and being in every respect prepared, he desired us to send away our horses, and to sit down, that we might not frighten the birds; and then ordered his son, a boy of twelve years of age, to raise the sparrows. The boy instantly ran about the enclosure, and, by shouting and hallooing, put up immense flocks, not one of which attempted to fly out of the enclosed ground, but at the end where the net was placed. The sparrows raised themselves to fifty or sixty feet, flew several times round the enclosure, but the noise made by the boy prevented their alighting; they at length directed their flight towards the end where the fowler was seated, which, having sufficiently neared, the fowler, by putting two fingers upon his tongue, and giving a shrill whistle, magically, as it were, caused the sparrows to descend and fly close along the ground, and immediately above the net, which, by a small exertion, was at the same instant thrown over, and covered the flock, or greater part of it.

"I saw this method repeated twenty times the same day, and very frequently after during my residence at Cazaroon, and always with success. I had frequent conversations with the governor and principal inhabitants of Cazaroon on the subject, and they all assured me that no other man but the person I saw, and a few of his family, could catch sparrows in this manner; nor could the same man catch them in any other place but the Valley of Cazaroon, for he had been carried to two or three places, by order of the Prince of Shiraz, and had not been able to catch one bird."

The tone of the publication as to religion and morality is creditable to its authors; as, indeed, one might expect from the character given of Mr. Addison in the preface:"In a word, he was master of six languages, a first-rate mathematician, an admitted classic, a firm and zealous friend, a devoted son, an affectionate brother, and an unostentatious Christian."

The Candidate for the Ministry; a Course of Expository Lectures on the First Epistle of Paul the Apostle to Timothy. By the Rev. J. H. Pinder, M.A., Curate of St. Mary, Lambeth, (late Principal of Codrington College, Barbadoes, and Chaplain to the Lord Bishop of the Diocese.) London: Duncan. Small 8vo. 1837. pp. 295.

A SERIES of very plain, practical discourses, addressed to the students of Codrington College, Barbadoes, shortly after the opening of the institution in the year 1830. The following extract from the brief preface will shew how much good has been effected already by the institution in which these sermons were delivered :—

"The author having been compelled from ill health, in the year 1835, to relinquish the superintendence of that most interesting charge, feels thankful, on reflecting, that there are now twenty-five clergymen in different parts of the diocese of Barbadoes and the Leeward Islands, who were prepared for entering Holy Orders, in connexion with this College."

Codrington College has occasionally been made a subject of reproach to the Society for Propagating the Gospel, because the estates from which it derived its support were cultivated by slaves. It is very desirable-although the necessity of a reference to the subject has been obviated by the late measure of emancipation-it is still very desirable, that those who have ever felt any uneasiness on this head, should turn to the Reports of the Society, in which they would find statements that prove with how much mildness their estates were governed, and how completely an experiment of gradual amelioration and final emancipation was under trial on a small scale in this island, under the management of the Society's agents. It will be seen also that, indirectly, these funds were employed in preparing the West Indies for a measure of emancipation, because, by providing the means of religious instruction and ordinances, (such as this college was in.

tended to provide,) the fairest chance was afforded of preparing the minds of the slaves themselves for remedial measures. But to return to Mr. Pinder; his discourses seem extremely well adapted to such an audience as he must have been addressing. They are quite plain, but at the same time impressive. They enter on the duties of the minister, especially as to preparation for the sacred office, although they occasionally point out the erroneous doctrines and practices with which the Romanists have corrupted the purity of the church; they are chiefly practical exhortations and directions to the clergy to act up to the model prescribed for them in this Epistle of St. Paul. Altogether it is a pleasing little volume.

The True Causes of the Contempt of Christian Ministers. A Sermon, preached before the University of Oxford, at St. Mary's Church, on Nov. 30th, 1718, by Peter Maurice, Ă.M., Fellow of Jesus College, Oxon. With a Preface in Vindication of it, against the Censure passed upon it in the University. Reprinted from an original copy in the British Museum. ("He being dead yet speaketh."-Heb. xi. 4.)

AFTER this stands, in the Oxford Herald of May 6th, the following grand paragraph :

"The above sermon, which will form part of an appendix to the forthcoming publication, is reprinted by the relative of the writer, to shew that those mystical and undefinable attributes laid claim to by some of the ministers in the established church, and conceded by their followers among the laity, is not a new theory, but an offset from that root of bitterness which has before defiled our apostolical church.

"The original sermon was published, with the preface, eleven years after its delivery, as an antidote to the views publicly advocated at that time from the university pulpit. The author was Dean of Bangor from 1727 to 1749.

"London: Francis Baisler, 124, Oxford-street; Simpkin, Marshall and Co., Stationers' Court.

"In the press, and will be published towards the end of May, in time to be forwarded along with the monthly periodicals, 'THE POPERY OF OXFORD.'* By the Rev. Peter Maurice, M. A., (late of Jesus College,) Chaplain of New and All Souls' Colleges, Officiating Minister at Kennington, Berks; Author of a Tract entitled Popery in Oxford.""

