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variably demonstrates that he adopts this course for the purpose of strengthening his own arguments, by the completeness with which he refutes those of his antagonist. The absorbing interest of his enquiries, on many occasions, excites that warmth and energy of thought which so eminently characterise the writings of Chalmers and Paley; and indeed we can scarcely suppose any man so destitute of feeling, as to prosecute such investigations without catching, in some degree, the spirit of his theme. In the supplements to the different sections of his book, Mr Sheppard has introduced occasional reflections, which, though forming no part of the direct topic, frequently exhibit it in a more convincing light. His notes also display considerable historical research. On the whole, Mr Sheppard's present publication fully supports his former reputation as an author; and, relying on the evidences as to the divine origin of Christ which are brought forward, he may confidently ask,— "Quæ tandem mens avida æternitatis, vitæque presentis brevitate permota, contra hujus divinæ auctori. tatis lumen cultumque contendat 2"

towards the loyalists are hardly paralleled by the atrocities of the French Revolution. They shot, stabbed, hanged, and spiked, men, women, and children; but their favourite mode of executing their sanguinary revenge, was by filling barns with their prisoners, and then setting them on fire. The massacres at Scullabogue, and at the bridge of Wexford, where their unoffending victims were butchered in the most horrible manner, are eternal proofs of what may be expected from an ignorant and barbarous peasantry, when they have the ascendency, led by unprincipled demagogues and fanatical priests.

In a literary view, Mr Taylor's narrative is homely enough in style; but we have every reason to believe it an honest and correct account of the Wexford Rebellion.

The Last Hours of Eminent Christians, compiled from the best authorities, and chronologically arranged. By the Reverend Henry Clissold, M.A., Minister of Stockwell Chapel, Lambeth. London. 8vo. Rivingtons. 1829.

A History of the Rise, Progress, and Suppression of THIS is a work which ought to find its way into the Rebellion in the County of Wexford, in the year every family circle. The examples which are given in 1798. To which is added, the Author's Account of the last hours" of some of the greatest and most illushis Captivity and Merciful Deliverance. By Geo.trious men, who, we may safely say, were the glory and Taylor. A new edition, corrected. Dublin. Curry and Co. 1829. 12mo, pp. 194.

MR TAYLOR, the author of the work before us, was a personal sufferer in the Irish rebellion of 1798, and narrowly escaped being murdered by the rebels. His work, so far as we have had an opportunity of judging, is completely corroborated by the best authorities; and it has this additional advantage, that it supplies the reader with various interesting particulars, which Mr Taylor received from his own personal friends, who were eyewitnesses of many of the scenes he has recorded, and, like himself, sufferers for their loyalty.

the renown of their several ages, must have a most powerful effect on the minds of the young and the ignorant, in directing their attention towards those elevating truths of Christianity, which were the consolation and the hope of those departed worthies, whose faith we are commanded to follow, considering the end of all things. The volume before us may be safely set down as a happy model of enforcing Christianity by example, inasmuch as it contains no abstract reasoning, but lays before the reader matters of fact.

Mr Clissold, in his preface, which is somewhat too long, tells us the reasons which induced him to underThe county of Wexford is notorious for the events take this work; and with his observations we cordially which took place in it during the rebellion of 1798; it agree. History is, in reality, a great drama, in which was, indeed, the chief scene of those atrocities which the parties are brought before us for instruction and edistain the Irish history. Certain parties, styling them-fication; and is interesting solely on account of the selves White-boys, Steel-boys, Oak-boys, Right-boys, names which adorn its annals. It is no small consolaand Defenders, had for a considerable time disturbed tion to the Christian, though at best it is but the conthe peace of the country, and eventually they all coa-scious homage of truth, that the most distinguished men lesced under the general title of United Irishmen. With the contemporary example of the French Revolution before their eyes, and, as they were all Roman Catholics, animated with the most relentless hatred towards the Protestants, their objects were as iniquitous as they were treasonable. A number of factious demagogues arose among them, men of desperate fortunes and unprincipled characters, whose study it was to keep alive the flame of discontentment, and excite the wretched peasantry to the most dreadful excesses. On the 26th of May 1798, the rebellion began in Wexford, headed by a ferocious and fanatic priest named Murphy. Six worthies of this name, all priests, rendered themselves conspicuous by their subsequent proceedings. On the 27th, two bodies of the rebels appeared at Oulard and Kelthomas. At the latter place, they were defeated by 200 or 300 yeomen; but at Oulard, where they were commanded by Murphy himself, they were victorious. That incendiary soon after got possession of Enniscorthy, and set the houses of the loyal inhabitants in flames, besides committing many atrocities. At the head of 15,000 men, he took the town of Wexford. The battles of Clough, Ross, Arklow, and Vinegar Hill, besides other minor engagements, followed; and it is not less shocking than true, that the priests, by whom the wretched and deluded populace were stimulated, scrupled not to celebrate the rites of their religion amidst murder and blood. The cruelties the rebels exercised

