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sunrise by Bishop Hall, its brilliancy of colour will be perceived.

“* Taylor, like Claude, seems to have felt that, by taking Nature as he found it, he seldom produced beauty. Reynolds describes the pictures of that painter as compositions of the various draughts which he had previously made from scattered scenes and prospects of unusual loveliness. The preacher resembled the artist, and as the most magnificent landscapes have been given to us by historical painters-Titian, Caracci, N. Poussin-so we are indebted for some of the brightest landscapes in words to the grave instructors in theology and virtue."

Several of Jeremy Taylor's most popular works were composed in this retirement, where his memory is still maintained amongst the peasantry, and his name associated with a walk which he is supposed to have frequented.

"His 'Great Exemplar,' belonging to the same period of his intellectual life, bears similar marks of the fruitful soil from which it sprung. Weary to adopt his own image with rowing up and down the seas of questions, he steered his course into the serener waters and stiller air of holier and more delightful studies. He turns aside from controversy to that part of theology which is wholly practical; that which makes us wiser, because it makes us better. In the Great Exemplar,' as in all his works, he seeks to attract and please his readers. Earnest to advance, by all means, the necessity, and to explain the duties of a holy life, he endeavours to allure some by mingling what is profitable with what is agreeable, and others, by such parts as will better entertain their spirits than a romance. In the hope and desire of being useful, he abstained from embossing the argument with his usual profusion of figures and tracery. Perhaps his pencil never manifested so sweet and retiring a chastity of colour as in this delineation of Christian life. Rubens, for a season, is lost in Raffælle."

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inquired that rhyming lady, am I to find a place to bait if I try the journey to that planet? Madam,' replied the discoverer, of all the people in the world I least expected that question from you, who have built so many castles in the air, that you may lie every night in one of your own.' Wilkins appeals to our sympathy upon stronger grounds than his science or wit would furnish. Related to Cromwell by a marriage with his sister, he employed his influence on behalf of persecuted piety and learning, and the preservation of the Universities has been attributed to his energetic remonstrance."

In 1658, Taylor was invited by Lord Conway, the ancestor of the present Marquis of Hertford, to accept a lectureship in Lisburn. The situation was precarious, and the remuneration very small. An effort had been made by Archbishop Usher to unite the Presbyterian with the Episcopalian Church. With this view that Primate admitted the ministers of both churches indiscriminately to benefices without the renunciation of their peculiar tenets. This project of union was most useful to the Presbyterians in the north, where their numbers were greatest; but it was particularly distasteful to Jeremy Taylor, who, notwithstanding the deceptive policy adopted in the production of his work on the liberty of prophesying, was an adherent of the Laudian school, and almost as a necessary consequence a persecutor. Respecting the origin of his Irish connexion we learn from Mr Willmott's volume :—

"The proposed provision, arising chiefly from an alternate lectureship in Lisburn, a small town seventy-three miles from Dublin, in the county of Antrim, offered no remarkable temptation. Nor was Taylor gratified by the prospect. Lisburn, now one of the handsomest towns in the province of Ulster, was, in the time of James I., a very inconsiderable village, and had only begun to improve under the care of Lord Conway.

We stated that there are, interspersed in the volume, many references to the contemporaries of Taylor, who "I like not,' was Taylor's characteristic reply, the was very seldom in London after the commencement of condition of being a lecturer under the disposal of another, the Parliamentary war. nor to serve in any semicircle where a Presbyterian and He complains, indeed, that myself shall be, like Castor and Pollux, one up and the “res angustæ domi" prevented him from visiting his other down. Sir, the stipend is so inconsiderable, it will not friend Evelyn so often as he would have desired. In pay the charge and trouble of removing myself and family. ether words, the travelling expenses were above his It is wholly arbitrary: for the triers may overthrow it; or the vicar may overthrow it; or the subscribers may means; and until his elevation to the see of Dromore, die, or grow weary or poor, or be absent. This was Evelyn allowed him a pension from his private purse. written on the 12th May (1658); and in the following His biographer, however, mentions that he was occasion-month he is believed to have quitted London for Ireland. ally in London; and the following note of a distinguished dinner party occurs in the volume :

