should not expect that in a remote district workmen were to be found sufficiently skilful to shape the masses of stone which lay ready to their hands into geometric forms; and we are therefore quite prepared to hear, in the instance of the church which forms the subject of this inquiry, that

"The stones which form the building are thrown together without any attempt at regular courses, or any regard to what masons term 'joints.' They consist of pieces of ironstone, quartz, porphyry, slate, &c. as collected in the immediate neighbourhood; and some of them round and smooth, as if taken from the bed of a stream. All these appear to have been put together in the rudest and simplest way, embedded in the clay mortar, according to the Roman method, but without the tile and flat stones the Romans used to bind their work. The masonry, on the whole, looks like that of persons who had seen Roman work, and, perhaps, assisted in it, without learning the art." (Haslam, p. 69.)

And thus, we think, the apparent rudeness of the masonry of Perranzabuloe has been satisfactorily accounted for. Bricks were not likely to be made where stone was found ready to the hand in abundance, and this material the Cornish masons had not sufficient acquaintance with their art to shape into key-stones; they used such pieces as had the form and appearance of Roman tiles, and laid them in the same manner as they had seen bricks used, a practice which has been followed in many early buildings in this country. We can scarcely suppose the rude little structure under consideration can be Norman, when we recollect that the highly-enriched mode of Norman architecture had reached into Cornwall at a period apparently as early as in any other part of England, as may be seen at the remote church of Moorwenstow, as well as at St. German's, and in many fonts existing in other parts of Cornwall, and none of them shew that character of rudeness so striking at the Oratory of St. Piran, and which, affording no parallel, cannot so easily be accounted for on the supposition that it is the work of the twelfth century, as Mr. Bloxam infers; for there is no reason to assume that rudeness should be found in one part of a district and refinement at another,

at a period when we know no such contrast is to be seen in any other part of our island.

The line of research pursued by Mr. Haslam, naturally leads him to the investigation of Irish ecclesiastical antiquities of presumed early date; and in that much neglected island, where every ruin tells of holy men and holy ages, we may gather, out of the very meagre stock of information we possess, that the ruins of the almost forgotten churches of the early ages of Christianity, kept in recollection only by the pilgrim visits of the faithful peasantry, are landmarks, as it were, pointing out incontrovertibly to a remote date for their erection. If architectural forms are to be received as evidence of the age of a building, we see a very remote period indicated by the almost Cyclopean masonry of some of those early remains, their doorways formed like the openings of an Egyptian or Greek temple, having jambs inclining inwards from the base to the summit, and crowned with a lintel formed of a single stone, as at Banagher church, co. Londonderry, (a structure in every respect coinciding with St. Piran,) and at St. Fechan's church, co. Westmeath.

In the latter church, the holy cross (of the earlier form) sculptured on the lintel shows not only the age, but the early dedication of the building to the sacred uses of our faith. The many coincidences between these relics and the chapel of St. Piran, the accompaniments in each instance of the holy well and the dwelling of the anchorite, seem to point to a common origin, and to a common period for their erection, and to justify Mr. Haslam in claiming for St. Piran's church, and cell and baptistery, a British origin. Further insight into Irish antiquities may confirm or disprove the hypothesis, but, judging from what little knowledge we possess of Irish remains, we have great confidence that further research will lead to its establishment.

One word on the windows of St. Piran. As represented by Mr. Haslam, they appear to be formed of thin slabs of stone laid by a timid hand, who had imperfectly learned to turn an arch, but, without confidence in its

strength, he has placed a lintel to support the wall above. We confess we do not recollect another case like this, but it certainly affords a proof of its being built by an unskilful mason, who had acquired a smattering of knowledge of the construction of the Roman arch. Window arches, formed of similar thin slabs, the product of the country, but infinitely advanced beyond the work of the Cornish mason, are to be seen in the very curious church of Compton, Surrey, and in the ruined nave of St. Martha's chapel, in the same county and more than one window with Roman tiles used in lieu of arch-stones and jambs are to be met with in the church of Lower Halstow, in Kent. These examples shew the work of masons who were unacquainted, not only with the accurately cut arch-stones of Norman masonry, but were also imperfectly acquainted with the mode of turning an arch in brick. In all these instances are seen constructions upon the Roman model more or less advanced, but the perfect Norman arch of the twelfth century shews the work of a mason who was a master in his art, and who was not likely to have produced such arches and quoins as are met with at St. Piran's.