in past ages were under its salutary influence. It is impossible for us to give any thing like a condensed view of Mr Clissold's excellent work, as it is divided into short narratives, delineating the closing scene of these great men; but our readers will find in it "the most illustrious examples of devotion, tranquillity, for. titude, and prudence, together with the most striking instances of the brevity and uncertainty of human life," written with great interest, apart from any encouragement of enthusiasm or fanatical zeal. A list of the names of some of those illustrious individuals whose last hours form the subject of Mr Clissold's book, will enable our readers to appreciate its contents much better than were we to lay before them any detached extract. We find, among others, St Ignatius; St Cyprian; St Gregory Thaumaturgus; St Basil; Gregory Nazianzen ; St Augustine; St Austin (first Archbishop of Canterbury); the Venerable Bede; Wickliffe; John Huss; Jerome of Prague; Eneas Silvius, surnamed Pope Pius II.; the Chevalier Bayard; Oecolampadius; Zuingle; Fisher, Bishop of Rochester; Sir Thomas More; Tindal; Luther; Cruciger; Lady Jane Gray; Bishop Hooper; Bishops Latimer and Ridley; Melancthon; Archbishop Parker; Sir Philip Sidney; Tasso; Richard Hooker; Tycho Brahe; Beza; Scaliger; Henry, Prince of Wales (son of James I.); Cardinal Robert Bellarmine; Dr Launcelot Andrews; Bishop of Winchester; Bishop Bedell; Archbishop

Laud; Grotius; Charles I.; Archbishop Usher; Dr Henry Hammond; Bishop Saunderson; Pascal; the Earl of Clarendon; Dr Lightfoot; Sir Matthew Hale; the Prince of Condé; Archbishop Sancroft; Richard Baxter; Mary, Queen of William III.; Archbishop Tillotson; the famous preacher Bourdaloue; Locke; Bishop Bull; Bishop Burnett; William Penn; Addison; Elizabeth Rowe; Boerhaave; Colonel Gardi. ner; Dr Isaac Watts; Dr Doddridge; Bishop Berke ley; Lord Lyttleton; Dr Johnson; Lord Kaimes; Gesner; John Howard; Sir William Jones; Dr Paley; the Princess Amelia; the Princess Charlotte; and our late venerable sovereign, George III. There is ap

pended a well-written sketch of his late Royal Highness

the Duke of York; and the volume concludes with a

number of notes on various other distinguished indi

viduals.

Mr Clissold is a clergyman of the Church of Eng. land, but he has rendered willing homage to the piety of other communions,-Roman Catholics, Presbyterians, Dissenters; and a spirit of pure and genuine Christianity pervades his work.

Vallery; or the Citadel of the Lake; A Poem. By
Charles Doyne Sillery. Two vols. Edinburgh.
Oliver & Boyd. 1829.

Higher and higher still my thoughts do rise
'Bove yon pale planets that so purely burn:
Higher and higher still beyond those skies,
Blue, boundless, beautiful! Creation's urn!
The Book of God lies open to my sight.-
In earth or heaven,-Ah! wheresoe'er I turn,

O thou, my soul! these words divinely bright,
Read, study, ponder, meditate and learn,
I lose myself in Him,-in Goodness, Love, and Light.
Lo! o'er the welkin sails a white-fringed cloud,
That laves the fading forehead of the moon;
Now it is gathering in a darker shroud,
And now 'tis o'er the pinnacle of noon:
The stars are dimm'd; while, in a pale festoon

of

circling light, Diana holds her way;

Of liquid pearls,-the breezes freely play,
It rains; the dusky woods receive their boon
And soft the trickling shower falls on each blossomed

spray.

