Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases, classified and arranged so as to facilitate the Expression of Ideas, and assist in Literary Composition. By Peter Mark Roget, M.D., F.R.S., F.G.S., &c. &c. &c. London: Longmans. 1852.

It seems scarcely fair to give only a brief notice' of so elaborate a work as this; and yet it would be difficult to do it justice even in a long review. We regard it very highly. Its object, as the writer clearly states, is exactly the converse of that of an ordinary dictionary. The purpose of an ordinary dictionary is simply to explain the meaning of words, and the problem of which it professes to furnish the solution may be stated thus :— The word being given, to find its signification, or the idea it is intended to convey. The object aimed at in the present undertaking is exactly the converse of this—namely, the idea being given, to find the word or words by which that idea may be most fitly and aptly expressed. For this purpose, the words and phrases of the language are here classed, not according to their sound, or their orthography, but strictly according to their signification. The utility of such a work is much greater than appears on the surface. In order to secure perspicuity and accuracy in speaking or writing our language, Dr. Roget has established six primary classes, or categories -those of Abstract Relations, Space, the Material World, Intellect, Volition, the Sentient and Moral Powers. Under the class of abstract relations are arranged -1. Existence; 2. Relation; 3. Quantity; 4. Order; 5. Number; 6. Time; 7. Change; 8. Causation. In like manner, all the six classes are subdivided with remarkable skill and precision, and the most delicate perception of the subtlest distinctions. We can assure our readers that it would be unjust to the author to represent his book as a merely dry catalogue of words. It is full of suggestions. It exhibits the extraordinary richness, fulness, and flexibility of the English language. We recommend it specially to writers who seem to imagine that they give strength to their style by adopting foreign words, idioms, and phrases; to those who use their own language loosely and carelessly; to as many as labour under the misfortune of being spell-bound by some expressions which happen to be fashionable; and to any persons whatever who are so indolent, conceited, so ignorant, or so negligent, as to damage the purity of their mother-tongue by a habit of arbitrarily fabricating new words and a new-fangled phraseology;' and finally, to all who honestly desire to have at command a copious vocabulary, and the entire resources of the language, whether for speaking, whether public or conversational, for translating, or for original composition in writing. We are glad that Dr. Roget follows Cicero, Quinctilian, and the greatest masters of speech, in recommending the practice of translation as one of the best helps to a just and powerful use of words. In this exercise his Thesaurus' is invaluable. We should rejoice if our warm commendation promoted the circulation of so thoroughly useful a book.

The Rights and Duties of Property; with a Plan for paying off the National Debt. By John Sangster. London: Whittaker and Co. 1851.

A VERY theoretical little book, with a good title.' The plan for 'paying off the national debt' is very simple. Whether it will commend itself to a Chancellor of the Exchequer is problematical.

Vindication of the Church of England; in reply to the Right Hon. Viscount Feilding, on his recent Secession to the Church of Rome. By the Rev. R. W. Morgan, Perpetual Curate of Tregynon, Montgomeryshire, author of The Verities of the Church,' &c. London: Rivingtons. 1851. It would be scarcely fair to pronounce a judgment on this 'Vindication' from our own stand-point, as dissenters from the Church of England; otherwise we should enter our protest against certain ecclesiastical and sacramental notions with which it abounds, and which we repudiate as contrary to the plain teaching of the New Testament. But, taking it for what it professes to be an appeal to a seceder from the Church of England to the Church of Rome we regard it as a satisfactory refutation of Lord Feilding's objections on his own principles. The difference between the two churches is clearly set forth; the claims of Rome to the sovereign pontificate are ably refuted; her doctrines are tried by apostolical tests, and rejected; the dates of her successive departures from the truth, which Dr. Newman regards as 'developments,' are recorded on chronological evidences of ecclesiastical history;' and a calm appeal is made to Lord Feilding as the aggressor in this warfare.' All sound-hearted men of every persuasion will sympathize, we trust, in the simple earnestness of this appeal. In the admissory creed to Rome, you anathematize your baptismal church. In your letter to the lord bishop of this diocese you term her a non-apostolic, non-catholic church, protesting against and denying some of God's most holy truths. In your vow of allegiance to Rome you pledge yourself to influence every one over whom you exercise persuasion or control to the same view of her. It would be idle to conceal that your secession has struck like an electric pang through the whole body of the church in North Wales. And when the secession is followed by an arraignment so serious, advanced at this especial crisis by a convert of your lordship's birth, education, weight, and eminence in the principality, there is no minister of the Church of England but is justified by his own convictions of the truth, and his pastoral responsibilities, in openly defending those scriptural and catholic principles of apostolic Christianity which it has been your pleasure to abandon for the modern system of papal Rome.'

