953 Review.-The Life and Times of Richard Baxter. They have learnt that it is fashionable to read the productions of his lordship, and such an acquaintance with his writings as will be sufficient to keep them in countenance with their companions in ignorance, impudence, and folly, is the extent of their desires and of their acquisition. To characters of this description, atheism and infidelity, scattered through the pages of a work, form a strong recommendation. They associate an idea of heroism with their entrance within the confines of irreligion, and rejoice at having escaped the fetters of prejudice in which their ancestors were bound. To a large mass of readers, however, who admire his lordship's talents, but abhor his principles, this volume will appear in a very different light. They will hail it as an exposure of what is censurable in principle, without degrading what is praise-worthy in the exalted regions of poetical excellence. In this element the notes of Harding Grant will long continue to shine. Whatever might have been the views and intentions of this author respecting Lord Byron, it must be obvious to every reader, that from the animadversions made on Lucifer and Cain, his lordship cannot wholly escape. The javelin hurled at the two former, reaches the third by a strange kind of dexterous accident; and should his character complain of castigation, an apology is already provided in the passages quoted above, which amounts to this-"I am sorry for your misfortune, and beg pardon for my want of skill. I did not mean to strike you; but really you ought not to have taken your stand so near such unprincipled wretches." This volume is elegantly printed, and the paper is of a superior quality. To the author it must have been a work of considerable labour, and while success has crowned his exertions in combating pernicious principles, we hope that an extended circulation will more than reimburse his expense on sending it into the world. 954 spirit of deference which ought invariably to characterize the theological biographer, is a treasure in "these degenerate times," which we cannot too highly value. Casting our eyes over the chequered pages of the history of our country, in search of that period, the events of which are the most interesting to the philosopher, we should fix them on the stormy times of Charles I. and his wary successor. A "new light" had taken precedence of the fires of Smithfield; the vehemency of polemical controversy raged in their stead; and Truth, after enduring the vicissitudes of many a warfare subsequent to the Reformation, had commenced her final struggle with bigotry, for that mastery which, after all, was consummated but by persecutions, prisons, and deaths. The caldron of faction, filled with many heterogeneous ingredients, boiled furiously over the flames of civil commotion; and the rapid succession of occurrences, civil and ecclesiastical, which distinguish the records of those turbulent times, demands a species of discrimination and judgment on the part of the historian, which we rarely find brought to the task. A most conspicuous actor in the whole of that drama was the "apostle of affliction," Richard Baxter, whose ardent mind and astounding genius seem to have been peculiarly fitted to combat with the feverish spirit of the period. His learning, unfostered by a college,-his piety, unrelent ingly severe,-and his zeal, unchecked by persecution, rendered this dauntless and uncompromising individual a dangerous foe to the specious and aspiring men of the day. To follow the indefatigable compiler, Mr. Orme, through the lengthened details of his varied volumes, would be an almost endless task. We must, therefore, merely state, before proceeding to give a few promiscuous extracts from them, that the reader can only hope for a satisfactory explication of their worth and interest by a direct reference to their pages. They contain some novel details relating to the cause of the king and the parliamentarians; the battles of Edghill, Naseby, and Worcester; the flight of Charles II.; Cromwell's character, conduct in the army, and interviews with Baxter; his duplicity in aiding the parliament to take possession of the king's person; Cromwell's parliaments; his death; the Restoration of Charles; his deceitful conferences with the Nonconformists, and offer to Baxter of a bishopric; the Act of Uniformity; the plague and fire of London; character of Charles II.; his 955 Review. The Life and Times of Richard Baxter. death; sufferings of Baxter; his trial before judge Jefferies; the Revolution of 1688; the Act of Toleration, &c. &c. : interspersed with which are, motives and characters of the royal and parliamentary leaders; biographical notices of the numerous controversial writers of the day, and analyses of their works; a general history of the events of the civil wars; sketches of the prelates and judges of the time; persecution of the