what to do with myself I know not. Then you shall see them dozing over gandie bookes with store of trumpery pictures; some whereof do shew faire castles and abbies in downright ruine; some, effigies of doctors without divinitie, rhymers lackinge reason, and critickes with sconces both shallow and muddie; and therewith abundance of tyttle cum tattle, stories of John Doe and Richard Roe, merrie sayinges of Tom, Dicke, and Madge; and sundrie bagges of moonshine. And in such do they take huge pleasaunce. All the while, Learninge is thrust out of the doores; and, standing in the court sorelie weep ing, saith that all her own prime and preciouse bookes are tossed into the lumberre room, for the behoofe of bats and spiderres." This extremely curious specimen of barbarous literature will be printed with types cast expressly for the purpose, in imitation of the MS. The impression will be limited to 150 copies (two of which, worked off on vellum, are intended to be presented to the public libraries of the two Universities), and the price of each 15. 156. To confess the truth, sir, I was by no means ignorant of the strange infatuation which, at the present day, disgraces what is called the reading world; and one of my motives for commissioning my son to diversify his dispatches with notices of new books, &c., was to ascertain bow far his residence in town had exposed him to the contagion of lettered insanity. The boy has naturally an eagerness for books; and while he remained at home, I provided him liberally with such standard authors as a clerical adviser of mine from time to time recommended. These he studied as much, and almost more, than could be expected from a young man beginning to acquire commercial habits; and when he left us, I calculated that, inexperienced as he was, yet he was 100 well read to fall a premature victim to a depraved and superficial taste. But, as you must yourself perceive, he is "catching the new-blown bubbles of the day,"-bubbles indeed, bursting as soon as caught, and leaving utter emptiness! For about eighteen months I have taken in the Edinburgh and Quarterly Reviews, and one or two of the monthly journals; by way, as Cow per read the newspaper, of peeping at the world through the loop-holes of retreat. But the vast dimensions of these critical apertures: let in a great deal too much; for, instead of peeping, one may survey the wide expauses of folly with a broad stare. I already begin to dread the arrival of the reviews; since they are no sooner landed on the table, than the children run to open the advertisements stitched up in these bewitching publications; and I am thence forward in hourly danger, for some days, of being conjured by my girls to send for the new edition of Tha laba, or the Bridal of Triermain; or I am addressed in breathless and incoherent accents, "Oh! papa, here's a new poem from Lord Byronanother epic of Southey's-and quite a new thing from Walter Scott-and they have all been out a monthOh! do write to-night to Hatchard." Judge, sir, from this, how far we are already gone in the downward course of literature. This comes of an eighteen months of reviews and advertisements! Facilis descensus indeed! Far am I from undervaluing the splendid talents of the bardic trio (as the girls call their three favourites), but I wish to teach my young people, that their own shelves display a neglected collection of the works of the mighty dead, with whom I would persuade them to hold high and daily converse; and when their minds are braced by this practical wisdom, they may then wander with more security among the lily-silvered vales, and low-whispering woods, of modern literature. I have promised my third daughter a copy of Rokeby as soon as she has given me, in writing, a prose analysis of Pope's Essay on Criticism; and I propose to enter into a similar contract, whenever she and her sisters make the next clamorous application; hoping, by such a course of proceeding, to allure my pretty ramblers into the classic regions of British song. question, what have our critical journals done for the reading population at large? Our incessant dabbling in reviews appears to me, especially when I look back to other times, to harass all intellectual exertion; and, what makes a bad thing worse, we The injury effected by the pre- study (as we call it) ten or twelve, vailing modes of literature is not con- subjects in one and the same number, fined to such minor ill consequences and on each of these ten or twelve as the degradation of taste, and the subjects we must needs have an opiperversion of fancy; but the mis- nion, and then proceed to talk, with chief diffuses its unresisted influences imposing confidence, about theories over the moral, immortal part of our and departments of science, of the very nature. The retrograde movements existence of which we