of the wilful king determines him to be the great Antichrist of St. John: while the context and tenor of the prophecy no less determine him to be the divided Roman Empire about the chronological close of the seventeenth century. Hence the Roman Empire, from that chronological epoch, stands identified with the Antichrist of St. John. But the Roman Empire is also identified with the tenhorned wild-beast: while the ten-horned wild-beast was esteemed, in the early church, either Antichrist himself, or the Roman Empire, viewed as specially subsisting under Antichrist, its seventh head. Hence the result will be, that the wilful King, the ten-horned wild-beast, the divided Roman Empire during a specified term of its later existence, and the great God-denying Antichrist, are all identical.-B. III. c. 4. p. 214. Our space forbids us to follow Mr. Faber in his interesting sketch of the rise and progress of antichristian infidelity within the territories of the western Roman Empire, or yet more extensively within the region emphatically denominated Christendom. Suffice it to say, summarily, that the God-denying Antichrist is that spirit of lawless infidelity, which arose about the latter end of the seventeenth century, throughout the territories of the divided Roman Empire; which specially developed itself through the instrumentality of revolutionary France, first democratic, and afterward imperial; which was destined to prosper until its angry defiance of the living God should be finished; and which should be thenceforward reduced to a state of humiliation, until the era of its predicted revival, when, the deadly wound of the Roman wild beast being healed, its power will be irretrievably broken, and its final overthrow effected in the region of Palestine, between the Dead Sea on the East, and the Mediterranean Sea on the West, in the mighty conflict at Armageddon, in the day of Gog and Magog, between the Roman king and the sovereigns of the north and south. How the infidel king exalted himself above every god, speaking marvellous things against the God of gods, having no respect unto the gods of his fathers, i. e. the false divinities of the abrogated paganism of the ancient Romans; and magnifying himself above the desire of women, they who wish to be informed, will do well to consult the excellent fourth chapter of the third book of the Calendar of Prophecy, whence we extract what Mr. Faber has said with respect to his interpretation of the phrase "the desire of women," as we have always thought this portion of his labours amongst the most happy efforts of his critical acumen, and because we shall at the same time give a fair specimen of the perspicuous and logical style of our author. In regard to the specific nature and character of what is styled the desire of women, we may receive, I think, much abstract information from the peculiar construction of the clause, in the midst of which that remarkable expression is inserted. (See Dan. xi. 36, 37.) From the context thus furnished by the revealing angel, nothing can be more evident than that the desire of women is something homogeneous with the God of gods, and the gods of his fathers, and every god. The whole connected clause descends from a general to particulars, employing those particulars to establish the general. We are told that the Roman king shall magnify himself above EVERY god: and this general proposition is established and explained by the several particulars, that he should speak marvellous things against the God of gods, and that he should have no respect unto the gods of his fathers, and that he should have no respect unto the desire of women. Hence it is obvious, unless the rules of composition be entirely violated, that the desire of women, like the God of gods and the gods of his fathers, must be subincluded in the generalizing phrase EVERY god. Nor shall we be permitted to doubt the propriety of this conclusion, if we attend yet more closely to the very peculiar construction of the clause. Not only, by the arrangement of the entire clause, is the desire of women plainly subincluded in the generalising phrase EVERY god; but likewise this desire of women is placed as it were studiously between the gods of his fathers and EVERY god, repeated and borrowed from the beginning of the entire clause itself. Unto the gods of his fathers he shall have no respect; and unto the desire of women, and unto every god he shall have no respect. Such a collocation, I think, compels us to suppose that the desire of women, is a god of some description or another, whether true or false; which, like every other deity, the Roman king should defy and contemn. Nor is even this the whole that may be said respecting the peculiarity of the clause now under consideration. While the same verb of negation, he shall have no respect, is alike applied to all the three particulars the gods of his fathers, and the desire of women, and every god, thus clearly pointing out and determining their homogeneity; the whole sentence is wound up by a sweeping declaration; "for above ALL he shall magnify himself." Now, by the leading particle for, this declaration is inevitably referred to what had before been specified as the objects, above which the king should exalt himself, or to which he should have no respect; namely, the God of gods, and the gods of his fathers, and the desire of women, and every god; and by the adjective all, it is compelled to relate to the generalising phrase EVERY god, with which the entire clause commenced. "FOR, above ALL," i. e. above ALL the deities previously enumerated and generally comprehended in the phrase EVERY god, (such only, in its existing collocation, being the possible sense of that important adjective,)" FOR, above ALL, shall he magnify himself." If, then, the desire of women be thus plainly determined, by the whole context under every aspect, to be something homogeneous with the God of gods and the gods of his fathers, and every god; then assuredly the desire of women must be not only a person real or imaginary, but likewise a person who is the object of religious worship.