nonconformists; the Popish plot; the Mealtub plot; the murder of Sir Edmondbury Godfrey; and a laborious investigation of Baxter's writings, which occupies the second volume. Our extracts cannot be otherwise than promiscuous: the first relates to the bodily sufferings of Baxter. "This enables us more correctly to appreciate, and more strongly to admire, the unconquerable ardour and devotedness of soul, which could accomplish such peculiar labours with so feeble and diseased a body. "His constitution was naturally sound, but he was always very thin and weak, and early affected with nervous debility. At fourteen years of age, he was seized with the small pox, and soon after, by improper exposure to the cold, he was affected with a violent catarrh and cough. This continued for about two years, and was followed by spitting of blood, and other phthisical symptoms. He became, from that time, the sport of medical treatment and experiment. One physician prescribed one mode of cure, and another a different one; till, from first to last, he had the advice of no less than thirty-six professors of the healing art. By their orders he took drugs without number, till, from experiencing how little they could do for him, he forsook them entirely, except some particular symptom urged him to seek present relief. He was diseased literally from head to foot; his stomach flatulent and acidulous; violent rheumatic headachs: prodigious bleeding at the nose; his blood so thin and acrid that it oozed out from the points of his fingers, nd kept them often raw and bloody; his legs swelled, dropsical, &c. His physicians called it hypochondria, he himself considered it præmatura senectus-premature old age; so that, at twenty he had the symptoms, in addition to disease, of fourscore! To be more particular would be disagreeable; and to detail the innumerable remedies to which he was directed, or which he employed himself, would add little to the stock of medical knowledge. He was certainly one of the most diseased and afflicted men that ever reached the full ordinary limits of human life. How, in such circumstances, he was capable of the exertions he almost incessantly made, appears not a little mysterious.' The following notice, which Baxter gives of the battle of Edghill, varies little from Clarendon's, save that the latter "endeavours to shew that the victory was rather on the side of the king than the parliament," which is wilfully erroneous :- "Upon the Lord's day, October 23, 1642, I preached at Alcester for my reverend friend, Mr. Samuel Clark. As I was preaching, the people heard the cannon play, and perceived that the armies were engaged. When the sermon was done, in the afternoon, the report was more audible, which made us all long to hear of the success. About sun-setting, many troops fled through the town, and told us that all was lost on the parliament's side; and that the carriages were taken, and the waggons plundered, before they came away. The townsmen sent a messenger to Stratford-on-Avon, to know the truth. About four o'clock in the morning he returned, and told us that Prince Rupert wholly routed the left wing of the Earl of Essex's army; but while his men were plundering the waggons, the main body and the right wing routed the rest of the king's army; took his standard, but lost it again; killed General, the Earl of Lindsay, and took his son prisoner: that few persons of quality, on the side of the parliament. were lost, and no nobleman but Lord St. John, eldest son to the Earl of Bolingbroke: that the loss of the left wing happened through 9.56 the treachery of Sir Faithful Fortescue, major to Lord Fielding's regiment of horse, who turned to the king when he should have charged: and that the victory was obtained principally by Colonel Hollis's regiment of London red coats, and the Earl of Essex's own regiment and life-guard, where Sir Philip Stapleton, Sir Arthur Haselrigge, and Colonel Urrey, did much. "Next morning, being desirous to see the field, I went to Edghill, and found the Earl of Essex, with the remaining part of his army, keeping the ground, and the king's army facing them upon the hill about a mile off. There were about a thousand dead bodies in the field between them and many I suppose were buried before. Neither of the armies moving towards each other, the king's army presently drew of towards Banbury, and then to Oxford. The Earl of Essex's went back to provide for the wounded, and refresh themselves at Warwick Castle, belonging to Lord Brook. The details of Baxter's interviews with Cromwell, so strikingly agree with Sir Walter Scott's description of the Protector, in his "Woodstock," that it would almost seem as if the novelist had read those passages of Baxter's life, ere he sketched his veritable picture of "Old Noll." His circuitous method of deduction in his harangues, and his tiresome prolixity, are described by both writers; although one of them copies his