interesting Problems in Astronomy; with explanatory Illustrations, forming an Epitome of the Elements of that Science. To which is added, a Guide to the Constellations. By P. Lovekin. 3s. half-bound. FINE ARTS. An Historical and Picturesque Tour of the Seine, from Paris to the Sea; illustrated by twenty-four highly finished and coloured Engravings, from Drawings made for the purpose by Messrs. Pugin and Gendall, Part I. To be com. pleted in six Monthly Parts. This Work will correspond with the Histories of Oxford, Cambridge, Col. leges and Schools, Westminster Abbey, Microcosm of London, the Tour along the Rhine, Buenos Ayres, &c. 750 copies only will be printed on 4to elephant paper; to the first 500 Subscribers the price will be 14s. each Part; the remaining 250 will be advanced to 16s.; and 50 large copies will be taken. HISTORY. Memoirs of the Rebellion in 1745 and 1746. By the Chevalier de Johnstone, Aide-de-Camp to Lord George Murray, General of the Rebel Army, assistant Aide-de-Camp to Prince Charles Edward, Captain in the Duke of Perth's Regiment, and afterward an Officer in the French Service. Containing a narrative of the progress of the rebellion, from its commencement to the battle of Culloden; the character of the principal persons engaged in it, and anecdotes respecting them; and various important particulars relating to that contest, hitherto either unknown or imperfectly understood. With an account of the sufferings and privations experienced by the author after the battle of Culloden, before he effected his escape to the continent, &c. &c. Translated from a French MS. originally deposited in the Scots College at Paris, and now in the hands of the publishers. With portraits of both the pretenders, from the original pictures in the possession of Earl Beauchamp, 4to. 21. 2s. MEDICINE. 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Letters to a Young Clergyman. By Stevenson Mac-Gill, D.D. Professor of Divinity in the University of Glasgow. 2nd edit. 12mo. 6s. Contents, Letter I. on Pride. II. III. on Vanity. IV. on Worldly Policy. V. VI. on Unchari tableness and Party Spirit. VII. on Levity. VIII, on the Love of Company, and Solitude. IX. on Indolence. X. on Indiscretion. XI. XII. on Spiritnal Indifference. Reasons for admitting the Divine Origin of Revelation. By Joseph Jones, A.M. 12mo. 2. 6d. A Sermon intended to have been preached before Her Majesty the Queen, on the occasion of her public thanksgiving at St. Paul's Cathedral, on Wednesday, the 29th November 1820: with an Introductory Letter to the Lord Bishop of Landaff. By Henry Bathurst, D.D. Archdeacon of Norwich. 8vo. 1s. TRAVELS AND TOPOGRAPHY. A Narrative of the Operations and recent Discoveries within the Pyramids, Temples, Tombs, and Excavations, in Egypt and Nubia; and of a Journey to the Coast of the Red Sea in search of the ancient Berenice, and auother to the Oasis of Jupiter Ammon. By G. Belzoni. With a portrait. 4to. 21. 2s. Forty-Four Coloured Plates, illustrative of the Researches and Operations of G. Belzoni, in Egypt and Nubia. Folio, 61. 6s. New South Wales; being an histori-/ cal account of the colony and its settlements, With Twelve Views, engraved by W. Preston, a convict, from drawings by Capt. Wallis, of the 46th regiment, and a map of Port Macquarie and the newly discovered River Hastings. By J Oxley, Esq. Surveyor-General to the Territory. Super royal folio, 21. 2s. Illyria and Dalmatia; being a description of the, manners, customs, dresses, and character of their inhabitants, and those of the adjacent countries: illustrated by thirty-two elegant coloured engravings. 2 vols. 12mo. 12s. The Tour of Africa; containing a coucise account of all the countries in that quarter of the globe, hitberto visited by Europeans; with the manners and customs of the inhabitants. Selected from the best authors, and arranged by Catherine Hutton. With a map of the southern portion of Africa. Vol. II. 8vo. 12s. * The third volume, completing the circuit of Africa, and embracing, with the other two volumes, an epitome of all the knowledge which has yet been obtained relative to that interesting por tion of the globe, is preparing for the press. THE ECLECTIC REVIEW, FOR FEBRUARY, 1821. Art. I. Memoirs of the Life, Writings, and Religious Connexions, of John Owen, D.D. Vice-chancellor of Oxford, and Dean of ChristChurch, during the Commonwealth. By William Orme. 8vo. pp. 524. [Portrait.] Price 12s. London. 1820. Ο NE great purpose of biography is, to correct or to qualify the general representations of history. Let those general representations be true or false, as they respect the transactions of any particular period, and the parties engaged in them, they must necessarily fail to be always just to the private character of individuals. If the affairs of which the historian is called to take cognizance, has involved the actors in obloquy, if the language employed in characterizing them is that of just condemnation, the biographer, without controverting that decision, will have to rescue from the sweeping imputation, many names of undoubted eminence for private integrity. And in performing this task, he will sometimes have not merely to set so much good against so much evil in the character of the individual, or to balance private worth against public worth; but to make the character of the individual serve as a key to the transactions in which he was engaged, so that they shall appear, if not wholly defensible, yet altogether in a different light from what the literal truth of history had placed them in. Or, if the transactions themselves shall not seem to have their quality of evil mitigated, the conduct of the parties shall materially change its moral aspect, while the reader shall feel himself drawn into sympathy with men from whom he had before revolted as having no claims whatever to his esteem. Such is not unfrequently the case when history is not chargeable with any palpable want of fidelity. But when