Conclusion. 251 from nature as it appears, more than from nature as it is. Is it strange that it should so have been with the ancient Jew, and that even the more scientific statements of his inspired guides should be tinged with a tendency of this nature? In truth, the facts in this connexion which offend us, are facts, for the most part, by which we should be convinced. What we here say concerning the science of the Bible, and what we have said concerning its history, we say advisedly. We have present to our mind as we thus write, the field of alleged discrepancy, error, and contradiction; and we believe that the great mass of the difficulty so alleged may be swept utterly away, and that the residuum which may not seem to admit of satisfactory explanation, would be found so small that no healthy-hearted man would need to be disturbed by it. On the other hand, the doctrine which teaches that only the religious and moral element of the Scriptures is inspired, that all the rest is merely human, and incident to the errors of the human, is a doctrine which, we feel convinced, could not become the received doctrine of our people, without proving a death-blow to the Christian piety of these nations. The man who takes this ground has to defend it; and so comes under a strong temptation to cede difficulty where he need not, and even to find it where it does not exist. Experiment in this direction has been made. Results have been ascertained. Partial inspiration has been found to have its natural issue in non-inspiration; and every measure of advance towards that issue has been found to be the measure in which the truths of the Bible have lost their power with the people, and Christianity has become an undefined something with which a few genteel speculators have done pretty much as they pleased. No doubt, some good men who have adopted this theory are far from meaning to further any such results. We say nothing about the intentions of such persons, we speak only of what we feel convinced is the natural and necessary tendency of their doctrine. OUR EPILOGUE ON AFFAIRS. THE feeling between America and this country has been ruffled of late. But the return of the Resolute is a graceful deed. Every British heart will respond to it gratefully and generously. Europe is not yet at peace. Over one-half her territory there are the signs of smothered war. Paris conferences are renewed; the bold and magnanimous Frederick menaces Neufchatel; the Father of his people at Naples lives amidst rumours of conspiracy and danger of assassination; and poor Lombardy cannot be wooed into loyalty even by the presence and the smiles of a young Emperor. Herat is the key to Affghanistan, and Affghanistan is the path into British India. The Shah, and his master, the Czar, know this; and while the Czar says to the Shah, Take care of Herat; the GovernorGeneral says, You promised to leave Herat to take care of herself, and I am here to see that you fulfil your promise. Rashness, say some men-who can tell where it may end? Wisdom, say others-who can tell what it may prevent? Our home politics promise Law Reform. Can men of law, or any other men, tell us what we are to do with our criminals ? But, in the judgment of some men, the nuisance of all nuisances just now is in our Theological Newspapers. Religious truth and religious life are sacred things-the man incurs a heavy responsibility who employs himself in laying them open to the gaze and mockery of the ignorant and the profane. Grave fault of this kind there must be in some of these journals, or wise and devout men would not be so often known to wish that a grave might be found beneath the Thames for the whole of them. But it surely is possible that a newspaper, in common with the human life it brings before us, should be pervaded by a religious spirit, without its becoming a constant vehicle of the misrepresentation and bitterness too commonly attendant on theological dis cussions. OUR EPILOGUE ON BOOKS. LITERATURE. Early Years and Late Reflections. By CLEMENT CARLYON, M.D. 3 vols. Whittaker & Co.-Dr. Carlyon is a genial octogenarian, who talks to us from his easy-chair through these three volumes, assuming not unfitly the privilege of age, and giving utterance in rambling and desultory fashion to most miscellaneous reminiscence and reflection. He soliloquizes at length, wandering from topic to topic, as though he were sure of some patient listener on the other side of the fireplace, who would receive with just so much of reply as indicated attention the long series of musing recollection. Coleridge spoke to the good Doctor one day of the pleasures he enjoyed in the meditative conception of a poem, and of the pains, on the other hand, which attended its actual execution. Dr. Carlyon, however, honestly confesses that the exercise of the pen is untroubled, in his own case, by any such torment. He has written with such enjoyment to himself because he has put down his thoughts just as they arose-has roamed at will among his favourite themes and his favourite authors, now culling a choice extract, now launching into a disquisition, as though his readers had at their command a space of leisure not less ample than that which he himself has earned so well. Gossip of this kind is never painful in the writing. Some of the details on which he dwells might have been omitted without loss; some of his reflections would have lost none of their force by some curtailment of their length; some of the extracts which swell his volumes are neither so remarkable nor so recondite as to justify quotation, now that books are so numerous and so accessible. But after such abatement on this score as the measure of the reader's patience may demand, the interest of very much that he relates will be readily acknowledged, and on the justice of most of his 'reflections' the thoughtful will be generally agreed. These memorabilia of a long and useful life are free from egotism, vanity, or bitterness. They contain no unjustifiable disclosures concerning the famous dead. They are large-minded and mellowed in their tone of thought, as should be ever the evening reminiscence of the Christian man. Into the theologic province, more than any other, Dr. Carlyon loves to digress. He writes as one warmly attached to the Church of England, but in a liberal, manly spirit, cognizant of some of her faults, and well knowing that it is no irreverence (but truest reverence, rather) which makes him bold to point them out. The educated laymen of the establishment are, for the most part, far beyond her priesthood in liberality and breadth of view. A daily increasing number