The hush is over.-Hark! from every bower

The song of birds,-the murmuring of the streams,The droning beetle, and the weeping flowers,

The lizard nestling 'midst the orange gleams,—
The cricket chirping where the bamboo teems,-
The dancing rain, the living wind,—the sea

Rousing her billows from their coral dreams,-
The insect hum,-the whispers on the lea,-
There wants Aurora but to raise the jubilee.

WE have already spoken of this interesting work at
some length. We return to it, because there are one or
two other extracts of much beauty which we wish to
lay before our readers. What we especially like in
Mr Sillery is, that his style is formed after no particu-
lar model; it is fresh and luxuriant, and altogether his
own. We detest that cant of criticism which affects to
discover little bits of imitation scattered through a work
of two volumes; and which prides itself, not upon point-
ing out the intrinsic merits or defects of poetry, but on
raking together, from all quarters, passages which may,
in one or two of their thoughts, resemble other passages.
Upon this principle, every body who ever wrote might Even from my childhood has my soul been fill'd
be shown to be a copyist; but this is not a principle With love for what it look'd on, and become
by which any one who understands poetry will for a
moment be guided. The following reflections, suggest-Objects inanimate,-a tree,-a flower,—
A part of that around it-insects,-birds ;-
ed by the calm of a summer's night, together with the
description which follows, of a shower at daybreak, and
the coming of morning, are exceedingly beautiful:
Ah! there are moments when the mind is calm,
Placid and tranquil as an inland lake
O'er which the zephyrs scarcely breathe their balm,
Stretching screnely pure from brake to brake-
Ah! there are moments when the thoughts do take
Their flights above the skies, and worlds that roll

She comes,-in glory walking from the east!
With robes of purple o'er her azure breast,
Health on her cheek, and roses on her brows;

And golden hair, that round her fair form flows,
Breathing perfume which vanquishes the rose,
And gathering up her diamonds from the woods,
To meet them 'midst the vapours that repose
In fairy isles above the liquid floods,
And now she wakes the hymns of all her solitudes !

We have room for only one other passage, expressive of a young poet's delight in nature, which must be read with pleasure:

Below the Heaven of Heavens, and thus can make
Mortals their mockery, spurning earth's control-
The soul's not in the world, but the world in the soul!

The world is in the soul.-Hast thou ne'er seen
The volumed vapour, freed from narrow cell,
Ascend on high, and, when it was between

The clouds and thee, roll out with billowy swell,
Expanded and expanding o'er the dell,
Blazoned with gold and purple sunbeams bright,
Till melted into ether?-Canst thou tell,-
Since such a vapour fills yon heavenly height,-
How must the soul, once freed, expand in bliss and light?

Even in its fetters of corrupting clay,

There's something so immortal and sublime,
Something so awful and unearthly,-yea,
Unknown to earth, with all its founts of crime,
Mocking mortality,-the grave,-Death,-Time,

In the immortal soul; that ocean,-earth,-
Rivers, mounts, vales, it grasps!-each zone,-each
clime,-

From the cold poles to the equator's girth,

Have been its idols; but the gems of life,-
A wood-crowned mountain or a placid lake,
The fly, the bee,-the butterfly,-the worm,—
Its wonder,-sunshine,-rapture, and delight!
To me they are the characters of Heaven,-
The writing of Jehovah on the book
Of Nature; and I've learn'd more from them,
Than I could do in pondering o'er the tomes,
The thrice ten thousand volumes of mankind.
I've learn'd to meditate thereon, and turn
Thence to the contemplation of my God,-
Th' All-wise, Almighty Author of the whole,-
To love,-to fear,-to worship,-to adore!
Roll on, dark days of trouble and distress,
Come, glorious dawning! come, celestial light!
Oh! may I see the day when all my mind,
Self-lit, shall burn with rapture, that I may
Pour forth my soul in poetry to Him
Who sits sublime amid the cherubim!

We call on Mr Sillery to go on steadily and boldly— "successo acrior ipso"—and we have the most sanguine expectations of the result.

Pinnock's Improved

Edition of Dr Goldsmith's Abridgement of the History of England, with a Continuation to the Reign of George the Fourth. The 21st Edition. London. Whittaker & Co. 1829.

THE improvement made by Mr Pinnock on Dr

The soul's a world of worlds,-increasing from its birth, Goldsmith's History of England, consists in dividing

the work into sections, and appending Questions for examination to each, together with explanations of the most difficult words which may occur. This plan has been found of great utility in schools; and accordingly, under his care, as editor, Goldsmith's History has now come to the twenty-first edition. To each of these, additions and improvements have been made, and the consequence is, that the last edition is always better than the one which precedes it.

