slight acquaintance with the history of our country is sufficient to fill our hearts with gratitude and joy, and to stifle every murmur on account of any civil disabilities which the wisdom of the legislature has enacted to secure to all a more extended and more permanent religious freedom than could be otherwise enjoyed.' The result of this popular reasoning is, we are not persecuted to blood as some protestants were in the reign of Henry VIII. ; therefore, we ought to stifle every murmur on account of civil disabilities. What excellent logic! The rising generation will read history with great advantage, if they draw such inferences from it! At the end of chapter two, which finishes with an account of the death of Henry VIII., are attached some reflec tions on the saving advantages of poverty over riches, and on the problematical effects of what is commonly termed a deathbed-repentance; for experience has proved that God very rarely visits those in sickness with his salvation, who in their health have despised it.' It is unnecessary to follow the author of this survey through his sketches of the reigns of Edward VI., Mary, and Elizabeth, as they contain nothing new, and as the tendency of his reflections is sufficiently evinced by the extracts which we have already made. We shall only remark that, as Mr. C. contemplates human events in subserviency to Divine Providence, the title of his 4th chapter may be termed improper; The progress of the Reformation prevented during the reign of Queen Mary: for the cruel burnings of heretics, as they were called, in this bloody reign, "lighted up a flame," to use old Latimer's prophetic words at the stake, "which could not be extinguish ed;" and hence the Reformation was so far from being prevented by the persecutions then employed, that they were instrumental in generally disposing the people in favour of a cause for which the wisest and most conscientious men in the kingdom were ready to shed their blood. When appeals to reason and scripture are answered only by torturing and burning, reason and scripture must in the end be triumphant. Persecution promotes the cause against which it is employed. With a glance at Elizabeth's reign, the historical part of this work concludes; the remainder of the volume being composed of a series of dissertations on the lawfulness and expediency of the established Church, on the Trinity, -original Sin, -Justification, Sanctification, and on the spirit and utility of the Church of England. Here Mr. C. plays the part of the controversialist and politico-theologian: but his performance of these characters has afforded us no great pleasure. Though we admit the lawfulness of an established religion, we should never quote as a decisive argument in its favour Gen. xvii. 19., in L 4 which which Abraham is applauded by the Almighty "for commanding his children and household to keep the way of the Lord," for this text has no reference whatever to the duty of civil rulers to provide for the religious instruction of their subjects. The next argument employed is, however, still more curious; and we must quote it, if not for the conviction at least for the amusement of logic-loving readers : 'It cannot be denied that rulers are bound" to love God with all their hearts, and with all their souls, and with all their strength; and their neighbours as themselves." Now how can they possibly do either the one or the other, if they neglect to employ their authority and power, in providing places for the public worship of God, and ministers duly authorized and qualified to conduct it, and instruct the people in the knowlege of those truths which are essential to their present welfare and everlasting happiness?" Could not this argument have been made to serve a double purpose, or to prove the lawfulness of an established church and the unlawfulness of taxation; since if rulers are bound to love their neighbours as themselves, they should not tax their neighbours or subjects any more than themselves? In proving the expediency of an established church, the author is more successful. Strenuous as Mr. C. is in support of the doctrine of the Trinity, he readily admits that, in the damnatory clauses of the Athanasian Creed, the established church certainly departs from her usual moderation.' On the subject of original sin, Mr. C. tells us that it is a mistake not less fatal than absurd, to suppose that we are not guilty before God, until we commit actual sin:' but it is not easy to conceive how, in common justice, guilt can be charged to a person's account before he be actually guilty. A tendency to criminality is a very different thing from actual crime. A corruption of nature may facilitate the introduction of vice: but vice itself cannot be said to exist till this corrupt nature commences its operations. Before a being exists, he cannot possibly sin in thought, word, or deed; the title therefore of the ninth article, Original Sin, does not seem to be strictly proper, not being expressive of the circumstance mentioned in the subsequent wording of the article, viz. " that man of his own nature is inclined to evil." That Adam stood as the covenant head of all his race,' as asserted by the author, (p. 317.) is not asserted in the article, and ought not to be here introduced as a fundamental doctrine of the established church. To illustrate his doctrine of the imputation of original sin, Mr. C. instances the diseases inherited by children from debauched parents: but, if they suffer the effects of a parent's crimes, the guilt of those crimes is never charged to their account; so that this is not a case case in point, and is by no means an elucidation of the subject. In the chapter on The Nature of Justification by Faith, an equal want of nice discrimination occurs: but we shall refrain from following Mr. C. through his long discussion. We must, however, tell him that, as a prudent advocate of the fundamental doctrines of the established church, he should have abstained from quoting the following very reprehensible methodistic stanza in illustration of them : "There is a fountain fill'd with blood And sinners plung'd beneath that flood The idea which this vile poetry conveys is coarse, disgusting, and incorrect. In what part of scripture is our Saviour's blood represented as drawn into a large cistern, into which sinners are to take a plunge and then to rise spotless? A writer of any credit ought to blush at giving such a picture of salvation by the cross or sufferings of Christ. Perhaps Mr. C. will say that this is a popular sketch of christian redemption: but we are at a loss to conceive what the common people will understand by a plunge into a fountain or cistern full of blood. In the chapter on Sanctification, Good Works are