undergone a total change. Such private applications to the con sciences as were employed by them, would no longer be endured. Nay, perhaps a clergyman of superior rank is more reverenced, who is seen by his people for the most part in the elevated station of the pulpit; while an inferior minister, who approaches nearer to the middle and lower orders of the parish in manners, habits, and language, will discharge the more unostentatious and irksome offices of personal inspection and private visitation with greater effect. Every order in society ought to have ministers adapted to its rank, and the principal, in making a judicious choice of a substitute, has consulted, not only his own consequence, but the best interests of his people. By such pernicious sophistry, the most solemn, and we may add, the most personal of all trusts is transferred, nay, frequently, we apprehend, even without the previous ceremony between a man and his own conscience, which such reflections imply. To awaken more animating thoughts on such a subject, to subdue the pride, the indolence, and levity of which such reasonings are compounded, one modern example of high authority is equivalent to volumes of direct and formal institutions on the pastoral care. In the life of Dr. Townson, we have the history of a contemporary, a scholar, and a gentleman, well educated, travelled, preferred, distinguished by the unsought acceptance of the highest de gree, and by the refusal of the most honourable station which an English university could confer, giving himself up with the zeal and assiduity of the most conscientious stipendiary, to the private duties of his parish; so that the same man, who led the conversation of the first companies by his talents, and restrained it by his authority, was more frequently seen in the cottages of the poor, administering at the same time to their bodily and spiritual wants. But on this subject it is time that we should hear his biographer, who calls upon us to attend his venerable patron in the conduct of his household and the care of his flock. On the former head it may suffice to observe, that it was the house of a truly devout and Christian pastor, who summoned all under his roof to morning and evening prayer; and the same sedate and holy fervour, which was so edifying in the church, never failed to animate these less public addresses to heaven. On Sunday evening one hour was devoted to reading the Holy Scriptures to his family with some practical comment, and the instructive lesson began and ended with prayer. At the same time it was a rule with him not to encroach on the duties of this day by writing letters, much less by the too frequent practice of travelling. Yet had the Sunday of this good man nothing of gloom or austerity; on the contrary, it was always within his walls a day of peculiar hospitality and cheerfulness. In visiting the sick, a duty to which he was scrupu lously attentive, he sometimes availed himself of the liberty which the canons gave, and made apposite alterations in the prayers of the church. Pecuniary assistance also, if necessary, was afforded with a liberal hand. In some instances, if other means of access did not occur, or did not succeed, he privately wrote to persons living in known habits of vice. Besides distributing copies of the holy Scriptures, and books of piety, which were now and then endeared to the receiver by some affectionate inscription of the donor, he took no small care that children especially, of whom he generally kept several at school, should be taught to use morning and evening prayers, and to learn by heart that admirable compendium of Christian morality, the third chapter of the Epistle to the Colossians.' From the well written and pleasing memoir of this excellent man, the reader will pass to the perusal of his works with an avidity which will not be disappointed. Among these, the first and most important are the well known 'Discourses on the Gospels,' in which, the author proves, by a minute and critical investigation, the superior antiquity of St. Matthew's gospel; shews by marks of imitation, which we think incontrovertible, that the succeeding evangelists had each profited by the memoirs of his predecessors; and above all, labours to establish (what antiquity has left in the dark) the era of the first gospel. This he feels disposed to fix so early as A. D. XXXVII. and it cannot be denied, that the numerous marks of contemporeity with the events recorded by St. Matthew, though many of them are, singly, too feeble to justify the conclusion, like scattered rays when collected into a focus, shed a strong and clear light on the point which they are directed to illuminate. The revival of this masterly work, if our younger students in theology retain any true taste for legitimate composition, clear arrangement, and perspicuity of thought, will, at least, tend to diminish an appetite for the German style of disquisition on these subjects, which, as it is vicious in itself, and has been formed by that satiety of the best fare which plenty and uniformity together are apt to generate, has been too much pampered by the introduction of foreign ordinaries, with all their dubious treats of palatable and well disguised poison, into our capital, and our universities. For ourselves, we freely confess, that had not our minds been prepared to expect what has since happened on a more serious subject, by the temporary acquiescence of our countrymen in the introduction from that very climate of a drama which was to supersede Shakspeare, and which turned out more stupid and immoral than any thing endured before among civilized men, we should have been astonished at the depravity of taste in wiser persons, and in this more recent example. From the specimens which have reached us, we should conceive ourselves as completely justified in sending a son to learn morals at Paris as theology at Gottingen. Comparing the great writers of our own country on the evidences of revelation, or even on scriptural criticism with those of Germany, we see in the one the optics of an eagle, in the other those of a mole. Seated on a commanding elevation, the first take a clear and penetrating view of the widely extended prospect around them, while the second, poring, slow, minute and obscure, at once industrious and superficial, while they toil in pursuing every subject to its last ramifications, never appear to make any progress. Their erudition, such as it is, clouds their intellect: it is a suit of armour which seems to encumber, while it neither adorns nor assists the wearer. But this is not allWe complain not of the diversion of these streams into our own country, because they are foul and fæculent only-they spring from poisoned fountains. An English theologian (there is no suspicion of the contrary in a single instance) believes what he asserts, and feels what he believes-with a German, theology is a trade rather than a profession: his bread, and that of his family, depends upon his maintaining a decent external respect for revelation; but his aid in the cause is hollow