life, will unfit the generality of able men from mixing in the active and evangelizing labours of Parochial Ministration. The result therefore is, that the existence of Sinecures can only be defended, as a maintenance for that very small portion of the theological world, which consists of retired students, fitted neither for Episcopal nor for Parochial Duties. A list so minute, that it would hardly have been necessary in a new system to have provided for them at all, but who, in that fresh arrangement and distribution of Church Property which is here proposed, can be most amply remunerated, without any material violation of the grand principle of that arrangement.

‹ But whatever may be the value in theory of this latter argument for Sinecures, it will be found to have had little real operation in practice. If any one turns to the list of the Dignitaries of our Cathedrals, he will find, that not more than one twentieth of them have had any claims to preferment on the ground of theological or even literary attainments. Parliamentary Interest, Family Connections, or Party Gratitude, have in general filled up all vacancies as they have arisen, with the Sons, the Brothers, and the Tutors of ministers and their adherents. This species of Patronage has generally been considered, to use the language of an able writer in a valuable periodical publication, "only as so much oil for greasing the wheels of Government, that the machine of state may roll on more smoothly." Widely, he observes, as the several parties who have governed the country for the last century have differed in other things, they have all agreed to regard the Church as a source of Patronage, which might fairly be employed either for the gratification of private partiality or the purchase of so much Parliamentary support. pp. 26-31.

We do not feel it to be within our province to give any opinion of the specific plan proposed by Lord Henley. Among the points which it embraces, are, the more equitable division and arrangement of church property, and the gradual abolition of pluralities; an equalization of the bishoprics, with a view to put an end to the scandal of translations and the objectionable practice of commendams;—the erection of two new sees,-the one, comprising the southern parts of the diocese of Lincoln, to have its seat at Windsor, and the other, comprising the counties of Derby and Nottingham, to have its seat at Southwell; --the extension of the law of residence to the prelates of the Church, and their removal from Parliament;-lastly, the transfer of the Crown Patronage to a Board of Unpaid Commissioners. The Commutation of Tithes, it is remarked, cannot with propriety be designated as a measure of Church Reform, being an equitable ad'justment of a most lawful, but, to the feelings of many, an irritating and vexatious demand.' We cannot refrain from transcribing part of the admirable remarks by which his Lordship supports the proposal for relieving the Prelates from their parliamentary duties. If this can be satisfactorily effected, he says, it would probably do more towards spiritualizing the Church,

6

and advancing the interests of true religion, than any measure which has been adopted since the days of the Reformation.'

As nothing has a more certain effect in secularizing the Church, than the introduction of Politics into it, so nothing has a greater tendency to lower it in the estimation of the people. One reason why our Judges are so justly popular, is their very general separation from all party violence and political litigation. The admixture of the Ministers of Religion in politics, is bad every way. If, as is the natural inclination of religious men, of men looking beyond this present scene, and caring for nothing while they continue in it, but the maintenance of good government and order, they keep aloof from the transitory squabbles of party, and support the Administration of the day, they incur the charge of servility, and perhaps of tergiversation. If, on the other hand, they embark in a systematic course of opposition, they seem to be violating those commands which inculcate submission to the powers that be, and which declare resistance to such powers, to be resistance to the ordinance of God. If they find it their duty to withstand the loud and earnest desires of the great mass of the people, they are pursued by a "hunt of obloquy," which is of infinite evil, in all respects, and which turns into persecutors and revilers, those who ought to "esteem them very highly in love for their works' sake."

The real influence of the Church in the counsels of the nation, and the security of her endowments, do not depend on the votes or the speeches of a small number of Representatives or "Guardians' in Parliament; but on the habits and affections of the people, strengthened and confirmed by her own growing desire to work out her purity and efficiency, and by her faithfulness in the discharge of the great trust which is committed to her hands. These are the arms by which, under the protection of God, she will repel the attacks of all enemies, and secure the support not only of every religious, but of every peaceful, sober, moral, and temperate man in the kingdom. With these, she may rely with confidence on Parliament, and permit her Hierarchy, unpolluted by Politics, to apply its undivided energies to that sacred object to which it should be exclusively devoted.'

pp. 49-53..

