In that portion of the volume before us which treats of the extent of the administration of Baptism, the author considers the distinct claims both of adults and infants to this Christian rite, founded on an appeal to the sacred scriptures. The passages which have a bearing on the subject, he examines with much acuteness, and draws from the whole one general inference, that, although the ordinance, under given circumstances, includes adults, it embraces infants with many distinguished peculiarities. It cannot, however, be dissembled, that Mr. E. seems to hesitate, in extending salvation to all infants, for on this point his creed is evidently at variance with his humanity. In a note appended to page 183, we find the following remark:-" After all, thus much is certain, that some infants now under the gospel belong to God's kingdom, and have him for their God; and this will be sufficient for my present purpose." is The manner in which this essay written, notwithstanding the fund of information which it contains, is, on the whole, more critical than popular; and its reasonings and conclusions will appear more convincing to those who trace etymologies, distinguish roots, and recollect the uses to which certain words have been applied by ancient authors, than to the common reader, whose inquiries are less profound. But independently of these - considerations, the mode of argumen=tation which the author adopts, having once settled the groundwork, will be sufficiently clear and intelligible amply to repay the acute but unlearned reader, for perusing the pages of - this volume. REVIEW.-Poems and Poetical Translations. By Samuel Gower. pp. 48. London. Simpkin & Marshall. 1824. WHEN the reader is informed that this pamphlet contains fifty-seven articles, he need not be told that each poem is very short, and that the character of the whole is highly miscellaneous. In her numerous, but short, = excursions, the muse of Mr. Gower re=minds us of a flying-fish, which mounts into the aerial regions, and continues its flight until its wings get dry, then dips into the ocean, and with renovated vigour, renews its efforts in the ambient element. No. 72.-VOL. VI. In these little compositions, we, however, perceive some bright coruscations of thought, some strong emanations of intellect, some splendid sparklings of genius. The energy is vigorous, but evanescent: it shines for a moment, excites our attention, and while we admire, it disappears. As a specimen, we give the following stanzas to Tasso: "O Tasso! thou torrent of heaven, Whose waters were health to mankind, Fills with flowers the low desert of life. Though the flap of the vulture, that bovers, Thy laurels o'ershadow the spot."-p. 9. REVIEW.-Persuasives to Early Piety: Third Edition. By G. Pike. pp. 267. London. R. Baynes. WHEN a book falls into our hands, that contains, in large print, a stream of text running through a field of margin, we are always led to peruse it with suspicion, and in general we have found catch-penny somewhere or other lurking in its pages. In such cases, the author seems to say to his customers, “My compositions are too precious to be dealt out with a liberal hand; their merit will give them circulation, and every one knows that what is far-fetched and dearly purchased, is fit for ladies." Many works of this description daily issue from the press, of which the following is the accurate history:-" they were born; appeared sickly, though magnificently dressed; and died in their infancy." These remarks, however, will not apply to the little volume before us. It is closely printed on a small clear type, and the page exhibits nothing more than a reasonable margin. The price also is very moderate, being no more than two shillings, although there is a sufficient number of words to fill two or three volumes of a certain class, at five or six shillings each. This circumstance speaks much in favour of the author, who cannot be suspected of attempting to levy con tributions on the public. 4 C Mother at Home to her Children at This book contains twenty-three | REVIEW.-Letters, in Rhyme, from a chapters, to each of which is prefixed a syllabus of its contents, all bearing on the same point, and holding out persuasives to early piety. Through every chapter there is an earnestness in the author's manner, which convinces us that he is sincere. His expostulations are drawn from various sources, the origin of which may be easily traced to the great fountain of revelation, the truths of which are illustrated by numerous incidents taken from historical facts, and anecdotes, which the lives of different individuals have supplied. The language is simple and perspicuous, as destitute of pedantry, as it is devoid of ornament, the writer having been evidently more intent upon his important subject, than concerned about the raiment which it should wear. Those who read this book in the hope of finding amusement, will certainly be disappointed, while such as sincerely inquire, why they should devote their days to God, will