261 Review.-Memoir of the Rev. Matthew Henry. servations on the importance of reading the Holy Scriptures, and exposes to public view many unworthy motives from which, it is to be feared, a vast number engage in this solemn duty. This is accompanied with suitable directions as to the spirit in which it should be performed, and the object that should always be kept in view. Throughout the following sections, the whole being eleven in number, no deviation in principle, no laxity in its application, is perceptible. The fair writer, on the contrary, enters fully into the spiritual import of the sacred word, and uniformly inculcates the necessity of its influence on our hearts and lives.Under this impression, she places man's moral inability to turn to God, in a scrip- | tural light, and hence infers the aid of the Holy Spirit as essential to a saving acquaintance with Him. It must not, however, be inferred from the preceding observations, that this is a book of profound research, or one that deviates from the common track of devotional compositions. The ground on which the writer takes her stand, has been occupied by thousands, and is open to every eye; but being the high road to salvation, the charms of novelty are rendered wholly unnecessary, to attract "the weary and the heavy laden." It is a book designed for young persons who are anxious to profit by reading the scriptures, and to such it is likely to prove useful. The advice given, though derived from simple sources, is always judicious, and easy to be understood. It recommends piety of heart and life as essential to future happiness, and with an eye to this, seriously inculcates "the devotional use of the Holy Scriptures." 262 high and too distant to be affected by the voice either of friend or foe. In this view, though dead he may be considered as yet speaking, through the medium of his exalted character and bright example, which cannot be contemplated without profound veneration. Shortly after Mr. Henry's decease, a memoir of his life was published by Mr. Tong, which at that time was in much request. But the lapse of years having thrown it somewhat on the back ground of religious biography, it is at present but little known, and seldom read. In addition to the scarcity of the above work, its phraseology bears an antiquated cast, and the arrangement of the materials is not altogether adapted to our modern taste. These causes conspiring to threaten it with oblivion, induced Mr. Williams to undertake the present work, especially, as in addition to what Mr. Tong's volume contains, he could have access to many valuable documents, which appear necessary to set Mr. Henry's life and character in a deserving light. After passing through the details immediately connected with Mr, Henry's personal and family history, Mr. Williams proceeds, in subsequent chapters and sections, to delineate his private character, his strong attachment to truth, his extended benevolence, his patience under trials, and his devotedness to God. To the preceding is added an account of his various writings, which though neither so voluminous nor so diversified as those of his friend Mr. Richard Baxter, will appear gigantic, when we compare with them the pigmy productions of modern days. Interspersed throughout various parts of this volume, we find many characteristics of the times in which Mr. Henry lived. They REVIEW.-Memoirs of the Life, Charac-justice taking shelter under the name and were days of trouble and perplexity, of in ter, and Writings of the Rev. Matthew Henry. By J. B. Williams, F.S.A. 8vo. pp. 355. Holdsworth. London. 1828. ALTHOUGH more than a century and a half -have elapsed since this great and good man flourished, his writings are in as high repute as ever, and his name is still familiar to every student of the Bible. Generations have passed away since it was enrolled in the archives of immortality, and his fame can neither acquire nor lose any thing from a biography written in the nineteenth century. Bringing him, however, fairly before the reader, may have an important influence on the latter, even though the former is too : form of law, and of persecution reigning throughout the land with an almost unmolested triumph. The vengeful spirit of popery had not then been hushed into repose; it had even assumed a Protestant garb and many thought that "they did God service," by inflicting misery upon others, who hesitated to swallow the dogmas which power had sanctioned. A spurious liberality may cause these evil days again to return, and succeeding generations may mourn over disasters which they will have no power to remedy. The notes which are subjoined form an interesting appendage to this volume. They are of various kinds, occasionally referring to individuals, to incidental occurrences, to 263 Review. -- Christian Souvenir-Transubstantiation. historical facts, in the arrangement of ministerial labours, to subjects of theological discussion, and to local memoranda. A copious Index, referring to every topic of note which this work contains, closes its pages, and gives completion to the whole. Many letters written by Mr. Henry to his friends, and several specimens of his mode of preaching, have found their way into this memoir, from a perusal of which we cannot but infer, that he was "always serious in a serious cause;"-that the importance of the office which he filled lay near his heart;-and that his great aim was to benefit those whom divine providence had committed to his care. In this he seems to have been eminently successful, and, as an honoured instrument in the hands of God in turning many to righteousness, his name is not less deserving of remembrance than for his voluminous commentary, and his various publications. The life, the writings, the character, the trials, and the labours of this eminent man, his present biographer has placed in an amiable light; but we feel convinced, that the picture he has drawn owes nothing to flattery, and but little to friendship. It is not more pleasing than it