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Besides, the gospels of Matthew and John are probably spurious. What Jesus of Nazareth really taught can now no more be known with certainty; but it is unquestionable, that his originally simple doctrine has been greatly corrupted by Paul, who engrafted upon it the important articles of original sin and redemption, which he had borrowed from his own Jewish theology; and these came afterwards to be regarded as Christian doctrines, although nothing can be more contrary to the understanding."

These opinions were first broached in 1770 by Sember, and have been the subject of great controversies throughout Germany ever since. But the followers of the true faith were not slow in their movements, and they maintained a determined scientific resistance to the innovation. It was in the field of history and criticism that the latter, however, at first failed, but at present there is every reason to believe that even in that they will come off victorious. The present work, which is a wonderful specimen of profound research and rare learning, may be taken as a sample of what may be expected from the firm supporters of the true doctrines of Christianity.

ART.XIV. Report of the Select Committee appointed on the 2d May, ∙1833, to Inquire into the present State of Agriculture in the United Kingdom. Printed by Order of the House of Commons, 1833. Tus Report, with the Minutes of Evidence, is a large folio volume of five hundred and fifty pages, and it gives some of the most important information hitherto collected the present state of agricultural in

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Among witnesses coming from all parts of the kingdom, biassed by different feelings and preconceived

opinions, it is impossible that discrepancies should not occur in their evidence, as to the existing state of the country, and as to the causes which have produced it; but the great majority of them concur in representing the agricultural districts of this country, with a few favoured exceptions, to be in a fearful state of depression. All the practical farmers and land agents examined have been acquainted with the property in their own, and the adjoining counties, for a series of years, and are enabled to speak decidedly respecting the comparative condition of the land, the tenantry, and the labourers during the last ten, twenty, and in some instances thirty and forty years. The result of their careful observation is, that during the last ten years especially, the tenants have become gradually more and more distressed, their live and dead stocks have been reduced lower and lower, their capital has been diminishing, and the land has been so rapidly deteriorating, that soils of inferior description have been taken out of cultivation altogether. In the course of this investigation into the condition of the land, and of the farmers, the Committee have never lost sight of the condition of the agricultural labourers, on which subjects the witnesses were unanimous, and their

evidence exhibits a curious anomaly between the condition of the employed and their employers. It appears that in all parts of the country

in the most distressed as well as in the more prosperous-the condition of the labourers is, in no instance, worse than it was five or ten years ago, and that, in most cases, their condition is greatly improved. The wages of the labourers, the witnesses state, have not been reduced in proportion to the reduction in price of the necessaries of life, and in many parts of the coun

try no reduction whatever in their money wages has taken place since the war. This state of things is the more extraordinary, as the superabundance of labourers is represented to be greater than ever, and the numbers out of employ, who are provided for from the poors' rates, are very considerably increased. There are two points respecting the condition of the agricultural tenantry, on which nearly all the practical witnesses are agreed that their capital is greatly diminished, and their stocks reduced-and these facts, deduced from individual examination of the state of the farmers in each county separately, are strikingly confirmed by the statements of Mr. Jacobs and Mr. Hodgson, drawn from the aggregate produce of the kingdom. The former gentleman states that his official and private inquiries have enabled him to ascertain, that, since the year 1827, the stock of corn in hand at the time of harvest has not exceeded a month's consumption, instead of four, five, and six months' consumption, as formerly; and he mentions the alarming fact that if we were now to have so bad a harvest as that of 1816, the deficiency could not be supplied from all the world. The evidence of Mr. Hodgson, one of the partners in the firm of Messrs. Cropper, Benson, and Co., cornmerchants of Liverpool, is still more decisive respecting the diminution of the stocks in hand, as his conclusions are drawn from actual examination throughout most of the agricultural districts in England. It appears from the evidence of Mr. Hodgson and of Mr. Jacobs that the average annual consumption of wheat in England is about 12,000,000 quarters, of which quantity about nine-tenths are the produce of home cultivation, and that the remainder is supplied by importation from abroad and from Ireland, which

latter country has exported of late about 600,000 quarters annually to England. Neither Mr. Jacobs nor Mr. Hodgson gave a positive opi nion on the question whether the average produce of this country is diminished, though they infer, from the amount of imports, that there has not been any material falling off in the quantity of wheat grown in England. Mr. Adam Murray, however, a practical farmer, states most positively, from actual observation, that within the last twenty years, produce has been very considerably reduced-he estimates the reduction at one-third; that the quality of the land has been greatly deteriorated; and that the farmers on cold clay lands are enabled to pay their rents only by hard cropping and by drawing from their capitals.