"Upon the 12th April, 1656, he dined with Evelyn in company with Berkeley, Boyle, and Wilkins. Of Boyle the faintest praise is conveyed in Evelyn's designation. 'A great virtuso,' indeed, he was, but he was learned only to be good. His piety was not in theory, but in practice; and his life expanded itself into a commentary upon his lessons. In the hands of such a man, the arts of human ingenuity became ennobled and as Burke said of Reynolds, that in painting portraits he appeared not to be raised upon that platform, but to descend to it from a higher sphere: so we may affirm of Boyle, that he came upon the stage of literature with a bloom over his garments that breathed of a remoter and purer climate.

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His reason for accepting an appointment which he had so recently and decisively declined, may, perhaps, be found in some expected purchase of forfeited lands which Dr Petty promised to obtain for him. Other inducements were not wanting. He was assured by Lord Conway of 'many intimate kindnesses.' He took with him the warmest recommendations from persons of the most distinguished rank in England; and that his introduction might fall in no particular of dignity, he was protected by a pass, under the sign manual and privy signet of Cromwell. The tradition of his decendants assigns to him a residence near Lord Conway's mansion at Portmore, which Rust informs us that he dearly loved. Heber thinks it probable that he only visited Lisburn-about nine miles distant-to fulfil his weekly engagement, and that he often preached to a small congregation of loyalists in the half ruined church of Kilulta."

Thus Lord Conway prevailed. The Hertford family appear to have an hereditary attachment to clerical friendships, without always deriving any corresponding purity of character and life from the association. The

"Wilkins was a person of singular ingenuity, and deserves to be remembered as one of the earliest English scholars who endeavoured to make science popular and practical. His fancy, however, outran his judgment. His theory of a passage to the moon provoked the smile of his contemporaries, and subsequently caught the eye" mansion at Portmore"'—a locality described by Taylor of Pope.

The head that turns at super-lunar things, Poised on a tail, may steer on Wilkins' wings.' "His retort to the Duchess of Newcastle would alone have authorised a claim to conversational eminence. Where,'

as being "exceedingly beautiful," and to which he formed an attachment, not lessened by his remembrance of Golden Grove,-now is not; and for very many years the Hertfords have been absentees, drawing eighty thousand

pounds annually from a district that the late owner, we believe, never visited; through an agent, who is also the incumbent of Lisburn. While in this situation Taylor again fell into trouble with the Government, though it appears that Cromwell had no objections to the appointment, since the lecturer travelled to Ireland with a pass, signed by the Protector. Mr Willmott thus refers to the circumstance :

"Acting upon the accusation of the Presbyterians impelled, it is believed, by jealousy-the Irish Privy gus, commanding him immediately to 'cause the body of Dr. Jeremy Taylor to be sent up to Dublin under safe custody,' in order that he might answer all charges on behalf of the commonwealth. The warrant is dated Au

Council issued a warrant to the Governor of Carrickfer

gust 11, 1659, and Carrickfergus is only a few miles from Lisburn; it seems, therefore, difficult to explain the long interval that elapsed before it was enforced. Taylor writes to Evelyn, Feb. 10, 1659-60: I had been in the worst of our winter weather sent for to Dublin, by our late Anabaptist commissioners, and found the evil of it so great, that in my going I began to be ill; but in my return had my ill redoubled.' His health was soon reestablished, and the absence of any farther entry in the Journals of the Council seems to intimate that he obtained an easy acquittal.

"On the 3d of the previous November he acknowledged the pecuniary assistance which Evelyn had left for him in the hands of Mr. Martin, the bookseller in St. Paul's Churchyard-not, as it appears, without some personal inconvenience, by reason of the evil circumstances of the times.'"

