have long known to be a person of excellent understanding, and of great moral worth, an assiduous and faithful minister of the gospel, respected and beloved by all who have the pleasure of knowing him. I willingly bear this testimony to his character, because I am apprehensive that in the course of the discussion, I have sometimes thought it necessary, in justice to the subject, to advance some remarks which may have been unpleasant to his feelings. It is difficult in controversy to observe a proper medium; and language is sometimes taken in a sense different from what the writer expects and intends. If therefore any expressions of asperity have occurred beyond the limits of propriety, I hope that my friend will excuse them, and will regard them as intended wholly for his system, and not personally to himself. I have not intentionally misrepresented his meaning; and if I am convicted of mistake, I shall thankfully retract. I seek not for victory but for truth, and I esteem no triumph more honourable than the correction of error, and no acquisition more valuable, than that of moral and religious truth.

And now, Sir, with many thanks to yourself, and to your nu merous readers, for the indulgence I have experienced, and with earnest wishes for the increasing success of your liberal and useful Repository,

Hackney, Nov. 9, 1807.

- I am your obliged Servant,

T. BELSHAM.

POETRY.

PROLOGUE TO A THEATRICAL EXHIBITION,

AT THE COMMENCEMENT OF A
SCHOOL-VACATION.
Spkoen by one of the Scholars.

Ladies! I know they tell me but the truth,
That you will listen nor despise our youth;
They tell me too that manhood will attend,
And kindly lose the censor in the friend,
Recal the years departed, and enjoy
Again, the first ambition of a boy.

Yes! we aspire upon this narrow stage,
The gay to interest, nor disgust the sage;
Yet our's no critic fury to appease,
Your smiles await the honest wish to please.

And O! when time has borne us on his wing
O'er the short months of Nature's moral spring;
Be our's an equal ardour of the mind,
To all with dignity the task assign'd;
In the low vale, or on the heights of fame,
To cherish virtue's heaven-enkindled flame;
Anxious, in Life's great drama, to appear
Correct, and credit our rehearsals here;
And while around tumultuous passions rage,
Act the good part, for-" all the world's a stage.'

H. N.

TO THE NIGHTINGALE.

What time the crimson cloud of light,
On Ocean's bosom rests its beam;
When Hesper shews his golden gem,
And ushers in the night:

What time the Sun's declining rays,
Beneath Night's dusky mantle fail;
Then Philomela tells her tale,
To Cynthia's sacred face.

Say, tuneful songster, why alone
Refuse to join the feather'd throng,
And mingle with their sprightly song,
The beauties of thine own?

But to the thicket-shades withdrawn,
Thou shun'st the piercing beam of day;
Nor ever tun'st thy artless lay,
'To hail th' approach of morn.

But when the night with sable veil,

Has cloth'd in black the mountain-heads;

Ah! then what melody proceeds,

And floats on ev'ry gale.

The lover thus disdains the light,
And quits the haunts of human race;
Midst thickest gloom like thee he strays,

A songster of the night.

E. DUNCANNON, aged 13.

REVIEW.

STILL PLEAS'D TO PRAISE, YET NOT AFRAID TO BLAME."

Pore.

ART. I.-Lectures on Scripture Facts; by W. B. Collyer. large 8vo. pp. 593. 12s. Williams and Smith.

1807.

We are enjoined in Scripture addresses. It is but justice to to prove all things: even those Mr. C. to say that he has sucgreat events recorded in the books ceeded, by means of a lively aniof the Old and New Testament, mated manner, in giving no inconupon the authority of which the siderable degree of interest to whole evidence of revealed reli- these discussions, and that he has gion rests, are to be made the been at much pains in collecting subject of investigation, that by information from various respect examining into the internal marks able authors and compilers, who of credibility which they possess, have written on the same subject. and corroborating them by fo. As an apology why he, as a young reign testimonies, we may rest man, should come forward in an our faith in them on solid attempt, which might seem to regrounds. In order to assist quire a depth of erudition seldom Christians in these important in- found in those of his own age, quiries, learned men have em- especially when their attention ployed their talents, in collecting is a good deal confined to the from various quarters every labours of the pulpit, he, with thing which might seem to throw equal modesty and propriety, light upon the various parts of mentions the peculiar nature of the scripture narrative. It is the the warfare, which is now carried laudable object of the present on by the enemies of religion. writer to avail himself of these learned researches, in order to present them to common readers

"The young, the inexperienced, the illiterate, have united with the Sage, and the Philosopher, more popular form, than against the claims and obligations has commonly been done; to of Revelation. Let youth be interweave foreign testimonies to opposed to youth, age to age, the truth of the scripture history talent to talent. Let it be seen with the discussion of the history that some are growing up, to itself; and to relieve the dryness support the Redeemer's kingdom, of a series of extracts by giving whilst others finish their course, the whole as much as possible, and are gathered to their fathers." the shape and ardour of pulpit