draught from the reflecting mirror of the imagination, and the other paints from the "real presence." The following took place whilst Baxter was chaplain to the parliamentary army:— "Cromwell sent to speak with me, and when I came, in the presence of only three of his chief men. he began a long and tedious speech to me of God's providence in the change of the government, and how God had owned it, and what great things had been done at home and abroad, in the peace with Spain and Holland, &c. When he had wearied us all with speaking thus slowly about an hour, 1 told him it was too great condescension to acquaint me so fully with all these matters, which were above me; but I told him that we took our ancient monarchy to be a blessing, and not an evil to the land; and humbly craved his patience that I might ask him how England had ever forfeited that blessing, and unto whom that forfeiture was made? was fain to speak of the form of govergment only, for it had lately been made treason, by law, to speak for the person of the king. Upon that question, he was awakened into some passion, and then told me it was no forfeiture, but God had changed it as pleased him; and then he let fly at the parliament, which thwarted him; and especially by name at four or five of those members who were my chief acquaintances, whom I presumed to defend against his passion, and thus four or five hours were spent." The Act of Uniformity, so justly decried by Locke, found a palliator in Mr. Southey, in his character of "historian of the church." This is not surprising. We shall be silent about motives, and deduce, abstractedly of causes, that Mr. S. is always doomed to be in "hot water;" as we can recollect scarcely any of his theological works, from his biography of Wesley to that of Bunyan, in which he has not most egregiously committed himself. For an exposition of his views of the Act of Uniformity, we refer our readers to his "Book of the Church." That Charles the Second had coolly preconcerted a cruel revenge on the Nonconformists, cannot now be questioned. The consummate hypocrisy which he displayed throughout the whole transaction, is no less eminent than the pliancy of those his abet 957 Review. The Life and Times of Richard Baxter. ors, in his surpassing duplicity : for though "To make e'en Justice thwart her even scale, 958 ings, &c., took him for an excellently righteous, moral man: but I, who heard and read his serious expressions of the concernments of eternity, and saw his love to all good men, and the blamelessness of his life, thought better of his piety than my own. When the people crowded in and out of my house, to hear, he openly showed me so great respect before them at the door, and never spake a word against it, as was no small encouragement to the common people to go on; though the other sort muttered, that a judge should seem so far to countenance that which they took to be against the law." For Baxter's trial before the sanguinary Jefferies, for a libellous paraphrase of the New Testament, we must refer our readers to the work, inserting only a paragraph self-which is part of a colloquy between Pollexfen (Baxter's counsel) and Judge Jefferies: Baxter thus relates the meeting of the nonconforming party with the king, the result of which is too well known to warrant its being noticed here: "Lord Broghill was pleased to come to me, and told me, that he had proposed to the king a conference for an agreement, and that the king took it very well, and was resolved to further it. About the same time, the Earl of Manchester signified as much to Mr. Calamy; so that Mr. Calamy, Dr. Reynolds. Mr. Ash, and myself, went to the Earl of Manchester, then Lord Chamberlain; and after consulting about the business with him, he determined on a day to bring us to the king. Mr. Calamy advised that all of us who were the king's chaplains might be called to the consultation; so that we four might not seem to take too much upon us without others. So, Dr. Wallis, Dr. Manton, and Dr. Spurstow, &c., went with us to the king; who, with the lord chancellor, and the Earl of St. Alban's, came to us in the lord chamberlain's lodgings. "We exercised more boldness, at first, than afterwards would have been borne. When some of the rest had congratulated his majesty's happy Restoration, and declared the large hope which they had of a cordial union among all dissenters by his means, I presumed to speak to him of the concernments of religion, and how far we were from desiring the continuance of any factions or parties in the church, and how much a happy union would conduce to the good of the land, and to his majesty's satisfaction. * "I presumed to tell him, that the late usurpers so well understood their own interest, that to promote it, they had found the way of doing good to be the most effectual means; and had placed and encouraged many thousand faithful ministers in the church, even such as detested their