this supposition, have been much greater against him than against mefor I have lost only my eyes, but he lost his head.' "Much discomposed by this answer, the Duke soon took his leave and went away. On his return to Court, the first words which he spoke to the King were- Brother, you are greatly to blame that you don't have that old rogue Milton hanged.'-Why, what is the matter, James ?” said the King, you seem in a heat. What, have you seen Milton ?'— Yes,' answered the Duke, I have seen him.'-' Well,' said the King, in what condition did you find him?'- Condition, why he is old and very poor.'-- Old and poor! Well, and he is blind too-is he not ?' Yes, blind as a beetle.' Why then,' observed the King, 'you are a fool, James, to have him hanged as a punishment: to hang him will be doing him a service; it will be taking him out of his miseries. No-if he is old, poor, and blind, he is miserable enough; in all conscience let him live!" " No man not warped by the grossest prejudices against a Monarch, and monarchy, could have seen any thing in this reply of the careless and good-humoured King, but a sarcasm on the gloomy and malicious temper of his brother. We shall turn with pleasure from the remarks on the prose writings of Milton, where a strong spirit of republican is apparent throughout the whole, notwithstanding a few saving clauses scattered here and there with a sparing hand, that the work might not be too offensive to the generality of its readers (for we believe the number of democrats is diminishing every day), to contemplate the man of taste and genius in the remarks on the poetry of Milton. With the sentiments of Dr. Symmons on the Paradise Regained, we perfectly agree. "On the fate of the Paradise Regained" (he says) "the voice of the public, which on a question of poetic excellence cannot for any long time be erroneous, has irrevocably decided. Not to object to the impropriety of the title, which would certainly be more consistent with a work on the death and the resurrection of our Blessed Lord, the extreme narrowness of the plan of the poem, the small proportion of it which is assigned to action, and the large part which is given to disputations and didactic dialogue, its paucity of characters and of poetic imagery; and, lastly, its general deficiency in the charm of numbers, must for ever preclude it from any extended range of popularity. It may be liked and applauded by those who are resolute to like, and are hardy to applaud: but to the great body of the readers of poetry, let the critics amuse themselves with their exertions as they please, it will always be caviare. It is em bellished, however, with several exquisite passages, and it certainly shows in some of its finer parts, the still existing author of the Paradise Lost." Nor are his remarks on the Sampson Agonistes less just. "On the merits of the Sampson Agonistes,' there has fortunately been no important contrariety of opinion. By the universal suffrage it has been pronounced a manly, noble, and pathetic drama, the progeny of a mind a mind equally exalted, sensitive and poetic. Its delineation of charac ter, though not various, is discriminate and true; its sentiments are uniformly weighty and dignified; its diction is severe, exquisite, and sublime; and over the whole is thrown an awful and majestic gloom, which subdues at the same time that it elevates the imagination. "With reference, however, either to its conduct or to its execution, it cannot be considered as a faultless piece. On the subject of its conduct, I must concur with Dr. Johnson in thinking, that it is destitute of a just poetic middle; that the action of the drama is suspended during some of its intermediate scenes, which might be amputated without any injury to the fable. In the inferior department of execution, the author seems to have been betrayed into error by his desire of imitating the choral measures of the Greeks. He perceived that the masters of the Grecian theatre united in their chorusses verses of all descriptions, either without any rule, or without any which modern critics had been able to ascertain; and his fine ear could not be insensible to the harmonious consequence of this apparently capricious association. He was, hence, unwarily induced to imagine that a like arbitrary junction of verses in his own language would be productive of nearly a like effect; and without, perhaps, reflecting on the rich variety of the Greek metres, or on the genius of the English language, and the habits of the English ear, he threw together, in the choral parts of his drama, a disorderly rabble of lines of all lengths, some of which are destitute of rhythm, and the rest modifications only of the iambic. The result, as might be expected, has been far from happy; and the chorus, instead of giving to his piece the charm of varied harmony, has injured and deformed it with jarring and broken numbers.". We do not think his