rendering. We are in John Sparrow's everlasting debt for the immense
labour he laid out on Behmen, as well as for his own deep piety and
personal worth. But it was service enough and honour enough for Sparrow
to have Englished Jacob Behmen at all for his fellow-countrymen, even if
he was not able to English him as William Law would have done. But take
Behmen and Law together, as they meet together in _The Supersensual
Life_, and not A Kempis himself comes near them even in his own proper
field, or in his immense service in that field. There is all the
reality, inwardness, and spirituality of _The Imitation_ in _The
Supersensual Life_, together with a sweep of imagination, and a grasp of
understanding, as well as with both a sweetness and a bitterness of heart
that even A Kempis never comes near. _The Supersensual Life_ of Jacob
Behmen, in the English of William Law, is a superb piece of spiritual
work, and a treasure-house of masculine English. (If Christopher Walton
is right, we must read 'Lee' for 'Law' in this passage. If Walton is
right, then there was a master of English in those days we had not before
been told of.)

_A Treatise of the Four Complexions_, or _A Consolatory Instruction for a
Sad and Assaulted Heart_, was Behmen's next book. The four complexions
are the four temperaments--the choleric, the sanguine, the phlegmatic,
and the melancholy. Behmen's treatise has been well described by Walton
as containing the philosophy of temptation; and by Martensen as
displaying a most profound knowledge of the human heart. Behmen sets
about his task as a _ductor dubitantium_ in a masterly manner. He takes
in hand the comfort and direction of sin-distressed souls in a
characteristically deep, inward, and thorough-going way. The book is
full of Behmen's observation of men. It is the outcome of a close and
long-continued study of character and conduct. Every page of _The Four
Complexions_ gleams with a keen but tender and wistful insight into our