There is not any ground given for the statement that Taylor was accused by the Presbyterians, who had their full share of suffering; arising out of their unwise attachment to that exiled family, in which the future Bishop was so closely related; and it even does not appear that any greater inconvenience than a journey to Dublin was incurred from the accusation. In June of 1660, Charles II. was on the throne; and Jeremy Taylor dedicated to his royal brother-in-law the "Ductor Dubitantium❞—a work which that monarch's grandfather, with all his pedantry and foibles, would have more readily esteemed. Charles, however, in return, issued his presentation to the See of Down and Connor. Mr. Willmott endeavours to trace some points of resemblance between Milton and Taylor. There is certainly one, viz.--that they lived and wrote in the same age. Mr. Willmott says

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or gaze on the sun setting behind the trees of Grongar Hill-the poet was encompassed by darkness and solitude, and lifted his eyes in vain to the returning

'Day, or the sweet approach of even or morn: Or light of vernal bloom or summer's rose.The work of Taylor appeared in the triumph; that of Milton, in the overthrow of his party. The temper of the age was alike unfavourable to both-Sprat was to become the model of our prose, and Waller, the critic of our poetry. Where could Taylor or Milton look for immediate sympathy and applause? It was Bacon reading his essays on the Boulevards, or Raffælle exhibiting the Transfiguration in Alsatia."

How strange it is that this school of writers can so easily overlook the republicanism of Milton, while they will

neither forget nor forgive the grave and stern master-spirit of the age, whose life was a grander poem than England had read before; who rose from the people to rule the destinies of his country for years; who increased her fame, and influence, and possessions in the earth, without enriching or ennobling his family. The Church of Ireland," writes this author, "was immediately restored.”

"The church of Ireland, thus restored to her former splendour and harmony of episcopal government, had need of all the patience and light, that piety and learning could impart. Her enemies were chiefly divided into two classes-Romanists and Dissenters. The first, in their lives irregular, in their religion superstitious; the second, turbulent and presumptuous, Calvinistic in doctrine, and more than latudinarian in discipline. The dissenters were peculiarly obnoxious to ecclesiastical interference. Conformity to the Book of Common Prayer, became the condition of retaining a benefice. This law the bishops were bound to enforce. But the Primate set an example of moderation, and the presbyterian incumbents were permitted, and even exhorted to receive episcopal orders.”

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There is nothing more annoying in examining these topics than the cool complacency with which we find historical facts written down and distorted. The diocese of Dromore had then been united to that of Down and Connor, for the first time, we believe, in the person of Jeremy Taylor, who had evidently no strong objection to pluraliHe was, indeed, at every stage and period of his Ecclesiastical life a pluralist-when that was possible. And Mr. Willmott writes of restoring the former splendour of the Irish church, as if such incumbencies were consistent with its ancient usages. Without entering upon the very interesting inquiry respecting the position of the old, or primitive Irish church, we may at once assert, that it neither was nor could have been Episcopalian in the sense in which we now understand the term, or in which we see that form of Government practised ; for there is evidence, of undisputed authenticity, that five centuries previous to Jeremy Taylor's installation into the Sees of Down and Connor, and Dromore, there were, in Ireland, three to four hundred [Bishops,-a number equal, at least, to as many thousands, at the present day, in proportion to the population; and implying, of necessity, that the dioceses could not have been halves, and thirds, or quarters of two or three counties each, but contracted parishes. "The latitudinarianism of discipline" ascribed to Dissenters, is also a false term; for in the essential points of church discipline, they were proverbially strict; while they could not be styled "latitudinarian" towards a mode of government which they openly disavowed and resisted, as, in their opinion, unscriptural.

The greatest practical blot in Jeremy Taylor's character is slightly passed over, in the following short extract, by Mr. Willmott :

"The diocese of Taylor embraced all these clements of disorder. 'It was in this part of Ireland more than in any other, that the clearance of the episcopalian clergy had been most effectual, and that their places had been supplied by the sturdiest champions of the covenant, taken for the most part from the west of Scotland-disciples of Cameron, Renwick, and Peden-and professing in the wildest and most gloomy sense, the austere principles of their party.'