volume improved by the translation of Milton's Latin Poems. The merit of modern Latin verse consists chiefly in happy allusions to, and application of, phrases used by the classic writers, every vestige of which must be lost in a translation. We must think the biographers of Milton take too much pains to disprove the story of his corporal punishment at Cambridge, since we know from the existing statutes that such punishments were formerly in use at our universities. When (for we suppose that time will come), such punishments shall cease, at least with respect to the larger boys at our public schools, would it be any disgrace to the memory either of Mr. Pitt or Mr. Fox, if it could be proved they were both flogged at Eton ? We cannot take leave of this work without lamenting the family misfortunes that afflicted the author during the time he was engaged in it. The loss of a daughter, who could have written this sonnet, when only in the middle of her twelfth year, was a trial of no common severity. ON A BLIGHTED ROSE-BUD. "Scarce had thy velvet lips imbibed the dew, And Nature hail'd thee infant queen of May; Q4 When When the north wind enamour'd of thee grew; Death clasps the virgin to his iron breast. CAROLINE SYMMONS, An Attempt to illustrate those Articles of the Church of England, which the Calvinists improperly consider as Calvinistical. In Eight Sermons, preached before the University of Oxford, in the Year 1804, at the Lectures founded by J. Bampton, M. A. Canon of Salisbury. By Richard Laurence, LL.D. of University College. 8vo. PP. 460. Hanwell and Parker, Oxford; and Rivingtons, &c. London, 1805. OF all the lectures founded by pious individuals, for the support and illustration of the Christian faith, and which have rendered such essential service to the Church of England, that of Mr. Bampton, as it is on the most comprehensive plan, is perhaps the most useful.Others have furnished very complete confutations of Atheisin and Deism, of Arianism and Socinianism; but they are, each, more or less confined, by the will of the founder, to the discussion of some particular subject. The Bampton Lecturer may take a wider range. Whatever is connected with the Christian religion, the history of the church in general, the doctrine, discipline, and constitution of our own church in particular: even the rules of reasoning, and the laws of human belief, fall within his plan. Hence it is, that these lectures may not only furnish antidotes to the varied poison of infidelity, as it is daily administered, but also prove a source of theological information to the student, ambitious of fitting himself for the sacred office of feeding the flock of Christ. Other lectures have been founded for the purposes of confirming and establishing the Christian faith, illustrating prophecy, and proving the divinity of our Loid and Saviour, and the divinity of the Holy Ghost; but the Bampton lectures, while they embrace every one of these objects, comprehend likewise another of great importance--the confutation of all heretics and schismatics, who by their writings controvert the faith, and by their practices disturb the peace of the church. The faith has been long assaulted, though assaulted in vain, by the disciples of Socinus; and the illiterate vulgar have been long led astray by the ignis fatuus of itinerant methodism; but of late years the most rancorous dissentions have been excited within the bosom of the church church herself, by those who arrogate to themselves exclusively the appellation of evangelical preachers. The schisms excited by these men are infinitely more hurtful to the peace of society, and more directly contrary to the genuine spirit of Christianity, than the open separation of those, who, dissenting from the established faith, or disapproving of the established hierarchy, withdraw themselves from the communion of the Church of England, and form, as they think, more apostolical churches for themselves. With the conscientious Dissenter, however erroneous his faith may be, or however novel the constitution of his conventicle, the conscientious Churchman may live certainly in the bond of peace, if not in the unity of the spirit; but it seems to be impossible to live even in peace with that clergyman of the church, who represents nine-tenths of his brethren as heretics and perjured knaves; and who embraces every opportunity, which his situation affords him, of intruding into his brother's pulpit, and alienating from him the affections and regard of those simple and unlearned Christians who are committed to his pastoral care, and are unable to judge of the conformity of his doctrine with that which the church enjoins him to teach. That such are the practices of that small number of clergymen, who, interpreting the thirty-nine articles of religion in a Calvinistic sense, denominate themselves the only true Churchmen, is a fact too notorious to be called in question. Every