The Child's First Meaning-Book, on a Plan entirely New. By the Author of the Writer's and Student's Assistant. London. Whittaker & Co. 1829. THIS is a book of Monosyllables, to instruct young children in spelling and reading, and at the same time to make them conversant with the meaning of words. The fault of most spelling-books, for children beginning to learn, is, that monosyllables are too often explained by pollysyllables; as" Air, the element which we breathe," "Fast, an abstinence from food,""Pain, sensation of uneasiness," &c. It is evident that this is no explanation at all. The author of the useful little work before us has contrived to explain 1800 words of one syllable, by words of one syllable, and 1200 monosyllables more, by words not exceeding two syllables. The plan is excellent, and the exccution not inferior.

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THE next department of Dr Ure's work treats of the constitution of the primeval world, and the revolutions which it underwent, deduced from geological phenomena, on physical principles.

The first of these phenomena is the interior heat of the earth. From the experiments of Fourier, Arago, and Berges, here luminously detailed, we are led to the conclusion, that there is an increase in the heat of the earth as we descend, of nearly one degree of Fahrenheit for every sixty-five feet; although this internal heat has, in all probability, been decreasing since the flood. That this increase in the ratio of descent is occasioned by the existence of a great central interior fire, seems the only rational way of explaining it; and it appears to be proved by the experiment, à priori, in respect to it, if we may so speak, that also explains the cause of the gradual declension of interior temperature, as well as that which has taken place on the surface since the flood; which is thus simply and familiarly put:

water, we shall wait in vain for any distinct manifestation, at the top, of the subjacent fire. In fact, the lowest layer will become compacted by the heat into a schist impervious to liquids, so that the incumbent water will never arrive at the calorific source, and, severed by bad conducting matters, can never grow appreciably warm. In the great boilers of steam-engines, many results to this effect daily occur, which form sources of very serious annoyance. Wherever the waters of supply are calcareous, more especially selenitic, they let fall a crust of gypsum on the bottom, which progressively thickens, so as to intercept a large portion of the subjacent heat; and by separating the iron from the water, allows the metal to become ignited, and to burn away. Such a deposit has been known to grow several inches thick, with à stony hardness; and, till laboriously chiselled off, it has rendered the vessel quite inoperative for raising a due supply of steam."

Well, indeed, may Dr Ure remark, with perhaps too self-denying brevity, "The first age of the world, then, extending probably through several centuries, fully realized the universal and unfading spring of the poets. Under such fostering powers of vegetation, the coalmeasure plants were matured, in countless myriads, with a rapidity to which modern experience can furnish no parallel."

From such facts, the four following propositions seem to be fully established:-1. That a great portion of the present dry lands, more particularly the secondary strata, -which are replete with sca shells of the most delicate for a long period at the bottom of the primeval ocean.texture, distributed entire in regular beds,-have lain 2. That within the schistose crust of the globe, explosive materials exist, which have given evidence of their convulsive and disruptive powers in all its terraqueous regions, and in every age of the world, from the protrusion of the primordial dry land till the present day.— 3. That the ocean, at whose bottom many of our present earthy strata were deposited, has not been lessened by dissipation of its waters into celestial space, or by their absorption into the bowels of the earth;-and 4. That, therefore, its channel must have been changed by transference, of a great portion at least, of its waters, from their ancient to their present basin; an effect referable to volcanic agency, which has operated by sinking the old lands, and upheaving the new.

The objection to these, suggested by a reference to the change in the globular figure of the earth, is obviated, by reference to a simple experiment.

"If we hold a powerful magnet, a little way above a surface of iron filings, strewed upon a table, no change will ensue, because the friction between the solid plane, and the particles, is equivalent to a cohesive force, and prevents them from obeying the magnetical attraction. But if we momentarily suspend the counteracting force of friction, by causing the table to vibrate with successive blows, then the magnetical attraction will become effective, and the iron filings will arrange themselves in beautiful curves, accordant with the known laws of magnetism. In like manner, the partial disruptions and tremors of the terrestrial strata, during its transition diluvial state, would permit a corresponding portion of its shattered surface to arrange itself, conformably to the centripetal and centrifugal powers under which it revolves, and cause a partial approximation, in its figure, to the oblate spheroid of rotation."

