as we drew near the town, we resolved, at all events, to venture thither. For this purpose, calling all our troop together, we appointed certain members of our cavalcade to keep a look-out, and act as guards in the van, centre, and rear of the party, to see that no person loitered, and that none of the inhabitants might be permitted to touch us, or our horses and camels, on any account whatsoever. In this manner we passed entirely through the town, which we found almost deserted by the inhabitants, who, having fled the contagion, were seen stationed in tents over all the neighbouring hills. It appeared to be a larger place than we expected to find: the houses are all white, and have flat roofs, as at Jerusalem, and in other parts of the country. A nephew of the Governor of Jerusalem, mounted upon a beautiful Arabian courser, magnificently accoutred, rode near the centre of our caravan. He had volunteered his company, as he said, to ensure us respect, and as a mark of the governor's condescension. To our very great embarrassment, we had no sooner arrived in the middle of Bethlehem, than some of the inhabitants, at the sight of this man, came towards him to salute him; and, in spite of all our precautions and remonstrances, a Bethlehemite of some consideration came and conversed with him, placing his arm upon the velvet saddle-cloth which covered his horse's haunches. This, we knew, would be sufficient to communicate the plague to every one of us; therefore there was no alternative, but to insist instantly upon the young grandee's immediate dismissal. However, when our resolutions were made known to him, he positively refused to leave the party: upon this, we were compelled to have recourse to measures which proved effectual; and he rode off, at full speed, muttering the curses usually bestowed on Christians, for our insolence and cowardice. We reached the great gate of the convent of the Nativity without further accident; but did not choose to venture in, both on account of the danger, and the certainty of beholding over again much of the same sort of mummery which had so frequently put our patience to the proof in Jerusalem. Passing close to its walls, we took our course down into the deep valley which lies upon its north-eastern side; visiting the place where tradition says the angel, with a multitude of the heavenly host, appeared to the shepherds of Judæa, with the glad tidings of our Saviour's nativity; and finally halting in an olive-plantation at the bottom of the valley below the convent and the town." (P. 614.)

Under the walls of Bethlehem they stopped to refresh themselves with a draught of its "pure and delicious water," in reference to which Dr. Clarke gives the following ingenious illustration. "David being a native of Bethlehem, calls to mind during the sultry days of harvest, a well near the gate of the town, of whose delicious water he had often tasted, and expresses an earnest desire to assuage his thirst by drinking of that limpid spring. AND DAVID LONGED AND SAID, OH! THAT ONE

WOULD GIVE ME DRINK OF THE WATER OF THE WELL OF

way,

BETHLEHEM, WHICH IS BY THE GATE (Sam chap. xxiii.). It will be recollected, that three loyal and mighty men fought their way through the Philistine garrison, procured the draught, and laid it at the feet of their sovereign. It will also be recollected with what noble self-denial he declined the proffered luxury, and how frequently the example has been followed by other celebrated commanders of ancient and modern times. From Bethlehem Dr. Clarke and his friends made their with some risk, through hordes of hostile Arabs, to Rama (see Jeremiah xxxi. 15.), and thence to Joppa or Jaffa. The road, and particularly the neighbourhood of the towns, were strewed with dead bodies, victims of the plague, which was raging with great fury in this part of Palestine. From this place they returned by sea to Acre, and the approach to Mount Carmel and the Bay of Acre concludes the first section of the Second Part of Dr. Clarke's Travels.

Upon the whole, we cannot entirely exculpate Dr. Clarke from the charge of bookmaking; a large proportion of this very large volume is the result of his observations on countries through which he made but a very rapid passage; and even at the most interesting points of which he can scarcely be said to have done more than merely to have touched. We admit, however, with pleasure, that the "Nihil tetigit quod non ornavit," may, with few exceptions, be applied to him; that his work is evidently the production of a scholar and a gentleman; that since his return, he appears to have taken laudable pains to enrich his scanty materials by reading, and by contributions from others; and that to those who have not made the more ancient and laborious travels in the Levant their study, who have neither leisure nor patience to toil through the pages of Tournefort, Le Brun, Spon, Wheeler, Pococke, Norden, or the French travellers, this volume will give a very competent idea of the interesting countries of which it treats. The task of reading goes off lightly, and as we have before observed, there is nothing heavy belonging to the book but its bulk. This evil is considerably alleviated by the numerous plates and vignettes (no fewer than 54) which represent the most notable scenes in the course of the travels. They have all the appearance of accuracy, and as they relate to places which few readers can hope to see, but with which all must wish to become acquainted, they impart a peculiar value to the volume.

ART. XI.-Sermons. By Samuel Horsley, LL.D. F. R. S. F. A. S. late Lord Bishop of St. Asaph. Dundee: 1812. Vol. III.

