some omissions had not been made by the translator, which would have enhanced the value of the work. The Appendix contains two useful tables-one, of the salaries paid to the civil officers in Iceland; and the other, a list of insects and plants collected by Madame Pfeiffer during her stay there. Iceland is of some interest to all true British hearts. Peopled from Scandinavia, as Great Britain has mainly been, that remote, strange, miserable island, bosomed in the mists and dark storms of the Northern Ocean, is to us a sort of relative. An integral part of the Danish dominions, it is with them in close relation with Norway and Sweden, all constituting together that Scandinavian power which ought to stand as of old, unanimous and firm, as the guardian of peace and freedom among the mountains and fiords of north-western Europe. As such, Scandinavia and Great Britain occupy like positions, and are linked together in a common cause. For it is the cherished object of the honest and loyal in both countries to preserve intact the blessings and privileges which have been handed down to them, to maintain a more temperate order and liberty than the rest of Europe, and to resist the encroachments of tyranny and intolerance.

The Churchman's Work in Lent. A Sermon preached in the Parish Church of Camberwell on the First Sunday in Lent, 1852. By W. WHITEHEAD, M.A., Late Fellow of Worcester College, Oxford.

AN earnest and affectionate address to the congregation of St. Giles's, Camberwell, by the senior curate on whom the ecclesiastical superintendence of the parish has devolved in consequence of the sequestration of the living, and the nonresidence of the incumbent, a condition of affairs which has obtained for some years, and is likely to continue, and for which, such is the defective state of the ecclesiastical law, there would seem to be no remedy. The parishioners of St. Giles's, however, are fortunate in so excellent and zealous a locum tenens of the vicar as Mr. Whitehead, whose sermon is in every sense a word in season."

66

Old James, the Irish Pedlar: a Tale of the Year 1848. By MARY B. TUCKEY. Dublin: Oldham. London: Seeleys.

A VERSIFIED religious tract, sound in its teaching; but the fair author has been unhappy in the choice of her metre, which is ill fitted to the solemnity of the subject. For the rest there is no want of talent or facility of versification, but it has no pretensions to the dignity of a poem,

Annotations on the Apostolical Epistles, designed chiefly for the Use of Students of the Greek Text. By T. W. PEILE, D.D., Head Master of Repton School. Vol. IV. Epistle of James Jude. Rivingtons. 1852.

WE highly value these "Annotations" from their being exactly that which they profess to be-the results of a critical analysis of the Greek text, using all the helps which an accomplished scholar has at his command. It is not easy to give a correct description of the work to one who has not seen it. We can

only say that none but real difficulties are discussed; and, as far as our opinion is worth anything, we think they are satisfactorily disposed of.

For an instance we turn to one of the most difficult passages to be found in the New Testament (1 Pet. iii. 18), which Dr. Peile translates as follows:

"Put to death corporeally and visibly, in the likeness of sinful flesh, but quickened-so as to have life in Himself, and be the head and fountain of a divine life in the Church, which is His body; after a spiritual and unseen manner, wherein it was that He went and preached unto the now imprisoned spirits of the Antediluvian world, when of old they were disobedient; that first time, when the longsuffering of GOD was waiting to be gracious to His rebellious creatures, in the days namely of Noah, while [even as now in the Christian Church] an Ark of Salvation was in preparation, admitted into which few out of many (not more, in fact, than eight) souls were eventually saved by water which same element, in the anti-typical now and spiritual use made of it is our means of salvation. BAPTISM-that sacrament which is no outward only and ceremonial putting away of uncleanness, but a personal contract with GOD under a consciousness of goodness, not our own but His, which draws us to our Saviour, and constrains us to love Him and to glorify Him in our life on earth even as He hath first loved us, and called us as many members in one ransomed and regenerated body to be in a state of glory and goodness, through the Resurrection of Jesus Christ," &c., &c. (98-107).

We omit the references to Scripture which are interspersed between the several clauses of the above, in confirmation of the doctrine, to present the rendering proposed more clearly to our readers; and we must omit also the long critical notes by the authorities referred to, in which Dr. Peile justifies his own rendering of the passage-merely giving the concluding remark on an extract from Calvin referring to Christian Baptism :

"In this tardy correction (as we regard it) of his, and our own Translator's (in this context) inaccurate interpretation of the Apostles, ου σαρκος αποθεσις ρυπου, Calvin has touched the true point of oppo

sition, which is not between the sign and the things signified in Baptism, for these God having joined together (he well argues), let not man put asunder: but, between that which affected only the outward and carnal, and that which affects the inner and spiritual man-between a Levitical ordinance, and a Christian sacrament-between the oldness of a literal, and the newness of a spiritual consecration to God's service," &c. (105).

A Life of Marlborough in Four Books. By CHARLES MAC FARLANE. London: Routledge. 1852.

THE author disclaims in his preface all pretence to "new discovery or original research;" but fairly tells us that his little volume is compiled from materials furnished in Archdeacon Coxe's "Memoirs of Marlborough," and in the Duke's "Letters and Despatches," edited by the late Sir George Murray. It is due, however, to Mr. Mac Farlane to state that he has compared the authorities quoted by the archdeacon with the latter's text, and has availed himself of the MS. Journal of Dr. Hare, the duke's chaplain; his use of which forms a valua ble, and, to a certain extent, original feature in the work before us. It fully bears out the merit claimed for it by the writer— namely, that of a "convenient manual or pocket-companion, in which no important fact should be omitted, and in which the dryness and frequent abruptness of mere abridgement should be avoided." It is a neatly and closely-printed book of some three hundred pages; and, when we consider that Sir George Murray's work extended to four octavo volumes, we may award some praise to Mr. Mac Farlane's powers of condensation.

