did all our Bishops to the disabusing & reproch of all their delators; for none were more zealous against popery than they were.

29 March. A briefe was read in all Churches for relieving the French Protestants who came here for protection from the unheardof cruelties of their King.

15 April.-The Abp. of York* now died of the small-pox, aged 62, a corpulent man. He was my special loving friend, & whilst Bp. of Rochester (from whence he was translated) my excellent neighbour. He was an unexpressible losse to the whole Church, & that province especially, he being a learned, wise, stoute, & most worthy prelate; I looke on this as a great stroke to the poore Church of England now in this defecting period.

25 June. Now, his Mat, beginning with Dr. Sharp & Tully, proceeded to silence & suspend divers excellent divines for preaching against popery.

8 July. I waited on the Abp. at Lambeth, where I dined, & met the famous preacher & writer, Dr. Allix,† doubtlesse a most excellent & learned person. The Abp. & he spoke Latin together, & that very readily.

11 July. We had now the sad news of the Bp. of Oxford's (Dr. John Fell, also Deane of Christ's Church,) death, an extraordinary loss to the poore Church at this time.

14 July. Was sealed at our office the Constitution of certaine Commissioners, to take upon them the full power of all Ecclesiastical affairs, in as unlimited a manner, or rather greater than the late High Commission Court abrogated by Parliament, for it had not onely faculty to inspect & visite all Bishops' dioceses, but to change what laws & statutes they should think fit to alter among the Colledges, tho' founded by private men; to punish, suspend, fine, &c., give oathes & call witnesses: the maine drift was to suppress zealous Preachers. In sum, it was the whole power of a Vicar General. Note the consequence of the Cleargy. The Commissioners were-the Abp. of Canterbury (Sancroft), Bishops of Durham (Crew) & Rochester (Spratt); of the Temporals the Lord Treasurer, the Lord Chancellor, (Jeffries,) (who alone was ever to be of the Quorum,) the Chiefe Justice (Herbert), & Lord President (Earl of Sunderland.)

8 Sept.-Dr. Compton, Bp. of London, was on Monday suspended, on pretence of not silencing Dr. Sharp, of St. Giles, for something of a sermon in which he zealously reproved the doctrine of the Roman Catholics. The Bishop having consulted the Civilians, they told him that he could not, by any Law, proceed against Dr. Sharp, without producing witnesses, and impleading according to forme; but it was over-ruled by my Lord Chancellor, & the Bishop sentenced, without so much as being heard to any purpose. This was thought a very extraordinary way of proceeding, & was universally resented, & so

* Dr. John Dolben.

Of whom before, under 1685. He was a Minister of the Reformed Church at Charenton; he came over with his whole family, and met great encouragement here, He was the author of several learned discourses.

VOL. IX.-March, 1836.

2 N

much the rather, that two Bishops, Durham (Crew), & Rochester,* sitting in the Commission, and giving their suffrages, the Abp. of Canterbury refused to sit amongst them. He was only suspended ab officio, & that was soon after taken off. He was brother to the Earl of Northampton, had once ben a souldier, had travelled in Italy, but became a sober, grave, and excellent prelate.

5 Nov.-I went to St. Martin's in the morning, where Dr. Birch preached very boldly against the Papists, from 16 John 2. In the afternoone I heard Dr. Tillotson, in Lincoln's Inn Chapell, on the same Text, but more cautiously.

AUTUMNAL SEED-VESSELS.

BEAUTIFUL urns, "that neither spun nor sowed,"
Bearing your laden vessels to Heaven's eye,

Like manhood's goodly deeds; 'neath Autumn's sky,
Dropping your purple youth and glittering hood,
What sunbeams build you in your quietude,
So far beyond Art's labor'd mimicry,
Each varied, each their wild variety

In union blend, a sylvan sisterhood!

The hand that spann'd and painted yon blue dome
Is in the autumnal urn and vernal bell,

Shrining strange Beauty in a flowret's cell.

Oh, how much more, Flower of immortal Bloom,

Within thee and around thee doth He dwell,

Tempering that shadowy world whose key-stone is the tomb!

