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NOTICES.

BISHOP MANT has published two very interesting small volumes, Feriæ Anniversariæ,' (J. W. Parker,) on the observance of Fast and Festival days in the later English Church. Characterized by the author's amiable and affectionate style in the original matter, the collection becomes important, nor only for its didactic purpose, but as a Catena both of facts and testimonies on the subject. Speaking of the observance of holy days by the Religious Societies in the seventeenth century,' the Bishop has given a better character to the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge than it can claim he says, (vol. i. p. 255,) from the beginning it has been a standing rule that the monthly meetings do not take place on the holy days.' This rule is not yet ten years old.

An interesting and important undertaking has been commenced in the Tithe Restitution Trust, of which the prospectus and a form of petition has reached us. It is not the less likely to succeed because it has been conducted quietly. And, which is most important, this particular movement embodies one single intelligible principle marked by the word 'restitution:' sacrilege, there is the sin; restitution, there is the remedy. Involving as much as it does, little less, that is, than recovering the Church's patrimony in five thousand parishes in England, it would be unwise to underrate the difficulties which beset the scheme. But that it is entertained at all is a hopeful sign, and the degree of success which it has already attained, is, we understand, considerable. A meeting, sanctioned by episcopal countenance, has been held, and much we believe may be done if the subject is taken up in

earnest.

Mr. Gresley has published A Third Statement of the real Danger of the 'Church' (Burns). In form this pamphlet follows the accredited and legitimate order: recapitulation of principles, additional illustrations, a reply to objections. Mr. Gresley has honourably achieved that hold upon the popular English mind, that whatever he writes will gain, what it always deserves, readers. He is eminently suited for this service; patient, plainspoken, indefatigable, and singularly intelligible. But the really distressing part of the business is that with all these appeals and protests, statements and exposures, with evidence and facts multiplied, unquestionable and undisguised, there is not a single sign of movement in those who ought to be most concerned. New bishops--new churches-new schools-new collegesmissions-additional clergy-learned treatises-solemn devotions-externals expanding, growing, and glowing in beauty and propriety and frequency in every quarter, all this on the one side:-and on the other, the melancholy fact of our grave doctrinal divisions.

'Lyra Memorialis, by Joseph Snow,' (Bell,) is a well-meant collection of 'Original Epitaphs and Churchyard Thoughts in verse.' The title is pleonastic, and should only have consisted of its second member: for we find

scarcely a single composition which falls within the strict notion of an epitaph. Thoughts-warnings-reflections-sketches of states of mind and conditions of feeling, these are valuable subjects for religious verses, but they are not epitaphs: the epitaph we think ought to take an altogether objective character. In theology, Mr. Snow is various, not always consistent, but frequently of a tolerable range of orthodoxy: but since he seems to have excluded himself from that especial duty towards the dead, which enters so largely into the catholic conception of the communion of saints, his simplicity falls into meagreness, and monotony is the result of a blameless but often unsuccessful desire to avoid the exaggerating features of modern epitaphs. There is one class of expressions against which we protest very strongly had only a single instance of it occurred in Mr. Snow, we should have passed it as a poetical lapsus: but since we believe it to be a serious impression, even among religious people—it must be the case with Mr. Snow-that dead Christians, children especially, are after death transformed into angels, we regret that a volume, which perhaps will attain a circulation, contains on its first page such an exaggerated and mischievous sentiment as

'Infants baptized are living saints below,

And dead, are angels nearest to the Throne.'

And elsewhere (CLI.), involving in six small words two false statements about the invisible state,

'A child of wrath-a child of grace

In heaven a smiling cherub now!'

Such allusions as that in XXXVIII. are scarcely other than revolting: and we are sorry frequently to find what the preface, properly enough, warns against, viz. hyperbolical compliments and stilted panegyric.' Besides all this, the propriety of getting up a volume of little poems from which people may select according to taste a sort of pattern-card of sorrow and sentiment -a maison de deuil in neat print and natty poetry-strikes us as unreal. However, the author entreats us to regard his good intentions, of which we award him an ungrudging share: but if it is natural it is unsightly, that the joint-stock principle should extend from cemeteries to inscriptions.

A 'Selection of Hymns for public or private use,' (Burns,) is a compilation which we are by no means prepared to welcome. If we want hymns in the public offices, we want no such hymns as many of these: the whole collection ranges very little, if at all, above the untoward little blue books stamped with a mitre, which are to be found in many of the London churches. All the array of index and subjects, and the reference to conventicle tunes, is identical with the often superior productions of Messrs. Bickersteth, Hall, and Horne: and if, which we trust is now impossible, anything could effectually prejudice the revival of chanting the Psalms, it would be the multiplication of such manuals as these. Objectionable as is the whole class of extant hymn-books for divine service, the present is even a bad specimen of a bad set. The verses are (many of them) not hymns at all; ex. grat.

BAPTISM.-P. 74.

'Into Christ's flock we are receiv'd,
And signéd with His sign,

In token that we shall not shun
To do His will divine.

'To fight with sin, the world, and flesh,
Beneath his banner'd cross;

To scorn the world, and its delights,
Nor fear the shame and loss.

'Our fight begins in earliest youth,
In childhood we must wear
Our armour 'gainst the crafty foe,
And for the fight prepare.

