throughout a muscular vigour, though its display be so coarse (it must be confessed) as to remind us more of the statue of the flayed Bartholomew, than of the torso of Hercules. To this mannerism are owing his greatest beauties. However disagreeable a quality it may be in general, it has a wonderful charm when the author's peculiar power and disposition, which gave it birth, come into play. Its very defects then give beauty. In fact, being natural, it is no longer mannerism. We are sometimes struck with the inexpressible, and almost heavenly, sweetness of a smile suddenly relaxing into playful wreaths on a fixed and gloomy countenance. Such is the effect of some passages in his

writings."-Third Series, p. 362.

We should like to have followed Mr. Evans into his clear and satisfactory examination of Tertullian's doctrine and character, because his opinion is evidently formed from a careful analysis of his writings. The reader will also consult with advantage the account of Irenæus and his great work,-A Refutation and Subversion of Knowledge falsely so called. Mosheim and other modern writers have depreciated its merits. If indeed, it is justly remarked, they looked for deep philosophical investigation, and for learned speculations drawn from the various systems current in the world, and connected with this interesting subject, they would be disappointed. Irenæus was not writing for idle and dreamy scholars, but for practical and active teachers. Had he, indeed, says Mr. Evans, like too many modern writers on sacred subjects, sought his own glory rather than the good of his Master's service, he might have preferred brilliant theory to sober truth. But instead of such vain flourishes, such uncertain running and beating of the air, he follows his adversary close on his track, overtakes him, and grapples with him. The postures may seem inelegant to those who are practised only in the light and dancing attitudes of modern speculation; their vigour may be mistaken for rudeness, and the clenched grasp is not to the taste of those who catch at the painted butterflies of showy conjecture. If it be a merit, however, in a writer fully to accomplish his purpose, Irenæus is entitled to it in the highest degree. He put a weapon into the hands of all his brethren, which they employed with sure effect. The heresies have long been numbered with the extinct offsprings of human folly. But his work still lives. From his quiver the opposite ranks were continually assailed, until they were forced to quit the field, and to take up other ground, thence to be driven again by new champions.-Evans, p. 239.) The history of Clement of Alexandria, possesses also a lively interest for the Christian and the scholar. The probable hypothesis of his Grecian origin connects him with the land of Eloquence and Song, while the stream of his life conducts us into the midst of the literature and the glory of the Egyptian Athens. To the Christian and the scholar his works hold out uncommon charms: the first is won by the benignity of his

spirit, the sweetness of his admonition, the fervour of his piety; the second is delighted by the stores of classic literature, fragments of attic gold diligently inlaid in his pages, and the air of Grecian beauty diffused over the whole. We travel a dreary road through Ecclesiastical History before we meet again the mild lineaments and the endearing manners of the Christian Scholar.

We have bestowed very warm praise upon these contributions to our Scripture Biography, and heartily rejoice at the success they have obtained; the diffusion of such knowledge must be in the highest degree useful and instructive; and among our younger brethren, in particular, its circulation may be recommended. We cannot, however, but notice two or three blemishes in the literary composition of the work. Mr. Evans often writes, as we have shown, with elegance and beauty; but his style is occasionally deficient in ease, flexibility, and grace. His imagery is frequently new and even poetical, but he sometimes mars it by an incorrect use of metaphorical language. He pushes a metaphor into reality. A few examples will support, while they explain, our objections. In the life of Isaiah, after alluding to the momentary revival of the dignity of Israel and Judah under the second Jeroboham and Uzziah, he continues, "This proved, indeed, to be but the last broad glare of the flickering lamp thrown forth before final extinction, and the good and the wise looked with fear and trembling upon its ominous unsteadiness."— (Second Series, p. 144.) Here a reality is given to the metaphor, destructive of all impressiveness. You see the candle, or the lamp, not the fortunes of a nation. Again, in allusion to the evangelical character of the prophecies of Isaiah: "Whatever horrible characters and scenes may occupy his foreground; however dark his sky, still we always discover the gleam of the promised dayspring in the welkin."—(Ib. p. 148.) The most careless reader must perceive the inaccuracy of this expression. Once more; speaking of the learning of Nicodemus, Mr. Evans observes, that he could deliver rules for the most exact observance of the letter of Scripture, splitting it into a thousand subtle divisions, until the broad channel was lost in an infinite and perplexing ramification of dykes, each of which was to be painfully followed out, &c. (Ib. p. 238.) We abstain from giving the remainder of this most intricate and involved paragraph, being only desirous of pointing out the strange introduction of the word dykes in a religious argument. Other instances will occur to the reader of the volume; they may be easily removed, and the work itself would be greatly improved by their omission.