The Journal of Sacred Literature-New Series. Edited by John Kitto, D.D., F.S.A. No. V. October, 1852. London: R. B. Blackader. BESIDES a soundly Protestant review of Protestantism in France, and a Millenarian discussion of the views put forth respectively by Faber, Heath, and Young, on Hades and Heaven,' this number of the Journal contains several excellent papers on the Harmony of the Gospels,' 'the Greek Vulgate,' Clemens Alexandrinus,' the Cherubic Forms,' a curious extract from the Acts and Martyrdom of Matthew.' The history of the Rephaim,' which has now reached the sixteenth chapter, is continued from the last number, followed by papers on miscellaneous topics, which will interest various classes of readers. Among others, we notice some curious suggestions on the astrological character of the year-day' principle in prophecy.

A Discourse on the Greatness of the Christian Ministry, delivered before the Students and Supporters of Horton College, Bradford, on Wednesday, August 4, 1852. By J. P. Mursell, of Leicester. London: Hall and Co.

In this Discourse, Mr. Mursell has ably defended the Christian ministry from the misconceptions by which it has been abused, whether by superstition or by false philosophy; while he delineates with much richness of thought and beauty of illustration its unique character, its sublime origin, its spiritual elements, and inculcates in a wise, practical spirit the settled convictions, the personal purity, the benignant temper, the earnest devotion, the intellectual activity, and the varied skilfulness with which its functions are to be discharged. We commend it as a most judicious and eloquent address to candidates for the ministry. No minister can read it without rising to higher thoughts concerning the work in which he is engaged. We have marked with special interest the healthy and discriminating tone with which Mr. Mursell adverts to recent systems which have had so pernicious an influence in disturbing that repose in revelation without which the Christian ministry becomes an exhibition of the most contemptible weakness, instead of being the mighty manifestation of revealed truth, and the earnest proclamation of a heavenly kingdom. Without yielding for a moment to the prejudices of mere ignorance, or forgetting the respect which is due to the advances of intelligence, he asserts at once the independence of his judgment and the ripeness of his faith, by painting the inventions of modern schools in their genuine colours, exposing their sophistries, and denouncing their antagonism to the foundations of all truth in science and history, as well as in the interpretation of the Scriptures. We cannot conclude this short notice without calling the attention of evangelical Protestant dissenters to Mr. Mursell's seasonable remarks on the momentous mission' which devolves on them to sustain the institutions on which depends so much of the fitness of their future ministers for the gathering conflict' of truth with error to which the Church of Christ is so rapidly advancing.

The History of Greece, from the earliest records to the close of the Peloponesian War, including a sketch of the Geography of Greece, and dissertations on Greek Mythology, on the Heroic Age, on the early Painters and Sculptors, and on the Social Condition of the Greek People. By E. Pococke, Esq.; Sir Thomas Noon Talfourd, D.C.L., one of the Justices of her Majesty's Court of Common Pleas ; the late John T. Ruth, Esq.; and the Rev. J. B. Ottley, M.A., late Fellow of Oriel College, Oxford. London: Griffin and Co. 1851. pp. 536.

THIS volume is part of a revised and greatly admired edition of the Encyclopædia Metropolitana.' Rich in varied classical learning, and adorned with more than fifty exquisite wood-cut illustrations, we anticipate for it a grateful welcome among the promoters of exact and elegant scholarship. The story is told well. The dissertations are luminous, full, and very charmingly written. We prize the volume as a real treasure, even at a time when the elaborate and copious English histories by Thirlwall and Grote are issuing from the press.

Erastus; or, How the Church was Made.
A. Cockshaw.

pp. 24. London:

THERE is reason to believe,' says the author of this effective tract, that the great majority of nominal members of the Church of England are utterly ignorant as to how that church was constituted.' Such is unquestionably the fact; and the parties cannot do better than acquaint themselves with the statutes here quoted for their edification. By printing these, with only so much introductory remark as is needful for the purpose of history, the author has left the facts of the case to tell their own tale, and a most mournful and humiliating tale it is. We thank the AntiState Church Association for the service thus rendered, and strongly recommend the tract to our readers.

