See answer to Gardiner, p. 7, 59, 60, 224, 267, 269, 452, (edition 1551) p. 6, 52, 58, 198, 235, 235, 237,402,(edition 1580.) Compare also Fox (edition 1610) p. 1194, 1200, with other places, much more in point, which do not at present occur to us. Again did not Ridley adopt the Zuinglian opinion of the sacrament about 1545, two years before this catechism was published, and did not Cranmer join him in the same, very soon after that year?

Dr. Laurence has deserved excellently well of the History of the much injured Necessary Doctrine, by being, we believe, the first who has publicly pointed out (p. 192-3) an important misrepresentation of the slovenly Burnet, which has given occasion to almost numberless blunders of succeeding writers, respecting the date, and other circumstances of that performance. But is he right also in assigning 1543, as the date of the Pia et Catholica Christiani Hominis Institutio? (p. 844.) We have seen no copy excepting of the year 1544.

If Dr. Laurence had recollected Calvin. Instit. lib. i. 17. 5. and lib. iii. 24. 5. we think he would hardly have said, nothing of this kind appears in the writings of Calvin.' (p. 435.) Those passages, together with some others, have been very frequently referred to as proofs of an intimate resemblance.

Dr. Laurence has justly remarked, that it was the controversy on the Eucharist which first rendered Calvinism a characteristical appellation. (p. 45.) When the word Calvinist first became general, in the sense alluded to, I have not been able precisely to ascertain. Fox, I have remarked, does not use it. Evidently, however, in 1585, if not before, it was thus applied by Saunders to Cranmer, who in the Book of Martyrs, is termed a Zuinglian, and not a Calvinist.' (p. 237.) As this is a point of some curiosity and value, we shall gladly impart a little aid to the researches of Dr. Laurence.

Neglecting all intermediate resting-places, which might be many, we may stride back with confidence over a gulf of twenty years from 1585 to 1565, and sufficiently abundant instances of the name Calvinist, in the required signi fication, may be found in Harding's Confutation of the Apology of the Church of England, and in his other works, as well as in those of Rastell, Heskyns, Pointz, &c. printed about the same period. In the preceding year (1564) in Dorman's Proufe of certegne Articles in Religion denied by M. Juell, the name Calvinist occurs in fol. 128, 129, and 130. And very numerous and pertinent instances,

will be found in a volume of tracts by Dr. Richard Smith, printed at Louvain in 1562. Much further than this we believe no mortal step can go. All beyond is Lutherans, Zuinglians, Carolostadians, and Ecolampadians.

When our readers have accompanied us thus far, it can hardly be necessary to retain them much longer in a formal declaration of our judgment respecting Dr. Laurence's Lectures. We esteem them to be of very high value and importance. For a profound and accurate knowledge of his subject, for a strict adherence to truth, for caution and moderation in the display of it, for industry and successful research, Dr. Laurence may vie with the very best authors on the same topics. It would not be easy indeed to mention any one to whom he is not in many things superior. No writer or reader, we trust, will venture to engage in or proceed further in this controversy, without immediate reference to this volume. The name of its author will deserve to be holden in very high respect by every loyer of Christian truth and Christian,charity.

ART. II.-Memoirs of Bryan Perdue: a Novel. By Thomas Holcroft. 3 Vols. small 8vo. Longman. 1805.

MR.HOLCROFT, in his late Travels through France, contrives to remind the world of his novel called Hugh Trevor; and in the preface to his present work he takes care that the same novel shall not be forgotten. This method of advertising books which have been long since laid on the oblivious shelf, is now become so common, that it deserves to be remarked upon, and we take this opportunity of observing, that it is vain for authors to remind the world of what they are disposed to forget. It is impolitie in general, because it is proclaiming the insignificance of their own productions; and it is impolitic in this author more particularly, because the recollection of a novel, which was written to suit the temper of the mob about twelve years ago, and which has sunk into disrespect along with the coarseness, vulgarity, and violence of that period, can add little to his reputation, and must present obstacles, rather than favorable impressions in the way of Bryan Perdue. Good manners and common sense have prevailed so long, that the spirit of Hugh Trevor must have evaporated, and would at this time be neither relished nor understood. We have not suffered any prejudice to operate in our minds, but have taken up these Memoirs with curiosity to observe how far time and the change of the vulgar temper may have tended to smooth the roughness of Mr. Holcroft's eccentric

opinions, to meliorate his asperities, and to bring back his sentiments within the pale of decency and truth.

