gant and poetic pieces; the versification and language always natural and easy; and the thoughts and images, well selected and arranged. We shall give the Shooting Star,' which reminds us much in its style of Mr. Campbell's poem on the' Rainbow.' "Oh! for an Angel's mighty wing To break thy radiant flight, That glancest through the night !— On some high mission bound? Or to some doom'd and guilty world Or hast theu from the birth of Time, Which thou dost through unbounded [space As when 'twas first begun ; When young Creation's birthday song We have no fear but this pleasing little volume will approve itself to every poetical and cultivated mind. GENT. MAG. VOL. VII. An Autumn Day, &c. By John WE do not think that this volume will be popular: for the subject of the poem is perhaps too spiritual for the many, while it is not finished enough to be attractive to the well-judging few. There is no want of good versification and good language in parts, but it is very unequal; and often the subjects and the illustrations do not appear to us to harmonize. We are not in favour of philosophical poems, either for the author's sake or our own: nor do we know any instances of such poems being popular, except as regards those more attractive parts of them used as illustrations of the rest, and abounding in images drawn from the objects of sense, and views and products of A few parts of Lucretius are alone read; yet his is the finest philo. sophical poem that was ever written : and only a few parts of Akenside. Pope, who was a great master of the art of Composition, knew this, and filled his Essay on Man with illustrations, images, similes, names and persons, as thick as a galaxy of stars. want of this, with versification equally polished and elegant, and a subject not inferior, Prior's Solomon is utterly neglected. nature. For We think that Mr. Shepherd has talents and acquirements sufficient to compose a poem that would be read with pleasure; but his subject must be more plain and familiar, and his plan more complete. Let him recollect, when Plato wrote poetry, his subjects belonged to the Earth. The notes he has added to his Poem are entertaining, and his collection of the opinions of the greatest philosophers and metaphysicians on the mind of the lower animals, has been read by us with much gratification to our curiosity; and the speculations on their enjoying a future existence, convey more than we thought could be brought in favour of the proposition. Certainly, the advance of the creature from lower to higher, from imperfect to perfect, from finite to infinite, seems the very spirit of the original design; there is room enough in the boundless Creation for all their manifold changes and developements of their augmented powers. Though they cannot have 4 K Reason (in its true and higher sense), as Coleridge observed, because, if they had, they would become responsible beings; yet it is also clear, that, beside possessing the lowest part of mind, which is the animal instinct, they have an understanding superior to it, flexible, and to be improved by education; and with modes and habits of thought and knowledge, which, much changing their original nature, can be transmitted from sire to son through the race, as is seen in the domesticated animals. It may be a fair, as it is a most pleasing supposition, to believe that this improvement can go on in their nature, as it will in ours, and if the lion is to lie down with the lamb,' in that very mansuetude of disposition given to the previously sanguinary animal, a commencement of that improvement is exhibited. At any rate, it may be permitted to us to indulge in speculations on such a subject, seeing that we are only occupying the revered footsteps of one of the most cautious as well as the most profound philosophers on this subject. The Voluntary System. By the Rev. MR. Maitland has been very diligent in making himself master of the discipline, habits, and laws of the sectarian church, which, under its much praised voluntary system, has been held up in a triumphant opposition to the one established by the law of the land, and united to the constitution of the state: it is with pleasure that we recommend the attentive perusal of this book, in which a variety of curious information is brought together, to all persons who are interested in this much agitated question; and we have no hesitation regarding the conviction that it will produce in their minds. A more miserable picture cannot be conceived of the destitution and servility of the ministers, of the avarice, meanness, and insolence of the lay members, of the dissensions among the different congregations, of the debt on their chapels, of their mode of begging' to relieve them from it,-of the method by which the salaries of the ministers are raised, of the interference of the congregation with the domestic life and private concerns of their ministers, as lately in the case of Mr. Fox, the Unitarian preacher, and others mentioned in the "Autobiography of a Dissenting Minister;" these circumstancs are so vividly and so truly pourtrayed in Mr. Maitland's book, and their truth verified by the statements fetched from the different publications of Dissenters, as fully to authorise Sir Robert Peel's assertion at Glasgow"That the arguments in favour of the voluntary system were the most stupid he ever heard." We could not abridge this work without injury to its effect; its statements should be read in their full expansion, as Mr. Maitland gives them: for ourselves, we can only say that we should pre *This view of the future prospects of the Animal Creation, would raise them in our eyes in the scale of existence, and would lead to increased care and tenderness. We are most thankful for the laws preventing cruelty to animals, which we consider to have done much good. But are open cruelties committed in the streets in momentary explosions of brutal passion, to be compared with the more protracted sufferings and ingenious torments, hidden from us in secret recesses, where horses are taught, against their nature, to perform actions of a kind not to be required of them? We have seen with sorrow in some noble animals at Astley's, the large wounds made by the constant spur in the side :-we have seen the heavy whip or stick held in terrorem, on which the eye of the animal was incessantly fixed, while it was