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Lord's side-i. e., it satisfies the condition of situation.

4. It accounts for the quantity of blood and water, implied by St. John's narrative. In one case of instantaneous death from effusion of blood into the pericardium, from the rupture of a diseased aorta," the pericardium contained about a quart of blood and water, or of blood separated, though indistinctly, into serum and crassamentum.f In another case the effusion amounted to five pints, and in another to three quarts.

A" broken heart" is not a mere metaphor. Its immediate cause § is "a sudden and violent contraction of one of the ventricles-usually the left, (because the stronger, and therefore contracting more energetically on the column of blood thrown into it by a similar contraction of the corresponding auricle. Prevented from returning backwards by the intervening valve, and not finding a sufficient outlet forwards in the connected artery; the blood reacts against the ventricle itself, which is consequently torn open at the point of greatest distention, or least resistance, by the influence of its own reflected force." Among the causes of rupture of the heart, we find enumerated by Dr. Hope and Dr. Copeland: "Considerable efforts, paroxysms of passion, external violence, violent mental emotions, especially anger, fright, terror, unexpected disappointment, intelligence abruptly communicated, anxiety, sudden and violent muscular efforts, or prolonged physical exertions of any kind, particularly in constrained positions." If this be so, was not the cause adequate to the effect in the final agony of our Lord? and if the consequences of that supposed effect alone satisfy the conditions of the Gospel narrative, may we not, with Dr. Stroude, regard rupture of the heart

*We have excluded the possibility of the effusion of blood on the cross into the pericardium, proceeding from this or like causes, because aneurism or anything which includes disease is inadmis

sible.

† Dr. Stroude, p. 152.

§ Ibid. p. 88.

Ibid. and p. 408.

Page 89. "It is only strong muscles which undergo rupture, from the energy of their own contraction." Dr. Hope.

¶ Ibid.

from mental agony, as the physical cause of the death of Christ?

We hope that we have done Dr. Stroude's argument justice with respect to the main subject of his work; while we confess that there is much more in it worthy of consideration, but to which it was beside our purpose to refer.

We conclude with an evidence in favour of Dr. Stroude's view, quoted indeed by himself, but little valued by him.* Catholics will be glad to read the following passage from the Revelations of St. Bridget. Our blessed Lady says:

"When his death drew near, and his heart was broken (rumperetur) through the vehemence of his griefs, then trembling seized his limbs, and his head, after lifting itself a little began to bow. His mouth was seen open, and his tongue all bloody. His hands were drawn back a little from the nails that bored them, and the weight of his body rested more upon his feet. His fingers and arms some how stretched themselves, and his back was applied straitly to the cross. And some said to me, Mary, thy Son is dead; and others, He is dead, but He will rise again. As they spake, there came one with a lance, and thrust it with such force into his side, that it well nigh passed right through even to the other side; and when the spear was withdrawn, its point was red with blood. Then, when I saw the heart of my own dear Son so pierced, I felt my heart too, as it were, pierced through and through. Our Lord replies, Yes, when my heart was broken (rumpebatur) on the cross through vehemence of grief, thy heart was wounded at the sight as by the sharpest sword, and willingly wouldst thou have had it cleft in twain, had I but willed it so.'

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With a

Second Edition,

ART. III.-The Poetical Works of William Motherwell.
Memoir, by JAMES MACCONECHY, Esq., 8vo.
Enlarged. Glasgow, Edinburgh, and London, 1847.

A
MONG the host of claimants for poetical reputation
whom the literary vicissitudes of the last twenty years
have raised up and cast down, the name of William
Motherwell appears for a long time to have passed almost

* Dr. Stroude, p. 397.

without notice, and, far from having attained to early or extensive popularity, can hardly be said to have attracted in any marked degree the attention of the general public. Perhaps indeed, under all the circumstances, it would be hard to expect a different result, even had his merits been of a higher order. It is not easy for a purely local author to force his way through the exclusiveness of the great world of literature; and even had the opportunity offered, Motherwell does not appear to have possessed that stamp of character which would have enabled him to improve it permanently and efficiently. His poems originally appeared at intervals in local periodicals, almost all obscure, and many of them of brief and precarious existence, and the first collected edition was offered to the world without any of those indescribable, but well-understood, technical advantages which would have overcome the obstacles in the way of its success.

