It is some consolation to think that when we shall have a Welsh Burns, or a great Irish Unknown, they must write in a language that every body will understand.

The missionaries at Sierra Leone have every thing in their favour, the climate alone excepted; that evil is indeed tremendous, and the scene of labour will of course be relinquished to men whose complexion and constitution are congenial to the region, as soon as a succession of qualified persons shall have been raised. The work is comparatively easy and certain there, because they have the present and effective countenance of the government, and appear to the persons under their care, unequivocally, as benefactors in the very highest degree. To be released from a French or Portugueze slave-ship, (no language can exaggerate the horrors of the middle passage in these vessels at this time;) to be restored to freedom, fed, clothed, treated not with mere humanity (which is due even to beasts,) but with a care and kindness that may truly be called parental, and placed in villages with their own countrymen, where, under the sure protection of equal laws, they have to labour for themselves alone, upon lands assigned to them as their own freeholds,-the negro's heart must be as impenetrable as that of the slave-dealer, if it were not open to the instructions of those who are the immediate agents in all this good. Is it too much to say that when an Englishman looks at Sierra Leone, and thinks of the part which France continues to take in the slave-trade, he may feel not less proud of his country than when he calls to mind the Peninsular war and the battle of Waterloo?

In New Zealand the missionaries are without any of the advantages which facilitate their efforts in West Africa, and they have difficulties of a peculiar kind to overcome. But concerning that fine country and what is doing there, we shall hereafter treat more at length than our present limits can allow. The direct benefit, which they have to offer there, is civilization, with all the blessings in its train. But the first great difficulty among savages is to make them sensible that civilization is a benefit, and that any of its consequences can compensate for that lawless liberty, which must be surrendered befere it can be attained. They are in this respect like children, who must learn the grammar before they comprehend its use. The way is plainer in India, and the Society there, profiting by the experience of others, proceeds upon a sure course. Treading in the steps of the Society for promoting Christian Knowledge, it is supporting schools, raising up native teachers, catechists and missionaries; printing bibles and religious books, and supplying the Indian converts with the Liturgy of the Church of England in their own language, in which latter object the Prayer-Book and Homily Society takes an active part. This

is an object of no little moment, especially in India. Mr. Corrie, one of the chaplains of the Honourable Company, by whom the Hindoostanee version was executed upon a thorough conviction of its importance and utility, has well observed that as both Mohammedans and Hindoos place the whole of their religion in forms and ceremonies, and even consider the repose of the soul to depend on the due performance of funeral rites, it must be expected that the absence of all forms and ceremonies in worship should be an additional obstacle in their minds to the reception of Christianity. Though grace may enable a man to forsake all for Christ, and to sit loose to all considerations of this kind, yet it seems desirable to meet, as far as possible, what may be called their innocent prejudices, and this the decent rites and ceremonies of the Church of England are calculated to do.' Both Mohammedans and Hindoos, when beginning to feel that the religion which is proposed to them is worth a thought, have asked, how do you worship? what are your methods of marriage and burial?' To such inquiries,' says Mr. Corrie, we can afford a satisfactory answer by supplying a copy of the book of Common Prayer; and I have known instances of natives of India spending the night in reading a copy of the Prayer Book, so eager were they to acquaint themselves with our mode of worship.'

This exemplary minister had one day performed the funeral service for a woman of the native congregation, when a heathen, seeing the number of persons who were returning from the burial, asked what English gentleman's funeral the Padre Sahib had been attending. One of the female Christians answered with a feeling of pride, No English gentleman is dead;-it is the remains of a poor woman like myself that have been interred with these honours. On the same occasion a man came to Mr. Corrie, and said that his former prejudices concerning the respect due to the body after death had at times recurred to his mind, though they had not prevented him from adhering to the gospel; but now,' said he, I have not a wish ungratified. When I die, let Christian brethren be thus assembled, and hear the word of exhortation; and may I never be separated from your feet.'

It will not be irrelevant, while thus touching upon the funeral service, to bring forward in this place a curious instance of its effect. The story is related by Bishop Sprat, in a visitation sermon, as having happened within the compass of his own knowledge.

'It was immediately after the happy restoration of Charles II., when, together with the rights of the crown and the English liberties, the church and the liturgy were also newly restored, that a noted ringleader of schism in the former times was to be buried in one of the principal c 4 churches

churches of London. The minister of the parish, being a wise and regular conformist, (and he was afterwards an eminent bishop in our church,) well knew how averse the friends and relations of the deceased had always been to the Common Prayer; which, by hearing it so often called a low rudiment, a beggarly element, and a carnal ordinance, they were brought to contemn to that degree, that they shunned all occasions of being acquainted with it. Wherefore, in order to the interment of their friend in some sort to their satisfaction, yet so as not to betray his own trust, he used this honest method to undeceive them. Before the day appointed for the funeral, he was at the pains to learn the whole office of burial by heart. And then the time being come, there being a great concourse of men of the same fanatical principles, when the com pany heard all delivered by him without a book, with a free readiness and profound gravity, and unaffected composure of voice, looks and gestures, and a very powerful emphasis in every part, (as indeed his talent was excellent that way,) they were strangely surprized and affected, professing they had never heard a more suitable exhortation, or a more edifying exercise, even from the very best and most precious men of their own persuasion. But they were afterwards much more surprized and confounded, when the same person who had officiated, assured the principal men among them, that not one period of all that he had spoken was his own, and convinced them by ocular demonstration how all was taken, word for word, out of the very office ordained for that purpose in the poor contemptible Book of Common Prayer. Whence he most reasonably inferred how much their ill-grounded prejudice and mistaken zeal had deluded them, that they should admire the same discourse when they thought it an unprepared, unpremeditated rapture, which they would have abominated, had they known it to be only a form prescribed by authority.'