It would be a delightful and beneficial employment to accompany Mr. Smedley through his interesting narrative of the Protestant Church in France, from the first glimmerings of sacred light, which broke through the passes of the Alpine

valleys, from the secluded Goshen of the Vaudois,* throughout its melancholy variety of persecution, obloquy and martyrdom. Often perplexed, yet not forsaken-cast down, but not destroyedshe still went forward conquering and to conquer, keeping her eye steadfastly fixed upon that Star which shines in the darkest night. In turning over these pages, we are painfully reminded that their author is removed from censure or from praise, and that the sweetest words of approval would fall in vain upon the cold ear of death! Whoever is acquainted with the Venetian Sketches, published in the Family Library, knows how happily Mr. Smedley's light, easy, and graphic manner is adapted to a work like the present. The stream of his history flows with a clear and harmonious current; never turbid, frequently deep; his reflections are well expressed and appropriately introduced; his portraits painted with skill and impartiality, and coloured with considerable richness and brilliancy. Beza and Calvin, Richelieu and Mazarin, Coligny and Sully, De Mornay and Condé, the Duke of Guise and the Cardinal of Lorraine these, and many more of hardly inferior interest, all live and move upon his page. To fill up so vast an historical picture, so crowded with portraits and teeming with incident, demanded no common talents for grouping and arrangement; and judging from the pleasure with which we peruse the history, the writer has not laboured in vain. If we were inclined to make any objection where so much is excellent, it would be against a frequent disposition to indulge in humour, hardly accordant with the gravity of the theme and the character of the composition.

No portion of the Narrative will be read with a deeper sympathy than the terrific details of the massacre of St. Bartholomew; the fearful scene of bloodshed, of tumult and agony, glares upon the sight with increased horror from the very mystery which envelops the preparations for this display of inhuman ferocitythis Carnival of murder and of crime! How far the king was guilty of the cruelties which occurred,-how far his consent was active or passive, whether he repented of the evil, or rejoiced in the desolation and ruin it produced, are conjectures that history does not enable us to solve. The reader will find, in the vivid description of Mr. Smedley, a picture of the massacre terrible in its truth and distinctness. He has intentionally reduced the relation within the narrowest limits, not only from a religious indisposition to minister to minds craving for unhealthy excitement, but because he felt that too elaborate a portraiture of suffering and wickedness betrays, at the same time, the moral distortion of the artist's mind, and his ignorance of the rules of

History of the Reformed Religion in France, vol. i. p. 2.

his art.* A part of the episode we shall quote, both for its own interest, and as a specimen of the author's style.