see with Dr. Carlyon that neither in symbol, articles, nor ritual has she achieved even a practicable perfection, while she is still farther from presenting a door wide enough to justify her national claims. Nearly the whole of the first of these volumes is occupied with reminiscences of Coleridge while in Germany, and with the anecdotes and observations which spring up so copiously, under the author's prolific hand, about the incidents he narrates. At Göttingen, Coleridge excited much attention as a 'noticeable Englander.' Requested by a German student in the same class to write in his Stammbuch, or album, on his departure, Coleridge complies as follows: "We both attended the same college, Where sheets of paper we did blur many; And now we're going to sport our knowledge- Imagine the German student puzzling over these lines, and very likely supposing that Coleridge had written something exceeding tender and poetical! It is interesting to observe Coleridge as Dr. Carlyon presents him, before he had attained his celebrity, and while in the pursuit of the knowledge, and the gradual formation of those opinions which were to find such full and ardent utterance in his later writings. Even at that time his flow of speculative talk was something wonderful, and he seemed bent on making the two or three Englishmen who studied with him as metaphysical as himself. He used often to combat, with as much force as fervour, the frigid rationalism of the German literati. While they were commonly bigoted and irritable, Coleridge was patient, tolerant, and never out of temper. His project at that time (when twenty-six) was a History of German Poetry, to occupy two quarto volumes. The farewell evening at Göttingen was spent as follows: COLERIDGE AT PROFESSOR BLUMENBACH'S. 'Monday, the 24th of June, having been fixed for his final departure from Göttingen, I had the pleasure of spending a most entertaining take-leave evening with him at Professor Blumenbach's. Our party, at supper, consisted, in addition to the Professor's own family, of young Blumenbach's fellow-tourists only; and the conversation, which was chiefly in German, was particularly sprightly and amusing on the part of the Professor and Coleridge, who, even then, after nine months' residence in Germany, thought it no undue precaution to carry with him a pocket-dictionary, to which he hesitated not to apply if he happened to be at a loss for a word; but this was seldom the case; and there was something inexpressibly comic in the manner in which he dashed on, with fluent diction, but with the very worst German accent imaginable, through the thick and thin of his subject. Mrs. and Miss Blumenbach, the ladies of the party, were as much astonished as they were highly delighted with him; and I do not think that their enjoyment was once interrupted by any allusion whatever to Miss Matilda Pottingen; for it was well understood by us that 'Sweet Matilda,' false or true, and all the rest about the U-niversity of Göttingen,' was far from being a favourite topic of conversation with the Göttingen ladies.' The Communion of Labour. 255 The second volume is chiefly occupied with reminiscences of Abernethy, and remarks on his books and lectures. We have also recollections of a visit to Sir Walter Scott, and some professional anecdotes à propos of the accomplished Dr. Glynn. Our author, as a Cornishman, takes especial pride in the worthies of his native county. Henry Martyn was a native of Cornwall, and educated by Dr. Carden at the Truro Grammar School. At Cambridge he obtained, as is well known, the rank of Senior Wrangler. Dr. Carlyon went to the same school, and was fellow of his college at the same university. Starting with his recollections of Martyn's boyhood, he is carried away into a running commentary on his journal, comparisons with Heber, remarks on the deistic controversy, on the Church of England, &c. &c. Just as are many of his observations, there was assuredly no occasion for so many extracts from a source already before the public, and to which, moreover, nothing could be added from personal knowledge. The recollections of Cambridge are interesting, and these might have sufficed. HENRY MARTYN. 'Harry Martyn, the familiar name by which I best remember him, was, as a schoolboy, not at all remarkable for any precocity of talent, or unusual proficiency in learning; neither was he particularly studious, like his friend Kempthorne ; nor, like his schoolfellow, Sir Humphry Davy, addicted to writing pretty verses. He is best remembered as a good-humoured, plain little fellow, with red eyelids, devoid of eyelashes, and indicative of a scrofulous habit; and with hands so thickly covered with warts, that it was impossible for him to keep them clean, or for his respected master, who borrowed a rather large leaf out of old Busby's book, to inflict on him when idle those stripes over the back of the hand to which he was not a little partial. By what charm Harry got rid of these warts, I never knew; but before he commenced his residence at Cambridge they had entirely disappeared; his eyelids were also much improved, and, although rather low in stature, and plain in person, he was not disagreeably so; whilst his amiable disposition and sociability insured him the esteem and friendship of all who were acquainted with him. He came to reside at St. John's College in the autumn of 1797, the year following that in which Kempthorne had gone out Senior Wrangler; and in 1801, when not quite twenty years of age, he gained the same pre-eminent distinction. He was most fortunate in finding there such a friend as Kempthorne, who was a few years his senior, had known him as a schoolfellow, and was attached to him as a Cornishman.' In the course of this volume, Dr. Carlyon adduces some remarkable instances of dreams, takes occasion to dispute some of Dr. Brewster's statements concerning the plurality of worlds, couches a lance against Baden Powell, compares the death-bed scenes of some eminent individuals, and discusses now a psychological and now a theological question, as an anecdote or a passage in a book, or the feeling of the moment, may happen to suggest. The Communion of Labour. By Mrs. JAMESON.-The 'female labour question' is too large for a short paragraph like the present. This book is a lecture delivered by Mrs. Jameson to a circle of friends, and is a sequel to the former one-Sisters of Charity at Home and Abroad. We advisedly called this a question;' it is as yet nothing more with us, though it has long been answered on the continent; and it is to statements of facts collected, and observations made in |