Lyre-inventor, cow-tormentor, Endless are thy names, great Sol! Exclusively of the above-named authors, we cannot see much to praise in the rest of the Anthology. Neither the recherchèe Miss Maria Tepelchade Vischer, nor the string of smaller amatory poets, with the lambkin-loving Laurens Reach at their head, possess any thing to distinguish their works from the class of decent and harmless mediocrity. The name of Brederode, well known in the patriotic annals of Holland, should lead us to expect a Tyrtæus, but the Brederode of the present collection has left the record of his country's glories to the hands of Brandt and Vandergoes, whose performance has not quite equalled their good will. He himself, though not deficient in feeling and passion, must needs drag in Doedalus, Stentor, and Medea by the head and shoulders into one and the same song, apropòs to the simple subject of "The Girl I left behind me." After this classical ostentation, so like that of our own dear Cockney school, we are prepared for the information that Brederode was genuine Amsterdam by birth, and "an utter stranger to the learned languages." It was probably in close imitation of Brederode that Medea is written in the fifth stanza with a short vowel. In his other pieces, Brederode shews feeling and taste; and the poem in the 92d page is perhaps the best amatory one in the volume. With the mild, sober, and meditative strain of Kamphuysen it is impossible not to be pleased, but he is perhaps rather to be considered as a moralist than a poet. The single short piece by Hugo Grotius, though possessing no great merit in itself, is very touching, as indicative of the depressed state of a strong mind, clinging to the remembrance and leaning on the affection of the country for which it was suffering. On the whole, as far as this little volume enables us to judge, we are better satisfied with the talent and cultivation displayed by the Dutch poets, than with their choice of subjects. The recollections of Egmont, of Horn, of the Prince of Orange, of the horrors of the siege of Leyden, and the atrocities of Alva, might have produced something better than Brandt's two or three tame inscriptions, and burst forth in such lines as the Grave of Schill, or the Battle of Sempach. Instead of which, names the most glorious are past over or barely mentioned, and whole pages devoted to "Delicate lips and soft amorous glances," and such other matters, which have been the small change of all amatory poetry since the days of Sappho. Let us hope however that the continuation of the present work, which Mr. Bowring has promised us, may contain something more characteristic of the feelings and history of the country of a De Witts, an Egmont, an Erasmus, and a Grotius; a country, (to quote the well-deserved eulogium of Mr. Bowring)" distinguished for its civilization and its important contributions to the mass of human knowledge; allied by habit and by history with our thoughts and recollections; whose language claims a close kindred with our own, and whose government has generally been such as to excite the sympathies of an English spirit." We cannot pay a better compliment either to the spirit in which Mr. Bowring appears to have undertaken this work, or his ability as a writer, than by quoting his introductory sonnet, with which we shall conclude. "In this sad world, where the eternal jar At the proud altar-shrine, that towers sublime All that is base to light and beauty turns, Our words and wills: for man should be man's friend, ART. XIV. An Historical Catalogue of the Scottish Bishops, down to the year 1688: By the Right Rev. Robert Keith. Also, an Account of all the Religious Houses that were in Scotland at the Time of the Reformation: By John Spottiswoode, Esq. A new Edition corrected and continued to the present Time, with a Life of the Author: By the Rev. M. Russel, L.L.D. 8vo. 686 pp. 17. 1s. Rivingtons. 1824. THE Editor of this new edition of the Catalogue of the Scottish Bishops, informs uslin an unpretending and sensible preface, that the task which he has completed was originally undertaken in consequence of the great scarcity and high price of Bishop Keith's work. The volume now published contains an exact reprint of the original, and the additions of the editor are contained in distinct notes, or thrown into an appendix at the end. At a time therefore in which the study of our historical antiquities is pursued with unprecedented zeal, Dr. Russel has conferred an important benefit upon the public, by enabling them to avail themselves of one of the most authentic and valuable compilations in the language. He has taken the opportunity also of recording what is known respecting the life of Bishop Keith, of examining some recent enquiries into the primitive state of Church government in Scotland, and of presenting us with an abridged and highly interesting sketch of the History of the Scottish Episcopal Church from the Revolution to the present day. We shall endeavour to direct the attention of our readers to each of these subjects. The life of the Bishop, as Dr. Russel admits, is extremely meagre. He lived at a period when the Episcopal clergy mixed little with the world, and when the transactions of their Society were known to few except themselves. But the diligent researches of the biographer have been rewarded with a few scraps which cannot be perused without pleasure. Bishop Keith was born in a very humble station, but be claimed descent from the eldest branch of the noble family whose name he bore, and interested himself even at the close of a long life, in establishing the right of his nephews to the honours of their ancestors. "In the life of a Scotchman, however meanly born, the article of pedigree, in the 17th century, was in all cases a consideration of some weight; for if he had not to tell of hereditary wealth or family honours, he was pleased with the assurance that his parents were virtuous, and perhaps with the tradition that their blood had been improved by some illustrious connexion. But, in this respect, Bishop Keith had more to boast of than Scottish churchmen usually have in modern times; and no one ever valued more highly his