The Jew of Denmark: a Tale by M. Goldschmidt. Translated from the original Danish by Mrs. BUSHBY. London: Routledge. 1852. Or this volume, which has reached us at the eleventh hour, we have not time or space to say much more than that it possesses the advantage over a previous translation by another hand from the German-of having been rendered directly from the language in which it was originally written. It is a story of very deep yet painful interest; but its chief value consists in the insight which it affords into the manners, religious ceremonies, and customs, of the most ancient, as well as the most remarkable, people in the world. It has the secondary merit of being issued to the public in the cheapest possible form. Mrs. Bushby has acquitted herself most worthily of an arduous task, and has given us a version of the tale in language at once simple and graceful.

Darien; or, the Merchant Prince: a Historical Romance. By ELIOT WARBURTON. Three Vols. 8vo. London: Colburn. 1852.

"Nor in the open field, with banners waving and shouts resounding to cheer thy dying heart, but hemmed in by scorching walls and pitiless flames, vainly fighting for another moment of gasping lifeeven thus hopeless and helpless shalt thou perish."

Such are the words with which the highly talented and deeply regretted author of the volumes before us foretold unwittingly his own fearful doom some few short years ago. The fate of any of all the sufferers who perished by the awful catastrophe of the Amazon arrests necessarily the thoughts and command the sympathies even of the frivolous and the careless; but the death of such a man in such a manner-of one who was in the possession and the vivid enjoyment of the richest of heaven's earthly blessings-high character, high fame, high talents, and yet higher hopes, and joined with these all the finest and brightest things of this life-peace, competence, domestic affection, unbounded popularity-is peculiarly, strikingly, drearily awful. Had he fallen in the moment of victory, or dropped whilst leading the last desperate charge on a field to which his loss proved fatal-or had he lived to erect on the foundation of his merits and his achievements a superstructure of the loftiest renown, and sunk to the grave in the fulness of years, having added another name to the list of Norman heroes--we should have grieved indeed; but not as we do now at the sun that has set ere reaching his noon, and shrouded his mid-day glory in the desolate darkness of the deep.

Such circumstances give a peculiar interest to the volumes before us; for the hand is still that but yesterday was employed in writing them-the ears are dull and heavy that would have thrilled to their praise—and highly do they merit praise, and richly will they repay perusal; and, if we are led to open them for their author's sake, we shall undoubtedly read them for their own.

From the "Introductory Chapter," a whole in itself, we will extract two striking passages:

"I wish I could convey a picture of the fine old man, as his form, cast in the largest heroic mould, stood flushed with the setting sunlight, and distended by the proud thoughts that those crumbling stones had conjured up. He gazed long and silently upon the glorious landscape spread far and wide beneath us; and then his countenance gradually assumed a softer and softer expression, as his pride of blood passed away and became merged in admiration of the splendid view that filled his eyes.

"Beliold (he exclaimed in a voice from which passion, and, strange to say, almost all national accent was banished)-behold how the sun, the apostle of light, is sinking softly and mildly though crowned with preternatural glory into the crimsoned sea. His light is shining, not for himself, but for the earth, so darksome and so dead without his rays. Behold how many a loch and mountain gleam and gloom through the evening mist, as sunset invests them with rich gold and purple! Now he is gone: deep masses of indistinct shadow close over the silvering sea; and now, but for the rosy light that lingers on the sky and on Ben Laighal's brow, no trace remains of the Life-giver -the Creator's delegate. He is gone: yet nature mourns him not; earth and ocean—man, bird, beast, and insect-secure in the faith that he will rise to-morrow: rise with all his infinite effects, at the very moment which, if delayed, would cost the life of myriad myriads of rejoicing creatures. How weak and faltering is our voluntary faith compared with that which is instinctive! Yet is the moral sequence of events as consistent and as certain as those of night and day. Rebellious children as we are, we love, like our first parents, to stake the chances of small events against the certainty of great ones. The devil takes care to keep the bad chances just alive; but how greatly we are losers in the long run we hourly feel, and shall feel far more when this life at the last shall thus close over us'" (Vol. i. 18-20).

How much real beauty there is in this passage-how much truth and raciness in the following remarks:

"Ow!-if inanimate things war as wayward and capricious as human minds, the world wad no lang hauld thegither. If I expose water to a certain heat it'll bile: if I let a stane drap it will fa' straight: if I plant a kail it will grow (wi' divine permission); but if I say to fair human natur' (my eebor' or my ain sel'), ' Come, do me this justice,' or Flee that temptation,' or even, Walk straight to your ain desire,' its lang odds of my bidding's dune.' A thousand sheep wi' an impulse will seek shelter fra' a coming storm; and ten thousand fish will migrate to the saut water wi' ae mind; but pit a thousand, or a hundred, or ten o' human kind, to do a business thegither, and they'll tak' every one a different counsel, if there be not one strong mind or one strong will amang 'em to drive the others afore him his own gait" (Ibid 22-23).

The tale itself for these passages are, as we before observed, from the "Introduction"-is one of the most successful romances that has appeared in this romance-writing epoch, and will claim and obtain a high and lasting place among the most brilliant fictions of the day.

There is in this as well as its predecessor, "Reginald Hastings," much that reminds us of the bold conception and graphic delineation so memorable in Walter Scott. There is besides this a chastened luxuriance of thought--a rich copiousness of diction-a polish and a power which is pecu