So far from being weaker, the Church would be much the 'stronger, by the severing of this unnatural alliance between the kingdom of Christ and the kingdom of the world.'

We cannot close this article without acknowledging the candid and conciliatory manner in which Lord Henley refers to the in'defatigable exertions of the Dissenters', and the warm praise which he bestows upon an Institution in the metropolis,—of which, indeed, his Lordship is an active and most efficient supporter, the Society for promoting Christian Instruction. shall take a future opportunity of adverting more particularly to the operations of that most meritorious institution.

We

⚫ noble opportunity', exclaims Lord Henley, does the state of our populous towns present, for the performance of one splendid

' act of Christian magnanimity! What a spectacle would it be, ' of the influence of true religion on the heart, if the Church of · England and the three more numerous bodies of Trinitarian 'Dissenters, forgetting all past causes of jealousy and irritation, 'would bury the remembrance of their trifling differences of doc'trine in the glorious object of evangelizing the benighted mil' lions that surround them!'

Art. V. 1. The Theological Library. No. I. By Charles Webb Le Bas, M.A., Professor in lege, Herts, &c. F.cap. 8vo. pp. xvi. 454. 1832.

The Life of Wiclif. the East India ColPrice 6s. London,

2. The Sunday Library; or the Protestant's Manual for the SabbathDay: being a Selection of Sermons from Eminent Divines of the Church of England, chiefly within the last half-century. With Occasional Biographical Sketches and Notes. By the Rev. T. F. Dibdin, D.D., Rector of St. Mary's, Bryanston Square, and Vicar of Exning, Suffolk. 6 Vols. f.cap. 8vo. Price 1. 10s. 1831, 2. 3. The Christian's Family Library, under the Superintendence of the Rev. E. Bickersteth, Rector of Watton, Herts. No. I. Luther and the Lutheran Reformation. By the Rev. John Scott, M.A. Vol. I. 12mo. Price 6s. London, 1832.

4. The Library of Ecclesiastical Knowledge. No. 29. Life of Calvin. Part II. 12mo. Price 6d. 1832.

5. The Vestry Library. Select Works of the Right Rev. Joseph Hall, D.D., Lord Bishop of Norwich. Edited by Thomas Russell, A.M. Vols. I. to V. 12mo. 5s. each.

6. Anthologia Sacra; or Select Theological Extracts, on Subjects doctrinal, practical, and experimental: selected and arranged by the Rev. Bernard Gilpin, M.A., Rector of St. Andrew, Hertford; and William Henry Valpy, Esq., Honourable East India Company's Civil Service. Roy. 8vo. 2 Parts in I. pp. xvi. 352. 320. Price 11. 4s. London, 1832.

IT is a favourite paradox with a certain school of political economists, that production creates for itself a market;-that the supply excites the demand, not the demand the supply. Fallacious as this position is, if taken as a general axiom, it would seem to be almost absolutely true of one sort of production, namely, that which ministers to the intellectual luxury, the artificial appetite of reading. Books create readers, not readers books. Of the multitudes of books that sell, how few are there of which it could be truly said, that they were wanted! With regard to the mass of publications that obtain few or no readers, or a very limited sale, it will readily be admitted, that the fact proves the

absence of demand and the superfluity of supply; and this may seem to contradict the notion, that supply creates the market. But, on the other hand, it may be asked, was there any previous demand for the works that do sell? Was Lardner's Cyclopædia, or the Family Library, or Waverley, demanded by the specific wants of the reading public, before those attractive novelties were brought into the literary market? Assuredly not. There was no more previous want, to excite a demand, and by demand to call into existence the supply, in the case of the works that sell, than in that of the less fortunate speculations. The former sell, not because they were wanted, but because they have excited curiosity, because they have created an artificial want. And the latter, including many publications of equal or superior intrinsic value, do not sell, because they are not adapted to stimulate this capricious appetite, or to waken, on their own behalf, this desire of acquisition. The truth is, that books are a luxury, and luxuries are never wanted. For, although they are the most tempting of articles, when skilfully got up, and when money is to be had, if they were not supplied, people would be content with such things as they had.

