for twenty-four pounds, thirteen shillings and sixpence. Could we be sure of this taste for mere rarities continuing, a man could do nothing more profitable, in the way of book-buying, than to purchase all the trash of his day. It would only have to be kept snug for a couple of centuries, and then, what nobody cared for once, might purchase a principality, or endow an hospital for brainless authors in all time to come.

BIBLE COMMENTATORS.

SOME Bible commentators are excessively abstruseothers, great triflers. Of the latter class, was St. Austin, who laboured hard to prove that the ten plagues of Egypt were punishments adapted to the breach of the ten commandments; forgetting that the law was given to the Jews, and that the plagues were inflicted on the Egyptians. But St. Austin committed a worse blunder than this; for the law was not given in the form of commandments, until nearly three months after the plagues were sent.

Brightman, an expositor on the Revelations, among other subjects, selects for a comment the twentieth verse of the fourteenth chapter:-" And the wine-press was trodden without the city; and blood came out of the wine-press even unto the horses' bridles, by the space of a thousand and six hundred furlongs." He then comments upon it as follows:— "" Sixteen hundred furlongs; that is, through the whole realm of England. Sixteen hundred furlongs make two hundred English miles. Now the length of this realm, from the farthest part of the south to the longest reach of the north, is more than this by a hundred miles; but yet if we take away the vastness of the northern parts, where the country is more desert and unmanured, near the borders, we shall see a marvellous consent in this also."

The philosopher Whiston, who was no flatterer, applied a prophecy of St. John, in the Revelations, to Prince Eugene; who politely thanked, and even rewarded the expositor; but protested that he could not bring himself to believe, that St. John had him in view when he wrote the Apocalypse.

Some of the best commentators are not free from trifling: thus Dr. Gill, in his Expository, seriously tells us that the word abba, read backwards or forwards being the same, may teach us that God is the father of his people in adversity as well as in prosperity.

Vander Meulen, in his Dissertationes Philologica, gives a singular elucidation of the following text from Genesis :

"And the Lord took one of his (Adam's) ribs, and made a woman." The commentator then inquires-" First, was the rib taken from the right or the left side of Adam? Secondly, was Adam, after the loss of that rib, a maimed or imperfect man?" Questions, which he discusses very gravely, and then proceeds to ask-"Why was Eve formed of a rib, and not of the dust of the ground?" His answer to this question is curious, if not convincing. "Had Eve been created of the dust of the ground," he says, "she would have been a stranger to Adam. Had she been created out of his foot, he might have despised or trampled upon her, as being much his inferior. Had she been produced out of his head, she would, perhaps, have taken too much upon herself, and pretended to domineer. It was, therefore, more proper that she should be taken from the middle of Adam's body, on which account he could not but have a due esteem for her."

ARIOSTO.

It is related of Ariosto, that his father being one day extremely angry with him, reprimanded him in terms of the strongest resentment and invective; and that Ariosto not only listened with patience, but with the most profound attention; not offering a single word in his vindication; seeming, on the contrary, to wish the stern lecture had continued longer. A friend of his, who was present, asked Ariosto how he could so patiently hear himself abused? The poet replied, that he had been for some days hard at work on a comedy; and, on that very morning, was much perplexed how to write a scene of an angry father reprimanding his son. At the moment his father began, it struck him as an admirable opportunity of examining his manner with attention, that he might be enabled to draw the picture as close to nature as possible. Being thus absorbed in thought, he had only noticed the voice, the face, and the action, of his father, without paying the least attention to the truth or falsehood of the charge.

ORIGIN OF TEXTS.

THE Custom of taking a text as the basis of a sermon or lecture is said to have originated with Ezra, who, we are told, accompanied by several Levites in a public congregation of men and women, ascended a pulpit, opened the book of the law,

and, after addressing a prayer to the Deity, to which the people said Amen, "read in the law of God distinctly, and gave the sense, and caused them to understand the reading."*

Previous to the time of Ezra, the Patriarchs delivered, in public assemblies, either prophecies or moral instructions for the edification of the people; and it was not until the return of the Jews from the Babylonish captivity, during which time they had almost lost the language in which the Pentateuch was written, that it became necessary to explain, as well as to read, the Scriptures to them; a practice adopted by Ezra, and since universally followed. In later times, as we are told in the Acts of the Apostles, chap. xiv. v. 21. the book of Moses was thus read in the synagogue every sabbath day. To this laudable custom our Saviour conformed; and, in the synagogue at Nazareth, read a passage from the prophet Isaiah; then closing the book, returned it to the priest, and preached from the text. This custom, which now prevails all over the Christian world, was interrupted, in the dark ages, when the Ethics of Aristotle were read in many churches, on Sunday, instead of the Holy Scriptures.