From the view taken of the antediluvian climates, we are naturally led to expect that the upper strata which resulted from the sudden overturn here infer. red, would exhibit specimens of the flora of the an. cient world. Our examples of these form a rich fossil "If we apply heat to the flat bottom of a deep ves-herbarium, here opened up to our familiar view with sel (of iron, copper, &c.) which contains several alternate layers of sand, clay, and stony slabs, condensed as in the supermedial strata of England, and covered with

circumstances of peculiar interest. We wonder that bones and shells should have preserved their original and organic forms amid "the wreck of matter and the

crash of worlds," the pressure of rocks-the insinua tions of moisture,-and the ravages of flame; but that fragile leaves, and buds, and blossoms, should find an embalming sepulture amidst convulsions that upheaved the solid earth, is almost beyond astonishment. Yet such is the fact, and so perfectly are they preserved, that treatises on their botanical classification have appeared. The latest and best of these are by a very young, but already justly distinguished Frenchman, M. Adolphe Brongniart, son of the coadjutor of Cuvier, and worthy of such a sire." His researches are at once curious and profound, and the world and science are already his debtors, while he has scarcely numbered the years that would entitle him to sit on the first form at Eton College.

atmospheric phenomena, at the outset, which cursory readers would think out of place, are made to tell with prodigious and condensed effect; as also in what follows: "Many persons have ascribed to the descent of rain from some super-aerial ocean, a great part, if not the whole, of the waters which then inundated the earth. The atmosphere, however, is merely the circulating medium through which aqueous particles are transferred from moist to dry places. Supposing it universally saturated at a temperature of 80° Fahrenheit, round an aqueous sphere, it could receive vapour merely equivalent to its dew point, amounting at the utmost to a press. ure of only one inch of mercury, or 13.6 inches of water. This is all that could fall from it in its transition from moisture to absolute dryness; a quantity inHaving endeavoured to solve one enigma of the pri- capable of producing a general deluge. The formation meval world the fervid temperature of even its circum- and descent of rain constitute merely a process of distilpolar zones, the Doctor next offers some remarks illus-lation, when a direct circulation of vapour is established trative of another geological difficulty-the transfer of through the air above, and a retrograde circulation of the ocean from its ancient to its present bed. Perhaps water on the surface below. But this circulation can the most striking example diluvian eyes have ever wit- never raise the ordinary level of our seas in the slightest nessed, of the force of the uprearing power of the agi- degree." tated inferior strata, in reversing sea and land, so often referred to, was that narrated by Maria Graham, as occurring in Chili in 1822. "On the morning of the 20th November, it appeared that the whole line of coast, from north to south, to the distance of above 100 miles, had been raised above its former level. The alteration of level at Valparaiso was about three feet, and some rocks were thus newly exposed, on which the fishermen collected the scallop shell-fish, which was not known to exist there before the earthquake."

Incidentally, with respect to the coral reefs which rise in the southern Indian ocean, it is remarked, that what has formerly been published about the immense erections which the saxigenous polypi are capable of executing, is erroneous, and greatly exaggerated.

We now approach a portion of the work of singular daring and power. It is boldly headed at the outset, "The DELUGE DESCRIBED," and is necessarily more speculative and hypothetical than any of the preceding portions; but it is still much in the spirit of the following admirably condensed paragraphs:

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From the absence of rain, and consequently those currents of air and wind occasioned by evaporation and deposition, it is ingeniously inferred, that all animal and vegetable products now found, must there have been originally located-" for they would find their sepulture at home."

We before adverted to Mr Penn's idea, that the ratio of land to water was inverted by the deluge; for he assumes that our actual seas correspond in surface to the antediluvian lands, and our actual lands to the antediluvian seas.

But the researches of Professor Buckland on the Kirkland and Franconia caves, as well as those of Baron Cuvier on the grotto of Oiselles, concur to prove that these were dens inhabited by antediluvian quadrupeds, and therefore must have formed a portion of its dry land.

