this kind no doubt exist, and such abuses should be prevented, for the future, by rigid and uncompromising statutes. Wherever it is possible, there should be a resident clergyman in, or near every parish. For there is a vast deal of very idle fallacy, and serious misapprehension arising out of the parliamentary returns. No distinction is made, at least no marked and evident distinction, between a clergyman actually non-resident, and those who happen to reside just beyond the borders of their parish. In many instances, a clergyman is much more conveniently situated for the performance of his duties, though not actually within his parish, than if he were domiciled in some remote and unpeopled corner of it. At all events, these cases should not be confounded: we know several instances of clergymen, who are most diligently discharging the duties of their cures; but, in the public documents, are represented as non-residents, because the living either has no glebe-house, or none in which a gentleman can live; and the incumbent has therefore obtained a commodious dwelling as near as possible to his charge. In this, as in some other cases, we would allow great latitude to the bishops, and no man should be returned as non-resident, who is residing near enough to perform his duties with convenience and punctuality.

In one important particular all the Bills against pluralities and non-residence appear to us framed on a false principle. They have considered only the value and the distance from each other; they have altogether omitted the more important part, the population. Dr. Burton, in his proposed plan for the taxation of the larger livings for the benefit of the smaller, totally forgot this most important item in the calculation. It would be as unjust as it would be impolitic to tax a living of 500l. a year, with 5000 parishioners, for the benefit of one of 100l. with a population of 100. It would be a much more effective regulation than most provisions which we have seen, if any person holding two livings should, in almost all instances, be compelled to reside on that which has the largest population; and, holding one with a certain amount of population, he should in no case be permitted to hold another, unless where the population is very small. Under such regulations, notwithstanding the honest and just prejudice against pluralities in the abstract, there is no doubt that their practical operation, in the present state of the church, would be beneficial rather than injurious. If a clergyman has one living worth 2007. with a population of 2000, and another of 500 (no uncommon case) with a population of 200, it would be better that he should reside on the larger benefice with the united income, and leave a resident curate, with a liberal stipend, on the smaller. And, after all, population, though the best, is far from a certain criterion of a clergyman's

a clergyman's labour,-a flock of 1000 scattered over a wide surface would require much more of his time and labour than twice that number concentered on one spot.

We cannot be unaware of the jealousy which exists against discretionary powers, but we are not less convinced that, in the present unequal divisions of parishes, and, we fear, the incurable disproportion between the income and the service to be performed, any act of parliament, which shall rigidly interdict every kind of plurality, and uniformly enforce the residence of the incumbent, will by no means remedy those evils which appear to call for legislative interference. In many instances it would unquestionably be inexpedient, we do not scruple to add, unjust. To leave no dispensing power with the bishop in those numerous and unavoidable cir cumstances which require the temporary absence of a clergyman from his cure, his health or that of his family, or important business, would be to subject the clergy to an inquisitorial tyranny to which no other class of men in the kingdom would submit. We would go much farther, and lodge a more extensive discretionary power with the rulers of the church. The application of the law to the countless peculiar and anomalous cases which exist of parishes almost without inhabitants, yet with a respectable income, and populous parishes with scarcely any income at all, might safely, in our opinion, be vested in those to whose province it belongs. If these powers are abused, it will then be time for the State to exercise that supreme authority, which, put forth at present, without modification or power of dispensation, would as unquestionably be supreme injustice.

At all events, we trust that this great question will be considered, as considered it must be, in a calm and amicable spirit. For our own part, we can see no cause for jealous apprehension on one side, for acrimonious hostility on the other. The English Church is certainly not endangered by the perilous splendour of its general endowments; it possesses not the dono fatal of inordinate wealth. On the contrary, the disproportion between its revenues and its necessities is become so flagrantly manifest, that all apprehension of the diversion of Church revenues to less legitimate purposes may safely be dismissed, even under the most hostile and unscrupulous government, provided that government has once sincerely recognised the necessity of maintaining the religious Establishment. Instead of abolishing bishoprics, there is rather a demand for an increase in their number. It is quite clear that every shilling which can be gained by any new distribution, or by the improvement of church property, will be immediately absorbed, and, alas! will far from fill the void, in the payment of the poorer and more laborious benefices.

. The cordial union of all firm and rational friends to the Church

Church Establishment, in a temperate examination of the best mode of re-arranging its revenues, as far as that re-arrangement may be needed, will at once unmask the insidious friendship of those who abolitionists at heart- still talk the smoother language of reform; and, by forcing them to declare their views openly, show how very insignificant a portion of the educated and influential classes of the community are inclined to sever the few remaining and almost imperceptible links which unite the Church and State. Nor do we consider this urgent cry of 'peace! peace!' applicable only to the avowed or secret enemies of the Established Church. If any zealous but imprudent and short-sighted knot of churchmen should endeavour to rouse a › spirit of resistance among the clergy to a fair and candid examination of the Church, with a view to such correction, as may be practicable, of its imperfections;-if they should attempt to embarrass the government- the only government the country can have, that still retains a profound respect for the ancient institutions of the country-they will be the worst enemies of that Establishment, of which they declare themselves the devoted champions. If, on the other hand, such discussions are carried on with openness, candour, and real liberality, with a fair statement of difficulties, and a tranquil consideration of the remedies proposed, the Establishment of the country will rally round it all the good sense, the moderation, the wisdom, we will venture to say, the genuine Christianity of the country; for the real Christ-ianity of the Dissenters themselves will then have the courage and the justice to disclaim the sentiments of the more violent and factious of that body. When the alternative is fairly placed before the country between an Established Church and the Voluntary System, we have too much confidence in the wisdom of the English nation at large, to have the slightest apprehension of appealing to, and of abiding by, its deliberate and solemn decision.

