having on its soil the ashes of martyrs, Cambridge, in having been the favorite abode of Erasmus, and both in having nurtured giants in every walk of literature, religion, science, and polity. The little timber and plaster, white and black structure, in Henley street, Stratford upon Avon, as being the humble shed beneath which Shakspeare was nursed, contains in the album of its visiters more noble and honored names than could probably be gathered from the books of the Herald's College. The plain edifice which fronts the market place at Litchfield, with its copper kettle swinging over the doorway, is the desecrated birth-place of Dr. Johnson, whose shape the kettle seems to parody. Ancient manor houses and rustic cottages are associated with the names of the great statesmen, divines, philosophers, historians, and poets of England. The biographer ransacks the musty village records to trace the humble parentage, and date the birth, baptism and school days of those who have risen from the obscurity of peasant life. Happy is he who in such a search can connect a distant and faint trace of artificial nobleness with the descendant of a farmer or day laborer. But such researches most generally mock all pride of family and name. Huntingdon and its free grammar school claim the birth and education of the Lord Protector. The little cottage standing in the churchyard of Wrington, Somersetshire, sheltered the infancy of John Locke. Bristol claims Sebastian Cabot; Chatterton, Hannah More, Southey, and Coleridge among its children. It shows in its old church tower the oaken chests which the hapless poet has immortalized; in its choir, the armor of Admiral Penn, and behind its altar, a master-piece of Hogarth. On the shady banks of the Cam, and among the time-honored fabrics of its university, in a house since known as the "Bull Inn," lived an humble barber and his wife, who there hailed Jeremy Taylor as their son. Gibbon was born and Pitt died at Putney, in Surrey. Of the latter, Stratford Manor-house was the birth-place. The village of Islip, in Oxfordshire, claims Edward the Confes

sor.

A cottage still standing in Elstow, and the jail a mile distant, in Bedford, witnessed the birth of John Bunyan and the composition of his immortal work. Malmesbury gave a surname to the famous William, and birth to him and Hobbes. The learned Alcuin was a native of York; Selden, of Salvington, in Sussex; Alfred and Doctor Butler first saw the light at Wantage, a market town in Bershire; Doc

tor Watts, and Pococke, at Southampton; and Wareham, in Dorset, claims the honor of giving Horace Walpole birth. Long as this list might be made, it would for the most part exhibit the names of great men and of humble places. London indeed gathered together one by one all whom we have mentioned and many more. Within its own smoky walls and crowded tenements were born, Blackstone, Byron, Camden, Colley Cibber, Cowley, Gray, Hogarth, Holcroft, Ben Jonson, Milton, Lord Chancellor More, Pope, Spenser, etc. With its purlieus or parks, its tottering garrets or palaces, are associated undying names. How many roof trees throughout England are thus made beautiful and imposing, even with their thatch and tiles.

England, too, has its rural churchyards, its tombs, lowly or beautified, the storied walls and pavements of its holy places, and its gorgeous sepulchres which cherish the dust of its great men, whose fame has made their last resting place so many shrines. In Durham Cathedral, rest St. Cuthbert and the venerable Bede; in Worcester Cathedral, Prince Arthur, King John, and Bishop Gauden; Canterbury, besides the shrine of Becket, has the tombs of Edward the Black Prince, Henry IV., and his queen. Winchester, among many of Saxon monarchs, encloses the dust of Queen Boadicea, Alfred the Great, St. Swithin, and Izaak Walton. Evelyn is buried at Wotton, in Surrey; Gibbon, in Fletching church, Sussex; Byron, in Hucknall church; Bacon, at St. Albans; Pope, at Twickenham; Blackstone, at Wallingford. And London, too, has gathered from afar the dust of many mighty men, to consecrate its abbey, its cathedral, its churches, and cemeteries. Two elements of greatness are recognised in these sacred repositories-peace and genius, fortune and toil. The noble are sure of their memorial, the worthy, even if not wishing for, may be confident of theirs. The tablets of Ben Jonson, Chaucer, Milton, and Addison, are mean when compared with the sculptured monuments of the titled by birth, but the worn pavement shows where most steps are turned. Certainly one would think a theme was offered by all these resting places of the great and the renowned, which should give birth to livelier and deeper meditations than are uttered in the tasteless pages of Hervey.

