Scriptures is disgraceful to the heads of the church, who ought surely to see that the King's Printer (though called printers on the title-page, they are but one firm, and it is presumed that the patent runs in the singular number) and the delegates of Oxford and Cambridge, who enjoy with him a concurrent monopoly, do their duty, and do not palm a spurious Bible upon the country. The hardship is great to the public, since the patentees absolutely prevent any other Bible being printed, under very heavy penalties. Even the Bible Society must take the copies, however corrupt, provided by the monopoly-printers.

From a trial in the Court of Session at Edinburgh, on the 7th of March last, (The King's Printer for Scotland v. Manners and Miller, and others, Booksellers in Edinburgh and Glasgow, it appears that an individual has a like monopoly in Scotland, and that the operation of his patent commenced so lately as 1798. The appeal to the Court of Session was to decide whether he could keep the English patentees out of the Scottish market; and the judgment of the Court interdicts the sale and importation of Bibles or the other standards of the Church printed in England, without the sanction of the Scottish patentees.

The monopoly rests, as we learn from the argument in the Court of Session, on the Royal Prerogative; and the plea for it is, that it is necessary that the King should have this exclusive right in order to secure to his people the Scriptures in a correct and pure text. But if the monopoly instead of securing, defeats this end, as it certainly does, the argument is void; and the King cannot be supposed to wish for a prerogative that is a hindrance to sacred literature and an annoyance to the people...

Our opinion decidedly is, that this is a fit matter to come before Parliament by petition. The managers of the Bible Society would perhaps be the most suitable persons to take up the question; but if they hesitate, on the ground of prudence, there would be great propriety in the ministers of

religion of various denominations pursuing the object. A committee might be appointed to draw up a table of errors in the various editions, on which to found a complaint. It cannot be that, with this before their eyes, the legislature would quietly allow the evil to remain.

For obvious reasons, the question should not, in the first instance, at least, be made one of profit and loss; though the booksellers would proba bly be able to shew that the monopoly is injurious to trade, and a burden upon the public who are the purchasers.

(The reader is referred for a few other errata in various editions of the English Bible, to a paper in our last volume, XVII. 692.)

GLEANINGS; OR, SELECTIONS AND

REFLECTIONS MADE IN A COURSE
OF GENERAL READING.

No. CCCCII.

Whig and Tory done into Latin. IN Dr. Adam Littleton's "Latine Dictionary," there are, in the "English Latine" part, the words Whig and Tory, with their corresponding Latin terms. The witty lexicographer, (for he shews wit at least in his sermons,) evinces that in Charles the Second's days, a court-chaplain had a proper abhorrence of a Whig, though he was not yet instructed to praise outright a Tory.

"A Whig. Homo fanaticus, factiosus.

"Whiggism. Enthusiasmus, perduellio (high treason!)"

"A Tory, bog-trotter or Irish robber. Prædo Hibernicus.

"A Tory, opposed to Whig. Regiarum partium assertor."

The edition here quoted is the 4th, (4to.) 1703, said in the title-page to be improved from "a large MS. in three volumes of Mr. John Milton." Whig and Tory had come up in the days of the poet, but we may acquit him of turning them into the above Latin.

ART. I.-Memoirs of the Life of the late Mrs. Catharine Cappe. Written by Herself. 8vo. pp. 484. Longman & Co. 1822.

HE late Mrs. Cappe was well

quent interesting communications to this magazine, and the principal events of her life are familiar to them, being in some measure disclosed in her lively description of the critical scenes of the lives of Mr. and Mrs. Lindsey, (III. 637 and VII. 109,) and more fully and methodically related in the biographical sketch of her, (XVI. 494-496,) drawn up by a valuable correspondent soon after her decease. It is not our intention, therefore, to follow her Memoirs, step by step, but merely to select a few extracts, and to make now and then a remark suggested by the subject.

The qualifications for writing one's own life are self-knowledge, the result of self-examination and watchfulness; courage to expose one's own secret motives and failings; and such a degree of imagination as shall suffice to connect oneself intimately with persons, places and passing events. These endowments will appear to advantage in proportion to the number and importance of what are called incidents in the life described. Elegance of style is the only thing further wanted to make auto-biography perfect. The last property Mrs. Cappe's Memoirs can be scarcely said to possess, but they are written with a simplicity and candour which are near akin to elegance, and which operate upon the mind of the reader as an indescribable charm. In the earlier chapters, at least, the history is full of variety. The imagination of the writer is seen in combining events and working them into agreeable stories. There is no concealment of any feeling or design. And the analysis of her sentiments on almost every important occurrence of her life, shews that she was accustomed to reflect upon herself habitually, and to regulate even her thoughts and affections by a fixed standard of morals Her standard was Christianity. She

was a practical disciple of Christ, and eminently pious and devotional. In her Memoirs, she recurs perpetually to the agency of the Divine Providence, and if we should concede to a somewhat stern critic in a recently

ed number of a respectable periodical work, (The Inquirer,) that her religious feelings are sometimes obtruded upon trivial occasions, we must yet, knowing as we do her sincerity and guilelessness, contend that her habit of turning every event to a moral and spiritual account was the natural result of her strong and lively faith in the universal and perpetual government of the Almighty. In one respect, the excess (if such it must be reckoned) of her religious phraseology is a great advantage, as it proves that no error can be greater or more unjust to the persons to whom it refers, than the popular one of the incompatibility of a rational creed with warm devotional sentithere ligion of the heart in exercise, ments. Nay, in this instance, we see not in spite of the Unitarian faith, but in consequence of it; and we cannot is from the spirit and style and form but reckon this volume, remote as it of controversy, as directly calculated to subdue prejudice, to awaken inquiry, and eventually to make proselytes to the faith of the writer.

