but beware of Wells's mutilated and interpolated edition, for the use of Westminster School.

Oppian is very puerile, and writes in a false taste; but his descriptions are entertaining and exact. He alone, of all the Antients, delineates the camelopard very accurately, and from nature. He will recompense the trouble of perusal. The best edition is Schneider's. Ballu, a Frenchman, began a very pretty edition; but the Halieutics, by him, have not yet appeared. Rittershu

sius' also is not amiss.

Nonnus was a Christian poet of much later date than the former; of a most puerile and romantic cast: wrote a poem as long as all Homer: difficult to be procured, and not likely to approve himself to you. He versified also, pleasantly enough, John's Gospel.

Lycophron by all means read, in Potter's later edition. A spirit of melancholy breathes through his poem, which makes him, with his multitude of events, as delightful to me as any of the Antients. I have read him very often, and always with additional gratification. His poem is delivered in the form of a prophecy and therefore affects an ænigmatical obscurity, by enveloping the sentiment in imagery, mythological allusions, and a most learned and elaborate phraseology. Most obscure in himself, he is rendered perfectly plain and easy by his scholiast, Tzetzcs, who was a Jew. No man equal to him in the purity of his iambics; so that anapæst, tribrachys, and dactyl, are extremely rare in him. His narrative of the adventures of the Grecian chiefs, particularly Ulysses, after the fall of Troy, is infinitely interesting; and his prospect of Xerxes' expedition into Greece, the devastation of his army, &c. is nobly executed. You cannot fail, I think, after the first difficulties are surmounted, to like him much.

Cowper. (The same.)

The Classics have been your a

musement, not your study. Alas! the reverse has been the case very much with me. I have always reckoned upon amusing myself, if I lived to grow old; and have been therefore resolutely labouring, under almost every species of disadvantage, in my youth. On this account I never purchased Cowper: I have met with him occasionally. He appears to me a man of fine genius; but his Task borders too much on the burlesque for a fine poem. My revisal of Pope's Homer led me to read his translation of the Greek; and of all the miserable versification in blank verse, that is the most miserable I have yet seen. I have scarcely any books here; but I remember the beginning of Odyssey X. to be the most calamitous specimen of want of ear that ever came

under my notice. It would be rash in me to give an opinion of his versi fication elsewhere; but between his versification in Homer, and that of Milton's Paradise Lost, there is, to my sense, as great a difference as can exist between two things that admit comparison at all. The Fairy Queen stanza was always tiresome to me.

Particulars of the Execution of JOHN

MACDONALD and JAMES WILLIAMSON BLACK, for Murder. THE execution of these unfortunate

young men took place on Wednesday the 12th of July, pursuant to their sentence by the High Court of Justiciary, for the murder and robbery of Mr William Muirhead, smith in Calton, on the 12th of May last; and as the circumstances attending their execution were quite unprecedented in this part of the kingdom, the following correct account of the particulars seems worthy of insertion: -At half-past eleven o'clock prepa

rations

rations began to be made for removing the prisoners to the place of execution, the cart in which they were to be placed being brought from the College Yard to the door of the Tolbooth by the city guard, and about the same time, a Lieutenant and half a troop of the 7th dragoon guards, with 200 men from the Castle, under the command of a Field Officer, took post in the Lawnmarket, in the environs of the jail. At half past 12, the four Bailies of the city, preceded by the town officers, and accompanied by their proper attendants, proceeded from the Council Chamber to the Tolbooth, when the criminals were brought from the jail and placed in the cart. The procession then moved on in the following order:

A body of the High Constables, The city officers, with their halberts, The Magistrates, in their robes, with their staves of office, The Reverend Professor Ritchie, Mr Porteous, chaplain of the jail, and Mr Badenoch, a Roman Catholic clergyman who attended M'Donald,

THE CART,

With the two criminals, who were drawn with their backs to the horse, and the executioner fronting

them.

Another body of the High Constables followed, and the whole was escorted by detachments of the 7th dragoons, of the Norfolk and Northampton militia, and a party of the police.

In this manner they proceeded through the Lawnmarket, along Bankstreet, the Mound, and Princesstreet, at the west end of which William Rae, Esq. Sheriff-depute of this county, with Harry Davidson, Esq. one of his substitutes, and his proper officers on horseback, accompanied with a troop of the Mid Lothian yeomanry cavalry, received the criminals from the Magistrates, who, with the constables, the dragoons,

and the guard from the Castle, returned to the city. The clergymen went into a carriage, and carriages were also provided for the other official attendants. The whole proceeded to the spot where the late Mr Muirhead was found lying, a little more than a quarter of a mile from Coltbridge, and nearly 30 yards to the west of the road which leads to Ravelstone. The gibbet was erected on the high road, and was so constructed, that the feet of the culprits hung over the spot where they committed their atrocious crime. On arriving at the place, the criminals were loosened from the cart, and brought upon the scaffold; a psalm was then sung, and suitable prayers followed by Mr Ritchie and Mr Por

teous.

