them are plain and judicious. He calls | cases, name them. Knight's Weekly VolRobertson's introduction to his Charles V.umes would have found especial favor in very valuable; but, perhaps, the reader his eyes, had they been published a few sometimes feels with Nichols, that it is months earlier. Now we lay it down, as tiresome to wade into the history, through an axiom of Alexandrian authority, that no five hundred pages on feudal tenures and modern compilation, under whatever temptother barbarisms. Bacon's Henry VII. and ing aspect it may present itself, should be part of Montesquieu will also do very well; allowed to usurp the place of the elder probut why bring us back to cheap literature, ductions upon a similar subject. As a "with that very popular author, Mr. James," general rule we are justified in affirming, and his romances about chivalry and the that the old book is easier than the new. Black Prince? It may be interesting to There is no necessity to consult Mr. Jeffrey our readers to learn Gray's view with re- while we can refer to Mr. Addison; and gard to English history. The work of why recommend "Charlotte Elizabeth" as Hume, he considered to be deficient in all a most able writer," when such a guide as the elements of excellence. Rapin's he Jeremy Taylor invites you to take him esteemed as the only general history of down from the shelf? Some of Pycroft's England, and he said that, by consulting theological dissertations are particularly the copious and excellent marginal refer- meagre and unsatisfactory. What advanences, and referring to the original authors tage will a student derive from being told and authorities which they indicate, an ad- that Taylor is "a writer of great fertility mirable narrative might be compiled. For and depth of thought?" or that Hammond one interesting episode in our annals, Cla- wrote "a paraphrase of the New Testarendon, of course, must be studied. Gray ment?" or that Barrow's Sermons 66 are a places him at the head of all modern his- mine of brilliant thoughts and sterling artorians. His power of Vandyck-painting guments ?" These authors are most voluhas drawn many eyes to his page; but we minous. Taylor alone would suffocate any should not forget, among the charms of his weak inquirer by the unexpected rush of style, its adaptations to the scenes and trans- his rhetoric. A course of English reading actions described. He never employs Tit- should point out the portions of those ian's purple, except to invest Titian's sena- books best adapted to supply, not only imtors. "Would you not laugh," said Ben provement, but an adequate idea of the Jonson, "to meet a great councillor of writer's genius and mode of thought. state in a flat cap, with his trunk hose, and This might easily be done. The Holy a hobby-horse cloak, his gloves under his Living and Dying; the Liberty of Progirdle, and yonder haberdasher in a velvet phesying; and about eight sermons, inclugown furred with sables?" It was happily ding those on the Second Advent of Christ; remarked by Horace Walpole, of Burnet's the Apples of Sodom; the Marriage Ring; style, that it seems as if he had just come and the House of Feasting; would be from the king's closet, or from the apart-sufficient to furnish a clear outline of Tayments of the men whom he describes, and lor-a bunch of grapes to draw the appewas telling his reader, in plain, honest tite into the vineyard. Hammond could terms, what he had seen and heard. Cla-be judged by shorter specimens ; while of rendon may participate in this panegyric. Barrow, not only the sermons on the GovAtterbury's letter upon this history may be consulted. Warburton, also, in his letters to Hurd, gives a slight outline of a course of English historical reading. ernment of the Tongue (alluded to by Pycroft), but two or three on graver points of doctrine, should be carefully selected. Praise for happiness or force of expression We have already expressed our approval is quite insufficient homage to his wonderof the advice given to young students to ful capacity. He was the Dryden of our take up one great author, and study him prose, and might, indeed, be justly characover and over again. No system of mental terized by those verses in which Churchill training can be more healthful; all emi-indicated the genius of the poet, since, like nent persons have tried it, and profited by Dryden, whenever it. Bossuet had his Homer; Hooker, his Cicero; Chatham, his Barrow; Milton, his Euripides; Gray, his Spenser. But we complain that Pycroft does not send his pupils to the best books, nor even, in many With equal strength the preacher rises