"In an atmosphere, so charged with fire, a conductor is with a storm of indignation and invective from almost easily found. The appointment of Taylor was received every pulpit. His efforts to mitigate and allay it were unwearied and constant. Carte mentions them in the Life of Oromond. In public, and in private, by preaching

and conversation, he endeavoured to convince his oppo- | Taylor's writings, yet there are advantages to be obtained nents. Nor was he entirely unsuccessful. Many minis- from the examination of his character and life, blurred ters gradually yielded to his arguments and exhortations, though it is by deceptive practices, a slight love of the while among the laity his labours brought forth more abundant fruit. In cases where gentleness and entreaty world, and a persecuting spirit; for he was the ornament failed, the arm of authority was the only remedy. Of those in every way of that party, who, headed by Laud, lost a presbyterians who defied his jurisdiction, and refused to attend his visitation, ejection from their livings was the and principles so many in the Church of England are crown, and caused a bloody revolution, but whose policy just and unavoidable punishment; while the admission of more peaceful successors promoted the tranquillity and or- again labouring to restore. der of the diocese. When the church of Ireland was called to bewail the death of Bramhall, Taylor drew a A lively picture of the difficulties and toil of weeding her fields, overgrown and out of cultivation."

It detracts nothing from this Bishop's crime, that he subsequently preached a sermon before the Irish Parlia ment in favour of toleration, for his actions appear never He died before the to have squared with his opinions. revolution was completed.

We say nothing of the propriety of these parties having accepted the appointment to those livings in the unconditional manner previously mentioned; but ". 'ejection from their livings" was surely not "the just and unavoidable punishment" of refusing obedience to a jurisdiction that they never acknowledged; of refusing to obey a condition that they never accepted, and that it was known when they received these appointments, to those who conferred them, that they never would accept. Jeremy Taylor was himself ejected from the benefice of Uppingbam, in Rutlandshire, for resistance to the civil authority then existing at least de facto in England-a disobedience for which many lost their lands, and many more their lives. It does not, indeed, appear that his antipathy to the Republican Government was of such a character as prevented him from taking a good bargain from it when offered; for he went to Ireland, as we have heard from his biographer, in the hope and purpose of buying forfeited land at a cheap rate. But these men whom Jeremy Taylor ejected from their parishes were obedient to the civil authority, and had been even too zealcus in seeking and working its re-establishment; and it must be remembered that mere ejection was not always the only "punishment" which they experienced. However much it may reduce the practical value of | nished an otherwise noble name.

Recurring to our first extract from this volume, we cannot avoid the remark that the opinions which Usher may have wished to smother by kindness, and Taylor to extinguish by persecution, flourished more under the enmity of the Bishop than the favour of the Archbishop

"The lights were extinguished in the windows, but the work was busily carried on within the house."

And so now the English Church does not contain within her pale nearly one-half even of the Protestants of Ireland, notwithstanding the notoriously and designedly deceptive returns made to Parliament so late as 1834. The policy pursued towards that Church in Ireland prevented it from ever taking root there. The majority of its dignitaries have been transmitted from England, and its emoluments regarded as the reward of political intrigue and subserviency. Percy, the collector of ancient English poetry, occupied subsequently the See of Dromore; and both Sees, now permanently united, are held by an English bishop: a somewhat dry author, who, without inheriting a spark of Taylor's imaginative powers and eloquence, is heir to all those principles which tar

THE BALTIC PROVINCES.

Is these days of Evangelical Alliance, and Christian as well as humane professions of brotherhood, it seems but natural to turn an eye of watchful sympathy upon those who are trebly our brethren—as men, as Saxons, and as Protestants-the German-descended inhabitants of the Baltic Provinces now subject to Russia; and who, in open despite of all laws, human and Divine, solemn treaties and chartered rights, are, at this moment, subjected to as much persecution as dare be inflicted in the centre of Europe and of the nineteenth century. It may assist in forming a due estimate of their position, to cast a retrospective glance on their wayward and eventful history.Those countries now commonly called the Baltic Provinces -viz., Livonia, Esthonia, Courland, and Semigalliawere, at a very early date, under the Russian sway; but, still, only as tributary states, each possessing its own constitution and government. Nor did the Russians even so far regard them as their own, as to feel bound to ward off the attacks of foreign invaders. Thus it came to pass that, during the long period of Russia's internal dissensions, those seaward tributaries found opportunity entirely to throw off the yoke; nor were they again brought fully under subjection, until Peter the Great succeeded in reasserting and enforcing his claims upon them in 1721.

