It is manifest that Lord Eldon enjoyed the sweets of patronage too much to allow even heritors-parishioners no one would think of in this connexion-to interfere with his authoritative nominationfor he writes thus,

"I take leave to represent to you, that if Taplow becomes vacant, it will not be possible for me to gratify Lady Orkney's wishes. I regret it upon other accounts. But I never have admitted any pretension founded upon the proprietorship of the parish-for that, besides other mischiefs attending it, is in fact making the crown a mere trustee of its liv ings for every considerable family in the kingdom." Vol. i. 390.

How easily, nevertheless, was his Lordship induced to confer a living, when it was asked either with great modesty, or great sturdiness. Here is the success of genuine sturdiness,

"A clergyman came down to Encombe and asked for the chancellor. The servant said his Lordship was out shooting. Which way is he gone?' asked the clergyman. What is your business, sir? asked the servant. Never mind;' rejoined the parson, only just tell me.' The servant pointed out the quarter where the chancellor might be found; and the stranger was not long before he came up with a man carrying a gun, and accompanied by dogs, but shabbily dressed. He inquired where the chancellor might be found. Not far off,' said the sportsman; and just as he spoke, a covey of partridges got up, at which he fired without success. The stranger left him, crossed on a little, and witnessed the discharge of several shots, as unproductive as the first. 'You don't seem to make much of that,' said he, coming back. I wish you could tell me where to meet Lord Eldon.' Why, then,' said the other, I am Lord Eldon. The clergyman fell on apologising, till the chancellor asked him, 'Whence he came, how he had got to Encombe, and what he wanted.' The poor fellow said, 'He had come from Lancashire to the Bull and Mouth, London,-that, finding the chancellor had left town, and having no money to spare, he had walked from London, that he was the curate of a small parish, of which the incumbent was just dead, and he had come to solicit the benefice.' 'I never give answer to applicants coming hither,' said the chancellor, and I can only express my regret that you should have the trouble of coming so far to no purpose.' The suitor said, he had no alternative but go back to the Bull and Mouth, where he expected to find a friend who would give him a cast back to Lancashire; and with a heavy heart he took leave. On arriving at the Bull and Mouth, a letter in an unknown hand was waiting him. He opened the cover anxiously, and what was his joy on finding it a note from the chancellor, giving him the preferment. But now,' said Lord Eldon, 'mark the ingratitude of mankind. It was not long before a large present of game reached me, with a letter from my new-made rector, stating that he had sent it me, as from what he had seen of my shooting, he supposed I must be badly off for game.""

And now for the award of graceful modesty,-more romantic still than the preceding relation.

"When Mr Scott stood for Weobly, he lodged with Mr Bridge, the

man ?'

vicar. Having a daughter, at the time but a child, he took a jocular promise from Mr Scott, that if ever he were Lord Chancellor, and the little girl's husband a clergyman, he would give that clergyman a living. Years rolled on-I came into office-and one morning I was told a young lady wished to speak to me. I bade them show her up. And up came a young lady, who said she thought I could not recollect her. I answered, that I did not. She then asked if I remembered the clergyman at Weobly, and his little girl. O, yes, I said, I do; and I suppose you are the little girl. She said, yes. Are you married to a clergyNo; I am only going to be married to one, if you will give him a living. I told her to come back in a few days; and I made inquiries of the bishop. The gentleman she was to be married to was a respectable clergyman of the Church of England. I then looked at my list, and found that I had actually a living vacant. So when the young lady came back, I told her she might return home, and get married as fast as she liked, for her intended husband would be presented to a living, and I would send the papers so soon as made out. O, no! she exclaimed, pray let me take them back myself. So I actually had the papers made out, and I signed them, and she took them back herself the following day."

The effects of patronage, as administered in the Church of England, cannot fail to be most injurious upon her priests and bishops, imparting to them a worldly and servile spirit, and leading them to regard the church not as a sacred vineyard, where there is room for all labourers, but as a state lottery, where every one must take his most uncertain chance and be content. The passage we now extract bears us out fully in this remark.

