inclosed; and an ellipsis of 2 is frequent. And fatness and insolence are often joined together in Scripture. See Deut. xxxii. 15; Job. xv. 27; Ps. Ixxiii. 7. And these persons are afterwards in this Psalm represented as fed to the full.

"Ps. xvii. 11. w doth not else where signify to succeed; or even to be happy, though probably it had that sense. And, if we follow the Keri, the translation may well be, As for our steps, they have inclosed us now; i. e. They have now inclosed our steps.

"Ps. xvii. 15. I should prefer our translation,―They are full of children; which is also that of the Sept."

ON

Mr. URBAN, West-square, Nov. 4. N the Scunning of Virgil's Verses, I wish (with your permission) to satisfy your Correspondent Marcus respecting my statement in the preface to the third edition of my "Latin Prosody made easy," that, "in compiling my Clavis MetricoVirgilianu,' my examination of the Eclogues, Georgics, and Eneïs, (amounting to near thirteen thou sand lines) was accomplished in six hours and a half; in which time I marked (by underscoring the words) every poetic licence in those poems, with the exception of only one or two, which casually escaped my rapid glance.'

99

Marcus seems to think it hardly possible that any man could exaipine," with metrical attention, thirtytwo lines per minute:" and, under that impression, inquires, whether a mistake has not been made in the numbers, either by myself or my printer.

as

In answer, I beg leave to assure him, that there is no mistake in the case, nor any intentional exaggeration in my statement, which was made with no other view than that of exciting the youthful reader to pay due attention to prosodic quantity; the habit of observing it in reading the Poets would enable him, at a single glance of the eye, to discover the metrical beauties or defects in the structure of every line, without the necessity of formal scansion.-I repeat, that there is neither wilful

In your last Number, p. 323.

nor casual misrepresentation in my statement: but that I really did examine every line of the Pastorals, Georgics, and Eneïs, in "six hours and a half," though not in one uninterrupted course of exertion, but with some intervals of relaxation. And, if it were worth while to prove the truth of my assertion, I would, without fear or hesitation, undertake to perform the task anew, in presence of witnesses.

Marcus professes himself to be "a tolerable Prosodian, and sufficiently acquainted with the poetic licences :" nor am I disposed to question his competency in that respect. But I cannot forbear to observe, that I bave met with Scholars, who accounted themselves good Prosodians, because they could readily scan the lines of Virgil and Ovid, although, if the same lines were deranged into prose, they could not tell the real quantity of the separate words.

I am unwilling to suppose that Marcus is à Prosodian of that description: but, setting him out of the question, I conceive, that, to merit the appellation of a good Prosodian, a Scholar ought to be able, as well in the pages of Cicero or Livy, as in those of Virgil or Ovid, at once to tell the proper quantity of every syllable in every word, with as great ease and precision, as the proper accents of the common words in his native language.

A Prosodian thus qualified, and accustomed (as I have been in my private perusal of the Poets) to pay strict attention to quantity, will feel little difficulty in crediting my assertion respecting the six hours and a half; "unless, perhaps, I am deceived by this circumstance, that my familiar acquaintance with Virgil may have enabled me, by the aid of memory, to glance more rapidly over his lines, than I otherwise could have done. Such, indeed, may have been the case; though, even if it was, I do not think that I should have found any considerable difference in a similar examination of a less familiar Author t."

Not foreign to the present subject will be a remark on certain peculiarities in Claudian's versification.In page 355 of my "Prosody," I have

Pref. to Lal. Pros.

no

OXONIENSIS must know that generally speaking, there are but three methods of obtaining Church preferment-by College, by purchase, or by patronage. From the first of these avenues to Clerical independence, all who enter whilst young into the married state, or who are not so fortunate as to obtain a Fellowship, are necessarily excluded. Nor is the purchase of Church property more favourable; it generally proves in the end a speculation in which few men of judgment and reflection would wish to engage. And as to patronage,

"If e'er a curse attend the man I hate, Attendance and dependance be his fate:" it is at least a precarious and uncer tain road to preferment, which, in ninety-nine instances out of a hundred, is never enjoyed by "the children of the peasantry," whatever may

be their merit or attainments.

By what means, then, are the individuals in question to rise to favour? Like the generality of their brother Curates, they must either wait for a paltry Vicarage which no one else will have, and thus obtain a scanty pittance from the bread of the Altar, when they are grey-headed, and have no teeth wherewith to eat it-when they are old, and have no appetite to enjoy it; or, what is still worse, after having been the faithful servants of the Church during their days of energy and vigour, they are left in old age to linger out their declining years in obscurity and want-they are oppressed by poverty when living; and, when dead, their memories are cursed by the faint praise of those, who have enjoyed their la bours, and fattened on their industry.