The lectures are fourteen in

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accustomed or inclined to investigations of this excure.

number. and embrace the f lowing subjects. The necessity of a divine Revelation. The Crea- Having thus paid a dur tribute of tion. The Deluge. The de appleu- to the good intentions and struction of Eabel, and the origin very commendable industry maniof nations The destruction of f sted in the volume te ore us, it So lom and Gomorrah. The remains that we perform our duty history of Joseph. The nature to the pubic, by pointing out some and destination of Man. The defects and errors which have slavery and deliverance of Israel met our eye in readin; it. in Egypt. The history of the A good cause may be injured Israchtes in the wilderness, and when weak arguments or dubious their establishment in Canaan. facts are brought forwards in supe The government of the Jews, port of it. This is sometimes including the Theocracy and mo- though not often the case in the narchy, to the bilding of Solo- present work. Some of the testimon's temple. The cap ivity of monies from heathen writers are Israel and Judah. The life, death, much too general to build any and resurrection of Jesus Christ. thing upon, and had therefore The character of the writers of better have been omitted. The the Old and New Testament. quotation from Virgil's Pollio, so The analogy discoverable between far from affording a proof that it the Religion of Nature, and that was an imitation of the prophet, of the Bible in respect to partial is cited by Pope in a note to his obscurities which belong to both. beautiful poem of the Messiah, Each of these discussions branches with a contrary design, to shew out into a number of collateral how interior Virgil is to the ininquiries, in the course of which spired writer. A little farther inconsiderable information is afford- quiry will convince Mr. C. that ed to the unlearned reader, and the passage from Josephus can be popular answers are given to nothing better than a designed inpopular objections. As these terpolation, and that no serious lectures are written, evidently un- evidence to the truth of the earthder the bias of those religious sen- quake at the time of our Saviour's timents commonly called Calvinis death, can be collected from the tic, it cannot be expected that we clefts of the earth shown by the should approve of every thing con- monks of the Church of the Sepul tained in this volume, but the al- chre, any more than from the lusions to doctrinal points are pieces of the cross which they sell to rare, no rancour of spirit is mani. the superstitious vulgar. Our au fested and much good may possi- thor, in drawing a picture of the bly be done by the work, as it may manners and morals of the hea tend to excite a spirit of inquiry thens at the time of the appearamongst a class of Christians who, ance of Christ, is unjust in saying confining themselves to a few fa- that courage was their only gene. vourite topics, are in general little rally allowed virtue; certamiy

the virtues of patriotism, con- ther any such person ever existed. tempt of gain, compassion and Many examples occur of that other qualities of the "hewy kind, kind of prettiness of manner, were in high estimation. He says which makes the vulgar stare and that at this period, science had un- the judicious grieve. For instance, veiled her splendours, and irradi- describing in flowery language ated the discovered globe, from Abraham intending to offer up pole to pole. When Mr. C. flou- Isaac, he breaks off, saying, “But rishes in this way, is he forgetful, we will no longer attempt to scent or is he ignorant, that science, the violet and to paint the rainthough not literature, was then in bow." When he is admiring the its infancy, and that the globe, concise terms in which the death which is now very imperfectly of Joseph and of the whole of known, could then hardly be said that generation is mentioned by to be known at all? In enume the historian, he exclaims," One rating the evils arising from the should imagine that Moses had civil institutions then prevalent, he snatched a feather from the wing forgets to mention domestic sla- of time to record the swiftness of very and the liberty of divorce. his flight and the rapidity of his Some inaccuracies of style desolation." In some places our might be pointed out, which, if author appears to deviate from the the work come to a second edition, humble pretensions with which he should be corrected. In two or sets out, and assumes the tone of three instances the word each is a veteran critic, to whom the opimade the nominative of a plural nion of the world may be expectverb. Esau is called a fratricide, ed to bow." We wish it to be unthough fratricide means the mur. derstood as our decided opinion der not the murderer of a brother. that at the destruction of Babel A tract of country is more than a new language was introduced, once called a track. Instead of and this by the miraculous and saying that this or that event oc- immediate interposition of divine curred or took place, our author power." constantly uses the word transpired, which has by no means the same signification.

It may admit of a doubt, whether our author's distinction between statutes, commandments, Something too much like affec. judgments and testimonies, as tation and parade may be observ. used in the Old Testament, will ed in some parts. The lectures hold good. The terms secm often are preceded by a long list of to be used indiscriminately. Inwriters, whom Mr. C. is supposed stances may be produced, where to have been studying deeply for statutes cannot be confined to the purpose of obtaining informa- positive institutions, as where Dation from them, several of whom vid says, "Thy statutes have been have no written remains whatever, my song in the house of my and concerning one in particular, pilgrimage." In Levit. iv. 13, the Orpheus, whose & act date is here word commandments seems appli assigned, it is quite uncertain whe. ed peculiarly to the Levitical ri