divine speaks with a modest reserve. The event was still future when he wrote; but he kindly advertised the world of the fact, that "the breath of life," was to enter into the slain Witnesses, and their ascension to take place about April 1847. About that time, the gifts wherewith the enemies of the witnesses "made merry over their fall,” which Mr. Beith gives us to know are the stipends, manses, and glebes of the established clergy, were "to eat into their flesh as if they were fire." He further admonished his readers to expect that by the above date," the Scottish Establishment would be dispensed with, which without detriment to any party might be effected at once." The slain Witnesses are seen thereafter, according to our Author, to ascend into their their former places, taking along with them as many of the other Dissenters as can be brought to embrace the Free Church principle of a National Establishment. Then it seems there will be great rejoicing among the people of God, and great torment and sorrow suffered by the Established Clergy. But the Rev. Author, with a charity which lights up his dark prognostications like bursts of sunshine, assures the world that the Established Clergy are not at all amiable, being "men of bankrupt character, watchmen sleeping, lying down, loving to slumber, greedy dogs, which can never have enough, shepherds that cannot understand, who all look to their own way, every one for his gain from his quar ter." Surely the sooner these lazy, greedy, drowsy dogs are whipped out, and the thorough bred pack of Free dogs admitted, the better.

To convince us of the profundity of his views, he favours us with what he calls "a prophetic distich," uttered in days of yore by St. Columba. Mr. Beith's " distich," however, it may be proper to observe, is not content with a couple of lines like well-bred civilized distichs, but arrogantly demands four; and furthermore, as this four-lined distich is printed in Gaelic, we cannot take upon ourselves the office of unlocking its mystery. In days when we were young, the desire to master the Gaelic tongue was strong within us, and we approached it for this purpose with deep awe; but its uncouth gutturals, and the dread of astlima caused us to desist. We know enough, however, to assure our readers, that the distich in question contains an awful mystery, which will yet throw great light upon the future destinies of our race. We thank Mr. Beitli for unlocking the rich treasury of Gaelic lore; the Highlands have ever been highly favoured; many are the seers of visions and dreamers of dreams which that ghost-land can boast, and many the "gifted" men who can read your fate out of a single check of their tartans. Mr Beith appears to have inherited the vision, and the faculty divine in double measure, and bravely doth he exercise his gift.

No part of Mr. Beith's scheme is so convincingly illustrated as that part where he deals with the passage " and fire proceedeth out of their mouth." He proves that this is pre-eminently true of the Free Church, and even at the risk of having it quoted by Free Church expositors in their own favour, and against ourselves, we must frankly admit that it may be said of the Free Church in preference to every church and sect in Christendom, that fire proceedeth out of their mouth.

Good Mr. Beith, however, unluckily for his church, laid the purity

of their anti-Erastian testimony open to challenge. At a meeting of the Gaelic School Society, when Mr. Beith betrayed what spirit he was of, the Rev. William H. Goold, a young, rising, and able Cameronian minister, rebuked his vain glory, and offered to prove the very foundation of the Free Church to be thoroughly Erastian. And further, in reference to Mr. Beith's strange hallucination, that he is a slain witness, on another occasion he and his slain brethren were assured with mortifying coolness, that if they were in this condition they had committed suicide, since they were not driven vi et armis from their “living" state, but their eruption was a movement wholly ab intra, to adopt one of the few Latin excerpts at the command of the late lamented Dr. Chalmers.