Suffer me, in taking leave of OxoNIENSIS, to say, that, were I disposed

argument-to adduce accusations instead of proofs—I should account for the bitterness of your Correspondent by remarking, that, notwithstanding the extent of his mathematical or classical attainments, he had been made to feel the orthodoxy of a Northern neighbour's theology. But I chuse rather to dwell on the facts of the case, which appear to be simply these; namely, that a University education is desirable when it can be obtained; but that the want of it does not necessarily impeach a man's judgment, indicate a want of attainments, or betray baseness of origin. If I mistake not, many of the Northern Clergy are the sons of respectable yeomen, who from time immemorial have held responsible situations in their respective neighbourhoods, and have always been considered, not only by their dependants, but also by the surrounding gentry, as far removed from the lowest of the people. If this can be said of the ancestors of OxONIENSIS, let him rest satisfied with his own respectability; but let him not vainly imagine that he can add thereto, by rudely tearing the laurel from the brow of unoffending merit. Yours, &c.

Mr. URBAN,

PHILO-JUSTITIE.

Nov. 8.

by Glover, Somerset Herald, preserved in the College of Arms, may serve to answer one of the queries proposed by G. H. W. at page 194, and at the same time correct the strange error of S. J. A. at page 325.

HE following extract from a MS.

"If a man whose ancestors have married with divers inheritrixes, do marry with an inheritrix, by whom he hath divers daughters, and afterward marry another inheritrix, by whom he hath issue male, the issue general of the first wyfe shall bear their father's armes with their owne mother's quarterly, and the issue male of the second wife shall bear the armes of his father and his owne mother's quarterly, and noe part of the first wyfe's armes, and soe in like manner the heires as well of the heire general as the heires male shall bear their armes, as before is expressed. The issue of those whiche marrye

with the daughters and heires generall may bear quarterly with their owne armes, only the coate of name of their mother's father, and the whole arms of their grandmother's father (the same having no lawful issue male); the cause why they bear their mother's father's coat of name is, for that, they cannot conveye to their grandmother's father but by him-and in this case only the issue of a man's daughter and heir supra shall bear quarterly her father's coate of name, he having sonnes; but they shall in no case quarter the other inheritors, that his ancestors had before that time married withal; notwithstanding his son, being of the half blood, and second ventor, shall bear the coat of name, together with the arms of all the inheritors with whom they before had matched, as well as if their half sister's had never beene."

The illustration of your Correspondent's opinion (S. J. A.) is unfortunately selected; the arms and quarterings of Algernon Seymour, Duke of Somerset, are an indispensable part of the full armorial achievement of the present Duke of Northumberland. W. MENT.

Mr. URBAN,

S

Purfleet, Nov. 5.

As your Magazine affords the

means of acquiring information upon every topic connected with Literature and Science; may I request the favour of some of your learned and ingenious Correspondents to inform me whether there has ever been engraved a portrait of Oliver Cromwell, taken from that likeness which Mr. Dallaway mentions in page 279, of his " Enquiries into the Origin, &c. of Heraldry," as being impressed upon "the margin"

of the Patents of his " Peers of Parliament" which has "his paternal escocheon with quarterings."

Perhaps it might not be impos sible to procure from the family or descendant of one of these Republican Nobles the indulgence of being permitted to take a copy of so singular a memorial of the pageantry of the Protector; and it would undoubtedly gratify many of your Readers to see it in your valuable repository of Antiquarian curiosities. Yours, &c. THOMAS IBBEYS.

ONT

BRITISH & FOREIGN BIBLE SOCIETY. N Tuesday, Nov. 2, a Meeting took place at the Egyptian Hall, London, to receive the Annual Report of the Committees of the British and Foreign Bible Society. It was chiefly composed of females, and we scarcely remember a more numerous and elegant assemblage. The Lord Mayor took the Chair. After the routine of business had been gone through, and several speakers had been heard, Mr. Phillips (the Irish Barrister) being called upon, thus addressed the worthy Chairman:

66 Although I have not had the honour of being selected to move or to second any of your Resolutions, still I may be permitted to say that they have my perfect concurrence. As a member of that country which has been so pointedly alluded to in your Report, I think I shall find an apology with this meeting for occupying its attention for a few moments. Indeed, my

Lord, when we see the omens which every day produces-when we see blasphemy openly avowed-when we see the Scriptures audaciously ridiculed-when in this Christian monarchy the den of the Republican and the Deist yawns for the unwary in the most public thoroughfareswhen marts are ostentatiously opened where the moral poison may be purchased, whose subtle venom enters the very soul-when infidelity has become an article of commerce, and man's perdition may be cheapened at the stall of every pedlar, no friend of society should continue silent. It is no longer a question of political privilege, of sectarian controversy, of theological discussion; it is become a question whether Christianity itself shall stand, or whether we shall let go the firm anchor of our faith, and drift without chart, or helm, or compass, into the shoreless ocean of impiety and blood. I despise as much as any man the whine of bigotry; I will go as far as any man for rational liberty; but I will not depose my God to deify the infidel, or tear in pieces the Charter of the State, and grope for a Constitution amongst the murky pigeon-holes of every creedless, lawless, intoxicated regicide. When I saw the other day, my Lord, the Chief Bacchanal of their orgies-the man with whom the Apostles were cheats, and the Prophets liars, and Jesus an impostor, on his trial in Guildhall, withering hour after hour with the most horrid blasphemies, surrounded by the votaries of every sect, and the heads of every faith-the Christian Archbishop, the Jewish Rabbi, the men most eminent for their piety and their learning, whom he had purposely collected to hear his infidel ridicule of all they reverence ;-when I saw him raise the Holy

