BRIEF NOTICES OF NEW BOOKS.

Discourse on the Causes and Success of the English Revolution of 1640-1688. By M. Guizot. Murray, 1850.

THE indirect aim of this Discourse appears to be the instruction of France by the example of England. The writer seems to us to turn a melancholy glance from the Revolutions of a nation which has lost the ideas of Faith and Duty, to those of one in which those ideas not only exist but prevail. He well observes :

"The spirit of religious faith, and the spirit of political wisdom, reigned together;. ....all the great passions of the soul were thus excited and brought into action, while some of the most powerful restraints by which they are controlled remained unbroken."

And again, speaking of the religious innovators, he says,—

"There was an anchor to which they all held fast, a compass by which they were all guided. The Gospel was their great charter; subject, it is true, to their interpretation and commentaries, but anterior and superior to their will. They held it in sincere veneration, and spite of their pride they humbled themselves before the law which they had not made."

If any one wishes for a penetrating and impartial view of the whole course of English Revolution, he will find it here, given in lucid, forcible, and eloquent language, and mingled with many noble maxims of political wisdom. Cromwell, too, the real old Cromwell, re-appears before us, freed from the mists with which Hero-worshippers and sentimental vindicators, have dilated the greatness and disguised the guilt of his great but guilty form. It is impossible to read this, or any of the recent works of M. Guizot, without ardently wishing that he, a Protestant himself, had the courage to pronounce the word "Protestantism" as the true remedy for the evils of France. What can be more horrible than the sight of an infidel nation, plunged in all the absurdities of a Romish Ritual? Give them the Bible, and decree to them the privilege of reading it for themselves with devout prayer for better teaching than that of Popes and Councils-rid them from priestly domination and intrigue denounce the massacre of St. Bartholomew's Day; let the claims of Protestantism be heard and her name exalted; and under the blessing of God, the public mind may be regenerated, and France may be saved.

"The Heiress in her Minority." By the Author of " Bertha's

Journal." Murray.

THE heroine of these volumes is a young lady of the name of Evelyn, who is suddenly put into possession of a considerable landed property in Ireland,-with at least the usual proportion of needy, grasping, mendacious tenants,-and with a good deal, as well of the cleverness, as the self-will and precipitancy ofher countrymen. But she has the rare good fortune to fall in with friends-father, motherin-law, governess, trustees, &c.—such as if the sister-island possessed only in tolerable abundance, we might recall our twenty thousand soldiers, and leave Protestantism and good sense to fight their own battles, without any fear of the result. The book is "de omnibus

rebus et quibusdam aliis"—"about everything in the world and something more." We will not say of it all that Johnson says of Burnet's Life of Rochester, that "the critic ought to read it for its elegance, the philosopher for its arguments, and the saint for its piety." But we may say, that old and young, the wise and foolish, may read it, all without injury, and many with great advantage. It is full of incidents; information, little and great; and reasonings, which, if not very new or profound, discover a healthy frame of mind and great diligence in the writer, and can scarcely fail to be useful to the reader. We ought to add, that the book has the real advantage for young people of being a little long-winded and tedious; qualities, which all who are familiar with the young know to be just as much to their taste, as they are little to the taste of their busy and bustling parents, or of impatient and exhausted critics.

Twelve Years Ago: a Tale. By the Author of " Letters to my Unknown Friends." Longman.

THE authoress of this little work is favourably known to the public by her "Letters to my Unknown Friends." We do not think the work before us will add much to her reputation as a writer. It is an attempt to convey theological instruction through the medium of a Tale. Her little romance occupies one half of the volume, the theology the other half; and they seem to us to have no bond of union, except that two of the characters in the tale are the interlocutors in the theological discussions.

But we have a few words to say with respect to the latter portion of the work.

