We

welcome his will as his word unfolds it,-that word which, after having long been wrested from it by the usurpation of Antichrist, it has now recovered, and recovered to obey exclusively and alone. We are not arguing for the liberty of men to carry out whatever they think; but of Christian men to carry out whatever they read! If it should be objected, that the principle of noninterference with the inquiries and faith of future generations, if pushed to its legitimate consequences, would require churches to be so left, that they might be turned into mosques, or synagogues, or heathen temples, or halls of science, or schools of atheism; we should reply, that our observations ought in fairness to be taken as explained and limited by the subject they refer to. have all along been proceeding on the principle of Protestantism, and on the right of private judgment, as claimed by Protestant sects; a right to be exercised within the bounds of the Bible, not beyond them. If the principle cannot be consistently maintained without involving the hazard of such extremes as we have specified, others must look at this as well as we. We believe that it can. Even, however, if it could not, we should have no fear for either Protestantism or Christianity in acting upon it. We wish it also to be observed, that our remarks are not intended to apply to Baptist and Pædo-baptist Dissenters only. Methodists, Presbyterians, Protestant Episcopalians, and others, are all concerned, more or less, with the bearings of this subject. They are all seeking to perpetuate, by law, their respective peculiarities, and are thus putting it out of the power of themselves or their successors to be any thing but what they are at this moment. We deeply feel this view of the matter; and, though we have glanced at it already, cannot close without referring to it again. We are thirsting for Christian union, and, as far as possible, for Christian unanimity. We pray for the peace of Jerusalem-we sigh over the distractions of the times. We long to see the approximation of the pious towards each other. We should be happy, indeed, if the different denominations who hold the 'Head' could meet and mingle in the services of the sanctuary, and thus evince their substantial oneness, even while retaining their several peculiarities; but we should be still happier, if they possessed the will, and with it the power, to give up something for the sake of union,-a union somewhat more palpable and impressive than is indicated by the interchange of good words and kind looks, in connexion with the maintenance of their distinctive badges. We have often stated, that we oppose establishments because they necessarily interfere with the union of Christians; they perpetuate differences; they confer immortality on the distinctions of a sect; they are thus in their very nature separating and schismatical, by rendering it impossible for those communities which they fetter with their favors, from modifying any thing to

meet the advances of other churches. The question, however, is not to be evaded, whether every sect, by the legal attachment of its peculiarities to its property, does not in some degree sanction them in this? Is there not here an effort to perpetuate and immortalize separations and differences? Nay, supposing a particular sect to be in every point the exact image of the apostolic model, does it not, by the act referred to, sanction that in other churches, (by supposition wrong,) which will for ever prevent their becoming right, by for ever depriving them of the liberty to listen to, and to copy from, itself? What is the use of controversy under such circumstances? If controversy does not aim at the conviction of adversaries, and action corresponding to that conviction, what does it aim at? But if each party, before they begin, are to take measures to prevent their acting, in spite of the convictions which discussion may produce, where shall we find words adequately to describe conduct like this? When, O when, on this system, can Christians come to see 'eye to eye?' When can schisms and dissensions cease? How shall roots of bitterness be removed? At what era, without a miracle, or without convulsions in civil society, will the church be one,-one alike by Truth and Love?

Art. V. Eminent Literary and Scientific Men of Great Britain. 3 vols. Lardner's Cyclopædia.

Lives of the English Poets. In two volumes. Vol. I., 8vo. By ROBERT BELL, Esq. Lardner's Cyclopædia.

THE great work of which these volumes form a part, has now

been carried on for ten years, and with a spirit which, it may be truly said, is unprecedented in so extensive a series. It is not to be supposed, of course, that every link in so long a chain is of equal strength; or that the whole edifice is constructed of the same precious or durable materials. But if there be an interstice here and there filled up by rubbish,--by a work of inferior merit, it is generally where the subject itself is of inferior interest, or one in which the beauties of literary composition are little looked for. The only striking exception is in the three volumes at the head of this article; and if the whole Cyclopædia be compared to Nebuchadnezzar's image, the head of which was gold and the feet clay, these volumes are undoubtedly the clay.

A work of such vast magnitude and of such high merits; a work of which the best volumes are equal to any thing this age. has produced, and of which scarcely any will not repay

perusal; a work which includes Sir John Herschel's 'Introduction to the Study of Natural Philosophy,' and his treatise on Astronomy;' Connop Thirlwall's History of Greece;' Swainson's 'Preliminary Discourse to the Study of Natural History;' Professor Phillip's' Geology;' and 'Histories and Biographies,' by Scott, Mackintosh, Southey, Moore, Montgomery, and other writers scarcely less eminent, can afford to have it said that it contains two or three worthless volumes. And yet we should be sorry to say as much as this even of the three which stand at the head of this article. They contain a mélange of curious and amusing matter, the result at all events of considerable research, brought into a small compass and cheap form. We do not therefore pronounce them to be absolutely devoid of interest; but we do say, that in their general plan, in the utter want of a comprehensive and discriminating criticism, of judgment in the selection and distribution of matter, and of every charm of manner or of style, they are totally unworthy of the magnificent subject, 'the eminent literary and scientific men of Great Britain.'

It is, in fact, the claims of the subject which make us feel so strongly the poverty of execution. Literary biography,' says Johnson, is more interesting to us than any other species of ' literature.' This is true of literary biography in general, but it is peculiarly true of the lives of eminent literary men of our own country. It might be expected, therefore, that the execution of these volumes would be entrusted to the most eminent living writers. This would seem proper, whether we consider the celebrated writers that had already treated many of the same lives, or the celebrated names enlisted in the other biographical portions of the Cyclopædia itself. If Dr. Southey has been employed to write the lives of Nelson and Blake, one would have thought that a writer at least equally eminent would have been selected to write the lives of Shakespear and Milton. It is stated in the second volume, that the contents of the three are not all by the same writers; but whosoever the writers, they are little fitted for this department of literature.

