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They see the inhabitants of this hamlet or the other rendering their tythe to their parish church, and burying and marrying there as parishioners, but they know not why; and this not the mere farmer, but the squire and the parson himself; and well it is if this ignorance breed not suspicion and jealousies and heart-burnings lest any one has not his rights, and then uncertainty and doubt lead to strife and lawsuits. We believe that in point of fact many a suit has been prevented by the evidence which an impartial to pographer has made patent to all of rights and duties, both of a civil and an ecclesiastical nature. But we would put it on the more generous and the more public ground. To the inhabitants of a district it is of inestimable advantage to have had it described by a topographer, as ministering perpetual pleasure through the gratification of a liberal curiosity.

In respect of Alderbury hundred, we can perceive that this was one of the latest efforts of the venerable, and most truly amiable author of this work. When engaged upon it he was old and infirm, and could not make the exertion which is so much required in works of this nature to collect the information wanted. In that which is in reality the prima stamina of topography, the succession of hands through which the chief or, as it is called, the manorial interest has descended, we sometimes meet with great deficiencies. Three or four centuries are sometimes passed over without the slightest notice, and after reading that a manor in the reign of Richard the Third was in certain hands we are next told that it is now the Earl of Radnor's, but how he acquired it, or who were the intermediate possessors, we are not informed. So, on the other hand, to make up for the want of further information, we have large quotations from the printed records, instead of a succinct exhibition of the information which they afford. We deem this a very great error in topography: the record publications are open to every one, and a most valuable treasure to topographers they are; but the topographer must not reprint them-there is no occasion for this. What he has to do is to digest and use the information they present to him.

When the record has not been printed the case is different; then it may often be well to have the words of the record placed before us.

The account of Clarendon is better laboured than that of other portions of this hundred; still it is not what we think it might have been. We rise from the perusal without a clear idea of what Clarendon was in the successive stages of its history. We seem to have been amongst materials, rather than in a complete edifice. To mention one point: we do not understand how the Monasterium Ederosum was situated in relation to the King's house, or, indeed, to the forest itself, or what portion of the forest formed the park about the royal residence. In general terms, there is throughout this part the want of the impression on the material collected of the master mind.

So of the biography. Sir Edward Nicholas and Bowle of Idmiston are the persons of whom the hundred of Alderbury has to boast; but we are doubtful whether the notices, especially those of the former, are exactly what are suitable to a just conception of the nature of topographical writing.

In the history of the hundred of Frustfield by Dr. Matcham we recognise a truer idea of the nature of topography, and see in it how capable the subject is of being made one in which we may be delighted as we are with other literary compositions of merit, while at the same time nothing is lost of that minuteness of information without which topography is nothing, and of no value at all. That continuous narrative and intermixture of political and other observations so rarely found in books of this class make the history of Frustfield hundred not only a valuable contribution to topography, but also a model and a study for topographical writers in general, who are too often content with giving a series of detached facts, without showing how they bear one upon another, or arise one out of another, or how they bear generally on the history of the place which is the subject of their work. Here the minuter parts of the history are thrown into tables, which ought always to be the case, for the sake of conciseness as well as perspicuity, and to leave the page clear for

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HERE WERE ENACTED THE CONSTITUTIONS OF CLARENDON,
THE FIRST BARRIER RAISED AGAINST THE CLAIMS
OF SECULAR JURISDICTION BY THE SEE OF ROME.
THE SPIRIT AWAKENED WITHIN THESE WALLS
CEASED NOT TO OPERATE

TILL IT HAD VINDICATED THE AUTHORITY OF THE LAWS,
AND ACCOMPLISHED THE REFORMATION

OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND.

TO PREVENT THE ENTIRE DESTRUCTION
OF SO INTERESTING A MEMORIAL OF PAST AGES,
SIR F. H. H. BATHURST, BART.
CAUSED IT TO BE SUPPORTED AND STRENGTHENED,
AND THIS INSCRIPTION TO BE AFFIXED,
A.D. 1844."

