Mr. Bird is preparing a new Edition of his Emigrant's Tale, and Miscellaneous Poems.

In the Press, an Account of China. Comprehending its Political History, Government, Laws, Literature, Institutions, Manners, and Customs; its Geography, its Commerce, internal and external; the Duties and Regulations in respect to Foreign Trade; an accurate Account of the Coins, Weights, and Measures at Canton; a History of British Intercourse with China; a Description of the Articles which constitute the Returns in its Foreign Trade; Abstract of Acts and Regulations at Home, &c., &c. In two vols. 8vo, with numerous Plates.

ART. VIII. WORKS RECENTLY PUBLISHED.

HISTORY.

Sketches in Portugal, during the Civil War of 1834. By Captain J. E. Alexander, K.L.S., 42nd Royal Highlanders, Author of Travels in the East," &c. With Observations on the Present State and Future Prospects of Portugal. 8vo. Plates, 10s. 6d.

STATISTICS.

The Third Volume of Mr. Montgomery's History of the British Colonies; containing the whole of our Possessions in North America, and exhibiting the Present State of Canada. With Nine Accurate Maps and Official Tables never before published. 8vo. To Non-subscribers, 25s.

THEOLOGY.

Sacred History of the World, philosophically considered; in a Series of Letters

to a Son. By Sharon Turner, F.S.A.,

R.A.S.L. The Second Volume. 8vo. 14s.

Horæ Hebraicæ; an Attempt to Discover how the Argument of the Epistle to the Hebrews must have been understood by those therein addressed. With Appendices on Messiah's Kingdom, &c., &c. By George, Viscount Mandeville. Royal 8vo., 16s. in cloth.

The Causes of the Corruption of Christianity. By the Reverend Robert Vaughan, Professor of Ancient and Modern History in the University of London, Author of the "Life of Wycliffe." &c. 8vo., 10s. 6d. cloth.

TOPOGRAPHY.

Sketches of Corfu, Historical and Domestic; its Scenery and Natural Productions. Interspersed with Legends and Traditions. Foolscap 8vo. Price 8s. cloth

extra.

THE

ECLECTIC REVIEW,

FOR FEBRUARY, 1835.

Art. I.-Remains of Alexander Knox, Esq. In two Volumes. 8vo. pp. xx, 932. Price 11. 4s. London, 1834.

Ο UR readers will be in some degree prepared, by our recent

review of the Correspondence between Mr. Knox and Bishop Jebb, for the extraordinary character of these volumes. Those who can take delight in conversing with an independent and masculine thinker, although his sentiments may be to them a foreign dialect of thought,-who can derive instruction from opinions they see no reason to adopt, yet which claim to be admitted in qualification of the truths they hold, those who wish to study Truth in all its phases, and to detect the sources of error, which are always found in the immediate neighbourhood of cognate truths, as rivers flowing in opposite courses often take their rise in the same ridge or mountain plain,-in a word, readers who seek to exercise and inform their minds, rather than to gratify their self-love or pride of opinion, will not be disappointed of the high intellectual repast they will anticipate in these volumes. To be perused with advantage, they must not be taken up in the spirit of controversy, for what polemic was ever disposed to allow their due weight to the opinions of his opponent? Much, very much that is controvertible will be found in the statements and sentiments contained in Mr. Knox's papers. He sank his shaft deep into the mines he explored, but he was too negligent or impatient in assaying what he brought up, and consequently, he seldom presents us with the precious ore free from earthy admix⚫ture. His intellectual range was lofty, rather than comprehensive. The current of his thoughts ran more deep than clear. He is any thing but superficial, yet there are shallows every now and then in his reasoning; and his own language (in his first

VOL. XIII.-N.S.

K

6.

letter) suggests the figure-he seems to pour forth his thoughts with the force, but with the irregularity and the involuntary rapidity of a torrent. Except I am stopped and questioned,' he says, I am apt to roll on, without due attention to distinctions ' which I perceive myself, and therefore, I think, perhaps, that those whom I talk to will perceive them too; an error which I would gladly avoid, if my infirmities permitted me.' This sentence seems to us highly characteristic of the Writer. In another letter, he refers to his frailty of memory' as the cause of an occasional incoherency in his writing. While he was inditing one sentence, the preceding one would often have disappeared. (Vol. I. p. 336.) Thoughts would present themselves to his mind by a sort of inward vegetation; and he seemed to himself often to perceive the novelty of the fresh shoot.' This indicates a richly furnished and teeming mind, but not one accustomed to the more rigid and patient processes of analysis. In another letter he says: 'I expand without intending it. This is a subject as extensive ' as it is deep. I can but give hints; but I hope these hints, in 'connexion with former hints, will be intelligible.' (Vol. I. p. 184.) Nothing can better describe the general character of his compositions. Expansive and copious, his remarks are, after all, hints to be pursued by competent thinkers, aids and materials for reflection, rather than correct or finished disquisitions; but, as hints, they are always highly valuable; and the mind of the careful reader, if sometimes perplexed, cannot fail to be enriched with the treasures of knowledge and meditation here poured forth before him.

In many of these characteristics, Mr. Knox bears some resemblance to Coleridge; but, with inferior powers of imagination, and perhaps of reasoning, he was a more original thinker, and his style, easy, flowing, and often beautiful, marks the intellectual difference between his character and habits, and those of the Author of "The Friend," who always seems in a maze of thought, bewildered with his own accumulations, and unable to distinguish his own day-dreams from realities. Mr. Knox was not the mere speculative philosopher, nor, though almost unrivalled in the charm of his conversation, a professional talker. For some years previous to the Union of Great Britain and Ireland, he was private secretary to Lord Castlereagh; and he was urged by that nobleman to embrace the offer of a seat in the first united parliament, as the representative of his native city of Derry. With every qualification for a distinguished career in public life, the life of politics, in which, for a time, he was actively engaged,-at the very moment when the prospects which that life presented, opened on him in their fairest views, 'his choice was made for a more immediate service of God, in the 'cultivation of revealed truth.' In a letter to the late Mr. But

terworth, he thus adverts to the circumstances which had determined his renunciation of those brilliant prospects, and given the direction to his future pursuits.

