The Sun.
London, England, 1850-01-09 00:00:00

LITERATURE.

PANTHEA. The Spirit of Nature. By R. Bunt,
Author of the " Poetry of Science."
Few will understand this book, but fewer yet will
read it without being charmed by the flowing beauty
of its style and the gorgeous colouring of its descrip-
tions. The author thus explains the object of his
work :

In the following sketch —for it claims no higher
character—an attempt has been made to exhibit the
progress of a young and ardent mind—captivated b)
the beautiful in nature, and allured by the wonders of
science—under the influence of the conflicting views
which beset our philosophy.
" The illusions of youth—its visions of beauty—its
warm feelings—and its speculative tendencies, all con-
duce to render pleasing the mystical dreams of visionary
thinkers. While, on the contrary, the utilitarian ten-
dencies of the age are coldly repulsive to the young and
imaginative mind. The object, therefore, has been, to
describe the onntest between the False—seductive by its
poetic associations—and the True, as stimated by the
standard of the merely useful.

"Anxious to exhibit the dangerous influences of false
modes of reasoning, and defective habits of observation
—of showing what is objectionable in the modern
system of science, and the exalting tendencies of that
philosophy which questions the oracle with an earnest
desire to elicit truth for its own sake, it is hoped that
the following pages may prove suggestive of the advan-
tages which arise from ' The marriage of Thought with
Nature? "
In order to carry out his object, Mr. Hunt has availed
himself of somewhat incongruous materials. Reality
and idealism fact and fiction matters of
every day occurrence and mesmeric marvels mingle
together in the pages of "Panthea." The result is
to a certain extent a bewilderment. Yet the graceful
character of individual parts, and the eloquent lan-
guage of the whole narration, invests the volume
with a peculiar charm. Were it a little more or a
little less real the story would be more harmonious.
But this defect arises from the endeavour to set the
conflicting principles of reality and idealism in close
. contrast. The hero of the tale is one Lord Julian
Altamont, to many nothing better than a wild
visionary. Julian's parents, the Earl and Countess of
Devonport, and his tutor, Mr. Chesterton, urge the
young Lord to take part in the realities of life as
becoming his station. On the other hand Laon
zElphage, a visionary philosopher, and bis daughter
aEltgiva, a worshipper of Panthea, the Spirit of
Nature, seek to render the not reluctant
Julian a votary of Pantheism and a dreamer of
dreams. Eudora Spencer, the betrothed of the young
lord, stands between the two extremes, and ultimately
triumphs. " Dream on I" says Laon at the last page
of the volume. " Awake, and work l" exclaims
Eudora; and Julian replies " I will l" Such is the
truth which " Panthea" inculcates—life should
be neither an idle dream nor a soulless
reality, but the union of thought and action.
The lessen is, however, to our thinking, far in-
ferior to the manner in which it is given. As we
read a poem not so much for the story which it may
relate as for the take of the beautful language in
which it is written, and the fine thoughts scattered
through it, so we have taken pleasure in turning over
the pages of "Panthea ;" and however incredulous
we may be as to " the Mystery" of Panthea and the
marvels of Altgiva, we should gladly re-peruse the
volume for the sake of its panoramic descriptions and
its eloquent style. As a specimen of its character,
let us give a passage from a conversation between
Julian and his mother :
" You have mistaken my disposition and my desires;
you have mis-interpreted my conduct. My earliest
lessons were given me by you, my mother. Before I
could correctly employ language, you instructed me in
the great truth, that beyond nature a spiritual Power
existed, to whom it was the infant's duty to address its
simple prayer. When kneeling before you, my little
hands placed by you in the adorative attitude, and my
tongue syllabling the words of the prayer you uttered, I
first formed my idea of the God of Nature. In her, at
whose feet I knelt, I saw everything which I could
comprehend, within my childish mind of goodness; and
I saw, in my infant visions, beyond the bright blue sky
which curtained Heaven, a God—pure, holy, and kind
as my mother.'

" tears stood in the eyes of the Countess, but the
was silent.