In the present work Mr. H. avows his aim to be the inducing of legislators to consider the general and adventitious value of human life, and the moral tendency of our penal laws,' or, as he expresses himself at the close of the third volume, to diffuse the philanthropic doctrine, that proper receptacles for the diseased in mind are even more highly necessary, and should, at present, be no less numerous, than for the diseased in body.' If these proper receptacles had been erected rather more than twenty years ago, it is curious to form conjectures of the names which would have been on the keepers' lists, and of the consequences which would have resulted to the morals and politics of the age. But to return to our author: Mr. H. enters a caveat against being denominated a modern philosopher, and yet closes his work with one of the cant expressions peculiar to that Peripatetic sect: we beg their pardon, some of them were certainly to be found in coaches; but they know better things now. If a writer is composing an allegory, we have no objection to his representing vices as diseases, because the just conclusion of his allegory must be, that some vices are curable, and not very dangerous; but that some of them are so alarming in their progress, so virulent in their nature, and so contagious in their effects, that quarantine (that is, transportation) is of little use, and the tourniquet (that is, the gibbet) must be had recourse to. This is pushing things to consequences, which they, who adopt this cant moral term, do not admire. No! by denominating vice a disease of the mind, they mean to palliate vice, to give it a milder name, to represent it as something (like the itch) caught by accident, easily curable, and not in the least affecting the constitution of the patient. While the affected person is full of the disorder, it may be proper for him to wear gloves, or to shake hands only with those who labour under the same malady; but a little ointment, soap, and a clean shirt restore him to society, and all its intimacies. This may be very convenient doctrine for those whose morality is able to what they may please to term disease: according to their vocabulary, fornication is merely an appetency for sexual intercourse; adultery, a philosophical rejection of ceremonies; rape, a disposition to corporeal adhesion without intellectual attraction; forgery, an indulged talent for graphic imitation; theft, an etymological error-a misapprehension of the mean ing of the words mine and thine; murder, an ignorance of calculation on the utility of living powers; suicide, the spilling of a

red liquor, which might have kept a human frame in motion: all of them a mere set of errors originating in diseased habits, which (if the legislature were humane and wise) might be cured by a philosophic regimen in a proper receptacle or asylum for morbid morality. From this retreat no patient would be turned out as incurable; but the fornicator, the adulterer, the ravisher, the forger, the thief, the murderer, and perhaps the suicide (for we are not aware of the perfectible powers of man) might be restored to society. Right and wrong, virtue and vice, laws, modes of government, and religion are, if we comprehend the meaning of these philosophers, at this very time merely matters of speculative opinion, fanciful ceremonies and institutions, of whose utility a reasoning animal (this is their term for man) may very properly doubt. On these principles they affect not to understand what crime means, and are consequently struck with horror at that truly unphilosophical term, punishment. Some reasoning animals' (say they) are not convinced of the utility of kings, and they become regicides; others doubt the expediency of long queues, and they become crops: if monarchy and long hair are useful things, prove them to be so, but do not be angry with men for a difference in opinion, for what is nothing more than an error of the mind.' Some years ago it was the fashion (notwithstanding the possessor of the house might have plate on his side-board, money in his escrutoire, and a wife and daughters at the table) to invite professors of the modern philosophý to dinners. In a very large party we heard one of these gentlemen assert that Robespierre's fondness for continual executions by the guillotine, proceeded from an over nice sensibility, which required the most exquisitely poignant gratification.' The same gentleman added when he quitted the room, I am sorry to leave the party, but I must go, as I am engaged to drink tea with a very intelligent friend, who is to be hung next Wednesday. Reader! incredible as it may seem, this jargon was not only endured, but admired. The humanity of legislatures, and the tyranny of those who wish to check disease of mind by pillories and gibbets, formed of course the topics of conversation for the remainder of the evening. Miss was a very great metaphysician, papa and mamma were great metaphysicians, three-fourths of the company were metaphysicians, and very animated hopes were expressed for the arrival of that order of things when the empire of reason would

be universal.

'We do not mean to assert that Mr. Holcroft's novel is written entirely according to the tenets of that philosophy,

whose wild eccentricities we have recalled to the recollection of our readers; but there are some passages in it which savour so much of the old leaven, that we unavoidably fell into a digression on the manners and sentiments of those moral and political reasoners, whom the treason and sedition bills have driven from debating societies and St. George's Fields, and whom Miss Hamilton's excellent novel has ba. nished from the parlour and drawing-room.

From many other passages of the like description, we have selected the two following, and leave it to the judgment of our readers to decide, whether, if they had not seen the date of the book, they would not have imagined them to be extracted from a production of the years 1798, 1794, 1795, rather than of the present time,

'Soon after she left Lord Loiter, her mother was taken ill, and nothing could be more inconsistent than her conduct. She (Nonpareil, a girl of the lobby at the play-house) took care one day to see her mother well supplied, and the next would go out on a jaunt without remembering her; then burst into tears, which evidently flowed freely and naturally, because she had been so undutiful. This hour she would resolve never to leave her mother's bed-side till she should recover the next her mind would be wholly occupied on some new dress, or other fully that had taken her attention,'

Would any person of common sense be puzzled to account for this conduct of a girl, who had not utterly lost all sense of affection to a mother, but who at the same time was fond of dress, and of gratifying every passion, every lust, without any sense of shame, without any respect to the opinion of mankind, without any fear of God? Is there any mother, however uneducated, who could read the above natural description of a harlot, and not draw from it many good lessons to her daughters on the usual consequences of throwing off decency, and giving way to every impulse of vanity and passion-Let us attend to Mr. H.'s reflections. on the conduct of this girl, who was now in what is vulgarly called high keeping, and who, while she could not forget her mother, could not at the same time forget her pleasures. Is this wonderful?

The opposition of desire, and its contrary workings in the human mind, have been the study of philosophers in all ages: but it is strange that they have not better methodized these moral researches, since it may be doubted whether they are more understood at present, than they were when Lycurgus and Solon were the legislators of the Greeks.'

CRIT. REV. Vol. 7. January, 1806.

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