mind soever is fully possessed with a fervent desire to know good things, and with the dearest charity to infuse the knowledge of them into others,-when such a man would speak, his words, like so many nimble, airy servitors, trip about him at command, and in well-ordered files, as he would wish, fall aptly into their places. Rerum enim copia (says the great Roman Teacher and Example) verborum copiam gignit.'

It is remarkable, that the prejudice against extemporaneous preaching, which exists in some quarters, has attached itself to no profession but that of the ministry. The most fastidious taste,' observes Mr. Ware, never carries a written speech to the bar or into the senate.' This does not apply, indeed, to France, and some other foreign countries. But, speaking of the United States, (and the remark equally applies to this country,) he adds:

The very man who dares not ascend the pulpit without a sermon diligently arranged and filled out to the smallest word, if he had gone into the profession of the law, would, at the same age, and with no greater advantages, address the bench and jury in language altogether unpremeditated. Instances are not wanting, in which the minister who imagined it impossible to put ten sentences together in the pulpit, has found himself able, on changing his profession, to speak fluently for an hour.'

The rules laid down by Mr. Ware, for acquiring the habit of extemporaneous speaking, will be found very serviceable. We can only make room for the following, which we think highly judicious, and at the same time valuable for the recommen dation which it conveys, of expository preaching.

There will be a great advantage in selecting for first efforts expository subjects. To say nothing of the importance and utility of this mode of preaching, which render it desirable that every minister should devote a considerable proportion of his labours to it, it contains great facilities and reliefs for the inexperienced speaker. The close study of a passage of Scripture which is necessary to expounding it, renders it familiar. The exposition is inseparably connected with the text, and necessarily suggested by it. The inferences and practical reflections are in like manner naturally and indissolubly associated with the passage. The train of remark is easily preserved, and embarrassment in a great measure guarded against, by the circumstance that the order of discourse is spread out in the open Bible, upon which the eyes may rest, and by which the thoughts may rally?'

We have no very serious apprehensions that extemporaneous preaching will ever become unpopular among English Dissenters, notwithstanding that we have recently observed in some quarters, a disposition to follow the seductive example of certain celebrated Scotch orators. To read an oration eloquently, is a rare and difficult attainment, which few will be able to master. Mr. Ware urges it as one powerful

recommendation of the extemporary mode of address, that its general adoption would tend to break up the constrained,

cold, formal, scholastic mode of address, which follows the ⚫ student from his college duties, and keeps him from immediate contact with the hearts of his fellow men.' We are well persuaded that there are substantial reasons for the preference which he gives to the more popular method.

Art. IX. L'Indépendance de l'Empire du Brésil. Presentée aux Monarques Européens. Par M. Alphonse de Beauchamp, Historien du Brésil, &c. 8vo. pp. 141. A Paris. 1824.

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NE would have thought that, with the example before them of the United States of America, the re-conquest of Brazil by any forces which Portugal could send against her now independent Colonies, would have appeared too visionary to be attempted. Its virtual independence may be dated from the emigration of the Court of Lisbon. That event shewed, as this writer remarks, that Portugal stood in need of Brazil, but that Brazil had no longer need of Portugal; and it became thenceforward impossible that the union of the two countries should subsist on the same conditions as before. It were suf ficient, one would think, to content the sovereign of Portugal,. that the throne of Brazil is occupied by a member of the house of Braganza: and no doubt the king himself would have been. ready to acquiesce in the elevation of his son to the empire, did not commercial as well as political jealousies prompt the government of the mother country to attempt to recover at once the sovereignty and the monopoly of its ancient possessions. But, says Monsieur Alphonse de Beauchamp, Le • Brésil est, et restera Independant.' And he thinks that their. holinesses, the allied monarchs, must, on reflection, be satisfied with this. Brazil may and ought to be, he thinks, the monarchical safe-guard of the new hemisphere and of old Europe,

The accession of Don Pedro to the imperial throne is an advantage to all the European monarchies: the example will not be lost. Let it be recollected, that the United States of America, in establishing their independence, inoculated us with the fever of democracy, unhappily imported into Europe. The contrary will be the case of Brazil, which has preserved the monarchical regime and the hereditary principle. What immense advantages for an ancient race! The example of Brazil will be of great weight beyond the Atlantic, and perhaps, among us. May the fruits of Brazil, grafted on the tree of the European monarchy, be appreciated and enjoyed in both hemispheres!'