usurpation; and that so far had they attained their ends hereby, that it was the principal means of their interest in the people; wherefore, I humbly craved his majesty, that as he was our lawful king, in whom all his people were prepared to centre, so he would be pleased to undertake this blessed work of promoting their holiness and concord; and that he would never suffer himself to be tempted to undo the good which Cromwell or any other bad doue, because they were usurpers that did it; or dis countenance a faithful ministry, because his enemies had set them up; but that he would rather outgo them in doing good, and opposing and rejecting the ignorant and ungodly, of what opinion or party soever." Of Sir Matthew Hale (who was his neighbour at Acton) Baxter says, "His great advantage for innoceney was, that he was no lover of riches or of grandeur. His garb was too plain; he studiously avoided all unnecessary familiarity with great persons, and all that manner of living which signifieth wealth and greatness. He kept no greater family than myself. I lived in a small house, which, for a pleasant back opening, he had a mind to; but caused a stranger, that he might not be suspected to be the man, to know of me whether I were willing to part with it, before he would meddle with it. The conference which I had frequently with him, mostly about the immortality of the soul, and other philosophical and foundation points, was so edifying, that his very questions and objections did help me to more light than other men's solutions. Those who take none for religious, who frequent not private meet "suffer "I beseech your lordship," said Pollexfen, me a word for my client. It is well known to all intelligent men of age in this nation, that these things do not apply to the character of Mr. Baxter, who wished as well to the king and royal family as Mr. Love, who lost his head for endeavouring to bring in the son long before he was restored. And, my lord, Mr. Baxter's loyal and peaceable spirit, King Charles would have rewarded with a bishopric, when he came in, if he would have conformed." Aye, aye," said the judge," we know that; but what ailed the old blockhead, the unthankful villain, that he could uot conform? Was he wiser or better than other men? He hath been, ever since, the spring of the faction. I am sure he hath poisoned the world with his linsey-woolsey doctrine." Here his rage increased to an amazing degree. He called Baxter a conceited, stubborn, fanatical dog. "Hang him," said he; this one old fellow hath cast more reproach upon the constitution and discipline of our church, than will be wiped off this hundred years; but l'ii handle him for it: for, by G-, he deserves to be whipped through the city.' "Perfection is not a plant of earth;" and it would be partial, in reviewing the "Life and Times of Baxter," to assume that "the father of moderate Nonconformity" was without his share of imperfection. His biographer more than once adverts to his bigotry, though in a tone of modulation. This failing of Baxter's was conspicuous in his belief in demonology and witchcraft. The reader would scarcely suppose, after perusing Baxter's tedious and fanciful dissertations on the appearance of the devil, and the power vested in old women to torment mankind with supernatural punishments, that the author of such absurdities was no other than the brilliant Richard Baxter,-he who feared the face of no man-who played the accusing angel to courtiers and kings,"--who would have sealed his testimony to the truth of Christianity, at the martyr's pyre,—and whose comprehensive genius, and astounding labours, were the theme of universal admiration on the one hand, and the cause of fear and trembling on the other! 66 Our limits will not allow us to devote that space to the review of Baxter's Life and Times which the varied and intensely interesting contents deserve; and we have here only space to observe, before taking our leave of the work, that its value and interest are mournfully enhanced by the demise of the excellent compiler, Mr. Orme, ere his 959 Review. Cabinet Cyclopedia: Netherlands.-The Friends. ready pen had accomplished its task. Of "The good man dies to live a double life; REVIEW.-Cabinet Cyclopedia, conducted by Dr. Lardner. History of the Netherlands: By Thomas Colley Grattan. 12mo. p. 358. Longman, London. 