In page 70 is given an engraving of the principal doorway of St. Piran, with the three heads (since in the Museum at Truro) in their original places. We could not help being struck with the coincidence between the bust which forms the keystone and a similar one at Darenth. Since the first discovery, this door was pulled to pieces by idle persons, from a foolish wish to preserve curiosities. At the second discovery, in 1843, only one stone of the continuous architrave of the doorway could be found.

The dimensions of the church are worthy of notice. The nave is 15 feet, the chancel 10, proportions not very dissimilar to many later churches; the internal length therefore is 25 feet, the breadth 12 feet. The chancel is divided from the nave by a screen; and "attached to the east wall was an altar, built of stone and plastered like the rest of the interior." In 1835 it was taken down, and the remains of the saint discovered; it has now been substantially rebuilt.

We do not agree with Mr. Haslam in styling this an altar. "It lies lengthwise east and west, not north and south as we now have them;" from which we conclude that it was a tomb, and not an altar: we are corroborated in this supposition by its not being placed exactly in the centre of the east wall. We participate in the pious feeling which had led to its preservation. In a very few years the sand will again conceal the little oratory, as well as the cell which was subsequently discovered near it.

Mr. Haslam is deserving of praise from every true churchman, for the care he has displayed in investigating and recording the discovery of this very singular relic of early times, and we earnestly recommend his book to all who, taking an interest in our early ecclesiastical antiquities, may wish to know something of St. Piran's Oratory, when its old enemy the sand has again hidden it from view.

Hydropathy: the theory, principles, and practice of the Water- Cure shown to be in accordance with Medical Science, and the teachings of Common Sense; illustrated with many important cases, and with nine engravings. By Edward Johnson, M.D. 8vo. pp. xxii. 334.

HYDROPATHY literally means water-affection; practically the term may denote disease occasioned or sustained by the abuse of water,-a designation most appropriate, and happily adapted to distinguish the hydropathic delusion from all others, and from the salutary appliances of scientific medicine.

In this tidy monograph of his, Dr. Edward Johnson appears to some advantage as an ingenious special pleader, and his parologies may succeed for a time in drawing into his views a proportion of those invalids in whom the enfeebled judgment has been betrayed by whim or sickness to renounce the guidance of reason, although this may once have been enlightened by knowledge, and enlarged by experience and reflection. We find this hydropathic display arranged into four parts. The first is entitled "Facts, or cases of cure;" that mind, however, must either be extremely silly or vastly sagacious, that can discover evidences of

the curative virtues of hydropathy in these cases, so essentially different in their nature, locality, and influence. If any one of them was really a case of disease, and actually cured, this fortunate event must have resulted from the other means employed, and in spite of hydropathy. We know, too, from long observation of the puerile habit, that case-mongering requires to be managed with more adroitness than even Dr. Edward Johnson appears to be master of, before the subterfuge can be made efficient for the establishment of his or any other theory.

"

Dr. Johnson's second part bears the title, Science; wherein Hydropathy is shown to be supported by Liebig's theory of life;" and the third is said also to be "Science; wherein Hydropathy is shown to be supported by Dr. Billing's theory of disease." Here we have a brace of clumsily baited lures projected for the purpose of entangling the unwary in the mazes of a system engendered by ignorance and impudence, nurtured by selfishness, and maintained by knavery. It may exercise some influence on the very unwise, but we need no ghost-seer or mesmeric clairvoyant to foretell that its own inherent tendency to mischief will accelerate its overthrow at no distant day, and that some persons, who might have secured for themselves a fairer destiny, will be smothered in the disgrace of its dissolution. For proper reasons, an unscrupulous advocate will do much towards elaborating fiction into the similitude of reality; and it is exactly after the

same manner that the hydropathists overply their powers of artifice in betrimming the preposterous hallucinations of a sordid visionary with the ornaments of "Liebig's theory of life," and "Dr. Billing's theory of disease."

The waywardness or obliquity of mind which could encourage the fabrication of Dr. Johnson's fourth part, we hold to be truly wonderful; and the "modest assurance" which sanctioned its heading, "Common Sense; arguments intelligible to all classes of readers," we cannot refrain from admiring, as alike exquisite and astonishing. From beginning to end it is nothing other than a tissue of outrages upon "common sense," wherein causes and their effects, facts and inductions, experience and analogy, are quietly and deliberately perverted. We must say that, contemptible as is the Hydropathy throughout, this part is the most despicable. Dr. Edward Johnson closes his lucubrations with a

batch of " Hydropathic Laconics," which we care not to characterise. No. 14 on the list declares that "Hydropathy does but assert the supremacy of God"! We have bestowed more pains in tracking the subtle misrepresentations and sophisms embodied in this book than it deserves; but, having made this sacrifice of time and attention, we feel ourselves perfectly justified in condemning the " Hydropathy as a shabby attempt, attired in decent garniture, to decoy the unhappy into the snares of a greedy and dangerous speculation.

