of the object, but on its size, kind, and distance together, so that a small thing in the foreground may he precisely in the same phase or place of mystery as a large thing far away. Again : Everything in the field of sight is equally puzzling, and can only be drawn rightly on the same difficult conditions. Try it fairly. Take the rominimest, closest, most familiar thing, and strive to draw it verily as iou nee it. Be Lire of this last fact, fix otherwis , , you will find yourself coati- Dolly dowtng, not what, you see, bo what loft 11 . 1104 q, T 1 SATURDAY, beat practice to begin with is. sitting about three yards from a bookcase (not your own, so that you may know none of the titles of the books), to try to draw the books accurately, with the titles on the backs, and patterns on the bindings as you see them. You are not to stir from your place to look what they are, but to draw them simply as they appear, giving the perfect look of neat lettering; which nevertheless must be (as you will find it on most of the books) absolutely illegible. Next try to draw a piece of patterned muslin or lace (of which you do not know the pattern) a little way of, and rather in the shade, and be sure you get all the grace and look of the pattern without going a step nearer to see what it is. Then try CO draw a bank of grass, with all its blades; or a bush, with all its loaves ; and you will soon begin to understand under what a universal law of obscurity we live, and perceive that all distinct drawing must be bad drawing, and that nothing can be right till it is unintelligible.— Vol. iv. p. 60, 61. Yet we read previously, and the emphasis is marked by Mr. Ruskin himself : Thus tender in execution, and so complete in detail, that Leonardo must needs draw every several vein in Me little agates and pebbles of the gravel under the feet of the " St. Annp "in the Louvre. Take . . Titian, Tintoret, Bellini, and Veronese. Examine the vine leaves of the " Bacchua and Ariadne " (Titian's) in the National Gallery ; examine the borage blossoms, painted petal by petal, though lying loose on the table, in Titian's " Supper at Emmaus " (in the Louvre ), or the snail-shells on the ground in his " Entombment " ; examine the separately. designed patterns on every drapery of Veronese in his " Marriage in Cana "; go to Venice and see how Tintoret paints the strips of olack bark on the birch trunk that sus tains the platform in his Adoration of the Magi " ; how I3ellini fills the rents of his ruined walls with the most exquisite clusters cf the erba della Madonna. You will find them all in a tale. Take . . Francia, Angelico, l)urer, Hemling, Perugino—and still the witness is one, still the same striving in all to such utmost perfection as their knowledge arid hand could reach.— Vol. iii. p. 128. The candid reader, comparing these passages, and many like them, will hardly be inclined to accept Mr. Ruskin's exclamation, " It is all right," in explanation of their inconsistency. He writes at large to show in what sense he understands his principle that " all distinct " drawing must be bad drawing " : Pre-Raphaelitism is quite as unintelligible as need be. Examine your Pre-Raphaelite painting well, and you will find it is the precise fulfilment of these laws. You can make out your plaintain-head and your vine, and see entirely what they are ; but yet they are full of mystery, and suggest more than you can see. So also with Turner, the true head of Pre P.aphaelitism. You shall see the spots of the trout lying dead on the rock in his foreground, but not count them. It is only the Germans, and the so called masters of drawing and defining, that are wrong, not the Pre-Raphaelites You will find in Veronese, in Titian, in Tintoret, in Correggio, and in all the great pdinters, properly so-called, a peculiar melting and mystery about the pencilling, sometimes called soft ness, sometimes freedom, sometimes breadth, but in reality a most subtle confusion of colours and forms, ob tained either by the apparently careless stroke of the brush, or by careful retouching with tenderest labour; bat always obtained in one way or another; so that though when compared with work that has no meaning, all great work is distinct—compared with work that has narrow and stubborn meaning, all great work is indistinct; and if we find, on examining any picture closely, that it is all clearly to be made out, it cannot be, as painting, first-rate. There is no exception to this rule. EXCELLENCE OF THE HIGHEST KIND WITHOUT OESCURITY CANNOT EXIST. Though it be admitted—as a person intent on finding the true meaning of Mr Ruskin will be disposed to admit—that there is no real opposition in the above passages—that both principles are true within their proper limits—yet it must be considered unfortunate that Mr. Ruskin, while contending for one part of his case only, is so earnest in his advocacy that the part is presented to his readers as the whole. From the chapter on " Finish" few persons would imagine the very large qualifi cations with which in future chapters the author would wish his conclusions on distinct or minute painting co be received. When the whole of Mr. Ruskin's argument is brought together, we find his meaning to be that a great painter must know how to represent what is near as distinct, and what is remote as obscure or mysterious ; that in both cases Art should follow Nature, and come as near as possible to her truth. But, then, if either principle—the distinct or the obscure—be taken separately, and represented as a com plete truth, confusion inevitably ensues; and it is open to question whether in both cases Mr. Ruskin has not pushed the application of his principle to undue extremity. In the case of distinctness--for Mr. Ruskin sometimes dwells on the beauty of iiiierc,seopie painting — the exaggeration is more perceptible than in the case of obscurity. There is a point at which the Obscurity of vision is complete; but no point at which its distinctness is perfect. The detyrou of " Yon Eyck, Minn I)ttrer, and I