Agnes de Tracy. A Tale of the Times of S. Thomas of Canterbury. By the Rev. J. M. NEALE, M.A. &c. Cambridge: Stevenson. London: Rivingtons. 1843.

OUR readers may remember the warm terms in which we recommended to them our author's former little tale, "Herbert Tresham.” If we are not so hearty in our assurances in favour of the present, it is from no falling off that we have observed, either in Mr. Neale's powers or his invention. This tale is certainly a clever one, and the descriptions of mediæval worship and customs are not only lively and attractive, but would, at another time, we think have been very useful. At present, however, the public mind is in no very fit state for receiving them. On no side do men seem capable of thinking temperately on the subject of the epoch in which Mr. Neale has fixed his story, or of the extraordinary person whom he has made its hero. Let us hope that, in a year or two, a man may venture to announce what estimate of Thomas à Becket he may have been able to form, without being supposed thereby to involve all manner of doctrinal and practical consequences.

Mr. Neale takes a most disparaging view of Bishop Foliot, speaking of him as a mere hypocrite. Our author's master, Mr. Froude, formed a more mixed, more charitable, and, we think, a more probable, estimate of his character and principles.

But it is of comparatively little consequence in what light Mr. Neale regards the characters either of Becket or Foliot. What we complain of is that, in his enthusiastic descriptions of the ritual and practice of the Church in their age, he gives no sign of discrimination. A heedless reader will consider him to think that all was right then, and that all is wrong now. To produce such an impression was, doubtless, far from his design; but people in general look so much at first appearances, that we are sure of ultra-Protestants denouncing his book as popish, and ultra-medievals claiming it as on their side, and making it serve as one pretext more for a discontented repining after the past, and shutting their eyes to the plain duties connected with the present.

We may mention a literary defect. The whole dialogue consists of sentences cast in an inverted mould, and having sundry phrases and peculiarities, which, along with the other feature, have, by Sir W. Scott and his followers, been employed as conventionally appropriate when their scene is fixed any time between the Conquest and the age of Elizabeth. It is a peculiarly tiresome structure of sentence; and as it never could have been used in conversation, being in fact a clumsy imitation of the more objectionable features in the literary styles of the seventeenth century, we think it had better be abandoned. Mr. Neale's characters must really have talked Norman-French or AngloSaxon. We grant that it would have been inconvenient to have given their conversations in either language; and since the facts of the case must therefore be departed from, and their talk represented in a translation, why not in such English as should resemble talk?

The True Ministers of Christ accredited by the Holy Spirit: a Sermon preached at the Visitation of the Ven. the Archdeacon of Derby, &c. By the Rev. PHILIP GELL, M.A. Published at the request of the Clergy. Hatchards.

OUR readers are aware that we do not generally give separate notice to sermons, unless there be something uncommon connected with them. We hope that the present may fairly be ranked among our excepted cases. Though approximations to the tone and character of the document now before us are, we fear, much too frequent, we do hope that their full-grown manifestation here is as yet uncommon in the pulpit. Mr. Gell was probably not aware, when he betook himself to the work of slandering and misrepresenting many of his clerical brethren, that he was about to violate an important canon of the Church. We write it advisedly,-that Canon must by-and-bye be enforced. If the present evil continues, people must bestir themselves to rescue the pulpit from such a prostitution of its uses; and bring the uncharitable offender before the superior, to whose censures he has become amenable.

To say of Mr. Gell's sermon that it is rude and ignorant, is only to say that it is like too many others. But we must give a specimen or two of his right to accuse others of bad Churchmanship, and his qualifications for deciding on such points. His position is, that no man is a real minister of Christ, who is not personally sanctified by the Holy Ghost. Here are his own words :

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But, alas! it is not only the unholy beyond dispute that may fail of the Holy Ghost. What say the habits of vain conversation in many; their ease and pleasure in worldly occupations and amusements; their constraint under sacred employments, and their gladness when such works are done? Must their hearts be the temples of the Holy Ghost? Will He make the word to be the power of God,' to honour their preaching of it; or the sacraments means of grace to own their administration? May He not, does He not refuse to do so? Where is the fruit of their labour? "-Pp. 7, 8. How often, may we ask, has Mr. Gell subscribed his allegiance to Article XXVI. ?

In the very next page to this flat contradiction of one of them, we are favoured with Mr. Gell's views of the Articles in general.

"Now it has often been acknowledged by the opposite party, that the compilers of our Articles were not only protestant, but calvinistic, and what we now call evangelical, in their religious views. It has often been felt and allowed, that, in the plain and full meaning of these Articles, according to their literal and grammatical sense, which the royal declaration peremptorily claims for them, without admitting of any new sense whatever, they favour less the Laudians and the Arminians, than the Puritans and Calvinists."-P. 9.

