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LIBRARY MANUAL.

Written by Mrs. Barbauld, in Dr. Priestley's study.

A list of folks that kicked a dust,

On this poor globe, from Ptol the first.

The fathers ranged in goodly row,

A decent, venerable show,

Writ a great while ago, they tell us,

And many an inch o'ertop their fellows.

Sermons, or politics, or plays,

Papers and books, a strange mixed olio,

From shilling touch to pompous folio;

Answer, remark, reply, rejoinder,

Fresh from the mint, all stamped and coined here.

Forgotten rhymes and college themes,

Worm-eaten plans and embryo schemes,

A mass of heterogeneous matter,

A chaos dark, nor land nor water.

Books, says Bacon, can never teach the use of books. The student must learn, by commerce with mankind, to reduce his speculations to practice, and accommodate his knowledge to the purposes of life.

THEOLOGY.

He that can only converse upon questions about which only a small part of mankind has knowledge sufficient to be curious, must pass his days in unsocial silence, and live in the crowd of life without a companion. He that can only be useful on great occasions, may die without exerting his abilities. No degree of knowledge, attainable by man, is

able to set him above the want of hourly assistance. By descending, therefore, from the pinnacle, no honor will be lost. An elevated genius employed in little things, appears, to use the beautiful simile of Longinus, like the sun in his evening declination; he remits his splendor, but retains his magnitude, and pleases more, though he dazzles less.

ON THE STUDY OF THEOLOGY.

In a letter I had the honor to receive from the Rev. Thomas Hartwell Horne, he mentions among the advices for students for the study of Theology, Warburton's Directions, Works, 4to. volume 4,-8vo. voJume 10, which are written somewhat in the style of Dr. Farmer, in his excellent letter on the study of English History, which will be found in that department. Wotton's Method of studying Divinity, of which a new edition was printed a few years since at Oxford, with bibliographical notes by Dr. Cotton. The late Bishop Barrington, at the end of his volume of Sermons and Charges, gives some valuable advice. At the end 'of the Preacher, a collection of sermons on the pastoral care, edited by the late Dr. Williams, of which a new edition has lately appeared, there is a copious list of books for an English Library. The Reverend Edward Bickersteth has announced a Christian Reader, to contain advices for studying advantageously, with a list of select works,

There is now in the press a volume of letters on the study of divinity, from a Bishop to his son.

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The Family Bible, with Notes explanatory and practical, by Dr. D'Oyley and Bishop Mant, 3 vols. 4to. 3l. 12s. with plates.

This work is published under the sanction of the venerable Society for promoting Christian Knowledge, and professes to communicate only the results of the critical inquiries themselves; these results, however, are selected with great judgment. The sale of thirty thousand copies proves the estimation in which this laborious work is held. Horne.

SCOTT. The Holy Bible, with original notes, practical observations, and copious marginal references, by the Rev. Thomas Scott, 6 vols. 4to. 81. 8s.

The constant and increasing sale of this work proves the high estimation in which it is deservedly held. Besides several very large impressions of several thousands each, 25,250 have been sold in the United States, from 1808 to 1819.

The Holy Scriptures.

HENRY. An Exposition of the Old and New Testaments, by Matthew Henry, 6 vols. 4to. 61. 6s. plates, 81. 8s. large paper, 127. 12s. PATRICK, LOWTH, WHITBY, and ARNOLD. Commentary on the Holy Bible, 8 vols. 4to. 81. 8s.

The four volumes of Patrick, Lowth, and Arnold, are justly valued, as containing one of the best commentaries on the Old Testament and Apocrypha, which we have in the English language.

BLAYNEY. The Holy Bible according to the authorised version, with marginal references, by Dr. Blayney, 8vo. 16s.

The Bible, says Locke, has God for its author, Truth without any mixture of error for its matter, aud Salvation for its end.

In 1769 Dr. Blayney was appointed by the delegates of the Clarendon press, to collate carefully the first folio edition of King James's transla tion of 1611, and that of 1701, published by Bishop Lloyd. The punctuation was carefully attended to, not only with a view to preserve the true sense, but also to uniformity as far as was possible. Frequent recourse was had to the Hebrew and Greek originals, and as on other occasions, so with a special regard to words not expressed in the original language, but which our translators have thought fit to insert in Italics, in order to make out the sense after the English idiom, or to preserve the connection.

Considerable alterations were made in the heads or contents prefixed to the chapters; many of the proper names being untranslated, whose etymology was necessary to be known, in order to a more perfect comprehension of the allusions in the text. The translation of them was supplied in the margin for the benefit of the unlearned. Some obvious and material errors in the chronology were considered and rectified. The marginal references in Bishop Lloyd's Bible had suffered in many places from the inaccuracy of the press, so that it was necessary to turn to and compare the passages. A late Archbishop of Canterbury suggested that an improvement might be made in the present editions of the Bible, by taking a number of additional references, particularly from a Scotch edition, of which the Vice-Chancellor lent him a copy. Such of them

* The publication of Tindal and Coverdale's translations of the Bible greatly promoted the work of the Reformation, though it soon received a powerful check by the passing of the terrible and bloody act of the Six Articles. By this act all who spoke against transubstantiation were to be burnt as heretics, and suffer the loss of all their lands and goods; and to defend the communion in both kinds, or the marriage of priests, or to speak against the necessity of private mass and auricular confession, was made felony, with forfeiture of lands and goods.

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