of such low esteeme, that shee is like to finde small credit with us for what she can say, unlesse shee can bring a ticket from Cran mer, Latimer, and Ridley; or prove herselfe a retainer to Constantine, and weare his badge. More tolerable it were for the Church of GOD that all these names were utterly abolished, like the Brazen Serpent; then that men's fond opinion should thus idolize them, and the heavenly Truth be thus captivated.* And in another place he says, 'If their religion is thus consecrated by their martyrdom, perhaps their rebellions were consecrated by their treason;' he treats them therefore as no better than traitors, who tried to overturn the monarchy. There is the judgment of Milton upon these men. But then his Episcopacy: I can understand the young men of America being much edified by finding treatise after treatise upon the corruptions of Protestant prelacy; and these are some of the most splendid passages in his works; and in reading them you are captivated by the richness of the style, and the energy of the declamation, though the expressions are such as I can scarcely read here. But to English youth, will any one recommend such expressions as these, who pretends to be an Episcopalian 'But what doe we suffer mis-shapen and enormous Prelatisme, as we do, thus to blanche and varnish her deformities with the faire colours, as before of martyrdom, so now of Episcopacie? They are not bishops, GoD and all good men know that they are not, that have filled this land with late confusion and violence; but a tyrannical crew and corporation of impostors, that have blinded and abused the world so long under that name." "

We omit for want of space, some further quotations from Milton, which nevertheless are most effectively introduced by the eminent lecturer. Their tendency, however, may be gathered from the sentence in which the Cardinal resumes the thread of his discourse.

"There is a passage to teach the young men of England, how their bishops are to be spoken of. It is a passage I should scarcely have read, except for the purpose of unmasking a dangerous direction given to the young men of this country. Is it not clear that although Milton may be a sublime poet, and one of the first writers in our literature, young men should be warned that, instead of his being an oracle of truth and light, his works contain that which is utterly at variance with what their catechism would teach them? I could go further and quote a passage from his Iconoclastes in which he justifies the putting of the king to death, and says it

* "Of Reformation, touching Church Discipline in England," Lib. 2. Vol. iii. p. 9.

was an act of justice of which the nation might be proud. Are these the books you would give to the young men of this generation, with quite a sufficient sprinkling of democratic and red-republican principles spreading on every side? I think instead of works like these being read and recommended, it is a duty to caution and warn you, that the scholar may read them as an artist looks upon a beautiful piece of work which he can understand, and which he must study, in order to make himself acquainted with the beauties of our literature. It is a book which no one would permit to be in a library intended to form young men in true, social, civil, and religious principles."

Our readers will perceive that our duty has been limited to a transcript of the more important passages of this admirable lecture. We should require the power of the lecturer himself to do justice to its very eloquent vindication of the Catholic cause. Its circulation appears to us to be of such great value and importance to all lovers of truth, that we cannot too strongly recommend it to our readers. And we close our remarks by transcribing its noble peroration.

"Nothing remains but exhorting you to cultivate every innocent advantage, under such guides as may secure against delusion. Read as much as you please, but let it be of books that will breed in you good thoughts, and lead you to virtue. Study science freely, without control,-go far into its discoveries, or such portions of it as you will. Make yourselves acquainted, if you please, and if your talents and inclinations lead you, with any branch of knowledge, or with all. Indulge in literature, so that you may have your minds filled with beautiful and with virtuous ideas, and enjoy at the same time cheerful recreation, which should always be associated with literary and scientific pursuits, lest the mind should be overburdened and oppressed. Thus you will developé your minds as much as those to whom there is also given further liberty in speculating on what is revealed. You, as Catholics, know the boundaries of faith, presume not to step beyond them. If doubt arise, if in the course of your reading, at any time there spring up in you anxieties, if you feel that there seems to be an incompatibility between what science unfolds, and what religion teaches, then seek and enquire, and ask from those who have studied before you, who have themselves, perhaps, had to pass through darkness and perplexity, you will find your doubts dissipated. Then, there are sources in the Church, in its devotions, its sacraments, and other means of grace, which will amply supply to you that inward light, that almost divine instinct, whereby a Catholic adheres to his faith steadily, and clasps it as firmly as the

mariner does the mast he has embraced, however he may be rocked about by the waves and the winds, among which the storm has dashed him.

