Great Bible, which Grafton and Whitchurch began to print at Paris about 1538, and of which about four dry fats full' were, by the covetousness of an officer, saved from the fires of the Inquisition." The beginning of this sentence is wondrously consequential, and ill adapt ed to its conclusion. "I am yet to learn"-may be said by such men as Warburton, Horsley, and Parrwhen talking about the hieroglyphics of Egypt, or the canons of classical and theological criticismbut it ill assorts with a result, which is connected with "four dry fats [quasi vats] full" of Bibles. The story of these "vats" is, however, very suspicious, nor does Dr Cotton furnish us with any authority-although he may be in possession of such. It strongly savours of Fox. For ourselves, we are persuaded that neither Grafton nor Whitchurch ever planted a foot upon French ground. The settlement of the dates of Cranmer's Bible of 1540, and 1541, hardly deserves a moment's discussion; although we should have been glad to have seen wherein the edition of November 1540 differs from the edition of May in the same year. Again, at page x.:-" Thus is it frequently in Lewis: perhaps not less so in his follower." This is quaint, even to conceit.* At any rate it is not very academic composition. Dr Cotton has enriched his pages with a few foot-notes, (if they be of sufficient importance to justify us in this potent verb) of Mark Cephas Tutet, Esq.; inserted in Tutet's own hand-writing, in his copies of Dr Ducarel's two meagre lists of printed editions of the Bible, published in 1776,1778, with which Dr C. " fell in"-to use his own choice expression. Other helps, which are specifically mentioned at page xii., smoothed Dr C.'s labours, and are, as far as they go, well deserving of being incorporated in the work. But we own, taking the Dr. Cotton makes use of the term 66 universally," (p. 110, and perhaps in other places), in a very unscholarlike sense, for "always"-thus: "A full page has (generally, but not universally) 31 lines." He means "always." The other adverb would comprehend every full page of every book. whole of them collectively, that they are mere "roasting potatoes" workshort rather than pithy, or vehemently pertinent. Our chief objection to the Introduction is, that it is written in a sort of pompous tip-toe style, quite uncalled for, either by the size or the contents of the volume. The author is known to be a good scholar, and a most worthy gentleman; and if he will only abate somewhat of the convocation air, or demeanor, in his future compositions, he will do well and wisely. "I should rejoice much (observes heand we beg leave to attest our sympathy in his joy) to see a careful republication of the first edition of Tyndale's Testament, with various readings from the editions of 1534 and 1536, and likewise from George Joye's edition. It would be a curious and pleasing task to trace the gradual change and improvement which took place, as new light broke in upon the minds of the translators. Pleasing also to observe, here is Dr Cotton's quaintness again, how many of the earliest expressions have withstood repeated revisals of the translation, and are retained and approved at this present day."-p. xiv. The bibliographical notes of the author, (as he has himself led us to expect,) are few and sparing. But, in his account of the first and earliest impression of the sacred text-in our language that is to say, of Tyndale's first version of the New Testament, without date, but supposed to be in 1526, we are surprised to find no mention made of the particular description of the copy of this inestimable little volume which appears in the Bibliographical Decameron, Vol. I. pages 173-4, and which was taken from an examination of the most perfect copy of the book in question known to be in existence; namely, from that in the Baptist Collection of Dr Gifford at Bristol. The aneedotes related by Dr Cotton have been mentioned in the work just referred to; and in short, (we believe), by the compiler of the Harleian Catalogue. Lord Oxford had the galfinder of this "precious pearl," ten lant spirit to give Jack Murray, the guineas, and to settle an annuity of L. 20 for life upon him. Ames, in an original letter adduced by Dr Cotton, called it "the Phoenix of the whole library" of that nobleman. Again, in the Appendix, where many of the rarer editions are described with more bibliographical fullness-and which descriptions we wish had appeared in chronological order, in the previous pages-we find a particular notice of Coverdale's Bible of 1535, the author forgetting, at page 3, that Lord Spencer possessed a copy, which copy had been copiously described in the printed pages of a work, which we suspect the librarians of the Bodleian Library to be in the occasional habit of consulting. Dr Cotton appears to have no knowledge of the Bible printed by Nicolson, in Southwark, 1537, 4to, (not folio, as he describes), since it