find much gratification, by discovering reasons and motives which had been previously unobserved. Works of this kind are of real utility, not to theological speculators, but to the youth of both sexes who inquire, "what must I do to be saved?" THESE tales have certainly a moral tendency, but they carry the marks of fiction in every page. The author has a good command of language, and well knows how to turn his expressions to the most favourable account, so far as his scanty materials will allow. He has learnt the art of dressing up trifles in gay attire, and of giving an artificial interest to subjects that have taken the benefit of the insolvent act. His ingenuity is chiefly displayed, not in making his book contain his incidents, but in contriving to make the incidents hold out to fill his pages. His performance resembles the conduct of a man who would put a coach-and-six in motion, with postilions, footmen, and attendants in splendid liveries, to carry a pincushion. In both cases the equipage is more important than the charge. THERE is much pleasing simplicity in these letters; they inculcate plain truth in language adapted to the minds of children, for whose use they are designed. The lines are unembarrassed, and the words are quite familiar, and the whole is written in a strain that no child of seven years old, of a tolerable capacity, can misunderstand. The letters are very short, and might easily be committed to memory by the pupil. The writer well knows how to adapt her style to her subject, and to the comprehension of children; and it is doubtful if the same thoughts could have been expressed in fewer words in prose, than they now occupy in rhyme. Tenderness, good advice, and plain sense, are alike conspicuous in every epistle. REVIEW.-The Gipsies; a Narrative of several Communications with that People:-the Duty of Christians to attempt their Conversion, &c. pp. 48. London. Baldwin and Co. THIS pamphlet has an imposing titlepage, and the subject is both important and interesting. The author, it appears, paid three visits to a camp of these fugitives, spoke to them on received, listened to with earnestness, the condition of their souls, was kindly and his instructions were accepted with lively emotions of gratitude. He states the number of gipsies in this kingdom to be about 40,000, and points them out as objects every way entitled to missionary benevolence. He thinks that serious prejudices have been entertained against them, and so far as his observations extended, be views them as ready to receive the truths of Christianity. MILTON ON EDUCATION. HAVING, in col. 969, inserted a reply, by L. Man, to a query on "the Utility of learning Greek and Latin," which had been previously proposed, the following extract from Milton's Tractate on Education, has been handed to us by a judicious friend, whose communications we highly esteem, as having a strong bearing on the point in question: "The end, then, of learning is, to repair the ruins of our first parents, by regaining to know God aright, and out of that knowledge, to love him,to imitate him,-to be like him as we may the nearest, by possessing our souls of true virtue, which being united to the heavenly grace of faith, makes up the highest perfection. But because our understanding cannot, in this body, found itself but on sensible | things, nor arrive so clearly at the knowledge of God and things invisible, as by orderly conning over the visible and inferior creature; the same method is necessarily to be followed in all discreet teaching. And seeing every nation affords not experience and tradition enough for all kind of learning, therefore we are chiefly taught the languages of those people who have, at any time, been most industrious after wisdom; so that language is but the instrument conveying to us things useful to be known. And though a linguist should pride himself to have all the tongues that Babel cleft the world into, yet if he have not studied the solid things in them, as well as the words and Lexicons, he were nothing so much to be esteemed a learned man, as any yeoman or tradesman competently wise in his mother dialect only. read, yet not to be avoided without a well continued and judicious convers. ing among pure authors digested, which they scarce taste: whereas, if after some preparatory grounds of speech, by their certain forms, got into memory, they were led to the praxis thereof in some chosen short book, lessoned thoroughly to them, they might then forthwith proceed to learn the substance of good things and arts in due order, which would bring the whole language quickly into their power. This I take to be the most rational and most profitable way of learning languages, and whereby we may best hope to give account to God, of our youth spent herein. "And for the usual method of teaching arts, I deem it to be an old error of universities, not yet well recovered from the scholastic grossness of barbarous ages, that instead of beginning with the most easy, (as those be such as are most