Fritz Schlosser writes to Goethe to tell the poet that Frau Aja passed away very peacefully-indeed at last in a condition of unconsciousness—on the 13th of September, 1808. Characteristically, the brave, unselfish mother would not allow any report of her illness to be written to her son in Weimar: his first intimation of her danger was the announcement of her death. To her son was granted a span of years, longer than that allotted to his mother; but the life of great Goethe cannot have felt any much heavier sorrow than the loss of such a mother. They had so many and such dear memories together; they had been so intimate and so deeply attached, that the world could hold for great Goethe only one Frau Aja! Life may hold many a love-but only one mother. Frau Aja lived through some momentous times in history; as, for instance, the French Revolution and the splendour of the career of Napoleon, but her interest in historical events remained merely local. An intelligence rather than an intellect, she records only occurrenceswhich affected her native city and her own life. It is in her character that most Frau Aja charms and interests us. Indeed, her temperament was bright and vivid with the colour, with the gladness, with the clearness, with the beauty of wine. In bare wintry trees you see the fine tracery of branch, and twig, and spray; but the tree is yet lovelier when crowded with blossom, or when covered with leaf, and Frau Aja, heroic in times of sorrow and of strain, shows best all her most individual qualities in days of golden peace. Then she really lives her fullest, truest life; and she is fitly framed in the quiet burgher's existence of a great German city. What would her life have been had she not been the mother of so great a son? He gave her a love which was not unworthy of her; and he shed distinction and consideration upon her. Without him, her existence would have been obscurer, meaner and poorer, and would have attracted but little human regard. It is owing to her son that she is so well known. Without him, the fierce light of publicity would never have shone upon her; but that light does beat upon her, and she is found worthy even for her own sake. We love and we respect her. Other women, perhaps as true-hearted, as cheerful, and as faithful, have lived and left no record of their lives; but then Frau Aja was mother of Hätschelhans. Her interests were confined mainly within the sphere of her affections. Her heart was warm and full, and her temper was sweet and equable. Each letter written to son, to grandson, or to daughter-in-law is like a caress from a fond, true motherly woman. Full of gaiety, she was never frivolous; always kindly, she was not sentimental. Her vivacious mind, which loved the tonic of life, was brisk, active and alert. has not wit, badinage, irony; nor is she strong in humour; but she has genial warmth, quick observation, joyousness, and a strong She personal note of sympathy as of discernment: and then she has such power of enjoyment! Two portraits, printed by Düntzer, are now before me. One is from an oil painting, the other from a silhouette. They agree tolerably, and give us the idea that the person of Frau Aja fitly expressed her character. She is not tall, and is what she herself would call hübsch corpulent. The merry face indicates kindliness, hilarity, and a nimble fancy. She must in her youth have been very pretty, and she carried youth to a great old age. If Goethe owed to her some impulse towards fiction, he also owed to her some tendency towards faith. His faith was immeasurably wider, higher, deeper than hers; but in the fervour of trust and the comfort of conviction mother and son resembled each other, and her beliefs must have had some influence upon his early feeling. Perhaps her highest and most distinctive quality is just this assured, intense, unshakable faith in God. She seems to have had no clerical assistance, to have relied not at all upon observances and forms, but her happy soul stood in most direct and joyous relations with its Creator. Unlike the majority of religious persons, so-called, she could rejoice in the Lord. She was a God-loving, rather than a God-fearing, woman; and, though she knew sorrow, losses, trials, she never felt gloom, despondency, or doubt. A marriage which was happy only in so far as endurance and tolerance could make it so; the loss of children, the terrors of war-none of these things could long depress her heart or ever dim her hope. There was nothing mean, sour, peevish, in her sunny nature, and she dared to praise God by enjoying all that is lovely and of good report in the human life and world which He has created. Biography, history, memoirs, contain, happily, many pleasant pictures of amiable, bright, tender women ; but in the long gallery of female portraits there are but few women that are dearer to us, or more worthy of our liking, than is the cheerful, pious, tender, good Frau Aja! H. SCHÜTZ WILSON. 6 To the reader who is at all versed in the newer criticism, even if only as this is reflected in periodicals, it will be clear that I cannot agree with all that has been said by competent judges on Professor Sayce's last book. It has been said, and the judgment will doubtless find a wide response, that this vigorous attack is dangerous to 'advanced' but not to moderate' criticism. Now, I do not for my part recognise the implied distinction. Biblical criticism may be more or less complete; more or less comprehensive in its methods. and in its range; more or less consistent; more or less free from Church considerations; but the words 'moderate' and 'advanced' have no scientific application. It is no doubt true that Professor Sayce has been too busy with his proper work to get more than a moderate acquaintance with Biblical criticism, but it is not true that the criticism (say) of König will stand Professor Sayce's archæological tests (so far as these tests are properly applied) better than that of Stade and Wellhausen. Of course there is a slight ambiguity in the word 'criticism.' Wellhausen, as the judicious Kittel observes,1 has generally confined himself to the criticism of the documents, though not without due attention to a certain class of archæological data; whereas Stade, who has attempted a history of ancient Israel, is, of course, more completely the historical critic, and has had the courage to risk making many mistakes. Had Stade confined himself within the limits of Wellhausen, the number of his presumable mistakes would have been smaller. Still, though Stade will no doubt