To the rest of Europe, Livonia had remained almost a
terra incognita, until 1150, when some adventurous
Bremen merchants, attempting to establish some new
mercantile connexion with the North, were shipwrecked
on its coasts. Livonia was, thenceforward, visited more
frequently by Bremen ships; and, at length, some mer-
cantile adventurers established themselves in the country.
In 1186, an Augustine monk, named Meinhard, accom-
panied by a handful of Germans, settled in Livonia. He
converted some of the inhabitants to Christianity, and
became the first bishop. But for his third successor,
Bishop Albrecht, who entered the Dwina with a fresh
host of crusaders, was reserved the honour of laying
a sure foundation of spiritual rule. He built the city
of Riga, in 1200, and removed thither the seat of
his bishopric. Towards the end of the same century,
Knud, or Kanute, sixth King of Denmark, made him- .....
self master of these provinces; which were, however,
made over by his successor, Woldemar, for a sum of
money, to the Teutonic Order; which uniting with the
Brethren of the Sword (an order of spiritual knighthood
instituted by Bishop Albrecht, in 1201), the Teutonic
Knights found themselves at once in possession of Livo-
nia, Courland, Semigallia, and Esthonia, and maintained

command, prohibition, or addition, be oppressed or disquieted in the exercise of the same:" and, secondly, article 7th of the Act of Confirmation, dated 16th December, 1566, which declares-"The province of Livonia, with all its inhabitants without exception, shall be left in the free and unhindered exercise of the true and recognised religion and doctrine of the Word of God, and in the use of the sacraments, in conformity to the rules of the Confession of Augsburg; nor shall any preacher be warranted, or permitted, to introduce, or prescribe, any change or innovation thereof, within the bounds of the said province." Yet what is the manner in which this solemn compact has been held by the Emperor Nicholas? So far from no preacher being permitted to introduce religious innovations, the whole of the Baltic provinces have been, of late years, overrun by swarms of emissaries of the Greek Church, both priestly and laical, and, for a time,

the same until 1561, when the diminished power of the Order disabling it from coping successfully with Czar John Waselewitch II., whose ambition prompted him to recover provinces once owning Muscovite rule, the unequal conflict ended in a complete disruption of the State. Esthonia threw itself into the arms of Sweden; Livonia became united with Poland; while Courland and Semigallia formed an Independent Duchy, under the Suzerainty of Poland, and by it was bestowed, as a fief, on Gatthard Kettler, the last Grand-Master of the Teutonic Order.From that period, Livonia became the unhappy apple of discord for whose possession Sweden, Russia, and Poland contended for almost a century-viz., from 1561 to 1660, -in which year, at the peace of Oliva, Poland surrendering it up to Sweden, it became united with Esthonia; until, at length, by the peace of Nystädt, in 1721, Peter the Great, as already mentioned, obtained the restitution of both countries,-guaranteeing, however, the main-threats, as well as bribes, were unsparingly employed to tenance of all existing privileges and rights belonging to the German landed proprietors, who being, without exception, noble, were free from suffering, though unhappily not from inflicting, those tyrannies on their serfs, to which more than one author in modern times (see, particularly, Merkel, in his book entitled, "die Letten," and Petri, in his work, “die Esthen") has called the world's attention. The kind-hearted Emperor Alexander did much to ameliorate these, and, had he been spared, would probably have wholly removed them; but the Emperor Nicholas is fonder of tightening than relaxing the reins, and more set upon proselytising than improving his Lutheran subjects. The German inhabitants of these provinces, though the smaller, form the only influential portion, as including the estated gentry, the clergy, and most of the inhabitants of the towns. The first, who all belong to the class of nobility, are the descendants of those bold and warlike adventurers who, in early times, obtained, and retained, by the strong hand of power, large tracts of land, subjecting the natives to their iron vassalage indeed, but, at the same time, bestowing upon them the inestimable blessings of civilization and Christianity. In Livonia and Esthonia, the nobles exercised a kind of oligarchical government, which, though much curtailed in modern times, retains still too much of chartered privilege and immunity to be willingly relinquished by themselves, or justly abrogated by an Imperial Ukase. This is especially the case with their religious privileges. The right of appointing their clergy was, and is, vested in the lords of the soil; and, though serfship is now abolished in Livonia (and much ameliorated in Esthonia), still the peasant and his lord have many intimately reciprocating relationships, which render the latter the natural, as he has hitherto been the undisputed, adviser and guide of his illiterate dependents, in both religious and political matters. The claim to immunity from ecclesiastical interference, by the Livonian nobles, is founded on two documents, viz.the first clause of the Act of Subjection, to Sigismund Augustus, King of Poland, drawn up by the representatives of the nation, on the 28th November, 1561, which runs thus: "First, and chief of all, we implore your Majesty, to leave to us, unmolested and inviolable, the religion which we, in accordance with the evangelic and apostolic writings of the pure church, the decrees of the Nicene Council and the Augsburg Confession, have hitherto maintained; and that we may in no time coming, by any