Bible in one hand, and the "Age of Reason" in the other as it were, confronting the Almighty with a rebel fiend till the pious Judge grew pale, and the patient Jury interposed, and the self-convicted wretch himself, after having raved away all his original impiety, was reduced himself into a mere machine, for the reproduction of the ribald blasphemy of others, I could not help exclaiming, "Unfortunate man, if all your impracticable madness could be realized, what would you give us in exchange for our Establishment? what would you substitute for that august Tribunal ?-for whom would you displace that independent judge, and that impartial jury? Or would you really burn the Gospel, and erase the statutes, for the dreadful equivalent of the crucifix and the guillotine? Indeed, if I was asked for a practical panegyrick on our Constitution, I would adduce the very trial of that criminal; and if the legal annals of any country upon earth furnish an instance, not merely of such justice, but of such patience, such forbearance, such almost culpable indulgence, I will concede to him the triumph. I hope, too, in what I say I shall not be considered as forsaking that illustrious example; I hope I am above an insult on any man in his situation; perhaps, had I the power, I would follow the example farther than I ought; perhaps I would even humble him into an evidence of the very spirit he spurned, and as our creed was reviled in his person, and vindicated in his conviction, so I would give it its noblest triumph in his sentence, and merely consigu him to the punishment of its mercy. But, indeed, my Lord, the fate of that half-infidel, half-trading martyr, matters very little in comparison of that of the thousands he has corrupted. He has literally disseminated a moral plague against which even the Nation's quarantine can scarce avail us. It has poisoned the fresh blood of infancy; it has disheartered the last hope of age; if his own account of its circulation be correct, hundreds of thousands must be this instant tainted with the infectious venom, whose sting dies not with the destruction of the body. Imagine not, because the pestilence smites not at once, that its fatality is the less certain; imagine not, because the lower orders are the earliest victims, that the more elevated will not suffer in their turn. The most mortal chilness begins at the extremities; and you may depend upon it nothing but time and apathy are wanting to change this healthful land into a charnel-house, where murder, anarchy, and prostitution, and the whole hell brood of infidelity, will quaff the heart's blood of the consecrated and the noble. My Lord, I am the more indignant at these designs, because they are sought to be

concealed in the disguise of liberty. It is the duty of every real friend to liberty to tear her mask from the fiend who has usurped it. No, no; this is not our Island Goddess, bearing the mountain freshness on her cheek, and scattering the valley's bounty from her hand-known by the lights that herald her fair presence, the peaceful virtues that attend her path, and the long blaze of glory that lingers in her train. It is a demon, speaking fair indeed, tempting our faith with airy hopes and visionary realms; but even within the folding of its mantle hiding the bloody symbol of its purpose. Hear not its sophistry; guard your child against it; draw round your homes the consecrated circle which it dare not enter; you will find an amulet in the religion of your country: it is the great mound raised by the Almighty for the protection of humanityit stands between you and the lava of human passions and oh! believe me, if you stand tamely by while it is basely undermined, the fiery deluge will roll on, before which all that you hold dear, or venerable, or sacred, will wither into ashes. Believe no one who tells you that the friends of Freedom are now, or ever were, the enemies of Religion. They know too well that rebellion againt God could not prove the basis of government for man, and that the proudest structure impiety can raise, is but the Babel monument of impotence, and its pride mocking the builders with a moment's strength, and then covering them with inevitable confusion. Do you want an example? Only look to France; the microscopic vision of your rabble blasphemers has not sight enough to contemplate the mighty minds which commenced her revolution. The wit, the sage, the orator, the hero, the whole family of genius furnished forth treasures, and gave them nobly to the nation's exigence: they had great provocation they had a glorious cause: they had all that human potency could give them. But they relied too much on this human potency: they abjured their God; and, as a natural consequence, they murdered their King. They called their pol luted deities from the brothel, and the fall of the idol extinguished the flame of the altar. They crowded the scaffold with all their country held of genius or of virtue ; and when the peerage and the prelacy were exhausted, the mob-executioner of to-day became the mob-victim of to-morrow; no sex was spared-no age respected-no suffering pitied; and all this they did in the sacred name of liberty, though, in the deluge of human blood, they left not a mountain top for the Ark of Liberty to rest on. But Providence was neither "dead nor sleeping ;" it mattered not that for a moment their impiety seemed to prosper