too; we What Johnson intended to convey, by say- praise. Baxter's Call was lauded by Coleing that Barrow was prolix and involved, ridge, and we think that Watts said that cannot comprehend. Probably Sir he would rather have been the author of it John Hawkins misunderstood the remark. than of Paradise Lost. Doddridge's Rise At all events the censure is untrue. Lord and Progress is admirable, with some exChatham studied him till he knew by heart ceptions. We have seen his Family Exposiseveral of his most difficult discourses; tor upon the private table of one of the most⚫ while one of the most famous preachers of eminent of living Bishops, and who is much modern times, Robert Hall, admired in him nearer to Orford than to Bedford Row. the splendid union of Aristotle's logic with The Private Thoughts of Beveridge conPlato's imagination. Thus he obtained the tain passages of exquisite beauty, devotion, suffrages of the senate and pulpit, and and grace. The romance of Bunyan is fashould be searched and imitated by both. We miliar to half the cottage windows and old would recommend the youthful scholar to spectacles of England. How much of ths! take up the sermon on Easter-day (Acts ii. 24). popularity may be owing to that vivid facilIt is written in the best manner of Barrow, ity of description which, according to Halwith a grave majesty of language, and a sub- lam, entitles him to be called the father of duing dignity of thought. How noble is the our novelists, we shall not attempt to deterargument employed to show the impossibil- mine. It is more interesting to remember, ity, of the divine having been divorced and with the same critic, that almost every cirsundered from the human nature of Jesus cumstance and metaphor in the Old TestaChrist! "For surely that nature, which, ment find a place bodily and literally in the diffusing itself throughout the universe, com- story of the pilgrim. And this incorporamunicates an enlivening influence to every tion of Scriptural truth lends to his fancy a part of it, and quickens the least spire of richness and charm which it did not in regrass, according to the measure of its na-ality possess, and might well awaken in ture and the proportion of its capacity, other minds the affectionate interest which would not wholly leave a nature assumed it excited in Cowper, when he addressed into its bosom, and, what is more, into the him,very unity of the Divine Person, breathless and inanimate and divested of its divine and noblest perfections." How naturally, in the perusal of such passages as these, do we give utterance to our applause, in the exclamation of Parr, Θαυμάζω δε Βαρρονών! Mr. Pycroft seems to have taken for a guide in theological reading, Mr. Bickersteth, a good and devoted man, but in whose ecclesiastical literature we do not repose much confidence. Accordingly, the student is presented with a list of twelve works, to which it is said that God has assigned the utmost influence in producing extensively a spirit of religion. The list is so characteristic of the school from which it proceeds, that we give it as a curiosity Adams' Private Thoughts. Baxter's Call. Baxter's Saints' Rest Milner's History of the Church. Now of some of these books it would be impossible to speak with too glowing a "Ingenious dreamer! in his well-told tale, Sweet fiction and sweet truth alike prevail, Whose hum'rous vein, strong sense, and simiple style, May teach the gayest, make the gravest smile.” The Serious Call of Law has won almost equal applause, though for a different cause. But who, in the name of common sense and experience (except Mr. Bickersteth), ever attributed to the Theron and Aspasio of Hervey an extensive propagation of the Gospel? Is this the Hervey of whom Southey said, that, being the most undeserving, he had been the most popular of writers? To the last three names upon the list, Milner, Scott, and Wilberforce, we can have no objection; they were each and all good men and true, though we beg to dissent from many of their opinions. Let them be admitted into the catalogue of practical works, so it be not to the exclusion of higher candidates. They have no claims to have their foreheads encircled with this glory of evangelizing the world. Would they not be beneficially replaced by the Holy Living and Dying of Taylor, the Contemplations of Hall, and the shorter writings of Fuller? Surely the Holy Living and Dying, that divine pastoral, as Coleridge styled ανθεμαδε χρυσου φλέγει, τα μεν χερτηθεί απ' αγλαών δενδρέων, it, has carried consolation and hope into of research :-Never read modern books unnumbered chambers of sickness, peni- when