known of the Illyrians, the great people that were spread from the borders of Greece to the Danube?-what were their race and language? —and what is known of all their country at this moment? I imagine that even the Austrian provinces of Dalmatia are imperfectly known; and who has explored the details of Mosia? It seems to me that a Roman History should embrace the history of every people, with whom the Romans were successively concerned; not so as to go into all the details, which are generally worthless, but yet so as to give something of a notion of the great changes, both physical and moral, which the different parts of the world have undergone. How earnestly one desires to present to one's mind a peopled landscape of Gaul, or Germany, or Britain, before Rome encountered them; to picture the freshness of the scenery, when all the earth's resources were as yet untouched, as well as the peculiar form of the human species in that particular country, its language, its habits, its institutions. And yet, these indulgences of our intellectual faculties match strangely with the fever of our times, and the pressure for life and death which is going on all round us. The disorders in our social state appear to me to continue unabated; and you know what trifles mere political grievances are, when compared with these. Education is wanted to improve the physical condition of the people, and yet their physical condition must be improved before they can be susceptible of education. I hear that the Roman Catholics are increasing fast amongst us; Lord Shrewsbury and other wealthy Catholics are devoting their whole incomes to the cause, while the tremendous influx of Irish labourers into Lancashire and the west of Scotland is tainting the whole population with a worse than barbarian element. You have heard also, I doubt not, of the Trades' Unions, a fearful engine of mischief, ready to riot or to assassinate, with all the wickedness, that has in all ages and in all countries characterized associations not recognized by the law,—the rάigiai of Athens, the clubs of Paris;-and I see no counteracting power.

I shall look forward with the greatest interest to your "Kirchen-undHaus Buch;" I never cease to feel the benefit which I have derived from your letter to Dr. Nott; the view there contained of Christian worship and of Christian Sacrifice as the consummation of that worship is to my mind quite perfect. What would I give to see our Liturgy amended on that model! But our Bishops cry "Touch not, meddle not,” till indeed it will be too late to do either. I have been much delighted with two American works which have had a large circulation in England; the "Young Christion," and the "Corner Stone," by a New Englander, Jacob Abbott. They are very original and powerful, and the American illustrations, whether borrowed from the scenery or the manners of the people, are very striking. And I hear both from India and the Mediterranean, the most deligtful accounts of the zeal and resources of the American Missionaries, that none are doing so much in the cause of Christ as they are. They will take our place in the world, I think not unworthily, though with far less advantages in many respects, than those which we have so fatally wasted. It is a contrast most deeply humiliating to compare what we might have been with what we are, with almost Israel's privileges, and with all Israel's abuse of them. I could write on without limit, if my time were as unlimited as my inclinations; it is vain to say what I would give to talk with you on a great many points, though your letters have done more than I should have thought possible towards enabling me in a manner to talk with you. I feel no doubt of our agreement, indeed it would make me very unhappy to doubt it, for I am sure our principles are the same, and they ought to lead to the same conclusions. And so I think they do. God bless you, my dear friend; I do trust to see you again ere very long.

LXXXIX.

TO AN OLD PUPIL. (A.)

Rugby, October 29, 1834.

I thank you very much for your letter; I need not tell you that it greatly interested me, at the same time that it also in some respects has pained me. I do grieve that you do not enjoy Oxford; it is not, as you well know, that I admire the present tone of the majority of its members, or greatly respect their judgment, still there is much that is noble and good about the place, and you, I should have hoped, might have benefited by the good, and escaped the folly. If you have got your views for your course of life into a definite shape, so as to see your way clear before you, and this course is wholly at variance with the studies of a University, then there is nothing to be said, except that I am sorry and surprised, and should be very anxious to learn what your views are. But if you look forward to any of what are called the learned professions, and wish still to carry on the studies of a well educated man, depend upon it that you are in the right place where you are, and have greater means within your reach there, than you can readily obtain elsewhere. University distinctions are a great starting point in life; they introduce a man well, nay, they even add to his influence afterwards. At this moment, when I write what is against the common opinion of people at Oxford, they would be too happy to say, that I objected to their system, because I had not tried it, or had not succeeded in it. Consider that a young man has no means of becoming independent of the society about him. If you wish to exercise influence hereafter, begin by distinguishing yourself in the regular way, not by seeming to prefer a separate way of your own. It is not the natural order of things, nor, I think, the sound one. I knew a man at Oxford sixteen years ago, very clever, but one who railed against the place and its institutions, and would not read for a class. And this man, I am told, is now a zealsus Conservative, and writes in the British Magazine. As to your disappointment in society, I really am afraid to touch on the subject without clearer knowledge. But you should, I am sure, make an effort to speak out, as I am really grateful for your having written out to me. Reserve and fear of committing oneself are, beyond a certain point, positive evils; a man had better expose himself half a dozen times, than be shut up always; and after all, it is not exposing yourself, for no one can help valuing and loving what seems an abandonment to feelings of sympathy, especially when, from the character of him who thus opens his heart, the effort is known to be considerable. I am afraid that I may be writing at random; only believe me that I feel very deeply interested about you, and perhaps have more sympathy with your case, than many a younger man; for the circumstances of my life have kept me young in feelings, and the period of twenty years ago is as vividly present to my mind, as though it were a thing of yesterday.