Mr Badenoch, the Roman suitable exhortations to Macdonald, Catholic priest, also prayed, and gave who was of that persuasion. The criminals mounted the drop about 20

minutes before three o'clock, then they continued some minutes longer with a firm voice, M'Donald in one to implore the Divine pardon, Black round, asked M'Donald, "if he was less audible. At last, Black, turning in the affirmative (which was not, ready?" and, on obtaining an answer however, till the question had been thrice repeated), he grasped him by the hand, and kissed him, then exclaiming, "Lord Jesus Christ have mercy on our souls," he dropped the signal, and they were launched into eternity. Black's body was a good deal convulsed-M Donald scarcely moved.

After hanging the usual time they were cut down and put on the cart, and with the view of impressing the minds of the spectators with more awe, conveyed in that manner, without any covering, to the college.

The prisoners were decently dressed, and behaved with decorum and firmness, particularly Black. Macdonald was 20 years of age, and Black

only

only 18. They were both slenderly made, and very youthful in their ap

pearance.

The concourse of spectators during the procession was immense, every part that could command a view being crowded with people. A great number attended the place of executien, which was on the south edge of a very large pasture inclosure.

About half past two o'clock, a very heavy rain came on, and as the roads had been previously very dusty, the people who had to return were completely wet and dirty before they reached town.

Every thing was conducted with the utmost propriety and regularity, and we are happy to add, that notwithstanding the immense crowd, no accident, that we have heard of, happened, excepting that of an individual who was driven over the side of the mound by the pressure of the crowd, and received some slight bruises.

SCOTTISH REVIEW,

I. The Life of LUTHER; with an Account of the early Progress of the REFORMATION. By ALEXANDER BOWER, 8vo. 12s.

IT would be impossible perhaps to name an individual of any age, who has exercised so extensive an influence on the fortunes of the human race, as the distinguished person whose memoirs form the subject of the present volume. Not only the leading events of the political system, but the whole train of ideas and sentiments in the most enlightened part of the world, continued, for centuries, to revolve as it were round the revolution which he effected. It attained its direct object of restoring religion to its original purity; and it diffused also the spirit of civil liberty, and of philosophical enquiry. All those wonderful attainments in art

and science, which have raised the nations of modern Europe so high above their predecessor, may be chiefly traced to the reformation of Luther. He appears, then, in this age of biography, to deserve well the tribute of a recording volume. We thus conceive the public to be indebted to Mr Bower for undertaking to supply a desideration' in the English language, as well as for the in-, dustry and research with which he has collected the various materials of which his narrative was necessarily composed.

There can be no doubt that this revolution, like every similar one, was connected with the general state of men's minds during that age; the circumstances indeed by which it was prepared, have been often and ably illustrated. Yet Mr Bower's observation is probably just, that, to a common eye, nothing could have appeared less probable, than that a great blow should then be struck against the empire of the church of Rome. All the attempts formerly made upon her tenets had sunk beneath the powerful means of suppression which she had never scrupled to employ; excommunication, the sword, and the stake. Bohemia no longer contained the adherents of Huss and Jerome; while the slender remnants of the Waldenses and Albigenses were shut up in the most inaccessible valleys of the Alps. Luther himself was at first far from conceiving the design of shaking a system so powerful, and enforced by sanctions so formidable. He began life, a sincere believer in this religion, and was even hurried, by his devout and ardent temper, into the extreme of its austerities. At an early age, he determined to renounce the world, and to bury himself in a convent. Neither the prospects of a brilliant fortune, nor the intreaties of his relations, nor the regrets of numerous friends to whom his social qualities endeared him, could divert him

from

from this purpose.

He became a monk of the Augustinian order, and even entertained thoughts of changing his name from Luther to Augustine. On reading afterwards the early dedication of Samuel to the service of God, he is said to have lamented, that he himself had not received a similar consecration.

