people...Every where, without the houses of the suburbs, the citizens had gardens and orchards, planted with trees, large, beautiful, and one joining to another ...On the north side were fields for pasture, and open meadows, among which the river waters did flow, and the wheels of the mills were turned about with a delightful noise. Very near lieth a large forest, in which are woody groves of wild beasts. In the coverts whereof do lurk bucks and does, wild boars and bulls.... There were also choice fountains of water, secret, wholesome, and clear, streaming forth among the glittering pebble stones; in this number Holy-well, Clerken-well, and St. Clement's-well, are of most note, and frequented above the rest, when scholars and the youth of the city take the air abroad in the summer evenings....In the fatal wars under King Stephen, there went out to a muster, men fit for war, esteemed to the number of 20,000 horsemen armed, and 60,000 footmen....There were three famous schools; St. Paul's, the Holy Trinity, and St. Martin's....with others upon good will and sufferance....they had exercises, as well rhetorical as satyrical. The several craftsmen, the several sellers of wares, and workmen for hire, all are distinguished every morning by themselves, in their places as well as trades. Besides, there is in London, upon the river's bank, a public place of cookery, among the wines to be sold in the ships and in the wine cellars. There, every day, ye may call for any dish of meat, roast, fryed, or sodden; fish, both small and great; ordinary flesh for the poorer sort, and more dainty for the rich, as venison and fowl. If friends come upon a sudden, wearied with travel, to a citizen's house, and they be loth to wait for curious preparations, and dressing of fresh meat, let the servants give them water to wash, and bread to stay their stomach, and in the mean time, they run to the water side, where all things that can be desired are at hand. Whatsoever multitude of soldiers, or other strangers, enter into the city, at any hour of the day or night, or else are about to depart, they may turn in, bate here, and refresh themselves to their content, and so avoid long fasting, and not go away without their dinner. If any desire to fit their dainty tooth, they take a goose: they need not to long for the fowl of Africa; no, nor for the rare godwit of Ionia. This is the public cookery, and very convenient for the state of a city, and belongs to it.

Smithfield our author seems to derive from Smooth-field; it is little changed from its former purposes, as it still maintains a horse market on Fridays: the particulars are the same as Fitz-Stephens describes them in his days, and we suppose

that the jockeyship, and other laudable customs of the place, are nothing infe rior to those of ancient times.

or

The only plagues of London are, immoderate drinking of idle fellows, and often fires....London, instead of common interludes belonging to the theatre, hath plays of a more holy subject; 1epresentations of those miracles which the holy confessors wrought, of the sufferings, wherein the glorious constancy of martyrs did appear At Shrovetide, the boys of every school bring fighting cocks to their masters, and all the forenoon is spent at school to see these cocks fight together. After dinner all the youth of the city goeth to play at ball in the fields... Every Sunday in lent, after dinner, a company of young men ride out into the fields, on horses which are fit for war, and principal runners: every one among them is taught to run the rounds with his horse. The citizens' sons issue out through the gates by troops, furnished with lances and warlike shields; the younger sort have their pikes not headed with iron, where they make a representation of battle, and exercise a skirmish. There resort to these exercises many courtiers, when the king lies near hand, and young striplings out of the families of barons and great persons, which have not yet attained to the warlike girdle, to train and skirmish....In Easter holidays they counterfeit a sea-fight. A pole is set up in the middle of the river, with a target fastened thereon, and a young man stands in a boat, which is rowed with oars, and driven on with the tide, who with his spear hits the target in his passage: with which blow if he break the spear and stand upright, so that he hold footing, he hath his desire; but if his spear continue unbroken by the blow, he is tumbled into the water, and his boat passeth clear away: but on either side of this target two ships stand in ward, with many young men ready to take him up after he is sunk,. as soon as he appeareth again on the top of the water: the spectators stand upon the bridge, and in solars upon the river, to behold these things, being prepared for laughter.... Summer sports were, leaping, shooting, wrestling, casting of stones, and throwing of javelins, &c. In winter, almost every holiday, before dinner, the foaming boars fight for their heads, and prepare, with deadly tusks, to be made bacon; or else some lusty bulls, or huge bears, are baited with dogs....Moorfields was frozen over, and great companies of young men sported on the ice. Many citizens take delight in birds, as spar-hawks, goss-hawks, &c. and in dogs to hunt in the woody grounds. The citi zens have authority to hunt in Middlesex, Hertfordshire, all the Chilterns, and in Kent as far as Graywater.

