The result of this argument is stated by Mr. Warren to be, that the Church of England, as soon as she had been set free from the errors which had been mixed up with the doctrine of absolution in former times, appointed a form in her daily service, which she entitled an Absolution, and which she explained to mean a "remission of sins," obviously assuming it to be an exercise of the power of the keys; that she afterwards carefully restricted the use of this form to priests, on the principle that absolution belongs exclusively to them, and not to deacons; that she altered her rubric in order to meet this view at a time when the meaning of words was changing; and that she refused to omit the words "remission of sins," and to throw the office open to deacons in the time of King William, when certain persons who denied the efficacy of sacerdotal absolution, were desirous to induce her so to do; and he thus concludes:

"We have then, I argue, the authority of our Church for maintaining that while a distinct and special confession is necessary for the priest even to entertain the question of administering a private absolution, the benefit of sacerdotal absolution may, nevertheless, be obtained by the truly penitent, upon a general confession in the public ordinances of the Church. And this is, in such manner, left to the knowledge and mercy of the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the carefulness and conscience of the penitent."-p. 57.

In conclusion, we must be permitted to offer some remarks on the principle on which the appeal to authority in Mr. Maskell's work is conducted. The authority to which he appeals is the doctrine of the Latin Church, and especially of the Church of England for three centuries immediately prior to the Reformation; and he argues that whatever had been received in the Church of England up to that period, and was not then expressly, or by implication, rejected by any of the formularies of the Church, should be held to be still the doctrine of the Church. His words are as follows:

"We declare therefore that the Church of England now holds, teaches, and insists upon all things, whether of belief or practice, which she held, taught, and insisted on, before the year 1540, unless she has since that time, plainly, openly, and dogmatically, asserted the contrary. This we declare in general. And, in particular, as regards that most important question, the right interpretation of the various services in our Common Prayer Book, we further add, that whatever we find handed down from the earlier rituals of the Church of England, and neither limited nor extended in its meaning by any subsequent canon or article, must be understood to signify (upon the one hand) fully and certainly all, and on the other hand no more than it signified before the revision of the ritual.”—p. 49.

Now, this is certainly, a very important principle; and to our view, somewhat a novel one. We do not find any such principle laid down in any of our formularies, or in the writings of our divines. We are therefore at a loss for any sufficient foundation for such a doctrine. The Church of England has not made any such assertion; and before members of the English Church can be expected to accept it, they must have some proof that it is a sound and a true principle. Before we can be required to receive it as members of the Church, we must learn where the Church has taught it. And, in the next place, we certainly do find in the Homilies strong condemnations of the errors prevalent in the Church for the last few centuries, while the Canons refer us for the interpretation of Scripture, not to the opinions of more recent times, but to the interpretations of the Fathers. The account given in the Preface to the Book of Common Prayer, of the state of Rituals previously to the Reformation-the condemnation of doctrines in the Articles-the very fact of a Reformation having been necessary-are all so many proofs, that there might be good reason for not laying down such a principle as that asserted by Mr. Maskell. It might, possibly, embarrass the Church, and lead to false doctrine and unsound practice on various points, if we were to assume, that every thing which had not been formally and dogmatically rejected by the Church of England, is to be assumed to be part of her creed. Is not the omission of a doctrine for 300 years, tantamount to its rejection? Supposing that for such a time we do not find the writers of the English Church asserting, that absolution cannot be obtained without previous confession of all known sins, or maintaining that the absolutions in the daily service and the Communion, are essentially different in their nature from absolutions given after special confession, and are not any exercise of the power of the keys-supposing all this to be the case, does it not afford a fair presumption that the Church does not hold the views on these points which were taught by authority in the Western Church, from the time of the Council of Lateran? Does it not really amount to a virtual condemnation and rejection of that doctrine? To us, we confess, that it does seem so; and that it is therefore impossible to claim the authority of the Church of England since the Reformation in favour of Mr. Maskell's view. We are bound to bear testimony, however, to the ability, clearness, and learning, with which that view has been put forward, and to express great satisfaction in perceiving the respect and deference for the Church of England manifested by this distinguished writer.

NOTICES OF RECENT PUBLICATIONS,

ETC.

1. Willmott's Journal of Summer Time in the Country. 2. Harington's Reformation of the Anglican Church, and Macaulay's History of England. With Postscript. 3. Freeman's History of Architecture. 4. Notices of Ancient Parochial and Collegiate Churches of Scotland. 5. The Ecclesiastical and Architectural Topography of England. 6. Hardwick's Historical Enquiry touching St. Catherine of Alexandria. 7. Baxter's Church History of England, 8. Prichard's Life and Times of Hincmar, Archbp. of Rheims. 9. Dr. Kitto's Cyclopedia of Biblical Literature abridged. 10. Der gute Gerhard von Köln. A Tale, by Carl Simrock. 11. Capt. Marryatt's Valerie. 12. Use and Abuse; a Tale. 13. Eamonson's Observations on Goode's Doctrine of the Church of England as to Baptism. 14. Barter's Solemn Warning against the Doctrine of Special Grace. 15. Ruskin's Seven Lamps of Architecture. 16. Dowling's Natural History of Quadrupeds and Birds. 17. Russell's Ancient Knight. 18. Anderson's Addresses on Miscellaneous Subjects. 19. Bp. Hobart's Companion to the Altar, by Collingwood.

1.-A Journal of Summer Time in the Country. By the Rev. ROBERT ARIS WILLMOTT, Incumbent of Bear Wood, Berks; Author of "Jeremy Taylor's Biography." London: J. W. Parker.