is just. In the memoir itself there are no incidents particularly remarkable; yet the biographer has contrived to keep alive the attention of the reader while passing through his pages. It is a work which embraces the memory of a laborious and faithful minister of God, whose name can never be forgotten, nor erased from the annals of the church of Christ. By revising, remodelling, enlarging, and reprinting this memoir, Mr. Williams has rescued from obscurity a valuable piece of biography that ought not to be lost, and placed it in a light in which it never before appeared. It is now brought forward from departed years, and set afloat on the stream of time flowing through the nineteenth century. In almost any hands, the name of Matthew Henry would have rendered it buoyant for a season, but the advantages it has derived from the researches, the talents, and the pen of Mr. Williams, will tend to prolong its existence, while he will have the satisfaction to "Pursue the triumph, and partake the gale." REVIEW-The Christian Souvenir; or, Reflections for every Day in the Year, selected from the Writings of approved Authors. 18mo. pp. 490. Oliphant, Edinburgh. 1829. THERE is nothing new in the construction of this book, and scarcely any thing original 264 in any of the materials of which it is composed. To compensate, however, for this defiance to the dictates of novelty, the compiler has had recourse to the writings of eminent divines, and enriched his pages with the fruits and flowers he has culled from their compositions. By these means nearly two hundred authors are laid under contributions, and in this volume he presents to his reader the concentrated excellencies he has selected from their works. Among these writers we find the names of celebrated men, who in their day supported hostile denominations; and, although by far the greater part are of the Calvinistic school, and some few are of no contemptible celebrity in the realm of Antinomianism, it is pleasing to observe how all can unite their testimony in favour of experimental and practical godliness, when the scalping knives of controversy give place to the calumets of peace. An article being appropriated to each day throughout the year, no one is extended to any unreasonable length. Some passage of scripture is prefixed as a kind of text or motto, and the reflections which follow are generally in unison with its contents. About three or four minutes will be suffi. cient time for the perusal of the longest in the volume, and this, nothing but a suitable disposition is required, to enable every reader to spare. With the character and tendency of the sentiments inculcated, we have, on the whole, been much pleased, though about some there is a smell and tincture which bespeak their origin, and which, on a work like this, can confer no real excellence. To the pious reader, however, these peculiarities will appear too diminutive to arrest his attention: he will read what is laid before him for each day's meditation with better motives, nor will his hopes be cut off, or his expectations be disappointed. REVIEW.-Protestant Remarks on Tran substantiation, and other Tenets of the Church of Rome; with an Appendix, containing Observations on Purgatory, and the Duration of Future Punishments. By the Rev. W. Cowley, A.M. 12mo. Houlston. London. THE establishment of the Inquisition, and a belief in Purgatory and Transubstantiation, were perhaps three of the greatest triumphs that imposition and insolence ever achieved in their march along the stream of time; and in no instances on record, has the human intellect to mourn a more deplorable state of degradation. 265 Review.-A Guide to the English Language, &c. The Roman Catholics, who contend for transubstantiation, readily admit that the evidence of our senses is hostile to the fact; but this they conceive, instead of militating against its certainty, furnishes a stronger ground for the operation of faith. Against sophistry so palpable, all argument must be useless; and if, in defiance of such evidence as the dictates of our understandings, the testimony of our senses, and the result of philosophical experiments, afford, we can believe that to be a fact which every legitimate means of information attests to be a falsehood, there can be no ground of certainty within the empire of existence. By many able writers, this monstrous absurdity, with others of the papal church, has been repeatedly exposed; but while this dogma, "The more repugnant to sense, the stronger is our faith in embracing it," retains its hold on the minds of the deluded devotees, the reasoning powers of an archangel would be exerted in vain. 266 the determining point, and simple credulity would as readily swallow the one as the other. REVIEW.-A Gentleman's Guide to the THOUGH called a second edition, this is in In this work, Mr. Sutcliffe has collated modern grammar with the most ancient sources of Gothic, Scandinavian, and Saxon lore; and largely so with Latin, German, and French grammars. This has led him, in some places, to launch out too much into universal grammar. But, at the same time, it rewards the reader by amplitude of ideas; for on collating it with Mr. Murray's, we find, almost at every page, an accession of rich and instructive remarks. the Sapponic grammar by Fiellstrom, by which it appears that they have nine variations of case. These are collated with the older forms of the Latin, as in the ancient Roman tables, and with the Greek. In this volume Mr. Cowley has brought his formidable artillery to bear upon these hideous edifices which superstition has raised, and to the force of his cannonade nothing but a papal understanding can be invulnerable. Many of his arguments have been long in use during the ancient, protracted, and now revived papal controversy. These still remain unrefuted, and while the dogmatism of that antichristian church sup- In the declension of the noun, we have plies the place of reasoning, it would be the true distinction between the Gothic of both unnecessary