LITERARY CURIOSITY.

THE following Latin verse, which is composed with much ingenuity, affords two very opposite meanings, by merely transposing the order of the words:

"Prospicimus modo, quod durabunt tempore longo
Fœdera, nec patriæ pax cito diffugiet."

"Diffugiet cito pax patriæ, nec fœdera longo
Tempore durabunt, quod modo prospicimus."

SINGULAR SERMON.

THAT a ridiculous sermon should be preached can excite no surprise; for preaching is assumed by all ranks and persons of different qualifications, learned and unlearned; but that a Bachelor of Divinity should preach before the University, and afterwards publish such a sermon as one that we have seen in print, is remarkable. The title is "The Virgin Mary. Preached in St. Mary's College, Oxford, on Lady-day, 1641. By the learned Thomas Master, B. D."

*Nehemiah, cap. viii. 8.

The text is from Luke, i. 26, 27.-"The angel Gabriel was sent from God unto a city of Galilee, named Nazareth, to a virgin espoused to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David; and the virgin's name was Mary." The divine then opens his subject thus. "We see the virgin in her perigæum; and her degrees, in this lower part of her orb, are prickt out in the text. 1. A virgin supposeth a woman, a degree below a man. 2. A virgin, one degree below woman: a virgin is a cipher: God made it not. 3. Espoused: that is, somewhat lower yet it is the gods', and the king's highway from maid to wife; but is neither, and therefore inferior to both. 4. To Joseph: this brings her lower still. 5. Of the house of David: lower still. 6. Her name Mary: yet lower. Her husband could not call Mary, but it reminded her of her poverty. 7. Of Nazareth: we are now at the ground; nay, the grave, for Galilee was in the region of the shadow of death."

The reverend preacher then proceeds :-" From this lowly state of Mary, we gather comfort for ourselves: for 1st, our soul is a woman. 2. She is a virgin. 3. She is espoused to some favourite study. 4. To the body; that is to the flesh, which is the carpenter's shop, and the spirit which is the carpenter. 5. This carpenter is nobly descended. 6. Mary is a Lady; and that's the soul's name too. 7. She dwells here at Nazareth." In this strain, Mr. Master proceeds through the whole of his sermon.

ANDREW MARVELL.

One of the finest tributes which has ever been paid to the death of Charles I., was by the poet and patriot, Andrew Marvell, in an Ode to Cromwell. Alluding to the execution of the monarch, he says:

"While round the armed bands
Did clasp their bloody hands,
He nothing common did, or mean,
Upon that memorable scene;
But, with his keener eye,
The axe's edge did try,

Nor call'd the gods, with vulgar spite,
To vindicate his helpless right,

But bow'd his comely head
Down as upon a bed."

THE SENSE OF THE NATION.

IN the year 1710, a pamphlet of ninety-one pages was published, entitled "A new Tract of the Sense of the Nation, being a modest Comparison between the Addresses to the late King James and those to her present Majesty, in order to observe how far the Sense of the Nation may be judged of by either of them." The object of the author is to shew of how little value public addresses are in general; since, if they are not absolutely insincere, they are at least without any positive meaning. "For example," says he :-"When the city of Carlisle, in their second address to king James, talk of being transported above mortals;' of God Almighty's projects;' of king James's unparalleled danger;' of the miracle of the prince of Wales's birth;' of the qualities of king James above Constantine;' and of spending their lives and fortunes for the young gentleman's safety;' can any man be so weak and foolish, or indeed so unkind to the citizens of Carlisle, as to think they had any meaning in all this? Have their actions since given the least ground of suspicion that they meant any thing? Have any one of them spent their lives and fortunes for the Pretender? Have they not twice or three times, since that, addressed the princes that keep him out; and, perhaps, with as much meaning? The sum of all this is, they were as honest, and had as much meaning, as addressers are expected to have, or as most of them ever have.

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Now let us come to the Bath addressers, warm in their acknowledgments for their young prince as their hot springs, which they boasted helped his mother to conceive; when, good men, in their address to king James, they congratulate him on being the parent of so good a son;' (to be sure his goodness was then known, for he was full twenty-two days' old); then of this son being the reward of heaven for his majesty's declaration for liberty of conscience; or, in plainer English, heaven's reward for the merit of his majesty's breaking the laws then, that they desire the young prince and his posterity may live to baffle mortality itself; let no man be so foolish to charge the honest citizens of Bath with meaning what they said in these words. No, no! they were better Christians, as well as wiser men. These things were only addresses; that is, words of course, without any signification, and cannot, without breach of charity, be taken otherwise.

"Could it be possible the citizens of Bath could say with any meaning, 'We do promise and engage, upon our allegiance, that when your majesty shall think fit to call a Parliament, we will choose none to serve therein, but such as will