It may be thought, however, that we have bestowed too much space upon a production so contemptible as the one under review. In point of scholarship, the Rev. Mr. Beith and those of his class, are below criticism, being generally not only ignorant of foreign and dead languages, but even of the genius and structure of their own. They seem to imagine that a book can be fabricated by a man ignorant of the most common rules of grammar and the right method of spelling words; and that a fiery temper is more subservient to the book-maker's purpose than the coruscations of genius. But our object in noticing such grotesque essays in authorship, is to draw attention to the unwarrantable liberties which some of our public teachers take with the Holy Bible. It is difficult to believe that the author of the "Two Witnesses traced in History" really credits the absurdities which he gives forth with such dogmatic fierceness, and the only rational conclusion which can be come to, is that such productions are given forth to the world partly to gratify spleen, but mainly to perpetuate their influence over the consciences and opinions of their followers. The Free Church has been more prone than any other church whatever to self-laudation, probably as nuch from policy as pride, since the more imposing and lofty her attitude appears to be, the more readily will her pressing necessities be met. To flatter a man's vanity has a magical influence in opening his soul to melting charity: and to offer him the honours of martyrdom is the surest means of extracting his money. And if along with this insidious flattery, a yoke of fear can be imposed upon the conscience by the free application of Scripture texts, they certainly must succeed to keep their people under as complete a spiritual despotism as it is possible to conceive. But what are we to think of the condition of a people to whom such productions can be acceptably addressed, and what are we to think of the state of the ministers of the Free Church who can give to the world such crude and unhealthful attempts at authorship? A number of other works by recent expositors of the Apocalypse are lying on our table; but at present we do not prosecute the subject further. We cannot, however, in conclusion, refrain from expressing our strong opinion, that no branch of biblical inquiry demands the exercise of so much judgment, moderation and charity, as the exposition of the Apocalypse. To a reflective and charitable mind, it is extremely painful to examine the recent publications upon this subject, not only from the rash and unwarranted minuteness of interpretation which are

found therein, but from the human passion and uncharitable zeal by which they are too frequently characterized. In some cases, there appears the most repulsive malignity, thinly disguised by religious zeal; and in others the wantonness of an unbridled imagination, and the ravings of religious frenzy.

We are doubtful whether the time has yet arrived when the Christian reader can expect the solution of the deep mysteries of this book; and consequently whether the study of it, not only in its general outline, but also in its most minute details can possibly, under present circumstances, prove profitable. The unfigurative portions of it, the plain discoveries of doctrine and duty which are to be found scattered through all its parts, are to be used like any other portion of Scripture; and, indeed, these will be found to be so full of life and spirit, as to be peculiarly grateful to the renewed heart, and well fitted for the use of the Christian minister in his public ministrations. But the figures and symbols of the prophetical portion of it admit such latitude of interpretation, that preconceived opinions, however erroneous, may be confirmed by the study of them; and thus, opinions originating in self-interest, may derive from thence an infusion of a religious element, by which they may become not only dangerous to those who hold them, but pernicious to society. For ourselves, we are free to admit that arguments in favour of great truths, or of the value of ancient institutions, founded upon symbolical Scriptures, not only fail to carry conviction to our mind, but completely disturb our confidence in the judgment of him who employs them. The symbols and figures of prophecy may be sparingly used for the purpose of collateral corroboration of truths elsewhere revealed; but to suspend the defence of these truths upon them, betrays great ignorance of the proper use of such Scriptures, as well as of the real strength of such arguments.

It would be well, by every legitimate means, to administer a check to the morbid craving manifested for such studies, by a portion of our countrymen, and to the fanaticism which is its proper result. For, however much these productions may be despised by those accustomed to more manly and healthful studies, it is to be observed, that their authors are not slack in promoting their circulation, and certainly they are not left without readers. It would be an error to conclude from their manifold and unmatched absurdities, that they carry their antidote along with them; for, since the ravings of Bourignon met with extensive reception, and Luckie Buchan found some to believe that she was the woman clothed with the sun, and her paramour was the Apocalyptic man-child, we can scarcely conclude any absurdity to be too monstrous for poor human nature. We conceive it due to the sacredness and honour of Scripture, to guard it from injury, whether that injury be offered by a zeal without knowledge, or by open enmity: and we think it due to the soul of a fellow creature to preserve it, if we can, from the snares of error, whether these snares are found in the fooleries of Mr. Beith, or the extravagancies of the Poughkeepsie Seer.

Very little has yet been done, though volumes have been multiplied on the subject, for the critical history of literature-a work for which great and laborious learning is not adequate, and for which genius, and taste, and feeling, without great and laborious learning, are not available. In this department of literature, if we may be permitted with. the leave of Sir Daniel Sandford's canons of criticism to call it " literature," both Italy and France have laboured more successfully than Britain. We have nothing in English so valuable as Tiraboschi-nor for a moment to be compared with the Biographie Universelle, which, in many respects, is entitled to be regarded as a history of literature.

