peaceably to officiate in Essex Street Chapel: and Dr. Armstrong is officiating at present, as a Unitarian, at Bristol. Are Dr. Phillpotts and Mr. Bennett prepared to institute proceedings against Mr. Newman, and the flock of unhappy curates who, after the example of Mr. Newman, have attempted to divest themselves of their Anglican Orders? Or have they a sympathy for the Church of Rome, which they refuse to our Presbyterian ministry or to other forms of Protestant dissent? That the Church of England technically acknowledges the validity of the Orders of the Church of Rome, makes no difference in the present question. Since a Church of England clergyman cannot become a Roman Catholic priest, without treating his Anglican Orders as waste paper or something worse.

We could have been content that the mystery of Holy Orders should have remained a mystery of the closet and the profession. But Dr. Phillpotts has thought it fitting to force it to an issue; and has so chosen his ground as to make it a case of conscience and religious liberty. What endless oppression and hypocrisy, what a sacrifice of the inside of the platter to the outside, is comprised in the maxim-once a clergyman always a clergyman,' applied to a thinking age! A passage from Dr. Campbell's Lectures on Ecclesiastical History,' may assist us in forming some sort of notion of the kind of reasons upon which these sacramental pretensions were originally founded, and on the con

He was succeeded by the Rev. Dr. Disney, who had been the rector of Panton and vicar of Swinderby, in the diocese of Lincoln. The Rev. Theophilus Browne, formerly a tutor of one of the colleges at Cambridge, was afterwards the minister of the Unitarian congregation, first at Warminster and next at Norwich. Another clergyman of the name of Stephen Weaver Brown, was for some time minister of the Unitarian congregation in Monkwell Street, London. The Rev. Thomas Fyshe Palmer, a fellow of Queen's College, Cambridge, was for some time the minister of a small Unitarian congregation at Dundee. In 1793, the law of sedition was cruelly perverted against Mr. Palmer, one of the Scotch 'martyrs' to parliamentary reform. But no intolerant prelate had thought of persecuting him for withdrawing his spiritual allegiance. We have confined ourselves to a single case that of clergymen converted into Unitarian ministers. The list might undoubtedly be enlarged; but it is long enough to entitle us to ask with what decency can the moral ignominy of perjury and apostacy be sought to be affixed by reasoners like Mr. Bennett, to a conscientious change of opinion-take for instance the history of Blanco White; - or under what colour of justice or discretion a law can be maintained, by which men like these may be sent to prison by bishops like Dr. Phillpotts, on the charge of contempt of court and of the Church of England?

sequences which their originators supposed them to involve. The decrees of the Council of Trent are among the authorities quoted by Lord Eldon in support of the doctrine, of which Mr. Shore is now about to be made the victim. The Popish pedigree of the doctrine is quite correct. The Church of England took it bodily from the Church of Rome: where it had been debated as a sacrament, and as a point of school divinity question of Scripture, or public policy or common sense. What passed at the Council of Trent upon the subject, we will sum up in the words of Dr. Campbell.

never as a

In regard to the indelibility, all agreed; insomuch that though a bishop, priest, or deacon, turn heretic or schismatic, Deist or Atheist, he still retains the character; and though I not a Christian man, he is still a Christian bishop, priest, or ' deacon; nay, though he be degraded from his office, and ex' communicated, he is, in respect of the character, still the same. Though he be cut off from the Church, he is still a minister in the Church. In such a situation, to perform any of the sacred ⚫ functions would be in him a deadly sin; But these would be equally valid as before. Thus he may not be within the pale of the Church himself, and yet be in the Church, a minister of Jesus Christ. He may openly and solemnly blaspheme God, ' and abjure the faith of Christ. He may apostatize to Judaism, Mahomedanism, or Paganism - he still retains the character. 'He may even become a priest of Jupiter or a priest of Baal, and still continue a priest of Jesus Christ. The character, say the schoolmen, is not cancelled in the damned, but remains with the wicked, to their disgrace and greater confusion. So

' that even in Hell they are the ministers of Jesus Christ, and the messengers of the New Covenant. Nor is it cancelled in the blessed; but remains in Heaven with them, for their greater ornament and glory.'

6

The English Parliament will surely enter upon the subject in a different spirit, and settle it on other grounds.

ART. VI. —1. The Saxons in England; a History of the English Commonwealth until the Norman Conquest. By J.M. KEMBLE, M.A. 2 vols. 8vo. London, 1848.

2. Codex Diplomaticus Evi Saxonici. Operâ JOHANNIS M. KEMBLE. 5 vols. Londini, 1839-48.

FIF

IFTY years have elapsed since Gibbon, reposing under the laurels he had won in the fields of Roman history, attempted to revive the interest of his countrymen in the annalists and

muniments of their forefathers. His appeal to the labours of the Camdens, the Savilles, and the Spelmans, was at the time ineffectual; for it was addressed to an age which regarded history as a vehicle for eloquence, rather than as a science with laws and objects of its own. The author of the appeal had himself indeed in his great work wedded philology to narrative; but his single example could not counteract a prevailing fallacy; and the provinces of the antiquary, the jurist, and the historian were then and long afterwards believed to be distinct. The track, however, which had been opened by Gibbon, was followed up by continental scholars. Wolf discerned that Bentley had contributed nearly as much to historical studies as to philology itself. Heyne perceived that the agrarian laws of Rome had still living relations to political economy; and Niebuhr, combining almost unprecedented resources with practical experience, treated ancient history with the enthusiasm of a scholar, the science of a jurist, and the sense of a contemporary statesman. The example of Gibbon and the German philologers, was at first more readily adopted in France than in our own country. When statesmen like Guizot, or men engaged in administration like Sismondi, sat down to write history, it was scarcely possible they should overlook its deeper and more comprehensive relations, or postpone the matter to the form. In the History of 'Civilisation,' and in that of the French,' accordingly, are united the functions of the antiquarian, the jurist, and the political economist. The reception of their works, both at home and abroad, was an indication that juster notions of history were becoming prevalent; and that readers would now require something more than skilful groupings and portraitures, or than graceful disquisition and agreeable narrative. The intrinsic virtues of the earlier school of historians were not indeed abrogated, but raised upon a firmer basis and applied to more catholic purposes.

