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O scenes surpassing fable, and yet true!' reminds me of a passage in one of

1. "As, when two pilgrims in a forest Robert Hall's finest sermons, that

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Velut sylvis, ubi passim Palantes error certo de tramite pellit, Ille sinistrorsum, hic dextrorsum abit; unus utrique

Error, sed variis illudit partibus: hoc te Crede modo insanum; nihilo ut sapientior ille,

Qui te deridet, caudam trahat."
Sat. II. 3. 1. 48.

2. In "Table Talk," the poet addresses Liberty;

"Incomparable gem! thy worth untold; Cheap, though blood-bought, and thrown away when sold!"

Similar to this is the language of Bishop Taylor on another subject. "For the soul of a man all the world cannot be a just price; a man may lose it or throw it away, but he can never make a good exchange when he parts with this jewel." Vol. II. Serm. xix. p. 338.

1807.

3. Every reader of Cowper will

recollect the beautiful

passage

in

the third book of the Task, "I was born of woman," &c. Was the following speech from the Faithful Shepherdess in the poet's mind when he wrote it?

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on the Discouragements and Supports of the Christian Ministry: doctrine, he says: "The facts it where, speaking of the Christian exhibits, supported by clear and indubitable testimony, are more extraordinary than ever entered the mind of man in its wildest excursions, combining all the sobriety of truth, with more than the grandeur of fiction." p. 36, fourth edition.

5. The following lines, in the fine address to the Stars, Task, book V. (a similar address occurs in Young's Ninth Night) resemble a passage in Mallet's Excursion.

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one eternal NOW Shall be the only measure of our being."

(In a translation from Horace be

"Guard well the cheerful, has, happy Now.") See also Southey's Thalaba, book I.

"Nor days, nor weeks, nor months, nor years are here,

An everlasting Now of misery!" And Crabbe, in a powerful passage of his Sir Eustace Grey:

"There was I fix'd, I know not how,

Condemn'd for untold years to stray: Yet years were not-one dreadful Now Endur'd no change of night or day.”

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Cowper agreed with his friend Hurdis in his love for the works of creation.

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Now I steal along the woody lane, To hear thy song so various, gentle bird, Sweet queen of night, enchanting Philomel.

I name thee not to give my feeble liue A grace else wanted, for I love thy song, And often have I stood to hear it sung, When the clear moon, with Cytherean smile, Emerging from an eastern cloud, has shot

A look of pure benevolence and joy Into the heart of night. Yes, I have stood And mark'd thy varied note, and fre

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surest means of inducing a habit of economy among the lower orders, improving their morals, and making them steady and useful members of society."

Now, sir, I must acknowledge myself to have been both startled and distressed by this paragraph, as well as by one or two notices to the same effect, which I had before met with in that publication: and I cannot but think that you will deem the subject worthy of the timely notice of a Christian ob

server.

I believe, sir, that I yield to none in a thorough conviction of the utility of Savings Banks, both in regard to the temporal comforts, and to the moral habits of that class of society for whose benefit they are intended. Yet it certainly appears to me to be wholly inconsistent with the due observance of "the Lord's day" to appropriate any portion of it to such a purpose. Must it not be acknowledged to be a merely secular engagement? Can it be pleaded that it is an act of charity, and as such compre hended under the apostolic precept in 1 Cor. xvi. 2? Surely, whatever may be the motive of the clergymen or others who receive the contributions (who can indeed hardly be influenced by any other principle than benevolence), on the part of the depositors it can be nothing more than an act of human policy, with a view to their own temporal interests.

This plan is, indeed, spoken of as consisting in the simple and easy act of giving and receiving a small sum of money. But the process will be found, when we come to the detail of business, to be far from simple. Regular accounts of every sum deposited must be kept; receipts must be given; and the check-books adjusted: or else there is an end of all accuracy, and consequently of all security. It is stated, that in one of these Sunday Banks no less than 411. had been deposited in forty-three