Anti-Calvinist is by them, loaded with the most opprobrious epithets, because he does not understand three or four articles on the most abstruse questions in Christianity exactly as they understand them; because he does not think it necessary, or even expedient, to agitate such questions in sermons preached to a mixed audience; and because he labours to prove that repentance and good works, as well as faith, are conditions of final justification. The question between these contending brethren is not, at least in the first instance, what is the sense of Scripture on the controverted points, but what is the sense of the Articles, which both have willingly and ex animo subscribed in the literal and grammatical sense of each article." Much," (as Dr. Laurence observes) has been written, and satisfactorily written, to prove that the Predestinarian system of Calvin is totally inconsistent with our Articles; that it is equally irreconcileable with our liturgy and homilies; and that the private sentiments of our Reformers were likewise inimical to it."-The labours of the Bishop of Lincoln, of Dr. Kipling, Mr. Daubeny, Archdeacon Pott, Mr. Pearson, and, may we not add, of ourselves and our fellowlabourers the British Critics, in this righteous cause, seem indeed, in the opinion of the more learned and judicious part of the public, to have been crowned with complete success. (continues Dr. Laurence) "complete in all points as such evidence may appear (the force of which its opponents have been unable to invalidate), the author, still convinced that an elucidation of another kind was wanting; that the weight of testimony might be augmented by an attempt to trace the Articles, usually controverted on the occasion,, up to their genuine sources, to compare them with the peculiar opinions of their own times, and thus to determine their meaning with more cer. tainty, by ascertaining the precise objects which their compilers had in view." It is, indeed, only by ascertaining the precise objects which any English writer of a former age had in view, that his meaning on controverted points can be determined with certainty; for of every living language the words are continually, though slowly, varying their meaning; and that which signified one thing 200 years ago, may now be employed to denote something in various respects different. This is remarkably the case with respect to the language of our Articles. Of the controversies which were agitated among the Reformers themselves, as well as between the Reformers and the Church of Rome, some are now forgotten; whilst there are other controversies afloat at present, of which the Reformers could have no notion. The language, however, of the Articles remains unchanged; and such as imagine that their compilers intended them to express the sentiments of the Church of England on every topic in theology that could occur, even to the end of the world, must necessarily interpret some of them, so as to embrace opinions, of which Cranmer and his associates never dreamed; whilst, by overlooking the circumstances under which they were drawn up, they lose sight of the only sense in which they were, by the Reformers, intended to be subscribed. Our author, adverting to this circumstance, observes, in his first sermon, that— "In discussing with impartiality questions of a remote æra, it is requisite, but not easy, to discard modern prepossessions; to place ourselves exactly in the situation, and under the circumstances of those, whose sentiments we wish to investigate, and display with fidelity. On such Occasions we are usually too much disposed to throw in light, where we perceive only an indistinct mass of shade, or at least to revive that, which in our eyes appears faint and faded, endeavouring in every instance to improve according to our own taste and fancy, instead of faithfully exhibit. ing the simpler productions of antiquity. But the subject before me is attended with another difficulty. From its peculiar nature it is confined to disquisitions, which, having lost at this distant period their immediate importance, and ceased to interest us, it seems almost impossible again to bring forward, without fatiguing the attention, and appearing to clog the argument with much heavy detail, and which can seldom afford an oppor. tunity for the diffusion of ornament, for popular dissertation, or for ele. gant composition." In language, however, which is sufficiently elegant, our author proves in this serinon, which is preached from 2 Tim. iii. 14, that our Articles, far from being framed according to the system of Calvin, were modelled after the Lutheran system, in opposition to the Romish tenets of the day; that our Reformation was a progressive work, commenced in the reign of Henry VII. and completed in all its essential parts under his successor; that both these Princes repeatedly solicited Melanahon to come over to England and lend his powerful aid to |