With respect to Scotland, the evidence is very defective, only one or two witnesses having been examined who were acquainted with the state of agriculture in that country. The little evidence that is afforded is, however, on the whole, of a favourable character, both as regards the condition of the land and of the tenantry. There were five witnesses examined with a view to ascertain the state of agriculture in Ireland, and we are happy to observe that the substance of their evidence was satisfactory. The condition of the labourers and of the cottiers is represented as not corresponding with the improving state of the country, and whilst in England the agricultural labourer, who can obtain employment, has increased his comforts in an inverse ratio to the distress of his employer, the condition of the Irish labourer seems to have retrograded with the progress of cultivation. It must be admitted, however, that the evidence respecting Ireland as well as Scotland is contradictory, and is not sufficient to enable us to draw any

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just conclusión as to the real condition of agriculture in that country,

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ART. XV. Sharpe's Peerage of the British Empire, exhibiting its present State, and deducing the existing Descents from the Ancient Nobility of England, Scotland, and Ireland. In 2 Vols. London: Sharpe. 1833.

THIS is an admirably correct peerage, and is particularly clear in the account of the genealogies. Its peculiar excellencies, above others, consist of the neatness of the volumes; the quality of the paper and printing; but, above all, the ingenious arrangement of different sizes of letters, whereby the reader is saved a great deal of time when he has to make a reference to his peerage for some particular fact. The heraldic engravings are beautifully and carefully wrought. In the accounts of the older families, several historical anecdotes are found which have the recommendation of being selected with the greatest possible care and judgment.

ART. XVI.-The Last of the Lays of the Last of the Three Dibdins : containing New Songs, Poems, &c., and One Hundred and Fifty Selections from his published and unpublished Productions. By T. DIBDIN, Dramatic Author. 1 Vol. London. Harding and King. 1833.

THIS is a merry assemblage of lyrical effusions which will repay amply the trouble of a perusal by those with whom a wish to please and a good-humoured spirit are likely to prevail. Dibdin the younger, though not the heir of the full blown genius of his predecessors, yet preserves so striking a resemblance to them, as to deserve encouragement. His list of subscribers is both numerous and

respectable; and we should think has enabled the bard by this time to defy the malignity of critics.

ART. XVII.-L'Echo de Paris: A Selection of Familiar Phrases, which a Pupil would daily hear said around him if he were living among French People. By M. A. P. LEPAGE. London: Wilson. 1833.

THE author has here, as he professes in the title-page, congregated together such French phrases as are employed in practical life, and such therefore as it may be most useful for a foreigner to be acquainted with. He gives the whole in French, leaving it to the master to make the translation, and to impress it in such a manner on his pupil as that the latter may be able to repeat it. The sentences are all very short and colloquial, and any one who is able to remember the translation of them must be regarded as an excellent French scholar. There is no grammatical instructions in this work: it is purely a collection of the most common French phrases of business and conversation.

ART. XVIII.-The Nature of the Proof of the Christian Religion: with a Statement of the particular Evidence for it, designed for the Use of the more educated Classes of Inquirers into Religious Truth. By D. B. BAKER, A.M. of St. John's, Cambridge. London : Rivingtons. 1832.

THIS work may be regarded as a summary of the fine and invincible reasonings adduced by Butler in his masterly "Analogy," which is so well known. They will be found to be excellently well digested, and to receive no small degree of value, not only from the labour of the author, but also from the peculiar

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circumstances under which he composed the work, for, he states, that at a time when, from various circumstances, after a considerable portion of his life spent in other and very engrossing pursuits, he became desirous to ascertain, for himself, the merits of that religious profession which he had been taught in childhood to believe, implicitly-he candidly avows, that he found the subject involved in so much seeming embarrassment, that he several times altogether abandoned it. The books recommended to convince him, failed to produce any satisfactory conviction on his mind; and for this apparent reason-because, though there did seem to him to exist a considerable body of historic evidence, and other proof, there yet appeared to lie so many objections to, and so many imperfections in, that proof, that he thought, until the question could be cleared of these, it was a hopeless case for him to be called on "to believe."