old ones are extant, and can be readitence, and death. If universality of recep- ly procured upon the same subjects. Nevtion be required, what work is more popu- er go to Palmer, when every library will lar? If adaptation to the wants of daily supply Hooker. If the well be not too life, what work is more practical? Of the deep for others, surely it is not for you; two treatises, that on Holy Dying is more and there is this objection to receiving the eloquent; but it is well remarked by Heber, water from another person, that you never that it may often happen, and perhaps has know what has been in the bucket! The frequently happened, that men who have study of the great productions of intellect read it for its beauties have been impressed not only requires, but demands earnest, paby the lesson it conveys; " and by beginning tient, devout attention. Reynolds, graduwith the Holy Dying, have been led to ally and painfully awaking to the beauty of study his Holy Living with more advan- Raffaelle, is the emblem of the student lintage." Hall has much of his sweetness, gering over Milton, Shakspeare, or Donne ; and certainly not less of his affectionate fer- and Condillac, a French writer upon logic, vor of devotion. Fuller, differing in voice, has a very happy and effective illustration. resembles both in the language of his heart. He supposes a traveller to arrive, in the Scripture is a garden to each, full of flow- night, at a castle commanding a rich view ers, fountains, and sunshine. of the surrounding country. If, upon the following morning, and when the sun had risen above the horizon, the window shutters were flung open for a moment, and then closed again, the visitor would catch, If we are always sorry to discover a dis- indeed, a glimpse of the landscape, but no position to substitute modern for elder object could be distinctly perceived or rebooks in any path of literature, we are espe- membered, since all the scene would be cially so in the science of theology. This broken up into a wavering, glimmering unis to dethrone the monarch, in order to set certainty of light and shade. If, on the up his chamberlain. Whatever is good in other hand, the windows be left open, and modern theology is plundered from the old; the traveller suffered to survey, with a linit is the same coinage melted down and regering eye, the woods, and fields, and struck, with a new date and a different instreams, and villages, spread out before scription. The ignorance subsisting with him, he acquires a distinct and lasting reregard to the antiquities of our ecclesiasti- collection of the scene, with all its charms. cal learning emboldens the marauder; and Now every book of genius is a castle from Euripides was furnishing no inapt motto for which the scenery of the writer's imaginamodern Bampton and Hulsean lecturers tion is to be surveyed. The sunshine is when he wrote (Rhes. 69), 'Ev ogqvn SoaTETS the intelligent attention of the mind, and a uɛyar, which, being interpreted, means drowsy indifference may surely be the shutthat a thief is very brave in the twilight. ters excluding at once the sun and the landThe amusing fact is, that the gold thus stoscape. If this indifference be subdued, len, re-coined and circulated, buys reputa- these shutters opened for a minute, a tion for the stealer, and sometimes enables glimpse of the scenery may be obtained, him to retire with a recommendation from but indistinct, and broken, and soon vanishcontemporary criticism to the pension-listing away. It is only when the full attenof posterity. Examples abound. In Mil-tion of the understanding is given, when ler's Bampton Lectures, there is a striking the sunshine is suffered to stream in unshaillustration of a portrait seeming to turn ded, that the eye embraces all the objects every way upon the spectator. No thought in their beauty and harmony. And, percan be happier; and Keble has not only imitated, but mentioned it in his Christian Year. But the image is taken from one of the sermons of Donne, dean of St. Paul's under James I., where we have read it. We say, then, to all students, and with a particular emphasis to those who, by reason of youth or leisure, enjoy larger opportunities * Pindar, Ol. ii. 130. haps, no one has ever wandered along these οι δε ιδόντες We are better pleased with the outline of late Mr. Horner, that the merit of the Anal"reading for controversialists," or, we ogy lay in the writer's proportioning of his should prefer to say, "reading for eviden-language to the degree of his assent, and ces of Christianity." The name of Paley in communicating that degree perspicuousstands, of