is briefly noticed at page 4, and omitted, among the fuller descriptions, at page 113. Nor can he be taxed with unpardonable ignorance for such omission; for it is among the very scarcest early English Bibles in the world:-perhaps even scarcer than Coverdale's. We almost envy the author his discovery of an hitherto unknown copy of the first Tyndale's New Testament, found by him in the library of St Paul's Cathedral, but in a very imperfect and disjointed condition. The beginning and end are wanting; and the leaves of the Gospels and Epistles are mixed together in a most wanton and higgledy piggledy manner. Dr C. properly hopes and trusts that this entremélé state may be rectified-the book rebound, (we suppose by Mr D.'s Coryphoeus of Bibliopegists, one Charles Lewis), and afterwards consigned to the strong box and Bramah lock and key of the Librarian of St Paul's Library. We go the whole length with him in this wish. The Dean of St Paul's is quite alive to the well-doing of every thing connected with the preservation of the SACRED TEXT. We like very much the first part of Dr Cotton's Appendix, containing specimens of Various Renderings, (rather than Readings), of Gen. ch. xliii. ver. 11-14: beginning with Tyndale's Pentateuch of 1530. Only four verses are quoted. Again, the same from the New Testament, Mark, ch. xiv. ver. 1-5. These delicately varying specimens (like shades in silk) of the "olden tongue," only make us anxious for a full exemplification of them upon the largest and completest scale. Let the author undertake this task-when he is not in the Bodleian Library; for we know how valuable are his labours there, as connected with his office of Librarian. Not the least curious and satisfactory are the Various Renderings of the early versions of the Psalms, with which the Appendix concludes. We shall select a specimen that may startle the uninitiated, but which will be joy and comfort to the "black letter dogs" of the Roxburghe Club. Psalter. 1530. 24mo. Psalm xix. The hevens declare the maieste of God: and ye firmament sheweth what are his workes. On daye succeding a nother whetteth continually owre thoughtis: & on nyghte folowing a nother encresethe owre knowledge. Edit. 1549. Crowley. To us the heavens do declare, The day that succedeth shall teach Psalms by Sterncholde. Ed. 1551. doe wōderously declare: his workes and what they are. Eche daye declareth by his course, an other daye to come: And by the night we knowe likewysc a nightly course to runne. By Abraham Fraunce. 1591. Psalm viii. O Prince all-puysant, o King al-mightyly ruling, How wondrous by thy works, and how' strange are thy proceedings! * Abraham Fraunce was author of "The Lawier's Logike, exemplifying the præcepts of Logike by the practice of the Common Lawe. London. Imprinted by William How, &c. 1588. 4to." It is a very amusing book, full of quaint quotations in old French, Latin, and English, especially in the latter, from Spencer's Thou hast thy greate name with moste greate glory reposed Over, above those lamps, bright-burning Lamps of Olympus, Ev'n very babes, yong babes, yong sucking babes thy triumphant Might set foorth; to the shame of them which injury offer, Ev'n to the shame of them which damned blasphemy utter. These verses put us in mind of certain "Laureat Hexameters ;" and may convince us as much of the unfitness of imitation of such a form of metre for the Psalms, as would be another" Vision of Judgment" upon the model of that of Mr Southey. To return, and to take leave of Dr Cotton. We like his book, and hope it will have a general and successful circulation. It will not add much in the shape of a wreath to the author's fame, either as a Divine or a Bibliographer; but it will do good. It will awaken curiosity, and stimulate research. It may convince the unthinking of the beautiful propriety and harmony always maintained in our versions of the Bible; and it may satisfy the anxious and more learned class of readers, of the little improvement to be gained by the re-modelling or re-casting of our translation. At the same time, it may indirectly provoke the rich to adorn their cabinets with a few such precious volumes as Dr Cotton has described, and it will gratify the pious and the good by a confirmation of their hopes and wishes, that, in the labour of the Christian vineyard, there is fruit of every hue, flavour, and quality. No. II. ON THE CHARACTER AND WRITINGS OF TACITUS. DEAN SWIFT, in the Tale of a Tub, represents, with his never fail poems of Ioblinoll and Colin Clout. Among a hundred instances, consult fol. 59, where Hobbinoll, Plowden, and Diggon, are all made to speak in the same page. Fraunce was a sort of Richard Burton in his way: gossipping, desultory, learned, and amusing. In the Lawyer's Logic, law makes very little shew: in the Anatomy of Melancholy, we more frequently smile than become pensive. But one finds a similar difficulty in extricating himself from the