THE FELLOW-LABOurers.

My little mole, two callings have we two,-
One master. Where old Earth is hardest bound,
And shrub stretching his limbs with much ado,
There art thou with thy mattock and thy hoe,
And many-finger'd shovel; yet no sound
Speaks of thy whereabout, nor heard, nor found,
Save in thy mountain monuments! Kind to you
Should we be, fellow-labourers of the ground!
My little miner, with the velvet coat,

We are 'mid things we deem not! Didst e'er note
Blue sky, and flower, and field, or the sweet throat
Of birds around thee? To our work again.
Round us, too, tents are spread, unseen by men,
And companies too bright for human ken!

*Sprat; he afterwards would not sit.

Lyra Apostolica.

Γνοῖεν δ', ὡς δὴ δηρὸν ἐγὼ πολέμοιο πέπαυμαι.

NO. XXXIV.

1.—Πολυτλὰς Διᾶς Οδύσσως.

CEASE, Stranger, cease those piercing notes,
The craft of Siren choirs ;

Hush the seductive voice, that floats
Upon the languid wires.

Music's etherial fire was given,

Not to dissolve our clay,

But draw Promethean beams from heaven,

And purge the dross away.

Weak self! with thee the mischief lies,

Those throbs a tale disclose;
Nor age nor trial have made wise
The Man of many woes.

2.-MESSINA.

WHY, wedded to the Lord, still yearns my heart
Upon these scenes of ancient heathen fame?
Yet legend hoar, and voice of bard that came
Fixing my restless youth with its sweet art,
And shades of power, and those who bore their part
In the mad deeds that set the world in flame
So fret my memory here,-ah! is it blame
That from my eyes the tear is fain to start?
Nay, from no fount impure these drops arise;
'Tis but the sympathy with Adam's race,
Which in each brother's history reads its own.
So, let the cliffs and seas of this fair place

Be named man's tomb and splendid record stone,
High hope pride-stained, the course without the prize.

3.-TAORMINI.

And Jacob went on his way, and the Angels of God met him.

SAY, hast thou tracked a traveller's round

Nor visions met thee there,

Thou couldst but marvel to have found
This blighted world so fair?

And feel an awe within thee rise,
That sinful man should see

Glories far worthier Seraph's eyes

Than to be shared by thee?

Store them in heart! thou shalt not faint

'Mid coming pains and fears,

As the third heaven once nerved a saint
For fourteen trial-years.

4. CORFU.

I SAT beneath an olive's branches grey
And gazed upon the site of a lost town,
By sage and poet chosen for renown;
Where dwelt a Race that on the sea held sway,
And, restless as its waters, forced a way

For civil strife a thousand states to drown.
That multitudinous stream we now note down
As though one life, in birth and in decay.
Yet, is their being's history spent and run,
Whose spirits live in awful singleness

Each in his self-formed sphere of light or gloom?
Henceforth, while pondering the fierce deeds then done,
Such reverence on me shall its seal impress,
As though I corpses saw, and walked the tomb.

5.-FRANCE.

FRANCE! I will think of thee, as what thou wast,
When Poitiers shewed her zeal for the true creed;
Or in that age, when holy Truth, though cast
On a rank soil, yet was a thriving seed

Thy Schools within, from neighbour kingdoms chased.
E'en of thy pagan day I bear to read;

Thy Martyrs sanctified the guilty host,

True sons of Blessed John, reared on a western coast.

I dare not think of thee as what thou art,

Lest thoughts too deep for man should trouble me.

It is not safe to place the wayward heart

On brink of evil, or its flames to see,

Lest they should dizzy, or some taint impart,

Or to our sin a fascination be.

And so by silence I will now proclaim

Hate of thy present self, and scarce will sound thy name.

CORRESPONDENCE.

The Editor begs to remind his readers that he is not responsible for the opinions
of his Correspondents.