1830. THESE Volumes are not more true to the professed character of the work, than they are regular in their appearance before the public. In their merit we find a respectable uniformity, and in their delivery an order by succession, so that in either case no disappointment is to be apprehended. The period embraced in this volume is, perhaps, one of the most interesting that can be selected from the march of time. It commences about fifty years before the Christian era, and terminates with the battle of Waterloo. During the extended interval which lies between these distant extremes, the great occurrences which have distinguished times and places in the Netherlands, and its immediate connexions, are intro duced to the reader's notice, not so ampli 960 "Early on the night of the 4th of April, the prince of Parma and his army were amazed by the spectacle of three huge masses of flame floating down the river, accompanied by numerous lesser appearances of a similar kind, and hearing directly against the prodigious barrier, which had cost months of labour to him and his troops, and immense sums of money to the state. The whole surface of the Scheldt presented one sheet of fire; the country all round was as visible as at noon; the flags, the arms of the soldiers, and every object on the bridge, in the fleet, or the forta, stood out clearly to view; and the pitchy darkness of the sky gave increased effect to the marked distinctness of all. Astonishment was soon succeeded by consternation, when one of the three machines barst with a terrific noise before they reached their intender mark, but time en ugh to offer a sample of their na ture. The prince of Parma, with numerous officers and soldiers rushed to the bridge, to witness the effects of this explosion; and just then a second and still larger fire ship, having burst through the flying bridge of boats, struck against one of the estoccades. Alexander, unmindful of danger, used every exertion of his authority to stimulate the sailors in their attempts to clear away the monstrous machine, which threatened destruction to all within its reach, Happily for him, an ensign who was near, forgetting in his general's peril all rules of discipline and forms of ceremony, actually forced him from the estoccade. He had not put his foot on the river bank when the machine blew up. The effects were such as really haffled description. The bridge was burst through; the estoccade was shattered almost to atoms, and with all that it supported-men, cannon, and the huge machinery employed in the various works-dispersed in the air. The cruel Marquis of Roubais, many other officers, and eight hundred soldiers, perished in varieties of death-by flood, or flame, or the horrid wounds from the missiles with which the terrible machine was overcharged. Fragments of bodies and limbs were flung far and wide; and many gallant soldiers were destroyed, without a vestige of human forms being left to prove that they had ever existed. The river, forced from its bed at either side, rushed into the forts, and drowned numbers of the garrisons; while the ground far beyond shook as in an earthquake."--p. 179. their character. REVIEW.-The Friends, a true Tale of Woe and Joy, from the East: 24mo. pp. THESE tales are of Asiatic growth, interest236. Wightman. London. ing in their narration, and religious in They are chiefly bioin their united graphical, and dency furnish favourable evidence, that all attempts to proselyte the heathen have not been made in vain. The author assures us in his preface, that they contain the "His design of establishing this horrible tribunal, history of events and persons, that are real fied in detail as to become tedious, nor so compressed as to render brevity obscure. A few extracts must close our observations. The attempt of Philip to establish the inquisition is thus described. so impiously named holy by its founders, had been long suspected by the people of the Netherlands.The expression of those fears had reached him more than once. He as often replied by assurances that he had formed no such project, and particularly to count d'Egmont during his recent visit to Madrid. But at that very time he assembled a conclave of his creatures, doctors of theology, of whom he formally demanded an opinion, as to whether he could conscientiously tolerate two sorts of religion in the Netherlands. The doctors. hoping to please him, replied that he might, for the avoidance of a greater evil.' Philip trembled with rage, and exclaimed, with a threatening tone, I ask not if I can, but if I ought. The theologians read in this question the nature of the expected reply; and it was amply conformable to his wish. He immediately threw himself on his knees before a crucifix, and, raising his hands towards heaven, put up a prayer for strength in his resolution to pursue as deadly enemies all who viewed that effigy with feelings different from his own. If this were not really a sacrilegious farce, it must be that the blaspheming bigot believed the Deity to be a monster of cruelty like himself."