"If I had all the livings in the kingdom vacant, when I communicated my resignation, and they were cut each into threescore livings, I could not do what is asked of me, by letters received every five minutes, full of all eulogies upon my virtues, and all concluding with, Pray give me a living before you go out."

Even bishops are not without both their ambition and their disappointments on this field, but unite equally the politician and the prelate.

"It is not yet publicly known that Lincoln goes to Winchester. Exeter is most bitterly disappointed; and it is rumoured that the king had repeatedly promised it to him. But you know I have always said, that kings' promises are not to be relied on. In fact, they have less will of their own than any of their subjects, and they are ill used when they are reproached for breach of promise. In the nature of things, their promises can mean no more than that they will express a with about the matter to the minister for the time, for no minister could remain if he had not, to use a vulgar expression, his say about such a thing as the bishopric of Winchester."

Our object has been accomplished. What we sought, was to furnish such of our readers as cannot have access to the expensive

volumes of Mr Twiss, with a brief sketch of one whose life is intimately connected with our national history; and having done this, we feel that it would be alike unnecessary and impertinent to add any reflections. This only would we say, and with a full appreciation of Lord Eldon's powers and services we say it, notwithstanding, the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.'

ART. VI.-Annotatio in Loca Nonnulla Novi Testamenti. Edidit WESSEL ALBERTUS VAN HENGEL. Amstelædami, 1824.

In adopting, as the theme of the present article, out of the numerous exegetical works which represent the modern school of Dutch theology, one of the earliest efforts of the distinguished Professor above-named, we are influenced by two considerations-that this specimen exhibits both the merits and the defects of its class as fairly as those of later date and that, as it, with most of its fellows, has met with comparative neglect among us, the lapse of one or two decades of years cannot be regarded as having rubbed off it the gloss of novelty.

Striking as the change in the political relations of the United Provinces must appear, when the uninfluential position which they at present hold is contrasted with the rivalry of Spain and England as that is recorded in their elder annals, the decay of their literary celebrity is equally palpable. They have, in proportion to their extent and population, contributed as much as any country to the advancement, not only of painting and other graceful arts commonly associated with their name, but of learning and science in every department; and, so long as Latin continued to be the one vehicle of thought everywhere employed by authors and understood by readers, the Dutch divines and moralists, civilians and philologers, naturalists and physicians, exercised an European influence. While illustrious refugees from persecution or restraint at home crowded to those free and hospitable towns where respect, if not patronage, could always be relied upon, the literary natives-whose names, albeit translated or euphonised, as fashion might direct, into such un-teutonic shapes as Desiderius Erasmus, Goropius Becanus, Gronovius, Grotius, Vossius, Perizonius,* did not, in their own time, disguise their whereabout' from the studious community which they had to addressattracted ardent disciples from all quarters to their colleges and

* Thus are masked the homely Gherardt Gherardts, Jan Van Gorp, Jan Fr. Groenhof, Huig de Groot, Gherardt Vos, Jacob Varbrek. Many of the most eminent men of Holland, however, have trusted to foreign enunciation their names under little or no disguise; as Bynkershoek, Boerhaave, Swammerdam, Huygens, Ten Kate, Schultens, Hemsterhuys, Valckenaer, and a host of others.

schools. Hallowed to the scholar-as Niebuhr has characteristically remarked*—is that University-hall, escutcheoned by the effigies of its Professors, from Scaliger, enrobed in purple, down to Ruhnken, which preserves among the citizens of Leyden the memory of sufferings more than human, endured, in the cause of patriotism and of the Protestant faith, by their heroic ancestors.