and unwise for its learned or off, and the Latin preposition de, as doctors to risk the issue of a contention on written in the words Davidoff, Peteroff, &c. these points, in the field of doubtful con- as also the more frequent form of the genitroversy. tive case, Davides son. To this a note is The interpretations also which Mr. Cow-added, of the declensions of the noun in ley has given to the passages of scripture by which these disgusting propositions are presumed to be supported, have but little claim to originality. He has, however, given concentration both to the argument and authority which he has produced, and condensed within a narrow compass, the substance of many voluminous publications. To the Protestant reader this book will operate as an antidote against the sorceries of popery; and such as are wavering in a state of indecision, its reasonings and arguments will enable to determine on the side of scripture and of truth. To the genuine sons, however, of old mother church, though long afflicted with one of the plagues of Egypt, all that he has collected and advanced will be of no avail. To them it would be much the same, whether the horse had eaten the millstone, or the millstone had eaten the horse. The declarations of the church, and the dictates of a council grown mouldy with age, would have been On the definitive article the, Mr. S. accounts for the want of it among the Romans, and the paucity of its use among the Goths, on the ground of the numerous and luminous character of their declensions. Ex. Toga mulieris, a robe of the woman; Toga muliebris, the robe of the woman: by them no article was wanted. In the Gothic gospels of Ulphilus, we find in but a few places sa for the masculine, and only in three places so for the feminine. We sometimes find thai for the plural, and latterly tha. On this head Mr. S. presumes that we have left the longer sound of the plural article behind, which the French have preserved in le and les, and the Germans in der and die. This is a capital defect in the English language. The ex 267 Review.-The Stepmother. amples he adduces are, "The righteous shall flourish as the palm-tree." "The just shall live by faith." Both these examples we understand in the plural, as the wise the brave-the good; whereas, on reference to the Hebrew and Greek, we find the words in the singular, tzadick and dicaios. On the contrary, Matt. xiii. 43, "The righteous shall shine as the sun," dicaioi, the righteous in the plural number. All this confusion might be avoided by a recurrence to the longer and shorter article, and if not admitted in the colloquial, we might at least write the and the or thei. 268 In Rule xviii, he enters at some length on a defence of the subjunctive mood, and vindicates the example in Dr. Lowth, "We shall overtake him, though he run," and the phrase in Dr. Blair, "It must be the preacher's own fault, if he transgress in unity." We cannot say here, "will run," because we cannot foretell, nor can we say, "shall run," because we cannot command; therefore, "should run," must be the auxiliary understood. He objects in the second example, to transgresses, because it fills the language with a superabundance of sibilancy, of which the French is happily re. lieved. Ex. Si Mentor me quit, "If Mentor quit me." After supporting this doctrine with twenty examples, down from the Saxon age to the present time, he concludes by accounting for the disregard of the subjunctive form, in most writers, in the following manner:—. "Dr. John Wallis, Savilian professor of geometry in the University of Oxford, an elegant Latin denied the existence of the subjunctive mood, and writer on English Grammar, Logic, &c., having by consequence the influence of the conjunction, induced many of his pupils, and others who became great writers during the reign of queen Anne, to follow his example. Before his time we scarcely find any who had ventured to take that liberty with the language."-p. 268. On the verb, nine pages are bestowed in the illustration of the modes and tenses, and of the auxiliaries. We find also a copious note of the primitive form of cer. tain verbs in the Gothic, the Swedish, and the Saxon tongues; and in the appendices, three tables of the time of the verb by our Harris, by the Abbe Girard, and by Beauzée. He declines the term "second future tense," for "the future relative tense." Ex. "When this corruption shall have put on incorruption;" the future here having relation to the precise time of the resurrection. He complains, p. 46, that by leaving behind the termination of the verb in n, an, en, o, er, or, ere, though we have gained a shade of uniformity in orthography, we have at the same time lost the primitive dis-lish tongue; to which is added, an essay tinction between the infinitive and active structure of the verb. Ex. Bita nagot litel i sonder, "to bite any little (thing) asunder;" Iag biter, "I bite." Thus, in the haste of excision, we have left many excellencies. On the subject of adverbs, conjunctions, and prepositions, very many difficulties occur in the classifications. The fact is, in the earliest traces of ancient grammar there existed but three divisions of words, the noun, the verb, and the particle or indeclinable parts of speech. By consequence, many words were used as adjectives, as adverbs, and as prepositions. Some of those difficulties remain to the present day. However, on collating the illustrations of our author, with other English grammars, the reader will find much light thrown upon the particles, which he seems to have gleaned in a vast course of reading, and long protracted studies. The syntax of this grammar is the most interesting part. It opens with many preparatory hints to study and understand the rules. The principles of concord, propriety, and government, are illustrated by phrases and simple sentences, which cannot be misunderstood. many amusing remarks, with seven speciThe Cratylus of primitive words contains mens of the changes induced on the Eng of Plato's master, to whom he dedicates on composition. The Cratylus, (the name his book on names) though brief, is very interesting in Swedish antiquities, and in world have emanated from the family of proofs that all the languages of the present Noah, The proofs he adduces are from professor Ihve of Sweden, who, according thic, the Hebrew, and the ancient Persic, to Dupin, has demonstrated that the Gois from sir William Jones, who asserts, are sister languages. The next testimony [Disc. vi.] that all the languages of India have proceeded from a common language Sutcliffe conceives that this Iran is the spoken in the ancient empire of Iran. Mr. Erak of the French writers, and derived from the Erech of Moses, Gen. xi. one of the first four cities of Noah's family. REVIEW.