" Julian continued. 'My boyish days were passed in
a country where the works of Nature were alike sublime
and beautitul. Mountains rose, rocky and barren,
toward the sky. Torrents rolled through the rifted
chasms down into the valleys which were rich with
forest trees and full of flowers. The desert and the
garden were found beside each other. A pastoral
country spread towards the sea, and the grand ocean beat
in calm and storm on beetling cliffs and wave-subduing
sands. In the moaning of the mountain, the roar of the
torrent, the sighing of the forest, the hum of the
savannah, and the wild music of the never resting sea,
I heard voices proclaiming a Greatness beyond us,
which I loved as I loved my mother; while I felt an awe
amounting to dread on account of the mystery which
shrouded the Unseen. I was a poet long before I
dreamed of philosophy. I saw all nature through a
beautiful veil, woven over my mind by my mother. I
saw nothing bat goodness ; the evil things of fallen
humanity I had never seen. Earth was still to my
childish eye a paradise, upon which even the rain-cloud
std the wind-storm diffused a regenerating influence ;
and, in those solitary rambles which I always loved, I
felt safe in the consolation of a Presence which sheltered
me as fondly as those indulgent arms. I grew in years,
and the task of education was begun. I had to unlearn
much; at least, all the efforts of my first masters were
directed to destroy those conceptions of nature which I
had drawn from nature, and to implant in my mind
ideas of an artificial character. I was bewildered be-
tween the True and False I became melan-
choly in my longings for still more knowledge. You and
my father deemed my meditations madness, and hurried
me into a world where I detect on every side false pre-
tensions and dishonest aims. There is much real excel-
lence in man, but it is disguised; even good is done with
hypocrisy; and Virtue almost fears to present her pure
form among the crowd. I have borne with this, and I
have learnt that although none are absolutely evil—
although all exhibit an honest desire to act correctly in
their little circles, which are bounded by a thousand
sweet affections, that a chain of conventional error binds
us all, and, in obedience to the galling shackle, wan acts
a part of baseness, which the good that is in him teaches
him to abhor. Is this not so, mother ? Notwithstand-
ing all our semblance of piety, and the virtue and the
charity which we assume in public, are we not, all of
us, when before the world, disposed to play the hypo-
crite? and even before our looking-glasses, do we not
try to cheat ourselves, vainly imagining that the grand
mirror of the eternal heavens will not catch the reflection
of our inmost souls, through the mask?' "
Many beautiful thoughts are to be found throughout
the volume. such as the following :
" Beauty was in and around all things; as a flood of
light it diffused itself over the whole world. Be saw
nature in its brightness and purity reflecting back to
heaven the smile of God.
" The harp of Memnon is not a fable—its music is no
imaginary sound. Every lover of nature, who, seated
on the mountain or by the ocean, has witnessed the sun
casting his first golden beams across the Earth, has bad
his soul stirred by that divine harmony. •
" No sorrow ever fell upon the heart of man, which
did not in some way improve the condition of that heart.
Fresh sympathies—a greater range of affections—higher
aspiration for the virtues of humanity, or some other
holy influence, invariably appears as the wound heals;
and, disguise it as we may, afflictions are the stern dis-
pensers of those gifts which adorn beatified souls. . •
" Our limits of the beautiful appear to be confined
within a circle which embraces the affections; which in-
volves every grace that a gentle poetry can throw over
objects of art or nature; and which admits of every
sentiment of purity and truth not tainted by the gloom
of tragic feeling. The age in which we live can scarcely
be said to know the sublime. Our milder feelings fall
back with something like the chill of terror upon the
heart, when the sea-cliff, the mountain gorge, or the
precipitous cataract bursts upon us in their grandeur.
The whirlwinds of human passion present themselves as
phenomena at which angels might weep; but the sub-
limity of tragedy finds no sympathy—stirring to a high
religion—in the cells of our more tranquil bosoms. The
spirit of the age is not tragic; and, consequently our
artists cannot learn, in suffering, those sublime appeals
to human hearts which distinguish the works of sterner
periods; and, as every effort of the mind is moulded by
the passion which stirs it, it becomes impossible that we
should embody in'our poetry the terrors of Euripides,
or, in our paintings or sculptures, realise the sublimity
of Michael Angelo. We reach the beautiful; but we
vainly attempt the sublime. The poet who ventures on
the task assumes the grandiloquence of sounding sen-
tences,
where he cannot rise to soul-searching thoughts;
the painter, by size, endeavours vainly to compensate for
want of force; and the player, by rant; strives to cheat
the senses into a belief of passion. The watch-word of
the present is Peace. Even amid the discord of that
tempest which is sweeping like a cyclone over Europe,
the voice of the soul—a spiritual music amid the storm
—cries Peace. In the conflict of opinions; in the war
of creeds; in the riots of crime and ignorance; in the
stir and agitation of the virtuous and the educated, still
there rises, like a mighty throb from a melancholy
breast, the sigh for Peace."

THE LIFE OF ST. PAUL. 14 the Rev. G.

E. Biber.
No lessons are so instructive as those inculcated by
example, and few literary compositions are so inter-
esting as biography ; therefore Mr. Biber, in proposing
to give a series of biographies of the most eminent
Christians, has selected a theme of singular in-
terest and importance. The very excellent and
highly attractive manner in which the mar-
vellous history of the great Apostle to the Gen-
tiles has been set forth by Mr. Biber induces the most
favourable anticipations for the coining volumes. Mr.
Biber thus explains the object of his undertaking.
He was anxious that the biographies should be so
constructed "as to embrace within their scope not only
the leading events of Church history, but all that is
known of the general condition of the Church, and
of the customs and practices which prevailed at each
given period. They should present complete por-
traitures of the life of the Church in every age ; and
in order to suit the taste and intelligence of the
general reader, and especially of the young, they
should be written in an easy and popular style, as
, free as poeeible from theological technicalities." All