If this were not the fact, why should there be so little demand for old works of intrinsic and established worth, compared with that which is produced by new books? If the reading appetite was steady, and the fund for supplying the consumption of literary productions was of that regular and distinct kind that supports the demand for necessaries, so that an average aggregate sum was constantly expended in the purchase of books, it would in that case be a serious evil, that so many new books of inferior quality are continually driving out of the market their more respectable predecessors. If every individual who can afford to purchase books, allowed himself so much money's-worth of reading per year, as he allows himself so many coats, more or less, or his wife so many bonnets, then our duty as Reviewers would become a still more responsible and delicate one than it is; for then, every book of light reading, every work of slender pretension, every well-meant but uncalled for production, must be regarded as taking the place of more valuable articles, and the cost of them as so much money misappropriated, like that which is spent in trash or finery. And then we should have occasion to regret, still more than we do, that the standard and stock works of English literature are obtaining at the present time so slow and limited a sale, that the demand for such works has of late greatly declined,-and that few volumes larger than a duodecimo, or the cabinet size, stand a fair chance of repaying the publisher: facts which may receive their explanation from the depression of trade and the engrossing interest of public events.

But we console ourselves for the apparent preference given to

works of small size and slight construction, annuals, libraries, and all sorts of typographical novelties, by inclining to the opinion, that their sale subtracts scarcely anything from the demand for other kinds of works; and that, after making every reasonable deduction, we may consider the forced sale of these publications as being, very nearly to its whole extent, an addition to the demand as well as to the supply. School-books, books of science, and others which may be regarded as the tools of education or of scientific acquisition, may be classed among necessaries, and they are therefore excepted from the general law to which we have been adverting; although even these works promote, to a very considerable degree, the desire and want which they are adapted to meet the appetite not merely grows by what it feeds on, but is originally excited by its proper food. With regard also to religious publications in general, it must be admitted, that there is a steady demand, which necessitates, to a certain degree, the supply. And yet, who can doubt that the multiplication of religious books tends to augment the number, and to increase the consumptive power, (if we may so speak,) of religious readers? And so far as they increase religion, they increase the demand for instruction, which religion never fails to produce.

If this be true, religious works, then, require, as well as others, to be adapted, not merely to the existing want or demand, but to the latent desire for knowledge, which they must be the instrument of eliciting. No man likes to remain ignorant of any thing which he deems worth knowing; but the quiescence of ignorance would be absolute, were it not for the vague prompting of curiosity; since no one, till he begins to acquire knowledge, and has even made some advancement, can have any idea of the extent of his ignorance, or ascertain how much worth knowing, and how well worth the trouble of learning, are the things proposed to his attention. How few persons, comparatively, even among the educated classes, have any competent acquaintance with the history of their own country! An historical novel, perhaps, first excites a curiosity to know something more of the facts relating to that particular period. But of the value of historical knowledge, no one can have any correct estimate, who has not already made it his study. In like manner, of the rich mass of theological literature, the irreligious man remains willingly ignorant, because he has not religious knowledge enough to know, how deep and injurious is his ignorance, and how much religion itself is worthy of being known. In reference to such subjects, indeed, there is moreover a secret reason at work in the heart, leading men to prefer darkness to light. Still, though religious ignorance opposes a more determined resistance than any other species of ignorance, to the efforts of those who would disturb its slumber, it is to be dealed with, and vanquished, by similar methods and weapons;