the economy of nature; had he even expressed himself intelligently for or against the opposite views on equivocal generation,-in a word, had he proposed to himself any other aim than the delivery of an unpleasant lecture on an unclean subject, we should have accompanied his speculations, if not with profit, at least with interest. As it is, we must leave him to a banquet from which few of our readers will have cause to regret their absence.

449

NOTICES.

A Compendium of Hebrew Grammar; designed to facilitate the Study of the Language and simplify the System of the Vowel Points. By Rev. William Burgh, м.a. of Trin. Coll. Dublin.' A laudable attempt to arrange the facts that relate to the inflexion of Hebrew forms. There are two errors, on this subject, to be avoided :—that of the old grammars, which laid down a large number of rules,—not dependent on any principle-serving merely to hold together a certain number of facts, not to explain them :--and that of Ewald and others, who, in their zealous attempts to ascertain the laws, to which the nisus formativus of the language was subject, were unwilling to leave any exceptional case unaccounted for—as if their inductive laws had possessed some à priori necessity. Of both these rocks Mr. Burgh has in the main steered clear. On one or two occasions his rules are inadequate, indeed incorrect, (e.g. on the Article, at p. 22, and on Vau Conversive, at p. 24.) The division of nouns, too, is a mistake. The declensions should be either nine (as Gesenius has them), or, far better, only two. The Hebrew typography does no credit to the Dublin University Press. The errors are both frequent and serious,— a great defect in a book intended for beginners.

Nothing can be better than the object of Mr. Eccles Carter in his 'Remarks on Christian Grave-stones,' (Masters.) This work forms one, and in many respects a valuable addition to the similar undertakings of Mr. Paget, Mr. Armstrong, and the Camden Society,-not forgetting our earnest ally Mr. Markland. It is a cause which we are glad to find winning its way, and every ally is to be welcomed still we cannot help saying that Mr. Carter is not very happy in his original designs: one, No. 12, p. 31, is evidently borrowed in its details from the 'Ecclesiology' of the Berlin Worstedwork-shop in Regent-street. There is not the least authority for the crown of thorns balancing the celestial crown. It is a modern prettiness.

In this connexion we may mention Cemetery Burial,' (Masters,) a tract, which, with some research, leans too much towards the modern sentimentalism about cemeteries. Not but that the case must be met; and, as is usual, because the Church, in her corporate capacity through her bishops, has not set about a system of parochial extra-urban sepulture, we are now left in large cities to the hideous abomination of the joint-stock companies, or the flagrant indecencies of town churchyards. If, as seems most likely, the State must interfere, it can hardly be hoped that new regulations will be other than latitudinarian. This, like other evils, ought to have been boldly acknowledged long since: but the unhappy anodyne of things lasting our time, in this, as in more serious matters, has unfortunately proved fatal.

'Readings for Advent, (Webb,) for the use of the Collegiate Schools, Liverpool,' is a selection of scriptural passages which might harmonize with the

general design of the Church Services.' In other words, it is an attempt to give privately what the Breviaries of various churches, in their Lections, have hitherto supplied under authority. Our own Church having, for the most part, confined the formal celebration of the sacred seasons to the Sunday office, we see no objection to this Manual, the principle of which the preface proposes to extend to the whole of the Christian year.

Count Joseph de Maistre's 'Essay on the Generative Principle of Political Constitutions'-published some forty years ago—has been reprinted by Little and Brown, (Boston, U. S.) It is, as some of our readers know, a stirring pamphlet.

We have received from America: Bishop Doane's 'Address on Laying the Corner-stone of Grace-Church, Newark,' (Morris, Burlington;) Bishop Ive's Address on Laying the Corner-stone of S. Mary's, Burlington'—this is a new church for the parish of which Bishop Doane is rector;—and, 'No Service without Sacrifice,' a Sermon preached on the same occasion by Bishop Doane himself. There is a vigorous ecclesiastical character both about these addresses and the proceedings themselves, which makes us very hopeful that we may never have occasion seriously to canvass questions of taste with those, whose very exuberance of life ought to shame our cold proprieties both of feeling and expression. We cannot say much for Mr. Upjohn's design for S. Mary's, except that it is well meant.