"It is thus that you will grow up good Christians, at the same time that you improve in every way, hopeful, and able to aid the progress of society, and to assist it in moral and political advancement, without loss or detriment to that which is far more precious than any amount of human knowledge or earthly wisdom. You have thus, amidst all that is changeable a rock which is immoveable. You know that however the pursuits of men may change their direction, and their course, and aspect, still the Church moves not from the rock on which it was planted. Still no passage of armies, no desolating flood, no time is sufficient to disturb it or destroy it. Thus you always have the light to your path, the direction to your steps. And in allusion to the great unchangeableness, and even immoveable character of catholic truth, and its durability, when all that is mere earthly shakes and is scattered and destroyed, I could quote to you that passage from Macaulay so well known to you all, which describes the Traveller from New Zealand, sitting on a broken arch of London Bridge, sketching the ruins of St. Paul's, when the throne of St. Peter stands as firmly, and the power of the Popes exists as strong and as extended as ages ago, and as it is this day. But I prefer rather closing with an expression of this truth from a pen whence it could still less have been expected. It is a sonnet from Armellini, one of the Roman republican triumvirs, one of the three men who ruled the so called Roman republic when the Pope was driven from his throne. I will read it first in the sweet original Italian; and then I will read a translation which I have ventured to make.

SONNET BY THE TRIUMVIR ARMELLINI.

Io mi scontrai col Tempo, e a lui ragione
Chiesi di tante auguste moli e tante,
Che fa d'Argo, di Tebe, e di Sidone?
E d'altre che fur appo e fiero innante?
E'rispondendo, invece di sermone

Un cenere mostrò, di regi ammanti,
E mille avanzi d'arme e di corone,
Mille scheggie agitò di scettri infracti
Di quei che son, ragion gli chiesi ancora:
Ei rotolò l'acciar che tullo rose,

"Ciò che altri fur," gridò, "fian essi or, ora."
E chiedendo se il fin delle altre cose

Avrà di Piero il Soglio? Ei tacque. E allora,
Del tempo invece, Eternitâ rispose.

VOL. XXXIX.- No. LXXVIII.

14

TRANSLATION OF SIG, ARMELLINI'S SONNET.

Meeting old Time, the tale I bid him tell
Of many noble piles in days gone by,

"Where's Argos? Thebes? or Sidon? and where lie
Who, after and before them, bore the bell ?”
He said no word; but showed me in his cell,
Ashes of robes yet tinged with purple dye,
And bits of crowns, and armour piled up high,
With splints of shattered sceptres mixed pell-mell.
Of such things, which yet are, I asked the fate.
His all-destroying scythe around he plied,

And shrieked "Past empires present ones await."
Then asked I: "Does the same decree abide
For Peter's throne ?"-Time seemed his breath to bate,
And spake not. For Eternity replied.

ART. IX.-1. Christian Theism: the Testimony of Reason and Revelation to the Existence and Character of the Supreme Being. By ROBERT ANCHOR THOMPSON, M.A. London: Rivingtons, Waterloo Place. 1855.

2. Theism: the Witness of Reason and Nature to an All-Wise and Beneficent Creator. By the Rev. JOHN TULLOCH, D.D. William Blackwood and Sons, Edinburgh and London. 1855.

THERE

HERE exists a popular, and, we dare say, a wellfounded prejudice against prize-essays in general. A man sitting down to read one of these productions can hardly ever divest himself of a latent suspicion that it must, as a matter of course, approach to one of two extremes, that it must either be somewhat superficial and school-boy like, or else be alarmingly heavy, formal and pedantic. The authors of the treatises before us have succeeded in avoiding both these extremes. The most learned student of metaphysics will not deem their treat

ment of the great subject with which they have undertaken to deal, puerile or shallow; while at the same time it is competent to any reader acquainted with the mere rudiments of natural theology, to seize the meaning of almost every position maintained by both writers, and perceive the force and learning of the arguments by which they profess to defend it. Beyond this however, neither of the two essays is entitled to praise. Both are on the whole written with as much perspicuity as the subject would admit; both show that the writers have taken care to study, though not to master, some of the most important questions connected with metaphysics: and in this consists their chief, if not their only merit.

An Aberdeen merchant named Burnett, who died in 1784, bequeathed the fund out of which the successful writers of these essays are rewarded. The fund is applied but once in forty years;-such a long interval having been fixed upon probably with a view that the subject of the essays might be discussed in a manner suited to the intellectual wants of each generation of Scotch and English thinkers who may be exposed to the peril of falling into Atheism. The prizes are open to public competition. By a codicil added to Burnett's will in the last year of his life, the subject of the thesis for which the Philosophers of Great Britain are invited to compete stands thus: "That there is a Being all powerful, wise, and good; by Whom everything exists: and particularly to obviate difficulties regarding the Wisdom and Goodness of the Deity; and this in the first place from considerations independent of written Revelation, and in the second place from the Revelation of the Lord Jesus; and from the whole to point out the inferences most necessary for and most useful to mankind."

For the two best essays on this subject he appoints a sum exceeding sixteen hundred pounds. Three-fourths of this are to be given in reward of the essay that shall be judged to have most merit; the remaining fourth to be awarded to the writer of the treatisé which shall be pronounced next in merit. The judges who are to decide upon the relative merits of the various essays that may be submitted for competition are by Burnett's will to be three in number; they are elected by the ministers of the Established Church of Aberdeen, the Principals and Professors of King's College and Mareschal College, Aberdeen, together