In me, a series of providential circumstances, for which I have infinite cause to be thankful, has favoured the growth (of principles) in a peculiar manner; it being my lot, to have no rival object; and it being the good and gracious.pleasure of God, to spare no pains, in breaking up, and bettering, the ground of my mind and heart. In fact, no one can owe more to the great husbandman than myself; for, most certainly, I would not exchange the mental garden, with which he has been pleased to enrich me, for any or all the delights of the Eden of our first parents. I am aware, that an honest looker on might think it right to warn me against being too much pleased with the branches and the foliage, so as not sufficiently to look for fruit. But, I humbly hope, such a censure would arise from the truth of the case not being perfectly apprehended; and that, in fact, if the fruit were not there also, my satisfaction would be very small. Besides, though the leaves of the tree of knowledge serve too often, still, for a covering to the serpent, the tree of life has its leaves too; and even those leaves are for the healing of the nations. It is this tree,. most assuredly, that I wish to cultivate: for, as far as my own weakness has allowed, I have already found in it, all that, united, which made the olive tree, the fig tree, and the vine, in Jotham's parable, refuse to go, to be promoted over the trees. I seem to myself, to have made something of a like refusal, in turning away from political life, and choosing my present retired course; and, as I never have yet, so, I believe assuredly, I never shall wish to recall that preference.

I think it not impossible, but that the very pleasurable, and, I hope, somewhat profitable, speculations with which my mind is entertained, almost continually, may be a gracious compensation to me, for that shadow of a sacrifice which I appeared to make; but I might more truly say, the prudent and happy choice which I was enabled to exercise. Solomon made a choice which pleased God; and the highest intellectual pleasures were a great part of his reward.'

The serious truth is, I value what God has done for me, in giving a certain direction to my thoughts, next to what, I trust, he has done for my heart; because I more and more find, that the wise exercise of the understanding, is indispensable to progress in the spiritual life. An unoccupied mind is likely, soon, to be an ill-occupied mind; and they who do not learn to think of divine things, will soon come to feel them less, if they continue to feel them at all. In the generality of cases, vital religion begins, undoubtedly, in sensation. The infant Christian tastes of the heavenly gift, the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come. But the divine life will not thus advance. It must, as in the natural case alluded to, proceed, from what is merely sensitive, to what is rational. The milk must be superseded by strong meat; and, what originated in pure feeling, must grow to maturity by superadded reflection; they of full age being, according to St. Paul, those only, "who have their senses exercised, by reason of use, to discern both good and evil.”

I allow that, in this advancing process, leisure, and an intellectual habit of mind, may, through God's blessing, be eminently beneficial; and, other things being equal, they who improve those providential benefits, will be, proportionately, possessed of the maturity which St. Paul has described, in the few, but full, words just quoted. But, what I am speaking of, is, notwithstanding, the deep concern of all Christians who can understand the subject. He who cannot reflect, and can only feel, must, of course, remain a babe all the days of his life; and if," in wickedness," he be also "a child," he will not suffer on account of defects, which were his misfortune, not fault; but, whoever can think, is bound to think as a Christian. He who can be intellectual in any worldly way, is called to be, also, spiritually intellectual. In outward things, we must give alms of such things as we have, in order to their being clean to us; and, in inward matters, we must, equally, give a portion of every faculty we have, to things spiritual and divine, in order to our using it prosperously, or even safely, on common objects. Nay, if we have mind at all, we clearly do not love the Lord our God, as we are commanded to love him, if we do not love him with our mind, as well as with our heart, and soul, and strength.' Vol. I. pp. 167–170.

Such was the man-these paragraphs furnish his moral portrait-whose retired meditations on the highest and most important of all subjects are here laid before the public. None of them were committed to the press in the Author's life-time, nor were any of them prepared for publication. This circumstance, in addition to the considerations already suggested, would be sufficient to disarm our minds of any acerbity of feeling towards such a Writer. The contents of the volumes are as follows:

Volume the First. I. On Christianity as the Way of Peace and True Happiness. II. On the Situation and Prospects of the Established Church. III. Letter to Joseph Butterworth, Esq., on the System of Wesleyan Methodism. IV. V. Two Unfinished Letters to the Same, on the Advantages of an Establishment, and other topics. VI. To the same, on the Advantages of Mental Cultivation. VII. To Joseph Henry Butterworth, Esq., on the line of study to be pursued by him. VIII-XI. Four Letters to Daniel Parken, Esq., on Justification, on Mysticism, and on the Leading Principles of Christianity, as elucidated by Events in the Christian Church. XII. On the Parables contained in the xiiith chapter of St. Matthew. XIII. Remarks on Mrs. Barbauld's Essay on Devotional Taste. XIV. The Doctrine respecting Baptism held by the Church of England.

Volume the Second. I. On Matthew v. 13, 14. II. On the leading Design of the Christian Dispensation, as exhibited in the Epistle to the Romans. III. On Redemption and Salvation by Christ, as exhibited in the Epistles to the Romans and the Hebrews. IV-VI. Prefatory Letter, Treatise, and Postscript on the Use and Import of the Eucharistic Symbols. VII. On Divine Providence. VIII. On the Mediatory Character of Christ as subsisting in Our