honours now wait on the memory of the greatest of the British reformers: And, even among us zealous Presbyterians of the North, the name of Knox, to whom our Presbyterian Church is indebted, not merely for its establishment, but its existence, is oftener remembered for reproach than for veneration-and his apostolical zeal and sanctity, his heroic courage, his learning, talents and accomplishments, are all coldly forgotten,-while a thousand tongues are still ready to pour out their censure or derision of his fierceness, his ambition, and his bigotry. Some part of this injustice we must probably be content to ascribe to the fatality to which we have already made reference; but some part at least seems to admit of a better explanation.

The Steuarts, from the time of King Charles to the very end of the dynasty, were no great enemies to Popery, and held Calvinism in mortal abhorrence;-in the last of which propensities, they were cordially seconded by the great, rich, learned and polished part of the kingdom to which they had transferred their residence. Calumnies and contumelies of all kinds were accordingly poured from high quarters, and for a long course of time, upon all persons of this persuasion; and no ordinary share of odium was consequently accumulated on the head of the great apostle and champion of the cause. Even after Presbyterianism obtained a legal establishment at the Revolution, a good deal of this feeling continued to prevail in the court and the country of England; and the Northern part of the island was partly despised, and partly commiserated, as being condemned to perpetual gloom, discord and inelegance, by the prevalence of those austere and illiberal docrines, which had been so long imputed to John Knox and his followers. While there was little intercourse between the kingdoms, and they continued substantially divided in manners and character, as well as in name and in laws, this scorn and antipathy was not felt as a great misfortune;-and we went on, thankfully enjoying our religion, and satisfied with our attainments, without troubling ourselves very much about the opinion of our neighbours. But when, in the course of time, the two nations came to be more thoroughly intermingled-when our gentry aimed at rivalling the clegance and civility of the South;—and, above all, when our writers aspired to a participation in their literary honours, it seems to have been thought prudent to soften this cause of repulsion, not merely by representing our modern presbyterianism as a very mitigated form of the old distemper, but by admitting, in a great measure, the justice of the charges that had been brought against its original founders. Despairing, as it would appear, to conciliate the favour of our English brethren to the spirit and the doctrines which

they had reprobated so violently in the person of Knox and his associates, it was thought wiser to ward off the blow from ourselves, by giving up those victims to their doom, and assenting, somewhat too readily, to the sentence by which they were condemned.-To deliver ourselves, in short, from the imputations of bigotry and intolerance, we have contracted the habit of allowing their justice, when directed against the founders of our national establishment; and are so anxious to show that Presbyterians of the present day can be liberal and temperate, that we do not scruple to renounce all pretensions of this kind for their great predecessors.

This, no doubt, is the chief cause of the prejudices that still sub sist with regard to the character of our reformer, and of the de sertion of that cause even by those who have adopted his scheme of reformation. Two other circumstances, however, have contributed in no inconsiderable degree to the same end;-one is; his supposed rudeness and personal hostility to the unfortunate princess who then swayed the sceptre of his native country; and whose cruel sufferings, and celebrated beauty, seem not only to have effaced all sense of her crimes from the mind of the public, but have actually called forth, at the distance of two hundred years, the zeal and chivalrous defiance of a more enthusiastic band of champions, than ever were mustered for her defence in her lifetime. So high indeed has this spirit been raised, by the eloquence of some of her advocates, and the general softening of her modern historians, that, among ordinary readers of the story of those times, we really believe that many more will be found who hate and abuse Knox for having made Mary weep in the issue of some of their conferences, than revere or applaud him as the deliverer of his country from the ignominious bondage of Catholic superstition. The other circumstance which has contributed to defraud Knox of the popularity he had so dearly earned, is the persuasion, that it was by his advice and instigation that the cathedrals, and other splendid religious buildings, were thrown down throughout the country, and all the visible accompaniments of devotion reduced not only to great simplicity, but to the most sordid meanness. justice of the imputation shall be examined hereafter;—at present, it is enough to observe, that it seems an extraordinary reason for withholding his due honour from a reformer of religion, that he had not a proper regard for the productions of the fine arts.

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From these, or from other causes, however, it seems to be undeniable, that the prevailing opinion about John Knox, even in this country, has come to be, that he was a fierce and

gloomy bigot, equally a foe to polite learning, and innocent enjoyment; and that, not satisfied with exposing the abuses of the Romish superstitions, he laboured to substitute for the ra tional religion and regulated worship of enlightened men, the ardent and unrectified spirit of vulgar enthusiasm, dashed with dreams of spiritual and political independence, and all the im'practicabilities of the earthly kingdom of the saints.

How unfair, and how marvellously incorrect these representations are, may be learned from the perusal of the book before us; -a work which has afforded us more amusement and more instruction, than any thing we ever read upon the subject; and which, independent of its theological merits, we do not hesitate to pronounce by far the best-piece of history which has appeared since the commencement of our critical career. It is extremely accurate, learned, and concise, and at the same time, very full of spirit and animation;-exhibiting, as it appears to us, a rare union of the patient research and sober judgment which characterize the more laborious class of historians, with the boldness of thinking and force of imagination which is sometimes substituted in their place. It affords us very great pleasure to bear this public testimony to the merits of a writer who has been hitherto unknown, we believe, to the literary world either of this or the neighbouring country;-of whom, or of whose existence at least, though residing in the same city with ourselves, it never was our fortune to have heard till his volume was put into our hands; and who in his first emergence from the humble obscurity in which he has pursued the studies and performed the duties of his profession, has presented the world with a work, which may put so many of his contemporaries to the blush, for the big promises they have broken, and the vast opportunities they have neglected. Besides the printed histories and tracts, relating to the period under discussion, the author had the peculiar advantage of possessing a large collection of Knox's letters; and he also consulted, most laboriously, the manuscript histories and collections of Calderwood, Row, and Wodrow, besides a great multitude of other manuscripts in the Advocates' Library, or in possession of the Church of Scotland. We shall now endeavour to present our readers with a short view of what has appeared to us most interesting in this valuable publication, with such slight observations as it has suggested.