crowd with which he is surrounded, and urged forward, in historical narrative, or national annals. There is a strong disposition excited to proceed uninterruptedly, and never to quit the travelling caravan in order to climb a rock, or ascend a watchtower, whence the course in which we have moved may be viewed with all its relative positions and windings; and whence undivided attention may be bestowed on some richly cultivated, or some wildly-savage spot. Hence it is, that much reading, and great learning, often serve no other purpose than to make ignorance conceited, and folly arrogant; hence it is, that history may be copiously perused without conveying one principle of political wisdom, or one idea of social interests; hence it is, that the atrocities of tyranny, and the unlimited mischiefs of misrule are regarded, not as beacons, to warn far from their devouring rocks, but as mere links in a long chain of events. This unfortunate failure of history may be traced to the large portion of subsidiary materials, or rather of mere cement, which the completion and permanence of every great work require. Every book is a library in miniature, and with seve ral portions which invite and reward almost perpetual attention, contains much that can never be required but once, and much that may never be used at all, but that serves only to complete the rotundity of a sys tem. To know the geography of a book, is the first object of every ju dicious reader, and having ascertained this, he is never guilty of the folly of" leaving to feed on this fair mountain, and battening on this moor." Even in finest and most admired poems, this selection is necessary. He knows little of the charms of the Mantuan, who reads his glorious epic as a parson reads his sermon. Lord Byron says, that Milton is "heavy.' It is a greater reproach to his Lordship to have found him so than to have written Don Juan. The most frantic of his Lordship's flights of poetry would not prevent any of his volumes from being very heavy" food, if literally masticated, by the most feverish amateur of his genius. To eat Paradise Lost might be greater proof of insanity, but not of want of taste for its beauties, than to read it regularly through; and without reading it through, it can never be felt heavy. But if this selection is necessary in the choicest poetry, which is itself a selection of images and incidents, it is infinitely more necessary in history, which records the whole series of events, that influence or explain the fate of nations. In the writings of Tacitus, there is indeed little that deserves not deep and repeated attention, but there are many passages which not only ought to be selected, but which cannot be fully seen, or justly appreciated without selection. His annals begin with the closing events of Augustus's reign, and the summary of the Roman history which the first sentence contains, is strikingly characteristic of this mighty writer. "Kings at first governed Rome; Brutus introduced liberty and a consular government; dictatorships were occasionally resorted to; decemviral power prevailed for two years; military tribunes ruled for a short time; the power of Cinna and of Sylla lasted not long; the authority of Pompey and Crassus soon sunk under Cæsar's; the arms of Lepidus and of Antony soon yielded to the fortune of Augustus; Augustus obtained the government of the state under the title of Prince." That negative blessing, that immunity from oppression and violence-civil liberty-which, to the shame of our nature, is the rarest enjoyment of humanity, was first known and established on earth when Brutus expelled the Tarquins. The splendid period of Grecian history was contemporary with Roman liberty. From the expulsion of the Tarquins, till the imperial establishment of Augustus, was a period less than five hundred years. Taking our station at this threshold of imperial despotism, can we contemplate the fate of man without melancholy and commiseration? Brilliant, indeed, is the vista of five hundred years under our eye, but that forms but an insulated gleam of light in the "illimitable ocean, dark, wasteful, wild," of misrule and misery. Turning our view forward into futurity from the same station, "how comprising myriad shapes of woe" is the baleful prospect! The ideotic and insolent hand of tyranny arrests the progress of knowledge and philosophy, of freedom and happiness, and chains men to the chariot-wheels of the darkest superstition and the basest servitude. For fifteen hundred years afterwards no symptom of reviving reason appeared. We date not our revolution till two hundred years more; and France slept quietly for a century more beneath the nightmare of despotism and superstition. O miseram hominum conditionem! Tacitus thus describes the arts and practices of Augustus: "Having succeeded in gaining the confidence of the army by donations, in seducing the affections of the populace by liberal