Since, however, he has, notwithstanding all such then apparently insurmountable difficulties, now arrived at a permanent and increasing conviction, that Christianity is a matter which he may safely credit and act on, he is daily pained at witnessing, in numerous others, precisely

the same apprehensions which once so much disturbed himself; and he thinks that he perceives even an increasing degree of such misconceptions amongst the thoughtful and studious of the present day. He every day meets with men, not only willing, but anxious to be convinced on these, if true, confessedly important subjects, yet unable to throw off the incubus which oppresses them, in the apparent insufficiency of the proof usually adduced as the proper grounds for their assent to Revelation.

For the aid of such really sincere inquirers, he has arranged the following considerations; which will, if he mistakes not, (perused with that attention which the peculiarity of the case requires), as abundantly remove from their minds, as they did from his, their remaining difficulties, and free them from that most displeasing of all situations, which makes us to differ, and that not lightly, but conscientiously and unavoidably, unavoidably, from many around us, with whom we heartily wish we could agree, as well as from the conclusions of such multitudes of the wisest and the best in every age.

We strongly recommend this as a work of considerable value.

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cheese may be made by the following simple process:-To the new milk of the cheese-making morning add the cream from that of the preceding evening, together with the rennet, watching the full separation of the curd, which must be removed from the whey without breaking, and placed into a sieve, until of such consistence as to bear being lifted up and placed in a hoop that will receive it without much pressure. The cheese, as it dries, will shrink up, and must, therefore, be placed from time to time in a tighter hoop, and turned daily, until it acquires the proper degree of consistence for use or keeping.

Residence of Chaucer.-Chaucer resided at Blenheim, where he compiled his "Treatise on the Astrolabe," for the use of his younger son, Lewis, then only ten years of age. He afterwards lived at Donnington Castle, of which nothing at present is to be seen but a battered gateway with two towers and some part of the shattered walls. The grounds about it and the ruins are choked with bramble and overrun with ivy. It lies half a mile to the right of Spinhamland, the ancient Spina of Antoninus, a mile beyond Newberry, Berks, on the same side. As you go from London, you pass over the river Kennett to the village of Donnington, from which there is a pretty steep but pleasant ascent through a lane, to a hill under the castle, where stands a seat formerly belonging to the Countess of Sandwich from hence arises the Castle hill, very steep, and not unlike that whereon the observatory stands at Greenwich; from this hill there is a very fine prospect of several counties. The castle itself stands in a pleasant park, in which there was a famous oak, called Chaucer's Oak, under which, tradition says, he wrote several poems. He lived here two or three years. Evelyn gives an ac

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count of the place. He was a member of Cambridge (Clare Hall) and Oxford Universities, and of the Inner Temple. His residence. in London was at the sign of the Red Rose, in Palace-yard, Westminster, on the site where Henry VII.'s chapel now stands.

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Indian Rubber. This article, which, within the memory of many persons, was scarcely used for any other purpose than to remove pencil marks from paper, is now applied to so many other objects that its consumption is greatly on the increase. By the official returns it appears that in the year ending the 5th of April, 1832, the quantity imported was 29,958 lbs., while for the same period in the present year it had increased to 178,576 lbs..

Capt. Back's Expedition. The latest accounts of Capt. Back and his party are from Fort Alexander, at the eastern extremity of Lake Ouinipique, where he was seen, all well, July 17 (query?), by Mr. Geo. Simpson, the governor of the Hudson Bay Company's territories. Capt. Back was furnished with the necessary recommendations to procure him every aid from the company's settlements, and, indeed, as was stated at the London meetings, they had been forewarned to prepare for his visit: so that there is little fear of his reaching the coast, by the line of the Great Slave Lake, &c., and being able to return to inland winter quarters before the closing of the navigation.

Generation of the Eel. This vexata quæstio, which has occupied the attention of naturalists from Aristotle downwards, has been at last set at rest by Mr. Yarrel, who has proved, by examinations and dissections carried on through eighteen months, upon specimens of eels procured from different parts of the country, that it is oviparous-haying melt and roe like other fishes.

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