just title, or in an inconsiderate abandonment of duties, to which a more enlightened conscience must feel itself bound to submit.'

pp. 25-27. Alas! Alas! And is this the learned Dr. Magee? And does he think to promote the interests of his Church by such miserable crudities as these? Does he think, by denying the right of private judgement, to advance the cause of the Reformation, more especially in Ireland? Is this language for a Protestant Archbishop to hold in the nineteenth century? Why, he has already been obliged to eat his own words; for after broadly asserting that the Roman Catholics possess a Church without what we can properly call a religion,' he explains his meaning, in a note, to be, that Protestants

can

never admit that to be true religion which forbids the free use of Scripture.' This is a disreputable evasion. A Church may both have a religion, and profess the true religion, and yet may forbid the free use of Scripture; although, in so doing, she acts contrary to the spirit of that religion. It may be, and doubtless is, a good test of the spirit of any church, how far she admits of or favours the unrestricted circulation of the holy scriptures; but that circumstance will not prove of itself what is the religion of that church. Archbishop Magee has taken very dangerous ground if he means to make this the main distinction between Popery and the Protestant Establishment. He has supplied a test, the possible application of which he can hardly have been fully aware of,

Nor

can they,' he adds, who build the entire profession of the ⚫ Christian faith upon the word of God, concede the attribute of Christianity, in its vital character and in its proper sense, to a form of belief which subjects the word of God to the authority of man.' If the former part of this sentence is meant to describe the members of the Church of England, it is not correct: they build their belief, in all controversies of faith, on the power expressly claimed by their own Church to determine such matters; in the exercise of which power, she has put forth certain articles and formularies, which subject the word of God, as Dissenters think, to the authority of man. In the same sense as that in which the Protestant Episcopalian would deny this to be the case with his form of belief,' the Papist might, with equal truth, deny the allegation made by Dr. Magee. He would not admit that the word of God is made subject to the authority of the Church. The Church of Rome itself claims only to be an authorized guardian and interpreter of the Scriptures.

But what is this religion without a church? Does the Arch

bishop mean to affirm this of the Presbyterians of Ireland, who form by far the larger portion of those who hem in the established Church on the other side? Does he venture to affirm of that form of church polity which the Legislature of this country has formerly recognised as the established church in the northern part of these realms, that it cannot be properly termed a church? And is the Church of Scotland chargeable with sanctioning in her members such confidence in the infallibility of individual judgement, as leads them to resist all authority in matters of religion? If he does not mean this, he should have told us what he meant. For assuredly, this is a natural inference from his words. The Presbyterian Church of Ireland cannot be a whit more or less a church, according to his own shewing, because it is not, in that country, the established church; since he admits, that the Roman Catholics have a church in Ireland, though not a religion. Now a church without a religion is a much worse thing, we all know, than a religion without a church; but the latter is really not the case with the Presbyterians: they have both a church and a religion, although the Archbishop of Dublin was not aware of it.

But, possibly, his Grace might mean the whole weight of this branch of the antithetical sentence to fall on the Independents, whom he condescends to name in a preceding page. They are, however, a small body in Ireland, and it is evident that the Archbishop has heard little-at least, he knows little about them. They must be Independents indeed, ultra Independents, of a class of which we have never yet heard, who maintain the infallibility of their individual judgement as to the reasons of their faith. Surely, the Archbishop has been misled by some blundering informant who has mistaken accountability for infallibility. Personal accountability is certainly a principle of those churchless religionists who acknowledge no human authority in matters of religion, or, in other words, which his Grace may possibly recollect to have seen, no "do"minion over" their" faith." That Independents resist all religious authority, however, is not true; for, while they maintain the liberty with which Christ has made them free,' they 'sub'mit themselves to the authority to which he has made them subject.' They do not forget that there is a pastoral relation 'that binds the minister to his flock and the flock to their 'minister.' They acknowledge an authority for edification resident in the pastor to whom they submit themselves in the Lord. There is such a thing, moreover, as discipline among them; and though it is their misfortune that the Archbishop of Dublin cannot properly call it such, they have what the New Testament denominates a church.

What remains for the National Clergy, thus oppressed, maligned, hemmed in, and beneficed, to do? In the first place, they are to stay at home, look to their parishes, and not admit strangers into their pulpits, which, it seems, they have no right to do without special leave of the Bishop. This is the leading topic of admonition. His Grace adds:

There are other heads, on which I could wish to address you. But, I have gone to so great a length, on points, which I deemed the most important at this time, that it will be necessary to reserve them for a future opportunity. The heads, to which I refer, concern the nature and laws of Residence; the condition and number of Parish Churches; the qualifications and duties of Churchwardens; the advantage resulting to the Clergy from an acquaintance with the leading principles of Ecclesiastical law; the great value of a perfect Unifor mity; the present state of parochial Education, and the means of its improvement. On these various heads, many suggestions present themselves, but they must be postponed. pp. 39, 40.

Ecclesiastical Law, Uniformity, Churchwardens, building churches, these, with parochial education, constitute his Grace's apparatus for promoting Christianity in Ireland. Parochial Education' in a country where five sevenths of the population are Roman Catholics! When will this Apostolic Church be wise? We do not ask, when will she be Scriptural.

Art. VI. Letters from Mecklenburg and Holstein; comprising an Account of the Free Cities of Hamburg and Lubeck. Written in the Summer of 1820. By George Downes, A. B. late of Trinity College, Dublin. 8vo. pp. 352. Price 10s. 6d. London, 1822.