were unconof the human understanding act scious till the appearance of "that with a sometimes unsuspected effi- capital article in the last Edincacy on the affections. A desultory burgh." Nor is even this the worst, exercise of the mind induces a lan- since I can assure you, from my own guid state of conscience. A taste limited observation, that the quarfor superficial reading is not pro- terly journals are in high request perly a disease existing locally, with many, who, too much like my while it leaves the general constitu- own children, confine their reading tion sound; but a symptom of some to the voluminous masses of adverdistemper seated in the vitals, and tisement found at the beginnings. requiring a course of medicine, and and ends; so that here also are a regimen of peculiar potency.-"minds of large discourse, looking I wish the under-graduates in our Universities, (for, as I hear, the very fountains of learning are partially poisoned,) and particularly such among them as profess to be religious, and are training up for the ministry, under a serious conviction of the responsibility of their destination, would beware of indulging habits of literary trifling. Heu, fuge, nate dea! Let them assure themselves, that their irrevocable hours cannot be consumed on ephemeral books without very serious injury to their intellectual and spiritual health; that time lost at college will infallibly upbraid them in after years; and that it is no disgrace to be dumb to such inquiries as, "What do you think of the Rejected Addressesthe Corsair-Grimm's Correspondence-Madame de Stael on Suicide?" The inquiry should rather be, "What would Newton, and Barrow, and Maclaurin, and Waring, have said, could they have foreseen the morn, ing table of a mathematical student strewed with lounging pamphlets?" But leaving our juniors out of the answer before and after;" for, to my certain knowledge, they never look at what goes between; but leave that to persons occupying a rather higher point in the scale of surface-knowledge. The time, indeed, may come,when the Trade may publish, monthly, a thick, and thickly-printed magazine, exclusively devoted to advertisements; which, I am convinced, would obtain an unprecedented circulation. Neither would it, in the least, signify to the "numerous readers," whether the books, formally announced, ever appeared; it would every end, both to publisher and purchaser, that they were described, promised, and priced, in all the pomp, and circumstance, and plenitude of a modern list. I am told, that your imperial city swarms with men of letters, who never dream of opening a book, unless it be to get information about other books; and that the number and variety of catalogues in their possession equal in value the gift presented to the Society of Antiquaries by Sir Matthew Mite, namely, an uninterrupted series of the tickets taken at Islington turnpike, from its first establishment to the date of Sir Matthew's election as Fellow*. In the Augustan age of English literature, reading was confined to a few; but the few were either scholars who buried themselves in books, or men of genius who chiefly shone by their own light. At hat period, however, there was a laudable custom in some great houses, of loading the shelves of the library with wooden blocks, in the shape of books, duly gilt and lettered. Such was the Duke of Chandos's collection at Cannons: thus described by Pope: His study with what authors is it stor'd? Lo, some are vellum; and the rest as good, For Locke or Milton, 'tis in vain you look; Such was the wooden wisdom of queen Anne's days; but wooden as it was, I think it preferable to the bibliomaniac gabble of the present times. A volume of oak or elm possesses much more than the merit of negative excellence. It fills up a space, which otherwise would be occupied by wire-wove, hot-pressed, trash. I already sigh for the restoration of the wooden age; and, unless my children will return to their standard volumes, I shall some day make a general clearance of all our reviews and advertisements, and purchase an entirely new library from my cabinet-maker. To conclude with one serious remark; let the guardians of modern education recollect, that the charac ter of young minds is, in many instances, formed, not by the books read under an instructor's eye, in the • Foote's Nabob; quoted in the Pursuits of Literature. + Moral Essays, iv.