THERE is, perhaps, nothing in which the revolutionary character of modern times is more strongly marked than in the change which has passed over our literary style. Compare, for instance, the clear and simple narrative of Hume, or the lofty phraseology of Johnson or Gibbon, with the brilliancy of Macaulay or of Elliot Warburton, and what a wonderful change do we see! In the style of the present day, point, antithesis, poetical imagery, variety, originality, and novelty of expression are the grand characteristics; corresponding, in fact, to the altered tone of society and conversation, which exhibits exactly the same features. In the present day an educated man who expects to shine in society must be at home on every conceivable subject of art, literature, science, politics, literary history; and must be able to handle them all with an air of the most consummate mastery-to play with them as if he were an intellectual giant-to turn from grave to gay, and from the profoundest depths of philosophy and theology to a witticism or a stanza. Is it not strange that with so much accomplishment, we have so little solidity of sense, or so little fixedness of principle? Notwithstanding all our brilliancy and thoughtfulness-(and we bid fair to rival France and Germany in

these respects)-we, somehow or other, do not produce as great men as we used to do in more dull and unphilosophical times. The march of education has given us a number of men who, to say the least, are quite as remarkable for a thorough satisfaction with their own capacities and judgments, as for any thing else. And now, having made these prefatory remarks, we will not do Mr. Willmott the injustice of including him amongst the class of persons to whom we have alluded, though our remarks have been suggested by the perusal of his work. It is decidedly, however, a work of the present day, in most of the respects above mentioned; being a brilliant, ingenious, grave, sad, agreeable, poetical, witty, philosophical, theological, humorous, scientific, æsthetic, conglomerate. The author is a literary butterfly, at once in the brilliancy of his tints, and the variety of his evolutions. He speeds in zig-zag course from flower to flower, scarcely spending time enough on each to extract a drop of honey. He is an epicure who will not be satisfied with any thing but the choicest tit-bits, and whose appetite is palled by any thing more than a taste of each in succession.

The volume comprises a journal supposed to be kept during the summer months, in which the author enters all the results of his discursive reading from day to day, accompanied with thoughts derived from the impressions made by rural scenery or events. We are bound to say that the volume is, to us, a very pleasing one, though there is rather too much pretension in the whole conception and execution, and we do not feel satisfied at the spirit of the day which influences the tone and style of productions like this. The object of the work may be in some degree comprehended from the following extracts :—

"Few men of genius have taken the trouble of recording their feelings or studies. One or two precious legacies have perished by accident or design. But where the full light is wanting, an unexpected illumination frequently breaks over a character from a passage in the published works of the author. A page of the journal is broken up, and melted into the poem or essay. Shakespeare's sonnets are a chapter of autobiography, although unreadable till criticism finds the key. Raffaelle's drawings were his diary; Shenstone's garden his confessions. Cowper's letters and Wordsworth's poetry reflect the features of these writers as face answers to face in water.

"The notion of a journal implies variety. Gray confessed that his reading wandered from Pausanias to Pindar; mixing Aristotle and Ovid like bread with cheese. He might have sheltered himself under a noble example. Lord Bacon considered it necessary to contract and dilate the mind's eyesight; regarding the interchange of splendour and gloom as essential to the health of the organ. The reader may test

the rule by trying it on his natural eyes. In a gorgeous summer day let him come suddenly from a thick screen of branches, turning his face towards the sun, and then to the grass. Every blade will be reddened, as if a fiery procession had gone by. The colour is not in the grass, but in the eye; as that contracts, the glare vanishes.

"Subject the mental sight to a similar experiment. After wandering in the dim recesses of history or metaphysics, let the inward eye be lifted to the broad, central, glowing orbs of Shakespeare, Milton, or Hooker, and immediately cast down upon the common surface of daily life. Objects become hazy and discoloured; the dilation of the nerve of thought dazzles and bewilders the vision. It is wise, therefore, to familiarize the seeing faculty of the understanding to different degrees of lustre. Sunshine and twilight should temper one another. Despise nothing. After Plato take up Reid; closing Dante, glance at Wharton; from Titian walk away to K. du Jardin.

"If a letter be conversation upon paper, a journal is a dialogue between the writer and his memory. Now he grows red with Horace, scolding the innkeeper because the bad water had taken away his appetite; and before the strife of tongues has subsided, he sits down with Shakespeare under a chestnut-tree in Sir Thomas Lucy's park. Thoughts must ever be the swiftest travellers, and sighs are not the only things wafted from Indus to the pole' in an instant."-pp. 4—6.

To give an account of the contents of a work so multifarious as that before us would be impossible; but we must select a few specimens.

"It is delicious now to creep under the scented copse

the green woodside along,

until you steal on the leafy haunt of the woodlark. There is love in this idleness. I know that formal John Wesley put a brand on it: 'Never be unemployed, never be triflingly employed, never while away time.' Such an admonition might be expected from one of whom Johnson left this character: John Wesley's conversation is good, but he is never at leisure; he is always obliged to go at a certain hour.' When Lord Collingwood said, that a young person should not be allowed to have two books at the same time, he fell into a similar error of judgment. The blackbird, that pipes in the warm leaves before my window, is a witness against the preacher and admiral. He is tired of the lime-bough, and is finishing his song in an apple-branch that swings him further into the sun. He wanted a change. Then what is whiling away time? When Watt sat in the chimney-corner, observing the water force up the cover of the saucepan, he aroused the anger of his relations, but he was discovering the steam-engine. Sir Walter Scott, walking one day by the banks of the Yarrow, found Mungo Park, the traveller, earnestly employed in casting stones into the stream, and watching the bubbles that followed their descent. 'Park, what is it that engages your attention?' asked Sir Walter. 'I