of it, and close to the bank, where the overhanging branches afford a sort of safeguard, and are clung to by those whom the overwhelming torrent sweeps resistlessly along." Here, on Easter Monday, pilgrims crowd to be baptized, treasuring up for their burial the shirts worn during their immersion; believing, it is said, that the purgatorial flame would be immediately quenched by a garment bathed in the holy water. The Dead Sea is two hours journey from the Jordan, rolling "heavily as molten lead upon the shore."

Tiberias, with the exception of Jerusalem, is the cherished. home of the Hebrews: they come there from Germany, Poland, and Russia, poor and dependent, yet dying, in happiness and hope, where the Rejected healed and taught in vain. The earthquake of 1835 spread desolation over the town, which is delightfully situated on the shore of the sea of Galilee, with the mountains of Moab in the distance. Bethsaida, Chorazin, Capernaum-all are gone: Tiberias alone remains, mourning for its kindred that are not. The lake is about twelve miles long and six broad. The sacred scenery is unchanged; what a Persian traveller said of the East, generally, is here preeminently applicable-that at every step some object, idiom, dress, or custom of common life reminds the traveller of ancient times, and confirms the beauty and accuracy of the Bible. The lake of Tiberias gives back the reflection of the evangelical narrative in unbroken clearness. Here no controversies need distract the devotion of the pilgrim. The rocky caverns, about a mile from the town, are, with every probability, looked upon as the abode of that fierce Demoniac, who, night and day, was in the mountains and in the tombs, crying, and cutting himself with stones (Mark v. 5), whom our Lord restored to health. The lake was perfectly tranquil, without a single sail upon its

bosom.

We should be glad, if our space permitted us, to accompany Mrs. Romer to Damascus, about which she gossips very agreeably:

"The bazaars are spacious, well lighted, well ventilated, clean, and fragrant with the mingled smells of damask roses (sold there in profusion), tatabea, and the aromatic odours emanating from the numerous spice and perfumery shops. The veiled women gliding about, the turbaned men seated upon their carpetted shop-boards, dreamily running their fingers over the beads of their Mecca chaplets, or inhaling the cold fragrance of their bubbling narghiles; the sweet-meat vendors, hawking about their trays of tempting goods, in the shape of rose-leaf tarts, preserved mish mishes (apricots), lumps of delight, consolation to the throat, and a dozen varieties of haloa (bon bons), all equally

good; the ice-sellers, with little pails of frozen cream, and large water jars with a lump of snow from Lebanon closing the spout-all these mixed up with wild looking dervishes, and still wilder looking Bedouins from the neighbouring country of the Haouran, form a tout ensemble which has not its parallel in any other place. The far-famed blades of Damascus are no longer manufactured here, and are even rarely to be found in the bazaars; but its saddlery is still famous, and it is celebrated for its gold and silver tissues, and the striped silk and cotton stuffs which form so prominent a part in the costume of the Caireens, as well as of the inhabitants of Syria. Unset precious stones are also found here in plenty, especially pearls and turquoises, and every sort of gold and silver trimming is to be had better and cheaper in Damascus than in any other place in the east" (T. ii. pp. 347, 348).

Bidding adieu to Damascus, with its romance and squalidness, the travellers reined up their horses on the summit of a hill, to throw one parting glance over the city; groves and orchards, thirty miles in circumference, were stretched before their eyes. We remember that Dr. Arnold calls the south of France, Kent, six degrees nearer to the sun: Mrs. Romer was reminded of the verdure of Richmond under the sunshine of Syria. The road lay over the mountain-range of the Anti-Lebanon, and was sufficiently rugged and miserable to detract largely from the charm of the landscape. This was delicious: water, green banks, and foliage as the evening drew in, the music of unnumbered frogs among the shady lanes made the scene more discordant. They reached the town of Baalbec, when the inhabitants had gone to their rest; for practice succeeds in obtaining sleep even in Syria. All was dark as they halted under a broad-spreading tree. The work concludes with a description of the Temple of the Sun, built, according to Eastern legends, by the enchanter Solomon, and his Genii.

Mrs. Romer is an amusing writer, and her tour is interesting as the most recent visit to the scenes it describes. Her style would be improved by condensation, and a rigorous weeding out of those Gallic idioms, that positively defile a large portion of our modern literature. Is not the English tongue sufficiently copious for the ordinary purposes of narrative? Why should a cemetery in Damascus remind a traveller of the scene des nonnes in "Robert le Diable?" The association is most unpleasing; and we think that if we could borrow the Chinese glass of Lao (of which Goldsmith gives a glimpse in "The Citizen of the World"), and show lady-authors the grotesque absurdity of this parti-coloured costume, they would make, at least, a strong effort to relinquish it.

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ART. X-The Succession of Bishops in the Church of England unbroken; or the Nag's-head Fable Refuted. With a Postscript on the Ordination Services of Edward VI. By E. C. HARINGTON, M.A., Prebendary of Exeter, &c. London: Rivingtons. 1846.

FALSEHOOD is hydra-headed and needs to be branded as well as crushed; and this Nag's-head falsehood, which has been often crushed, has such tenacity of life that Prebendary Harington is rendering good service to truth, as well as to the Church of England, by the full exposure and refutation contained in this pamphlet, which every one may procure and more conveniently refer to than the volumes of Bramhall, Courayer and others from whose writings the facts are selected, or than ecclesiastical registers which few can consult.