-The Stepmother, a Tragedy in five Acts, by Jacob Jones, Esq. of the Inner Temple. Hurst, London, 1829. OUR dramatic compositions have of late been so polluted with profaneness but ill concealed, with licentiousness scarcely disguised, and with pernicious principles that are almost recommended by the polite manner in which they are reprobated, 269 Review.-My Grandfather's Farm. 270 that we have been led to view productions | surveyed by the reader with the mingled of this description, as belonging to a sus- emotions of disgust, contempt, and indigpicious family. In the theatre, we too fre- nation. quently perceive experiments made on the depraved taste of the auditors, to ascertain how much vice may be thrown into the composition without exciting expressions of disapprobation, and how far its grossness may be exposed, without shocking their nervous and moral sensibilities. The observations made on the last representation, frequently furnish a guide to those which follow; and the more nearly an author can approach the confines of iniquity without actually plunging into the vortex, the greater is the probability that he will be rewarded with success, and crowned with applause. The tragedy which now presents itself to our notice, the author avows, takes its stand on fictitious ground. The plan is laid in the region of fancy, and the various characters which furnish out the scenery, exist as such only in the writer's imagination. They are, nevertheless, in their radical principles, true to nature, though coloured too highly to be generally perceived in active life. The Stepmother, who is the principal figure, is what may be called a paragon of every thing that is wicked; or, if she find a rival in her ascent to this bad preeminence, it can only be found in the Prior and Monk, through whose instrumentality she contrives to execute the diabolical purposes of her heart. In her movements through these regions of villany, murder marks her steps; but on many occasions when the object of her iniquitous solicitude seems within her grasp, some unforeseen event defeats her intentions, and finally unravels all her horrid machinations. At length, overtaken by the pursuits of long insulted justice, in a moment of attempted suicide, she is struck dead by the lightnings of Heaven, and the Prior dies by the hands of the executioner. The plot contains several interesting episodes; among which, her contrivance to confine in a dungeon her husband's first wife, who is supposed to be dead, and her efforts to transfer the wealth and titles which the former children would inherit, to her own son, are particularly prominent. To accomplish this latter purpose, she stimulates him to murder his rival brotherin-law; but his failure in the attempt, finally discloses the wickedness of her soul. The Prior, and his confederate Monk, appear, through all their transactions, in their genuine hypocritical character, and ultimately retire from public view, the victims of superstition, cowardice, and despair; Some branches of these episodes seem involved in clouds of obscurity, which nothing but conjecture will enable us to pierce; and the major characters occasionally display appearances which might have been rendered more luminous without any disadvantage. One general feature, however, prevails throughout the whole: Vice, though it prospers for a season, is uniformly overtaken by justice; while Virtue, though severely depressed, is ultimately triumphant. The language of this tragedy is bold and energetic, but less impassioned than might have been expected. With exalted sentiments it does not abound: but this deficiency is somewhat supplied by the local incidents that are numerously introduced. The author is no stranger to Parnassus, and the favours he receives from the Muses, are fully sufficient to encourage the repetition of his visits to the hallowed mount. REVIEW.-My Grandfather's Farm; or Pictures of Rural Life. 12mo. pp. 335. Whittaker, London. 1829. THIS is a book of amusement, made up of various tales which have their chief foundation in rural life. It is designed principally for the young, to whom the stories will prove entertaining, but we cannot find any remarkable incidents, any striking development of character, and but little display of intellectual energy. The scenes, however, placed before the reader, are considerably varied; and this circumstance, by imparting the charms of novelty to the whole, excites an interest which rarely fails to banish languor, while it keeps attention generally on the alert. The tales, which are twenty-two in number, exhibit different degrees of merit, which seem to arise more from the region which the author explores, than from any peculiar power of invention, or facility of elucidation. In their character and tendency, they are strictly moral, and simplicity distinguishes the style in which they are written. It is a book which may be read and understood with the utmost facility, no depth of thought or vastness of comprehension being necessary to catch the ideas which run along the pages. This to many readers will most probably operate as a strong recommendation, and the number of those who are strangers to mental energy is by no means contemptible. In a work of this description, where no |