Art. XVIII. Aphorisms from Shakespeare, arranged according to the Plays with Notes aud a copious Index. 18mo. Price 78. Longman and Co. &c. 1812. THIS is one of the most atrocious instances of literary butchery that we almost ever recollect to have witnessed. Art. XIX. The Master's Joy-the Servants' Reward. A Sermon occasioned by the Death of the Rev. William Heudebourck: Preached at Bishop's-Hull near Taunton, March 29th, 1812. By James Small of Axminster, and an Address, delivered at the Interment, March 25th, 1812. By Thomas Golding. To which are also added Extracts from Mr. Heudebourck's Diary: chiefly written when at the Academy. Published at Request. 8vo. pp. 59. Price 1s. 6d. Williams and Son, THIS respected minister died in his 29th year. His character is thus summed up by one of his brethren in the ministry. He had a fine taste for literature. His piety was exemplary. His modesty great. His zeal for the cause of his Redeemer lively and operative He lived long in a little time. The churches in this neighbourhood will miss him much.'-The sermon, and the address at the interment, are serious, sensible, and instructive. The eulogy on the departed is strong, and yet avoids the language of declamatory extravagance. There is the very strong expression of a devout and aniable mind in the Extracts from the Diary. Art. XXI. An Essay on the Preservation of Shipwreckeds Person, with a Descriptive Account of the Apparatus and the Manner of applying it, as adopted successfully by G. W, Manby, Esq. Honorary Member of the Humane Society. Illustrated with Engravings on Wood. Royal 8vo. pp. 94. Longman and Co. 1812. EVERY person who feels interested in tracing the attempts which have been made to diminish the sum of human suffering, must peruse this Essay with no ordinary gratification. It details the zealous exertions of a persevering philanthropist to alleviate the horrors of shipwreck, and minutely describes the series of inventions, by means of which above one hundred persons have already been preserved in situations, where they must otherwise have inevitably perished, and which, when universally adopted, will, the Essayist has no doubt, save at least to the nation five hundred seamen every year, exclusively of property to an incalculable value.' The circumstance which determined Capt. Manby's mind to this particular species of benevolence, is related in the following paragraph. The dreadful events of the 18th of February, 1807, when his Majesty's gun brig Snipe was driven on shore near the haven's mouth at Yar, mouth, first made an impression on my mind, which has never been effaced. At the close of that melancholy scene, after several hours of fruitless attempt to save the crew, upwards of sixty persons were lost, though not more than fifty yards from the shore, and this wholly owing to the impossibility of conveying a rope to their assistance. At that crisis a ray of hope beamed upon me, and I resolved immediately to devote my mind to the discovery of some means for affording relief in cases of similar distress and difficulty.'p. vi. The object to the accomplishment of which Capt. Manby has directed his endeavours, is the projecting of a rope to the distressed vessel: and by means of the neatly executed wood cuts, which accompany the details, the reader is furnished with a very distinct conception of the Apparatus. Minute instructions are given for coiling the rope; for placing the basket properly; for fixing the rope to the shot; for the shape of the shot; for the kinds of ordnance best suited to the purpose; and for the application, or pointing of it, so that the rope shall fall with certainty on the weathermost part of the rigging. Supposing communication to be now secured, the manner of lashing the rope is described, and a representation is given of a cot, which in some situations may, by means of the projected rope, be sent from the shore, and prove serviceable in conveying the weak and helpless. These details are succeeded by directions to persons on board of vessels stranded on a lee shore; and the following ingenious contrivance is related for affording relief to shipwrecked vessels in a dark and tempestuous night. In order to discover precisely the situation of a vessel, when the crew are unable to make luminous signals. A hollow ball was made to the size of the piece, composed of layers of pasted cartridge paper of the thickness of half an inch, having a hole at the top to contain a fuze. It was then filled with about fifty luminous balls of star-composition, and a sufficient quantity of gunpowder to burst the ball and inflame the star. The fuze fixed in the ball was graduated. to set fire to the bursting powder at the height of three hundred yards, Through the head of the fuze were drilled holes, at equal intersections, to pass through them strands of quick match, to prevent the possibility from any accident of the match falling out, or from its not firing the fuze. On the stars being released, they continued their splendour while falling