Did Mr. Gell ever hear of the late Archbishop Lawrence? Perhaps he might find that prelate capable of adding to his information about the Articles.

But our fullest indignation is reserved for an outrage at the close of the discourse, than which we never heard, in our own day, of a grosser.

"The happy and heavenly deaths of those who had lived upon the doctrines of evangelical protestantism are immortal and irresistible testimonies in favour of that sort of Christianity, as the truth of God. They constitute an evidence, which Anglo

catholics will never be able to produce. What were the latter days of Froude, their modern proto-saint, if not their proto-martyr? Where are their dying witnesses ?" -P. 47.

Mr. Gell tells us that a paragraph or two of this sermon was omitted in the delivery; but he does not tell of this having been one of them. If it was not, where, we ask, was the common manliness of the Derby clergy that they did not resent the outrage,—that they condescended to ask the preacher to put his unfeeling insolence into print? But we will give both him and them the benefit of the doubt; we will, in charity, suppose that this most offensive sentence was not heard from the pulpit; though we think it greatly concerns both Mr. Gell and his brother clergy of Derby distinctly to assure us of this. Even as the case is, it is bad enough in all conscience. Without saying one word, at present, on Mr. Froude's peculiar opinions on some subjects, we can hardly wish better for Mr. Gell, than that it should be with him, at his dying hour, as we believe it was with the object of his indecent attack-an attack which, considering that Mr. Froude's father is still living, is about the most unfeeling we ever heard of. A late distinguished ornament of our Church, who was far, indeed, from agreeing with Mr. Froude in all his opinions, said, on hearing of his death, that he believed there never was a case in which the transition from saint to angel must have been more slight. This was the testimony of one whose spiritual discernment we should rank as much above Mr. Gell's, as his talents and attainments unquestionably would have been insulted by the comparison.

The Spiritual Creation, or Soul's New Birth. A Poem in seven Books. By Mrs. MARTYN ROBERTS. London: Pickering. 12mo. pp. 170.

THIS is a metaphysical and theological poem, preceded by an excursus of some forty pages, devoted to evolving the views on which the poem is constructed; and, consequently, we have to regard the authoress in the threefold capacity of poet, philosopher, and divine. The poetry, so far as we have read it, is pleasing and above par; neither do we quarrel with the theory that a type of every spiritual truth is to be found in the physical world, so long as persons do not attempt to make a creed for themselves by the study of these correspondences. It will be readily seen that it makes all the difference, whether a person when he devotes himself to this insinuating kind of inquiry, has already learnt his faith of the Church, or whether he is going in search of a faith. In the one case it is not only a safe but a profitable employment; in the other it is, perhaps, the most dangerous course on which the experimentalist can set forth. The kingdoms of nature and grace abound, confessedly, in so many analogies, that the mind is sure to find stores of pleasing occupation in tracing them out; but their very variety is likely to mislead him, unless his mind has been trained in the severe school of catholic theology-unless he has learnt to resist any tempting theory that may arise to lead him away from the truth, by the opposing authority of the Church; and can take his stand on this simple ground, "This is the catholic faith, which, except a man believe faithfully he cannot be saved." We can foresee no prospect of

peace and unity for the Church, nor of any substantial growth in grace, till Churchmen learn practically, as of old, to apply this test, "This is"—"This is not-the catholic faith." It is the misfortune and fault of Mrs. Roberts that she was not so trained; and, accordingly, we find her treating that most elevating of all christian truths-the "soul's new-birth" as still an open question-if not to be decided by woman's wit, and fanciful analogies, at least one on which each person may lawfully speculate to his soul's content. The theory of Mrs. Roberts, like that we noticed in our June number, is nearer to the catholic doctrine than some which have been lately broached: but still it is a mere experiment of private judgment, and therefore is unhesitatingly to be condemned. She protests against the "cant use of the word conversion," and speaks of the "spiritual pride which is engendered by the idea that such a new birth has taken place in a man when he first begins to be religious" as most dangerous, and urges the necessity of continued renewal and growth in grace; but, on the other hand, she ventures to divorce "what God hath joined together," the "water and the Spirit," the united agents of regeneration; and in other places, seems to put baptism almost entirely out of view.

With Mr. Napper's theory we dealt tenderly. Irish theology, indeed, demands more tenderness than we are disposed to award in our own church-but really "Jam satis est!" If we are ever to be "laying again the first principles of the doctrine of Christ," how shall we " go on unto perfection"?

