Messrs. Parker have published the first volume of a very neat and handy edition of Johnson's Lives of the Poets. We hope they will go on with other standard works in this series.

We are glad to see a new and revised edition of Dr. MONSELL'S Spiritual Songs, (Longmans,) which, though their poetry is not always faultless, are written in a deep, devotional tone. The book is useful we imagine in providing for one class of minds what the "Christian Year" supplies to another, viz., a gathering together in a small compass one aspect at any rate of the Church's teaching on each Sunday and Festival. We have some rhymes (?) which are utterly inadmissible,—e.g., " from us" and "promise,' ""shadow' and "meadow," "breezes" and "JESUS." To our mind there is something not quite reverent in placing the most holy Name in any parallelism, even in that of rhyme, with other words. The "Sweet Call of Sabbath Bells" is not altogether a felicitous, and it is certainly not a Catholic, expression. We may note too that Dr. Monsell is occasionally unfortunate in his choice of metres. Take the following. Can anything equal the almost ludicrous swing of the third line?

"There are ten at the Feet of the SAVIOUR,
In wearisome sickness they pine;

They are whole, but is this their behaviour?

Ten cleansed, but where are the nine?"-P. 143.

Mr. RIDLEY'S Plain Tract respecting Godfathers and Godmothers, (Mozley,) will be found useful as giving both instruction and encouragement to persons for undertaking the duties of the Office.

A new edition of Bishop Taylor's Golden Grove, has just appeared from the press of Mr. Parker.

We are glad to be able to announce a new edition of the Priest's Prayer Book, (Masters). Amongst the most important additions are a Litany for the Dying, and a Harmony of the Passion. We note also many improvements in arrangement.

We watch with great jealousy the growing disregard of the intentions of founders, and so quite sympathise with Mr. WRATISLAW's Plea for the Ancient Charitable Foundation of Rugby School, (Bell and Daldy.) It is aimed at an effort which is being made by Dr. Temple to do away entirely with the privileges of Residents in the town, who, according to the will of the Founder, are entitled to a free education for their children. It will be no compensation to these boys to provide a good commercial school for them, such as Dr. Temple proposes; what the Church wants, and what this school, along with other grammar schools, was intended to secure for the middle class, is a way of getting their sons on to Holy Orders.

The Rev. T. YARD's Prayers for the use of Young Persons in Families and Schools, (Parkers), may be recommended as formed quite on the right model. Hymns and Psalms might be added.

PUSEY ON THE PROPHET DANIEL.

Daniel the Prophet. Nine Lectures delivered in the Divinity School of the University of Oxford, with copious Notes. By the Rev. E. B. PUSEY, D.D., Regius Professor of Hebrew, and Canon of Christ Church. Oxford: J. H. and J. Parker. London : Rivingtons. 1864.

It is with the deepest reverence that we propose to give to our readers some account of this truly exhaustive work. This reverence springs in part from the hallowed name of him, from whom the work proceeds; but in part also, from the nature of the book itself. Never before has such a marvellous store of learning been brought to bear upon any portion of the inspired Canon. The words which Pope Clement VIII. applied to the writings of Hooker are in sober truth every whit as applicable to the book on Daniel now before us. "There is," said the Pope, "no learning that this man hath not searched into, nothing too hard for his understanding; this man indeed deserves the name of an author: his books will get reverence by age, for there are in them such seeds of eternity, that if the rest be like this, they shall last till the last fire shall consume all learning." (Walton's Life.) Our admiration is kindled when we find the old Greek musical instruments described with a clearness and precision never before attempted—the Macedonian words in Daniel accounted for by an elaborate review of the early intercourse that existed between Greece and Assyria-an analysis of the peculiar Aramaic of Daniel, and its distinction from that of Ezra and the Targums pointed out, the result of months of labour, all compressed into some twenty pages ;-an analysis so minute and so searching, that the author's statement is proved by its results, "I have therefore examined expressly for this object every notable word and idiom used in the Hebrew of Daniel" (p. 86);-a most profound historical application of the visions of Daniel to the four great empires, a general review of prophecy, in its several manifestations from Jacob and Moses till the predictions of Daniel, the time of the fixation of the Canon determined from every hint or record that has ever been brought to bear upon the subject; the chronology of Daniel compared with that of Jeremiah, Berosus, and other writers, sacred and profane ;-the civil and religious orders of Daniel illustrated by accounts of the Satraps and Magi of the Parsee and the Egyptian priesthoods ;-the Divinity and the Second Coming of the Messiah proved from prophecy; the doctrine of Angels viewed in relation to the Parsee genii and to Zoroastrism;-the relations in which fasting and almsVOL. XXVI. NOVEMBER, 1864. 3 s