Nevertheless, in despite of all these disadvantages, the neglected poet has always had a circle of admirers, limited, perhaps, but constant and sincere; and it is pleasant to observe that his name has insensibly forced its way into notice. A new edition of his poetry has been called for at home; in America it has already been twice republished; and although we are far from adopting the exaggerated estimate of the author's merits formed by some of his admirers, yet we have no doubt that his poetry has at length come to be appreciated, and that he is destined to maintain a high and permanent place among the most respectable of the Minor English Poets. Although we fear the interest of the subject may appear in some degree almost antiquated, yet we are sure we need not offer any apology for devoting a few pages to a brief account of his life and writings.

The edition now before us is not a mere reprint of the volume published during the lifetime of the author. Besides the biographical memoir, (which, though it leaves much to be supplied in such a life as Motherwell's, yet contains a sufficiently interesting account of the most important facts of his history,) the volume comprises twenty additional pieces, some of them among the best in the entire collection. Most of these were found among the papers which the author left behind him; and the editor informs us that he has in his possession many other fragmentary poems, "in different stages of advancement, some

being more and some less finished," which he holds out a hope of publishing at some future time.

The life of Motherwell is marked by little of the romantic interest which usually attaches to the history of literary men. He was born in Glasgow, in the year 1797, of a family which would seem to have been anciently of some importance, though at the time of his birth it had fallen to the rank of middle life. He was educated at Edinburgh, partly under the care of an eminent English master named Lennie, who has communicated some interesting particulars regarding his youthful studies, partly also at the High School of that city, but chiefly at a grammar school in Paisley, where a branch of his family resided. From the testimony of one of his surviving school-mates, it would seem that his talents, even thus early, were highly appreciated; but, from the "small Latin and less Greek" which his after efforts display, it is natural to conclude that his application to school studies was limited and irregular. His school friend remembers, that "what Motherwell was most remarkable for was his gift of spinning long yarns about castles and robbers and strange out of the way adventures, with which, while his master imagined he was assisting his class-fellows in their lessons, he would entertain them for hours, day after day, like some of the famous story-tellers in the Arabian Nights, and these stories were retailed at second hand by his class-fellows to those who had not the privilege of hearing them from himself."*

From all this it will readily be gathered that, as far as regards classic literature, Motherwell was an under-educated man. Later in life he attempted to remedy the defect of his early studies by entering the Greek and Latin classes in Glasgow College; but the effort does not appear to have been made with much earnestness or success. The want might in some degree have been supplied by assiduous cultivation of the modern languages; but, although he was himself painfully sensible of its existence, neither his tastes, nor perhaps his opportunities, led him to adopt these studies as a means of supplying the void. A still more remarkable trait in one of his peculiar temperament is the singular indifference, if not absolute disrelish, which he entertained, not alone in boyhood, but even in maturer

*Memoir, p. xix.

years, for historical reading. His attainments in this important branch of literature were at all times miserably slender; and the want is easily traceable in his poetry, which is singularly destitute of historical as well as classical allusions. Indeed, if he can be said to have cultivated literature as a study at all, his attention was confined almost exclusively to the imaginative departments; and the illustrations with which his poetry abounds will be found to have been drawn, for the most part, either from imagination, assisted by his own observation of the great book of nature, or from the rich treasure-house of the older poets of our own language.

Beyond these, and a few similar facts illustrative of his early habits of mind, the account of Motherwell's boyhood contains little that is in any way characteristic, with the exception of one incident, which is too remarkable to be overlooked, especially as it gave occasion to one of the most exquisite ballads in the whole range of Scottish poetry. We allude to the romantic and devoted attachment which he formed, almost in childhood, for one of his schoolmates of his own age, and which, though the parties never met in after life, Motherwell appears to have carried with him to the grave. We are sure that there are few of our readers who have not heard or read the exquisitely simple but touching ode to "Jeannie Morrison," in which this tale of childish "true love" is immortalized. Though written, it is said, before the age of fourteen, it was not published till the last years of his life, when it was purchased by the proprietors of an Edinburgh Magazine for the paltry sum of thirty shillings. There is nothing in the most finished of Burns's ballads with which it will not bear an honourable comparison.

Soon after he was withdrawn from the grammar school of Paisley, he was placed in the office of the sheriff-clerk in that burgh. The following particulars of this portion of his life are derived from Mr. Sheriff Campbell.

"When I first knew William Motherwell, he was a very little boy in the Sheriff-clerk's office here. I had observed his talent for sketching figures of men in armour and otherwise, and amongst the rest one of myself, upon a blotter which I had occasion to use when sitting in the Sheriff-court. I gave him a few ancient documents to copy for me, and in place of an ordinary transcript, I received from him with surprise and satisfaction, a fac-simile so perfect, that except. for the colour and texture of the paper, it would have been difficult

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