aid the work of conversion. Since, however, the affair of the nuns of Minsk (whether true or false), has brought the Emperor's proselytising spirit prominently before the eyes of Europe, a change of policy has been adopted in respect of his Baltic possessions, and the current of proselytism runs more darkly, though, it is believed, not less strongly, than before. In May last, for example, a decree of the Riga Government announced, as from Imperial authority, "It is specially commanded that all persons, desirous of going over from the Lutheran to the Greek communion, shall be expressly informed by the local authorities, and that in the presence of their former clergy, that they have no temporal advantage whatever to expect by a change of religion, and that they shall remain in their previous nexus to their territorial superiors, as aforetime, which, being sanctioned by the laws of the empire, can never be abrogated." But, notwithstanding these fair-sounding words, the country is subjected as much as ever to the machinations of a set of fanatical emissaries, who, if unauthorised, are at least winked at, by the Russian authorities, and thus foster, unhindered, their destructive influence with the short-sighted and credulous peasantry, to whom they whisper, in palpable contradiction of the above ordnance. "Do you keep yourself quiet, and trust to our assurances! It is true no immediate benefit dare be conferred on you, because your lords would say, you were bribed; but, if you go over to the orthodox church of your Emperor, you may depend upon it, you shall, in due time, have your reward, which will consist, not only in your being set free from all your present dutywork, and other tributes to your masters, but in the making over to you of the proprietorship of those portions of land which you now occupy at their will and pleasure; and even should it be difficult to bring all this about under Nicholas, you may depend upon obtaining it at the accession of the next Emperor.” "But how," say the people,

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are we to know that our change will ever be made known to the Emperor?" "Oh!" reply the deceivers, "inscribe your names in the Greek Church books, and all is secure; sooner or later you will be as independent as your lords. Besides, there are vast tracts of country, much richer and more productive than Livonia, which the Emperor has determined to colonize only with Greek Christians; whoever, therefore, desires to become rich, has now the opportunity. See here," continue these wily spiritual recruiting sergeants, see here, the pro

found deserving of being punished by deposition from his present post, and transference to Siberia, there to pursue his official calling in a country the farthest of all removed from European culture, and amongst a people who have scarcely passed the lowest step of human intelligence! The small and unimportant Greek school for priests which existed in Riga has been elevated into a seminary, in which, in future, the young Greek priests destined for Livonia are to be educated. The expense of building Greek churches, as well as the necessary school and priest houses, is imposed upon the landed proprietors, who are thus reduced to the mortifying necessity of promoting with their own money that religion which they contemn as false, and detest as a badge of their servitude! Con