course, at the beginning of the ly to his readers. Horner confessed himlist. As an epitome of argument intended self to be too imperfectly acquainted with and adapted to give a rapid and popular Butler to feel the force of the remark, view of the subject, the Evidences, by Pa- though he admitted its general importance. ley, deserve all their reputation. His Ho-We are not quite certain that we comprera Pauline belongs to a higher order of hend the meaning of Sharp; but he prob excellence. The present Bishop of Lon-ably intended nothing more than Parr, when don once spoke to us of this book as the noticing the caution and sagacity of Butmost splendid specimen of analytical and ler, in all his argnments from any supposed inductive reasoning to be found in any lan-cause, to guard his readers from applying guage. The summary of St. Paul's char- that supposition to an injurious use or puracter, at the conclusion, swells into a tone pose. There is a criticism on Butler worof eloquence that might have rolled from thy of perusal, by Parr, in a letter to Mr. the lips of Barrow. Watson's Apology for Courteney; it is contained in the eighth the Bible should, of course, be read; but it volume of his collected works, p. 527. is not satisfactory, and the writer was un- It may be observed, that Bishop Taylor becomingly anxious to conciliate the res- seems to agree with Butler (Anal. part i. pect of Gibbon. The difference of his pp. 81, 135) in his view of the depravity of manner towards Gibbon and Paine, is abso-human nature, admitting a great but not lutely amusing; yet, of the two, the sneer- entire alienation from all that is beautiful ing elegance of the historian was the more and good. He asserted, that amid the morperilous. Of Butler's Analogy the peru- al ruin some fragments of the divine imsal cannot be commenced too soon, nor age might be discovered. For example continued too long. In praising one au- (Works, ix. 41), he shows, that a man natthor, let us, however, be just to others. urally loves his parents and himself, and Pycroft, in giving some sensible directions revolts from certain sins. Our nature is for reading the Bible, and truly asserting defective in not knowing, or not voluntathat it comprises all that the moral philoso- rily loving, "those supernatural excellenphers of ancient and modern times over-cies which are appointed and commanded looked or discovered, sets out his proof in by God as the means of bringing us to a this manner: "Butler may be said to have supernatural condition." been the corrector of the ancient ethical A first perusal of Butler is seldom agreewriters; Mackintosh, Robert Hall, and able; but he grows and brightens upon us, Chalmers, acknowledge that they were as the habit of gazing earnestly at the retaught by Butler, and Butler pretends only mote scenery of philosophic speculations to have been taught by Scripture." But, gives to the intellectual eye a stronger visif Butler advanced such a claim to com-ion. It was profoundly remarked, by an plete originality, he was doing great injus- accomplished person recently deceased tice to one of his most eminent predeces- (Mr. Davison), that the Principia of Newsors in the science of ethics. Hallam has ton, on the doctrine of fluxions, may be shown, that a considerable portion of the understood by a youth of eighteen, but that second and third chapters of the Analogy the Iliad, or the Epistles of Horace, or the was drawn from Bishop Cumberland's trea- History of Clarendon, can never be comtise De Legibus Naturæ, &c., published prehended in all their variety of observain 1672. Paley's footprints may also be tion, until many original efforts on the part traced up to the same well. Opinions have of the reader himself shall have conducted differed as to the salutariness of the argu-him to that point of view from which he ment pursued by Butler. Gray dissuaded can survey the structures of fancy and wisNichols from reading the Analogy, having dom in the posture of design and combipreviously given the same advice to Mason; nation in which they were beheld by the while every one remembers the remark of architects themselves. This is peculiarHe cannot be Pitt, in returning the book to Wilberforce, ly our case with Butler. that there is nothing which analogy may read until he has been studied. Hence it not prove, if once admitted as a mode of is that Paley has done such good service to positive demonstration. Sharp told the the cause of religion, by reproducing, in After theology and history, or indeed before the second, we should place poetry among the studies to be illustrated in a course