An account of the expences of Robert Sidney, Earl of Leicester, with various particulars of his estate and household, is a curious paper, and shews the inattention of that nobleman to the "humdrum calculations of pounds, shillings, and pence." It is of considerable length. The ceremonies and services at court, in the time of King Henry VII. we remiting their abilities to this purpose: they to the Herald's Office. It is a very particular and minute record of the ideas connected with place and dignity. The directions for making the king's bed occupy a whole quarto page.

491

particulars, which too often perplex the half-thinking, and appear insuperable to the half-informed. Grotius, Huetius, Reland, Lardner, Harmer, and a host of others, not forgetting Calmet, with his later editor, have cast great light on many incidents, observations, allusions, and peculiarities, which occur in the sacred books, by which they have laid future generations under a debt of gratitude to their talents and labours. To tread in the track of these truly great men is no discredit to abilities of the highest class; and the very attempt implies something not ignoble in him who makes it.

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mine what could be his reasons for admitting no other than those which have been appealed to by writers who preceded him. It is not possible that he should be unacquainted with the geological facts, for instance, produced by Whitehurst, by Kirwan, and by other mineralogists, among ourselves, to say nothing of foreigners. Nor could he be ignorant of the historical facts which late years have with great pleasure derived from our Indian sources of information; since these are open to us in English editions. If he did not think proper to depend on them, yet he might have mentioned them with due caution; and if he could not implicitly adopt all their assertions, yet some might have found their due place in his arguments.

The Dissenters were for many years content to tread in the regular track of explaining and enforcing the doctrines of scripture, rather from internal than from On the subject of the creation of the external propositions. They found it the easiest, and we conclude that they thought world, Mr. C. has introduced the opiit the safest. It might be, too, the most nions of the Greeks and Egyptians, which effectual 1; yet as a desire of novelty is in- he found in Eusebius: why did he not herent in the human mind, there were add that of the Bramins, which approaches more nearly, in some particulars, to the not wanting among them those who hankered after something a little different statements of Moses? And if he were from that every day fare. This was mani- deterred, by the forgery practised on fested in the eagerness with which the Major Wilford, from attributing autholectures of the late Mr. Fell, on the Evi-rity to their history of the misbehaviour dences of Christianity, were attended. of Ham, yet that does not invalidate the That gentleman died before his course was history of the deluge, as given us by Sir And we lay rather completed, but the proof of an in- William Jones. quiring spirit being not only extant, but greater stress on this, because it incidenactive, was decisive on that occasion. We tally confirms others of the Mosaic parbelieve that it has been no less decisive on ticulars; as, the character of Noah, the the present occasion, and that Mr. Collyer calculation of time by seventh days, &c. has had no reason to complain of want of We are, indeed, of opinion with Pythaauditory. The conception was honoura- goras, that India was the original seat of ble to the author. In a young man, the the second generation of mankind, and undertaking was bold, since it required that in those regions may be discovered the the exercise of the maturest talents; yet rudiments of many principles which were commendable, since the maturest talents diversified among those sous of men, who did not exert themselves to accomplish wandered into western climes. It does the same effect by any more promising not, indeed, suit us to travel into India We are, therefore, disposed to as that philosopher did, in search of treat this volume with candour. It is of knowledge; but we avail ourselves, witha character which we shall ever take plea- out scruple, of such portions of Indian sure in encouraging; it directs human knowledge as are brought within our learning to its proper purpose, especially reach. These are the testimonies of ciin a divine, the furtherance of Christian vilized nations. As Mr. C. has declined principles, and it gives an earnest of fu- to avail himself of them, we cannot wontare excellence, when the knowledge of der that he has omitted those more obscure the writer will be more perfect, and his traditions, which have been preserved among the uncultivated tribes of our race; judgment more mature. though some consider these as less liable to suspicion, because less sophisticated, than the former.

means.