We have given below, the title of a little work, which may be most correctly described as an essay on the history of literature. It might form a manual for the guidance of a college of literary men, who might set about compiling a history of literature. In the comprehensiveness of its design, and in the critical and philosophical spirit displayed by the writer, his short essay is truly admirable. The contents of the work formed one of the introductory essays accompanying "The Popular Encyclopædia," published by the Messrs. Blackie. A Discourse on Literature, Ancient and Modern-and in all countries, extending to only two hundred pages, must necessarily be a brief sketch-so brief, indeed, that many, without more consideration, might be led to pronounce such an attempted work as at once totally destitute of either value or interest. But every volume has a right to be tried and judged in its own presence, and not in absence, by any considerations of what like its judges expect it to be; and examined in this fair manner, the little volume before us deserves to have an honourable verdict pronounced upon it. It is neither useless nor uninteresting. It affords to the reader that source of pleasure which is always felt at seeing great difficulties manfully grappled with, and successfully overcome. If Sir Daniel Sandford had told his publishers, that to write on such a subject as he was required to write on, within the limits to which their desires or necessities made them confine him, was an impossibility, or that if the work were executed, it must be such a work as would possess all the dryness of an almanac-with all the uselessness of an old almanac, he would, by such an answer, have afforded what many would have considered to be a proof of his judgment and good sense. But he attempted the work, and the work speaks for itself-and testifies to his judgment and good sense, as well as to his learning, his philosophic spirit, and to that eloquence in which the accomplished professor excelled. All his varied gifts were, indeed, necessary to make an interesting volume of two hundred pages, on the vast subject of universal literature and all have been exerted. The greatest judgment and good sense are shown in the difficult task, which the professor had before him, of selecting and arranging the materials in his picture, so as to give on so limited a canvas to all his subjects their fitting place, and their relation and due prominence. He had everywhere to contend

*The Rise and Progress of Literature. By Daniel K. Sandford, Professor of Greek in the University of Glasgow, Glasgow: Blackie and Fon.

with the "brevis esse laboro, obscurus fio." Brevity, which on most subjects adds so much to the grace and beauty of writing, becomes, when such a subject as Sir Daniel's had to be merely glanced at, a source of dryness, a check on genius, and an impediment to eloquence. The writer would feel himself restricted almost to statistics, chronology, and geography. His criticisms, as there is little room for qualifications, or for the stating of doubts and hesitations, can only, with the greatest care, and the greatest good taste, be guarded against becoming abrupt, dogmatical, and arbitrary.

Viewing the little volume left us by the learned and amiable Greek Professor, in connexion with the many and great difficulties under which the Author laboured, it is impossible to refuse to it a large share of praise-it is impossible not to admire the great ability shown in sketching its outline, and the skill with which the outline has been filled up, coloured, and adorned.

Literature and science, Sir Daniel tells us, must be regarded as gifts which clearly distinguish man from the lower animals. As there are many of the inferior animals whom instinct, as men call it, teaches a practical art which defies human rivalry or even competition, the possession of art or mechanical skill cannot be challenged as an exclusive privilege of the rational portion of the creation. The wide domains of literature and science are still, however, exclusively the kingdom of

man.

To literature, as a test and a cause of civilization and refinement, Sir Daniel distinctly and most justly awards the preference over science. The distinction holds good, either as applicable to nations, as it is applied by Sir Daniel, or to individuals. Individuals and nations have attained to high eminence in the sciences without the distinctive marks of civilization attending that eminence; and, in the case of nations, there have been nations which have been scientific without being literary, but no instance of a literary nation which more or less was not scientific. The eminent man of science, the astronomer, the chemist, or the engineer, is frequently known to those who come in contact with him, to be little better than an idiot. The most of our great mathematicians have been destitute of all powers of reasoning, except mathematically, and hence, destitute of the ability of reasoning on the affairs of human life, or in any matter of practice. But he who feels delight in literature-in Shakspeare, and Pope; and Burns, and Byron, and Scott, and in history and biography, will reason without any study of the art of reasoning; and is, by the fact of feeling this delight, entitled to be ranked as a civilized man. And this consideration, of which a thousand facts attest the truth, that literature greatly refines and civilizes nations and individuals, while science, if it does so, does so only in a very inferior degree-ought to be brought forward and insisted on in the present day, when there is a party of reformers of education—or as they would, perhaps, rather call themselves, in their own tawdry phraseology, Educational Reformers," who would deprive the rising generation of Greek and Latin, and snatch from their hands their Homers, and Horaces, and Xenophons, and Livies, and endeavour to feed their young hearts with chemical nomenclature, and loads of geolo