unseen by the audience and unsuspected by them :-we have seen the momentary exaltation of the animal, produced by pain, subside into heavy and listless languor as soon as the infliction was withdrawn. If this can be seen on the Stage, what must be going on when off? We have heard that Mr. Ducrow has said, that his riders are some of the greatest ruffians in existence. Under their hands, we tremble to think what the sufferings of these noble animals must be not to be removed even by Leibnitz' philosophical and ingenious position, that suffering, when unaccompanied by consciousness of personal identity, must be comparatively light.' Under this head must be classed also the cruelties of those ignorant brutes, huntsmen and gamekeepers, whose only instrument of education is the lash; also the anglers about Hampton Court are not to be forgotten. fer our own church if it were not merely to continue, but to double the stations of dignity and comparative repose it possesses for those learned and pious men who have retired from the exertions of their manhood, to the comparative tranquillity of age; we would prefer it, even with the pomp and ceremony that Laud himself would have bestowed on it; than reduced to the beggarly elements, the pauperized, mean, jealous, discontented, and, after all, most inefficient state of the Sectarian Chapels here described. We would rather double our bishops' incomes, yea, and power,-the stalls of our Canons and Prebendaries, than have chapels such as the Reverend Mr. Davies's at Taunton, who received the half-yearly contribution from his parishioners, from the hands of Richard Meade King, Esq, which amounted to £1. 68. 6d. being at the rate of a halfpenny a week!! or than be supported by Mrs. S.'s two cheeses once a year. young Mr. Woodcock's hare, Thomas Spring's occasional present of rabbits, or Nanny Grey's young goose,(p. 347), which devotional and liberal gifts are to supply the place of the lawful property which the piety of our ancestors, and the liberality of the government, bestowed as an offering on the altar of God, to promote the piety of the people, to support a learned, active, and efficient ministry, and to consecrate as it were, and sanctify by that which was set apart, the remainder of their worldly possessions; to remind them of the source from whence they derived them, of the moderation with which they should be sought for, and the proper ends to which they should be devoted. Nanny Grey's geese will grow grey before we roast them! THE CROSS. The Cross, the Cross! how throbs my heart Whene'er its hallow'd form I see, As on this stranger-land I go, I cannot shew its gentle sway, Then tell me not of Satan's lure, From the Cross springs. What, tho' on many a mystic rite, What tho' in some lone shadowy dell, And mine the sin. Then 'tis not pride forbids me bow And if to me, so vile, be given Yet, tho' a sign of love so true, To him my willing vows I pay, But not my God! Christian Institutes; a Series of Discourses and Tracts. Selected and arranged by Christ. Wordsworth, D.D. 4 vols. 8vo. THIS work is dedicated to the students in the Universities, and to the junior members of the liberal professions, as a means of promoting their intellectual, moral, and spiritual improvement. The author says, "Our English universities undertake to conduct their youth through a scheme of instruction comprising certain portions of polite literature, abstract and mixed sciences, and theology, and this course is required to be prosecuted in common by all students. These will, it is obvious, differ greatly from one another in the degrees of their success. But the same three kinds of proficiency are required and put to the proof in all. For myself, I am decidedly of opinion that in this last characteristic a great part of our strength and our public uses consists. Though this is not the place for manifesting, as I think might be manifested, the suitableness of such a state of things to an elementary course of intellectual exercise; its conformity to the dictates of an enlightened philosophy and to the genius and character of Christianity itself, rightly understood, and finally to the entire frame of society subsisting in this country, and to the genuine principles and the urgent necessities of our free Constitution, both in Church and State, grounded as they are on the joint foundation of that Christianity and that philosophy." The author then proceeds to give his opinion that more ought to be accomplished under the division of theological learning than has been done, and that by the general sanction of the university; and that firm foundations should be laid at the public schools, previous to the education of the University commencing, and more attainment in Theology should be required of those who enter on their academical career. With regard to the present work, the author says "Whatever is required already in the theological department, either by the University itself, or any of its several colleges, or whatever shall be enacted hereafter, it was no part of my wishes or designs, through means of this work, to exercise any direct interference upon that in the remotest degree, or any influence of any kind, save such as might be subordinate or subsidiary. But her part performed the University having rendered her scheme and system of an elementary character, as full and complete as she can desire-it still appeared to me that there would, not the less on that account, but even the more, be occasion and room for another effort and work of a more diffusive and general character: a work whose aim should be to build up the love of Christianity upon and along with the knowledge of it. Present religion to the youthful mind in the attractive and commanding form in which it has a right to be presented; maintained, that is, and illustrated as it ought by the strongest powers and the choicest graces of the affections, the reason and the imagination, through the voice of the wise and pious, the eloquent and good, and so a suitable occupation be supplied for a due share of such seasons as can be set apart for sacred meditation and exercise, when we may be warranted in specifying to the student his Sundays, the holidays of the church, and his academical vacations; and wherefore shall we not add some portion, though not large, of many days, or most days, or all days? and thus with these small rules and habitual accessions of instruction, conviction, and impression, the gains, I calculated, might in due time be above the price of rubies." The plan and method adopted by the author are as follows:- The first volume is dedicated to three main subjects: 1. The evidences of Natural and Revealed Religion. 