Dryden, when, in one of his fault-finding moods with the great men of the preceding generation, he is taking Ben Jonson to task for general inaccuracy in his English diction, quotes this line from Catiline:

Though heaven should speak with all his wrath at once, and proceeds, heaven is ill syntax with his;' while, in fact, up to within forty or fifty years of the time when Dryden began to write, no other syntax was known. Curious, also, is it to note that in the long controversy which followed on the publication, by Chatterton, of the poems which he ascribed to a monk Rowley, living in the fifteenth century, no one appealed at the time to such lines as the following:

Life and all its goods I scorn,

followed in the same path. Shakspeare loves them so well, that besides often citing them, and innumerable covert allusions, rapid side glances at them, which we are in danger of missing unless at home in the proverbs of England, several of his plays, as Measure for Measure, All's Well that Ends Well, have popular proverbs for their titles. And Cervantes, a name only inferior to Shakspeare, has not left us in doubt in respect of the affection with which he regarded them. Every reader of Don Quixote will remember his squire, who sometimes cannot open his mouth but there drop from it almost as many proverbs as words. I might name others who held the proverb in honour-men, who though they may not attain to these first three, are yet deservedly accounted great; as Plantus, the most genial of Latin poets; Rabelais and Montaigne, the two

From words to proverbs is a short step, and Dr Trench has given us a volume entitled, On the Lessons in Proverbs, 1855. He treats of the form and generation of proverbs, and of the poetry, wit, or wisdom contained in them. Lord John Russell, we may remark, is said to have given a happy definition of the term proverb: The wit of one man and the wisdom of many.' The dean vindicates the importance of proverbs:

[On Proverbs.]

The fact that they please the people, and have pleased them for ages-that they possess so vigorous a principle of life, as to have maintained their ground, ever new and ever young, through all the centuries of a nation's existence-nay, that many of them have pleased not one nation only, but many, so that they have made themselves a home in the most different lands-and further, that they have, not a few of them, come down to us from remotest antiquity, borne safely upon the waters of that great stream of time, which has swallowed so much beneath its waves-all this, I think, may well make us pause should we be tempted to turn away from them with anything of indifference or disdain.

And then, further, there is this to be considered, that some of the greatest poets, the profoundest philosophers, the most learned scholars, the most genial writers in every kind, have delighted in them, have made large and frequent use of them, have bestowed infinite labour on the gathering and elucidating of them. In a fastidious age, indeed, and one of false refinement, they may go nearly or quite out of use among the so-called upper classes. No gentleman, says Lord Chesterfield, or 'No man of fashion,' as I think is his exact word, 'ever uses a proverb.' And with how fine a touch of nature Shakspeare makes Coriolanus, the man who with all his greatness is entirely devoid of all sympathy for the people, to utter his scorn of them in scorn of their proverbs, and of their frequent employment of these: •Hang’em!

They said they were an hungry, sighed forth proverbs;
That, hunger broke stone walls; that, dogs must eat;
That, meat was made for mouths; that, the gods sent not
Corn for the rich men only;-with these shreds
They vented their complainings.'

Coriolanus, Act. I., Sc. 1. But that they have been always dear to the true intellectual aristocracy of a nation, there is abundant evidence to prove. Take but these three names in evidence, which, though few, are in themselves a host. Aristotle made a collection of proverbs; nor did he count that he was herein doing ought unworthy of his great reputation, however some of his adversaries may have made this a charge against him. He is said to have heen the first who did so, though many afterwards

whom Coleridge has styled the wittiest of writers, justifies this praise in his witty employment of some old proverb; nor can any thoroughly understand and enjoy Hudibras, no one but will miss a multitude of its keenest allusions, who is not thoroughly familiar with the proverbial literature of England.

Their habitat, or native place, he thinks, is easily perceived:

Thus our own Make hay while the sun shines, is truly English, and could have had its birth only under such variable skies as ours-not certainly in those southern lands where, during the summer time at least, the sun always shines. In the same way there is a fine Cornish proverb in regard of obstinate wrongheads, who will take no counsel except from calamities, who dash themselves to pieces against obstacles, which with a little prudence and foresight they might have avoided. It is this: He who will not be ruled by the rudder must be ruled by the rock. It sets us at once upon some rocky and wreck-strewn coast; we feel that it could never have been the proverb of an inland people. Do not talk Arabic in the house of a Moor-that is, because there thy imperfect knowledge will be detected at once-this we should confidently affirm to be Spanish, wherever we met it. Big and empty, like the Heidelberg tun, could have its home only in Germany; that enormous vessel, known as the Heidelberg tun, constructed to contain nearly 300,000 flasks, having now stood empty for hundreds of years. As regards, too, the following, Not every parish priest can wear Dr Luther's shoes, we could be in no doubt to what people it appertains. Neither could there be any mistake about this solemn Turkish proverb, Death is a black camel which kneels at every man's gate, in so far at least as that it would be at once ascribed to the East.

