of the university, became more confpicuous, when he was placed at the head of the first feminary in the metropolis; and, at the fame time, his talents as a preacher were witnessed and approved by fome of the principal auditories of the realm! Attainments such as these, and a life that adorned them, rendered him a fit object for Bonner's hatred; but Providence rescued him from the fangs of the tiger, in the very act of springing upon his prey.

Habuerunt virtutes fpatium exemplorum.'

Retirement, fuffering, and ftudy, in the company of Jewell, Grindal, and Sandys, ftimulated by the converfation and example of Peter Martyr, and other famed divines of Germany, returned him to his native land, with reunited vigour and increafing luftre, when the days of tyranny were overpast.

Elizabeth, and her fage counfellor-Burghley, placed him at once in an eminent fituation among thofe of fecondary rank in the church, and accumulated other preferments upon him; and would probably have advanced him to the epifcopal bench, had not his real modefty, together with the confcioufnefs of approaching old age, been known to have created in him a fixt determination not to be raised to a station of greater dignity; which however, all things confidered, could fcarcely, in his cafe, have been a fphere of greater usefulness. Near to his friend and patron, Bishop Grindal, near alfo to his other illuftri ous friend and patron, the excellently pious and prudent Archbishop Parker, and not diftant from the court, he was an able coadjutor to each and to all, in bringing forward and perfecting, what they all had at heart, the restoration of true and pure religion. It is indeed impoffible to view him, in the department affigned him, without love and admiration. Meek, retired, and unobtrufive, he is ready at every call of duty; he is folicited from all quarters, and on all occafions. If a fermon on fome great emergence is to be preached at the crofs, at court, or before parliament, Nowell is the preacher. If the relentless hand of death has deprived the nation of one of its brightest ornaments, of either fex, an Afcham, a Sidney, or a Cecil, he is requested to confole the furviving relatives in a funeral difcourfe, and to convert the common example and benefit. When the beautiful and lofty fpire of St. Paul's, by a ftroke from heaven, is laid in afhes, the dean is the perfon, who fuccefsfully exhorts the generous citizens to a fpeedy reparation of the facred edifice. When the proud armada has been defeated, he is felected to an nounce in the houfe of God the unparalleled victory; and to pre. pare the public mind for public thanks. If donations are folicited for the univerfity in which he was not educated, at the hands of those who are ever ready to give, the opulent merchants and inhabitants, of the metropolis, their thoughts are ⚫ immediately

1

immediately fixed upon Mr. Nowell, and he is defired to be treafurer of the bounty. When contributions are requested for diftreffed Proteftants abroad, those of first rank and influence in the nation, wishing to forward the object of the petition, particularly defire the aid and advice of Nowell.

"His own art of angling fuggefts the true character of the man. Placid and contemplative, and ftudious of peace, he loved to pass the day on the margin of the river; and in his adopted motto, 'Pifcator hominum,' doubtless had an eye to those fons of peace, whom from this irreprovable employment' the Saviour of the World called to be his difciples; of whom it is obferved, that they have the priority of nomination in the catalogue of the Apoftles.' Whether it is true, as the honeft and ingenious Walton, a man of kindred meeknefs and piety, obferves, in his Contemplative Man's Recreation,' that angling is like poetry, and a perfon must be born to it, I fhall not inquire Nowell certainly felt the propenfity early, and threw his youthful line in his native rivers, the Calder and the Ribble. Placed, in later life, at a distance (the frequent lot of clergymen) from thefe his juvenile haunts, his father long ago deceafed, his mother, under the legatine difpenfation of Cardinal Wolfey, married again, and became the parent of another family; though he conftantly correfponded with his friends in Lancashire, he feldom had leifure perfonally to vifit them, and then rather to draw fhoals of men with the net of the gofpel, than to take a folitary fish with a hook. In his parish of Hadham there was fcope at once for ferious duties and innocent recreation. On the banks of the Afh he meditated penitence, gratitude, and charity; making it his practice to give a tenth part of his revenue, and ufually all his fish,