2. The principles of Natural Law in general, and of Moral Philosophy in particular. 3. To a systematic development of the several main doctrines of Revealed Religion. This last division, on account of its pre-eminent importance, is resumed in the second volume, and prosecuted in discussion on the Creed and other topics of Christianity. The third volume comprises the nature and principles of Civil and Ecclesiastical Polity, and the duties of men as citizens and churchmen. The volume closes with Barrow's Sermons on Universal Redemption,' because they bear on a subject deeply interesting to every reflecting mind-the condition and prospects of the world that is not Christian; the unconverted Heathen, the nations that are still Gentile, having the same God and Father as ourselves, but yet aliens from the faith. The fourth volume is devoted to Polemical Theology, for the introduction of which the author has given very sound and sufficient reasons. He says, the Popish and Puritan controversies have left, and will continue to leave, deep-worn impressions on the face and history of our country, and it is therefore of pressing moment that the minds of our youth should be solidly instructed in the principles of both these great arguments, for in no other way can we expect to hand down to our posterity the patrimony which we enjoy of liberty and truth. The author then speaks of his materials. He has among the clergy gone to Jewell and Hooker, to Taylor, to Anderson, and Barrow and Butler; among the laity to Bacon and Sandys, and Clarendon, and Burke. His catechism he has taken from Baxter; and for this, we think, a very satisfactory reason has been alleged; a just preference over that by Dean Nowell. We shall extract what the author says of Baxter. "Baxter, it is confessed, often was heady and perverse, and lived for a great many years, and died a nonconforming minister. But it is true also, that being such, he was likewise a duly ordained presbyter of the Church of England. Such an one, too, as that, after the darkest season of his stormy and turbid career, when he had by no means attained to that comparatively sober and subdued character which he afterwards became, (in which late period of his life the volume in question was composed)-such a one, I say, he was accounted, even at that dark season, and at a very critical moment of our history, in the very acme of the Restoration of the Church and Monarchy, at the accession of Charles the Second, that he was licensed to be a preacher by the then Bishop of London, Dr. Sheldon, soon after promoted to the see of Canterbury; and such a one, again, as that, at the same period, he was invited to become a bishop of the Church of England, and so invited by no other than the then prime minister, the great Lord Chancellor Clarendon, acting no doubt under the sanction of the king, and with the knowledge and consent of those eminent prelates, in advice and consultation with whom there is abundant evidence to show that Clarendon guided himself in church matters at this important æra. Baxter, they knew, had officiated ministerially in the army that was in rebellion against its sovereign. But these great and good men, themselves tutored in the school of affliction, had learned that all must have much to forget and forgive, after the confusion and manifold uncontrollable circumstances of a civil war, when the use of the Book of Common Prayer had been forbidden by intolerable penalties, and all the foundations of the world were out of course. Lastly, if Baxter lived and died a nonconformist minister, still all the while, as a layman, he was a conformist. After the Restoration, when the Liturgy had been revived, he never scrupled to attend the services of the Church of England; and to frequent her preaching, and to receive the holy communion at her altars, and at hers only. So far, therefore, something may be urged in our excuse, from considerations of this naturé." The editor then gives reasons for his assertion, that Watts's Catechism is both unevangelical and Calvinistic. Some notes, useful and learned, are added, and an excellent Index. We must say that we consider the selection which Dr. Wordsworth has made to be most worthy of his judgment and learning, and such as approves itself to all persons conversant with the great body of English Divinity. We are highly proud of the names of the illustrious writers whose works he uses, and are glad to see their venerable authority still upheld and looked on with the reverence due to their sound learning, their great powers of reasoning, their masculine and authentic eloquence, their pure faith, their unfeigned piety. In an age of shallow knowledge, of much pretension, and of opinions among churchmen, most materially differing from those held by those great lights and beacons of the Church, we fortunately have their works, the offsprings of their mighty minds, still as bulwarks against the insidious progress of open violence, of doctrines that find the pride of the heart, without enlightening the understanding or improving the heart of man. It is almost needless to say that the selection of works in these volumes is formed with great judgment and discretion. The first commences with some sermons by Barrow, followed by tracts by J. Taylor and Hooker. We have then the full and excellent Catechism by Baxter, and to that are appropriately added Bishop Butler's Discourses on Virtue, Compassion, &c. The second volume is occupied on the great topics of the Christian Doctrine, almost entirely taken from the profound and eloquent disquisitions of Barrow. The third volume tains the Principles of Society and Civil and Ecclesiastical Government; in which we have the names of Burke and Clarendon, besides those of Chillingworth, South, Barrow, and Sanderson. The first tract on the Origin and Nature of Government and Law, by Bishop Sanderson, is of great value. The last and fourth volume contains the noble and masterly Apology of Bishop Jewell, Casaubon's famous Preface on the Necessity of the Reforma con |