GE

ERMANY is not quite so interesting a country as Egypt or Greece, but the descendants of the Jutes and the Angles may do well now and then to look to the rock from which they were hewn, and the pit whence they have been digged. The Germans are our good cousins; and to them and their neighbours the Danes, we have been indebted for more than one line of kings. It is a loyal as well as a natural curiosity, therefore, which would induce us to cultivate some acquaintance with these elder branches of the family to which little England has the honour to belong, and to see what sort of a country that is, which our ancestors were so unwise as to desert for the catch-cold clime of this Island.

The Baltic provinces of Germany, Mr. Downes remarks, have been scarcely noticed by travellers; and it is the prominent merit of the present volume, that it takes us where few former tourists of pleasure have thought it worth while to pene

trate. We cannot compliment the Writer on having produced a very interesting, or a peculiarly well written work. The character of the country has infected his pages; and for want of better materials, he has been induced to inflict upon his readers a variety of details wholly insipid, adventures which end in nothing, dry catalogues of no conceivable interest, and a more than sufficient quantity of sentimentality and German. A Tour spread out into letters, is always tedious; but what could the most ingenious tourist find to fill up twenty-five letters withal from Mecklenburg and Holstein ?

Hamburg and Altona, we presume, do not require to be described to English readers. Mr. Downes did not fail to visit the grave of Klopstock at Ottensen; and we are indebted to him for a correct copy of the separate inscriptions on the two stones placed over the graves of the Poet and his beloved Meta, which are confounded together in the translation given by Miss Elizabeth Smith. We are surprised, however, that Mr. Downes, instead of borrowing that translation, did not furnish us with a correct one. A very remarkable piece of information is given us at page 44. The clergyman of the English Reformed Church at Hamburgh, is represented as adhering exclusively to the Liturgy of the Church of Scotland.' Not having before heard of this Scotch liturgy, we regret that Mr. Downes did not bring home a copy of it. Equally curious is the information, (which does not, however, rest on our Author's own testimony, but is imbodied in an inscription in the Jacobi Kirche at Lubeck,) that the Jerusalemberg or Hill of Jerusalem, an artificial eminence in the environs, is at the same distance from that church, that Golgotha is from Jerusalem. As the supposed site of Golgotha is almost in the centre of modern Jerusalem, and never could have been without the ancient city, one is curious to know how and whence the worthy Lubeckers got their information.

The scene on leaving Ratzeburg may be taken as a specimen of a German landscape.

'On leaving Ratzeburg we ascended an acclivity, which led into an extensive sandy plain sown with corn, but terminating in a bleak uncultivated tract. This region, however meagre and featureless the description may appear, possessed for me an intense and peculiar interest. There was nothing to meet the eye but a grassy expanse, bounded in front and on the right by a wood. Such landscapes are quite common in Germany; but there was one minute circumstance from which this derived what I may term its individuality. We were travelling along the high road, and yet-properly speaking-there was no high road to be seen: for the uniformity of the plain was interrupted only by a number of tracks, parallel to or traversing each

other, and distinguishable from the field around, merely by the comparative poverty of the verdure which was obliterating them. This neglected state of the common channel of communication, observable too in the vicinity of so considerable a town as that we had just passed through, was calculated to excite an indescribable feeling of blankness and nonentity. There appeared as it were a realization, on a large scale, of the acmé of an Irish curse:-"May the grass grow green before your door." The louring forest also, within which we were soon to be shrouded, naturally encouraged melancholy ideas,-and we felt like those of Scottish song, who

saw the derke forest them before, And thought it awsome for to see.'

The country now began to open. Several pretty lakes were gleaming at a distance on our left,-one of which was nearly traversed by a row of trees, growing upon some island or peninsula. Among these lakes a little village occasionally appeared. The few straggling peasants whom we met had each a rose in his hat, and also a cockade-a badge of subjection to the sovereign. About an hour after we left our solitary refectory, the road merged into an avenue of oaks, which continued in nearly a straight line for at least two miles,-during which we did not pass a single habitation, nor encounter any person, except a group in military habits who were lying on the way-side. The town of Zarentin succeeded, which is agreeably situated near the lake of Schall.'

On behalf of those of our readers who neither understand German, nor take in the Literary Gazette, we must protest against giving three pages of German, as a specimen of Koerner's poems, without a translation. This is the more inexcusable as the Author appears to be no despicable rhymester, and can write an extempore in an album.

One of the most remarkable objects which met our Traveller's notice in journeying over the sands and through the forests of Mecklenburgh, is the castle of Schwerin. It shall have the benefit of his description.

• But how shall I describe the picture which the twilight enabled us to contemplate, before the shades of night closed in? Near our final egress from the forest we suddenly beheld, gleaming at a distance through the trees, the noble lake of Schwerin. It lay beneath usnot one burnished sheet of living gold," but under an aspect much more sublime! The sun had set, and the subdued and mellow light, reposing on the unruffled surface, excelled meridian splendor. Above the lake towered a mighty and indistinct mass. This was the feudal castle of Schwerin, one of the proudest baronial remains in this part of Germany. On beholding it, I no longer regretted that I had not arrived in time for a more detailed view. The undefined outline of the lofty walls harmonized so admirably with the shadowy and vanishing tint of the woods, the faded light that lay upon the expanse of