obvious to the sense,) they present their young uncultivated novices, at first coming, with the most intellective abstractions of logic and metaphysics, so that they, having but newly left those grammatic flats and shallows, where they stuck unreasonably to learn a few words with lamentable construction, and now on the sudden transported under another climate, to be tossed and turmoiled with their unballasted wits, in fathomless and unquiet deeps of controversy, do, for the most part, grow into hatred and contempt of learning, mocked and deluded all this while with ragged notions and babblements, while they expected worthy and delightful knowledge, till poverty or youthful years call them importunately their several ways, and hasten them, with the sway of friends, either to an ambitious and mercenary, or ignorantly zealous divinity; some allured to the trade of law, grounding their purposes, not on the prudent and heavenly contemplation of justice and equity, which was never taught them, but on the promising and pleas "Hence appear the many mistakes which have made learning generally so unpleasing and so unsuccessful; first, we do amiss to spend seven or eight years, merely in scraping together so much miserable Latin and Greek as might be learned otherwise, easily and delightfully, in one year. And that which casts our proficiency therein so much behind, is our time lost, partly in too oft idle vacancies given both to schools and universities; partly in a preposterous exaction, forcing the empty wits of children to compose themes, verses, and orations, which are the acts of riper judgment, and the final work of a head filled by long reading and observing, with ele-ing thoughts of litigious terms, fat gant maxims and copious inventions. These are not matters to be wrung from poor striplings, like blood out of the nose, or the plucking of untimely fruit; besides the ill habit which they get of wretched barbarizing against the Latin and Greek idiom, with their untutored Anglicisms, odious to be contentions, and flowing fees; others betake them to state affairs with souls so unprincipled in virtue and true generous breeding, that flattery and court-shifts, and tyrannous aphorisms, appear to them the highest points of wisdom; instilling their barren hearts with a conscientious slavery; if, as I rather think, it be not feigned. Others, lastly, of a more delicious and airy spirit, retire themselves, (knowing no better) to the enjoyments of ease and luxury, living out their days in feast and jollity; which indeed is the wisest and the safest course of all these, unless they were with more integrity undertaken. And these are the errors, and these are the fruits of mispending our prime youth at the schools and universities as we do, either in learning mere words, or such things chiefly as were better unlearned." to become as barbarous as we originally were? Certainly not,-for as knowledge increases, so does power; and as literature finds its way among the lower classes of society, barbarity vanishes, and civilization increases. Pedantry is not so closely allied to classic literature, nor is a knowledge of the Greek and Latin authors so necessarily attended by an ignorance of our vernacular tongue, as your correspondent seems to imagine. Far from being ignorant of these languages, our best authors have evinced, both in their conversation and writings, their OBSERVATIONS ON THE STUDY OF THE perfect knowledge of them: the di DEAD LANGUAGES. MR. EDITOR. SIR,-It has always been my opinion, and the opinion of those who have thought deeply on the subject, that an acquaintance with the learned languages is productive of considerable mental advantages to persons in any situation of life, even where the knowledge of them is not imperatively required. It was, therefore, with no small degree of astonishment, that I read in your number for October, col. 969, a letter denying the above in toto. With all due deference to the superior ingenuity and abilities of your correspondent, permit me to state, that the perusal of his letter has rather strengthened than altered my former opinion on this subject. A man in business, however numerous his avocations, or however intense the application that is required in the prosecution of it may be, has nevertheless some moments of relaxation, some time that can be spared from his necessary occupation. Can this, I ask, be more advantageously, or more profitably employed, than in reading the writings of the ancient bards and philosophers in the very language in which they were composed? The principal part of them are, I will allow, elegantly and excellently translated; but his mind must be very little exalted, who can prefer to acquire by the labours of others, that which he can procure, with so much facility, by exercising his own industry. Although we do know as much as the Greeks and Romans, and even our own immediate ancestors, yet are we to suffer ourselves, by neglecting the cultivation of what we have acquired, vine Addison, the prince