Among the attractions of Stourhead
is the tower, erected on an eminence,
from which King Alfred is traditionally
said to have reconnoitred the country,
and the fact is pointed out in an in-
scription like the above, placed there
by one of the family of Hoare; and
this recalls us to the recollection of the
admirable person, now deceased, to
whom we owe this magnificent work,
and at the same time to the gatherings
at Stourhead of persons engaged in
pursuits similar to those of their ho-
noured host, of which some few still
alive retain the pleasant remembrance.
We alluded to them some time ago in
our notice of the volume of this work
which contains the History of Salis-
bury itself.
We then spoke of Robert
Benson as one of the surviving friends
of Sir Richard Hoare who formed his
yearly party. Since then Mr. Benson
has been added to those who are now
no more, and we are tempted to ex-
tract from Dr. Matcham's dedication

the tribute which he pays to his learned and most pleasant coadjutor in the illustration of the topography of Wiltshire.

"Few could better estimate the solid

acquirements and studious habits of his guest than Sir Richard Hoare himself, so no one surely more thoroughly enjoyed and appreciated the ready wit, the unceasing humour, the exhaustless store of knowledge, information, and anecdote with which Mr. Benson adorned and enlivened the society at Stourhead. But there was also a moral sympathy between the kindly feeling and honourable disposition of Sir Richard and the benevolent mind and upright heart of this excellent man. However the former might rely on others for partial assistance in this extensive undertaking, it was to Mr. Benson that he desired to consign its most elaborate subject of investigation; to him he confided his general views respecting his design, and on his advice he mainly relied."

The Stourhead meetings, continued through so many years, may be con

sidered as having been of some importance, not in relation to Wiltshire only, but in the history of topographical research in general. They will be spoken of hereafter not only when the taste and pursuits of the honourable baronet are the subject of grateful reflection by those who will benefit by his labours, but when the present race of topographical antiquaries shall have passed away (as Gage, and Benson, and Bowles, and others, are already gone), and the incidents of their lives shall be the object of biographical curiosity to some mind who shall think that they deserve to be themselves remembered who have devoted them. selves to revive and preserve the memory of other men of other days; and we close our remarks on these two parts, and so take our leave of the whole work, with quoting a beautiful passage in a note of Dr. Matcham's, in which he speaks of Stourton, the most lovely of villages, and of the pleasant meetings of which the house of its proprietor was the scene.

"Can I then in this place, with the recollection which so many annual visits have strengthened, forbear to record my mon instance, in calling to mind the picture of the VILLAGE OF STOURTON, in all its exquisite beauty of situation, propriety, and tasteful ornament? Its church, (placed on that verdant knoll, backed by wood,) rich in Gothic decoration, true in its proportions, and tinted by the hand of time in the grey subdued propriety of age:-the precincts, marked by the cross, again exalted on its pristine site, the sculptured seat for the awaiting congregation-the tombstones of the villagers, mossy and ancient, but not ruinous-and the mausoleum of the lords of the soil:-at its termination the lake glistening through the foliage, which surrounds the magnificent cross, restored with the care due to a ' monument of kings;' the dwellings scattered over the sides of the narrow valley, duly varied in size and character with the degrees and employments of their inmates, but each exhibiting the carefulness of the master for the comfort of all; and the groves which clothe the heights where the

mansion of that master stands? Can I pass over the moral beauty of this scene, or the happy effect which the residence of a great and beneficent landowner is here shown to produce on the face of nature, and, what is of more consequence, on the human face divine? To one individual alone, I trust, I need apply for this indulgence; and let him excuse the expres

sion of that which so many others have felt, for years must pass away before his works shall cease to speak for themselves, and before the name of Sir Richard' will fail in calling up to that neighbourhood those feelings of respectful attachment which it now imparts to all. To those who, like me, have occasionally been domiciled in these scenes, the character of Atticus has probably recurred: 'Elegans non magnificus,'" &c.