John Knox-or, as some of his contemporaries, with a laudable love. of consonants, and dread of capitals, are pleased to write it, johanne kmnoxxe'-was born at Haddington, or at Gifford, in East Lothian, in 1505, of respectable, and even opulent parents, who after having him initiated in the elements

of learning at the grammar school of Haddington, sent him to prosecute his studies at the University of St Andrews, in the year 1524; where he became acquainted with all the mysteries of the Aristotelian philosophy, and School divinity. Greek was not taught at that time in any Scotish University; the first public school for it having been established at Montrose in 1534, under the patronage of Erskine of Dun. Hebrew was not taught till after the establishment of the Reformation in 1560, when John Row, the Protestant minister of Perth, appears to have opened a class for it.-Those two languages Knox afterwards acquired during his residence on the Continent. At St Andrews, however, he became so great a proficient in the dialectic art, that soon after obtaining the degree of Master, he was allowed to teach a class of philosophy under the regular regent; and was advanced to priest's orders, and ordained, before he had attained the regular age for that dignity. About the year 1532, the study of St Jerome and St Augustine led him to the dili gent perusal of the Scriptures; and the simple language of truth recommended itself so powerfully to his manly understanding, that, from that time forward, he renounced the study of Scholastic divinity, and began to call in question the authority of those teachers whom he had been hitherto contented to follow. Upon looking abroad, indeed, beyond the cloisters of his college, he beheld a scene of corruption that might have roused a feebler spirit to call in question the principles from which it had proceeded.

The Popery which prevailed before the Reformation, was a very different sort of thing from that which now prevails in the countries which have retained it; and the religion and practice of those who most abhor the Protestants, have been purified and reformed by their example, in a degree which makes their further reformation a matter of comparative indifference.-Before entering upon his account of Knox's labours in this cause, Mr M'Crie has presented his readers with a sketch of the actual state of religion in Scotland at that period, which we do think entitled to the serious consideration of those who may be inclined to doubt whether our deliverance was worth the heavy price which our ancestors were compelled to pay for it. As a fair specimen of the style and matter of the book, we extract a part of this

summary.

The corruptions by which the Christian religion was universally depraved before the Reformation, had grown to a greater height in Scotland, than in any other nation within the pale of the Western church. Superstition and religious imposture, in their grossest forms, gained an easy admission among a rude and ignorant people, By means of these, the clergy attained to an exorbitant degree of

opulence and power; which were accompanied, as they always have been, with the corruption of their order, and of the whole system of religion.

The full half of the wealth of the nation belonged to the clergy; and the greater part of this was in the hands of a few of their num ber, who had the command of the whole body. Avarice, ambition, and the love of secular pomp, reigned among the superior orders. Bishops and Abbots rivalled the first nobility in magnificence, and preceded them in honours: they were Privy-Counsellors and Lords of Session, as well as of Parliament, and had long engrossed the principal offices of state. A vacant bishopric or abbacy called forth powerful competitors, who contended for it as for a principality or petty kingdom; it was obtained by similar arts, and not infrequently taken possession of by the same weapons. Inferior benefices were openly put to sale, or bestowed on the illiterate and unworthy minions of courtiers; on dice-players, strolling-bards, and the bas tards of bishops. Pluralities were multiplied without bounds, and benefices given in commendam were kept vacant, during the life of the commendatory, sometimes during several lives, to the depriva tion of extensive parishes of all provision of religious service; if a deprivation it could be called, at a time when the cure of souls was no longer regarded as attached to livings, originally endowed for this purpose. There was not such a thing known as for a bishop to preach; indeed, I scarce recollect a single instance of it, mentioned in history, from the erection of the regular Scotish Episcopate, down to the period of the Reformation.* The practice was even gone into desuetude among all the secular clergy, and was wholly devolved on the mendicant monks, who employed it for the most mercenary purposes.

The lives of the clergy, exempted from secular jurisdiction, and corrupted by wealth and idleness, were become a scandal to religion, and an outrage on decency. While they professed chastity, and prohibited, under the severest penalties, any of the ecclesias tical order from contracting lawful wedlock, the bishops set the example of the most shameless profligacy before the inferior clergy; avowedly kept their harlots; provided their natural sons with benefices; and gave their daughters in marriage to the sons of the nobility and principal gentry; many of whom were so mean as to con

*One exception occurs, and must not be omitted. When George Wishart was preaching in Ayr, Dunbar, Archbishop of Glasgow, took possession of the pulpit, in order to exclude the reformer. Some of Wishart's more zealous hearers would have dispossessed the bishop, but the reformer would not suffer them. "The bishope preichit to his jackmen, and to sum auld boisses of the toun. soum of all his sermone was, They sey, we sould preiche: Quhy not? Better lait thryve nor nevir thryve. Had us still for your bischope, and we sall provyde better the nixt tyme." Knox, Historie, p. 44.

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