clamour raised against all institutions were not an interested clamour. To an honest assailant of public schools, on the grounds of their limiting the acquirements of their pupils entirely to ancient literatúre, and not directing their thoughts to sacred subjects, one might say, read (“if thou canst read") this volume and be ashamed of yourself. See how much general reading and how much knowledge of scripture, as well as classical knowledge, these exercises shew, and confess that boys capable of displaying all this at so early a period of life, are not likely to feel themselves, or give others any reason to feel, discontented with the system pursued in their education, or to think anything left undone which careful instruction and encouragement can do to open their minds and direct them to the most important subjects. Notes, Historical and Legal, on the Endowments of the Church of England. By W. C. Walters, Esq., M.A., Barrister at Law, and Fellow of Jesus College, Cambridge. London: Fellowes. 1833. THIS is a very valuable collection of legal observations on our endowments, in very much of which the reviewer is quite disposed to acquiesce. One thing, however, Mr. Walters aims at, which is to shew that the endowments were rarely from private gift, but rather from claims on part of the Church acquiesced in on part of the proprietors, from religious motives, for such a time as to cause a prescriptive right, which the common law recognizes and enforces and in this point Mr. W. does not fully succeed. Mr. Walters says, in arguing this point, that an assertion made in this Magazine, that many original grants of tithes can be produced, is not founded in fact. But it is Mr. Walters, as the reviewer believes, who errs here. Whether many endowments of rectories can be produced or not, very, very many gifts of tithes of estates by the owners to monasteries can be produced at any time, and the argument and fact then remain the same. If gentlemen were in the habit of making gifts of the tithes of their estates voluntarily, it makes no difference whether the gift was made to a rector and his successors for ever, or to a religious body which was to supply an officiating priest. Surely Mr. Walters does not mean to deny the existence of such grants as these by wholesale. His replies to Mr. Eagle (especially his bringing Mr. Eagle to answer himself) are very able and ingenious. A Collection of Hymns for general use, submitted to the consideration of the Members of the United Church of England and Ireland. London: Hatchards. 1833. THE Compiler of this collection, which is partly original and partly taken from ten or twelve other collections, very truly says that there is no good or satisfactory collection, and very candidly requests readers of this, when they find any hymn that they like better than those printed here, on the same subject, to erase the latter and substitute the former. By the formation and publication of many such collections, he thinks we should ultimately get a satisfactory volume. He has shewn very good taste in recalling some of the hymns from Hickes's Reformed Devotion, which very often, for simple piety, (though not for high poetry) deserve all praise. His own compositions appear to be too full of thought and sentiment for congregational worship. An hymn to be used in worship, and a Sacred Poem, are two things essentially distinct; and the first requires far more simplicity of thought and unity of purpose than the latter. The Life of William Couper. By Thomas Taylor. London: Smith and Elder. 1833. THIS is a very elegant volume in appearance, and really answers its profession, viz. that it is a faithful compilation from the most authentic sources. It avoids the extreme pain inflicted by some disgusting works, published a few years ago, in which the fearful deeds of madness were most improperly exhibited; but, at the same time, relates faithfully, though in generals, what was the cause of the poet's malady. The greater part of the narrative is very properly collected from Cowper's own letters-perhaps the most delightful of any in existence. On the question, canvassed by Mr. Taylor several times, as to the influence of religion on the poet's madness, one observation seems called for. It is contrary to facts, to say that religion was the cause of Cowper's madness, for he was mad before his mind was seriously imprest with religious feelings. What influence religion and his peculiar views may have afterwards had in exciting or allaying his disease, no man can ever know, for no man can penetrate into the workings of a sound, far less of an unsound mind. But suppose it was clear that Cowper's disease had been aggravated, or its particular form shaped out, by his attention to religion, what then? Because a diseased stomach is often deranged by all food of whatever kind, are men not to eat? Before they who wish to use such arguments against religion are in a state to argue, they must shew that a healthy mind has been overset by over attention to religious studies. The reviewer is no friend to enthusiasm, but it is on very different grounds from any fear of its producing madness. John Milton, his Life and Times, &c. By Joseph Ivimey, Author of the History of English Baptists, &c. London: Effingham Wilson. 