the two processes. The direct extrusion of one religion by another absolutely distinct, after the fashion of the pellets of a popgun, is too rare and exceptional to be anticipated anywhere, least of all in India. Nor can the miraculous extension of Christianity in primitive times be so good a guide to us here as the local experience of our own propagandists. There is, we fear, almost of necessity, a sceptical period that supervenes on the tearing up of the old belief which has wound its roots round all a man's thoughts and associations; and he is happy in whose life the truth can spring from the soil so disturbed by the eradication of falsehood. It is perhaps possible that our efforts to educate the Hindoos may not do more than destroy idolatry in one generation; and that the intolerable want of something to hold by will not necessitate the adoption of Christianity in its place till the next. Be that as it may, we must remember that the choice is not between religious and secular education for the Hindoos, but between secular education and none at all. We must do what we can to give that enlightenment which will be adequate to discover the deformities of error, and then perchance our pupils may learn to see the beauties of truth.

We do not envy the man who can see nothing in the career thus opening before England in the East but hazard to her empire. "Once teach the natives,' say these reasoners, 'the absurdities of their divisions of caste and creed, and we shall lose the chief security for our power.' It is enough to answer, that England holds her possessions of God, not of the devil; and that the world has never seen a satanic counsel answer in the long run. The future may be dark, but it will not be dangerous, so long as our conduct is guided by the principle that Morals and Policy cannot be antagonistic. What, in fine, has been our experience in India? One by one the worst reproaches in its administration have disappeared; extortion, corruption, and cruelty are matters of the past; and, in the same degree, the loyalty of our native subjects, the deference of our allies, and the confusion of our enemies have become more and more conspicuous. It is thus, and not by the selfish calculations that marked its origin, that our Eastern empire has grown to be a wonder of the world. Like a coralline island, its foundations were laid by petty agencies, working for ends they knew not of. But the storm and the sunshine, and the dews of heaven, have descended on the harsh superstructure, and softened and ripened it into a generous soil, needing, of a truth, abundant husbandry, but already rich with increase and full of promise.

ART. II

ART. II.—1. The Life of Thomas Ken, D.D., deprived Bishop of Bath and Wells, viewed in connexion with Public Events and the Spirit of the Times in which he lived. By the Rev. W. L. Bowles. 2 vols. 1830.

2. The Prose Works of the Right Rev. Father in God, Thos. Ken, D.D., sometime Lord Bishop of Bath and Wells; to which are added some of his Letters (never before published), and a short Account of his Life. By W. Hawkins, Esq., his Executor. The whole collected by J. T. Round, B.D. 1838. 3. Prayers for all Persons who come to the Baths for Cure. By T. Ken, &c. With a brief Life. By J. H. Markland,

· F.R.S. 1849. 4. The Life of T. Layman. 1851. IF Mr. Bowles were alive, we should feel ourselves restrained from noticing his book, not merely by our general respect for his character, but by a sense of the thorough honesty, simplicity, and kindliness which appear in every page of the volumes themselves, nay, even by gratitude for the amusement which we have derived from their strange medley of contents. But now that the good old poetical Canon has been laid in the cloisters of Sarum, we may say, we presume, without fear of causing pain in any quarter, that it would be difficult to name a more unfortunate attempt at biography than his so-called Life of Ken. The book is indeed about everything but Ken. Recollections of the author's school and college life-rhapsodies on the principle of toleration-scraps of original poetry-disquisitions on the Calvinistic system-defences of the Church Establishment, of the Universities, and of Public Schools-assaults on Useful Knowledge'-eulogies of friends-details of quarrels with adversaries now long dead or forgotten ;-such are, for the most part, the materials. And not only this-but the few incidents of Ken's own story scattered through the text are really not related at all. Mr. Bowles in all cases assumes that these are already known to the reader-he alludes to them again and again before reaching the stage to which they belong-and when at length we expect to meet with a sober detail of the facts, we are usually put off with some pages of reflections, or our Yorick hurries us away to some other matter which has little or no connexion with Ken.