of reading. his own transparent diction, some of the self. But the imperfectness of the design. profound thoughts of his predecessor. Py- remained, and could not be eradicated. croft relates an anecdote (new to us) of the He sat down to write of Poets, not only Duke of Wellington, who, in hearing one without materials, but without a plan. It of his officers speak lightly of Revelation, is asserted that his intimate acquaintance asked him, "Did you ever read Paley?" with our poetic history rendered the task "No." "Then you are not qualified to of recording its progress both grateful and give an opinion." Paley modernized But- easy. But this has been affirmed without ler; and certainly, if the Fables of Dryden sufficient deliberation. A certain kind of owed a large portion of their beauty to acquaintance with the subject he assuredly tales of Chaucer, the Evidences drew their possessed; for of what branch of English purest lustre of conviction from the Ana- literature was Johnson entirely ignorant? logy. With our richest Elizabethan imagination, however, he was slightly, if at all, acquainted. He had, in his pillaging way, sailed down some of the broader rivers and streams of imaginative thought, and, as So much has been written on the sub- the diversified scenery along the banks beject, the directions for the journey are so gan to return upon his meditating eye, he many and so easy, that no difficulty ought might readily transfer to his page some to be experienced in showing or in follow- pleasing glimpses of the landscape. But, ing the way. Modern criticism has re- in truth, why should he take the trouble of paired all the sign-posts which had been reading, much less of describing, poetry, shattered by the rough weather of time. which he would have known only to deWe turned, therefore, with little fear, to spise? What he wanted in enthusiasm Pycroft's Course of Poetical Reading. and delicacy of taste, he compensated by a The opening sentence scattered our hopes. recklessness of critical self-will unparal"Johnson's Lives of the Poets will be a leled in our language. Hallam has nohand-book or guide to the poets." Yes, ticed this feeling, when observing that Johnindeed; a hand-book to the sights of Lon- son, "who admired Dryden as much as he don, omitting Westminster Abbey; or a could any one," has, from his natural inclicatalogue of the pictures in the National nation to censure, exaggerated the defects Gallery, leaving out the Correggios. John- of his poetry. "His faults of negligence son's Lives are precisely such a hand-book are beyond recital. Such is the unevento poetry; beginning with Cowley, they ness of his composition, that ten lines are end with Lyttleton. Milton, indeed, is seldom found together without something there; so are Dryden, and Pope, and Col- of which the reader is ashamed." This lins, and Gray. Some of the remarks on assertion Hallam refutes by a reference to Milton are worthy of the theme; and the Mac Flecknoe, a poem containing four hun estimate of Dryden and Pope is conceived dred lines, without presenting a single exin a noble spirit of appreciation. But ample of debility or negligence. This feawhat of the learned elegance of Gray or ture in Johnson's critical character ought the picturesque sensibility of Collins? Is to have been pointed out. It showed its Johnson a guide to them? does he exhibit presence even in his conversation upon his them? did he know them? did he feel own feelings and prejudices; thus he pro them? Some of the defects of these biog-fessed to despise devotional poetry and the raphies resided in the subject, some in the pathetic in general, and yet was often seen author. Johnson has given a description bursting into tears, while reciting a verse of their manner of composition. "Some from the famous Dies ira, dies illa. time in March," are his words, "I finished Mr. Pycroft seems really to have adoptthe Lives of the Poets, which I wrote in ed-a very unusual instance of credulity my usual way, dilatorily and hastily, un-in a physician-his own prescription, and willing to work, and working with vigor to have confidently taken Johnson's Lives and haste." That we have so much worth as a hand-book to our poetry. When he reading in these books is chiefly owing to tells his pupils that of Chaucer few read a taste that gradually grew up in his mind more than one or two tales, he ought to while he wrote, and induced him to expand have advised them to increase the quanthe brief prefaces originally proposed by tity. "As a painter of manners," said the bookseller and contemplated by him- Southey, "he is accurate as Richardson; |