Sundays. Can it be otherwise than an undue encroachment on those valuable moments, to have thus received, and accounted, and acknowledged, upwards of nine pounds each Sunday, in the small contributions of perhaps many times that number of individuals? It is probable that many of your clerical readers have found occasion to remonstrate with some of their parishioners on the unchristian, but too common, practice of paying the wages of their labourers on the Sunday morning. But with what consistency can a clergyman adopt such a remonstrance, who himself appropriates a part of the same day to the receipt of a portion of those very wages? Does he not appear, however unintentionally, to countenance and encourage a system already too prevalent? The labourer is compelled to receive his money at the time when he ought to be preparing for, if he is not already engaged in, the sacred exercises of the day. He proceeds from his master's pay-table to the shop, to purchase his loaf, or to pay his debt. Thence, we will hope, he hastens to the house of God; but he must not forget to carry the remainder of his wages in his pocket, so that as soon as the service is over he may hasten to the minister (for it is intimated that the minister is to be the receiver, or at least the superintendent,) that he may resume his secular engagements, and lay up for future use the money he has to spare. He obtains his receipt-book:and which of the two, it may be asked, is likely to prove the most natural and fruitful topic of meditation during the rest of the day; -the prayers he has offered, and the doctrines and precepts in which he has been instructed at church; or the computation of the future advantages to himself and his family, of which that receipt-book is the pledge and the memorial?

J. II.

CHRIST, OBSERV. No. 204.

To the Editor of the Christian Observer. WITHOUT entering on the proper commencement of Daniel's 2400 years, I wish to bear testimony to the propriety with which your correspondent C. E. S. has placed the beginning of Cyrus's reign, over all Media and Persia, so much earlier than commentators on Scripture have usually dated it.(p.634.) They have been so much gratified by seeming coincidences, between passages in the book of Daniel, and the Cyropædia, that they have admitted the latter to be genuine history, without duly examining its claim to that character. The canon of Ptolemy, the chronology of Herodotus, (which, at that period, relating to Media, Persia, Lydia, Greece, and Egypt, is perfectly consistent, and precisely agrees with Scripture) the fragments of Barosus, Megasthenes and Ctesias, all concur in denying any such prince to have reigned, as Xenophon's Cyaxares the Second. Even the Persian legends, collected by Mirkhard, from traditions, whence Xenophon might borrow his idea of a son of Astyages (called by the Persians Fraiborz) deny him ever to have reigned. I believe that I could easily demonstrate, if the present occasion was suitable, that the Darius of Daniel was no other than Astyages himself; for there certainly was no other king of the Medes and Persians, at the time of Belshazzar's (that is, Evil-Merodach's) assassination. It is certain that Cyrus died A. C. 529; and that he reigned over all Media and Persia about thirty years. He, as certainly, dethroned Astyages; which, therefore, occured the year after the latter(Darius the Mede)had succeeded Belshazzar at Babylon; probably, being invited by the conspirators, because he was brother-in-law of Nebuchadnezzar. Neriglissar (one of the conspirators) then revolted against Cyrus, who was prevented from taking the city of Babylon, till he had subjugated the whole

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To the Editor of the Christian Observer.
WITH a strong feeling of reluctance
I take up my pen to interpose a
few words in this painful contro-
versy on the subject of Cambridge
discipline; and I do it with a de-
termination neither to extenuate
nor to magnify the evils that really
exist, but to state the matter as it is,
for the information of those who
have no opportunities of examining
for themselves. I should be sorry
that such persons should take their
opinion of the present state of our
University either from the WEST-
MORELAND YEOMAN, or CLE-
RICUS EBORACENSIS, or the plea-
sant DEVONSHIRE SQUIRE, or
even from the NORTH-COUNTRY-
MAN, whose defence I cannot but
consider as insufficient to meet the
real objections, and to satisfy the
minds of thinking men on the sub-
ject. With respect to the Devon-
shire Squire, I must confess I have
no heart for pleasantry on the
subject.

*Nor have we; for though it may be

occasionally true, that

"Ridiculum acri

Fortius et melius magnas secat res," yet it is by no means generally the case, especially on questions like the present. We wish, therefore, that we had not inserted the ingenious paper of a Devonshire Squire. We did not, however, perceive all the objections which existed to its insertion, until it was too late to countermand it. Cantabrigiensis must, however, be aware that the "pleasantry' " of the Devonshire Squire was intended solely as an ironical representation of some of the arguments which have actually, and in print, been adduced by individuals in reply to the impugners of university discipline.