It seems clear enough, from the writings of Mr. Peter Maurice, sen., that the only notion which Mr. Peter Maurice, jun., has of opposing popery, is by the "good old way" of the Hoadley school. How he manages his admiration of a school, many of whose members were on the high road to Socinianism, it is for him to consider. It is to be hoped he can answer for his ancestor's orthodoxy. All that shall be done here is to give a few specimens of the senior Maurice's style of arguing. First, then, is a list of propositions which he tries hard to reconcile with Article 26::

1.

1. "That the administration of an evil minister, as to any benefit purely arising from his administration, is no better than the sacrifice of a fool. Yet,

2. "That the devotions and services of good men, who make use of the ministry. of such, are acceptable to God, and beneficial to them. But,

3. That the efficacy depends on themselves, and not on him. For,

It appears that Oxford grows worse and worse. In 1836, there was 66

Popery

in Oxford;" but now, these fearful words, "The Popery of Oxford," shrew that Oxford is in a state of popery. Alas!

4." He has no juster a claim to a commission from Christ than he could have had under the Mosaic dispensation to have been of the tribe of Levi without being an Israelite."

II.

"In a learned and a thinking age, and especially in a country where liberty is truly valued, men cannot long be imposed upon, by sophistical arguments and unintelligible distinctions, to continue under the dominion of usurping, tyrannical masAnd therefore, if not out of justice to mankind, yet in prudence to ourselves, and for the honour of our religion and ministry, let us take the first decent opportunity of letting drop those little arts that have indeed formerly prevailed, but are now no longer like to do so.......

ters.

"The first thing I shall mention, because I think the first which was introduced into the Christian church, and was the groundwork of all the corruptions in it, is the assuming an absolute power of limiting the general words of scripture, and of dictating and determining for other men's understandings, according to such limitations

.From whence came all the schisms and dissensions, all the wars and fightings, in the Christian church? Came they not hence?...... May such doctrines, and the principles from whence they spring, become the butt of contempt, and the objects of witticism, till they be totally exploded and banished from a free and a thinking people.......

I

"But, 2. Because...all men stand in need of forgiveness, there has been transmitted to us, by our zealous predecessors, (by whom delivered to them I know not,) a power of remitting or retaining sins. A very useful and advantageous power where men of bad lives and resigned understandings can be persuaded to think it effectual. I need not go so far off as the church of Rome to fix the imputation. could wish that we ourselves were wholly free from it; for however some men, when pressed hard by truth, are forced sometimes to distinguish away their own arguments, yet it is too evident they pretend to such a power, not only from their frequent though vain exercise of it, but especially from their endeavouring to defend it from such a text, as, if it proves anything of this nature, must prove as absolute and unlimited a power as ever the pope himself aspired at,- Whosesoever sins ye remit, they are remitted.'......This large commission, but in a more sacred sense, do men, unassisted, uninspired, appropriate to themselves. And though, perhaps, enemies to God by their wicked works, pretending, as it were, to be God's privy counsellors, can pronounce an emphatical' I absolve,' without producing any credentials, or having anything to trust to but that broken reed, an uninterrupted succession...... But let not weak, ignorant, sinful man exalt himself above all that is called God, by aspiring to an authority which the Son of God himself never exercised while on earth. Let him not say, Thus saith the Lord,' when perhaps the Lord hath not spoken; nor by the help of that scholastic term, absolution, apply to particular persons, in the name of God, an absolute forgiveness of all their sins, when God only knoweth the heart and trieth the reins. The usurping such a prerogative above his brethren is often, to weak men, a stumbling block; always, to wise men, foolishness."

This is surely specimen enough of the great grandfather's wisdom; and as we all may hence learn what the great grandson thinks the right way of exposing popery, there will be no occasion to trouble the reader with any notice of his sermon if it ever should appear.

The Roman catholic Doctrine of the Eucharist, considered in reply to Dr. Wiseman's Argument from Scripture. By Thomas Turton, D.D., Regius Professor of Divinity at Cambridge, and Dean of Peterborough. Cambridge: Deightons. 1837. 8vo.

THIS book is, without any exception, the most severe-the more, of course, because its severity is at once so calm and so just-which has fallen under the reviewer's notice for a long period. They who read Dr. Turton's admirable work on Natural Theology, and remember his quiet exposure of Lord Brougham, will know what to expect. But Lord Brougham's exposure was nothing to Dr. Wiseman's. Dr. Turton has, in his usual calm, close, and patient style of investigation,