to the poor. "As a Divine he was not one of thofe Strawberry Preachers,' defcribed by one of his own days, in a Sermon at the Cross, which come once in the year.' He was a conftant, and he was a fuccefsful preacher: for his fermons were unlike thofe of certain feeming and fun-burnt minifters,' of whom his friend Afcham fpeaks; whofe learning is gotten in a fummer heat, and washed away with a Chriftmas fnow again. His learning was folid, polihed, and durable; his words full of matter, drawn without violence from the fcriptures of truth, and their beft interpreters the early fathers; and enlivened by examples of ancient and of modern days. He had the honefty of Latimer, and a portion of his familiarity, without his quaintnefs and occafional coarsenefs. In whatever light we view him, we fee the lineaments and proportion of a true Son of the Church of England. Dignity and fimplicity are the characteristics of her fervice and ordinances; piety and plain dealing is the character of Nowell.

Generous and kind to his numerous relatives, grave without aufterity in his public deportment, condefcending without mean

nefs

nefs in his intercourfe with others, cheerful without levity at his hofpitable board, he is formed for all times, and conciliates all hearts; dextrous alike to detain the ear of friendship and enliven focial converse with anecdotes of past occurrences and outlandish cuftoms, or, as occafion invites, to throw in truths of higher import, or, as duty calls, to confole the bed of fickness, and elevate the departing foul from earth to heaven. But if in this fummary as in life, Religion has precedence, her faithful handmaid-Erudition, muft not be overlooked or forgotten: and here Nowell ranks with the very firft men of his time-with Afcham and Smith, with Grindal and Parker, with Cox and Jewell. His just fame in this refpect, together with his known humanity, wifdom, and experience, caufed his advice and af fiftance to be requested in behalf of almost every feminary of learning established in his time; and when a work of ingenuity, or literary labour, is to come abroad, the recommendation of the ⚫ venerable Dean of St. Paul's is ftudioufly prefixed to it, as a passport to public favour and acceptance: and dedications wait upon him, as if he had to bestow the dignities of the church, or the patronage of the crown. To encourage genius and draw forth humble merit, his own labours, time, and talents, were uniformly devoted; fecuring to himself an honourable place in the memory and gratitude of mankind, while the right inftitution of youth is regarded as an object of prime concernment; and the fociety, which he augmented by his munificence and adorned by his example, fhall, by the fupport of its friends, the vigilance of its governors, and the bleffing of providence, continue to flourish." P. 377.

An appendix is added, containing fixteen articles, in which are letters, papers, and evidences, many of them. never before printed. Among thefe are the pedigree of Nowell, verfes on Nowell, and fome of his letters, his will, and the difpenfation of Wolfey for the marriage of the Dean's mother, and Charles Townley, Efq.

The following fonnet, as it is called, being from an exceedingly rare book, we are induced to infert.

"Sonnet addreffed to Nowell, from Ecglog's Epytaphes and Son nettes, newly written by Barnabe Googe: 1563,' in Black Letter, Signat. E. 5. b. in the Library of Richard Heber, Efq. To MAYSTER ALEXANDER NOWELL.

The Mufes ioye*, and well they may to fe,

So well theyr laboure com to good fucceffe,

The lines are divided, each of them, after the second foot, or fourth fyllable, even if it happens in the middle of a word; a peculiarity, for the convenience, perhaps, of the printer, on a fmall page, which it did not feem neceffary to retain. P. 400.

That

That they fuftayned long agoe in the,

Minerua fmyles, Phebus can do no leffe,
But over all, they chyefly do reioyse,

That leauyng thyngs, which are but fond and vayne,
Thou dyddeft chufe, (O good and happye choyfe)
In facred Scoles, thy lucky yeares to trayne,
By whiche thou haft obtayned (O happy thyng)
To learne to lyue, whyle other wander wyde,
And by thy life, to please the immortall kyng,
Then whyche fo good, nothyng can be applyed,
Lawe gyues the gayne, and Phyfycke fyls the purfe,
Promotions hye, gyucs artes to many one,
But this is it, by whiche we fcape the curfe,

And haue the blys of God, when we be gone.