To this we add another tribute by another topographer, who offers his acknowledgments

"To Sir Richard Hoare, himself highly eminent among the topographical writers of the present age for the access which he has allowed to many rare publications to be found in his unrivalled library of topography and history at Stourhead, a house and domain as beautiful, as richly furnished with books, with pictures, and with choice monuments of antiquity, as that of Buslidianus, the friend of Erasmus and More, and where the students in the history of our country meet with as elegant an hospitality." South Yorkshire, vol. I. Preface.

A History of the Nonjurors, their Controversies and Writings; with Remarks on some of the Rubrics in the Book of Common Prayer. By Thomas Lathbury, M.A. 8vo. pp.

530.

THE history of the nonjuring separation would be found, like all histories, to be full of instruction, if written in a right spirit; but it was scarcely worth while to write it merely in order to snub the Dissenters; to support certain narrow party notions as to what is or what is not becoming to a "Churchman ;" or to gain temporary attention by the introduction of remarks upon topics of transient interest. The Dissenters, Bishop Burnet, the Times newspaper, and all " laymen who presume to dictate to Bishops, and to designate a compliance with the rubrics an innovation," are Mr. Lathbury's aversions, and he means, occasionally, to be very severe upon all of them. An amiable and holy man, who was not a Lathbury-churchman, but would probably have been a nonjuror had he lived in 1689, declared, "Who by aspersions throw a stone

At the head of others, hit their own." We trust Mr. Lathbury's head will

not be much hurt by his own pelting: everybody else is quite safe from it. The nonjurors placed the government of William and Mary in a position of peculiarity rather than of difficulty. A minority denied the right of the majority to make a certain alteration in the constitutional govern ment of the country, and when the alteration was made, they not merely refused to submit to the change, but resisted it. Many of them were clergymen, and they insisted upon exercising their spiritual functions in connection with the State as if no such change had been made. They would not acknowledge in their public prayers the king and queen whom the people had placed upon the throne. The Archbishop of Canterbury, who was their leader, declared that a service which contained such prayers needed an absolution at the end of it as well as at the beginning. They would persevere in their old course, and continue to pray for a king, a queen, and a prince, whom the nation had deposed. They virtually said to the new governors "You are usurpers," and to the nation at large, "We will not be bound by your laws. We will hold our offices, not under the new authorities, but in spite of them, and still under our old master." What could the nation do? The objectors were pious, excellent, conscientious men; their objection was a scruple of conscience-what could be done with them? Mr. Lathbury thinks they should have been allowed to remain unmolested in their offices. He admits that "Sancroft prayed for King James and the Prince of Wales," that "the nonjurors could not join in prayers for the new sovereigns," that "all the nonjurors recognised James as their lawful sovereign," and yet he asserts that "the great fault was with King William's government, in proceeding to deprive them of their of fices."

Deprived, however, they were, and, with all submission to Mr. Lathbury, most justly and necessarily so. The proper course for the nonjurors would have been to have resigned their benifices when the performance of their duty to the State became adverse to their consciences; but they retained their offices to the last moment, and then eight bishops and four hundred

clergymen became at once unbeneficed by the operation of an Act of Parlia

ment.

But, although unbeneficed, their spiritual character remained, and they separated from the national establishment as an apostate and rebellious church" (p. 94.) According to their principles, and in the expectation of the restoration of the exiled royal family, this was their natural and most politic course; but it soon led them into strange positions. Living under a government which they disowned, and keeping up an occasional intercourse with the exiled monarch of which the reader of Mr. Lathbury's volume hears little or nothing, they were driven to adopt a variety of questionable stratagems and concealments, which have, in like manner, been disregarded by Mr. Lathbury. A detail of these would have thrown something of a picturesque hue over their history, and have shown how difficult it is, even for men of unquestionable purity, to maintain so false a position as that in which the nonjurors stood, without occasional compromises of rectitude. But Mr. Lathbury has no eye for the picturesque, nor any anxiety that his history should point any moral save that which may be turned to account against the opposers of some temporary policy.