1833. Ir a churchman could indulge the malicious wish that he might be able to wound the feelings and pride of the Dissenters by exposing the ignorance and the folly of one of their members, nothing could be more gratifying than this work of Mr. Ivimey. Knowing him only by name as the author of a large work on the History of the Baptists widely circulated, the Reviewer took for granted that he was a person of decent acquirements and feelings. This work effectually dispels the delusion. He tells us in his preface, that his object is not to delineate Milton as a poet, so much as a Protestant and non-conformist. The real intention of the book is to gratify his own feelings, and those of persons like himself, by quoting all the most malignant passages of Milton, against episcopacy, the national church, and church establishments of every kind; all which, he says, is likely to be better received since the Reform Bill was past. They who find pleasure in seeing that a man of Milton's noble mind could degrade himself to entertain and to express feelings unfit for a Christian, are quite at liberty to enjoy their lofty gratification-and Mr. Ivimey's pure and exquisite taste has provided for them, unquestionably, a noble entertainment. It is, in truth, a pleasing occupation, well fitted for a Christian, and well adapted to improve the head and the heart. He has, it may veritably be believed, succeeded by the attraction of a natural instinct, in drawing forth every thing that is coarse and foul in expression, and every thing that is malignant in feeling, in the writings of the great poet, and has thus done all that in him lay to degrade a great and admirable character in the eyes of all but those who think that the most glorious sight in the universe, is the spectacle of the triumph of sects over a branch of the apostolical church of Christ. Such feelings as Mr. Ivimey's, however, are not to be ascribed to any Christian among the dissenters. To describe the work is quite unnecessary. Every one who reads the Patriot or the works of the Ecclesiastical Society, has his ears already accustomed to the words, sounds and run of sentences which he will find in Mr. Ivimey's book, and to the degree of knowledge and the kind of taste there exhibited. Every thing connected with the church and churchmen is of course corrupt and abominable-episcopacy merely a means of fattening individuals-a national church, an abomination-Laud, a fiend incarnate-Clarendon almost as bad, &c. &c. &c. There is something curious and very satisfactory in find ing the points which are felt to be weak by persons like Mr. Ivimey, and for which they gladly get what aid they can from Milton. It is indeed very natural that the voice of primitive antiquity should be despised-that the fathers should be scorned-that in our own reformation, the venerable names of Latimer, Ridley, and Cranmer should be held up to execration (!) by persons who wish to have their deluded followers believe that practices directly in the teeth of the practices of apostolic times are quite as good as the practices of those times, and that the English nation owes nothing of gratitude to the prelates of the English church, for withdrawing it from the yoke of Rome. Poor people! they forget, as Burke said, that though they may raise a smouldering smoke which may hide the sun's light for a time, they cannot blot the sun himself out of heaven. The limits of this Magazine prevent any detailed criticism, but it is curious to observe that Mr. Ivimey's hatred of bishops prevents him from knowing the least about them, and that thus he quotes the Bishop of Chester twice, as the editor of Milton's last prose work-that his knowledge of history is so great, that he quotes Mrs. Hutchinson's remarks about James I. as applying to Charles I. in 1640. What injuries done to his mother, either by Scotch or English, had Charles I. to revenge? The book itself, as far as it does not consist of extracts, is an unacknowledged or acknowledged reprint of Toland's Life of Milton, but extracts make up nearly the whole book. From page 213 to page 276 is a transcript of Milton's public letters, from Phillips' Life. Mr. Ivimey very learnedly deplores the small study of Milton's prose works, and very probably his friends are not much used to study any of the older masters of the language. But he must not think every one so ignorant of older and better English, as not to be aware when he transcribes whole paragraphs from older writers, without acknowledgement, or to mistake the clear and manly strain of even the beginning of the last century, for his coarse and painful style. So entirely indeed is the work published for the purpose of stringing together the pearls (as they seem to Mr. Ivimey) of Milton's coarse reviling of prelates, episcopacy, antiquity, the fathers, the English martyrs, &c. that he has not taken the commonest pains in revising his work. Thus, in page 28, he tells us that Milton's next performance, chiefly directed against Usher's Origin of Episcopacy, was called "The Reason of Church Government," and he gives in pages 33 and 34 (only five pages afterwards) another account of the same work. The sixty Jacobusses of page 139, are called one hundred in pages 141 and 142, without any remark. Sentences are left unfinished and nonsensical: see note, page 342. Then we have Bishop Bramhill and Dr. Gordon for Gauden. Of all Mr. Ivimey's exhibitions of learning, however, his notes on the Eikon Basilike question, and again (page 352) on the 20th article, are perhaps the most amusing. The naiveté with which he lets the world see there his deep acquaintance with literary and church history, and his extreme unconsciousness again that any one ever heard of Milton's Areopagitica (perhaps the most hacknied of all Milton's works) before he brought it to light, are very curious. But Mr. Ivimey's clerkship in foreign tongues is also exquisite. "Defensio pro" he gives as the title of one of Milton's works, (p. 158.) Then we have defencio for defensio repeatedly, quædom for quædam, Phineus the Salmydissim (p. 155), Eiconoclastis (p. 280), Qui mal y pence (p. 277), and twenty other pieces of learning of the same kind. Cannot these gentlemen, who are so anxious to put down the clergy, and talk so loudly of their ignorance, manage to find any person, even decently instructed in the common languages, to correct their works before they make these grand displays of their own proficiency? Mr. Ivimey's opinions on political and religious matters are about as valuable as may be conjectured from these specimens of his abilities. Oliver Cromwell he looks on as one who delivered the nation from civil tyranny! and was quite resolved as Protector to establish religious liberty