speedy mauner, without the smallest danger to the general health. The extra quantity of caloric, or principle of heat, accumulated in the body, will communicate itself to the cold water, and the warmth of that in the basin will soon shew you what a quantity of this consuming matter you have lost. I have frequently practised this in a very hot climate, with the most beneficial effects. After thus sufficiently cooling the hands and wrists, even a moderate draught of cold water may be taken without danger. Getting the hands and wrists pumped on, will have the same beneficial effects; and if you practise this frequently, in travelling in hot weather, all fever will be prevented, and the body kept cool, comfortable, and in a state of continual refreshment. This is my general plan when hot and feverish on the Sabbath evenings after my day's fatigue. I either go to the pump, or take a basin of cold water and lave it on my hands and wrists; and the consequence is, a lowered pulse, and general refreshment of the whole system. In travelling by coach, I pursue this practice at almost every stage; and have often most heartily thanked God for this additional benefit of cold water.'" pp. 127-129.

"A grain of ipecacuanha and four grains of rhubarb made into two pills, is a very excellent medicine in cases of fatigue from study and similar causes." p. 131.

The fourth letter is on the following topics :-"The prayers; repetitions; Granville Sharp's rubric (namely, Use not vain repetitions'); alienation of the property of the church; curates; rests; singing; organs; communion servicc; the rubrics; place of the communion, table; punctuation of the Book of Psalms." On several of these subjects there are some useful hints to the clergy, particularly as respects the rubrics in the Prayer-book. We shall quote two passages.

"As the Banns of Marriage are now, by the Marriage Act of 1751, to be ask. ed immediately after the Second Lesson,' upon three Sundays,' there

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should be a rubric inserted to that effect before the Benedictus, or the Jubilate, and that part of the rubric after the Nicene Creed which relates to the

Banns should be omitted. In a new folio Prayer-book which we had not long ago printed at Cambridge, in 1814, the rubric at the beginning of the Form of Solemnization of Matrimony does say,

The Banns of all that are to be mar. ried together, must be published in the church three several Sundays or Holy Days, during the time of morning service, or of evening service (if there be no morning service) immediately after the Second Lesson.' It is, however, incorrect in saying Sundays, or Holy Days, as the Act expressly says Sundays, and the printed form of the Registers for Banns has only got the word Sundays. This rubric led me into an error lately. I had Banns to ask last year on the 17th and the 24th of December, and the next day, the 25th, being a Holy Day, Christmas-day, I asked the Banas on that day for the third time. When I came to enter the Banns in the Register, I found the provision was made for three Sundays; I, however, altered it; but, on further reflection, looking at the Act of Parliament, I found it to specify Sundays only; and so I asked the Banns again for the last time on a Sunday; as, fortunately for me, the couple were not in a hurry to be married." pp. 51-53.

"The Book of Psalms seems to me

to require a thorough revision as to its punctuation, &c.; for, besides the general inconvenience of the constant use of the semicolon, to point it for chanting in cathedrals, &c. to those who do not chant them, they are very ill stop. ped; and especially there is a great want of marks of interrogation. The following have struck me in merely casting my eye over them, without reading them regularly through for the purposePsalm xiii. 1. How long wilt thou forget me, O Lord, for ever: how long wilt thou hide thy face from me?' Here are three distinct questions; and, unless they are marked, and read, as such, the verse is nonsense: How long wilt thou forget me for ever?" 6 If it is for ever,' there can be no question as to 'how long it will be. It should there. fore be printed, How long wilt thou forget me, O Lord? For ever? How long wilt thou hide thy face from me?' xxiv. 8 and 10. In each of these verses,

Who is the King of Glory?' is a question, and the subsequent part of the verses is the answer to it.-lxii. 3. 'How long will ye imagine mischief against every man?' is undoubtedly a question. -lxxiv. 11. Here are three distinct

and here, the for ever?' which is not duly pointed out in xiii. 1, is attended to.-12. Here likewise should be a ? after 'hand.'-lxxxix. 45. Here, again, are the three distinct questions, as in xiii. 1.—xc. 11. Here should be a? after 'wrath.'-xciv. 9. Here are two distiuct questions; and there should be a mark of interrogation after hear, as well as at the end of the verse.-cxix. 9. Here should be a? after way.' cxx. 3. And here, one after 'tongue.' And cxxxix. 19, one after God."" pp. 66, 67.