With Mr Penn's proportion of land and water, our author conceives the terraqueous globe would not have been habitable by man, and his companion animals. It would have possessed nearly three parts of earthy surface to one of aqueous, whereas there is now fully three "The period of the deluge is fixed, by the best chro- of aqueous surface to one of earthy. Or, since dry nologists, in the year 1656 from the creation, correspond-ground is the heating surface, and water is the cooling, ing to the year 2348 of the Christian era. According to Blair, On the 10th day of the second month, which was on Sunday, Nov. 30th, 2347, God commanded Noah to enter into the ark with his family; and the next Sunday, Dec. 7th, it began to rain, and rained 40 days, and the deluge continued 150 days. On Wednesday, May 6th, 2348, the ark rested on Mount Ararat. The tops of the mountains became visible on Sunday, July 19th, and on Friday, Nov. 18th, Noah came forth out of the ark, with all that were with him.'

"When the barriers of the ocean began to give way before the explosive forces, the waters would invade the shores, and spread over the sunken land, augmenting prodigiously the evaporating surface, and thus bringing the atmosphere to the dew point, a state of saturation to which, previously, it could seldom, and in few places, attain, on account of the area of the dry ground being great relative to that of the sea. From this cause, as well as from the immense quantity of vapours which are known to rise from craters into the higher and cooler regions of the air at the period of eruptions, an immense formation of cloud and deposition of rain would ensue." It will here be observed, how the bases laid down on

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When in Paris, we visited the Institute of France, and in the hall of the Academy of Sciences, when the members had assembled, we felt ourselves amid the most august and illustrious congregation in the world. A young gentleman-so young as to appear yet boyish-showed us the most marked attention in naming the most distinguished individuals among sixty, who are all famous. We sat in a recess of the window together, and exchanged cards. His bore the name-Adolphe Brongniart.

the heating faculty of that ancient globe would have been three times greater than the present, and its cool. ing faculty three times less; making a ninefold difference in calorific constitution between the two,-without taking into account the proper heat of the antediluvian seas. The proportion, however, of the former writer, though inaccurate, is so far correct as showing that there was more land than now; and thence our diminished temperature is clearly indicated. But if the primeval seas were of less extent, they were deeper, as we have said, and hence in greater proximity with the fixed and explosive metals, and would, after the deluge, soak down and cause, by consequent volcanic cruptions, those vast accumulations of lava which every part of the world exhibits.

We now draw near the end of this masterly work, which, before concluding, contemplates the Animal remains or Ruins of the Deluge,-in reference merely to their living characteristics, as contrasted with their types in the present time, and the era of the emergence of the present carth. It is from this survey, as eloquent as it is novel, ingenious, comprehensive, and profound, yet simple and Scriptural, that we glean.

"The theologian may probably recognize, in the picture of the deluge so sublimely sketched in the 104th Psalm, allusions which favour the idea of the postdiluvian earth having been peopled with animals by a new creative fiat; while through Noah, mankind are all the children of Adam. The waters stood above the mountains; at thy rebuke they fled; at the voice of thy

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thunder' (volcanic explosion ?) they hasted away. The mountains ascend, the valleys descend unto the place which thou hast founded for them. Thou hast set a bound that they may not pass over; that they turn not again to cover the earth. Thou hidest thy face, they' (beasts both small and great) are troubled; thou takest away their breath, they die, and return to their dust. Thou sendest forth thy Spirit, they are created; and thou renewest the face of the earth.' The language of the last sentence must surely mean something more than the generation of animals, and the propagation of plants, in the ordinary way. Can it be so applied without profanation?

That " Arch which spans the radiant sky,

When clouds prepare to part,"

Holy Writ assures us, was unseen by man before the flood. That it was natural it should have been unknown, is evidenced from the constitution of antediluvian earth and atmosphere; and our author makes it obvious, not only from the emphatic words in which the meteoric ensign of Heaven's favour is announced, as well as from the holy purpose which it was ordained to serve, but from the change that had taken place in these in relation to each other, that it must have been equally strange, as it was glorious, in their sight; for antediluvians, occupying possibly on their devoted lands, a portion of a great continent now covered by the Pacific, might never have witnessed a sunshine shower. A canopy of clouds indeed might often be stretched in the cooler upper regions of their skies, but the aqueous vesicles, in descending through the warmer aerial strata below, would return again to invisible vapour.

With a refutation of the absurd pretensions to an antiquity inconsistent with Divine Writ, of the pretended tables of Hindoo astronomy, given to the world by Bailly, as triumphant as the confutation of the Canon of Ricuperos' notion of the earth's age, deduced "from coats of Sicilian lava, which is furnished at the outset,a work of rare, vast, and varied lore, and destined to become as popular as the Natural Theology of Paley, concludes itself a full, noble, and, we should think, well-nigh immortal, cominentary on the passage from Schlegel quoted by us before.

