The same qualities, rather the absence of any stirring quality, mark the substance of his history. In fact, if apart from the veneration paid to the saint, we inquire on what intellectual gifts Bede's very high reputation has rested, we shall find that it rests less upon his history, or upon any one singly of his writings, than upon the fact of their being so universal in their scope. Bede is original in nothing. He has not written history in an original manner, he has not developed in metaphysics, like S. Anselm, or in theology, like Lanfranc. But he has treated on every subject,-theology, morals, physics, mathematics-that formed the object of attention in his own time. His works were written not for posterity, but for his contemporaries. And in this very respect he was quite as much the man of the age-the instrument of Providence in providing just the species of instruction required by his countrymen at the time, as is, in a more educated age, he who is commissioned to install by his life and writings a new idea in the hearts of a nation. To the Saxon mind in the seventh century the whole system of knowledge, partly secular, partly religious, which went in the train of the Church, and was familiar in Italy, Spain and France, was a novelty. It needed localizing among them, and putting in shape for them. They must first be brought up to the level of the rest of the Church, before they could go along with it in its never-ceasing onward path. This was the task that Bede's writings performed for England, and on this ground, rather than on any other, seems to rest his title of Doctor in the Universal Church. This character of Florilegist, or adapter of the sacred lore of the Church to the peculiar wants of his nation, is well seen in his Commentaries, which are almost wholly drawn from the great writers of the Western Church, SS. Augustine, Ambrose, and Jerome, and may in fact serve as a convenient abridgment of them.

A

Notwithstanding however the plainness of the style, and the bald matter-of-fact simplicity of the narrative, there is, as we have hinted, at least one quality of the 'Historia Ecclesiastica' which must ever secure it an intrinsic interest in the thoughts of the Christian. This is its thoroughly practical character. nation of strong feelings and ardent temperament is seen forsaking its idols, and turning, with all that enthusiasm which had been hitherto thrown into war and feudal strife, to worship the blessed Trinity, and to seek in the path of self-discipline the rewards opened to them by faith. They had more zcal than knowledge. They were like men feeling their way without the helps and guides which the experience of six centuries had stored up in the Church. Books were few indeed, and even those few not to be understood without an oral comment. The immediate

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disciples of Augustine were few also, and the harvest was great. Thus every fresh comer from Rome was looked on as a centre of instruction, and imported some fresh light and help in the dim and obscure path. They listened with eager curiosity to the homilies of the Fathers, to the histories of the Saints and Martyrs-the exempla Patrum antiquorum," to the rites, canons, musical chants which were brought to them from abroad. And this assuredly not to gratify any sickly literary appetite, or any of the adscititious tastes of civilization, but for practical assistance in what was the sober and earnest business of their lives, moral discipline. This was the ruling thought. When Higbald went out of Lincolnshire to visit his friend in Ireland, their conversation turned, as befitted holy men, on the manner of life of the ancient Fathers, "de vita priorum Patrum sermonem facerent, atque hanc æmulari gauderent." Benedict Biscop, the founder of Wearmouth and Jarrow, could not do more beneficial service to his infant communities than by repeated journeys into Gaul and Italy, to bring thence not only books or masons, but the pith and substance of the best monastic rules.

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Bede's History was not indeed intended to be the depository of the knowledge of the art of Holy Living and Dying thus gained, such would be more in place in his Lives of the Abbots, though no book could adequately present this. But it was a record of the efforts made to gain and act upon this knowledge; a catalogue of the Saints, who had made these efforts, and of the external providences of God showed upon them.

In concluding, we must bear testimony, as far as our observation has gone, to the correctness of the facts and references given in the notes. This, indeed, was but to be expected of the present editor. But we lay some stress upon this point, as it is a quality unfortunately rare in those who ordinarily have the handling of middle-age, but most especially of Anglo-Saxon, times. It would be a very unprofitable labour to rake through the blunders of the shoals of inferior writers and editors who have had to do with Bede. We will only select three instances among those who are esteemed to be of superior authority. 1. The first shall be from Sharon Turner. Cuthbert, describing Bede's last moments, has these words, Allocutus est unumquemque monens et obserans pro eo missas celebrare, et orationes diligenter facere.' Sharon Turner translates this, 'He addressed each, and exhorted them to attend to their masses and prayers." 2. The new edition of Dr. Lingard's History and Antiquities of the Anglo-Saxon Church' is very much improved, and more

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1 Hist. Eccl. iv. 3.

2 History of Anglo-Saxons, Book ix. c. 6.

correct than the original book which appeared more than thirty years ago, but it is still imperfect in point of criticism. We notice a strangely blundering Appendix' on the Bocland and Folcland, in which the writer attempts to identify Bede's expression, Terra decem familiarum', with the folc-land, a mere confusion of two perfectly distinct notions-folc-land being a certain description of tenure; 'terra decem, &c. familiarum,' being a mode of admeasurement, and, as Dr. Lingard himself notices, always rendered in the Anglo-Saxon version by hida;' the passage in iii. 24, to which he refers, being a slightly different form of expression, and not an employment of the technical term, folcland.' For Bede, in fact, never uses the expression terra familiarum' thus, absolutely; indeed, such a usage would not be Latin, but always with some number expressed, 'terra octo, decem, quinquaginta, &c. familiarum'; while the term folc-land always occurs thus absolutely. 3. Mr. Thomas Wright's Biographia Literaria Anglo-Saxonica is drawn up with the pains-taking accuracy which distinguishes his publications in general; yet he writes of the monastery of Wearmouth, as though he thought it separated by the river Wear from that of Jarrow: they are both on the same side of that river, the north, lying between it and the Tyne.