"

The three Statutes forming the new Law for the Relief of Insolvent Debtors in the Court of Bankruptcy analysed, simplified, and arranged; with the Acts themselves, and an Index. By Peter Burke, esq. 8vo. pp. 112.-The title-page sufficiently explains the nature of this useful professional volume. Except professionally, we trust that none of our readers will ever find it necessary to become acquainted with its contents.

The Four Prophetic Empires, and the Kingdom of Messiah; being an exposition of the two first Visions of Daniel. By the

Rev. T. R. Birks, M.A. Fcp. 8vo. pp. vi. 446. Mr. Birks, we believe, is curate to Mr. Bickersteth, by whom the preface appears, from internal evidence, to have been written. The earlier part of the historical exposition is of course the briefest; the fourth empire, in its divided state, occupying the foreground of the picture. That portion of the work which treats of "the Little Horn," in which the commentator, like many others, discerns the Papacy, is replenished with citations and documentary evidence, on which account it forms a valuable compendium. We may incidentally mention, that the interesting quota

tion from Professor Rosetti, on the subject of "the fatal error of the Latin Church," as he expresses it, viz. persecution, is defective, for want of a specific reference and date. The practical portion of the work, which is partly interspersed with the expository and partly distinct, is excellent; and we cannot but wish that all writers on prophecy had been equally instructive. The author recommends the study of prophecy, as having a cautionary and preventive effect against national evils. The Appendix is occupied with vindications against other writers, who have advocated different systems of exposition on the subject of the Four Empires and the First Resurrection, which latter point is here interpreted literally.

"The Romans shall come and take away both our place and nation," treated historically in connexion with the prophecy of" The Man of Sin." By E. M. Hearn, M.A. Fcp. 8vo. 156.-Notwithstanding some irrelevant matter, as, for instance, Roman antiquities discovered at Ribchester, this is an elaborate and able treatise. We wish it had been confined to its main subject; still it combines a good deal of critical and historical information, the latter of which is derived from modern as well as from ancient times. The author, in opposition to Mr. Todd, finds the seat of "The Man of Sin" in the chair of the so-called successors of St. Peter. In the Addenda (p. 409) he justly translates the word dapovov (1 Tim.iv.) demons rather than devils, with reference to the daoves of heathen mythology, and the saints of later times. It has escaped him that the expressions of Petrarch's 107th Sonnet (Fontana di dolore, &c.)-" Once Rome, now Babylon "-refute the argument occasionally advanced, that the poet's Babylon was not Rome, but Avignon. Should a second edition be called for, the work may advantageously be enlarged on some points, and retrenched in others, particularly at the beginning. We want a library-work on the subject, by which we mean a full-sized octavo, for these lesser volumes are too apt to be thrust to the back of a shelf. The profits of the sale, it is stated, are to be appropriated as a repair fund to the National School House at Hurst Green, of which place the author is Incumbent.

The Life of Isaac Milner, D.D. F.R.S. Dean of Carlisle, President of Queen's College, and Professor of Mathematics in the University of Cambridge. By his Niece, Mary Milner, author of "The Christian Mother." Second edition, abridged. Fep. 8vo. pp. xvi. 456.-More than twenty

years have elapsed since the death of the pious and talented person whose biography is here related. If this is in some respects an advantage, in excluding those many details of minor interest from which a life that is published soon after the decease is seldom free, it is a great disadvantage in others, since many serviceable materials must have perished by the dispersion of papers, or the death of friends and relatives. We must leave the task of analysing the book to longer criticisms; but we cannot omit noticing how astonishing a political foresight Dean Milner seems to have possessed. When we read (p. 291) that the congregation in the cathedral of Carlisle, when he preached, consisted of several thousands, we must also remember that he was not the soft Dean such as Pope alludes to in his Satires. We wish the dissertation on Jonathan Edwards's remarks on Faith, and Justification by Faith, had been retained in this edition, in preference to those on Baptismal Regeneration, which hardly grapple with the acknowledged difficulties of the subject. For the encouragement of scholars in the humbler spheres of classical learning, we may mention that Dean Milner, speaking with reference to the knowledge of grammar, said, "that he had throughout his academical life felt in that particular the advantage of having been usher in a school. The rules of grammar, both Latin and Greek, had been thus indelibly stamped upon his memory." (p. 303.)