for near one minute, which allowed ample time to discover the situation of the distressed vessel. •During the period of the light, a stand, with two upright sticks, (painted white, to render them more discernible in the dark) was ready at hand, and pointed in a direct line to the vessel. A shell fixed to the rope, having four holes in it, to receive a large number of fuzes (headed as before described) and filled with the fiercest and most glaring composition, which when inflamed at the discharge of the piece, displayed so splendid an illumination of the rope, that its flight could not be mistaken.' p. 62, 63. In the remainder of the Essay Capt. M. gives a naccount of a plan for increasing the buoyancy of common boats. As a kind of Appendix, he has inserted a copy of an Address to the Magistrates of Norfolk, recommending the formation of Societies for the relief of shipwrecked seamen; a call, to which we understand they have lost no time in attending. The Essay, it may be proper to notice, is interspersed with a number of documents, attesting the benefits which have resulted from the inventions. Art. XXI. The History of all Religions, comprehending the different doctrines, customs, and order of worship in the churches, which have been established from the beginning of time to the present day. The accomplishment of the prophecies of the person of Christ, incontrovertibly proving by the positive declarations of the Prophets, that he is the TRUE MESSIAH, and that the Jews have no authority from Scripture to expect that he is yet to come. The origin and cause of idolatrous worship. Reasons assigned for the different forms of Idols; being a brief Compendium of those knowledges necessary to be known by all Christians. By John Bellamy, Author of Biblical Criticisms in the Classical Journal. 8vo. pp. xxiv. 394. Price 9s. 6d. Longman and Co. Cadell and Davies, &c. 1812. NEVER did a more chivalrous adventurer sally forth to the regions of conjecture than Mr. John Bellamy. Many a knight-errant has lost his modicum of sense in the fearful encounters of that dark and enchanted ground; and the terrible plight in which "the historian of all religions" appears, leads us to suspect that he has met with something that has seriously affected his imagination. Mr. B. has certainly a considerable share of information on a great variety of topics, he has read much we have no doubt; and possesses some knowledge of the Hebrew language, of which abundant proofs is displayed in his "biblical criticisms:" but if we are asked what those "criticisms" are, we must candidly confess, we are at a loss to describe them: they are inexplicably mystical, and enveloped in a darkness which no illumination within our reach can penetrate or disperse. We give the author all due credit for the goodness of his motives, and the unquestionable originality of his ideas: but we never met with a more striking illustration, than in these composures, of that admirable remark of Cowper : "Knowledge and Wisdom, far from being one, The work before us professes to be "a history of all religions." We leave our readers to judge how far it is such a history, by extracting the account of some existing religious communities. ANABAPTISTS. They were so named because they re-baptised their converts, as the word signifies. This custom of re-baptising when of an adult age is not modern. In the early ages of the church, Donatus, famous minister, separated from the body of professors (of what?) and re-baptised those who were capable of making a profession of their faith after the manner of the eunuch. Acts viii. 35-38. They also consider it a duty, because Christ and the apostles set the example. Immersion was also a solemn ceremony in the Jewish church.' pp. 219, 220. THE KIRK OF SCOTLAND adopted the form of church government which was first chosen in Germany, at the separation from the church of Rome. It is governed by the presbytery, and the general assembly. Calvinism is the prevailing doctrine.' p. 258. And this is all Mr. Bellamy says, about the baptists and the kirk of Scotland! Accurate and pregnant historian! The arrangement of the sects is the most immethodical affair of the kind we ever met with. It is not founded on points of faith or peculiarities of government, or alphabetical order, or chronological succession, or any intelligible principle whatever. He has jumbled them together, just as they happened to occur to his mind; and in that chaotic confusion they are presented in his work. This, for instance, is the arrangement of a small section of the volume, which we have chanced to refer to: Anabaptists, general and particular; Pædobaptists; Lutherans; Moravians; Antitrinitarians; Antinomians; Calvinists; Presbyterians; Socinians; the Ancient Armenian church; Modern Arminians; Supra-lapsarians; Sublapsarians; Puritans; Independents.' And the account of all these denominations, thus juxta-posited, is included within two and twenty small pages! But this redoubted "history" contains, as the preface informs us a variety of information, which has not been made known by any writer;' and which Mr. B. considers it a duty to lay before the public. Now, of these original, never-by-any-writer-made-known discoveries, let the reader take the following specimens. The patriarchs, (before the flood) who were supreme heads both in ecclesiastical and civil affairs, gave names to the church for the term of their natural life, during the whole of which term they governed.