of Matthew, and you will observe that our Lord answered the appeal.1 You may depend upon it, the more oath-taking, the more lying, generally among the people. I MAY 27, 1830. Flogging.-Eloquence of Abuse. 2 HAD one just flogging. When I was about thirteen, I went to a shoemaker, and begged him to take me as his apprentice. He, being an honest man, immediately brought me to Bowyer, who got into a great rage, knocked me down, and even pushed Crispin rudely out of the room. Bowyer asked me why I had made myself such a fool? to which I answered, that I had a great desire to be a shoemaker, and that I hated the thought of being a clergyman. Why so?" said he. "Because, to tell you the truth, sir,' said I, "I am an infidel!" For this, without more ado, Bowyer flogged me,-wisely, as I think, soundly, as I know. Any whining or sermonizing would have gratified my vanity, and confirmed me in my absurdity; as it was, I was laughed at, and got heartily ashamed of my folly. 66 How rich the Aristophanic Greek is in the eloquence of abuse! 'Ω βδελυρέ, κἀναίσχυντε, καὶ τολμηρὲ σὺ, We are not behindhand in English. Fancy my calling you, upon a fitting occasion,-Fool, sot, silly, simpleton, dunce, blockhead, jolterhead, clumsy-pate, dullard, ninny, nincompoop, lackwit, numskull, ass, owl, loggerhead, coxcomb, monkey, shallow-brain, addlehead, tony, zany, fop, fop-doodle; a maggot-pated, hare-brained, muddlepated, muddle-headed, Jackanapes! Why, I could go on for a minute more! 1 See this instance cited, and the whole history and moral policy of the common system of judicial swearing examined with clearness and good feeling, in Mr. Tyler's late work on Oaths.-H. N. C. 2 The head-master of Christ's Hospital. 3 In "The Frogs."-H. N. C. I MAY 28, 1830. The Americans.-Nationality.* DEEPLY regret the anti-American articles of some of the leading reviews. The Americans regard what is said of them in England a thousand times more than they do anything said of them in any other country. The Americans are excessively pleased with any kind or favourable expressions, and never forgive or forget any slight or abuse. It would be better for them if they were a trifle thicker-skinned. The last American war was to us only something to talk or read about; but to the Americans it was the cause of misery in their own homes. I, for one, do not call the sod under my feet my country. But language, religion, laws, government, blood,-identity in these makes men of one country. ΤΗ MAY 29, 1830. HE Book of Job is an Arab poem, antecedent to the Mosaic dispensation. It represents the mind of a good man not enlightened by an actual revelation, but seeking about for one. In no other book is the desire and necessity for a Mediator so intensely expressed. The personality of God, the I AM of the Hebrews, is most vividly impressed on the book, in opposition to pantheism. I now think, after many doubts, that the passage,1 “I know that my Redeemer liveth," &c., may fairly be taken as a burst of determination, a quasi prophecy. 'I know not how this can be; but in spite of all my difficulties, this I do know, that I shall be recompensed." It should be observed, that all the imagery in the 1 Chap. xix. 25, 26.-H. N. C. speeches of the men is taken from the East, and is no more than a mere representation of the forms of material nature. But when God speaks the tone is exalted, and almost all the images are taken from Egypt, the crocodile, the war-horse, and so forth. Egypt was then the first monarchy that had a splendid court. Satan, in the prologue, does not mean the devil, our Diabolus. There is no calumny in his words. He is rather the circuitor, the accusing spirit, a dramatic attorneygeneral. But after the prologue, which was necessary to bring the imagination into a proper state for the dialogue, we hear no more of this Satan. Warburton's notion, that the Book of Job was of so late a date as Ezra, is wholly groundless. His only reason is this appearance of Satan. I MAY 30, 1830. Translation of the Psalms. WISH the Psalms were translated afresh; or, rather, that the present version were revised. Scores of passages are utterly incoherent as they now stand. If the primary visual images had been oftener preserved, the connection and force of the sentences would have been better perceived.1 1 Mr. Coleridge, like so many of the elder divines of the Christian church, had an affectionate reverence for the moral and evangelical portion of the Book of Psalms. He told me that after having studied every page of the Bible with the deepest attention, he had found no other part of Scripture come home so closely to his inmost yearnings and necessities. During many of his latter years he used to read ten or twelve verses every evening, ascertaining (for his knowledge of Hebrew was enough for that) the exact visual image or first radical meaning of every noun substantive; and he repeatedly expressed to me his surprise and pleasure at finding that in nine cases out of ten the bare primary sense, if literally rendered, threw great additional light on the text. He was not disposed to allow the prophetic or allusive character so largely as is done by Horne and others; but he acknowledged it in some instances in the fullest manner. In particular, he rejected the local and temporary MAY 31, 1830. MR Ancient Mariner.-Undine.-Martin.