Is this but onely Scriptures for to reade?

No, no. Not talke, but lyfe gyues this in deade.”

At the conclufion of the volume, and preceding an excellent index, are two pages of additions and corrections. In one of them, in which an intimation on Edward the Sixth's Catechifm, faid by Mr. Beloe in his 3d volume of Anecdotes, to have been written by Nowell. This Mr. Churton, in a loofe and general way, appears to queflion. We could have wished that he had condefcended to give his reasons of doubt.

The volume contains fome beautiful engravings, among which are the portraits of Nowell, of Mr. Townley, Whitaker, and of Mrs. Frankland, that great benefactor to both our Universities, are exquifitely finished. The whole forms a very elegant, interefting, and important publication.

ART. VI. A Catalogue of the Library of the Royal Inftitution of Great Britain, methodically arranged, with an alphabetical Index of Authors. By William Harris, Keeper of the Library. 8vo. 15s. Payne, 1809.

THERE is perhaps no precedent for introducing the no

tice of a mere catalogue in the leading part, or indeed in any former part of our Review; but we think fo highly of the execution of this volume, and wifh fo well to the inflitution, whofe library is here admirably defcribed, that we have no reluctance in thus placing it before our readers.

However fciolifts may affect to contemn either the compilers or the readers of fuch performances, they who are better informed do not require to be told, that not only a confiderable degree of talent is requifite for the due per

formance

Harris's Catalogue of the Library of the Royal Inftitution. 33

formance of fuch an undertaking, but that both fcholars and ftudents owe them no trifling obligation. That the knowledge how to diftinguish between the beft and inferior editions of books is in the highest degree important and effential, requires no formal argument to prove; and that the information where the beft are depofited is ufeful and neceffary to every one engaged in ftudious or fcientific purfuits, is alike and equally obvious. A very long lift of catalogues might be enumerated, which, from the confcioufnefs of their real value, the greatest scholars are anxious to poffefs, and indeed would confider their collections highly defective without them. Such are, to specify but a few only, the catalogues of De Bure, Gargnal, Goutard, De Boze, Hoym, De La Valiere, Crevenna, &c. &c. and in our country thofe of the Harleian, Mead, Afkew, Bridges, Rawlinfon, Crofts, and various other collections.

This defcription of the Catalogue of the Royal Inftitution is entitled to a very honourable place among thofe books of the kind which have preceded, and will be found particularly ufeful not only to the collector, but to the ftudent. The plan purfued is nearly that which was fo fuccefsfully adopted by Mr. Dryander, in the noble and extenfive collection of Sir Jofeph Banks; and we confider it as a matter of common juftice to Mr. Harris to infert his preface.

"The library of the Royal Inftitution has been founded by the liberality of a few noblemen and gentlemen, for the immediate ufe of the fubfcribers to that establishment, and it may be faid, for that of the public at large; as any perfon, on the recommendation of one of the patrons, may always have access

to it.

"The library, in its prefent ftate, will be found as ufeful as many more fplendid eftablishments, fupported by royal or national munificence. It contains the best and moft ufeful edition of every Greek and Roman claffic author, with the best tranflations in English, and fome in other modern languages. The clafs of mathematical science in all its branches is very full, with the beft fcientific journals and tranfactions of learned and philo fophical focieties. The hiftorical clafs, particularly the English, in its various divifions and fubdivifions, will be found very interefting; the managers having, at the formation of the library, procured the entire collection of the late Thomas Aftle, Efq. Author of The Origin and Progrefs of Writing: which library was chiefly collected by the Rev. Philip Morant, Author of the Hiftory of the County of Effex. Many of the books are enriched with his manufcript notes; particularly thofe relating to biography.

D

BRIT. CRIT. VOL. XXXV. JAN. 18 10.

"The