ORIGEN, AS TREATED IN THE PAPERS ON "THE DARK AGES." DEAR SIR,-Many of your readers must have been sorry to find the agreeable writer on "The Dark Ages" speak so slightingly of Origen. Surely those holy men whose cause he advocates would have been more startled at such expressions applied to that eminent Father, than ever they could have been by the manes of Virgil. The epistle to Gregory, alluded to, may certainly be read with a very different impression from that which he has described. If you should think it worthy of insertion, I think few of your readers would be offended at the beautiful application of Scripture history to enforce a truth

which it would be well for us if we attended to a little more in the present days-viz., of the little value, nay, the danger, of all pursuits, whether of science or literature, when they are not made subservient to the great cause of Christianity.

"But I would have you use all the faculties with which nature has endowed you, with Christianity for their end, and on such things only as means. For this purpose I would have you take up the philosophy of the Greeks as studies which may be preparatory and subsidiary to Christianity; and also whatever, from geometry and astronomy, may be useful for the reading of Holy Scripture. As the sons of the philosophers speak of geometry, and music, and grammar, and rhetoric, and astronomy, being associate handmaids to philosophy, so may we also say of philosophy itself with respect to Christianity. And perhaps something of this kind is signified in that which is written in Exodus, where the children of Israel are told, that they should ask of their neighbours jewels of silver, and jewels of gold, and raiment; so that by spoiling the Egyptians they might be provided with materials for the service of God. For it was from these spoils of the Egyptians that the Holy of Holies was furnished by the children of Israel, the ark, and the cherubims, and the mercy seat, and the golden pot in which the manna was laid up, the food of angels. Now, these things were probably made out of the best gold that came out of Egypt. (And from that which was inferior in value, and the silver and the raiment, &c. &c., the following)—

*

"But not to dwell any longer on the uses to which these things might have been applied, which the Egyptians had before turned to no good purpose, but the Hebrews, through the wisdom of God, converted to the services of divine worship. The divine Scripture, indeed, knows that to go down to Egypt from the land of Israel was evil; signifying, that to sojourn among the Egyptians, that is to say, in worldly studies, after being enrolled into the law of God, and the worship of Israel, is injurious to many. Hadad, the Idumean, is an instance of this; as long as he was in the land of Israel, and had tasted not the Egyptian bread, he made no idols: not so when he had fled from the wise Solomon, as it were from the wisdom of God, and became related to Pharaoh, by marrying his wife's sister, and had a son who was brought up among the sons of Pharaoh. Therefore it was, that although he returned unto the land of Israel, it was to cause divisions among the people of God, and to make them to say to the golden calves, 'These are thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt.' And I may assure you, from my own experience, that rare is the instance of one who hath taken the goods of Egypt, and hath come out from thence and applied them to the service of God; but many the brother of the Idumean Hadad. These are they who, from out of some Grecian subtlety, have conceived heretical notions, and, as it were, set up golden calves in Bethel, which is, being interpreted, The house of God.' It appears to me that, by these things, it is signified, that in the Scriptures, which are figuratively called Bethel, and wherein dwelleth the word of God, they set up the fictions of their own imagination.

"But do thou, my Lord and Son, before all things, give attentive heed to the reading of Holy Scripture-yea, attentive heed. For much heed and attention do we require in the reading of divine things, that we may neither say nor think anything concerning them with rashness. And giving this attention to the perusal of Scripture, with a faithful preparation of mind and such as may be pleasing unto God, knock thou at those parts that are closed, and the porter shall open unto thee, concerning whom Jesus said, 'to him the porter openeth.' And thus attentively studying the Scriptures, seek thou, with rectitude of purpose, and with an unswerving faith in God, for that understanding of the divine letter which is hidden from the many. But do not think it sufficient to knock and to seek only, for that which is of all things the most necessary towards a right understanding of divine things is prayer. Our Saviour, in his exhortation, hath not only said, knock and it shall be opened unto you,' and seek and ye shall find,' but also, ask and it shall be given you.' I have been so bold as to say these things to you, from the paternal affection I bear you. Whether it be well or ill that I have done so, God knows, and His Christ, and he that partaketh of the Spirit of God, and the Spirit of Christ. And may you ever partake of an increase in the same, &c."

Whether this is the letter alluded to or not (for I am not sure) it