"Day had not yet broken, when all Paris was awakened by the clang of the tocsin of St. Germain de l'Auxerre, the signal at which it had been preconcerted, that the troops should be on the alert. Many of the Huguenots who lodged in the neighbourhood sprang from their beds, and hastening to the palace, inquired the cause of this unexpected and untimely sound; and to what purpose the throng of armed men was directed whom they saw moving, rapidly and tumultuously, in many directions, by torch-light. They were at first carelessly answered that a court spectacle was in preparation; their farther questions were rebutted with insolence which led to blows. Meantime the Duke of Guise, accompanied by his uncle d'Aumâll, and the Bastard of Angoulême, advanced towards the Hôtel of Coligny, where Cosseins, warned of their approach, had made fit dispositions for attack. The wounded admiral had been roused from a feverish sleep by the din of the alarm bell, but confident in the recent friendly professions of the king, and in the fidelity of the royal guard, by which he deemed himself to be protected, he at first thought that some partial tumult had been raised by the Guisards, which would speedily be suppressed. As the noise increased and drew nearer, and as the report of fire-arms was heard in his own court-yard, he tardily and reluctantly admitted a suspicion of the truth; and rising from the bed, notwithstanding the weakness which compelled him to lean for support against the wall of his chamber, he addressed himself to prayer with his chaplain Merlin, and his few other attendants. One of his servants, Labonne, summoned by a loud knocking at the outer gates, had already descended with the keys; and when Cosseins demanded entrance in the king's name, he opened them unhesitatingly and without apprehension. The daggers of the assassins, as they rushed in, prostrated him lifeless at the threshold; and the five Swiss, warned by his fate, ran into the house, closed the door, and raised a hasty barricade with such furniture as they found at hand. One of their number, however, fell beneath the shot which had excited the admiral's alarm, and the frail barrier which the others had constructed soon gave way, under the blows of the assailants. As their steps were heard ascending the staircase, Coligny, no longer doubtful of the event, turned with an unaltered countenance to his friends, and urgently warned them to consult their own safety. For myself,' he added, escape is impossible; and happily I am well prepared for the death which I have long anticipated. Human aid can no longer extricate me; but you need not be involved in my calamity, neither must your wives hereafter curse me as the author of their widowhood.' The roof afforded them hope of secure retreat; and over this they dispersed themselves, after having broken through the tiling. The assassins, five in number, armed in shirts of mail, had now gained the door of the apartment. The first who entered was a German, named Besme, nurtured from his childhood in the family of the Duke of Guise.

* Vol. ii. p. 2.

Coligny, in his night-dress, calmly awaited their onset; and when asked by Besme in a calm voice whether he were the admiral, replied at once in the affirmative; pointed to his grey hairs, as demanding reverence from youth; and added, that at the utmost, his life could be shortened but a little space. The murderer, unmoved by this calm and dauntless bearing, passed his sword through the veteran's body, and after withdrawing it inflicted a deep gash across his face, while his associates dispatched him with repeated blows. The sole complaint which fell from Coligny's lips during his agony, was a regret that he should perish by the hand of a menial.'

The history of the Protestant Church in France, cannot be read by an Englishman without a sincere and almost domestic interest; the early heresy of Bohemia has been considered influential in raising up a Wiclif for England, as he was instrumental in giving a Huss and a Jerome to Bohemia. By Catholic writers of the highest authority, the apostle of our Reformation -by whatever method he attained the knowledge—is regarded as adopting the doctrines of the Waldenses; and the Vaudois to the present day are represented as claiming sentiments of brotherly affection from ourselves. Mr. Blunt, in his clever sketch of the Reformation, has noticed this circumstance, which has been introduced with peculiar beauty and force into one of Wordsworth's Ecclesiastical Sketches. Nor will Dr. Russell's History of the Church in Scotland fail to excite a warm interest in the reader, although from its nature deficient in the animated and picturesque variety of scene and character which throws a romantic charm over the annals of the French Reformers. What it wants in poetry, however, is supplied by its domestic importance. Of all the individuals whose features have engaged the talents of the historian, none are more familiar to us than those of Knox; harsh, stern, overbearing, with few redeeming gleams of Christian meekness or humanity. His ambition, his pride, and his vanity, live in his actions. The veins of sympathy seem to have been dried up in him; sufferings could not divert him from his enmity; beauty could not soften him; death could not satisfy him; Cardinal Beaton sinking under the knife of murder was a source of merriment; the assassins of Rizzio were deemed worthy of prayers. "I am not ignorant," he is reported to have said upon his death-bed, "that many have blamed, and yet do blame my too great anger and severity; but God knows that I never in my heart hated those against whom I thundered God's judgments: I did only hate their sins, and labour with all my power to bring them to Christ. That I spared none, even in the most exalted condition, arose from the fear of God who had placed me in the ministry, and who I knew would bring me to an account." Upon this subject our rapidly declining space forbids us to linger; and with a word upon Dr. Shuttleworth's Essay, upon "The Consistency of the whole Scheme of Revelation with