Jesus' the biographer does not venture to sum up the particu lars; and when any thing is to be specially remarked, it is effected by a citation from the Scriptures,-a practice, indeed, which we should be very far from restraining, if performed with judgement and discretion; but which can lay no claim to merit in the case before us, since it merely results from an indefinite habit, a poverty of expression, and the want of sufficient powers of discrimination. The character of Mr. Jones does not, in reality, afford much source for a display of biographical talents. He was an excellent parish-priest; and a good education had fully qualified him for the office of a private tutor. Accustomed to direct the youthful mind, he entertained rather too high an opinion of his own powers in discussing the concerns of church and state, and in rectifying the errors of modern philosophy. His judgement was by no means equal to the ardor of his mind in the pursuit of truth; and hence he fell into mistakes which deprived him of much of that attention which might otherwise have been paid to his philosophical inquiries; while the growing neglect which they gradually experienced served to excite no small degree of asperity in his disposition. His life and writings afford a strong example of the extreme into which the human mind may be carried by its own prejudices. From the part which one of his ancestors had taken in, opposing the arbitrary measures of Charles the First, he was led to consider every species of opposition to the powers ordained by God as a species of warfare against heaven; and his syllogism on passive obedience is a justification of every robber on the highway. Between his ancestor and himself, lies the true basis of the constitution of this country, which duly ascertains and limits the power of the sovereign and the obedience of the people; and if Mr. Locke's notion of an original compact cannot be justified, an appeal to Scriptural authority in the various modifications of civil government is an abuse of our Gospel privileges, which refer only to a kingdom which is not of this world. The same temper, which could not endure contradiction on the doctrine of passive obedience, evinced itself in the questions relative to our religious establishment; and the necessity of a strict apostolical succession a fact more easily imagined than proved of any see in this island-was maintained as strictly by the curate of Nayland as by a cardinal of the conclave. Had our author received the rudiments of his education under some mufti of Constantinople, the dogmas of the Koran would have found in him as strenuous a supporter; and to the circumstance of his admission to Oxford, instead of Cambridge, we are probably indebted for his opposition to the principles of the Newtonian philosophy. It must however be allowed, that the Newtonians are very little anxious respecting the fate of their theory: embracing a mathematical hypothesis, they seldom trouble themselves with exa

mining whether it be accommodated to the system of the world; and the powers of the mind, when directed to the investigation of an abstruse theory, are too much embarrassed by its difficulties to admit a very close examination of the cause, which is the grand agent in their philosophy. From a very good motive, this philosophy was resisted by our author, who feared, that, by giving active powers to matter, the agency of deity was too much neglected; yet if we substitute impulse for attraction, the same effects will be produced, and the motion of the larger bodies in nature will still bear a considerable analogy to what is perceived in those which fall every moment under our observation.

Of the twelve volumes in this collection, the first seven are theologic; the ensuing three philosophic; and the two last miscellaneous. The greater part of the matter they contain has already been in various forms before the public. A volume comprising sermons, with an essay on man according to the Scripture doctrine, and a pretty composition on the character of the monkey, constitute the only novelties. The first tract in the collection is that which originally brought the author into the notice of the public; and it is difficult to say whether it has done more good or evil to the cause which it supports. A hundred short arguments in defence of the Trinity might, in the hands of a man of sound judgement, have carried with them great weight; but, from a desire to find the Trinity every where, such shadows of proof are occasionally introduced, that they serve only fer ridicule to the unbeliever, and lead him to triumph in the idea that the doctrine itself is not to be found any-where. Several of them range too obviously under the old sophism a man eats cheese, a mouse eats cheese; therefore a man is a mouse:' and others, instead of obviating, suggest diffculties to a young mind which might not otherwise have arisen. The obstinacy with which the spurious text, 1 John, V. 7, is maintained; and the very flimsy reasons given in defence of it, are an evident proof that the writer took little pains to examine a controversy, which, if it had not convinced him of the spuriousness of the text, must at least have taught him to entertain the notion of its authenticity with some degree of hesitation. His answer to the Essay on Spirit, with remarks on the Confessional, occupy the second volume. These controversies are now almost forgotten; but whenever reference is made to the works which occasioned at one time such alarm to the church, it is useful to know where the antidote is preserved; and, between the two parties, an impartial and conscientious reader will not be much at a loss in discovering the truth. In the third volume are several excellent dissertations; among which the disquisition on the Mosaïc distinction of animals into clean and

unclean, and reflexions on the growth of heathenism among modern Christians, may be consulted with great advantage; while the latter, moreover, may afford some useful hints in the present dispute on the want of religious education in our public schools. In the fourth volume is a very valuable work, on which the writer bestowed a great deal of thought and labourhis course of lectures on the figurative language of the holy scriptures. We cannot too much commend the plan, and, in general, the execution of this work; and if at times there be a little indulgence to fancy, the young divine may still cull much useful matter for the instruction of his parish. The essay on the church, and the controversy between the church and the dissenters, contain, notwithstanding the prejudices of the writer, many wholesome truths: they well merit the consideration of the latter; and to the sons of the church, in the present times, they may be more particularly addressed; since there is, under the garb of greater purity in doctrine, a spirit of insubordination, which threatens, if not corrected, very dangerous consequences. The fifth, sixth, and seventh volumes, are dedicated to sermons-of which many are not without considerable merit; while the essay on man may be usefully consulted by those who, seduced by the melody of the poet, have deviated into paths of infidelity.