The first thing that strikes us in looking over the three volumes is the singular want of all consistent plan. As the subject is the lives of eminent literary and scientific men,' and as the Cyclopædia cannot be made, like Chalmers' Biographical Dictionary, a repository of all names that have made any noise in the world, however insignificant, it would of course appear reasonable that none but the most eminent should be selected. That the names should be very choice, would seem necessary if only that something like justice might be done them. The space is too narrow to admit the vulgar crowd. Instead of this, when we proceed to open these volumes, we not only find the oddest jumble of all sorts of departments and eras of literature, but the

oddest selection of names in each; some of them being among the most celebrated, and some among the most insignificant in our literary history. Moreover, it goes back to such remote periods, and includes names comparatively so obscure, that to plete the lives of eminent literary and scientific men' on the same scale, would require not less than a hundred volumes, A third of the first volume is taken up with the lives of St. Columba and Alfred the Great. Whatever may be said of the former, the latter surely might have been included in a more suitable class than the literary and scientific men of England; not that his attainments were not extraordinary for his age, but because literature is, after all, the least impressive aspect under which this wonderful prince can be contemplated. As a king, a statesman, and a warrior, he completely throws his literary pretensions into the shade. To include him among our eminent literary and scientific men, is just as wise as it would be to include the chancellor Thurlow among the poets, because he wrote execrable verses; or Walter Scott among the dramatists, because he wrote an indifferent play. These evidently fall under another category. Accordingly, (singular inconsistency!) the writer of the Life of Alfred, which is written in a strange spirit of pedantry, labors to depreciate Alfred's attainments, and to show that his literary merits have been unduly exalted. Doubtless it has been so;-there has been a natural disposition to invest this extraordinary character with every conceivable excellence, and with each excellence in the highest degree: so much has he ever been the object of veneration and love to his countrymen. Our author has indubitably succeeded in showing, with a very unnecessary display of authority and citation, that Alfred was not very critically versed in Latin; that he was no Bentley; that he was far from always interpreting Boethius correctly; that he was not quite clear on the subject of predestination, and so forth. The proper answer to all this is, that the principal aspect of Alfred's character is that of a wonderful genius in a rude age, when accuracy and extent of knowledge are out of the question. It was in active and practical life that he most shone; it was as a king, a statesman, a legislator; and even in all these capacities it is not so much what he effected as compared with what might be expected of men of a more favored era, but what he did, surrounded by such difficulties and with such little means, that principally impresses us with the grandeur and sublimity of his character. In this point of view,even his knowledge and attainments were most wonderful. He who in so dark an age, and amidst such constant demands on his time and energies, could acquire and write so much, must have possessed an activity and fertility of intellect which render it in the highest degree unworthy to measure even his literary merits (though these, as we have said,

were less prominent than many others) by the line and rule of a pedantic criticism. Unquestionably, however, it is somewhat a novel thing to write the life of Alfred as one of the eminent literary and scientific men of Great Britain,' and then laboriously to prove that he had no pretensions to the title !*

It is but justice to add, that the lives of St. Columba and of Alfred are professedly written, partly with a view of giving a sketch of the state of literature in their respective ages. And if this plan had been pursued; if the most prominent literary and scientific names of the successive eras had been selected for a similar purpose, the plan would have been consistent, and perhaps better adapted to the very narrow limits of a biographical series like the present, than any other which could have been adopted. But when we get a little further, we find not the slightest traces of any such plan. After the life of Chaucer, we have the life of

* We must confess that this writer does not speak of Alfred in other respects in a tone that altogether pleases us. He says that, 'great and good as he was, he has been prodigiously overrated. That, both as a man and a sovereign, he had many grievous defects, until affliction chastened him, can no longer be disputed. That he did not introduce into the administration of justice, and the internal economy of his kingdom, many of the improvements formerly ascribed to him, is equally certain. That his Eterary attainments do not merit the praises which have hitherto been passed on them, is, we think, no less indubitable. Now we freely admit that Alfred had not all the learning which has sometimes been attributed to him; that some of the legislative improvements ascribed to him have been so ascribed without any good foundation; still we think we have sufficient reason to demur to the expression, that he has been prodigiously overrated.' If the generality have given him credit for greater knowledge and wisdom than he possessed, it is also certain that the generality have been grossly incapable of estimating the difficulties under which he acquired all that he did possess. For ourselves we must say, that, when considered in this point of view, we do not think it possible that he should be prodigiously overrated. When we reflect that he was born almost in the midnight of the dark ages; that his kingdom was an inheritance of as much ignorance, barbarism, and misery as ever descended to a prince; that he was engaged in almost an incessant struggle with foreign invaders; that his education, such as it was, began very latenever having been taught to read till he was twelve, nor a word of Latin till he was thirty; that he was the prey throughout life of a most painful and harassing disease; when we reflect upon all this, and consider how much he achieved; that he fought it out with the Danes, till he completely expelled or subdued them; that he partially reclaimed his people from barbarism; that he certainly enacted many salutary and enlightened laws; that he had the far-sightedness to see, in a dark age, that every thing depended upon the diffusion of knowledge, and became himself a most liberal patron of learning; that he healed the dreadful distractions of his time, and introduced a greater measure of order and security than his kingdom had ever before enjoyed,-we confess we doubt whether it is possible prodigiously to overrate him; and whether such a combination of activity and vigor of intellect, practical wisdom and indomitable resolution, was ever witnessed before in the history of mankind.