BISHOP BLOMFIELD AND OTHER CAMBRIDGE DIVINES.

The scholarship of Cambridge has been well supported by the late bishop of London, DR CHARLES JAMES BLOMFIELD (1786-1857), and DR S. T. BLOOMFIELD, vicar of Bisbrooke. The former edited Eschylus and Callimachus, and wrote some theological treatises, including Lectures on the Gospel of St John. Dr Bloomfield's Greek Testament, with copious Notes, 1832, is now in its ninth edition, and his College and School Greek Testament supplied a desideratum in scholastic literature.

The REV. HENRY ALFORD, of Trinity, vicar of Wimeswould, Leicestershire, like Dr Trench, commenced author as a poet-Poems and Poetical Fragments, 1831; The School of the Heart; &c.-but his Hulsean Lectures, 1841, his various collections of Sermons, Greek Testament, with notes, &c., have given him a reputation as a divine and a scholar. The REV. CHARLES HARDWICK, of St Catherine's Hall, has written a valuable History of the Christian

the professors at the Independent College, Birmingham. Mr Rogers officiated for some time as minister of an Independent congregation, but was forced to relinquish his charge on account of ill health. He has been a contributor to the Edinburgh Review, and a collection of his various papers has been published under the title of Essays: Contributions to the Edinburgh Review, three volumes, 1850-55. In 1856, Mr Rogers published an Essay on the Life and Genius of Thomas Fuller, with Selections from his Writings. He has also contributed some short biographies to the new edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica. Learned, eloquent, and liberal in sentiment, Mr Rogers is an honour to the Dissenting body. The Eclipse was written in reply to Mr F. W. Newman's Phases of Faith, noticed in a previous page. Mr Rogers adopts the plan of sending to a missionary in the Pacific Ocean an account of the religious distractions in this country. All the controversies and new theological opinions, English and German, which have been agitated within the last twenty years are discussed, and a considerable part of the reasoning is in the form of dialogue. The various interlocutors state their opinions fully, and are answered by other parties. Deism is represented by a disciple of Professor Newman, who draws most of his arguments from the Phases of Faith. A new edition of this work being called for, Mr Newman added to it a Reply to the Eclipse of Faith, 1854, and Mr Rogers rejoined with A Defence of the Eclipse of Faith. There is a good deal of vigorous thought and sarcasm in Mr Rogers's Eclipse and Defence, while in logical acuteness he is vastly superior to his opponent. Occasionally he rises into a strain of pure eloquence, as in the following passage:

[The Character of the Saviour.]

And now what, after all, does the carping criticism of this chapter amount to? Little as it is in itself, it absolutely vanishes; it is felt that the Christ thus portrayed cannot be the right interpretation of the history, in the face of all those glorious scenes with which the evangelical narrative abounds, but of which there is here an entire oblivion. But humanity will not forget them; men still wonder at the 'gracious words which proceeded out of Christ's mouth,' and persist in saying, 'Never man spake like this man.' The brightness of the brightest names pales and wanes before the radiance which shines from the person of Christ. The scenes at the tomb of Lazarus, at the gate of Nain, in the happy family at Bethany, in the upper room' where He instituted the feast which should for ever consecrate His memory, and bequeathed to his disciples the legacy of His love; the scenes in the Garden of Gethsemane, on the summit of Calvary, and at the sepulchre; the sweet remembrance of the patience with which He bore wrong, the gentleness with which he rebuked it, and the love with which he forgave it; the thousand acts of benign condescension by which He well earned for himself, from self-righteous pride and censorious hypocrisy, the name of the 'friend of publicans and sinners;' these, and a hundred things more, which crowd those concise memorials of love and sorrow with such prodigality of beauty and of pathos, will still continue to charm and attract the soul of humanity, and on these the highest genius, as well as the humblest mediocrity, will love to dwell. These things lisping infancy loves to hear on its mother's knees, and over them age, with its gray locks, bends in devoutest reverence. No; before the infidel can prevent the influence of these compositions, he must get rid of the gospels themselves, or he must supplant them by fictions yet more wonderful! Ah, what bitter irony has