We are glad to find the useful series of 'Churches of Yorkshire,' (Green : Leeds,) resumed. No. 14 is before us. The letter-press is unusually good; and we wish that every diocese had one who would so forcibly expose the sinful neglect and spoliation of God's houses as the editor of this series. That we are in this respect improving in all directions is mainly to be attributed—it is only right to acknowledge this-to the 'strong language' which has in various quarters been used about the sacrilege and parsimony which have rendered our churches so disgraceful. The Augean stable was not cleansed with a drawingroom feather-brush.

The Roman Catholic Bishop of New York,' Dr. Hughes, has been delivering, at a dissenting meeting-house in New York, a 'Lecture on the Antecedent Causes of the Irish Famine in 1847,' (Duncan: New York.) These ‘antecedent causes,' as Dr. Hughes pleonastically styles them, are to be found in the invasion by Henry II. and the penal proceedings of 1610, which events culminated last year and a good while they have taken to climb the zenith. Dr. Hughes is a curious mixture of Broadway and College Green. The compound is not felicitous. On the other, the industrial side, may be read, 'Mr. G. H. Stoddart's Letter to Lord John Russell,' (Saunders.)

The second number of Mr. Blackburne's work on 'Decorative Painting' has appeared. Perhaps in its pictorial, certainly in its literary, aspect it is an improvement on its predecessor. The taste and spirit of the series are much to be commended.

The Life and Writings of Dr. Chalmers, by the Rev. Henry Davis,' (Gilbert,) is a very meagre sketch indeed: written, we suppose, on the intelligible plea of supplying the first account to his admirers. We do not pretend to have been

deep or accurate students of Dr. Chalmers: but the extracts given by Mr. Davis in illustration of his brilliancy and depth, give but the notion of flashy nonsense to an English reader. It is curious that the Scotch character, patient as it is of the hard dry husks of Calvinism, encourages this mere florid declamation, simply as fine talk in the pulpit. But, perhaps, by way of relief, and in obedience to that moral law which demands expression for the feelings, the coldness of dogma necessitates the counteraction of this lurid glare of rhetoric: the one exercise sets off against the other.

We cannot enter into the Irish mind. It is a phenomenon. There is a Society in Ireland, as every body knows, called the 'Church Education Society,' under high auspices. To the plans of this Society, as it seems, a distinguished person, Dr. Elrington, has lately seen cause to demur, and has declared his adhesion to the National Board of Education. For this he is called to account in a Letter by Dr. Miller, Vicar-General of Armagh: The case of the Church Education Society considered,' (Seeley.) But even the Church Education Society receives Roman Catholic children into its schools, under the double promise; first, not to proselytise; and, secondly-so Dr. Miller is very anxious to impress on his readers to give the master full liberty to instruct every child in the school in the meaning of the portion of Scripture which he had been reading,' (p. 23.) 'Doctrinal instruction' (p. 24), the society and Dr. Miller expressly disclaim; of the occasional correction of error in the interpretation of a passage in Scripture' (ibid.) they reserve to themselves the full liberty. And by way of illustrating this distinction, Dr. Miller (p. 25), distinctly and calmly states that a teacher might explain the important words, this is my body, without arguing against the doctrine of transubstantiation, informing the reader simply, that they were understood to mean only, this represents my body, agreeably to other phrases of the Scriptures. And again, without entering into the question of the Arian doctrine, he might surely admonish a child who had read the words, my Father is greater than me, that they were applicable only to the human condition in which our Saviour was at that time placed.' If this really be a fair representation of the Case of the Church Education Society,' which we question, whether that body be a greater insult to common honesty or common sense it would be hard to say.