The Writer of this tract is, at least in his own estimation, a very great man,-a great historian, a great politician, and

a true prophet. Comme historien du Brésil,' he says, 'pouvais-je rester insensible aux grands évenemens qui l'agitent ' & le régénèrent; pouvais-je rester silencieux lorsque les deux Mondes en parlent? Le premier n'ai-je pas annoncé au monde les brillantes destinées de l'empire du Brésil sous le sceptre de l'auguste maison de Bragance?' &c. This is very amusing. But when M. B. affirms that no history of Brazil had appeared before the publication of his work in 1815, and that it was a sort of creation,' he shews only that his faithlessness is equal to his ridiculous vanity. The use made in that work of the manuscript documents cited in Southey's History of Brazil, and in the exclusive possession of the English historian, proves that M. de Beauchamp had not only seen the work, which he is so base as to depreciate, but had borrowed from it the very information on which he prides himself. His claim to the title of historien du Brésil, is about on a par with that of Goldsmith to be considered as the historian of England. The present Tract contains some interesting information, but the greater part has found its way into the public Journals.

The Empire of Brazil is now calculated to extend over more than two millions of square leagues. Its limits are not precisely defined, but the great river Maranham and the Plata have been considered as its natural boundaries, separating it from the Spanish dominions on the North, and from the territory of Buenos Ayres on the South, while on the West, it is bounded only by Peru and Paraguay. The population, according to the last census, already amounts to upwards of four millions, of whom nearly one half is supposed to be free, viz. 343,000 whites, 426,000 mulattoes, 260,000 Indians, and 160,000 free blacks. Its revenue, which, in 1818, amounted to little more than fourteen millions of francs, had risen, in 1820, to sixty-one millions, and in 1823, to sixty-six millions, and it is rapidly augmenting. Possessed of from a thousand to twelve hundred leagues of coast, with the finest ports in the world, an immense interior navigation, excellent fisheries, and a geographical position peculiarly advantageous, being situated in the narrowest part of the vast channel of the Atlantic, a territory capable of one day affording sustenance to a population of a hundred millions, with abundance of the finest. timber for ship-building,-with such immense natural advantages, nothing but a bad government can hinder this rising empire from becoming one of the greatest maritime states in the New World.

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ART. X.

SELECT LITERARY INFORMATION.

A New Church of England Psalm Book has recently appeared from the pen of the Rev. Raun Kennedy, A.M. Minister of St. Paul's chapel, Birmingham, the Author of a Work, entitled, Thoughts on the Music and Words of Psalmody, as at present in use among members of the Established Church of England. The object of the Editor in this selection has been, to embody the principles laid down in that work. In order to adapt it to the requirements of various classes of purchasers, it has been prepared in four distinct forms, the cheapest of which is for the use of Sunday Schools, and for gratuitous distribution among the poor. Mr. Greatorex, the conductor of His Majesty's Concert of Ancient Music, has composed a colfection of Psalm Tunes purposely for Mr. Kennedy's Book of Psalms.

In a few days will be published, Commentaries on the Diseases of the Sto nach and Bowels of Children. Robley Dunglison, M.D. &c. &c.

By

In the press, and shortly will be published, Vol. I. of the Lectures of Sir Astley Cooper, Bart., on the Principles and Practice of Surgery, as delivered at St. Thomas's and Guy's Hospitals; with additional notes and cases. By Frederick Tyrrell, Esq. Surgeon to St. Thoimas's Hospital.

บ.

The Port-Folio, comprising 200 beautiful and highly finished copper-plate engravings, by Mr. Storer, is now completed in 24 Numbers, or four handsome volumes. This interesting work

is published at the same very reasonable price as The Antiquarian and Topographical Cabinet, and being printed a in a corresponding manner, forms a pleasing supplement or addition to that popular work.