The Life of Francis Lord Bacon, Baron of Verulam, Viscount St. Albans, and Lord High Chancellor of England. By the Rev. Joseph Sortain, A.B., of Trinity College, Dublin. London: The Religious Tract Society. So much celebrity attaches to the name of Bacon as a philosopher, and so much ignominy loads his memory as a chancellor, that few tasks could be more delicate than the writing of his 'Life.' Mr. Sortain has told the story simply and well; and while evincing his anxiety to present the character of Bacon in as favourable a light as possible, he adheres to the severe verdict on which history has condemned him. The most interesting peculiarity of the volume, as might be expected, is the intelligent and evangelical discrimination with which the religious character of Bacon is discussed. Even his errors, his frailties, and his more serious faults, are turned to good account, with the humble hope that Lord Bacon may be more useful as a moral beacon than he has ever been, or can be, as an intellectual leader.' We are thankful for the appearance of this volume, as not only a worthy tribute to profound learning and pre-eminent genius, but as a useful preservative against one of the worst tendencies of the age-the idolatry of mental power, and the comparative neglect of moral consistency and religious worth.

Bibliotheca Sacra and American Biblical Repository. July, 1852.
Andover: Draper. London: Snow.

THIS number of the Bibliotheca Sacra' contains some valuable contributions from the pens of Stuart, Lewis, Robbins, Pearce, White, Rubinsohn, Short, and Edwards. The first of these names is well known in England. Professor Edwards, the friend and colleague of Stuart, now lies near the remains of his late venerable associate, in the burial-ground of the seminary at Andover. He had been several years the principal editor of the journal. The present editors promise an obituary of him in their next number.

The Leipsic Campaign. By the Rev. G. R. Gleig. In two parts. London: Longman and Co.

THIS Volume forms the twenty-ninth and thirtieth parts of 'The Traveller's Library;' and to all who are interested in military details, it will prove

very acceptable. It has been my object,' says the author, to popularize, if I may use the expression, one of the most important pages in the history of Europe.' Much use is made of the commentaries of MajorGeneral Cathcart; and the various materials collected are blended in a continuous narrative of mournful but not uninstructive import. hope the time is not distant when the terrible evils of war will be unsparingly exhibited by every moralist and divine. We should have been glad to see more of this spirit in Mr. Gleig's work.

We

The Israel of the Alps; a History of the Persecutions of the Waldenses. Translated from the French of the Rev. Dr. Alexis Muston, by William Hazlitt. With numerous engravings. London: Ingram, Cooke, and Co. A DEEPLY interesting volume, the records of which should be pondered over by every man who is concerned for the maintenance of religious freedom and evangelical truth. As the title-page imports, the materials have been almost entirely derived from the work of Dr. Muston. Many additional particulars, however, from the Narrative' of Dr. Gilly, have been introduced, and numerous pictorial illustrations are supplied, which aid the comprehension of the reader by rendering its scenes more vivid to his imagination. We warmly commend The Israel of the Alps' to all our friends, and especially to the young.

A Letter to Richard Cobden, Esq., M.P. for the West Riding of Yorkshire, on the Impolicy and Tyranny of any system of State Education. By Benjamin Parsons, of Ebley. London: Snow. 1852.

A PLAIN-SPOKEN and vigorous pamphlet, by one who has worked as well as written his convictions on the subject, and well deserving to be read by the advocates of all the plans hitherto propounded for the education of the people of England.

The Doctrine of the Manifestations of the Son of God under the Economy of the Old Testament. By the late Rev. George Balderston Kidd, of Scarborough. Edited by Orlando T. Dobbin, LL.D., M.R.I.A. London: Ward and Co. 1852.

THIS elaborate treatise is not so much the putting forth of a doctrine different from the general current of evangelical teaching, as a full inquirywhich occupied the writer between twenty and thirty years-into the proofs of the pre-incarnate manifestations of the Son of God during the dispensations of the Old Testament. It will be studied with advantage by those who seek more than a superficial acquiescence in a truth of some moment in our understanding of the Scriptures. Mr. Kidd, little known beyond. the place of his residence, and not generally popular as a preacher, was a man of great conscientiousness, constant in his adherence to Biblical truth, a lover of good men in a pre-eminently catholic spirit; he was more earnestly and practically bent on the nominal and visible unity of the Church than on any other object; and it was while seeking the grounds of that unity that he was led to the question here discussed. Though the manner in which the contents of the volume are brought together is not such as we would recommend, and there is not much attraction in the