Amongst many opinions with which we agree, and sentiments which we admire, we cannot conceal from ourselves that on some vital points there is great inaccuracy of thought and expression; a misapprehension of some of the cardinal doctrines of the Christian faith. In chapter x. for instance, "On a Good Conscience," Louisa, the Evangelical young lady, inquires of Mary, the lady who appears to speak the opinions of the authoress, respecting the grounds of that confidence with which she looks forward to the approach of death. Louisa holds that the only safe ground is " the promise of God in Christ." Mary professes that "the certainty of her salvation is founded not on the covenant mercies of God in Christ, but on the internal evidence of the great change that she feels has taken place in herself." Then, having the argument entirely in her own hands, she assumes that according to her friend's theory (what an assumption!) her dependence is placed on the shifting foundation of frames and feelings; while, according to her own view, her hopes rest on a solid basis,and may be tried by the sure tests of " acts, words, and thoughts of obedience." There seems here indeed a sad confusion between the grounds of salvation, and the evidences of our being in a state of salvation; not to mention that, in our judgment, thoughts of obedience" are as much influenced by "the variations of our mere physical state," as frames and feelings. Her friend might easily have cleared up this confusion by a word or two; but unhappily the friend is only set up as a kind of lay figure' for sword practice, and cannot strike in return.

In the same chapter we find the following expression:-"I was

a lost sinner, unless by becoming one of the obedient children of God I could establish a title to the inheritance prepared only for them. “If we compare this with the passage cited above, and if we may venture to draw out into a shape that which we fear has not been thought out in any definite form in the mind of the writer, we are forced to conclude that she is of the same mind with Alexander Knox, who thus plainly and manfully states his position:-"What should I do for support to my sinking nature. . . . if on the greatest of all concerns I had a doubt of the line I had taken, or the ground on which I stand? Satisfaction in this great business can only arise radically from conscious rectitude of heart produced in us through the influence of Divine grace."

The lady-reasoner, in the work before us, is indeed reminded of St. Paul's profession of a sure hope of salvation "as the chief of sinners." But from this argument she escapes with what an American writer calls a wonderful " elasticity of recuperation," which would amuse us, if we did not feel that carelessness in quoting Scripture, and on such a subject, is a matter for grave reprehension. She says, "True, he calls himself the chief of sinners, but elsewhere he 'professes to have a conscience void of offence towards God and towards men ;" and, to account for the seeming inconsistency, she supposes that the former expression was used early in his career, the latter after he was confirmed as one of the obedient children of God. Now, first, St. Paul does not profess to have a conscience void of offence; but to exercise himself to do his best towards the attainment of that end; and secondly, as every lady ought to know, the first epistle to Timothy was written long after those words were uttered before Felix. Our authoress may learn from all the holiest men that the Church has known-from Adam of Wintringham, or Francis of Asser, if she prefers that authority-that the deepest self-abasement is perfectly consistent with high hope and strong assurance of salvation, nay, inseparable from it. And she may learn from the life of Mr. Nottidge of Ipswich, lately reviewed in our pages, that he whose faith rests on Jesus Christ does not depend, for the certainty of salvation, on frames and feelings.

Sir F. Chantrey, R. A. Recollections of his Life, Practice, and Opinions. By George Jones, R. A.

Moxon.

HERE is an affecting history to all those who respect the union of genius, simplicity, benevolence, good sense, and many other excellencies, in a single breast. Sir F. Chantrey is an example of a person raised by the power of his talents, from the lower level of society up to its highest platform. Apprenticed originally as a carver of wood, in Sheffield, he was, in the end, exalted into a companion of princes and nobles, and into an object of admiration to the whole of civilized Europe; and, we may add, to such of the multitudes of India, who have been permitted to see his noble equestrian statue of Sir Thomas Munro.

Such a history has of course many things to cheer the mind,inasmuch as it teaches us that, in this country, vigour, power, and honesty will force their way through every superincumbent pressure, and bring the man to his proper level in the aristocracy of

talent and character. But yet the story is most affecting in another point of view, inasmuch as it presents to us this distinguished person as eminently gifted to appreciate all excellences but one-and that unhappily the highest and the best. How melancholy is it to find such a man living in the constant violation of the Sabbath, and introducing oaths into his letters of friendship and privacy. It might be thought that the cultivation of the fine arts, and the contemplation of all that is beautiful in colour and form, would tend to chastise and purify the moral taste. And still more might it be hoped that the contemplation of the forms of nature, or more properly the works of God, of which Sir F. Chantrey was almost an idolator, would naturally lead the mind upward to the great Author of all that is sublime or beautiful. But the history of ancient Greece or of modern Rome, may instruct us how feeble is the necessary alliance between morals and the fine arts, and that the greatest artists are far from being the most devout worshippers.-The following sentiment, to say the least, has a cheerless character about it, which would never be found in the hour of trial or sickness of a simple-hearted Christian believer. "Two years before Chantrey's death," says his friend and biographer, "an awful change took place, distressing to his own spirit, and afflicting to his friends; his festivity forsook him, his cheeks fell, his eye lost its lustre, and his beautiful mouth became vacant of expression... Of his profession he felt the importance, and it grew in his esteem as the allurements of the fashionable world became unsuitable to his health and inclination. Whenever his friends, seeing him suffer from indisposition, advised him to relinquish his labours and seek ease in retirement, he used to reply, 'My retirement must be my death.'