In the press, and speedily will be published, Death Bed Scenes, or the Christian's Companion on entering the Dark Valley. By the Author of the Evangelical Rambler.

Memoirs of the Life and Writings of the late Rev. Edward Williams, D.D. With an Appendix including Remarks on important parts of Theological Sci. ence. By Joseph Gilbert. 1 vol. 8vo..

A new Edition of the late Dr. Fawcett's Essay on Anger. To which is prefixed, a brief Sketch of the Memoirs of the Author. 1 vol. 12mo.

The Modern Traveller. On the First of October will be published, embellished with two engravings of Costume, Part VII. of this interesting Work, comprising Brazil. The Subscribers are respectfully informed, that, owing to the calamitous fire of the 12th instant, which totally consumed the premises of Mr. Moyes, Printer of the above Work, the Part which was announced to appear on the First of September, is unavoidably deferred till the First of October, part of the Copy, which was in the hands of the Printer, being destroyed. But arrangements have been made, which enable the Publisher confidently to assure the Subscribers, that no further delay will take place.

ART. XI. LIST OF WORKS RECENTLY PUBLISHED.

BIOGRAPHY.

The Life and Diary of Lieut. Col. John Blackader, of the Cameronian Regiment, who served under King Wil liam and the Duke of Marlborough, in the Wars of Flanders and Germany, and afterwards in Scotland, during the Rebellion of 1715, when he was appointed Deputy Governor of Stirling Castle. Giving an Interesting Account of the various Sieges, Battles, and Services, in which he was engaged, both at home and abroad. By Andrew Crichton, Author of the Memoirs of the Rev. John Blackader. In 1 vol. large 12mo. with an elegant portrait. 7s. 6d.

The Pastor of Blamont, an Authentic Narrative of the Ministry and Sufferngs of the Rev. J. F. Nardin, a French

Protestant of the 17th Century. In 1 vol. 18mo. with a frontispiece. 1s. 6d.

MISCELLANEOUS.

Memoirs of the Rose, comprising Botanical, Poetical, and Miscellaneous Recollections of that celebrated Flower.. In a Series of Letters to a Lady, royal 18mo. 4s.

THEOLOGY.

Calvinism and Arminianism compared in their Principles and Tendency; or the Doctrines of General Redemption, as held by the Members of the Church of England, and by the early Dutch Arminians, exhibited in their Scriptural Evidence, and in their Connexion with the civil and religious Liberties of Mankind. By James Nichols. In Two Parts. 8vo. 11.

THE

ECLECTIC REVIEW,

FOR OCTOBER, 1824.

Art. I. The Tragedies of Sophocles, translated into English Verse. By the Rev. Thomas Dale, B.A. of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. 8vo. 2 vols. Price 11. 5s. London. 1824.

WAIVING the bootless inquiry into the feeble infancy or the rude beginnings of the Greek tragedy, we may consider the honour of being its father as incontestably belonging to Eschylus. There is a settled tone of traditional criticism, which has too long been prevalent concerning this stupendous poet, and it excited little surprise, therefore, to find Mr. Dale not uninfected by it. Till of late years, these superficial estimates of Eschylus have probably been the cause of his having been neglected even by scholars. But the tragic poet whose productions were prized even to idolatry by the Athenians, could not have been a poet who, to use Mr. Dale's expression, was at war with nature aud probability. It is well known, that they listened to him with such delight, that a special decree sanctioned the representation of his plays after the death of the author; an exemption that was never made in favour of any other of their dramatic writers.

One cause, perhaps, of the unjust preference of the other tragedians, which, from Quintilian's time to our own, has occasioned his being undervalued by critics, and neglected by scholars, seems to be the generally admitted difficulty of reading him. But we will venture to say, that this difficulty is more apparent than real. If he had come down to us in a state less mutilated, or had been always exhibited to us in a text as pure, and aided with notes as copious as those of Dr. Blomfield, the difficulty would have been considerably diminished, if not entirely removed. Added to this, it is certain that Eschylus affected a language which, even in his own days, was of a cast somewhat antiquated, and replete with VOL. XXII. N.S.

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