The story appears to be one tissue of falsehood from beginning to end, and it was first invented to throw discredit on all English ordinations, by insinuating that Archbishop Parker himself and the bishops of our Church had not been truly ordained; and that, therefore, the Church of England is cut off from the Catholic Church, and all her ordinations and other ecclesiastical acts thus invalid-she being self-constituted and therefore only a voluntary sect. It is so strange an invention that it could not have obtained a moment's credence at the time to which it relates; but, having first appeared full forty years after the events supposed, it obtained currency to a certain extent, in consequence of the death of all those who figured in the story, and among persons who find an interest in propagating the calumny, and who are ignorant both of the history of the time and of the habits and manners of the English people. For it cannot obtain the least credence with persons who are acquainted with history, these would at once perceive the impossibility of practising such a deception as the story supposes, which would involve the falsification of great numbers of the most important documents, both civil and ecclesiastical, without there having been one honest or one interested person in the nation for forty years to make known such wholesale forgeries; and that at a time when half the kingdom were of the Roman Catholic persuasion, and each one of these had an interest in believing the English ordinations invalid! The whole tale is so absurd that it has generally been scouted with contempt by every well informed person, and it was so received by Mr. Harington, when he published his ordination sermons, in 1845. For he then said: "The objection sometimes advanced, that the succession was broken in the sixteenth century, is too weak to require re

futation." But he now says-" Unhappily the author, when he wrote the above paragraph, was unacquainted with the extent of human credulity and the influence of popular prejudice. He has been informed that the Nag's-head fable is still believed by many, who, therefore, deny the fact of the apostolical succession in the Church of England."

None of the respectable or well-informed classes, even among the Roman Catholics, have believed the story, or questioned on any such grounds as these the validity of the English ordinations. Valesius, a Franciscan, writing in 1664, says "Where I seem somewhat too severe on Matthew Parker, the first Protestant Archbishop of Canterbury, under Queen Elizabeth, you must not persuade yourself I do at all reflect upon his ordination. And twelve years after he writes "The ordination of the Protestant Church of England is valid:" and a case which brought the question to an issue is mentioned by Prideaux of an English clergyman, named Goffe, becoming a Roman Catholic, and the question arose whether he should be re-ordained. "The matter was proposed to many doctors of the Sorbonne, who after having examined it gave in their opinion that our orders were good; but that affair appearing too important to be left to the decision of a few divines Rome was consulted, which, according to her practice, enjoined the (second) ordination, upon account that the doubt still remained for want of clearly stating the fact ......yet the Sorbonists still stuck to their opinion that he was a good priest by his first ordination." The re-ordination was conditional, lest there should have been some irregularity in the first, which was not administered in the Roman communion; and in like manner it is their practice to re-baptize those who are admitted amongst them, notwithstanding they hold with the Catholic Church that baptism with water, and in the name of the Trinity, is valid by whomsoever administered, and hold also that this sacrament may not be repeated. But they re-baptize conditionally, lest perchance something essential should have

been omitted.

Of the Nag's-head fable itself, Dr. Lingard, himself a Roman Catholic, writes as follows:

"I ought perhaps to mention a story which was once the subject of acrimonious controversy between the divines of the two communions. It was said that Kitchen and Scorey, with Parker and the other bishops elect, met in a tavern called the Nag's-head, in Cheapside; that Kitchen, on account of a prohibition from Bonner, refused to consecrate them; and that Scorey, therefore, ordered them to kneel down, placed the Bible on the head of each, and told him to rise up a bishop. Of this tale, concerning which so much has been written, I can find no trace in any author or document of the reign of Elizabeth.

It is not improbable that the commissioners, having confirmed the election, dined together at the Nag's-head, the inn chiefly frequented by the clergy at that period; and that this circumstance may have given rise to the story (Hist. of Eng. vii. 380. note).

Dr. Lingard gives the true account of the invention; but it is necessary to give it more particularly. Mr. Neale, who seems to have been the inventor, published this fable in 1600; and the consecration of Parker took place in 1559; yet during these forty years, "neither Stapleton, nor Harding, nor Bristow, nor Alan, nor Reynolds, nor Parsons, nor any one of the Roman Catholic writers does so much as allude to it." Neale mentions no time, but Dr. Champney says that it was before the 9th Sep. 1559. This date was a guess, but it is palpably wrong: there was a commission issued under the great seal bearing the date, but this commission was not executed; the commission which was executed was dated the 6th Dec. 1559-both of these being recorded in the rolls. But this is not all it was the Confirmation only that took place at Bow Church, in Cheapside, and it took place on the 9th Dec., and at the confirmation Parker was not present; his consecration took place at Lambeth on the 17th of Dec. 1559, as is proved by the most incontestible documents.

"In the registry of the metropolitan chapter of Canterbury the vacancy of that see is noticed from Nov. 1558, when Pole died, until the 8th of Dec. 1559, in the several commissions to the officers of the province and diocese of Canterbury, occupying one hundred and six leaves in the registry. Again, the registry of the Prerogative Court contains the probates of thirty-seven wills, between the 15th of Sep. 1559, and the 9th of Dec. following, all entered as having been made before Walter Haddon, commissary of the court during the vacancy of the see; and on that day the form is changed, and the entries until the 15th of Dec. are in the name of Walter Haddon, acting under the authority of Archbishop Parker elected and confirmed."

In addition to the legal documents proving the time and place of Parker's consecration, the following testimony of one who survived to the time of the invention of the fable is given in Mason's "Vindication :"

"The consecration of Archbishop Parker, which was solemnized sixty years ago and more, is beyond the memory of most men now alive; and yet it has pleased God to preserve for us one witness, venerable for his age, and every way above the reach of exception--I mean the most noble and renowned Lord Charles Howard, Earl of Nottingham, and late Lord High Admiral of England, who, in the year 1616, being asked by a friend whether or no he was invited to honour the consecration of Archbishop Parker and the solemnity thereo

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