recommended as necessary or essential to salvation, because they produce a meetness for the inheritance of the saints: but care is taken to prevent the notion of their being the procuring cause. This distinction between the merit of virtue and its fitness for a state of pure enjoyment has been made ten thousand times; yet its correctness may be called in question, notwithstanding its frequent repetition. Let us select one virtue by way of making an experiment between the difference of meriting the favour of God and of being meet or fit to enjoy it. If love, or the principle of benevolence, as St. Paul tells us it is, be superior to faith, there must surely be as much merit in love as in faith, If love be an attribute of the Deity, there must be absolute merit in that virtue which produces in us a resemblance to him. Moreover, on what do the promised rewards of good works or virtue depend? Not on the arbitrary will of the Deity, but on his moral attributes. As the poet says, "He must delight in virtue, and that which he delights in must be happy." Its necessity, its meetness, its fitness or adaptation to salvation, stamps so high a value on it, that a certain quantity of desert seems to belong to it, and God as a moral governor stands engaged to reward it. The merit attached to the righteousness of Christ proves that righteousness is considered in one instance as intitled to an infinite reward, though in all other cases it is represented as intitled to no reward at all.. We throw throw out these hints to induce our orthodox divines to review their opinion on the subject of good works, which phrase is supposed to include the affections of the mind as well as our outward actions. To the prominent principles advanced in the last two chapters, on the spirit and utility of the church of England, we are not disposed to object, but would rather recommend them to notice; yet it was not necessary, in urging the benefits which result from our civil and religious constitution, to adopt the wild speculation that we shall in the year 1866 be instrumental in overthrowing the infidel wilful king, and in restoring the Jews to their own land. In point of style, the same character may be given of the present as of Mr. C.'s former work (see M. R. Vol. lix. N.S. p. 266.). He writes, no doubt, with the best intentions, and aims at doing good: but he is too prolix and sermonizing, and often displays something which has a nearer affinity to canting than to genuine sound judgment. ART. VI. The Letters of Mrs. Elizabeth Montagu, with some of the Letters of her Correspondents. Part the Second, containing her Letters from the Age of Twenty-three to Forty, ending with the Coronation of George the Third. Published by Matthew Montagu, Esq. her Nephew and Executor. Vols. IIÍ. and IV. Crown 8vo. 148. Boards. Cadell and Davies. OMEN, it has often been observed, write better letters than men. They take more interest in little things, and do not affect to despise the every-day business of life. They indulge without scruple in details which would be supposed to imply, in the other sex, a trifling taste or a frivolous leisure. They have time to make a rough scrawl of their gossip, and then to write it out neatly; which, without impairing its unaffected cordiality, commonly curtails any idle superfluity. Indeed, the best printed letters are precisely those which have been published without other alteration than omissions. Cicero edited his own letters, which form the earliest collection of good epistolary models; they are admirable for every thing but frankness; they are parade-letters, which display all the versatilities of eloquence except a sincere familiarity, and the natural talk of a writer in the negligence of undress. Pliny is often insipidly diffuse; Seneca is affectedly stimulant; and the Alexandrian sophists, who forged letters in the names both of famous philosophers and of courtezans, have failed in the imitation of those personal and local allusions, which give to letters their sympathetic action and dramatic effect. The moderns have deluged us with letters. One observation deserves to be enforced, that only those letters continue to amuse, which have a business and a purpose. Chit-chat prosings undertaken to dispel individual tedium, however wittily expressed, fade on the interest; and there must be a topic more enduring than family-chronicles, or daily news. Unless they relate to the great characters or the great questions of the times, they rarely retain a claim on our notice. Geographical letters form perhaps an exception. The wanderer, who describes the scenery, or the society, or the monuments, of a remarkable district, may acquire with posterity a value for having copied the traces of phænomena which have since yielded to time and vicissitude. Among our English letter-writers, the poet Gray is one of the best; he writes from the spot and from the heart. A letter that could be dated any where, and addressed to any place or person, is ill-conceived; yet how many of Pope's letters, full as they are of witty turns, admirable thoughts, and penetrating sagacity, could spare both the superscription and the date?the post-mark should always be legible in the contents. Letterwriting ought to have the ease, but never the diffuseness, of conversation; out of what we would say to a friend, we should pick the best things to send him. The old letter-writers were very tedious; Sir Matthew Hale, writing to his children, Sir William Temple to the Countess of Essex, and Dr. Doddridge to a young lady going into the East, have penned long sermons of advice which would excite a yawn even if heard from the pulpit. After all, letter-writing is too often time poorly spent. Unless there be business to transact, intelligence to communicate, or inquiries to make, why write? For two minds to play at battle-door and shuttlecock in punctual alternation, without any other object than to beat back with brilliant sublimity a loaded feather, is barely allowable as exercise for youth, or pastime for confinement; manhood should have something weightier at which to strike. We advise those idlers, who are always on the catch for a new correspondent, to try the experiment of writing letters to themselves; and to give a weekly account of every thing worth remembering, which has happened to them during that week. An inkspot is no ornament to the finger or the apron of a female:not but that we would have our wives learn to write to us when we are from home, and are contented that our sisters also in that view should practise writing to one another. They would do well, therefore, to peruse the best specimens of epistolary art. Lady Russel's letters have rather a moral and political than a beautiful value. Miss Talbot and Mrs. Carter are |