The philosophical inquiries, which are contained in the three succeeding volumes, obtained a less favourable reception on their first appearance than they really deserved; and it will be difficult to recall the attention of students to a system which rejects the attraction of bodies, and argues against the generally adopted opinion of a vacuum in the heavens. Still the curious inquirer will be gratified with the observations and experiments of no mean antagonist to the Newtonian philosophy; and the discoveries which have been, and are every day, made on the nature of magnetism, electricity, and gases, unknown to the head of the popular philosophy, render the assertions of our author of more consequence than the Newtonian will be ready to admit. The latter, it must be confessed, while he is resolving every thing into the attractive force of material particles, seldom engages his thoughts on the properties of that element which seems to be most active in nature. When fire destroys the connexion between substances, no power that we know of will re-unite them, or bring them again into the proper sphere (as the Newtonians would express it) of their attraction; and the more we consider its nature, and the universal diffusion of the rays of light from the sun, the less able perhaps shall we be to acknowledge, without hesitation, the vacuum which is supposed necessary for the existence of planetary motion. Our author may have extended his ideas too far; but the student who

is not contented with mere mathematical diagrams, and a dry investigation of forces, will find in these volumes much to excite or gratify his curiosity.

In the last two volumes, dedicated to miscellanies, are several works which do credit to the author's talents. The book of nature, for the instruction of children, is written with an excellent design, and, in the hands of skilful parents, may be very. beneficial to their offspring. Some circumstance in nature-as the habits and character of an animal,-some beauty in the inanimate creation, or some portion of Scripture history, affords matter for a lesson; and the instruction contained in it is impressed on the mind of the child by easy questions and answers-a mode which cannot be too much recommended in books of education. The life of bishop Horne is written with too much of the spirit of egotism, and has prevented the author from placing that amiable character on the canvas with features as prominent as the reader could have wished;—but it is a fault common to almost all the compositions of our author. His letters of Thomas to his brother John Bull are not among the meanest of his productions; from which it is evident, that, little as he respected the people, he heartily wished them to adopt his own opinions. Thus in every volume something may be collected, from which the inquiring mind may derive satisfaction; yet so bulky a publication can hardly expect many purchasers. The character of the writer is already established; and it will not receive any additional splendor from the present edition, which, after a proper residence in the library of the author's friends, will seldom be paused upon, and probably never be inquired after, but by the curious. The collection, however, is a just tribute of respect to the memory of the deceased, and does honour to those who were at the trouble and expense of making it public.

ART. VI.-Jameson's Mineralogy of the Scottish Isles. (Continued from our XXXIVth Volume, p. 131.)

THE second volume of this work contains the author's former observations on the Shetland islands, on which we enlarged sufficiently in our review when it first appeared. I-columb-kill is an island which inspires respect from its former learning and piety, but, in a mineralogical view, offers nothing very important. It consists of granite, degenerating into a micaceous schistus; and a foliated marble, mixed also with mica. On Staffa our author did not land; and he seems to undervalue the grandeur and stupendous dignity of its columnar

* See our 28th volume, p. 24.

structure. Indeed he remarks that there are many basaltic rocks of greater height, but by no means so magnificent. We cannot understand, therefore, why its inferiority must be blazoned, while in effect, and in the same sentence, it is denied. As he never disembarked, he should have been more guarded. The marble or dolomite of I-columb-kill suggests the following observations, in the mineralogical remarks which follow the description. We shall add to them some others on the same subject from the following chapter.

In the Borghese palace at Rome, there is a slab of dolomite, which possesses a very considerable degree of elasticity and flexibility, and Mr Fleuriau de Belvue has discovered a nearly similar stone at Mount St. Gothard in Switzerland. He observed that all the specimens which possessed this property, were to be obtained only from the outside of the strata, and in the parts which had been most exposed to the weather. This circumstance led him, along with Mr Dolomieu, to suppose, that its peculiar properties were owing to the separation of a part of its water, which thus weakened the adhesion, and probably altered in a small degree the arrangement of the integral mollecules. He confirmed this idea, by exposing Carrara marble, gypsum, and other inflexible stones to a low degree of heat, by which they acquired a considerable degree of elasticity and flexibility. He found, however, that it was only those marbles that had a crystalline grain, and contained little iron or argill, that could be made flexible and elastic.

As the dolomite of I-columb-kill agrees in many of its properties with that from St. Gothard, it deserves to be tried whether it will become flexible and elastic, by treating it as directed by Mr. Fleuriau de Belvue. His process is very simple: he puts a thin slab of the marble into a sand bath, and keeps it at the temperature of 30° of Réaumeur for an hour and a half, or, if it be a pretty large slab, for a considerably longer time. He then removes it, and allows it to cool, and even to absorb a little moisture; and then presses it in all directions, so as to destroy that adherence among the particles which the fire has not affected.' P. 18.

Mr Fleuriau de Belvue, as I have before mentioned, having found that different species of marble, by being heated, acquired a considerable degree of flexibility and elasticity; also made a series of experiments on different kinds of sandstone and granular quartz. He found that several of them, by being made repeatedly red-hot, and then plunged into water, acquired a remarkable degree of flexibility; and that some kinds of granular quartz became even as flexible as the famous elastic stone which was brought from the Brazils. The granular quartz of Coll is quite the same with that which Mr. Belvue used for his experiments; and there is no doubt that, if it be tried, it will acquire the same curious property.' P. 27.

Nephritic talc is dispersed through the marble, but not in pieces large enough to enable artists to imitate the beautiful works made in the east from the lapis nephriticus.