duct of those lands, that you may judge for yourselves." | writer was consequently called to strict account, and And, hereupon, they open a show-box, furnished with a strong magnifying glass, and a picture, representing a single potatoe (smoking on a dish), large enough to satisfy the hunger of a whole family seated around it; or two stout fellows thrashing at one head of such Brobdignag wheat, that it seems to furnish a bushel of grain! Ignorance and credulity swallow the bait the more greedily, in consequence of the total failure of the potato, and the extreme paucity of return from the grain harvest of the past year, so that the experience of present famine naturally enhances the delights of prospective abundance; and the peasantry are forsaking, in crowds, the faith of their forefathers, and going over to the Greek Church! In former times, it was but permitted to the Greek priests to wander from place to place, with ambu-scious of inability to resist by force, yet unable calmly to latory chapels, for the purpose of administering the rites of their religion to the few members of their communion scattered here and there throughout these provinces. Now Greek churches are springing up by Government order in every district. Orders have been given to build sixty in Esthonia alone, and even the Lutheran clergy have been recently subjected to espionage and encroachment on their liberty of preaching, to a degree before unknown. The sudden removal, last summer, by an imperial order, of pastor J** (one of the most worthy and most highly esteemed of the Riga Lutheran elergy) from his pastorate in that city to one in Siberia, excited universal surprise and sympathy. He had been twenty-five years preacher in Riga, and was editor for many past years of a well-known journal called The Letten Friend," which truly made good its claim to the title by its invariable tendency to promote the religious and mental culture of the lower classes of the people, and was eagerly read and circulated to the extent of many hundred copies. In addition to essays and intelligence calculated to inform and instruct, it also occasionally contained artieles of a lighter and amusing character, and had recently, before the astounding catastrophe of its editor's real, though not ostensible banishment, contained an attractively written novel, founded for the most part on actual historical occurrences of the sixteenth century, during that period of religious disturbance which the Roman hierarchy stirred up amongst the Greek population of the then kingdom of Poland, and in which the neighbouring Letti were considerably involved. In this novel the Greek clergy fancied they could discover marked allusions to the present religious movements in Livonia. The

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bear the galling yoke, from which they cannot even temporarily withdraw themselves by residing in foreign countries (permission to travel being obtained always with much expense and trouble, and never for a long period), the Livonian nobles determined some time ago to offer their estates in a body to the Emperor for purchase, for which purpose a deputation proceeded to St. Petersburg, with sanguine hopes that the Emperor would gladly grasp at the opportunity of obtaining, as lord of the soil, free and unhindered power to proselytise en masse. But they were mistaken; Nicholas declined the offer, probably unwilling to furnish all Europe with so convincing a proof of the felt dèsagrèmens of Russian sway, and the Livonian nobles, by their certainly unpatriotic and ungenerous intended abandonment of their poorer brethren in the faith, have but drawn on themselves the suspicion of disaffection and a more strict surveillance from the authorities. How all may terminate is known only to HIM who so often brings good out of evil, but private letters depict the country as in a state of much ferment, the nobles generally unwilling to forego agrarian privileges and claims on the peasantry, the relinquishment of which might possibly even yet check the torrent of proselytism, by countervailing the supposititious advantages it holds forth, and the few liberal-minded nobles are unable to effect any radical improvement: Lutherans by principle mourn for the defection, and tremble for its consequences, and the best friends of those valuable and once happy provinces are looking forward with grief and dismay to those "coming events," which, as it seems to them, already "cast their shadows before."

TACTICS OF THE MIDDLE PARTY.

THE opposition offered to the election of Mr. Bright for Manchester is discreditable to one portion of his rival's supporters. The Conservative electors are justified in employing those means most likely to advance their ends. They would gain a great victory in the return of the Earl of Lincoln for the metropolis of Free Trade-the cradle of the League. They would enhance their triumph by giving politicians a stern proof that, amongst the manufacturing and mercantile classes, there was no such feeling as political gratitude, and no regard evinced for the most disinterested

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services. One of the members for Dorsetshire, in some of the tirades of the next session against the manufacturing interests, might adduce the pollbooks in evidence of the cool cruelty with which the spinners of the North could dismiss an old and faithful servant. The return of the Earl of Lincoln for Manchester would help his party in many respects; but we cannot so very clearly see the precise objects to be gained by the Whig section of his Lordship's friends in South Lancashire. They, at least, will not plead the simplicity of being dazzled by the lustre of a coronet, and be

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