What therefore is needed is the warning to individual exertion in the abeyance, too certain, of the duties of a Christian State—a phrase which, as things are, has about as much meaning as the old legendary title of our sovereign, King of England and France.

Everybody acquainted with Oxford has learned to respect Dr. Macbride; but that this most respected because so respectable gentleman should publish a large volume of six hundred pages, Lectures on the Articles,' (J. H. Parker,) will cause his numerous friends surprise as large as the work which elicits it. Not even a foot is required by which to measure this Hercules of controversial divinity: a single lock of hair will be enough by which to judge of the whole statue:-' All Protestants agree in the common and distinguishing principle, that Scripture is the sole source of ' religious knowledge, and they have in general come to the same con'clusions as to its meaning.'-P. 17. Which position ten lines lower down in the page is illustrated by the observation, that the Lutherans maintain consubstantiation,'-which is a vulgar error, by the way,-' while the followers of Zuingli and of Calvin, like our own Church,'-which last clause is something more than vulgar, and a libel as well as an error,-' acknowledge no more than a spiritual presence in the receiver,' &c. We do not expect that this volume will acquire many readers; but its publication will at least effect some, though an indirect, public benefit,—that of relieving the much enduring Society over which the excellent Dr. Macbride presides, of the periodical delivery of the lectures of which it consists.

Lord Cranborne has printed for the use of his young relatives a triad of historical sketches, under the title of Great Monarchs' (Whitaker). The heroes-of various degrees of moral greatness-are Charlemagne, Alfred, and William the Conqueror. We have on another occasion alluded to the specialties which give to any literary work of this author a peculiar grace and value: the style, we may add, is good. It would perhaps be unfair to our successors, to have the wholesome traditions of our youth levelled by the unsparing criticism of recent events. We do not therefore complain, though the alleged facts may be questionable, that Lord Cranborne represents Haroun Al Raschid as the 'ruler of the greatest part of Asia,' or that he repeats how Alfred founded Oxford, and the Conqueror ravaged Hampshire to make the New Forest.

'The Psalter and the Gospel' (J. H. Parker), is a neat and compendious syllabus of the evangelical application of the Psalms, chiefly drawn from patristic sources.

Fern-Leaves from Fanny's Portfolio,' (Ingram,) is the production of an American lady, Miss Willis sufficiently clever to make us regret that she has had no real education. The writer only just misses wit and pathos, but she does miss them both. In little exaggerated sketches of character she is frequently happy but what an awful revelation of American style is contained in this and other popular transatlantic works. To think of a language in which trowsers are ' pants,'-to acquire facility is to get the hang,' and haycocks are hayheaps.'

:

Mr. F. Merewether's pamphlet on Church Rates, A Reply to Lord

Stanley,' (Rivingtons,) loses much of its interest since the decision of the House of Lords. As to the fact, that in many or some places the efficiency if not the continuance of the services of the Church will be seriously jeopardized, we cannot doubt it: but against even this trial must be set the relief which must accrue to the Church from the separation of dissenters from our vestries. Not agreeing with Mr. Merewether's argument, we feel bound to say that it is urged with temperance and some ability: his style, however, is so peculiar, and, we must add, so indescribable, that we present a specimen as a praxis for students of the English language. Mr. Merewether is criticising Mr. Walpole's conduct in the Papal Aggres sion debates: This act or rather non-act was, I believe, the more mortifying to many, because on a similar proposition from the then member for Bristol, Mr. Mills, with all the leading men either silent or against him, 'who would have supported Mr. Walpole, the minority Mr. Mills was in 'was of such a nature, that with the accession of support just alluded to as refused, the proposition would to all appearance have obtained a majority.' -P. 19.

The Day of Trial' is an allegorical poem (Kerby). Our copy has a slip of paper pasted in it to the effect, that the work abounds in merit there can be no question whatever.-Rev. J. Fisk.' Pace Fisk, we venture to question Fisk's judgment: it is dull and heavy, poor as controversy, poorer as verse. We give a specimen of the author's abounding

merit:

'He seem'd desirous now to take his leave;
And said, 66

Well, Gratian, since you'll not receive

My friendly invitation, I must go,

And leave you to the fallacies you show;

Farewell: when next we meet, may we be found

On ev'ry point treading on common ground.''

Archdeacon Berens' Advice to Freshmen,' (J. H. Parker,) is a good sound old-fashioned specimen of letter-writing, pleasantly recalling the age and manner of Jones of Nayland and Bishop Horne.