We have given but a faint and brief sketch of the attractions which a combination of natural beauties and riches, with the associations of human interests, gathers around our

own father land. Happy is he who with the opportunity, has the taste and the talent to enjoy them. But even for those whose eyes have never beheld these storied and beautiful scenes, there is a library of literature open to them, only inferior in interest to the actual features which it delineates. Commencing with John Leland, "the father of English history and antiquity," and coming down through such men as Polydore Virgil, Camden, Hearne, Anthony à Wood, and Dugdale, whose works show the must of age, we have then a full and unbroken succession of writers in every department of natural history, antiquities, poetry, and national amusements. The names most familiar to us are those of Sir Henry Wotton, Herbert, Izaak Walton, Evelyn, White, Strutt, Hone, Wharton, Drummond, and the "Journal of a Naturalist." The volumes, whose details we have now so much neglected in uttering our own random reflections, will fill, with the other works of their authors, an honored place in this department of literature. How France should have received its epithet of "La Belle," and Italy the title of the land of song, while England is put by with the cheerful, but in no wise romantic or august adjective of "merry," is a mystery to us. True, it has probably witnessed more home nursed and heartfelt happiness than any other spot of the old world, but it has likewise done more to develop the energies, and expand the influences of sterling virtue, and to urge forward every worthy interest of humanity. Its enemies have all honored it while they strove against it. And now, though many of its children care not a straw for its natural beauties, and multitudes mar the happiness of its rural homes, and thousands are wholly ignorant of its rich literary treasures, it is still "merry England." Hard questions of polity and legislation, and social interest it has yet to settle, and much stormy passion, while demanding their consideration, impedes their wise and harmonious adjustment. This, then, is our last recommendation of our authors' volumes. result of such labors as theirs, is to soothe passion, to humanize the heart, and to prove to the people that their richest blessings conferred by nature, have ever been increased by virtuous labor, sound morality, and a mild but authoritative religious faith.

The

ART. VII.-1. Tracts for the Times. By Members of the University of Oxford. New York: 1839. Charles Henry, 142 Fulton street. Volume First, Second Edition. 8vo. pp. 611.

2. A Letter to the Right Reverend Father in God, Richard, Lord Bishop of Oxford, on the Tendency to Romanism imputed to Doctrines held of old, as now, in the English Church. By the Reverend E. B. PUSEY, D. D., late Fellow of Oriel College, Regius Professor of Hebrew, and Canon of Christ Church. With an Appendix containing Extracts from the Tracts for the Times, the Lyra Apostolica, and other publications, showing that to oppose Ultra-Protestantism is not to favor Popery. From the Second Oxford Edition. New York: 1839. Charles Henry. 8vo. pp. 160, and 24.

3. A Call to Union on the Principles of the English Reformation. A Sermon preached at the Primary Visitation of Charles Thomas, Lord Bishop of Ripon. By WALTER FARQUHAR Hook, D. D., Vicar of Leeds, and Chaplain in Ordinary to the Queen. With Notes and an Appendix containing copious Extracts from the Reformers. From the Fourth London Edition. New York: 1839. Charles Henry. 8vo. pp. 131.

Our readers are doubtless acquainted, as well from other sources, as from the article in a former number of this journal, with the general character of the controversy which has been going on in England for several years past, growing out of the publication of the Tracts of the Times, by Members of the University of Oxford. These Tracts began to be published in the year 1833, and are still continued-amounting, at present, to five considerable volumes. But besides these, their authors, with other writers who coincide with them in their general strain of doctrine and sentiment, have during this period, brought out a vast number of other works-probably we should not err in saying hundreds-in almost every department of theological and ecclesiastical literature; and scarcely a week passes without some new accession to the number. Nor are these slight, trivial, and ill-considered pro

ductions; on the contrary, the majority of them are extended, learned, and profound discussions of the most important subjects in theology, and in doctrinal and ecclesiastical history. Indeed, one is struck with admiration not more at the amount of these works, and the laborious diligence of their authors, than at the variety and superior style of learning, talent, and accomplishment combined in this comparatively small body of writers. Never, since the days of the Reformation, has there been presented the spectacle of so much zeal, and so much and various ability directed to the revival, explanation, and defence of the forgotten, ill-understood, or repudiated doctrines of the Apostolic Faith.

Nor has the influence of these writings been less remarkable. They have occupied the attention of all journals-daily, weekly, monthly, and quarterly; the excitement has penetrated the remotest corners of the island, and agitated all circles. Their doctrines have been hooted at, howled and shrieked over with every note of contempt, execration, and alarm, by those who belied, those who misunderstood, and those who did not understand them at all—by those who read, and by those who did not read them. Floods of books and pamphlets, tracts and sermons have been poured forth against them by Dissenters of every shade-Presbyterian and Independent, Calvinistic and Socinian-abounding with all sorts of misconceptions, false and unfair statements, and sophistical appeals to the vulgar prejudices of the ignorant and unreflecting; and in the same hue and cry of "treason" and "popery," have joined in, also, the mere political Establishment-Churchmen. For a time, too, all sorts of ridiculous tales and wicked calumnies were eagerly circulated publicly and privately, respecting the supposed authors of the Tracts, and their persons and characters were assailed with almost every form of abuse and slander. "Perhaps," says Doctor Hook-who, from position and character, from relations and opinions, both prior to and since the commencement of the controversy, is entitled, if any man, to be regarded as an independent and disinterested witness

66

'Perhaps there never was devised, by men who professed to call themselves christians, a system of attack more wicked than that which is adopted by many who assail these Tracts. Of the persons who are supposed to write them, lies the most ridiculous are invented, industriously circulated, and willingly believed. And when an