of English prose writers, was no mean scholar; nor was that apotheosised poet, Milton, unacquainted with the graces of the authors of antiquity. I am, at the same time, well aware, that if the study of these languages be carried to excess, it becomes highly pernicious, and the consequences of it are as injurious as your correspondent imagines. It will clash with more necessary occupations, and interfere with that which nothing ought to be suffered to obstruct. But there is an essential difference between a simple knowledge of the Greek and Latin languages, and a study of them carried to excess. The former will prove a source of pleasure, while the latter will be productive of misery and penury. No man, as Dr. Johnson very justly observes, can know more than one thing thoroughly; he may be acquainted with many others. So it is with the Greek and Latin languages; an acquaintance with them expands the mind, and fits a man for any company which he may be called upon to enter; whilst he who has passed his life in the acquirement of one thing, is justly regarded as an ignorant blockhead, who has only learned that with which he was obliged to be acquainted. I am, Sir, your most sincere friend, and constant reader, W. S―, junr. Lisle-street, October 20th, 1824. ANSWER TO A QUERY ON ART AND MR. EDITOR. SIR,-In col. 208, of your present volume, is a query respecting the difference between Art and Science. If you Nature is sometimes free, and manifests herself in a regular order: sometimes in that which is irregular and think the following answer will prove satisfactory, I shall be glad for my remarks to furnish a column in your next number. I am, sir, your's, re-disorderly; at other times she is fâspectfully, T. C-Y. Old Lane, near Halifax. ART and Science are words of familiar use, and of great significance; but they are not always understood.Philosophers have long laboured to explain, and ascertain their import and difference. To science, there seems to belong such things as men may discover by the use of sense and reasoning; such are the laws of nature, the affection of bodies, the rules and criteria of right and wrong. To art, on the other hand, belong such things, as mere reason would not have attained; things which lie out of the direct path of deduction, and which require a peculiar cast, or turn of mind, to arrive at. Those things may be said to belong to science, which we only see or perceive; which flow from the nature and constitution of things, impressed upon them by the sole agency of their Author; subservient only to his general purposes, exclusive of any immediate agency or intervention of ours. On the contrary, those things belong to art, wherein such science or perception is further modified, and applied by us to particular purposes and occasions of our own. The whole, therefore, resolves itself into this, that science arises from a natural principle, art from an artificial one; or even, as moral matters are also in one sense natural, science may be said to be of divine original, art of human. shioned and subdued by human skill and industry; and this last is what we call art.In this sense art stands opposed to nature. Art is also used for science or knowledge reduced to practice. Liberal arts, are those that are noble and ingenious, and in which the mind is chiefly employed. Such are, poetry, painting, music, grammar, rhetoric, &c. ANSWER TO A QUERY ON POETRY, MR. EDITOR. SIR, B. B. asks, col. 688,-" Which may be considered as the most useful, and as conveying most instruction to mankind, Poetry, Painting, or Music?" In reply to this query, I beg leave to present the following lines of our immortal Cowper, which occur in his "Table Talk:" "I know the mind, that feels indeed the fire And who is there that can boldly deny the fact, that of the above three enticing modes in which the thoughts of man are combined, not one can be employed with so much efficacy as poetry. Who can read over the beautiful compositions of Milton, Cowper, or Thomson, without a feeling of reverence, which sometimes forms itself into awe; while many will hear the delightful choruses of Klopstock, and the songs of Haydn, and view the beautiful productions from the pencil of a West, and consider them merely as an amusement for an idle hour? Poetry, on the contrary, is a species The schoolmen define it to be a ha- of writing that nobly speaks to the bit of the mind, prescribing rules for soul, and scarcely ever without leavthe production of certain effects. Lord ing a lasting impression. Hence, howBacon defines it-" a proper disposal ever useful painting and music may of things of nature by human thought be, as making up a valuable part of a and experience, so as to make them polished education, poetry has ceranswer the designs and uses of man-tainly the decided pre-eminence. kind." In fine, science implies something founded on self-evident principles, or demonstration. But the term art is principally used for a collection of rules, precepts, inventions, or experi ments. W. M. H |