followed Dr. Wiseman through his Lectures on John, vi, and on the words of institution in the case of the eucharist, and has (it is difficult to say anything else) utterly demolished him. The only wonder is, that any man could have ever relied so entirely on the folly of his hearers as to venture to delude them with such logic. One reads over the passages again and again, with something between amusement at the coolness of gravely advancing such arguments, and pain at the condition of the heart which could allow such a proceeding. An acute observer, who heard some of Dr. Wiseman's Lectures, at Rome, pronounced him "a first-rate quack;" and Dr. Turton has fully proved the correctness of the judgment. Let no one say, that he is not first-rate who could use such arguments. The great praise of an empiric is to palm off, not moderate, but utterly worthless articles, for really valuable wares. And a further proof of his talents is, to understand human nature, and his particular audience, well enough to know how far he can go in playing with their credulity. All these talents Dr. W. has shewn in an eminent degree. His dexterity in covering weak points and in making the best of everything, his perfect gravity in offering as sound argument what he well knows to be sometimes mere sophistry and sometimes mere nonsense, and the plausible words in which he dresses out the sophistry and the nonsense, must place him very high in his order. He was so successful, that the reviewer heard the report of a barrister who listened to him for nearly two hours on this subject, and pronounced it to be a very powerful exhibition of logical argument, and highly dangerous. It is to be feared, that few of those who could be deluded by it will be inclined to read, or able to appreciate, Dr. Turton's very able work. As a specimen of a pure lucid style, of a gentle but most severe and thorough castigation, it will hereafter, at least, command general admiration. All which Dr. Turton does, in fact, is, by a clear head, to take Dr. Wiseman's sentences to pieces, and to say, So, then, Dr. W. means so and so. There is frequently a grave and gentle humour, especially in the remarks on Dr. Wiseman's hermeneutics, which is most amusing. Many persons may, perhaps, be inclined to think that John, vi., is more directly referable in its whole extent to the eucharist than Dr. Turton does, but that does not affect his argument. Dr. Wiseman is not inquiring whether the chapter is (so to say) sacramentary or not, but whether it establishes the Romanist notions. Among other amusing parts of the work, is Dr. Turton's proof that Dr. Wiseman has brought himself clearly under the stroke of one of the anathemas of the council of Trent.

Harmonia Paulina. (Being an Arrangement, in the Words of the Apostle, of the Complete Scheme of Christian Faith and Practice contained in the several Epistles of St. Paul.) By the Rev. Henry Latham, M.A., Vicar of Selmeston and Alciston, Sussex. London: Rivingtons. 8vo. 1837. pp. 448. THE object of this work is to arrange the Epistles of St. Paul in such a manner that they may be read as one compact body of doctrinal and practical religious views, arranged under different heads. This is done by abstracting the portions which peculiarly apply to the circumstances of each particular church, and throwing them into an appendix, while the several parts of the different Epistles which refer to

doctrines, or deliver precepts on any particular duties, are collected together under the subjects to which they refer. Mr. Latham has made sixteen divisions in his introduction, corresponding to the sections into which the extracts from St. Paul are divided, and containing a kind of paraphrase or commentary on each subject. There are a few notes, as well as useful and sensible headings, and marginal explanations, to the several sections. The work altogether appears to the reviewer to be calculated to be useful to young students in divinity, in enabling them to systematize and arrange the different writings of St. Paul, and thus to smooth many of his difficulties.

Early Recollections, chiefly relating to the late S. T. Coleridge during his long Residence in Bristol. By Joseph Cottle. 2 vols. 8vo. London: Longman and Co., and Hamilton and Co. 1837.

THERE can be no question that Mr. Cottle shewed great kindness to Mr. Coleridge, and that Mr. C. felt deeply grateful for it. Neither can there be any question, that if the subject of a biographical work was destined to struggle with pecuniary difficulties, that fact should, amongst others, be brought forward, as it is impossible that it should not have had a large share in giving a colour to his life and thoughts; but there can be no use whatever in giving petty details of his difficulties, and the reviewer cannot certainly justify Mr. Cottle for having done this to so large an extent in the present instance. Does Mr. Cottle think that many of the notes which we find in these volumes would have been written if Mr. Coleridge had thought it possible that they could have been printed?

Always taking for granted that what Mr. Cottle says can be fully relied on, these volumes unquestionably contain a great deal that is very interesting respecting Mr. Coleridge and some of his friends; and they certainly fully establish this point, that, whatever may have been Mr. Coleridge's errors in opinion or in conduct, he was always bent on seriously inquiring into the truth, and always ready to confess and deplore his own faults. At a very early period of his life, when he held religious opinions which he subsequently condemned, there was an eminent spirit of affection towards the gospel, and a just and strong indignation against those who unfairly opposed it. The following passage illustrative of this remark is so remarkable, that it ought to be made public:

"Derby is full of curiosities: her cotton and silk mills, Wright the painter, and Dr D, the everything but Christian, Dr. D possesses perhaps a greater range of knowledge than any other man in Europe, and is the most inventive of philosophical men. He thinks in a new train on all subjects but religion. He bantered me on the subject of religion; I heard all his arguments, and told him it was infinitely consoling to me to find that the arguments of so great a man, adduced against the existence of a God and the evidences of revealed religion, were such as had startled me at fifteen, but had become the objects of my smile at twenty,-not one new objection-not even an ingenious one. He boasted that he had never read one book in favour of such stuff, but that he had read all the works of infidels.

"What would you think, Mr. Wade, of a man who, having abused and ridiculed you, should openly declare that he had heard all that your enemies had to say against you, but had scorned to inquire the truth of any of your friends? Would you think him an honest man? 'I am sure you would not. Yet such are all the infidels whom I have known; they talk of a subject, yet are proud to confess themselves profoundly ignorant of it. Dr. Dwould have been ashamed to reject Buffon's Theory of