Chemistry, as exemplifying the wisdom and beneficence of God. By George Fownes, Ph. D.-This is an essay to which the committee of managers of the Royal Institution have awarded the first septennial prize of one hundred guineas, from the thousand pounds stock invested in the three per cent. Consol. Bank Annuities, by Mrs. Hannah Acton, for a series of essays of like object; and we believe it must have well fulfilled her pious will, as, in disclosing the wisdom and goodness of the Almighty in his more hidden workings with inorganic and organic matter, it offers to the reader some of the chief principles of Chemistry in so intelligible a connexion, and so engaging a form, that it must give him much knowledge of the science, and make him wish for more. "What can be more striking," says Mr. Fownes, meaning as an example of beneficent forethought, "than the

*The circumstance is quoted from the Gentleman's Magazine, with a compliment to its character as a highly respectable periodical publication,-for which our thanks are due.

aspect of an English coal-field, where iron ore of excellent kind lies interstratified with the fuel necessary to reduce it; where the limestone, used as a flux, and even the very grit and fire-clay to build the furnace, are all to'be found in one and the same series?"

And in p. 14. "It is not by blind chance that granite occupies so important a place in the framework of our earth. Indeed it may be said of rocks of igneous origin generally, both ancient and modern, that they are the natural depositories of the alkalies, which, by their slow disintegration, become liberated, and contribute to spread fertility and abundance over the face of the globe." The work discusses, in succession, the chemical history of the earth and atmosphere, the peculiarities of organic substances, the composition and sustenance of plants, and the relations between plants and animals.

Guide to German Conversation and Letter-writing. Edited by W. KlauerKlattowski.-A very good book of its kind, containing a series of German phrases and well-arranged dialogues, on the most frequently occurring subjects of conversation; with a French version, and a good selection of German letters.

Eolus. A circular Invitation to contribute to the History of the Weather.A theory of meteorology from a mind of strong thought, to account for various seasons of weather. It seems to have been translated from the French, and printed in France; and is published in England to undergo the test of observation by British meteorologists, to whose notice we heartily recommend it, from the importance of its subject as connected with the well-being of man. The main principle on which it is founded, is that of the upflowing of warm air near the equator, passing in an upper current towards the pole, and an under one back to the equator; and it accounts for various weather-seasons by very credible disturbances and compensations, due to known laws of pneumatics, though we cannot say that we can yet derive, as a corollary from its main propositions, the frequent shifting of the winds in our own latitudes.

Introduction to a scientific system of Mythology. By C. O. Müller. Translated from the German, by John Leitch.A good translation of a work that restores to fresh and breathing life the dry bones of heathen mythology, and opens to our sight, by the yet living light of the tra

an

ditional μvot, the dim antiquity of Greece. We think that it is a work which should be read by teachers of Greek, as well for the advantage of their pupils as for their own gratification, since we cannot hold full communion with the Greek mind, that has done so much for the civilization of Europe, without an understanding of the too neglected Grecian mythology; and, as the author says, acquaintance with antiquity tends to exalt and humanize the mind, for no other reason more than this, that it places before us a novel aspect of humanity, in all the breadth, energy, and completeness of its existence and mythology, of all branches of ancient knowledge, carries us away furthest from the sphere of the present into laboratories of ideas and forms whose entire plan and construction are still an historical problem." As an instance of what might be done in the solution of μvbot, we should be happy to give our readers, if our space would allow us to do so, that of Orion.

:

A Chronological Introduction to the History of the Church, being a new inquiry into the true dates of the birth and death of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ; and containing an original Harmony of the four Gospels. By the Rev. S. F. Jarvis, D.D. 8vo. pp. xvi. 618.The author of this volume was appointed historiographer of the Protestant American Episcopal Church, with a view to preparing a faithful ecclesiastical history.' The work, although in compass not more than an octavo volume, embraces too many points of detail to be adequately treated in this brief notice. Still we prefer announcing it, rather than delaying to do so, till we could enter upon the subject more fully. We may cursorily remark, that the author has adopted the date which places the birth of Christ six years before the common account. Much historical and critical matter is introduced, and we think we may anticipate that it will occupy a place in the libraries of the learned, as near the quarto volumes of Mr. Fynes Clinton as their respective sizes will admit of. Every page bears witness to the elaborateness of the volume, and the many authorities which have been consulted in framing it.

German Protestantism and the Right of Private Judgment in the Interpretation of Holy Scripture. By E. H. Dewar, M.A. 12mo. pp. 231.-This volume professes to be a brief history of German theology, from the Reformation to the present time." The author prefers the