It is enough to announce a second volume of Parochial Sermons,' by Dr. Pusey, (J. H. Parker.) In warmth and loving tone we rank this set above any of the valued writer's publications: and those who talk of the coldness and unevangelical character of Tractarian Sermons' we recommend to study it.

The Warnings of Advent,' (Whitaker,) is a set of Sermons preached last year in a new Church in the city, by various Clergymen. We welcome the volume not only for its own merits, but because it is an evidence of a growing feeling that something more systematic and yet more exceptional must be attempted in dealing with the masses. These Sermons were delivered on every night in Advent; and had some of them been delivered in Moorfields instead of a Church in Moor Lane, we think they would have told. As it is, we attempt to preach awakening Sermons, but we only get a congregation of those who already, in various degrees, seem awakened.

We are glad to announce the appearance, in a second and very cheap edition, of Archdeacon Wilberforce's already classical work on the Holy Eucharist,' (Mozleys,) to which we have elsewhere called attention at length.

Mr. Robert Milman's work on the Love of the Atonement,' (Masters,) reached us too late to do more than advertise it. The plan is undeniably excellent, and as far as a hasty perusal would permit us to judge, we consider it well executed. We are glad to meet a writer of considerable powers in a more important walk than that of fiction.

Thoughts during Sickness,' (J. H. Parker,) will commend itself to all, and they are many, who have learned to value the esteemed author's former publications for the sick room. This is a voice from the sick room, and we regret to say, from the writer's own bed. It is imbued with that tender spirit, and practical sober tone, which has insured so much popularity for its predecessors. Mr. Brett's profession stamps much value on his suggestions to the clergy on their practical treatment of the sick; much harm is done in the sick room by clerical ignorance of the first principles of psychological and physiological knowledge.

Mr. W. G. Cookesley has thought proper to state in a Letter to the Archbishop of Dublin,' (Ridgway,) something about a lady which 'he might confidently say he knew to be true.' Upon being publicly and openly contradicted on this point, by no less a person than Dr. Pusey, Mr. Cookesley has the hardihood to answer that he had in fact no means of exactly knowing' that very thing which he had 'confidently said he knew to be true.' Mr. Cookesley affects great zeal for the orthodoxy and purity of a charitable establishment with which he has no connexion whatever. He inquires what the Bishop of Exeter is about, and he complains to the Archbishop of Dublin that the Bishop of Oxford has had the scandalous wickedness to sanction a little book, which calls a seven-o'clock Service Early Morning Prayers.' In turn, we inquire whether slander and false-witness are accomplishments necessary for a Master of Eton? Into the substance of this pamphlet, after this specimen of its author's spirit, it would be superfluous to enter; as to its manner, it is characteristic. It is addressed to Archbishop Whately, and Archbishop Whately in reply refers his correspondent nine times to passages in-Archbishop Whately's works.

The question raised by Mr. King, of Trinity College, Dublin, in his 'Who was S. Titus?' (Hodges & Smith,) is too extensive and difficult to admit of more than its statement in this place. He argues, and we are bound to say with great erudition, the identity of SS. Timothy and Titus. Much interesting matter on the character of Apollos is incidentally accumulated.

That a new edition of Spelman's celebrated work 'On Sacrilege,' (Masters,) has been called for, shows the interest which is felt on the subject. Whatever may be thought of the argument, and much of it is impregnable, --that is, any other account of the facts would involve far greater difficulties than Spelman's solution, we mean, merely as an intellectual argument -the present handsome volume contains much interesting antiquarian, genealogical, and topographical information. We had expected a greater amount of additional matter than it appears to contain.

Mr. Newland's collection of papers on 'Confirmation and First Communion,' (Masters,) consists of sermons, lectures, extracts, devotions, and catechetical specimens, full in material and neat in arrangement. The volume we consider a store-house on the subject; a manual to methodize, not to supersede, the individual exertions of the parish priest, in connexion with the most promising, and as things are, the only reliable, field of his labours.

It is quite painful to say that, as regards the most disagreeable aspect of the matter, we are quite at one with Anglo-Maderensis, who has pub. lished a Letter to the Bishop of London on the subject of Foreign Chaplaincies.' (Taunton: Woodley.) That such materials could possibly have been collected, and such a case made out, is simply distressing; and we have never concealed our own feeling on the subject. We are at issue with this writer on the ecclesiastical fact, viz. the jurisdiction of the Bishop of London, or any other English Bishop. What we regret is, that either the Bishop did not sooner or more clearly announce his incapacity; or, rather, that he permitted his friends to claim it for him. If an apology is required for the tone of this pamphlet, it is to be found in the circumstance that its writer is personally concerned in the distress which he picturesa circumstance, the intensity of which can only be understood by those who have personal knowledge of the case.