XC. TO T. F. ELLIS, ESQ.

Rugby, November 21, 1834.

I was very glad to see your handwriting once again, and shall be very ready to answer your question to the best of my power, although I am well aware of its difficulty. It so happens that I have said something on this very subject in the Introduction to the new volume of my Sermons, which is just published, so that it has been much in my thoughts lately, though I am afraid it is easier here, as in other things, to point out what is of no use, than to recommend what is.

The preparation for ordination, so far as passing the Bisbop's examination is concerned, must vary according to the notions of the different Bishops, some requiring one thing, and some another. I like no book on the Articles

altogether, but Hey's Divinity Lectures at Cambridge seem to me the best and fairest of any that I know of.

But with regard to the much higher question, "What line of study is to be recommended for a clergyman?" my own notions are very decided, though I am afraid they are somewhat singular. A clergyman's profession is the knowledge and practice of Christianity, with no more particular profession to distract his attention from it. While all men, therefore, should study the Scriptures, he should study them thoroughly: because from them only is the knowledge of Christianity to be obtained. And they are to be studied with the help of philological works and antiquarian, not of dogmatical theology. But then for the application of the Scriptures, for preaching, &c., a man requires, first, the general cultivation of his mind, by constantly reading the works of the very greatest writers, philosophers, orators, and poets; and, next, an understanding of the actual state of society-of our own and of general history, as affecting and explaining the existing differences amongst us, both social and religious, and of political economy, as teaching him how to deal with the poor, and how to remove many of the natural delusions which embitter their minds against the actual frame of society. Further, I should advise a constant use of the biography of good men; their inward feelings, prayers, &c., and of devotional and practical works, like Taylor's Holy Living, Doddridge's Rise and Progress of Religion in the Soul, &c., &c. About Ecclesiastical History, there is a great difficulty. I do not know Waddington's book well, but the common histories, Mosheim, Milner, Dupin, &c., are all bad; so is Fleury, except the Dissertations prefixed to several of his volumes, and which ought to be published separately. For our own Church again, the truth lies in a well; Strype, with all his accuracy, is so weak and so totally destitute of all sound views of government, that it is positively injurious to a man's understanding to be long engaged in so bad an atmosphere. Burnet is much better in every way, yet he is not a great man; and I suppose that the Catholic and Puritan writers are as bad or worse. As commentators on the Scriptures, I should recommend Lightfoot and Grotius; the former, from his great Rabbinical learning, is often a most admirable illustrator of allusions and obscure passages in both the Old and New Testament; the latter, alike learned and able and honest, is always worth reading. But I like Pole's Synopsis Criticorum altogether, and the fairness of the collection is admirable. For Hebrew, Gesenius's Lexicon and Stuart's Grammar are recommended to me, but I cannot judge of them myself. Schleusner's well known Lexicons for the Septuagint and New Testament are exceedingly valuable as an index verborum, but his interpretations are not to be relied on, and he did not belong to the really great school of German philology. . .

XCI. TO H. HIGHTON, ESQ.

Rugby, November 26, 1834.

I have not time to send you a regular letter in answer, but you wish to hear my opinion about the Rugby Magazine before Lake leaves Oxford. I told him that what I wanted to know, was, in whose hands the conduct of the work would be placed. Every thing depends on this; and as, on the one hand, if the editors are discreet and inexorable in rejecting trash, I should be delighted to have such a work established, so, on the other hand, if they do admit trash, or worse still, any thing like local or personal scandal or gossip, the Magazine would be a serious disgrace to us all. And I think men owe it to the name of a school not to risk it lightly, as of course a Magazine called by the name of "Rugby" would risk it. Again, I should most deprecate it, if it were political, for many reasons which you can easily conceive

yourself. I do not wish to encourage the false notion of my making or trying to make the school political. This would be done, were the Magazine liberal; if otherwise, I should regret it on other grounds. If the editors are good, and the plan well laid down and steadily kept to, I shall think the Magazine a most excellent thing, both for the credit of the school, and for its real benefit. Only remember that the result of such an attempt cannot be neutral; it must either do us great good or great harm.

XCII. TO REV. J. HEARN.

Fox How, Dec. 31. 1834.