relationship with the noble and the great than did this humble pastor of a poor, depressed, and rather calumniated branch of Christ's Catholic church. He was a cadet of the celebrated family of Keith, Earls Marischal of Scotland, being lineally descended from Alexander, the youngest son of William the third earl. In the year 1513, this nobleman conferred upon the ancestor of the Bishop the lands of Pittendrum in the shire of Aberdeen; which grant is vouched by an attested copy of the precept of sasine, inserted in the controversial pamphlet to which we have already alluded. After the lapse of little more than a hundred years, we find the laird of Pittendrum in possession of the estate of Over and Nether Cowtowns,' in the shire of Mearns; for which acquisition also the instrument of legal investment is produced at full length from the register of sasines. But the lands of Cowtowns passed away from the Bishop's family in the person of his immediate ancestor; who, having denuded himself, as the phrase is, of that property, in the year 1672, purchased the estate of Uras, in the parish of Dunnotar and shire of Kincardine. As an apology for this alienation of the family inheritance, the good Bishop thinks it necessary to add, in a note, that this hasty denudation did not proceed from a squandering temper in my father, but from his having enlisted himself a volunteer in that expedition under King Charles II. (which ended in the unfortunate battle of Worcester) whilst a mere stripling only of about eighteen years of age; and although he had the good fortune to escape out of prison by the means and contrivance of two English ladies, yet the difficulties he was exposed to, and the incumbrances which naturally came upon his small estate during the long continuance of the rebellion, stuck severely to him all his days after, and do stick to his offspring to this day.' "Having mentioned the misunderstanding which arose between the Bishop and the late Mr. Keith of Ravelston, respecting the relationship of their families to the ancient race of the Earls Marischal, I may be permitted to state, on the authority of the present representative of that noble house, Sir Alexander Keith, that the superior claims of the Bishop in behalf of his nephew were unquestionably well founded; and that so long as the Uras branch of the Pittendrum Keiths existed in the male line, the Keiths of Ravelston were not entitled to the honour to which they have since succeeded." P. xx. "The Bishop seems naturally to have possessed that peculiar turn of mind which leads to the investigation of antiquities, and which appears to derive the most exquisite gratification from ascertaining even the minutest relations of a genealogical table. In his Vindication, accordingly, the reader will find the most precise and regularly authenticated statements of all such transactions in which his family were concerned, as might in the least degree illustrate the purity of their descent, and the respectability of their connec tions. For instance, after furnishing a copy of the contract of marriage between his grandfather and grandmother, and having specified that the latter was the daughter of Gawn Douglas of Easter Barras, he adds, in a note, 'This Gawn Douglas was a son of that laird of Glenbervy who became earl of Angus about the year 1588, and by this marriage Mr. Robert Keith (himself) and his nephew have the honour to be releated to the dukes of Douglas and Hamilton, and to the branches of these most honourable families since that marriage.' Alluding, again, to the kindred of his mother, he remarks, that, by her marriage into the family of Keith, their posterity are related to all the Arbuthnots and Burnets in the shire of Mearns.' "He concludes his Vindication, too, in the same spirit of family love, and with a just sense of the importance which attached to the discussion in which he had been so successfully engaged. "Mr. Robert Keith hopes that all his friends, and every unprejudiced person into whose hands this paper may chance to fall, (for he has only printed some few copies to be privately given away,) will have him excused for vindicating his own and nephew's birth: For although he himself, now in the close of the seventieth year of his age, and having only one daughter, might be pretty in-, different about any thing of this nature, yet he suspects his young grandnephews, (for there are no less than three of them, Alexander, Robert, and John,) when they came of age, might reproach the memory of their uncle, and justly perhaps, for his not endea. vouring to set their birth at rights against so flagrant an attack, seeing the one was capable, and the others might not have the same means of knowing, or the same abilities to perform it.'" P. xxii. We have extracted these passages in preference to others which describe the clerical life of Bishop Keith, because it is as an antiquarian rather than a clergyman that he is known to the present age; it is entertaining to observe the importance which he attached to his art, and the zeal with which he applied it to his own affairs. In these democratical days Bishop Keith's relationship to all the Douglasses, Hamiltons, Arbuthnots, and Burnets will be considered of very little consequence. But the age that has gone was not hurt by the pride of ancestry with which it was tinctured; nor would succeeding times be one bit the worse for a more extended and enduring recollection of the ties of blood. As a clergyman, Bishop Keith seems to have principally distinguished himself, by moderating between those factions in his little church, which originated among the English nonjurors; and have been rescued from oblivion merely by the names of Collier, Hickes and Brett. Dr. Russel, with his usual judgment, has touched lightly upon this portion of his subject; although, as a biographer, he has just reason to be proud of the character which was sustained by his hero. Having assisted in calming the controversies by which his church was endangered, Bishop Keith took a share in another very important work. "At the consecration of a successor to Bishop Rattray in the diocese of Dunkeld, which was performed at Edinburgh by the |