and heartless: with all his care to adjust the mask, there are moments of inadvertence in which it drops off; and in the freedom of confidential intercourse, we know that it is spontaneously laid aside. From such instructors, we would anxiously remit our students to Dr. Townson. An engraving is prefixed to the first volume, which contradicts all the principles of physiognomy, if it really resemble so sensible a man. ART. VII. Historical Sketches of the South of India; in an Attempt to trace the History of Mysoor, from the Origin of the Hindoo Government of that State, to the Extinction of the Mahommedan Dynasty in 1799, &c. By Lieut. Col. Wilks. Vol. I. London, 1810. BOLD would that mahould venture over the same ground OLD indeed would that man be, however gifted, and unavail ing, which Mr. Orme has so successfully occupied in his History of the Military Transactions of the British Nation in Hindostan. In that valuable work we have all the great events which fell within his range, narrated with so much perspicuity, and the detail of facts stated with such accuracy, as to leave us nothing to desire on any of the points which his comprehensive plan embraces. The sources from which he derived his information were of the most extensive and authentic kind; he possessed all the advantages which local knowledge can impart; and his fidelity, we believe, was never called in question. To sum up all, his history occupies so vast a field, that lously attentive, he sometimes availed himself of the liberty which the canons gave, and made apposite alterations in the prayers of the church. Pecuniary assistance also, if necessary, was afforded with a liberal hand. In some instances, if other means of access did not occur, or did not succeed, he privately wrote to persons living in known habits of vice. Besides distributing copies of the holy Scriptures, and books of piety, which were now and then endeared to the receiver by some affectionate inscription of the donor, he took no small care that children especially, of whom he generally kept several at school, should be taught to use morning and evening prayers, and to learn by heart that admirable compendium of Christian morality, the third chapter of the Epistle to the Colossians.' From the well written and pleasing memoir of this excellent man, the reader will pass to the perusal of his works with an avidity which will not be disappointed. Among these, the first and most important are the well known 'Discourses on the Gospels,' in which, the author proves, by a minute and critical investigation, the superior antiquity of St. Matthew's gospel; shews by marks of imitation, which we think incontrovertible, that the succeeding evangelists had each profited by the memoirs of his predecessors; and above all, labours to establish (what antiquity has left in the dark) the era of the first gospel. This he feels disposed to fix so early as A. D. XXXVII. and it cannot be denied, that the numerous marks of contemporeity with the events recorded by St. Matthew, though many of them are, singly, too feeble to justify the conclusion, like scattered rays when collected into a focus, shed a strong and clear light on the point which they are directed to illuminate. The revival of this masterly work, if our younger students in theology retain any true taste for legitimate composition, clear arrangement, and perspicuity of thought, will, at least, tend to diminish an appetite for the German style of disquisition on these subjects, which, as it is vicious in itself, and has been formed by that satiety of the best fare which plenty and uniformity together are apt to generate, has been too much pampered by the introduction of foreign ordinaries, with all their dubious treats of palatable and well disguised poison, into our capital, and our universities. For ourselves, we freely confess, that had not our minds been prepared to expect what has since happened on a more serious subject, by the temporary acquiescence of our countrymen in the introduction from that very climate of a drama which was to supersede Shakspeare, and which turned out more stupid and immoral than any thing endured before among civilized men, we should have been astonished at the depravity of taste in wiser persons, and in this more recent example. From the specimens which have reached us, we should conceive ourselves as completely justified in sending a son to learn 0 C F morals at Paris as theology at Gottingen. Comparing the great writers of our own country on the evidences of revelation, or even on scriptural criticism with those of Germany, we see in the one the optics of an eagle, in the other those of a mole. Seated on a commanding elevation, the first take a clear and penetrating view of the widely extended prospect around them, while the second, poring, slow, minute and obscure, at once industrious and superficial, while they toil in pursuing every subject to its last ramifications, never appear to make any progress. Their erudition, such as it is, clouds their intellect: it is a suit of armour which seems to encumber, while it neither adorns nor assists the wearer. But this is not allWe complain not of the diversion of these streams into our own country, because they are foul and fæculent only-they spring from poisoned fountains. An English theologian (there is no suspicion of the contrary in a single instance) believes what he asserts, and feels what he believes-with a German, theology is a trade rather than a profession: his bread, and that of his family, depends upon his maintaining a decent external respect for revelation; but his aid in the cause is hollow and heartless: with all his care to adjust the mask, there are moments of inadvertence in which it drops off; and in the freedom of confidential intercourse, we know that it is spontaneously laid aside. From such instructors, we would anxiously remit our students to Dr. Townson. An engraving is prefixed to the first volume, which contradicts all the principles of physiognomy, if it really resemble so sensible a man. ART. VII. Historical Sketches of the South of India; in an Attempt to trace the History of Mysoor, from the Origin of the Hindoo Government of that State, to the Extinction of the Mahommedan Dynasty in 1799, &c. By Lieut. Col. Wilks. Vol. I. London, 1810. BOLD OLD indeed would that man be, however gifted, and unavailing, we fear, his toil, who should venture over the same ground which Mr. Orme has so successfully occupied in his History of the Military Transactions of the British Nation in Hindostan. In that valuable work we have all the great events which fell within his range, narrated with so much perspicuity, and the detail of facts stated with such accuracy, as to leave us nothing to desire on any of the points which his comprehensive plan embraces. The sources from which he derived his information were of the most extensive and authentic kind; he possessed all the advantages which local knowledge can impart; and his fidelity, we believe, was never called in question. To sum up all, his history occupies so vast a field, that |