involuntarily escaped me! But if the last be impossible, at least the gospels must cease to exist before infidelity can succeed. Yes, before infidels can prevent men from thinking as they have ever done of Christ, they must blot out the gentle words with which, in the presence of austere hypocrisy, the Saviour welcomed that timid guilt that could only express its silent love in an agony of tears; they must blot out the words addressed to the dying penitent, who, softened by the majestic patience of the mighty sufferer, detected at last the Monarch under the veil of sorrow, and cast an imploring glance to be remembered by Him when He came into His kingdom;' they must blot out the scene in which the demoniacs sat listening at His feet, and in their right mind; they must blot out the remembrance of surely for him whom He was about to raise, but in pure the tears which He shed at the grave of Lazarus-not sympathy with the sorrows of humanity-for the myriad myriads of desolate mourners, who could not, with Mary, fly to him, and say: Lord, if thou hadst been here, my mother, brother, sister, had not died!' they must blot out the record of those miracles which charm of the truth of His doctrine, but as they illustrate the us, not only as the proof of His mission, and guarantees benevolence of His character and are types of the spiritual cures His gospel can yet perform; they must blot out the scenes of the sepulchre, where love and veneration lingered, and saw what was never seen before, but shall henceforth be seen to the end of time the tomb itself irradiated with angelic forms, and bright with the presence of Him who brought life and immortality to light;' they must blot out the scene where deep and grateful love wept so passionately, and found Him unbidden at her side, type of ten thousand times ten thousand, who have sought the grave to weep there,' and found joy and consolation in Him whom, though unseen, they loved; they must blot out the discourses in which He took leave of his disciples, the majestic accents of which have filled so many departing souls with patience and with triumph; they must blot out the yet sublimer words in which He declares himself the resurrection and the life'-words which have led so many millions more to breathe out their spirits with childlike trust, and to believe, as the gate of death closed behind them, that they would see Him who is invested with the 'keys of the invisible world,' 'who opens and no man shuts, and shuts and no man opens,' letting in through the portal which leads to immortality the radiance of the skies; they must blot out, they must destroy these and a thousand other such things, before they can prevent Him having the pre-eminence who loved, because He loved us, to call himself the 'Son of Man,' though angels called him the 'Son of God.' It is in vain to tell men it is an illusion. If it be an illusion, every variety of experiment proves it to be inveterate, and it will not be dissipated by a million of Strausses and Newmans! Probatum est. At His feet guilty humanity, of diverse races and nations, for eighteen hundred years, has come to pour forth in faith and love its sorrows, and finds there 'the peace which the world can neither give nor take away.' Myriads of aching heads and weary hearts have found, and will find, repose there, and have invested Him with veneration, love, and gratitude, which will never, never be paid to any other name than His.'

ISAAC TAYLOR.

A long series of works on theology and mental philosophy-ingenious in argument, and often eloquent though peculiar in style-have proceeded from the pen of MR ISAAC TAYLOR, a retired student residing at Stanford Rivers, near Ongar, Essex. Mr Taylor's father was preacher in an Independent chapel at Ongar, and there the essayist was born about the year 1789. The first, and perhaps

the heart. Whenever excitements of any kind are regarded distinctly as a source of luxurious pleasure, then, instead of expanding the bosom with beneficent energy, instead of dispelling the sinister purposes of selfishness, instead of shedding the softness and warmth of generous love through the moral system, they become a freezing centre of solitary and unsocial indulgence, and at length displace every emotion that deserves to be called virtuous. No cloak of selfishness is, in fact, more impenetrable than that which usually envelops a pampered imagination. The reality of woe is the very circumstance that paralyses sympathy; and the eye that can pour forth its flood of commiseration for the sorrows of the romance or the drama, grudges a tear to the substantial wretchedness of the unhappy. Much more often than not, this kind of luxurious sensitiveness to fiction is conjoined with a callousness that enables the subject of it to pass through the affecting occasions of domestic life in immovable apathy: the heart has become, like that of leviathan, firm as a stone, yea, hard as a piece of the nether millstone.' This process of perversion and of induration may as readily have place among the religious emotions as among those of any other class; for the laws of human nature are uniform, whatever may be the immediate cause which puts them in action; and a fictitious piety corrupts or petrifies the heart not less certainly than does a romantic sentimentality. The danger attending enthusiasm in religion is not, then, of a trivial sort; and whoever disaffects the substantial matters of Christianity, and seeks to derive from it merely, or chiefly, the gratifications of excited feeling-whoever combines from its materials a paradise of abstract contemplation, or of poetic imagery, where he may take refuge from the annoyances and the importunate claims of common life-whoever thus delights himself with dreams, and is insensible to realities, lives in peril of awaking from his illusions when truth comes too late. The religious idealist sincerely believes himself, perhaps, to be eminently devout; and those who witness his abstraction, his elevation, his enjoyments, may reverence his piety; meanwhile, this fictitious happiness creeps as a lethargy through the moral system, and is rendering him continually less and less susceptible of those emotions in which true religion consists.