giving stood to the code of the elder dispensation ;—and, finally, the LXX. and the Targums both pressed into the service of verbal criticism.

It is these, and a multitude of kindred subjects which we have not mentioned, that so much aroused our admiration upon reading this extraordinary book. How deep must be the mine from which such measureless wealth of thought and knowledge can be procured! How vast the research which these pages indicate-every German critic taken and answered upon his own ground-the teaching of every scholar brought to bear upon the several problems to be solved; and the objections are conquered without noise and controversy, without hard words, without parade of any kind—a careful and a critical appeal to facts, whether of history or philology, settles the matter. Each infidel objection seems to melt away like the early dew before the rising sun. Not a knot is cut asunder in any single argument. Each difficulty is slowly and patiently untied and cleared up, in a most absolute and convincing manner. The highest Semitic scholarship, together with a vast fund of Oriental learning, is brought to bear with irresistible force upon every disputed question. It is all this that has excited our unfeigned admiration. This book is the latest and the richest product of Dr. Pusey's richly stored and cultivated mind; it is the generalization and collection of years of steady and retentive study, thrown into its present form it may be, upon the exigency of the

moment.

as we

We spoke of reverence as well as of admiration in connection with this book. Our admiration deepens into reverence read on, reverence for the spirit in which the whole is writtenthat such profound humility should be coupled with such vast erudition that there should be such gentleness in dealing with the erring and the half-enlightened, combined with such a firm and manly, nay, stern adherence to the cause of truth. Dr. Pusey comes to his task as standing on no neutral ground, yet he claims for himself a calm and dispassionate inquiry into the real evidence upon which the truth of this inspired book must ultimately rest. For example:

"But although the belief as to the prophecies of Daniel must be part of my religious being, since it is inseparable from my belief that JESUS is GOD, this in no way interferes with the examination of these prophecies themselves. I cannot indeed examine them as one who doubts. No one who believes in CHRIST can, or ought to assume that to be doubtful upon which CHRIST has set His seal. So it is as to the whole substance of the faith and each detail of it. Our own knowledge is certain, and we shall never win others to our certainty of faith and knowledge by assuming the character of persons who have themselves to arrive at faith. Even in matters of certain human knowledge, men do not ignore their own knowledge, in order to impart it to others or to remove their objection to it."--P. 8.

Of how small account Dr. Pusey estimates his own great labour we learn from the following words:

"This has been for some thirty years a deep conviction of my soul, that no book can be written in behalf of the Bible like the Bible itself. Man's defences are man's word; they may help to beat off attacks, they may draw out some portions of its meaning. The Bible is GOD'S Word, and through it GOD the HOLY GHOST, Who spake it, speaks to the soul which closes not itself against it."-Pref. p. xxv.

:

In the preface the reasons are given which induced the selection of the Book of Daniel for these Lectures: "Disbelief of Daniel had become an axiom in the unbelieving critical school.” (P. vi.) "It admitted of no compromises. Its historical portions are no history for the people as such, had, in the period of their captivity, no history." "The Book of Daniel then has nothing of the nature of secular history." Its events were mostly supernatural. "The prophecies also are one connected whole; they admit of no dislocation; they speak definitely of a long period far beyond Daniel's time. To the nearer future there was nothing to add." -(Pref. p. ix.)