It were easy to allay such lofty praise with hesitated hints, and to assume sagacity in discovering faults; but where general and sustained eloquence abounds, we cannot condescend to dwell on a few inflated and sounding phrases. These are too trivial to be blemishes, and will be unseen in the second and succeeding editions, to which the book must hasten. A brief Glossary of technical terms will be a proper addition to these. The typography of the work is a credit to even the city of the Foulises and Uries; and the liberal spirit of the publishers has enriched the work with a series of illustrations in copper and wood, numerous and costly, much beyond the general rule of the trade.

FINE ARTS.

PAINTING.

History of Sculpture, Painting, and Architecture.
By J. S. Memes, LL.D. Constable's Miscellany.
Vol. XXXIX. Edinburgh. 1829.

taste

In a strict point of view, Painting owes little or nothing to the Ancients. The only merit possessed by the Egypt ian painters is a certain correctness of linear profile, which may have been first acquired by the tracing of shadows. Many of their works still remain, with the colouring almost as fresh and vivid as when it was first laid on. These have been principally found on the walls of temples, tombs, or hypogeums. Like their sculptures, they are allegorical, grotesque, and graceless,-though not without interest, from considerations unconnected with taste. As to Greek paintings, we are acquainted with them only by description; although, were we implicitly to believe all that has been written concerning them, they were no less entitled to rank as models, than the wonderful existing creations in the sister art of sculpture. But though we cannot fail fully to appreciate the judg ment of authors, which is shown to such advantage in their minute accuracy of criticism when applied to sculpture, yet, as Dr Memes justly observes, being necessarily formed upon the very models on which it passes sentence, cannot be admitted as evidence beyond its experience." For this reason, and for others The result of equal proportions of genius, labour, and which he has stated, and in which we entirely coincide, skill, and bringing down information on all it treats of we are disposed to think the alleged proficiency of the till the close of the last year, it will make Geology still ancients in this branch of art rather problematical. more a popular study, by showing it to be a delightful, The history of Greek painting, given us by Pliny and and rendering it an easy one; and he who, even at his others, is too unnatural to be strictly true. If the fireside, has armed himself with a knowledge of the lead- Greeks had arrived at such eminence as is pretended, ing principles of that science, like the student of Bowe should certainly find a greater number of names tany, need not dread the solitude of the dreariest wilder-enrolled as professors of the art; only fifteen are ness, nor the silence of the loneliest desert. Henceforth, to such an one, a voice will speak from every barren rock, and wisdom will unfold itself in every herb that rears its stunted head. No spot in Nature's domain can be wearisome to him; while even the most favoured of the sites of earth will, in the terms of " Paris Basin," “Oxford Clay," &c. acquire an associated and elevated interest.

To aid in directing the attention of manhood and youth to such pure, ennobling pursuits, has been our aim. To diffuse those consolatory conclusions, which science, rightly interrogated, brings to the bosom of the ingenuous, but perhaps nervously excited, lover of truth that are here, in the true spirit of Philosophy united to Religion, skilfully concatenated-has been our aim. If we shall, however humbly, have assisted this work in doing either by making its merits early, and, in so far as our voice extends, widely known-we shall not speak of our labour, for that has been one of love, and of delight-but of our pride:-we are more than rewarded.

These descriptive words in Italics are the Hebrew text, as printed in the margin of our Bibles.

mentioned by Pausanias, whereas one hundred and sixty-nine are recorded by the same author as devoted to sculpture. The Greeks would certainly not have been contented with cold, though divine, beauty, had they been acquainted, to a great extent, with the magic force of which the pencil is capable. But, however the case may have been, as next to no relics of Greek painting now exist, it can have had no influence in forming the Italian school, wonderful and unrivalled as it is, and whose pre-eminence must ever be considered one of the very few family traits which serve to prove that the inhabitants of modern Italy are the descendants of the ancient Romans. So far, therefore, as mechanical execution, design, colour, and all that relates to painting as a practical art, is concerned, the moderns owe nothing to the ancients. It is only when we come to consider the mighty influence their sculpture has always had in the formation of taste, that we are forced to concede to them the praise of having probably given the first impulse to the minds of all great painters.

The gap which occurs in the history of painting from the time that the Romans abandoned it as an art, only worthy of being practised by their Greek slaves, is tre

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