The following sentences are something worse than comfortless. "Within two hours of his death, he talked with zeal and anxiety about sculpture... And he looked with painful anxiety for the reestablishment of his health. The equestrian statue of the Duke of Wellington, within those hours, was the subject of his earnest discussion, and he closed his career under the hope of an improvement in constitution which might enable him to execute and direct many future works." Was this the " hope full of immortality"—" the hope, as the anchor of the soul, sure and stedfast?" Alas! alas! and Mr. Jones, the biographer, records all this as a matter of little moment, or rather as one of the bright incidents of a distinguished life.

Remarks on Dr. Wiseman's Sermon on the Gorham Case. By Henry Drummond. Bosworth.

MEN of various ages, temperaments, and countries, have subsisted upon a wonderful variety of diets-upon pulse, and rice, and fish, horse-flesh, and even upon human beings. But the case of Mr. Drummond is, we suppose, altogether peculiar, inasmuch as he appears (he will forgive us for stating so curious a fact in natural history) to have subsisted upon neither flesh, fish, nor fowl, but upon what, we believe, are commonly called crotchets! It is impossible to say either what he has, or what he has not, believed. He has adopted a multitude of even conflicting opinions; and by some CHRIST. OBSERV. No. 150. 3 M

strange idiosyncracy, has been equally convinced of the truth of them all in succession; and what is more, he is so bright and earnest a man, that he has often been able to convert to his new opinions many even of those who had before received from himself the most opposite notions.

On the present occasion, the author has presented us with a pamphlet something of the same aspect with the new moon in her crescent state, when a sort of half illuminated orb seems to rest in her bright bosom. The pamphlet is designed as an antidote to a sermon of Dr. Wiseman's, in which that dexterous divine has taken advantage of the present controversy upon Baptisin to show, with what infinite comfort and advantage a harassed Tractarian may turn aside into the Goshen of Popery. Mr. Drummond's notions upon Baptism seem to us to be quite of the half illuminated character to which we referred. But his views of Popery have a ray of clear Gospel light shining upon them. In a series of able remarks, he shews the man, hovering between Tractarianism and Popery, what he has to receive if he embrace the latter. And he certainly deposits upon his table what it must require a very capacious œsophagus to swallow. In the first place, he must believe, that, in the Sacrament of the Lord's supper" "the bread and wine which were consecrated, have disappeared; that it is blood that we taste, and not wine; and flesh which we eat, and not bread;" that "the Pope, however contradictory to himself and to all other Popes, is infallible;" that he has a right to prescribe what he pleases to all the world; that no man is to read the Bible, still less to interpret it, without the license of the priest; that he must pray to a woman, and set her above the Son of God; that he must submit his wife, sisters, and daughters to the gross impurities of the confessional (on this point Mr. Drummond has introduced some new and important testimony); that he must abandon himself, body, soul, and spirit, to the will and mind of a poor fellow sinner. On all these points, and on some others, Mr. Drummond reasons a little dogmatically; but his facts may convince many who will not submit to his logic, and we therefore wish his pamphlet a wide circulation.

The True Remedy for the Evils of the Age: A Charge to the Clergy of the Archdeaconry of Lewes, in 1849. By Julius Charles Hare, M.d. Parker.

IN our reference to Public Affairs, in a preceding Number of this Work, we had occasion to make a brief extract from this striking, and, on the whole, valuable Charge. Without expressing any concurrence in Archdeacon Hare's views on the subject of Baptism, we gave some of the glowing and feeling passages in which he commends to the Church a spirit of forbearance and Christian charity. The same notes need to be struck again and again—the right of the Privy Council as now ascertained by law-the large and candid spirit in which their judgment is given-the temper of mind with which such a decision ought to be welcomed, both by the disappointed and by the successful party- the former because a body of good men are not cast out of the Church, and the latter because they themselves are not so excluded-the duty of those who agree on a