With all the adjuncts of the press, of public libraries, of cathedral and corporate muniments, of government patronage, and of private enterprise or speculation, it must be admitted that, since the close of the 17th century until a comparatively recent period, very little advance had been made in the study of early English annals. One at least of our universities has a professorship of Anglo-Saxon, to say nothing of other chairs more or less connected by the design of their founders with legal or historical archæology. But endowments of this kind are only a security for scholarship when their subjects have a value already, in the university or the world. As soon as the opinion of a society has been sufficiently pronounced, its

principal places of education must obey the call. Accordingly, the recent enlargement of the educational system at Cambridge by the creation of new Triposes, and by calling the Professors into more active service, is evidence, we hope, of the commencement of a new era. An acquaintance with the legislation of Alfred and Edward I. will probably be esteemed ere long as worthy of academical honours and rewards as a knowledge of the constitutions of Solon and Cleisthenes: and he who can tell the difference between the Demus and the Boule, will also be aware of the distinction between an alodial estate, and land held by copy of court roll. But the public ought to understand, that the change, to be effectual, must be carried further. It will not do to widen the bed of the main stream only, leaving its feeders and tributaries, the public schools, in their ancient state: And we expect that the eminent scholars who now preside over those nurseries of the future citizen will be soon induced to subtract at least a few hours in every week from longs and shorts, in favour of the laws, the history, and the literature of the English people.

The sappers and miners are seldom of much account in the bulletins of a campaign; yet their services are not less essential than those of the fighting men. The readers of Dr. Henry and Mr. Sharon Turner are probably diminishing daily in number: their materials were indifferent, their style was worse; but their industry and good intentions cannot be mentioned without praise. The names of Dr. Lingard and Mr. Hallam occupy a much loftier and more permanent position. Their works, indeed, embrace a far wider range than mere archaic history; but even in the latter department their labours have an integral worth, as well on their own account as for what they have stimulated others to undertake. It is, indeed, delightful and encouraging to younger students, to find that the researches which occupied the earlier vigils of these distinguished writers continue to employ them still. Forty years intervene between the first and the third editions of Dr. Lingard's Antiquities of the Anglo-Saxon 'Church,' or rather between its original and its present formfor the third edition is almost a new work. A similar period has elapsed since the early chapters of Mr. Hallam's Middle Ages' were composed. The Supplementary Notes,' which he has recently published, are as honourable to the author as they are instructive to the reader; nor are any portions of them more valuable or more gratifying than those in which he acknowledges his obligations to later or more mature inquiries. The spirit displayed in this last work of Mr. Hallam's reminds us of a fine trait in Virgil's character, recorded by Donatus. • Refert Pe

dianus, benignum, cultoremque omnium bonorum atque eruditorum (Maronem) fuisse, et usque adeo invidiæ expertem, ut si quid eruditè dictum inspiceret alterius, non minus gauderet, ac si suum fuisset.' It would be superfluous to enlarge upon the merits of those writers whom Mr. Hallam, in his preface to the Supplementary Notes, distinguishes with especial mention as legal or historical antiquaries. Yet it is impossible, treating of Anglo-Saxon learning, not to recall the services of Mr. Thorpe, Mr. Allen and Sir F. Palgrave. At the same time the very names Mr. Hallam has enumerated leave us something to regret. In no country exist more elements for an historical school, equal, if not superior, to those of Germany or France, than in England. In our laws, our customs, our records, and even in our daily phrase and associations, we have the materials; and both in the passing and the rising generation of Teutonic antiquaries and philologers we should also have the men. In the archæological societies which are springing up, even in our second-rate provincial towns, we have the machinery for correspondence and collaboration; yet it cannot be said at present that England possesses an Historical school. We have church-restorers in abundance, and editors more or less competent of old ballads, old plays, and old divines. But an Historical school is something else and something higher than archæological societies, than antiquarian societies, or than special societies, however comprehensive, or however efficient. We will not fling another stone at the defunct Record Commission: we will only express our mortification at a lost opportunity. That commission, in fact, failed as much from the want of historical organisation in the age, as from its own shortcomings or faulty construction. But what government patronage could not effect, private or associated enterprise bids fair to accomplish. The English Historical' and 'Elfric Societies,' among others we might name, are supplying the antiquarian with texts on which he can rely, and with materials and prolegomena, digested and elucidated with exemplary care and diligence. We are advancing, however slowly, in the right direction. The idea of what history should be, what auxiliaries it should. enlist, what alliances it should court, is daily becoming clearer and more complete. And it is now our agreeable task to welcome a publication which combines much of the learning of the seventeenth century, with the more critical and scientific spirit of the present time.

We have purposely placed together at the head of this article Mr. Kemble's Collection of the Anglo-Saxon Charters and his history of The Saxons in England." They are too intimately