also! (p. 160 and 161.) No one certainly was a greater friend to both than Cromwell as his practice shewed! One thing is quite certain,-he was just as great a friend to one kind of liberty as another! They who remember what treatment Hall and other bishops experienced, will be a little amused at finding that Mr. Ivimey, in saying that Hall speaks of it as a hard measure, (p. 57,) puts a note of admiration to shew the extreme absurdity of Hall's complaint. How many notes of admiration would Mr. Ivimey give to the plain narration of one-hundredth part of the same oppression exercised on himself? But the bishops were (p. 50) mean satellites, cringing hypocrites, proud tyrants, and bloody oppressors-of course! "However hard the measure, no impartial and honest Briton but what (!) will say that it was strictly just; and what English heart now but will raise a prayer to God,-who hears the prayers of the humble, (!the humble!-Mr. Ivimey, the writers for the Ecclesiastical Knowledge Society and Co.), and who is always ready to help the oppressed (!) and confound the oppressor-So let all thine enemies perish, O Lord, &c."! Mr. Ivimey speaks plainly (and in a very Christian-like strain) to be sure. One might wish a modern " haughty tyrant" joy if he were to fall into Mr. Ivimey's hands. 1833. Dublin University Calendar for 1833. Dublin: Curry. THIS Volume deserves notice, not only as the first of a series of Calendars like those of our English Universities, but because it contains a very well-drawn-up and interesting history of the early condition of education in Ireland, the attempts to establish an University, and the history of the foundation of the present admirable institution. It contains also an enumeration of her great men, an account of the studies pursued, and specimens of the Examination Papers. The volume indeed proves, but too clearly for those who hate every old institution, how often and how well the silent sister has spoken, what a long list of worthies her rolls display, and how well calculated her present line of study is to fill them with other names of eminence in the present and future times. The Holy Bible arranged in Historical and Chronological Order, &c. &c. By the Rev. George Townsend, M.A., &c. London: Rivingtons. 1833. THE character and the uses of Mr. Townsend's work are so well known, that nothing need be said about them here. It is only necessary to explain, that this is a cheap edition, appearing in numbers, containing indeed fewer notes, but preserving to the reader all the advantage of arrangement which the larger edition gives, that it is exceedingly cheap, and very well and clearly printed. The Comparative Coincidence of Reason and Scripture. In 3 vols. 8vo. THE writer of these volumes assures us that he has been much in the habit of talking and arguing with sceptics; that his line of arguing has been very successful; but that his line of reading and thought has been so free and extensive as would perhaps rather alarm orthodox persons, and that consequently he hesitated about publishing these volumes which contain his views. But, as time was advancing, and he feared that the world might lose his labours if he did not publish them himself, he resolved to do so, especially as he was convinced that there is no chance of converting sceptics till men present to them much larger views of the subject than has been usual. It would appear that we have thus got a treasure indeed. It consists of both prose and verse, and the reviewer presents a specimen of each as the criticism most likely to satisfy both the author and the reader. Describing the future abodes of peace, (vol. i. p. 108,) the poet writes several stanzas, of which two here follow: There is doubtless a freedom, both as to words, rhymes, and sense here, which might not improbably have staggered the dull old orthodox school. They, too, have no minds capable of writing such spirited prose as what follows. After quoting "It must be so" &c., and observing very justly that Christianity reveals a future life to man, the author says, "With what delight will the elated, fluttering soul, harassed by its last contest with its deadly foes, break from its mortal foil-resign to the kind care of guardian angels, kindred spirits, be quickened, conveyed far from the noxious power of that malicious prince who infects the air we here inhale with his pestiferous vapours,-skim free and fresh the serene atmosphere, whose gentle breezes waft it swift onward in its aerial flight to that blest resting place where weaned souls find rest; and consummation of the comforting assurance, This day shalt thou be with me in Paradise,' awaits their joyful entrance," (p. 394.) And again, p. 407, “Thy lengthened lays of joy mingle with heavenly harps in sweet vibrations through the mellifluous air-thy love ecstatic swells sublimest notes of praise. With these enraptured strains angelic voices join; cherubic chants, seraphic anthems rise, and pure devotion quaffs its sweetest incense to the highest skies." Surely the author has done injustice to this last passage by printing it as prose. Prideaux's Advice to Churchwardens. By R. P. Tyrwhitt, Esq. Ninth Edition. 1833. Longman. MR. TYRWHITT has done every thing in his power, in the notes, to bring down the legal information required by churchwardens to the latest date; and he has added the last Select Vestry Act with which Parliament favoured the country. Probably there is no book at all equal to this for its peculiar pur pose. BOOKS OF EDUCATION. Etymological Guide to the English Language; being a Collection, alphabetically arranged, of the principal Roots, Affixes, and Prefixes, &c. By the Compiler of the Edinburgh Sessional School Books. Edinburgh: Wardlaw. 1833. THE title explains the plan, which is obviously useful for young and unlearned persons of all ages; and that plan is well executed. Initia Latina; for the use of Lewisham School. Two Parts. THE first of these is the actual beginning, which is short, and sensibly arranged. |