distributions of corn, and in alluring the acquiescence of all classes by the charms of repose, he began insensibly to assume absolute power, and to engross the whole authority of the senate, the magistrates, and the laws. None resisted this artful revolution; the republicans of spirit and ability had perished in the field of battle, or in the proscription; the men of illustrious birth, who survived, found themselves advanced and enriched in proportion as they were submissive; and all who profited by the change enjoyed the present blessings of ease and tranquillity, and suffered not their pleasing dream to be interrupted by the memory of their old tumultuous freedom. The names of the various offices of magistracy remained unchanged. This was sufficient to satisfy the existing generation, for the younger men had been born since the defeat of Antony; almost all the old, during the civil wars; and not one of a thousand had seen republican Rome. Thus had the policy of Augustus changed the political character of the state. No trace remained of the free and manly spirit of ancient times; the equality of the republic entirely disappeared; and all acquiesced with unreserved submission in the sovereign power of the emperor." The death of Augustus was supposed to have been hurried by Livia, his tenderly and constantly-beloved wife, for the purpose of ensuring her son's succession to the imperial power. The dramatic Annalist thus proceeds: "The funeral was protected by a military guard. This circumstance excited much derision in the minds of those who had themselves seen, or who had learnt from their fathers, the proceedings of that day on which the death of Cesar (pronounced by some the foulest, and hailed by others as the most glorious deed) afforded signal proof, that servitude had not yet ceased to be galling, but that liberty was inauspiciously resumed. Now, the funeral of an old emperor, who had lived long in possession of absolute power, and who had provided heirs for the empire, must, forsooth, be protected by an armed guard, lest his funeral rites should be disturbed. Much discourse ensued on the fortunes and merits of Augustus. The multitude dwelt with wonder on many unimportant circumstances that on the same day of the year he had received imperial sovereignty and breathed his last; that he had died at Nola, in the same house, and in the same chamber, as his father Octavius. Mention was made, with admiration too, of the number of times he had been consul, by which he had equalled Valerius, Corvinus, and Marius, together; of his tribunitian power, prolonged through seven-and-thirty years; of the title of Emperor given him by a victorious army one-and-twenty times; and of other titles of honour, often repeated, or newly invented. "Among the reflecting, the character of his life was, by some, highly extolled, by others bitterly condemned. His admirers alledged, that affection for his adopted and slain father, and the critical situation of the republic, where the law could no longer exercise its control, had driven him into civil wars, which could neither be begun nor sustained by fair means; many cruelties he had conceded to Antony, many to Lepidus, as the terms on which he could obtain vengeance on the authors of his father's death;-when Lepidus had grown feeble through sloth and age, and Antony had sunk under the dominion of lawless passions, no remedy had remained for his distracted country, but the absolute power of one man ;-yet he had governed the state, not as a king nor as a dictator, but under the name of Prince. The empire he had bounded by the Atlantic Ocean, the Rhine, the Danube, and the Euphrates. The legions, the provinces, and the fleets, he had distributed and connected in the manner most beneficial to the general interests of the republic. He had established an equal administration of justice among the citizens; enforced moderation throughout the provinces; and magnificently adorned the city itself. The few acts of violence committed under his authority had been necessary to ensure the tranquillity of the whole empire. "Others imputed his conduct to far different motives. Affection for his father and the exigencies of the republic he had assumed for a pretence; from lust of sovereignty alone had he excited the veterans by bribes, raised an army when a private youth, corrupted the legions of the consul, and feigned an attachment to Pompey's party. When by a decree of the senate he had seized the power and authority of Pretor, and when Hircius and Pansa had been slain, (either by the enemy or by Cesar's machinations, poison having been infused into Pansa's wound, and his own soldiers having been instigated to murder Hircius,) he assumed the command of the forces of both. had extorted the consulship from a reluctant senate, and turned against the republic the arms which he had received to resist Antony. The proscription of citizens and the distri He |