that already alluded to, as preached before the University just before the meeting of the Westminster divines. The subject is the vindication of liturgical forms, and it is written in a tone of animated loyalty, mingled with much caustic severity and humour, in either of which he seldom indulged, but of which indications now and then occur in his academical exercises. The tone of the second English sermon is subdued and calm, befitting the occasion, the funeral of his friend Lord Berkeley. The third, preached before the House of Lords, while he was Bishop of Chester, on the overruling Providence of God, is remarkable as being designedly free from the formal divisions then commonly considered essential. In this discourse he condemns, as uncatholic and wrong, the abuses of sacramental confession, as practised in the Church of Rome.

The pamphlet "Christ's birth not mistimed," is an answer to a puritanical essay, which was written to confute the ordinary computation. In support of his view the author had adopted the weak ground of assuming, that the twenty-four courses of the Jewish priests (which they took as the basis of their computation) were conterminous with the year, and were each of a fortnight's duration, both of which errors Pearson corrects, and shows, by the testimony of St. Chrysostom, that the Greek Church adopted its calculations from the Roman.

The following passage from his tract, "No necessity for Reformation, &c.," in answer to Dr. Burges, is worthy of attention:

(Dr. Burges's) "second argument to prove the defectiveness of the public doctrine is, that there are no Articles for discovering and condemning sundry points of popery.' To which my answer is, that if they mean no more than that which will discover a man to be a Papist, there is abundantly sufficient contained in the Articles to discover any man. For we may assure ourselves the Church of Rome will admit no man to their society who shall be ready to subscribe our Articles. This, therefore, as to such a discovery, can be no real defect, because we can need no more than that what is enough.”—ii. 188.

In his letter against promiscuous ordinations, in answer to "a person of quality," though he allows of lay baptism in cases of necessity, he is very decided against submitting to the teaching of persons not canonically ordained.

Omitting any particular notice of a few smaller tracts and letters, we shall just observe in general, that in his very shortest pieces is to be uniformly found a characteristic of intellectual greatness, for which all Edmund Burke's writings are specially remarkable, namely, the enforcement of some great principle, either of conduct or of opinion. To adopt the spirit of Bentley's encomium,

they all contain gold dust, if not ore. We must conclude our notice of Mr. Churton's publication, by briefly mentioning the Bishop's Prefaces and Prolegomena. These are five in number; of the "Critici Sacri," to which one of these is prefixed, he was one of four joint editors. It is a work which was afterwards reprinted abroad, and is known among real scholars as far superior both in matter and arrangement to the more popular synopsis of Pool. The preface to Hales's "Golden Remains" bears warm testimony to the excellence, both moral and religious, of that accomplished man, and would seem to contradict the common notion, which assigns to him certain works of an heretical character. His preface to Dr. Stokes's Essays on the Minor Prophets, an act of kindness to a learned friend, is valuable, as vindicating the literal interpretation of prophecy, a view so ably defended by the learned Dr. M'Caul. His Prolegomena to the London edition (1655) of Hierocles, and his preface to the Cambridge LXX., published in 1665, both manifest that deep erudition which obtained him so great celebrity throughout Europe. But this celebrity would have been far greater, and his reputation for erudition would have at least rivalled Bentley's, and for critical judgment far exceeded it, had his "Adversaria Hesychiana," now first published, been known to the literary world.

Of these most interesting notes, the profound and accurate scholarship is not the sole or principal recommendation. Their value, as illustrating the moral qualities of their author, his genuine simplicity, candour, and modesty, is well pointed out by Dean Gaisford.

"Nihil in his annotationibus ambitiose scriptum est: nulla inest gloriolæ, quæ ex doctrinæ ostentatione quæri solet, captatio: emendationes simpliciter propositæ sunt, vel potius verba grammatici, quemadmodum ex nostri sententia legi debent, plerumque nude proferuntur, nude itidem sive versus sive paginæ scriptorum quorum testimonia allegantur: virorum doctorum, quorum acumen aut sollertia Hesychio profuit, emendationes et observata strictim apponuntur, prave aut temere eorum excogitatis leni et modesta animadversione adhibita."Præfatio, p. xi.

The original manuscript is preserved in three folio volumes, in the library of Trinity College, Cambridge. They consist, in a large proportion, of mere emendations of Hesychius's works, without comment, or with simple references to passages in Greek authors. But in many places, and especially under the letters A and B, there are copious notes, giving several ingenious emendations, which attest a most intimate acquaintance with the whole range of Greek literature. In many of these he has anticipated

Hesychius's principal editor, Alberti, and his continuator Ruhnkenius, and in some, our learned, but too much slighted countryman, Toup.

It is remarkable, that the Hesychian annotations of both Toup and Pearson should have been incomplete, and left to the care of posthumous editors. But in this respect, Toup was less fortunate than his predecessor. His emendations (supplementary to his completed work on Suidas) were never reduced by his editor to alphabetical order, so that in their present state, reference must be made through the cumbrous intervention of an index. In Bishop Pearson's work, the Dean of Christ Church has brought together the disjecta membra of his criticisms from other parts of the manuscript, and has reduced them to their proper alphabetical heads. The annotations of Toup were evidently made without method, as he quotes the authors that he happened to be reading at the time, and in consequence, reference is frequently made to writers of inferior authority, when those of more sterling worth were sufficiently obvious. In temper, he was of a far different stamp from Pearson; and petulance and self-sufficiency too often mark his criticisms: while in his predecessor the reader ever recognizes the temper of the Christian and of the divine.