Having thus incidentally been brought

I will first state matter of fact, and then refer, briefly, to the charges adduced by these several writers. The provisions for university discipline are, I believe, in themselves sufficient. If they become insufficient through the negligence of those who undertake an office of which they do not intend to diswith the individuals, and not with charge the duties, the fault rests the University; and they must sit down at the end of their year of office with the unenviable reflection, that " qui non vetat peccare, cum possit, JUBET." The Proctors are annual officers: the University binds them by oath to the faithful discharge of their duty: if even one of the two violate his oath, what can the other do, comparatively, for the maintaining of that order and discipline which we desire? Those whose experience qualifies them to speak on this point, will answer, that he must faint under the burden.

But the number of students in the University has of late years been greatly on the increase; and it has been found that even two Proctors, supposing both to be faithful and active, are insufficient to enforce discipline and morality. To remedy this acknowledged deficiency, a Grace has passed the Senate for the appointment of two Pro-proctors, to be annually elected, to assist the Proctors in this part of their duty. The salary anuexed to this office is so trifling, that the only motive which can induce a

forward, contrary to our usual custom, as mediators between our correspondents, we cannot pass by this occasion of congratulating both our readers and the University of Cambridge-which some of our correspondents may have handled with too little ceremony-upon what we understand is the improving state of affairs within her walls; and we trust that future writers on this subject will soon have little left to specify, but abuses which have been corrected, and faults which exist no more.

EDITOR.

member of the Senate to accept it must be, I conceive, a desire to benefit the University by a faithful and conscientious discharge of his laborious duties. Now for an ap peal to fact-it is with an honest pride I add, that as far as my observation has extended (and I have not been a careless observer), the remedy has been found adequate. I may challenge these gentlemen to come from the North and from the South, and examine for themselves: they will find our streets cleared of the nuisance complained of: they will find four officers, especially appointed for that purpose, active and zealous and persevering, not only in punishing vice when they discover it in public, but in searching out its secret recesses, and preventing the approach of young men to the habitations of iniquity; they will find likewise the other Masters of Arts not backward to exert the authority with which they are invested by their degree, in checking every instance of misconduct which comes under their notice.

I do not say that every thing has yet been done which I myself could desire: but much has been done; and I think we deserve not all the reproach which has been cast upon

us.

I shall beg leave now to offer a few brief remarks on the points touched upon by your different correspondents: but you will readily pardon me if I consider one or two ill-natured hints, such as the Boy knowing more already than many a Fellow of a college, &c. not entitled to a serious reply. I must claim for the University of Cambridge a right of having her merits tried by substantial evidence; she is not sunk so low as to deserve to be made a by-word of reproach among persons incompetent to estimate her real deserts. Believe me, sir, I am "more in sorrow than in anger," while I write this; nor do I, in my last expression, allude to the Westmoreland Yeoman himself, but to

those who will take occasion, from what he has written, to traduce our University, and to pride themselves in their self-complacent ignorance.

First, then, Many of the young men are ledged without the college walls; but not, as has been asserted, "out of the reach of the observation or controul of their superiors." The Tutor or Proctor has the same authority to enter a young man's lodgings, as to enter his rooms in college: nay, there is in some sense a greater check over a student in a lodging house than in college rooms; because, if the landlord be a conscientious man (and such landlords there are), his very presence, his being a witness of any wrong proceedings, and the fear of his giving information, will operate as a restraint, to which there can be no corresponding check within the walls of the college. Now comes the objection to this statement: "I produced," says Clericus Eboracensis, "a letter which a friend at M— had lent me, from his son at college, telling him, as a good joke, that the mistress of his lodgings had asked him, that morning, (the new law had been promulgated on the preceding day,) at what hour of the night she should fix the time of his return home?" Indeed! Is it so? Is this the evidence by which our University is to be found guilty, and condemned? Ἐν δὲ φάει xal decor. At least kill us in the day-light: let it not be by dark insinuations, anonymous letters, unauthenticated narratives: let it not be by "poisoned arrows, which not only inflict a wound, but render it incurable." Who is this mistress of a lodging house? Let her name be given up, and I pledge my self (for though I write anonymously, you shall know my name, if necessary), that she shall be deprived of her licence to receive students as lodgers. Who is this son so infatuated as to relate it as "a good joke" to his own father? Who is this father so careless of the morals

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