-In Addison's description of the Lady's Library, (Spectator 37.) occurs," All the classic authors in wood, A set of Elzevir's, by the same hand." regular school-hours, but by those more attractive publications which bear the epithet of entertaining, and of which the last ten years have produced a redundance for the nursery, the school, and the college; and that a severe selection of these becomes every day more necessary, from the increasing influx of superficial and ill-principled literature. And let the adult student resol banish from his collection, such books as disgrace the name of a scholar; let him treat ephemeral trifles as trifles; and let him perseveringly act on the principle of suiting his intellectual babits to the ultimate end of his being. When I became a man, I put away childish things. ANTI-NEGATOR. To the Editor of the Christian Observer. In June, 1813, appeared the first number of a periodical work, called The Orthodox Journal; or, Catholic Monthly Intelligencer; printed, públished, and edited by William Eusebius Andrews, 5, Fenwick Court, Holborn. In perusing the of a Charge, and two Letters, from first six numbers, I met with part the pen of the Right Reverend John Milner, Bishop of Castabala; from which I copied the enclosed extracts, and offer them for insertion in your Magazine. It may be expedient to premise, that the Italics and great capitals stand in the Journal exactly as they are found in my transcript. I am, sir, &c. G. G. Extracts from Bishop Milner's Pastoral Charge to his Clergy, dated March 30, 1813. "Of late years you know that numerous societies have been form ed, and incredible sums of money raised, throughout the United King dom, among Christians of other communions, for the purpose of distributing Bibles gratis to all poor people who are willing to accept of them. In acting thus, they act con formably to the fundamental principles of their religion, which teach, "The Bible contains all things ne- and full of things hard to be under- books of instruction for them. Ra ther procure for them, if you can, a sufficient number of copies of the First and Second Catechism, the Catholic Christian Instructed, the Grounds of the Catholic Doctrine, and the History of the Old and New Testament." (Orthodox Magazine, pp. 131-133.) In a letter to the Editor (dated October 16, 1813), Bishop Milner says," I described* a Catholic Bible Society as a novel and porten tous institution,' unknown to the fathers and doctors of past ages, at variance with the third rule concerning the use of Holy Scripture laid down by a committee of the Council of Trent, giving into the • In a fortner communication. policy of Protestants, and of course injurious to the religion of Catho lics, as also to the authority of their pastors, it being the exclusive bu siness of the latter to instruct all ranks of people, by expounding to them, viva voce, both Scripture and tradition.-The Tridentive fathers make no distinction between Bibles in the vulgar tongue, with notes, and those without notes; since it is evi dently IMPOSSIBLE TO ADD ANY NOTES WHATEVER TO THE SACRED TEXT WHICH WILL MAKE IT A SAFE AND PROPER ELEMENTARY BOOK OF INSTRUCTION FOR THE ILLITERATE POOR." (pp. 179, 180.) REVIEW OF NEW PUBLICATIONS. The Faith of the People called Quakers, in our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, set forth in various Extracts from their Writings. By HENRY TUKE, York. 1812. 12mo. pp. 32. Price 6d. In our Number for September last, we reviewed Mr. Clarkson's Life of William Penn, and in the course of our Review took occasion to introduce some remarks on the tenets of that body of Christians with whom Penn was united. Those remarks we certainly had conceived to be written in a spirit of candour and good-will. We ourselves were conscious of no contrary impression. Nothing could have been more remote from our apprehension, than that the attempt we made calmly to appreciate some of the peculiarities of Quakerism could have given offence to a single individual of that respectable Society, or have furnished the slightest ground for impeaching our Christian charity. Our surprise, therefore, and mortification were great, to find ourselves represented, in several letters addressed to us by persons calling themselves Quakers, as actuated by dispositions inconsistent with true Christianity; as scandalizing,abusing, and vility ing a whole body of people; as deriding the Spirit's operations, and therefore manifestly without the Spirit ourselves; as setting up the written against the living word; as blind leaders of the blind, &c. All this, however, we should have thought it right to overlook, although it unquestionably furnished a tempting opportunity of self-justification, had we not received a remonstrance on the same subject from one we have reason to believe to be the respectable author whose name stands at the head of this article. He requests that we should insert his communication in justice to the Quakers. We insert it in justice also to ourselves. It is as follows: "It really grieves me to perceive in the writers for a periodical publication, which I so highly esteem, and strongly recommend, as i do the Christian Observer, a disposition on various occasions to traduce and misrepresent the Quakers. Little, in |