Mrs. Cappe was the daughter of the Rev. Jeremiah Harrison, and was born on the 3rd of June, O. S. 1744, at

Long Preston, in Craven, Yorkshire, the living of which her father held, together with that of Skipton, in the neighbourhood; both having been presented to him by the College of Christ Church, Oxford, in which he had been trict in which was the place of her nativity :

educated. She thus describes the dis

"This part of Yorkshire, at the time of which I am speaking, was insulated from the rest of the kingdom; not so much by its high mountains as by its riage could ascend its rocky steeps; the almost impassable roads. No wheel-carcarriers from Richmond to Kendal conveyed their goods in packs upon horses; and I well remember that one of my earliest pleasures was to listen to the

sound of the bells hung round the neck of their leader, followed with solemn step by a long train of his compeers, as they passed stately along the shady lane by my father's garden; all of them seeming to enjoy, equally with myself, this simple music. If this noble animal could compose and write, what petitions and remonstrances should we not daily receive against the unfeeling speed of flying diligences, hackney post-chaises and mail coaches !

"The native inhabitants of this hilly country were then as uncivilized as their mountains were rude and uncultivated. When my father first went there, (about the year 1729,) almost all the country was divided among a number of small freeholders, or lease-holders, holding grants of nine hundred or a thousand years, made over in feudal times by the great barons in exchange for military service. The ground almost every where remained in its primitive state, wholly uninclosed; and notwithstanding every man knew his own, yet their property being so intermingled, various subjects for endless debate and litigation were continually arising among them; and being proud from independence, and obstinate from extreme ignorance, it was almost impossible to arbitrate or to compose their differences. This herculean labour, however, my father courageously attempted; and, that he might do it with greater success, he took upon him self the office of a justice of peace, which he exercised among them many years with the happiest effects."-Pp. 5, 6.

"In the township of Long Preston, the greater part of the inhabitants who did not earn their living by daily labour, or by some little trade, were, as we have already observed, the small proprietors of land, possessing property from generation to generation, to the amount, perhaps, of from ten to one hundred pounds per annum. These are denominated statesmen, and are divided into two classes, great and little statesmen; the former of whom consider themselves as among the first personages in the world, The usual etiquette, on calling upon the lady of a great statesman is as follows: after inviting her guests to come in and make free,' she dusts the chairs with the corner of her apron, desiring them to be seated; she next takes a brush to sweep the floor, apologizing all the time that it was not done before their arrival. She then adjusts her own apparel, and not unfrequently goes through the whole ceremony of an entire change of upper garments, standing by her company with great unconcern and relating the history of her family when Thomas was born

where George goes to school-how fast he takes his learning, &c. &c. Her dress being finished, she offers each of her visiters a glass of brandy, assuring them that they are as welcome as if they were at home;' and this being done, she fetches a chair and seats herself by them. I do not recollect a single instance in which any part of this ceremony was omitted, even so late as the year 1787."Pp. 13, 14.

The mother of Mrs. Cappe was the daughter of the younger son of Sir Rowland Winn, Baronet of Nostel, of large property and of great influence. The eldest son, the baronet in possession at the time to which the Memoirs refer, was much connected with Sir Robert Walpole, the prime minister, through whom he obtained for Mr. Harrison the living of Catterick, in the gift of the crown. Hither the

family removed in the year 1748. Mr. Harrison was a respectable clergyman and of a liberal mind. His freedom from bigotry appears in an incident, related with others by Mrs. Cappe, to shew the effect produced upon her mind by accidental circumstances:

"When my brother was eight years old, he was sent to a public school at Scorton, of which my father was one of the governors. There were many children there, whose parents were members of the Kirk of Scotland, one of whom, who came from Dumfries, happened to be my brother's bed-fellow. I charge you,' said my father to him, if you ever hear any of your companions laugh at little Wilson for not saying the same prayers or repeating the same catechism which you have been taught, that you do not join them; Presbyterians, if they are virtuous and pious, ought to be as much esteemed as if they were church people.' I knew not what the term meant, but I set it down in my mind that Presbyterians were not to be despised for being such; and afterwards, when I became able to generalize my ideas, I thence derived an important lesson of candour respecting those who might differ from myself in religious opinions. This circumstance, together with the following conversation, which I happened to hear between my father and some other person, whom I do not recollect, when I was about eleven or twelve years of age, entirely settled my creed for many years, in respect of two material articles. "There can be no doubt,' said my father, that our Saviour Christ was that great personage who existed with God before all