'Church Expansion,' by Mr. Pearson of Knebworth, (Whitaker,) condenses much of the floating feeling and suggestions of the day.

'Translations from Calderon,' (Pickering,) by Mr. Fitzgerald, are an acquisition to British literature. The translator, although we think he was quite able to have dealt with the higher plays, of which, with the exception of a fragment from the Magico Prodigioso, translated by Shelley, we are not familiar with any English version, has only taken up the inferior dramas.

Mr. Murray's 'Hand-Book for Naples and South Italy,' equals Mr. Ford's famous work on Spain in learning and accuracy, and exceeds it in taste and discretion.

Hand-Books suggest Mr. Caswall's very complete Ecclesiastical HandBook, for such name best describes it- Scotland and the Scottish Church,' (J. H. Parker.) It is historical, and, at the same time, a note-book of the writer's travels. It combines, and not unhappily, the essay and dialogue: much of the work being in a diary form. Some sufficient, though not elaborate, antiquarian notices are interspersed; and a more than usually complete account of the Kirk, and its fortunes and disruptions, is supplied; all this in a compass portable and cheap.

Mr. Garden's 'Lectures on the Beatitudes,' (Rivington,) exhibit the valuable qualities of the writer's style-its freshness and persuasiveness-in a favourable specimen. Subjoined are some hints on the present position of the Scottish Church, which Mr. Garden's recent connexion with it invests with peculiar value.

'Points of Essential Difference between the Church of England and the Kirk of Scotland' (Grant), is a tract for local use, designed chiefly for the

other side of the Tweed: but it is, in fact, a complete manual of Church of England principles, and very suitable for ourselves.

Those who know anything of Dr. Donaldson's past efforts towards a radical reform of classical philology, will certainly not be surprised, but rather, probably, will have been expecting, and, so far as they accept his fundamental principles, will hear with pleasure, that he has at length applied them to the still more herculean task of bringing the Shemitic tongues into more sociable proximity, or, truly speaking, their due family relation, to the noble stock of (popularly called) classic languages, by putting forth, briefly as bravely, a 'Comparative Grammar of the Hebrew Language,' (J. W. Parker.) For this act of courage he deserves, if not success, at least great credit, for thus staking the high sanction of his name on the endeavour practically to replace, as he avows,' the puerile, irrational, and uninviting method of the Jewish teachers,' and the needless difficulties' thence arising, of which Dr. Arnold complains,' by 'one in which the classic scholar might compare the language' (therefore as yet) 'unexplored, with those familiar to him.' This attempt, we are disposed frankly to hail, as matter of congratulation, irrespective of the question of successful execution: as to which, it would need longer space and time to offer any trustworthy decision; we are not, however, (he informs us) to receive it as a mere ' experiment,' but, so far as the use of ‘Bury School' for some years past can warrant it, as a result,' successful, in the Doctor's judgment and, at all events, a fait accompli. Those who tremble for the crumbling framework of the Masoretic formulas, may possibly take comfort, where we honestly confess our disappointment, that, in all bis zeal for rational improvement of the system, Dr. Donaldson has not yet ventured to disturb the venerable mechanism of the Hebrew (so-called) conjugations; and that all the mysteries of Pihel and Pu'hal, Pa'hal and Niph’hal, Hiph'hil, Hoph'hal, and Hithpa'hel, still (to the seventeenth variety) remain to puzzle the admiring tyro. We agree with him entirely that the first, (if not main) difficulty in the way of Hebrew study, is its system of orthography; nor do we quarrel with his teaching it in English (though we rather would have called them Roman) characters; but, in his 'method of transcription' (beside some few singular anomalies, and somewhat startling novelties, too intricate, however, to be noticed here in detail,) we regret, that giving all due credit, as he frankly does, to Mr. Greenfield, for so boldly setting him the example, in his English Hebrew Book of Genesis,' yet Dr. Donaldson has not retained what gave it, in our judgment, its chief value, educationally speaking, as a true exponent, though in modern writing, of primeval words, preserving their essential, ineffaceable distinction to the eye, of points from letters: by the simple but effectual expedient of Italic for the points, and for the letters, Roman type. We should prefer, indeed, small capitals for these, as harmonizing better in well-ordered files, and serried ranks, with Sanscrit, no less than Semitic lore. Nor does it make this less important, or its absence less injurious, but rather more so, that Dr. Donaldson intends each word to be at once by every student written out in real, genuine, old Hebrew, to its least iota, and minutest tittle he complains of the 'confusion in the mind of a beginner' (first impressions being always stronger, and the worst most ineradicable)