Ken, Bishop of Bath and Wells. By a

Mr. Bowles was led to take up his subject by personal circumstances and attachments, not by any interest in the serious questions which are involved in it. He had been at Winchester School-so had Ken. He had been at Oxford-so had Ken. He was a divine

and

and a poet-and Ken united the same characters. One of his brethren in the chapter of Salisbury was Dr. Hawes, a descendant of Ken's sister, and of his earliest biographer Hawkins. He had been a schoolfellow, and he continued to be an acquaintance, of Thomas, second Marquis of Bath-representative of the nobleman who gave the Bishop an asylum in his evil day. But of the history of the non-jurors he neither knew anything when he undertook the task, nor essayed to learn anything as he proceeded with it. If he had looked even into the most obvious sources of information, he would not have printed, as if entirely new to the world, a manuscript list of the deprived clergy far more imperfect than that which had appeared upwards of a century before-in the Life of Kettlewell. We must not, however, waste our space in criticising a book which was published more than twenty years ago-when the doings of 1828 and 1829 were recent and the Reform Bill unpassed; when some right reverend Fathers were still at college, and distinguished senators in the nursery. Suffice it to say, that, if Ken was to have a worthy biography, it was too evidently yet to be written.

In the mean time the Bishop's merits have not been forgotten. First, he received the somewhat equivocal honour of a canonization in the Tracts for the Times-one of the Roman offices for the festivals of confessors being adapted to the anniversary of his death. Next came Mr. Round's excellent edition of the prose works, including the old Life by Hawkins, and some Letters never before published. Then single works were reprinted-some of them accompanied by sketches of the author's life. Of these sketches the latest and the most considerable is that by Mr. Markland, of which we need only say that it is such as might have been expected from him-distinguished by good feeling and good taste, by copious knowledge and sound judgment. And lastly, we have now to welcome a new and ample biography by A Layman'-a gentleman of the name of Anderdon, as we gather from one of Mr. Markland's notes. (p. 45.)

On taking up this last Life, we were struck at once by the writer's manifest love for his subject, and by the labour and care which he had bestowed on it; but (to confess the truth) our impression was that we had got hold of a rather weak, sentimental, euphuistic book. In the opening sections there is an affectation of quaintness and phrase-making-obviously imitated from Walton, and no less nauseous in the copy than pleasing in the original. From Walton, too, has been borrowed the practice, not admirable certainly in any modern writer, of relating and describing imaginary things, as if they were unquestionable

facts.

facts. Then there are continual digressive preachings, without any novelty either of matter or of manner, often palpably mistaken, and all in a tone which appears to us very unlikely to do good at a time when every hint of defects in the Church of England is caught up by many persons as an argument in favour of Rome. But Mr. Anderdon improves as he advances. From weeping over violated rubrics, he rises to discuss in a manly style the questions which his subject brings before him. He writes more naturally and more vigorously. His tone towards the Church becomes changed. And at length we leave off with a conviction that although he too often allows himself to be imposed on by the pretensions of a party, and to echo its peculiar cant, he is really at heart a sincere Anglican-not unworthy of an association with the name of Ken. We hope that he will have the opportunity of revising his work, and that he will use it largely reversing the precept qualis ab incepto.

Thomas, the son of John Ken-a London attorney, descended from an ancient Somerset family was born in 1637, at Little Berkhampstead in Hertfordshire. When four years old, he lost his mother; his half-sister, who supplied her place, became in 1646 the second wife of Izaak Walton; and when John Ken died, five years later, it would seem that the care of the boy devolved on the worthy Angler, who was his senior by nearly half a century.† Ken had already been a year at Winchestera name which calls up in Mr. Bowles many amusing reminiscences of his own school-days, and gives Mr. Anderdon an opportunity of reproaching the present age, as compared with that in which William of Wykeham founded his colleges and restored his cathedral. At Winchester, Ken laid the foundation of a lifelong friendship with Francis Turner, afterwards Bishop of Ely, who was to be more than once his companion in suffering for conscience sake.