-Vol. II. Book III. c. 4. p. 239-241. By an admirable display of critical ingenuity, our author proceeds to show (very satisfactorily, we think,) that the desire of women is He, whom Haggai subsequently called the desire of all nations; and he clearly proves that the prediction was exactly accomplished in this sense by that diabolical conspiracy of atheists, and infidels, and anarchists, which produced the French Revolution, and whose favourite watchword it was, in reference to the Messiah, "CRush the WRETCH." We must break off here, somewhat abruptly, with the promise of completing our remarks upon this interesting work in our next number. *Heb. 2. - ART. II. The Omnipresence of the Deity. A Poem. By ROBERT MONTGOMERY. Fourth Edition. London: S. Maunder, Newgate Street. 1828. pp. 215. price 7s. 6d. (With an Epigraph from Psalm cxxxix. 7-10.) THIS work has made a good deal of noise in and out of London; and the Reviewers, we know not how, one and all, seem to have fallen in love with it. Some of them have said most marvellous fine things about the author and his book, and sundry have done the pathetic, and pretended to be overcome with sensations of wonder, delight and admiration. If we did not know many of them to be old women, we should think they were hysterical. But the subject, and our own grave character, warn us to be serious. This poem has in an unusually short time got into and partly out of four editions: we pretend not to know whether these editions are large or small; but we cannot help thinking that the first owed its sale in some measure to the surname of the author; and that, in consequence of the work having been advertised as "Montgomery's New Poem," many purchasers were found who might not otherwise have bought it. It was certainly a bookseller's trick to set off the volume in this way: but, though far below the standard of JAMES Montgomery, it contains sufficient to sell an edition without borrowing any of his fame to recommend it to the public. As "good wine needs no bush," so a good poem needs no such fictitious attractions; and we shall be rather contented, as we think the author will, to wait a few years longer for his establishment in the Temple of Fame. He seems to have been set up on a hastily-formed bracket, and perchance may have an unlucky tumble. The title of the work is most ambitious, and most ambitiously is it handled. We need not say that, so far, it is a complete failure. It is impossible that any mind short of a Milton's could do it even bare justice. We regret some more modest title was not found it must tell against the author, when performance is balanced against promise. We think also the author has a little overrated his abilities in contemplating such a theme. His talents are decidedly very great; his genius... but that's another question. The poem he has written is uneven in its merits; it bears marks of haste; it is sometimes lame, lazy, and obscure; but occasionally contains passages of singular beauty, and expressed with unusual force. His great fault is excess of ornament. He has mistaken the use of his language. The best poetry (we speak of poetry in its best acceptation) has fewest aids of this kind. Simplex munditiis is the Muses' best motto. It is sufficient to go to the heart, that poetry comes from the heart; and we might quote, if we were so inclined, page upon page in instance, from Shakspeare and Milton down to Wordsworth, the most simple in his language, but sublimest in ideas, of all our modern bards. It is a defect in verse-writers to patronize too readily, and employ too frequently, the noun-adjective. A high-sounding epithet, tacked to a humble substantive, is like "the jewel of gold in the swine's snout. The similes, too, in this poem of Mr. Montgomery, are out of all reason abundant; and, consequently, he has not unfrequently compared things which in their nature are, and ever must be, unlike. The simile is only useful to give a clear notion of an obscure thought; he uses it to give a notion, which he would not allow if he wrote in prose. Thus he compares the sun to a virgin;" the ocean to "leaping hills of snow;" death to a jack-ass, as "dragging the world into eternity; an orphan child (by implication though) to a starched neckcloth, "mute, stiff, and white;" and many more such. Not seldom, too, he contradicts himself, and common sense into the bargain, in his zeal to deck his verse in fitting attire. He makes Ocean to be of the feminine gender, though apostrophised distinct from the sea, and therefore, we presume, a scion of mythology; by the same rule, we suppose, as Mr. Tennant wrote of Mont-Blanc, calling the mountain monarch," She, white-robed MAID of Chamony." 66 It is time now to take up the tale in another way :-as a theological poem we have not yet named it. That it is not an heterodox affair, let the following passage from the introductory poem determine: But see! the Moon unrobes, and from her face If aught, then, of the mind's devotion warm The world, and win to heaven harmonious minds.-Pp. 11, 12. The poem has three parts. The first treats of nature in its aspects and its forms; the second is devoted to human life; the third to the refutation of atheistical and deistical notions, and the consolations of religion; each, in its turn, affording some proof and argument to establish the great doctrine stated in the words of the title. We cannot consider the latter portion of the third part worthy either the subject or the author. It is a description of the day of wraththe end of all things; and it is handled in a way, by no means calculated to inspire that awe and seriousness, which the solemnity of the subject demands. There are, however, some magnificent sentiments, and some very sweet passages, as the following extracts will shew: But oh! when heal'd by love and heaven, we rise, Now, turn from earth to yonder glorious sky- And now, while through the ocean-mantling haze A dizzy chain of yellow lustre plays, And moonlight loveliness hath veil'd the land, Go, stranger, muse thou by the wave-worn strand: Myriads have bless'd, and myriads cursed their birth: Though swelling earthquakes heave the astounded world, |