It delights me to find that so good a man as Mr. H. thinks very well of the new Poor Law, and anticipates very favourable results from it, but I cannot think that this or any other single measure can do much towards the cure of evils so complicated. I groan over the divisions of the Church, of all our evils I think the greatest,-of Christ's Church I mean,— that men should call themselves Roman Catholics, Church of England men, Baptists, Quakers, all sorts of various appellations, forgetting that only glorious name of CHRISTIAN, which is common to all, and a true bond of union. I begin now to think that things must be worse before they are better, and that nothing but some great pressure from without will make Christians cast away their idols of Sectarianism; the worst and most mischievous by which Christ's Church has ever been plagued.

XCIII. TO MR. JUSTICE COLERIDGE.

Fox How, January 24, 1835.

I do not know when I have been so much delighted as by a paragraph in the Globe of this morning, which announced your elevation to the Bench. Your late letters, while they in some measure prepared me for it, have made me still more rejoice in it, because they told me how acceptable it would be to yourself. I do heartily and entirely rejoice at it, on public grounds no less than on private; as an appointment honourable to the government, beneficial to the public service, and honourable and desirable for yourself; and I have some selfish pleasure about it also, inasmuch as I hope that I shall have some better chance of seeing you now than I have had hitherto, either in Warwickshire or in Westmoreland. For myself, when I am here in this perfection of beauty, with the place just coming into shape, and the young plantations naturally leading one to anticipate the future, I am inclined to feel nothing but joy that the late change of Government has destroyed all chance of my being ever called away from Westmoreland. At least I can say this, that I should only have valued a Bishopric as giving me some prospect of effecting that Church Reform which I so earnestly long for,the commencement of an union with all Christians, and of a true Church government as distinguished from a Clergy government, or from none at all. For this I would sacrifice any thing; but as for a Bishopric on the actual system, and with no chance of mending it, it would only make me feel more strongly than I do at present the ἐχθίστην οδύνην, πολλὰ φρονέοντα, μηδενὸς

κρατέειν.

Wordsworth is very well; postponing his new volume of poems till the political ferment is somewhat abated. "At ille labitur et labetur," so far as I can foresee, notwithstanding what the Tories have gained at the late elections.

Have you seen your Uncle's "Letters on Inspiration," which I believe are to be published? They are well fitted to break ground in the approaches to that momentous question which involves in it so great a shock to existing

notions; the greatest probably, that has ever been given since the discovery of the falsehood of the doctrine of the Pope's infallibility. Yet it must come, and will end, in spite of the fears and clamours of the weak and bigoted, in the higher exalting and more sure establishing of Christian truth.

XCIV. TO REV. JULIUS HARE.

Fox How, January 26, 1835.

I cordially enter into your views about a Theological Review, and I think the only difficulty would be to find an Editor; I do not think that Whately would have time to write, but I can ask him; and undoubtedly he would approve of the scheme. Hampden occurs to me as a more likely man to join such a thing than Pusey, and I think I know one or two of the younger masters who would be very useful. My notion of the main objects of the work would be this; 1st. To give really fair accounts and analyses of the works of the early Christian Writers, giving also, as far as possible, a correct view of the critical questions relating to them; as to their genuineness, and the more or less corrupted state of the text. 2d. To make some beginnings of Biblical Criticism, which, as far as relates to the Old Testament, is in England almost non-existent. 3d. To illustrate in a really impartial spirit, with no object but the advancement of the Church of Christ, and the welfare of the Commonwealth of England, the rise and progress of Dissent; to show what Christ's Church and this nation have owed to the Establishment and to the Dissenters; and, on the other hand, what injury they have received from each; with a view of promoting a real union between them. These are matters particular, but all bearing upon the great philosophical and Christian truth, which seems to me the very truth of truths, that Christian unity and the perfection of Christ's Church are independent of theological Articles of opinion; consisting in a certain moral state and moral and religious affections, which have existed in good Christians of all ages and all communions, along with an infinitely varying proportion of truth and error; that thus Christ's Church has stood on a rock and never failed; yet has always been marred with much of intellectual error, and also of practical resulting from the intellectual; that to talk of Popery as the great Apostacy, and to look for Christ's Church only amongst the remnant of the Vaudois, is as absurd as to look to what is called the Primitive Church or the Fathers for pure models of faith in the sense of opinion or of government; that Ignatius and Innocent III. are to be held as men of the same stamp,-zealous and earnest Christians both of them, but both of them overbearing and fond of power; the one advancing the power of Bishops, the other that of the Pope, with equal honesty,-it may be, for their respective times, with equal benefit,—but with as little claim the one as the other to be an authority for Christians, and with equally little impartial perception of universal truth. But then for the Editor; if he must live in London or in the Universities, I cannot think of the man.

XCV. TO REV. DR. LONGLEY.

Fox How, Kendal, January 28, 1835.

I suppose, as you have an Easter vacation, that you have by this time returned or are returning to Harrow. Next week we shall be also beginning work at Rugby, with the prospect of one-and-twenty weeks before us ;-too long a period, I think, either for boys or masters. In the mean time we have been here for nearly six weeks, enjoying ourselves as much as possible, though we have had much more snow, I imagine, than you have had in the