Specimens of Ancient Church Plate, Sepulchral Crosses, &c. No. IV. Oxford: Parker. Cambridge: Stevenson. London: Rivingtons, and Burns.

WE have already noticed the two first numbers of this book. The fourth has just appeared, and is entirely devoted to specimens of church plate. The execution is superior to any of the former numbers; and the subjects are amongst the best of the very few specimens which this country still possesses. Two patterns are given; one being the very beautiful one from Cliffe Church in Kent, silver-gilt and enamelled. Two chalices are also given; one being the elaborate one still in use at Trinity College, Oxford. There is also an ancient altar candlestick. As the editors of this book are endeavouring to possess themselves of drawings of all the plate remaining in the country, it will soon be seen how careful and indefatigable was the sacrilegious spirit which possessed the statesmen of the sixteenth, and the common people of the succeeding century.

We have noticed this work again, as it is really desirable that the information contained in it should be extensively circulated. It is quite time that the clergy knew something of the subject, and that the present manufacture of vulgar vessels was discontinued. Let it be once known, generally, what the true chalice is, and we shall have them in universal use.

Mr. Paget's "Tract on Tombstones," is good in tone and intention. We quite agree with him that it would be desirable to decrease mortuary memorials in point of number: if we must have them, anything is preferable to our head and foot-stones. The illustrations on the whole are creditable. III. IV. and V. are head stones of early design. We should like to have seen a greater variety in point of date. No. VII. seems scarcely suitable for wood. The addition of a coped wooden cross, smaller in size than any given, would have improved the series.

"Essays on the Partial Derangement of the Mind, in supposed connexion with Religion," &c. by the late J. Cheyne, M.D. &c. (Dublin, Curry,) are the fruits of a pious and amiable mind. It seems to us, that medical learning and experience alone are hardly enough to establish all the author's conclusions, but there is doubtless much practical truth in the greater part of his remarks. We have great pleasure in recommending to notice "The Homilies of the Anglo-Saxon Church," which seems to promise being a series, whereof "The Homilies of Elfric, with an English Translation by B. Thorpe, Esq." occupy Parts I. and II. of vol. i. They are printed "for the Elfric Society," an association of which we confess not to have previously heard, but of which the objects are, doubtless, very important. We are glad to observe the name of Mr. J. M. Kemble among the cooperators.

We have also satisfaction in announcing to our readers, the appearance of a new and enlarged edition of Mr. Markland's excellent "Remarks on English Churches," (Parker, Oxford-Rivingtons). We have here both fresh matter and more engravings than in the first edition; among the latter there will be found one of the new monumental window at Chichester. An index is also appended.

"Nine and Two, or School Hours," &c., by G. Musgrave, M.A., and “A Vocabulary of Explanations," &c., by the same, (Rivingtons,) are manuals in which a good deal will be found that is useful, though they are perhaps too bulky and dear for the purpose intended. We wish the author would not call Dissenters' meeting-houses Chapels, and that he would reconsider one of his arguments in defence of the Prayer-Book, that it is almost entirely in the words of holy writ. This is not true, and it would be no merit if it were; it would be but stringing together the words and phrases of Scripture, to the injury of their meaning and use. We suspect, in opposition to our author, that it is more the case with dissenting than with church prayers. We also desiderate higher doctrine in our author's exposition, both of the institution of the Lord's Supper, and of the Discourse with Nicodemus. Mr. Musgrave writes more worthily of the former when he comes to John vi.

Judging from a glance,

"The Baroness, a Tale," &c. (Seeley and Burnside). it seems well-written in parts; but we can see that its doctrine is unsound. We wish that anything we could say would keep versifiers' hands off the Psalms. The Rev. F. Skurray, B.D. has just added one more to our metrical versions of strains to which modern metre is inapplicable, (Pickering.) A true poet of our day has tried the experiment, and has himself pointed out the reason why it must be so. Mr. Skurray seems by no means an inelegant versifier, but he has diluted the Hebrew energy of the Psalmist, so much as to make it almost disappear, without having departed enough from the original, to give himself any real scope.

"Questions for Self-examination," (Toovey,) and "Catechism for the use of young persons of the Church of England," from the same publisher, are manuals which, although probably they will meet with prejudiced critics, are, we think, to be estimated with candour. One great defect in our practical teaching, the lack of definiteness, closeness, and reality in the spiritual walk, they are admirably calculated to meet; and we cannot but be satisfied with whatever tends to cultivate tenderness of conscience as to individual cases of action as they arise.