* If anything could have an effect on the obstinate wrongheadedness of such persons, we should recommend to them a pamphlet on 'The Working of the Church in Spain,' by the Rev. F. Meyrick, of Trinity College, Oxford. It is chiefly made up of letters from correspondents in Spain, who are certainly not chargeable with having taken out from England prejudices against Romanism.

A genealogical table is given by Mr. Bowles, and there is a fuller one at the end of Mr. Markland's volume, but both omit a nephew and two nieces of the Bishop-the children of his brother John. The nephew's death is alluded to in one of Ken's letters (Prose Works, p. 94). One of the nieces, who also died before her uncle, is mentioned by Mr. Anderdon, p. 42, as having been baptized at Woodhay. The other, as Hawkins informs us (Prose Works, p. 25), 'married to the Honourable Christopher Frederick Kreienberg, resident of his Electoral Highness of Hanover in London.' If any descendants of this last lady exist, they are the sole representatives of the Ken family,the line of Anne, wife of Izaak Walton, having ended in Mr. Bowles's friend, the late Dr. Hawes, Canon of Salisbury.

Great was

In 1656 he was elected to New College. his sorrow,' says Mr. Anderdon, when in the retired chamber of Francis Turner he heard of the tauntings and scoffs by which holy ordinances were dishonoured in the highest seats of orthodoxy.' If this were not so very positively stated, we should have thought that a youth who had been brought up at Winchester under Puritan authority could hardly have been ignorant that Oxford too was in similar hands. The days of the most violent rigour, however, were over. The Common Prayer was privately read in a little congregation, of which we would gladly suppose that Ken became a member. And, although the organs and the choristers were still silenced, we find that he was one of a musical club, which also numbered Wood among its members. Thomas Ken, a junior of New College,' says Antony, 'would be sometimes among them, and sing his part. At Ox- | ford he made two friends, who were to influence his later life Francis Thynne, a pupil of the learned and pious Hammond, and George Hooper, in the sequel famous as a scholar and divine. In May 1661, Ken took the degree of B.A., and it would seem that about the same time he entered into holy orders, since he was presented in 1663 by Lord Maynard to the rectory of Little Easton in Essex. Here he found in his patron a noble-minded cavalier, and in Lady Maynard an example of saintly character which furnished, many years later, the subject for a beautiful funeral sermon-one of our few specimens of his most eminent talent.* After holding this parish two years, he removed to Winchester, where he was elected fellow of the college, and became chaplain to Bishop Morley. This prelate, although a Calvinist, had been a loyal and favoured servant of Charles I. When Oxford was occupied by the sectaries, his doctrinal opinions procured him an offer of leave to retain

* In connexion with Ken's testimony to Lady Maynard's devotion, Mr. Anderdon discourses very oracularly on the neglect of daily service in country parishes, and throws all the blame on the clergy (p. 35). Now every one who has looked into the matter must know that daily service never has been and never was supposed or intended to be universal, either before or since the Reformation. If Ken observed the rubric literally at Easton, where the church is just without the limits of the park' (p. 33), and where he could reckon on the great man's household as regular attendants, this proves nothing as to general obligation. By all means let daily service be celebrated whenever a congregation can be gathered; but Mr. Anderdon must know little of country life if he supposes that this is commonly the case. As for the assertion at p. 40, that Bishop Morley exacted a strict obedience to the rubric in regard to daily prayers throughout his diocese,' it is sufficiently refuted by the fact that one of his clergy is celebrated as an extraordinary person for walking every day in the week to read service in the parish church' (p. 49); and by the extract from the Bishop's will, p. 141, where he speaks of the Vicar of Farnham as obliged by special foundation to read the Common Prayer morning and evening daily,' and provides an endowment for similar service in another parish.