When the decline of any national literature is closely contemplated, there may always be traced the operation of numerous conspiring causes; but a review of these, however elaborate, seldom effaces from the mind an impression, that, in each instance, the soil of genius had become either effete or needful of repose,-that the torch of science was resigned to foreign hands, only when the energies by which it was vibrated had drooped, and the resources whence it was fed had been exhausted; and a law of Providence appears to operate directly, in transferring from clime to clime intellectual and moral, as well as physical, pre-eminence, now as a reward, now as a trial, ever as a trust to be in due season reclaimed. For this reason, as well as others, it seems at present expedient simply to notice the fact, that, for at least a century and a half, the star of Batavia has been too dim to pass for the western cynosure;-the reputation of those, who have addressed popular sympathies and guided popular opinions in the vernacular tongue, is echoed only by the banks of the Amstel and the Y;-and, of those who still write or lecture in Latin, the very foremost-such as Van der Palm and Van Hengel, Hamaker and Leemans—are no longer ahead of foreign competitors in the same departments. But, while it is remarked, with a special reference to theology, that the Dutch have forfeited the precedency which they long challenged, truth requires this further admission, that their religious views have experienced an obscuration more melancholy than even the paralysis of genius. The successors of the Dordrecht divines had largely imbibed the latitudinarian notions of their Remonstrant brethren, when both were called upon to repel the rude assaults of Gallican scepticism; but the mode, in which the defence of their common faith was conducted, augured no strenuous antagonism to the neology that was about to be propagated from Germany. In effect, that baneful element was soon so extensively diffused among them, as, if not to exhibit the sad spectacle, elsewhere realized, of avowed hostility to the whole scheme of revealed truth on the part of its appointed ministers and guardians, at least to extract from their expositions, oral or printed, what ought ever to have been considered as their inalienable peculiarities. The solid and imposing tomes, which issued in the olden time from Utrecht, Groningen, and Leyden, still retain, in our own as in other countries, their well-earned reputation; because, though no doubt unnecessarily prolix and complicated, they are redolent of a sincerely devotional spirit, give glimpses

* Röm. Gesch. ed. 2, t. i. p. 250.

of a profound psychology, develope clearly the separate evangelical doctrines, and elucidate the principles by which these are harmonised. The programs, dissertations, and commentaries recently sent forth from the same Universities are far less known and command far less confidence; and this, notwithstanding an unquestionable superiority in the application of critical canons, in the consistency of grammatical interpretation,-in the care with which parallel or illustrative passages are applied,-in the judicious selection from the materials. which learning, travel, and science have accumulated as ancillary to theology,―in the retrenchment of superfluous or of simply polemical disputations. The reason is, that, for the attainment of such external advantages, sacrifices have been made of vital and intrinsic significance; the critieism, if subtle, is felt to be often deceptive; the exegesis, if guarded, seems languid and hollow; the style of inference has a vague and deceptive aspect; the very dogmatism is deficient in earnestness and connection; the contents, or the credentials, of revelation itself are, in some cases, clouded with suspicion. The Hollanders, unhappily, in adopting from their energetic neighbours improved habits of study, to which, in following out the career where they were once foremost, they would have advanced themselves, were induced to barter away their nationality of spirit and fixedness of principle; and thus, had no other causes combined to stamp their sacred as well as their secular literature with mediocrity, they ensured that result, by descending from the altitude of thinkers and discoverers to become mannerists and imitators.

To those who consider the ever-widening circulation which the more influential Continental works have for some time enjoyed among ourselves, and the ascendancy over our modes of thought which they are, surely though not always perceptibly, acquiring, it must be a subject of concern, how the current, which has set in, and, of course, will not be stayed, may be directed to beneficial ends. Not the least important of these, if appearances be not fallacious, will be the furnishing with needful armour, and the intelligent fraternization, of those who will have to defend at once liberty of conscience and purity of faith, against the spiritual despotism which lours in the horizon and the gaunt infidelity which stalks apace beneath its shadow. In taking their stand upon the position, that the Bible is the sole and the sufficient rule of religious belief, they must be intimately acquainted with the innumerable points on which it has been and will be assailed by foes of every class; and they must be provided with the varied endowments, in philosophy, science, and erudition, which the fathers of the Reformation, and indeed enlightened theologians of all ages, have held to be requisite. Now, our countrymen, while pre-eminent in some of these qualifications, have been disposed to leave others to a few reputed pedants, as if they were never more to be called forth for practical purposes; but throughout Germany and Holland, in the mean time, they