The fifth letter touches upon the following subjects:-"The pulpit; posture; supports; the hassock; sounding board; remarks by a London Curate; the sermon; Dean Swift's advice; Sir James Stonhouse's advice; unpleasant effluvia; on leaving church; quotation from Bishop Burnet, and from Sir James Stonhouse."-We have no room for extracts, otherwise we should be inclined to quote the remarks of Dean Swift and Dr. Stonhouse upon the advantage of the clergy writing their sermons in a legible hand, and rehearsing them several times before they preach them, and should add the just protest issued by our author against gossiping, bowing, and complimenting at entering or leaving church.

But we must proceed. The seventh letter relates to "The offices; baptisms; baptisms in private houses; weddings; funerals, precautions against taking cold; against infection; Sunday-school; vestry meeting." The eighth, which is the last, refers to "The visitation of the sick; infection; quotation from Bishop Hall; on making useful suggestions; the treatment of the dying; premature interment; witchcraft; charms; tokens, and apparitions." Here, as in the former chapters, the author frequently deals in trifling details, some of which are scarcely worthy of a grave recital in print.

The following is given as an infallible method of preventing ex

"As soon as the corpse is deposited, let a truss of long wheaten straw be opened, and distributed in the grave in layers, as equally as may be, with every layer of earth, till the whole is filled up, By this method the corpse will be effectually secured, as may be found by experience; for it is certain that the longest night will not afford tithe sufficient to empty the grave, though all the common implements of grave-digging be made use of for the abominable purpose." pp. 141, 142.

Our author thus describes some of the inconvenient circumstances which attend visiting the poor and sick.

"The difference of hours in the dif ferent classes of life, even with clergymen who keep early hours, is no small difficulty. A clergyman likes to have his morning in his study, before he goes out to business abroad or for exercise; and it is right, if possible, that he should have it. If he then goes into a cottage or farm-house, they are preparing dinner, if not absolutely sat down to it; or the good woman of the house is washing it with the mop, or she is at the wash-trough. If he wait till after his dinner, then they are at their tea. In the evening they are at supper. Then, in respect to the patient, most commonly all is left to the clergyman-the patient is ignorant of the state of his own soul, of God, and of Christ: he knows not what to say; or, if he does, he knows not how to express himself: he is unaccustomed, perhaps, to confession, to prayer, and to praise, and he does not join; nor is he, with impaired faculties, perhaps, capable of attending and receiving what is offered. All this is truly perplexing and distressing. do what he can: he must discharge his What is the clergyman to do? He must part notwithstanding." pp. 146, 147.

This last advice is very excellent, ." he must do what he can ;" and though the attendant circumstances may often seem to render the introduction of religious topics unseasonable, yet death and judgment, and eternity are subjects too momentous to be sacrificed to scrupulous punetilio. If the clergy

would more unbendingly carry about with them their sacred character, and would always be on the alert to render their intercourse with so

ciety conducive to religious profit, the effect could not but be highly beneficial. We believe that they are often deterred from the introduction of spiritual topics into conversation by a feeling of false shame, even under circumstances in which such topics are justly expected from them, and would be well, and even gladly, received, especially among the poor. It is not a trifling

consideration that should induce a clergyman to think the mention of religious subjects unseasonable; and if he must always wait, either among the poor or the rich, for à direct invitation, and a perfectly favourable coincidence of time and place, and circumstances, before he can venture to assume his pas toral character, or to throw out a religious reflection, he may grow old in his profession, and his parishioners follow him to another world, without many such occasions having occurred in the course of his whole life of discharging his commission.

The only remaining quotation which we shall present is one of our author's anecdotes, under the bead of "Tokens," which may serve to add to the class of stories which Mr. and Miss Edgeworth so much recommend, to divest children of the dread they are apt to feel during the repetition of "ghost stories."

"I had a curious circumstance happen

ed in my own house, however, of another kind. There was frequently a knocking at the knocker on the back door, and when a servant went to open it, no one it was some boy, or man, knocking and was to be seen. I myself supposed that running away out of a joke; but it was said to have happened once when the maid-servant was close to the door, and opened it immediately, before any one could have run out of the yard, and still there was no one to be seen. A baby belonging to my farming-man died, and this knocking was supposed to have be laughed and reasoned against it. At length, some time after, my servant boy

tokened the death. It was in vain that

was looking out of the window, and saw a tom-cat jump up at the knocker, and, on its sounding, run up upon the wall, This shook the belief in the token." pp. 157, 158.

To the letters is added an ap pendix of notes on several miscellanious topics. In one of them, in which the author quotes, from our pages, a letter of a correspondent giving Sir James Stonhouse's hint for eluding the penalty prescribed for not reading the Act against profane swearing, with a view to avoid the duty enjoined by the Act, we could wish he had also quoted our reprobation of all such practices in our Answers to Correspondents, in the same Number. If the Christian is to be subject to government, not only for wrath, but for conscience' sake, the possibility of avoiding the penalty at tached to a breach of the law of the land, by means of a technical subterfuge, does not set aside the duty of obeying it.