history is not just, when its comprehensive allegations of general facts are erroneous, the errors of detail must needs be innumerable; and it then becomes the business of the biographer to shew, that what is not true of a part, does not and cannot hold good of the whole. There is no portion of our annals to which these remarks apply with greater force, than that which embraces the latter years of the reign of Charles I. and the Protectorate. The biographical memorials which have been transmitted to us of the fanatics,' and rebels,' and 'puritans' of that period,the Hutchinsons and the Fairfaxes, the Miltons and the Vanes, the Baxters and the Owens,-oppose an emphatic contradiction to the injurious representations of party writers. But there is too large a party who consider it as their interest to perpetuate such misrepresentations; and it is in vain to hope that history will ever be suffered to tell the tale of those times with honest freedom. What is it, however, that involves that period in so much obscurity, but the intense interest which attaches to its extraordinary transactions? Without entering into the question of right between the King and the Parliament, never was there exhibited a grander display of mind on the large scale of national proceedings; never did the English character present itself to other nations in so gigantic a form and so proud an attitude, as during that unhappy and perilous conflict. In the histories of all civilized countries, there will be more or less similarity; there will be at least a close analogy between the distinguishing events; but this illustrious part of our history-illustrious with all its crimes and misfortunes,-is such as no other nation can parallel. The agents were men of no ordinary mould, and the events were such, we may safely affirm, as could not have taken place in any other country; for in no other country could the laws have survived the subversion of government, or religion have modified in so remarkable a manner the characters of the political leaders, compelling even from the irreligious the homage of hypocrisy. The present work is purely biographical, and the Author never deviates from his proper and professed design, which is, to present a memoir of the personal history, the theological writings, and the religious connexions of Dr. Owen; but it incidentally furnishes some very valuable illustrations of the history of the period. Mr. Orme has evidently spared no pains or research both in collecting and in authenticating the scattered materials out of which the present memoir is constructed. That it should have been left to him, at this distance of time from the death of the great and good man who is the subject of it, to perform this debt of justice to his memory, reflects no honour on the English Dissenters. It is indeed, as he remarks, not a little surprising, that whilst the minutest researches have been made into the lives of many obscure individuals, no separate work should have been devoted to the life of John Owen.' With regard to many of his learned and pious contemporaries, it might be urged in excuse, that their actions are comprised in their works, and that their lives were not marked by any circumstances claiming a distinct record. But this cannot be said of Dr. Owen, who occupied so prominent a station, and whose share in the political transactions of his day has even been overrated, for the purpose of fastening upon him an invidious responsibility. The disingenuous treatment which he has received from his great Presbyterian rival, rendered it also the more incumbent on the admirers of his character and writings, to. rescue his memory from undeserved obloquy. Mr. Clarkson, who preached his funeral sermon, observed, "that the account which is due to the world of this eminent man deserved a volume," which he hoped would soon make its appearance. Cotton Mather, in that singular work "Magnalia Americana Christi," published twenty years afterwards, declared "that the church of God was wronged in that the life of the great John Owen was not written." About twenty years after that, appeared, prefixed to the folio edition of his Sermons and Tracts, the first and the only account of him which can be depended upon; but which, though it appears to have been drawn up by Mr. Asty, with the assistance of Sir John Hartopp, is both inaccurate and imperfect, and does not contain so many pages as the Doctor had written books. With the exception of this, and the scanty notices of general biography, Owen is only known by means of his writings.' Mr. Orme has divided the memoir into twelve chapters, to which is added an appendix of documents. The contents of each chapter are specified at the head of it, and there is an index; but it is a deficiency, that there is no general table of contents. We cannot better supply this defect than by an analysis of the volume, in the shape of an outline of the leading events of Owen's life. John Owen, the second son of the Rev. Henry Owen, was born at Stadham in Oxfordshire, in the year 1616. His father was a Nonconformist minister, and was reckoned, for his more than ordinary zeal, a strict puritan: he was for some time minister of Stadham, and afterwards became rector of Harpsden in the same county, where he died in 1649, in the sixty-third year of his age. In the Latin inscription on Owen's monument in Bunbill-fields, the father and son are thus honourably distinguished: Patre insigni theologo theologus ipse insignior.' Owen was initiated into classical learning by Edward Silvester, master of a private academy at Oxford, who had the honour of numbering also among his pupils, Dr. Wilkins, Bishop of Chester, Dr. Henry Wilkinson, Margaret Professor during the Commonwealth, and William Chillingworth. At twelve years of age he was admitted a student of Queen's College, and on the 11th of June, 1632, when only sixteen, took the degree of bachelor of arts: on the 27th of April, 1635, he commenced master of |