One of Mr. Corrie's native congregation having been at Calcutta, where she had attended Christian worship in the language of the country, but without a liturgy, told him on her return, that the instruction which she had heard there was of the same kind as that which he delivered to his flock; but, sir,' she added, they had no form of prayer; and though that mode of worship may be well enough for clever people, it is better for such as I am to have a form, that we may know what we are about.' This is a fair testimony to the advantages of a liturgy, and it is much to be desired, that wherever the church missionaries establish themselves, a translation of our Prayer Book may accompany that of the Bible. There can be no better preservative against error and enthusiasm, 'Yes, if the intensities of hope and fear Attract us still, and passionate exercise Of lofty thoughts, the way before us lies Distinct with signs, thro' which in fixed career, As thro' a zodiac, moves the ritual year

Of England's church.'-Wordsworth's Ecclesiastical Sketches.

If indeed the other Protestant churches had been established

upon

upon a like liberal foundation with that of England, and had united with it in discipline and forms, the victory of the Reforma→ tion would, ere this, have been complete, and we should not have seen Popery and infidelity in some parts of Europe disputing for the sway, and in others dividing it. England, however, is acting in a manner beseeming that high station in which she is placed. The age of indifference is past. We have ecclesiastical establishments now in the East Indies and in the West: the beginning is made-more will undoubtedly be done as it becomes evident that more is needed, and meantime these voluntary exertions come timely in aid of this great measure of policy and duty. We have more than once used those words in apposition: for in true morals, in true Christian philosophy, God hath joined them together-let not man put them asunder!

We owe both those establishments primarily to the excellent Societies for Promoting Christian Knowledge and for the Propaga tion of the Gospel, those societies in these instances having, in some degree, supplied the place of the Convocation, which, unfortunately for this kingdom, has for so long a time been suspended. We owe to them also the Bishop's College in Calcutta, a foundation from which lasting and wide-spread benefits to the cause may be most reasonably expected; and we confidently hope that the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel will be enabled to enlarge Codrington College, so as to make it what it ought to be, an institution of correspondent importance for the West Indies. Means surely will be afforded without stint by the zeal of our countrymen, when the great utility and practicable nature of the object are considered; when it is recollected that to this zealous but unpretending Society we are indebted for the English church in the United States, and in our remaining colonies in North America; and when, lastly, it is known that in the fearless pursuit of its incumbent duties, it has been compelled to exceed its annual revenues, and to encroach largely upon its capital fund.*

We have seen letters from a gentleman who is attending the Bishop of Barbados in his visitation, which he commenced within a few days after his landing in that island, Describing the Codrington estate, he says- We drove on to the school and chapel for the slaves, which have been erected by the zeal of Mr. Pindar, who is the chaplain on the estate, and the unbounded liberality of the excellent society which has the management of the funds. I wish it were in my power to communicate to you the feelings which this scene excited. The little black children were all dressed as nicely as a painter could wish; they read a chapter in the New Testament quite as well as any class in any national school in England;-there was the same emulation, the same eagerness to correct errors, the same precision. The teacher, Mary Douglas, had managed the whole school with perfect propriety during the illness of the school-mistress. The chapel, on the brow of a cliff, is beautiful indeed; and when we were about to descend to the college, which lies in the valley below, Mary Douglas came to beg we would come and hear them sing. We went into the school, and they and all of us sung the old 100th Psalm with great effect.'

The

The Church Missionary Society complained at its outset, that there was a want of zeal in the clergy, a complaint hastily and unwarrantably made; for it has been seen, that when a call was made from the proper quarter it was answered; and answered by men of the most distinguished ability and character; by men not in the ardour of youth and hope, still less in the heat of enthusiasm; least of all, because they had their professional fortunes to seek; but in mature life, in sobriety of judgment, and the deliberate sense of duty; men who were the pride and ornament of their sacred order, and whose attainments and high deserts had placed them in the sure path to its highest stations in their own country, where they were living in the enjoyment of all the best advantages of society. It was an honour to the Church of England to possess such men; it is a greater honour thus to have parted with them; to have seen them at the call of duty go forth that they might extend the benefits of that church, and thereby promote the dearest interests of their fellow-subjects and of the human race.

ART. II.-1. Monumenti della Toscana. 1 vol. folio.

2. Le Fabbriche più cospicue di Venezia, misurate, illustrate ed intagliate dai Membri della Veneta Reale Accademia di Belle Arti. Venezia. 1815. 2 vols. large folio.

THAT it is useless to argue on matters of taste is an old maxim,

true to a certain extent, but frequently applied beyond its legitimate limits. On many subjects of taste it is certainly impossible, at least no one has yet been able, to lay down precise rules, or to give reasons for our opinions. But this impossibility is by no means universal; the great principles, for example, on which architectural beauty depends, may, we think, be easily and plainly laid down, and in that confidence we propose to examine, at no great length, their application in Italy, the great seat of the arts; which, we trust, may not prove an unacceptable matter of discussion to our readers. We must premise by observing that it is not our intention to enter at all into minute details, nor into the difficult discussion of proportions, as we are aware that, whatever may be our opinions on these points, it would be impossible to render them either intelligible or amusing to our readers without the aid of accurate engravings. We shall equally avoid the consideration of Gothic architecture, as, in conjunction with the round arched styles of the middle ages, it would lead us into much too extensive a field of discussion. We are the more induced thus to limit our present subject, as the works of which it will be our duty to give some account, contain comparatively little information on the Gothic, Lombard, or Byzantine methods of building.

We