GREAT BRITAIN, PREPARING for publication:-Bibliographia Sacra; or, an Introduction to the Literary and Ecclesiastical His. tory of the Sacred Scriptures, and the Translations of them into different Lan

guages; by the Rev. J. Townley;Lectures on Ecclesiastes; by Dr. Wardlaw;-Lectures on Drawing, &c., delivered in the Royal and Russell Institu tions; by W. M. Craig;-Bibliographi cal Dictionary of English Literature,

from the year 1700 to the end of the year 1820, containing the title, price, &c., of every principal work which has appeared in Great Britain during that period, as far as they can be ascertained; by J. H. Glover;-A Translation of Telemachus into Latin; by Mr. French. In the press :-An Essay on the dying Confessions of Judas Iscariot; by Dr. Cracknell;-An entirely new Version of the Psalms, with an Appendix of Psalms, and other Portions of Sacred Scripture, arranged according to the order of the Church of England; by the Rev. Basil Woodd, M. A. Rector of Drayton Beauchamp, &c.

Dr. M'Crie is stated to have made a discovery of considerable importance to Scottish literature. In the collected works of Sir George Mackenzie, published in the years 1716 and 1722, was announced, among other manuscripts of that author, "A History of the Affairs of Scotland, from the Restoration of Charles II. to the Year 1691;" which, however, was never published. About four years ago a large mass of papers is stated to have been brought to the shop of a grocer in Edinburgh, and purchased by him for the purposes of his trade. From these curiosity induced him to select a manuscript volume, which appeared to be something of an historical nature; and which he shewed to Dr. M'Crie, the author of the lives of Knox and Melville, who very soon discovered, from its tenor and contents, that it was the composition of Sir George Mackenzie, and that it must be a portion of the history of his own times, which had so long been a desideratum in Scottish literature. The manuscript, though written by a clerk, or transcriber, it is added, was decisively identified by numerous corrections and additions in the hand-writing of Sir George Mackenzie himself.

Heat has been discovered in the moon's rays by Dr. Howard, by blackening the upper ball of a differential thermometer, and placing it in the focus of a 13 inch reflecting mirror, which was opposed to the light of a bright full moon. The liquid began immediately to sink, and in half a minute was depressed 8 deg. where it became station. ary. On placing a skreen bétween the mirror and the moon, it rose again to the same level, and was again depressed on removing this obstacle.

Russia.-According to a recent esti

mate there are 350 living authors in Russia, about one-eighth part of whom are ecclesiastics, but the far greater proportion consists of persons of rank. Backmeister computed that, previously to 1817, there existed about 4000 different works in that language. In the extensive collection of national literature belonging to the Academy of Sciences of St. Petersburg, there were, in 1800, 3000 works printed in the Russian tongue. Since this period, authorship has increased so much, that during the last year no fewer than 8000 volumes were printed in that language. Translations are very numerous. There are newspapers and journals, both German and Russian, published at St. Petersburg, Moscow, Riga, Revel, Abo, and other principal cities. At Petersburg there are fifteen printing-houses, and ten at Moscow. The Bible Society, so widely patronized in that country, has incidentally assisted in giving a powerful stimulus to literature in general.

South Africa. We copy the following from the Journals of Mr. Henry Helm, a missionary at Griqna-town, in South Africa, as another instance to the many on record, of the low ebb at which the filial and social virtues are usually found in places where the civilizing and humanizing influences of the Gospel have not penetrated.

"July 22, 1820. Andrew Waterboer told me, that some Bushmen, who lately removed from Griqua-town, had left their aged mother, who was very ill, in the following manner. Being unable to move, she remained lying on the ground in her hut, when her children, intending to take the materials of it with them, took it to pieces over her head, and left her in this condition. She remained in this state till next morning, when A, Waterboer, hearing of it, took her to his own house, and charged her daughter, who is in his service, to take care of her mother; but she refused, saying, that her mother being too old to get her living by labour, did not deserve to be taken care of, or to have any more vic. tuals. Andrew provided for her till the 25th of this month, when she died.

"It is customary among the Nama, quas, Corannas, and Bushmen, to put an end to the lives of old and infirm persons in a manner equally cruel. The Namaquas, when removing to another place, put them into a small kraal of bushes, leaving nothing with them but a little water, The Corannas place