It would be quite unfair to a book like 'Professor Andrews Norton's Genuineness of the Gospels,' of which an English edition has been published by Chapman, to dismiss it with simple contempt. It is not a work to be despised, and will bear careful study by those whose function it is to discuss the external evidences. It is written in a fair and candid spirit; but it fully deserves the bad fame which has preceded it. Its line is, however, nearly obliterated by the bolder and, let us add, more logical rationalists of Germany; so that we doubt whether it will tell on the English mind. We must believe much less or much more than Mr. Norton. Merely to eliminate the first two chapters of St. Matthew's Gospel, and to explain away our Lord's plain adoption of the fabulous' narrative of Jonah-to take two instances at hand-will satisfy nobody.

Euchologion; a Series of Family Prayers, &c.' (Graham: Masters,) is a good collection for private use, which may run parallel with the public Daily Office, or, in its absence, may be used safely alone. The multiplication of these

manuals is a sign by no means to be lost sight of. We are hardly satisfied with the adoption of a term already used for a formal ecclesiastical book in ritual use in the Oriental Church.

Bishop Jolly's famous book on the 'Christian Sacrifice in the Eucharist,' has been seasonably reprinted, (Aberdeen: Brown.)

The Cambridge Camden Society-we have not yet quite learned its new title, the Ecclesiological-has expanded the well-known and well-valued 'Few Hints, &c.' into a very complete Hand-book of English Ecclesiology,' (Masters.) It will be inseparable from all our summer tours. Being merely a collection of facts and inferences, it cannot be expected to deal much with arguments, or to state both sides of a dispute. Hence, what is no fault, its decided tone, and vigorous, business-like summaries. Now and then we may be allowed to differ; but the book is too small to set down opposite explanations. We detect a preference to the more recondite explanations: ex. grat. in accounting for the Vesica Piscis, the possible origin from the ixùs, and the scarcely possible derivation from the Almond, are recorded, without a hint of that which is much more easy, M. Didron's, the elongated and oval Aureola. A summary of subjects, as well as an Index locorum, is much needed.

'Mary Tudor, a Drama; and other Poems: by Sir Aubrey de Vere,' (Pickering.) The author of this engaging volume has not sought to please parties in Mary Tudor; we may hesitate, therefore, more about his success than his capabilities to deserve it. To praise, or to do justice, at the same time, to Queen Mary and her sister, and to draw with equal powers and equal fairness both Pole and Cranmer, bespeak rather the poet than the politic writer. Nor are we certain that both parties had equal claims to eulogy. As a drama, in its old sense, Mary Tudor, being quite deficient in plot, must be considered a failure; but in strong delineation of character, as well as in vigorous detached scenes, the author shows unusual powers. The delicate strokes by which Queen Mary's enduring affection for her cousin are hinted, rather than drawn, display the artist; and the affecting speeches in the last act delivered by the dying Queen are very fine. On more accounts than one this poem deserves a careful perusal if in any point it is weak, it is in the introduction of subordinate, however historical, personages, who are scarcely agents.—The minor poems are chiefly of earlier years: as a finished landscape piece we were much pleased with the Glen of Glangoole.'

A Hand-Book for Oxford,' (J. H. Parker,) consists in the illustrations of the excellent wood-cuts of Dr. Ingram's Memorials, with some useful additions; and in the letter-press of a tolerably successful abridgement of the same work. Where the present writer adds to his original he is generally accurate: the introduction is poor and unsatisfactory, with some lamentable attempts at easy writing. It is perhaps essential to all guide-books that they should breathe nothing but pearls and roses: bearing this in mind, we are disposed rather to note than to object to certain statements: such as that at p. 76.- The east window of Brasenose is a really elegant specimen of Gothic tracery;' which, curious and important as it is, it is certainly neither 'elegant' nor 'Gothic;" that at p. 195, that Mr. Blore's 'restoration at S. John's is very successful,' the new work being no restoration, and anything but successful; and one at p. 189,