On the relation in which physical science, and especially geology, stands to Revelation, Dr. Pusey speaks with great liberality upon this question.

"The claims of geology do not even touch upon theology. The belief that creation at least dated backwards for countless ages, was current in the Church some 1400 years before geology." (SS. Jerome and Gregory Nazianzen.) "Then, there is nothing to connect the time spoken of in Gen. i. 2 with that of the first great declaration of the creation of all things, in the beginning.' Rather, of the forms of speech, which could have been chosen to express past time, that has been chosen which least connects the state when the earth was one vast waste, with the time when GOD created it. Both were in past time; but there is nothing to connect those times together. First, we have, as far back as thought can reach, creation in the beginning, of all those heavens of heavens through these all-but-boundless realms of space, and of our earth. Then, detached from this, a past condition of the earth,-how far separated from it, is not said,---but not a condition in which GOD, Who made all things very good, ever made anything."Pref. pp. xviii. xix.

Dr. Pusey fully allows the geological interval of time between the beginning and the Mosaic narrative.

"In the interval there is room for all the workings of GOD which geology speaks of, if it speaks truly. This history of the creation in Genesis falls in naturally with it, in that it does say that this our mysterious habitation, which GOD has made the scene of such wondrous love, was created 'in the beginning,' i.e., before the time of which it proceeds to speak. Another period of undefined duration is implied by the words And the Spirit of GOD was brooding upon the face of

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the deep.' For action of course implies time, in which the action takes place. And this action was previous to that of the first day' of the creation which begins, like the rest, with the words, 'And God said.' Geology then may pursue its course, with belief, not unbelief, for its condition; only let it not be credulous (as the way has too often been) of anything which tends to unbelief, eager to find grounds to disbelieve Scripture, averse only to believe it."—P. XX., xxi.

Surely this is a noble testimony, and the reverent geologist may with a just pride dwell upon these encouraging words, proceeding from a theologian as mighty in truth and candour as in his deep insight into the mysteries of the kingdom of grace.

Of Joshua and the sun, as opposed to Galilean discovery we read:

"The mistake was not in the language of the Bible, but that men argued from language adapted (as language relating to visible phenomena must be) to the phenomena whereof it speaks, as though it necessarily contained scientific truth."-P. xvii.

It was not then the real learning or the true science of the Essayists that has moved Dr. Pusey's indignation, but rather that They ignored the fact, that every deeper tendency of thought, or each more solid learning had at least, done away with something shallow, something more adverse to faith." They condemned men's faith, without denying it themselves in such definite terms as would naturally risk their offices or positions." "Regarded as a challenge to the Church of England . . . it has not befallen me to read another book so cowardly."-Pref. p. iv.

We will now glance over the Lectures in their proper order. The First Lecture opens with an introduction to the Book of Daniel, and with a notice of its prophecies and miracles. Porphyry was the founder of the infidel school of Biblical critics.

A modern school which has disbelieved with Porphyry has echoed Porphyry. Out of some remaining respect for Holy Scripture or for Christian belief, it evaded the question of the truth or falsehood of Scripture where it could, consistently with the maintenance of its unbelief. If it could generalise a prophecy, so that it should not seem to be a prophecy, it did so. It adopted non-natural interpretations of prophecy and admitted the books which contained it. It objected not to admit the author, if it need not admit the Prophet."-P. 4.

The various developments of the successors in the school of Porphyry are traced out with a subtle distinctness. The philological analysis of the Aramaic of Daniel, its contrast with that of Ezra, the refutation of the allegation of the late date of the Hebrew, the suitableness of Daniel's use of foreign words,—the distinction between the Biblical and the Targumic Aramaic,-the