REV. T. DALE-REV. H. MELVILL, ETC. The REV. THOMAS DALE, canon of St Paul's, and vicar of St Pancras, is author of two volumes of Sermons, the first preached at St Bride, 1830, and the second before the University of Cambridge, 1832-36. The other publications of Mr Dale are-The Sabbath Companion, 1844; Commentary on the Twenty-third Psalm, 1845; The Domestic Liturgy and Family Chaplain, 1846; &c. Mr Dale, while at college in Cambridge, published some poetical narratives, The Widow of Nain, The Outlaw of Tarsus, and Irad and Adah, since collected into one volume, 1842. Mr Dale is a native of London, born in 1797. He was for some time Professor of English Literature at the London University, and subsequently at King's College.

Another canon of St Paul's, and popular metropolitan preacher, is the REV. HENRY MELVILL, author of several volumes of Sermons, and a volume of Lectures delivered at St Margaret's, Lothbury, 1850-52. The latter formed part of the Jones Lectureship, commonly called 'The Golden Lecture,' which was founded by a London citizen in 1614. The annual income of the Golden Lectureship amounts to £416 a year; the patrons are the Haberdashers' Company.

The Bridgewater Treatises form a valuable series of works on the theology of natural history. The

Earl of Bridgewater (1758-1829) bequeathed a sum of £8000 to be invested in the public funds, and paid to persons appointed by the President of the Royal Society to write and publish works on the Power, Wisdom, and Goodness of God as manifested in the Creation. The works so produced are-The Hand, its Mechanism and Endowments as evincing Design, by SIR CHARLES BELL, Professor of Surgery in the University of Edinburgh (1774-1842); Geology and Mineralogy considered with Reference to Natural Theology, by DR WILLIAM BUCKLAND, Dean of Westminster (1784-1856); The Moral and Intellectual Constitution of Man, by DR THOMAS CHALMERS (1780-1847); The Physical Condition of Man, by DR JOHN KIDD; The Habits and Instincts of Animals, by the REV. W. KIRBY (1759-1851); Chemistry and Meteorology, by DR W. PROUT; Animal and Vegetable General Physics, by DR W. WHEWELL, Professor of Physiology, by DR P. M. ROGET; Astronomy and Moral Philosophy. The names here given afford sufficient evidence of the judicious administration of the trust. The President of the Royal Society called in to his aid, in selecting the writers, the archbishop of Canterbury and bishop of London, and it is creditable to their liberality and taste that the first of the treatises was assigned to a Presbyterian minister-Dr Chalmers.

DRS BROWN, WARDLAW, GUTHRIE, CAIRD, CANDLISH,
CUMMING, AND TULLOCH.

The Scottish divines, though enjoying comparatively little leisure from their pastoral duties, have made some contributions to our modern theological literature. DR JOHN BROWN (1785-1859), of the United Presbyterian Church, Theological Professor, &c., was a good Biblical critic and practical theologian. Amidst numerous religious treatises published between 1821 and 1852, his Expository Discourses on the Epistles to the Romans and Galatians, the Epistle of Peter, Discourses and Sayings of our Lord, the Sufferings of the Messiah, &c., are warmly commended. DR RALPH WARDLAW (1779-1853), of the Independent Church, Glasgow, was author of Discourses on the Socinian Controversy, 1814, which have been frequently reprinted, and which Robert Hall said completely exhausted the subject. Dr Wardlaw published various sermons and theological essays, and was a learned, able divine, and a very impressive preacher. A life of Dr Wardlaw was published in 1856 by Dr W. L. Alexander. Among the most popular of sermons lately published are those of DR GUTHRIE and DR CAIRD. Thomas Guthrie (born at Brechin, Forfarshire, in 1800) is author of a volume of Discourses from Ezekiel, 1855; Discourses from the Epistle to the Colossians, 1859; Pleas for Ragged Schools; and several tracts against intemperance. Dr Guthrie is the most eloquent of the Free Church preachers. His sermons are marked by poetic imagery and illustration-perhaps too profusely, but often striking, pathetic, and impressive. Dr John Caird, one of the ministers of Glasgow, has published Religion in Common Life, a sermon preached before the Court at Balmoral in 1856, and a volume of Sermons, 1858; these are distinguished for their practical tendency and earnestness, and for a beautiful simplicity and clearness of style. DR ROBERT S. CANDLISH, one of the Free Church ministers of Edinburgh-son of an early friend and correspondent of the poet Burnsis author of an Exposition of the Book of Genesis, 1852; Discourses on the Resurrection, 1858; and other professional treatises, all evincing acuteness and research-a subtle and penetrating intellect. DR