High faith in Him our shield must be,
To quench all fiery darts,
Temptations of the evil one
To gain our wav'ring hearts.

'Our helmet is His saving grace,
Our sword the word of God:
Our Lord Himself that help did use
When the same way He trod.'

Now, what are all these stanzas? Statements intended for religious thoughts, some theological and quite orthodox-some historical, like that remarkably interesting one about the coruscation of S. James-some personal, such as, Oh, for a closer walk with God '--some optative, such as, 'Ob, might mankind in love agree,' (p. 102,) but all commonplace truisms which possibly might, by an exercise of forbearance, stand for their good intentions excused as fourth-rate versification with false rhymes and clumsy diction and meagre thought: but they are no more Hymns than they are Epic poems or Epitaphs. And it really grieves us to find, at this time of day, at p. 103, a production, in Portman-street, of such dactylics, to the tune of the 'National Anthem,' for 'public use,' as the following:

'Thou who didst come to bring,

On thy redeeming wing,

Healing and light,

Health to the sick in mind,

Light to the inly blind,

Oh, come to all mankind;
Let there be light.'

We must also protest against the trochaic asynartetous ''ticklar metre,' so savouring of the meeting-house,

'See the Lord from heaven descending,

Smites him, blinds him, lays him low:

See the persecutor bending

Humbly, meekly to the blow.

See him rising

Friend to Christ, no longer foe.'

-And all this on 'the conversion of St. Paul,' p. 34.

Among the recent 'little books,' and their writers, we much admire Mrs. Francis Vidal: there is a quiet pathos about her writings which tells. Her line is to influence through the feelings, which she moves with considerable force. 'Esther Merle, and other Tales,' (Burns,) is concerned mostly with domestic servants: and the several stories enter very touchingly into their temptations and trials. As we propose another batch of these useful writers shortly, we will somewhat more summarily than civilly dispose for the present of Godfrey Davenant,' (Masters,) by Mr. W. E. Heygate—a story of a schoolboy's days. The scenery lies in a sort of Arnoldia Felix: the dialogue being stiff, and somewhat over palpably sermonizing, but with some very good points.

'The Wreath of Lilies,' (Burns,) is on a very trying subject, namely, to draw out for children all the incidents of the Blessed Virgin's life, as the type of the child-like and innocent temper; and though so difficult, yet in our judgment it is a successful, attempt. Certain of the ecclesiastical traditions are interwoven with more direct hortatory matter. Some pretty and often striking poetry is attached to each chapter, and, though apparently somewhat affected, the title very accurately conveys the notion of a sweet and modest garland of pure religious thoughts: a slight tendency to what in

some hands might fall into sentimentalism is just sufficiently apparent to be subdued and refined.

A prime favourite with us is Andersen's Tales for the Young' (Burns). Andersen it is impossible to criticize; he must be lived with. He does not seem to be of this our gross material clay, he is like Anacreon's grasshopper, fleshless, bloodless. He must have lived in the magic fairy world. His mice and trees are loquacious, but quite in a language and feeling of their own each has a distinct characterization. There are defined, though delicate shades of temper, not so much generically between his swans and nightingales; but we feel the personal and moral identity of each particular swan, and nightingale is distinguished from nightingale by positive ethical marks. The broomstick which Swift threatened to meditate upon, would in Andersen's hands, have smiled and mused like his old Fir-tree,' with a gentle elegiac sweetness of disposition, quite individualized and affecting: and the 'Little Green Duck' is really solemn. Indeed beneath all this playful and grotesque imagery, and under a quaint sportiveness of wit, runs an under-current of grave and serious teaching. It is the moral truth of the north hidden, but not overlaid, by the light mazy arabesques of eastern fancy.

Mr. Harington, of Exeter, whose painstaking and accurate research in the investigation of facts we have more than once had occasion thankfully to acknowledge, has published an enlarged edition of his two Visitation Sermons on Apostolical Succession and the necessity of Episcopal Ordination,' (Rivingtons,) with very full notes. We do not know a better mode of investigating this subject, at least in its important Anglican aspect, than by examining the authorities referred to by Mr. Harington: he not only inquires, but furnishes materials for inquiry. And in times when laborious reading is a rare virtue we are glad to meet with such scrupulous fidelity as this very useful writer's.

Mr. Tresham Gregg's Free Thoughts on Protestant Matters,' (Curry,) are a wonderful exhibition of the Hibernian mind, under its ultra-protestant phase. There is a bold, dashing, honest, earnest insolence about this school, which is becoming so scarce, that a specimen like Mr. Gregg's has its value.

'Faust, translated by Capt. Knox,' (Ollivier,) has at least the merit of fidelity: but it is that literal fidelity which approaches to a Chinese scrupulousness. The result is unsatisfactory: the language being neither German nor English, and the versification neither prose nor poetry: but an unpleasant and incomplete fusion of both.

Bishop Jeremy Taylor: his Predecessors, Contemporaries, and Successors, by Mr. R. A. Wilmott,' (J. W. Parker,) has received more commendation than it deserves. To take any central character, even one so various in accomplishments as Jeremy Taylor, and to group round it all the miscellaneous gatherings of a literary common-place book, only produces confusion. Neither is Mr. Wilmott so much an accurate as a discursive reader and his style is over-laden.