-Pilgrim's Progress. RS. BARBAULD once told me that she admired the "Ancient Mariner" very much, but that there were two faults in it,-it was improbable, and had no moral. As for the probability, I owned that that might admit some question; but as to the want of a moral, I told her that in my own judgment the poem had too much; and that the only, or chief fault, if I might say so, was the obtrusion of the moral sentiment so openly on the reader as a principle or cause of action in a work of such pure imagination. It ought to have had no more moral than the "Arabian Nights'" tale of the merchant's sitting down to eat dates by the side of a well, and throwing the shells aside, and lo! a genie starts up, and says he must kill the aforesaid merchant, because one of the date shells had, it seems, put out the eye of the genie's son.1 reference which has been given to the 110th Psalm, and declared his belief in its deep mystical import with regard to the Messiah. Mr. C. once gave me the following note upon the 22nd Psalm, written by him, I believe, many years previously, but which, he said, he approved at that time. It will find as appropriate a niche here as anywhere else : "I am much delighted and instructed by the hypothesis, which I think probable, that our Lord in repeating Eli, Eli, lama_sabacthani, really recited the whole or a large part of the 22d Psalm. It is impossible to read that psalm without the liveliest feelings of love, gratitude, and sympathy. It is, indeed, a wonderful prophecy, whatever might or might not have been David's notion when he composed it. Whether Christ did audibly repeat the whole or not, it is certain, I think, that he did it mentally, and said aloud what was sufficient to enable his followers to do the same. Even at this day, to repeat in the same manner but the first line of a common hymn, would be understood as a reference to the whole. Above all, I am thankful for the thought which suggested itself to my mind, whilst I was reading this beautiful psalm, namely, that we should not exclusively think of Christ as the Logos united to human nature, but likewise as a perfect man united to the Logos. This distinction is most important in order to conceive, much more, appropriately to feel, the conduct and exertions of Jesus."-H. N. C. "There he found, at the foot of a great walnut-tree, a fountain of a very clear running water, and alighting, tied his horse to a branch of a tree, and sitting down by the fountain, took some biscuits and dates out of his portmanteau, and, as he ate his dates, threw the shells about on both sides of him. When he had done eating, being a good Mussulman, I took the thought of "grinning for joy," in that poem, from my companion's remark to me, when we had climbed to the top of Plinlimmon, and were nearly dead with thirst. We could not speak from the constriction, till we found a little puddle under a stone. He said to me,--" You grinned like an idiot!" He had done the same. "Undine" is a most exquisite work. It shows the general want of any sense for the fine and the subtle in the public taste, that this romance made no deep impression. Undine's character, before she receives a soul, is marvellously beautiful.1 He he washed his hands, his face, and bis feet, and said his prayers. had not made an end, but was still on his knees, when he saw a genie appear, all white with age, and of a monstrous bulk; who, advancing towards him with a cimetar in his hand, spoke to him in a terrible voice thus. Rise up, that I may kill thee with this cimetar as you have killed my son!' and accompanied these words with a frightful cry. The merchant, being as much frightened at the hideous shape of the monster as at these threatening words, answered him trembling ::- Alas! my good lord, of what crime can I be guilty towards you that you should take away my life?' 'I will,' replies the genie,' kill thee, as thou hast killed my son!' 'O heaven,' says the merchant, how should I kill your son? I did not know him, nor ever saw him.' 'Did not you sit down when you came hither?' replies the genie. 'Did not you take dates out of your portmanteau, and as you ate them, did not you throw the shells about on both sides?' 'I did all that you say,' answers the merchant, I cannot deny it.' 'If it be so,' replied the genie, 'I tell thee that thou hast killed my son; and the way was thus: when you threw the nutshells about, my son was passing by, and you threw one of them into his eye, which killed him, therefore I must kill thee.' 'Ah! my good lord, pardon me!' cried the merchant. 'No pardon,' answers the genie, no mercy! Is it not just to kill him that has killed another? 'I agree to it,' says the merchant, but certainly I never killed your son, and if I have, it was unknown to me, and I did it innocently; therefore I beg you to pardon me, and suffer me to live.' 'No, no,' says the genie, persisting in his resolution, I must kill thee, since thou hast killed my son' and then taking the merchant by the arm, threw him with his face upon the ground, and lifted up his cimetar to cut off his head!"-The Merchant and the Genie. First night.-H. N. C. 'Mr. Coleridge's admiration of this little romance was unbounded. He read it several times in German, and once in the English translation, made in America, I believe; the latter he thought inadequately done. Mr. C. said that there was something in "Undine" even beyond Scott, -that Scott's best characters and conceptions were composed; by which |