modify much in his Vorgeschichte, let not his critics take for granted that he will have altogether to withdraw all his boldest hypotheses. And let it be frankly stated that archæology is an honoured assistant of the literary and historical criticism of the Old Testament. These descriptive epithets are chosen designedly. I heartily concur with Professor Sayce in his refusal to limit 'higher criticism' to the literary analysis of documents. As Dr. Briggs has well pointed out, this discipline' has to deal not only with the author1 Geschichte der Hebräer (1888), p. 7. ship, but also with the credibility of our records.2 In Eichhorn's time this was, of course, not so distinctly noticed; but criticism has long since (pace Professor Sayce) passed into a semi-archæological stage.3 And now let me add that I also concur with the author in what I conceive to be his real meaning, badly as he expresses it. Catch Proteus, and prevail upon him to be serious, and I think that I know what he will say. He loves history, and can realise its life and colour as few can do, and he misses this imaginative faculty, which no great explorer, however inexpressive he may be, is without, in some of our critical scholars. In Professor Sayce the imagination sometimes runs riot; but is not this a kind of protest agains the coldness of some Biblical critics? I am afraid he has lost much of his old respect for the humdrum methods of the critical work of the study; the dahabiyeh 'Istar' can no doubt suggest new and more enjoyable processes. He now thinks Assyriological and Egyptological data indefinitely more trustworthy than minute facts of language, or traces of ideas, or even archæological facts not revealed by the spade.' I concur with him, not in his depreciation of older critical work, but in his anticipation of fresh light from the monuments' on critical problems. 4 If Professor Sayce wishes to be a reformer of criticism, I can have no objection. Let him not, however, underrate what has as yet been done by the new generation of archæological critics. It was largely Assyriology that suggested the hypothesis of a stratum in the Yahvistic portion of Gen. i.-xi. which belongs to the later pre-Exilic period, when Assyrio-Babylonian influence was strong in Judah, and, as Schrader and Sayce agree, a king of Judah was carried captive to Babylon. This hypothesis was framed, no doubt, before the find of the Tell el-Amarna tablets, which show that Babylonian myths must have been known in Canaan before the arrival of the Israelites. But there is still much to be said for it. Again, it was Assyriology that enabled many recent critics to admit a possible historical element in Gen. xiv. 1–9,5 and in the much-contested notice of Manasseh's captivity; also to begin anew the chronological arrangement of the prophecies of Isaiah, to determine the age of at least the latter part of Obadiah," and to close the great question of Daniel. But I can accept nothing blindly. I am grateful to Professor Sayce for his fresh hints on Gen. x., but I know that there are Assyriological critics who will dispute his inferences; also for his opinion 6 2 Biblical Study (1883), pp. 86-87. 3 Cf. Founders, &c., pp. 234, 330. • Nineteenth Century, Dec. 1891, p. 964. 5 Against Professor Sayce's extraordinary statements, see Founders, pp. 237-239; Driver, Expository Times, Nov. 1892, pp. 95-96. König (Einleitung, p. 183), though too conservative, at any rate declines the help of Professor Sayce. • See in English Driver's and my own works. " Founders, pp. 311-312. 8 (known to me long since) on the date of Jer. 1.-li. 58, but I cannot, after Kuenen's recent discussion of the question, accept it; and though I have mentioned the captivity of Manasseh as widely accepted, I myself think this a rash view. Manasseh may have been forced to rebel by an anti-Assyrian party. Such cases did occur in the smaller kingdom; but why should we suppose this? Nor will I lay too much stress on the illustrations from Assyriology and Egyptology of which the best commentators are not sparing, for I am aware that all this archæology put together is nothing to what we may hope for in the future. When the early chapters of Syrian history have been rewritten, what a light they will reflect on the Israelitish origines! Meantime, as I have said before, let Biblical critics be on the watch, and welcome any fresh light, but satisfy themselves first that it is genuine, and make a proper distinction between the probable and the possible. Professor Sayce's contributions are partly drawn from Assyriology, and partly from Egyptology, and to those which Egypt has suggested I shall chiefly draw attention. Much use is made of the lists of places which Thothmes the Third, and Rameses the Second and Third, state themselves to have conquered in Syria and Palestine. I have elsewhere spoken of the historical importance of these lists, upon which Mr. Tomkins and M. Maspero have done such excellent work (supplemented by Professor Sayce and others), and can only here mention the names Jacob-el and Joseph-el, which are attached, the one to a southern, the other to a northern, locality (p. 337). Professor Sayce's discussion of these names will arouse philological objections. That Jacob and Joseph are names of divinities has yet to be proved, but few will doubt that these names are taken from the Hebrew, pre-Israelitish tribes which anciently dwelt there. Nor is it disputable that in the stories of Jacob and Joseph the fortunes of the tribes of Jacob-el and Joseph-el are in some faint degree reflected. One may doubt whether this is the case with the story of Abraham; but that Isaac, Jacob, Israel, and Joseph are tribal names, and that their legends embody to some extent tribal reminiscences, is among the most secure results of criticism, and no compassion for weak brethren ' can at this time of day justify its suppression. That a tribe bearing the name of Joseph (or Joseph-el) entered Egypt, driven by the malice of kindred tribes, and that a leading member of the tribe became grand vizier (for which there are historical parallels), is sufficient as the historical kernel of the story of Joseph for any reasonable man. To this story Professor Sayce devotes some illustrative pages, but he is hardly more critical in his treatment of it than Mr. Tomkins. He tells us, indeed, that 'the materials it embodies are of Egyptian 8 Onderzoek, ii. 242, where the Assyriological data are referred to. 9 9 Cf. Tomkins, Life of Joseph, i. 93; Groff, Rev. ég. 1885 and 1886; Meyer, in Stade's Zeitschrift, 1886. ક |