2

But as we are not ambitious of converting the Remembrancer' into a catalogue of errata and corrigenda, and of intruding on the province of our much respected contemporary, The Gentleman's Magazine,' we must stay our hand, and spare our readers any more of our emendations.

1 Vol. i. Note R. p. 407.

2 See under Benedict Biscop.

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ART. IV.-1. An Inquiry concerning the origin of Christianity. By CHARLES C. HENNELL. Second Edition. London: T. Allman.

1841.

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2. Christian Theism. By the Author of An Inquiry concerning the origin of Christianity.' London: Allman. Chapman.

1845.

3. The Catholic Series. The Rationale of Religious Enquiry, or the Question Stated of Reason, the Bible and the Church. In Six Lectures. By JAMES MARTINEAU. Third Edition. London: Chapman, 121, Newgate Street. 1845.

4. The Prospective Review. A Quarterly Journal of Theology and Literature. Nos. i. ii. iii. February, May, July, 1845. London: Chapman. 1845.

5. A Retrospect of the Religious Life of England, or the Church, Puritanism, and Free Inquiry. By JOHN JAMES TAYLER, B.A. London: Chapman. 1845.

6. A Discourse of Matters pertaining to Religion. By THEODORE PARKER, Minister of the Second Church in Roxbury, Massachusetts. (Reprint.) London: Chapman.

1844.

7. Voices of the Church, in reply to Strauss: collected and composed by the Rev. J. R. BEARD. London: Simpkin. 1845. 8. The Evangelical Accounts, &c. Vindicated against some recent Mythical Interpreters. By W. H. MILL, D.D. &c. &c. Cambridge: Deighton. London: Rivington. 1840-1845. 9. Hegel et la Philosophie Allemande. Par A. OTT, Docteur en droit. Paris: Joubert. 1844.

SEVERAL notices of, and allusions to, the contingent spread of an anti-christian philosophy in this country, have of late years appeared, not so much in the way of announcement or prophecy, as by hint. We have been told what rationalism is. Specimens of it have been produced, but mostly imported: there are native fragments, it is true, the molar here and a single vertebra there, but for the full articulation, the complete and perfect framework of solid bone, we must cross the Rhine. So is it with even the more expanded and consistent forms of unbelief; we hear of their authors, Paulus and Strauss, and their writings, the Mythic Theory and Pantheism, with as much personal concern generally, as we should, if we were told that somebody in the next street believed in Tycho Brahe, or that another was a

Berkleyan, or had actually read Jamblichus or Plotinus. The whole thing seems a foreign and curious monster, about which the many may start and wonder, and then go their way. Still, we repeat it, notes have been struck-significant warnings have been given. Dr. Mill, for example, has devoted himself to this particular object of refuting the Pantheistic principle: a calm self-imposed duty, of which, amidst the throes of present controversy, few seem to appreciate either the value or the moral power under existing circumstances. More recent writers, whose words from other distressing causes have become more suspicious, have solemnly, though briefly, warned us of the near approach of an organized and systematic attack on the inspiration and authority of the Scriptures, even in this country: the very broken and multiform enquiries upon unfulfilled prophecy, to take a single instance, which, with whatever other object they are pursued, seem to bear a consistent testimony to the various and discordant surmises, for we can scarcely call them anticipations, of a coming contest, also witness to a vague, yet growing, general feeling, that some great time of dismay and trouble is at hand. These things are enough to show that something is going on, and that some are alive to the existence of this something; and yet, exactly what it is, and how far the plague has gone, even if it has begun in England, few inquire. Some are afraid to ask, fearful of the amount of danger which the answer might reveal: and some think it safer not to call public attention to any danger which is not on the surface of society. The former are like evil livers, who will never hear death spoken of: the latter would have us conceal from the physicians that the plague was at Hull, or that the cholera had broken out in Spitalfields, only for fear the ladies in Grosvenor Square should take alarm.

The subject we are entering upon is a most distressing and awful one. It is neither intended nor fit for some tender and sensitive minds. We warn such at the outset that we are not writing for them. But as ours is a review ad clerum, there are, on the other hand, others whom we are bound to forewarn. For ourselves, we consider it a matter of personal duty to call attention, not to the whole subject, however interesting, since it is one far too extensive, and admitting, nay, requiring far too copious an array of illustration for an article; but still, to some of the more significant and startling phenomena of the less forward workings of a certain cast of the religious mind in Europe. What we are now entering upon, is not the way in which religion ordinarily presents itself to the generality even of our own readers. We know little of the subtle elements of thought at work around us. It must be borne in mind that people generally read and study only their own