-p. 101. The dreadful effect of fire-ships employed in the siege of Antwerp, 1585, may be seen by their blazing and exploding in the following vivid description. ten in every respect, with the exception of the names; that no art whatever has been employed, either to magnify the incidents, or to give them an undue colouring; that the tales are plain and unvarnished, and that there is not an individual described in the volume, who has not, in spiritual things, been more or less indebted to the first English mission to the East. Among these tales several are pleasing, while others are pathetic, thus verifying the title, which indicates both joy and woe. In some the power of religion is delightfully exemplified, while in others sympathy is excited at the losses sustained, and the disappointments experienced. In the little narratives through which we pass, in its various chapters, the influence of christian affection is general apparent. But the 961 Review.-Exodus, or the Curse of Egypt. inroads made by death on those, whose prolonged lives were particularly desirable, add new stings to the bereavements endured, and render the situation of the forlorn survivors severely afflictive. The style is easy and expressive, and the manner in which the materials are arranged, insensibly invite the reader to proceed, without attempting to excite hopes which terminate in disappointment. The unknown author has furnished proof that he knows how to delineate character without being too diffuse in his observations, and to describe events and occurrences without entering into tedious detail. In some parts we are introduced to Indian scenes, peculiarities, and manners, but these are incidental rather than the result of design, being intended to elucidate some leading and more prominent position, to which they are always made subservient. Rada, a christian convert, the author thus vividly describes. "He had been a byraggee, wandering hither and thither on pilgrimage; subsisting on alms, and having, according to the custom of the Hindoo devotees, his hair long and matted, and his body almost naked, and wholly besmeared with mud or ashes. He was tall, bold, and intrepid, and possessed of great muscular strength; and being naturally of a warm temperament, he was, when excited, furious as a lion. During the days of his devoteeship, he must have been the terror of all the timid worshippers; and probably he had seldom to resort to the common practice among byraggees, that of proDonncing curses, to induce the people to give the requested alms. His appearance must have been enough, and a little of his wrath must have been as frightful as the contortions of the Delian sibyl. The gospel, however, had subdued his spirit; and it was but rarely that any ebullitions of temper appeared."—p. 158. We cannot follow the author through his further delineation of this individual cha racter, nor even enumerate the various subjects exhibited in his volume. Its amusing qualities entitle it to a respectful notice; but these are eclipsed by the testimonies adduced in favour of divine grace in its influence on the human mind, while all around is enveloped in the darkness of idolatry, and the shadow of death. REVIEW.-Exodus, or the Curse of Egypt; and other Poems. By T. B. J. 12mo. pp. 176. M'Phun. Glasgow. 1830. WE were induced, from the title of this book, to conjecture that some one of Jehovah's awful visitations of Egypt, had been selected by the author; but, on perusal, it was discovered that all the plagues" are introduced. The poem opens with a denouncement of judgment upon the house of Pharaoh, The second part strongly depicts the groaning bondage 42.-VOL. XII. 962 of Israel, and the tyranny of the Memphian king. The eight succeeding parts include those wonders of the Almighty arm, which at length terminated in the fearful catastrophe of the Egyptian host. The princess Thermuthis, in the course of a pathetic appeal to Pharaoh on behalf of the Israelites, makes this apostrophe to liberty: "O Liberty! the indomitable hills Are all thy thrones; the busy mountain streams During the destruction of the first-born, The angel of destruction is described as taking his flight over the devoted land, while "Indolence lay dreaming on his bed, Of fairies bringing presents in their cap, We refrain from offering further extracts to the reader, as scarcely any passage could be selected, that is not more or less objectionable. The poem is unquestionably the production of a great mind and an immature judgment; whatever, therefore, may be its inherent beauty, it is our conviction, that, without much reading and reflection, the author will never be able to leave any thing, "so written, to after times, that they shall not willingly let it die." Strong indications of the mens divinior are perceptible in his performance, and it remains with the writer to qualify himself for a place among poets of no ordinary class, or, by neglecting to cultivate his taste and judgment, to render these effusions of his muse little more than vox et preterea nihil. The minor poems possess considerable merit. We select from the "Wandering Jew," a stanza which bears powerful testimony to the author's poetic talent. "I love to be where breathing things are not, Where forests frown, and lonely waters lie ;To weave the strange, mysterious web of thought, Flower'd by the fancy's fine embroidery; 3 P |