It appears that Pearson chiefly used the earliest or Aldine edition, seldom the subsequent one printed at Haguenau. He makes but few allusions to that of Schrevelius, printed in 1668: and these few, Dean Gaisford informs us, are in an aged and trembling hand; which circumstances mark his pursuit to the last of critical lore. He of course makes copious and diligent use of the ancient glossaries and lexicons, and among the publications of later times, evidently pays great respect to the Etymologicon Magnum of Phavorinus; of which an instance occurs in his elucidation of that controverted passage, ἀγαθὸν ἂν τὴν λίνον, where, with the Etymologicon and Stephens, he reads, dyálooμov, Tíλov. It appears, he does not coincide with Bentley, in considering the interpretations of scriptural words in Hesychius to be the work of a later period. The various indexes which accompany the volumes, for the most part the undoubted work of the bishop, are most valuable and convenient, and the "voces Homericæ emendatæ" at the end of the second volume, deserve particular attention. The Hebrew learning of the author, so conspicuous in his other works, is brought into frequent play in the course of his annotations.

But we trust the time may soon arrive, when any such references as those which we have made may be considered impertinent or superfluous. If the zeal for sound scholarship is really reviving in our country, it cannot fail but that Pear

son's learned labours must be among the common-places of theological and classical literature. That both departments of knowledge may simultaneously revive, must be the wish of all who gain knowledge by experience, and who are willing to be taught by the past. The sound theology of England, of Germany, and of Europe at large, has never been dissociated from the acquirements either of scholarship or of science. In the case of Pearson, we may trace the cause of his exquisite judgment in deciding upon theological questions. His classical pursuits had taught him, as they will ever teach the diligent, that accurate weighing and discriminating of words, and consequently of thoughts, which is most effectually promoted by exercise in the more exact and philosophical languages of Greece and Rome, and which has been so largely promoted in England by the enforcement in our schools of Latin composition, now so foolishly slighted by the advocates of a more miscellaneous, and, consequently, more shallow education. On this foundation was raised a superstructure now altogether neglected, to which we have already alluded; the exercise, namely, of the reasoning faculties in the exercises of the schools, one element of academical education, the revival of which is earnestly to be desired. Bishop Pearson was one of those who so honoured theology, as to make all branches of human learning her handmaids; and yet, who, though so aided, pursued wisdom in the spirit of a little child, and sought from above the right application of all his multifarious knowledge, which he received as the gift of God. These considerations are most important, and we trust will be cherished by the true admirers of such men as Pearson, and by all who hold it as a fundamental maxim, that what is moral should never be postponed to what is intellectual. For he who shall fail to discover, even in the bishop's strictly philological works, that dignity and serenity, that firmness, patience, and piety, which attest a mind trained in the habits of the best religious discipline, can have formed but an inadequate estimate of those means by which Divine Providence has purified and supported the Church of England, can have but a faint notion of the temper of Catholic Christianity, or of that wisdom which is not of this world, but proceeds from Him in whom is

πᾶσα δόσις ἀγαθὴ καὶ πᾶν δώρημα τέλειον.

ART. VIII.-The New Government Scheme of Academical Education in Ireland considered in a Letter to a Friend. By ALEXANDER J. BERESFORD HOPE, M.A., M.P. London: Rivingtons.

THAT the peculiar disorganization of Ireland surrounds with difficulties any plan for education in that country is very evident; and no minister could reasonably expect to devise any system which would afford general satisfaction. These circumstances, we should think, might in themselves have induced Sir Robert Peel to look in the first place to the principles involved in any plan for national education in Ireland, more especially to its bearing on religion, the only solid basis of morality, and on the religious institutions of the country; and to make the question of its popularity a subject of subordinate consideration. This course unhappily has not been taken; and the result is, that no one is satisfied; for we put out of the question those creatures who sit in the House of Commons only to register the enactments of the Premier. If the Church had been assigned her fair and legitimate position in the proposed system of education, there could scarcely have been more dissatisfaction and opposition than there actually is. It could not of course have been expected, that Romanists and other sectarians would have availed themselves of the education imparted in seminaries which were strictly and exclusively in connexion with the Church; but what reasonable objection could have been offered to a provision by the State for the spiritual care of students professing the Established Religion, with which the State is peculiarly connected? Had the Government plan included the provision of Chaplains or theological teachers for Churchmen frequenting such seminaries, (their appointment being placed in the hands of the bishops,) but without any compulsion on students of other "denominations" to attend the worship or the instructions of the Church-nay, with permission to such denominations to establish worship and divinity teachers of their own; in such case we think that there would have been such a recognition of the duty of the State to maintain Christianity, combined with so perfect a toleration of communities separated from the Church, as would have afforded every reasonable satisfaction to all parties.

If it be replied that such an arrangement would have been unacceptable to Romanists and other sectarians, as implying the