Mr. C. has made good use of his authorities, so far as, we presume, he considered them as bearing on his subject; but we are altogether at a loss to deter

But, we are to reflect that thes lectures

were intended for popular benefit. Though, learning enough to insure them a due share of attention, was absolutely necessary to their character, yet they were not bound to comprise the whole of what might be said on a subject. They might answer all the purpose of which they were capable, on easier terms. We think, nevertheless, that when preparing for the press, Mr. C. might, with great propriety, have adduced additional authorities of a corroborative nature; and certainly, it is our duty to report on the volume as it lies before us.

The lecturer usually opens his subject by reference to that part (or those parts) of scripture where it is found: he then quotes the authorities of extra-scriptural writers, in elucidation of it, and never fails of taking every opportunity of improving what is before him to purposes of piety. We highly approve this disposition. The advantages derived from such incidents may make a lasting impression on the memory, of youth especially, and may give a serious turn to the mind, the benefit of which may be felt many years afterwards.

We certainly have no intention of deranging the usual conduct of divine worship on the Sunday, as practised among us; but we may be allowed to think that on week-day lectures, or on other convenient opportunities, many very instructive subjects might be selected from ecclesiastical history, from events which have befallen places, or even from characters of nations and persons, not absolutely scriptural, yet connected with scripture. Only those who have some further knowledge than what they have acquired from their Bible, can have any just notion of the government of the Romans, for instance, or the manners of the Greeks, or the real situation of the Jewish nation in the gospel times, to say nothing of the sufferings of Christian confessors and martyrs, all of which might be rendered available to the edification of a Christian auditory; and to the building them up on their most holy faith.

Having given our opinion on the work generally, we shall now present a specimen of it to our readers. We decline all remarks on the character of the style and composition. A few years hence, we doubt not, will discover great improvements in this writer: he will then

have acquired more vigour of mind, diction and sentiment: he will have added to his stores of knowledge, and will exercise a wider extent of thought; his researches will have been more general, and he will be less afraid of stepping beyond the boundaries, which others, under narrower means of information than he may obtain, have marked as the confines of truth. Indeed, though we think him too timid, yet we hardly know how to censure his timidity; it was, perhaps, an error on the right side; but this will diminish as years increase, and we heartily wish him success in every undertaking which may tend to dissipate error, of whatever kind, and whatever be the subject which it tends to obscure.

Speaking of the excessive antiquity assumed by certain nations, Mr. C. observes:

We have no credible history of transactions more remote than six thousand years from the present time. The Chinese, the Egyptians,

the Chaldeans, and the Phenicians, have all laid claim to much higher antiquity; but in bringing these pretensions to the test, it is clearly manifest that they do not deserve the credit which they demand. Their chronology is so absurdly extended, as to exceed the bounds of probability, and to excite suspicion in respect of the facts themselves, which are the subjects of their calculations. It has been stated, and rendered probable by the learned writers of the Universal History, in their account of the Tartars and the Chinese, that a great part of China was very thinly peopled so late as the year before Christ six hundred and thirty-seven, when the Scythi ans, under the conduct of Madyes, made an irruption into Upper Asia. We have a singular fact to state, which will prove that their boasted antiquity really falls within the limits of the Mosaic chronology. For the evidence which we are about to produce, we are indebted to the discoveries of modern astronomy. The Chinese have ever made a point of inserting in their calendars remarkable eclipses, or conjunctions of the planets, together with the name of that emperor in whose reign they were observed. To these events they have also affixed their own dates. There is a very singular conjunction of the sun, moon, and several planets, recorded in their anuals as having taken place almost at the very commencement of their remote history. The far-famed Cassini, to ascertain the fact, calculated back, and decisively proved, that such an extraordinary conjunction actually did take place at China, on February the twenty-sixth, two thousand and twelve