—It may afford [continues the discoverer] pleasure and information to the reader, if I shew with what wisdom and effect the venerable patriarchs applied this significant nomenclature to the different states of the church; I do not know that it has been made known by any author, therefore it may be the more acceptable!' p. 19. Having stated this discovery, he enters into no reasonings on the subject-no critical researches-no answers to objections which might have been anticipated; but as if the mere enunciation were sufficient, as if oracular authority attached to his conjectures, he assumes the fact as undoubtedly proved, and proceeds to detail a history founded on the gratuitous assertion. Thus, according to Mr. B. Seth means to settle; this name, therefore, denotes that, before his time, ecclesiastical affairs were very much disordered, and that he, like Constantine his successor, arranged and tranquillized the church! Prosperity, however, did not long continue. The successor of Seth was named Enos, and this is an intimation of "a mortal state by sin; significant of the fall of Adam, by which the church was reduced to a state of misery." In the same style he goes on through all the antediluvian fathers, presuming to tell us, in every period of the account, what was the exact state of the church! In the chapter on the worship of the Philistians,' Mr. B. gives us the following account of Ashtaroth, a Philistian idol. Asl taroth is a feminine noun plural, a compound word from ashah to make,' and thour 'a tour,' a circuit, like the moon round the earth, and Venus round the sun. That the planets Venus and the moon were understood by this word will be very easily determined; it is said Gen. xiv. 5. Ashtaroth Karnaim: Karnaim means that which is horned, Deut. xxxiii. 17. and as none of the celestial bodies are horned, but the moon and Venus-(reader mark the sequel) it proves that these planets were worshipped by them, and that they (i. e. the Philistines!) must also have had the use of the TELESCOPE, as the planet Venus can not be discovered to have that horned figure with the VOL. VIII. 5 M naked eye. The full meaning of these words will be comprehended thus, the horned tour-making goddesses!!!" p. 37. Again. It is worthy of remark,' observes the discoverer, that when Homer sung the battles of the gods with the giants, he sung the battles of the Hebrew leader in the land of Canaan: as may be proved from the synchronism of events recorded in the bible, and introduced by the poet.' The "mystical number of the beast," Mr. B. says, refers to "the interval of time from the destruction of the first temple by Nebuchadnezzar, to the destruction of the second temple by the Romans, which was 666 years! We fear the oλa yeaμμata have, in sober reality, had similar effect on the "author of Biblical Criticisms," to what Festus imagined they had produced on the Apostle Paul. a Art. XXII. Gloria in Excelsis Deo: et in terra pax, bona voluntas hominibus. A Poem. Respectfully inscribed to the British and Foreign Bible Society. 4to. pp. 16. Price 1s. 6d. Hatchard. 1812. FRIENDS as we are to the Bible Society, (and warmer friends to it than ourselves, we believe, there breathe not this day in England,) we are yet doubtful whether it be a fit subject for a Poem. The grand design, indeed, of spreading the light which we ourselves have so long possessed, over a benighted world, or the wonderful and delightful effects produced by the bible in a village, a family, or an individual, might furnish a very happy allusion, or sublime paragraph: bat to trace the godlike plan,' from it's first beginnings, to tell with whom it originated, and by whom it has been advanced, is to connect with it all the details of society-business, the journeyings to and fro (in post-chaises or stagecoaches) of the three secretaries, the making and seconding of motions, the squabbles with Dr. Marsh, together with annual reports, lists of subscribers, donations, &c. &c.; than all which, we conceive, few things can be less poetical. This objection strikes deep; and we are sorry for it; for the poem before us is evidently the production,-probably the hasty production-of a mind, which, in fertility and elegance of conception, very far surpasses the usual level of poetical pamphleteers. The first paragraphs are very plea sing. Oh! to have heard the unearthly symphonies, Which o'er the star-light peace of Syrian skies Of those blest shepherds told that Heaven was nigh; Shone forth, and swelled the full angelic song- "Be peace; good will to men." Oh! to have heard |