In like manner, the history of the several congregations of nonjurors, the places where they existed, the numbers and stations in society of the little flocks which these zealous men gathered round them, are all points which fell strictly within the story which Mr. Lathbury has selected for illustration; but to catch even a glimpse of such information we may search through his heavy narrative almost in vain.

The nonjurors existed for about a century, carrying on amongst themselves an episcopal succession of a very irregular kind, but for which they were in the first instance careful to procure the sanction of the sovereign of St. Germain's. Before he gave his concurrence, he consulted various French divines, and finally the Pope, who gave him advice which the poor exiled monarch must have felt to be a strong censure upon his past conduct, "That the Church of England being

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established by the laws of the kingdom, he (though a Papist) was under no obligation of conscience to act against it, but obliged to maintain and defend it as long as those laws are in force" (p. 99). But, although thus fortified by all the outward signs of a church, before the party had existed more than thirty years, it divided upon the question of what were termed "the usages," insignia or badges of high and low church which severed the unity even of this little high-church flock. The high-church nonjurors adhered to the first communion office of Edward VI., which contained prayers for the dead, an oblatory prayer, and some other less important but equally questionable matters, whilst the nonjurors of the low-church school were satisfied with the liturgy as read in the church. Upon this poor point they divided into two bodies, who after the lapse of some years reunited only to expire much about the same time with the young Pretender; church and king both left the world almost together, but very differently! The former, with all its mistakes, was a religious honest body of men, and they passed away one by one without observation, unnoticed and unknown. Their king, a heartless degraded debauchee, who had in vain disturbed the peace of nations, expired in a palace at Rome, and was buried "with great pomp and splendour." It is thus that the world too often honours what is worthless.

A party which numbered archbishop Sancroft, Ken, Hickes, Collier, Carte, Baker, Hearne, Brett, Dodwell, and other distinguished men ; which had a plain, although as we think a most mistaken, bond of union; which endured many things for conscience' sake, and passed through great varieties of fortune, presents a subject of considerable interest to the historian; but the author who would treat it rightly must throw aside the paltry disputes both of that period and of the present day, and follow out in its successive stages of development the principle for which the nonjurors contended and suffered. He must not think that he has performed his task when he has strung together a few vapid biographical sketches, or quoted books written by or against the nonjurors.

Nor

must he give his attention almost exclusively to the clerical members of the body. The lay nonjurors were far more numerous, and exercised a far greater influence upon the fortunes of the body than Mr. Lathbury has any idea of; even Bowyer surely deserved something more than a mere passing mention of his name. Such an author must examine with care the conduct of the nonjuring laity during the rebellions of 1715 and 1745, and that of the government towards the body, both clergy and laity, throughout the long course of their existence. Any man who will do this in a free and charitable spirit will write an interesting and instructive volume.

Sir Lancelot. By the Rev. F. W. Faber, A.M.

THE author tells us that this work is an attempt to embody and illustrate the social and ecclesiastical spirit of the thirteenth century; and that he has endeavoured to realise his own idea of an allegory, namely, a consistent narrative having a perfect significance and interest in itself, literally taken, and capable of being so read and dwelt upon by such as do not wish to go further, or fit a second meaning to the narrative, especially when that meaning might be one which they disliked. The poem is divided into ten books, and contains the history of the punishment and penance of Sir Lancelot for a foul murder he committed on a youthful knight who had won the affections of the lady whom he loved. It is not at all necessary to inform our readers that Mr. Faber possesses truly a poet's mind, an active and brilliant fancy, a devoted love of nature, a tendency to thoughtful and philosophic meditation, a great command of language, and a flowing, copious, and harmonious versification. Of all poets he bears most resemblance to Wordsworth both in thought and language; but his eloquence leads him, we think, into exuberance, and, like his great prototype, there is sometimes a vagueness in his expression, at least to our apprehension, and a metaphysical obscurity in the enunciation of his feelings and reasoning. The present poem will not be popular; in the first place it is too long, in the second it wants variety of action, greater change of

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