ART. VIII.-Zur Geschichte der Neueren Schönen Literatur in Deutschland, von Henri Heine. Th. 1 und 2. Paris and Leipzig. 1833.

IT

T has frequently been made a question, whether the Germans have any well-founded pretensions to wit; and it seemed till lately pretty generally agreed that the maintenance of the national honour in this respect had devolved exclusively on Jean Paul, whose sallies come flashing through his mysticism, like lightning through clouds. Within the last five years, however, a new star

has

has appeared in the literary hemisphere of Germany,-malign in its influence, wavering in its orbit, and unsteady in its light, but sparkling all over with a brilliancy which soon occasioned all eyes and glasses to be turned upon it. Henry Heine came out as a poet and prose-writer-first with his Reisebilder, next with his Contributions towards the Literary History of his Contemporariesand speedily gained for himself the reputation of being one of the cleverest, if not wittiest, writers of his day. We say, for himself— no man having ever been more exclusively the architect of his own reputation than Heine; for at starting he wantonly provoked a whole host of detractors by his impertinences-and, by his hardly concealed contempt for existing creeds and establishments, he has often managed to reduce even his most ardent admirers to the condition of apologists. At the present moment, he is regarded as a regular outlaw, a downright caput lupinum, in the literary circles of Germany, where his hand is against every man, and every man's hand is against him.' Yet we believe him to be possessed of many noble and generous qualities (as, indeed, what man of true genius is not?) -we are told that he is now eagerly striving to work himself pure— and nourish a strong hope that he will come round, ere long, to a due sense of the evil of his ways. But the undoubted ability of his writings, apart from their tendency, will amply justify the passing notice we are about to take of the volume named at the head of this paper-a work much better fitted for our purpose than the Reisebilder, which, as the name partly imports, is a mere collection of thoughts, fancies, images, and descriptions, picked up or suggested during journeys to well-known places of resort-acute, lively, and graphic, but wild, wandering, and desultory. The volume now before us, on the contrary, is the commencement of a regular critical history of the recent German literature, addressed, indeed, to French readers, and professedly composed as a suppliment to Madame de Staël's celebrated De L'Allemagne,' but not the less adapted to England on that account; for we believe the two nations (always excepting our inner circle of adepts) are much upon a par as regards the peculiar kind of information conveyed by Heine, and still look equally to Madame de Staël as their principal authority on all matters connected with the belleslettres and philosophy of Germany. Yet it is clear to demonstration, that mighty changes have been effected since she wrote; and it would be by no means difficult to prove that she had at best buť a superficial acquaintance with the subjects about which she discourses so pleasantly. Robert Hall says he threw aside the book disdainfully on finding her, in her account of the metaphysicians, coolly setting down a well-known idealist among the

realists;

realists; and it is still related, as characteristic of her style of inquiry in Germany, that her first address to Schelling was :Monsieur, voudriez-vous bien m'expliquer votre système en peu de mots?+ Her accounts of books, also, are singularly defective; her analysis of Faust, for instance, shows that she had never read above a third of it. But on the subject of Madame's merits and demerits Heine himself shall speak

Madame de Staël's Germany is the only comprehensive piece of information which the French have received as to the intellectual life of Germany; and yet, since the appearance of this book, a long period has elapsed, and an entirely new literature has developed itself in Germany. Is it but a transient literature? Is it already in the sere and yellow leaf? Opinions are divided upon these points. Most be- lieve that, with the death of Goethe, a new literary period begins in Germany; that old Germany is gone with him to the grave; that the aristocratic season of literature is at an end, the democratic, beginning; or, as a French journalist lately expressed it," The spirit of individuals has ceased, the spirit of all has commenced." As to myself, I cannot so confidently decide on the future evolutions of the German mind. The termination of the Goethe period of art, by which name I first designated this period, I had for many years foreseen. I might well prophesy! I had a thorough knowledge of the ways and means of those unquiet ones, who would fain make an end of the Goethe dynasty; and in the risings of that time against Goethe, I myself was certainly to be seen. Now that Goethe is dead, a strange pang comes over me to think of it.

'As I announce these pages as a continuation, in some sort, of Madame de Staël's work, I am obliged, whilst honouring the instruction derivable from it, to recommend, notwithstanding, a certain caution in the use of it, and most particularly to proclaim it a coterie book. Madame de Staël, of glorious memory, has here, in the form of a book, opened, as it were, a drawing-room, in which she received German authors, and gave them an opportunity of familiarizing themselves with the civilized world of France; but in the hubbub of the most various voices which cry from out this book, clear above all is heard the fine descant of Mr. A. W. Schlegel. Where she is all herself, where the magnanimous Madame speaks out directly with her own whole heart-even with the entire fire-work of her own brilliant absurdities—there, good and excellent is the production. But so soon as she

* He added, when something was said about the flights of her fancy, that for his part, he could not admire her flights, for to him she was generally invisible; not because she ascended to a great height above the earth, but because she invariably selected a foggy atmosphere.'-Gregory's Life of Hall, p. 235.

†The same mode of inquiry seems to have been adopted by M. Thiers during his ten days' journey to England in 1833, in which time he pledged himself to the citizenking to learn all that was worth learning concerning us. He wrote as follows to a gentleman then connected with the Treasury:

Mon cher Monsieur,—Pourriez-vous me donner un petit quart d'heure pour m'expliquer le système finuncier de votre pays? Tout à vous, THIERS.

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