Luther soon surpassed all his conventual brethren, both in study, and in every species of fasting and mortification. He expected now to be able to devote himself entirely to pious occupations, and probably cherished also the secret hope of rising in time to those honours which could be enjoyed within the walls of a monastery. At present, however, he found, that humbler occupations awaited him. It was the boast of the Augustinians, that they made use of no servants, and performed for themselves all offices, even the most menial. This, however, proving a task too burdensome for the superiors of the order, they devolved these functions upon their noviciates. Luther was sometimes stationed as porter at the gate, sometimes was sent through the city to beg alms. His lofty mind was seized with the deepest disgust at the indignity to which he was thus subjected; and the seeds perhaps were secretly sown, of that immortal hatred with which the monastic life was afterwards regarded by him. The confinement and gloom of his situation, operating upon a serious and ardent character, gave rise to symptoms of religious melancholy. Struck with alarm respecting the state of his soul, he consulted the most eminent doctors, without obtaining any relief; and his active mind might thus have continued to prey upon itself, had it not been roused to action by two remarkable occurrences. The first was the discovery of a copy of the Bible, which lay neglected in a corner of the monastery where he resided. There is perhaps in the

lives of most men some critical moment which forms, as it were, the leading star to all their future pursuits. Such a moment was this to the mind of Luther. He perused over and over the sacred volume; all its most remarkable passages were soon deposited in his memory; and the command which he thus acquired of its texts, proved an important advantage to him in his future controversies. Although he had yet made no declaration against the church of Rome, his mind may be considered as now fully prepared for taking a decisive step. The opportunity soon offered, when Germany was inundated and scandalized by a deluge of indulgences, which having now become completely what we term a job, were issued in defiance of every rule of common sense, morality, and decorum. Even those who wished best to the church were willing to listen to an attack upon this mode which she employed for enriching the meanest of her creatures. No period therefore could be more seasonable for issuing the famous disputation, by which Luther called in question her authority thus to remit the sins of her contributors. From that moment, his history is connected with that of Germany, of Europe, and of the World. Our author follows him diligently through his bold and successful career; but as our limits permit us not to accompany him through this wide field, we shall merely glean a few circumstances relating to his private life. Although Luther was not long of declaring himself entirely hostile to all monastic orders, and had converted his brethren in the convent to the same opinion, yet he was the very last that left its walls; a circumstance which proves the steadiness of his character, and that he was in no indecent haste to reap the fruits of his own opinions. The same observation does not exactly apply to his next proceeding, which was that

of

who had also left her convent. Vows of celibacy may not be advisable; yet it appears somewhat doubtful, if those by whom they are entered into are therefore exempted from their obligation. Above all, it behoved Luther, who was now become a man so completely public, to avoid every thing which could afford a handle for impeaching the motives upon which he acted. It was alleged in those days, that to taste the sweets of matrimony was often a leading motive for embracing the reformed faith; and that change of religion, like a comedy, led always to this termination. Luther, however, never made any efforts to raise himself above the original poverty of his situation, although his splendid connections might easily have opened him the way. He declined even the project of opening a school or academy, and sought rather to limit his wants, than to augment his means.

Luther continued to enjoy unbroken health till the sixty-second year of his age. His constitution began then rapidly to decline. His last days were embittered by a dispute with the lawyers of Wittemberg on the subject of clandestine marriages. So strong was its effect upon him, that he quitted for some time that city, which had long been his favourite residence. The Wittembergers, however, mortified and grieved at this removal, which tarnished the lustre of their university, made such concessions, as induced him to return. His maladies, meanwhile, continued to gain ground. On the 17th January 1546, he wrote to a friend.

"I write to you, though old, decrepid, inactive, languid, and now possessed of only one eye. When drawing to the brink of the grave, I had hopes of obtaining a reasonable share of rest, but I continue to be overpowered with writing, preaching,

if I had not discharged my part in these duties in the early period of life." P. 273.

Notwithstanding this weakness, however, the activity of his mind induced him to undertake a journey to Eisleben, which he accomplished, but fell soon after into a state of extreme debility, and expired on the 17th February. The following letter, written by a friend to the elector of Saxony, gives an interesting account of his last moments.

"It is with a sorrowful heart that I communicate the following information to your Highness. Although our venerable father in Christ, doctor Martin Luther, felt himself unwell before leaving Wittemberg, as also during his journey to this place, and complained of weakness on his arrival; he was nevertheless present at dinner and supper every day in which we were engaged in the business of the counts. His appetite was pretty good, and he used humorously to observe, that in his native country they well knew what he ought to eat and drink. His rest at night also was such as could not be complained of. His two youngest sons, Martin and Paul, were accustomed, along with me and one or two men-servants, to sleep in his bed-room, accompanied sometimes by M. Michael Cœlius, a clergyman of Eisleben. As he had for some time back been accustomed to have his bed warmed, we made it a rule to do this regularly before he retired to rest. Every night, on taking leave of us, he was accustomed to say, "Pray to God that the cause of his church may prosper, for the Council of Trent is vehemently enraged against it." The physician who attended caused the medicines to which he had been accustomed to be brought from Wittemberg; and his wife, of her own accord, sent some others.

The