IF the mind is the man, then the production of posthumous volumes is nearly akin to the resuscitation of the individual himself. In an age therefore not very fruitful in theologians it was with no small satisfaction that we welcomed the publication of the two volumes of Sermons from the masterly pen of Dr. Horsley which preceded this. Even the skin of John Zisea fought the battles of his country, and the very ghost of his lordship is perhaps a more powerful champion of sound divinity than some of the more material combatants who have survived him. It was therefore with considerable regret that we suffered those volumes to go forth on their career without expressing our admiration of ' them in our early numbers. The very chariot of a hero was celebrated; and we should have felt ourselves aggrandized by making our own pages the vehicle of any portion of those of Dr. Horsley. His son, however, having now once more, by the publication of the third volume of Sermons, supplied us with an opportunity of pursuing the steps of his lordship, and having told us, moreover, that this opportunity will be the last we shall enjoy of contemplating him as a preacher, we of course gladly embrace it and we feel assured that our readers will be grateful for another view of this extraordinary man-will rejoice to see even the dim shadow of the individual, whose death was mourned through all the commonwealth of letters.

In addition to this desire of doing honour to Dr. Horsley, another circumstance renders us eager to enter upon some investigation of his writings. The fact is, that though perhaps full credit has been done to their profundity and acuteness, they have never been examined in their most important point of view; viz. in their influence upon the national religion. The bishop has been contemplated chiefly as an insulated individual; whereas he ought to be examined as one of a species whom, in a measure, he has assisted to create. The size and distance of the luminary have been pretty accurately taken; but not its bearing upon surrounding bodies, and especially its influence upon the particular sphere in which it moves. Now it is this deficiency which it is in part the design of the present article to supply. And, moreover, as some specific remarks will be expected upon the volume now before us, and as in comparing the doctrines and the reputed character of the bishop, a case of somewhat difficult solution arises, we shall

follow this order in the observations which succeed. First, we shall notice the present volume-then proceed to examine the general character of the bishop as a theologian, and his influence upon the national religion-and in the last place, though very briefly, attempt the solution of the phenomenon to which we have referred.

The present volume contains fifteen Sermons, of which it is no small praise to say, that they are not, as to talent, inferior to his other Sermons, nor unworthy of himself. Six of them are old acquaintances; but the editor has done an acceptable service by taking them out of their floating condition as pamphlets, and bringing them to a safe anchorage in a capacious octavo. The other nine are from MSS. in his own possession; and we have to thank him for this spontaneous circulation of his patrimonial wealth, and for thus considering the public as well as himself the heirs of his illustrious father.

The first four Sermons are on Malachi iii. 1, 2- "The Lord whom ye seek shall suddenly come to his temple," &c.; they are fine specimens of that grand style of exposition for which the bishop is distinguished. It will be seen hereafter that our confidence in his lordship as an explorator, where a new ground is to be tried, or an impregnable fortress to be attacked, is not unbounded. But as he passes unassailed through the sacred territory, doing honour to the soil and erecting columns of glory to its God, it is truly delightful to follow a march so grandly conducted, and to refresh the eye with monuments so exquisitely wrought. The only point on which we presume to differ from this great interpreter in his exposition of this particular passage is, as to his conception of the " ironical" meaning of the words "whom ye seek," and, "whom ye delight in." Irony is very rarely, we think, employed in scripture, and perhaps never where God himself is the speaker; neither is it suited to the dignity or the solemn compassion of the divine character. It is the more remarkable that the bishop should have resorted to this supposition for explaining a passage which really presents no difficulty. The writings of the Prophets abound in such rapid and unexpected changes of person are so continually sliding into a dramatic character that nothing is easier to conceive than that “ye" is here used by a metabasis, and is only a sudden transition in the discourse, and that the "Lord whom ye seek," means only "the Lord," generally expected by the Jewish people.-There is an observation of his lordship's upon the translation of this passage which we think it right to place before our readers. "The word here translated Lord (says the bishop very justly) should be translated 'Jehovah.' Here then we have the express testi

mony of Malachi, that the Christ, the Deliverer, whose coming he announces, was no other than the Jehovah of the Old Testament." He then proceeds to assign a reason for this inaccuracy of our translation.

"It is strange that this doctrine should be denied by any in the Christian church, when it seems to have been well understood, and expressly taught, upon the authority of the prophetical writings, long before Christ's appearance. Nor does the credit of it rest upon this single text of Malachi: it was the unanimous assertion of all the Jewish prophets, by whom the Messiah is often mentioned under the name of JEHOVAH; though this circumstance, it must be confessed, lies at present in some obscurity in our English Bibles, an evil of which it is proper to explain to you the cause and rise. The ancient Jews had a persuasion, which their descendants retain at this day, that the true pronunciation of the word JEHOVAH was unknown; and, lest they should miscall the sacred name of God, they scrupulously abstained from attempting to pronounce it; insomuch, that when the sacred books were publicly read in their synagogues, the reader, wherever this name occurred, was careful to substitute for it that other word of the Hebrew language which answers to the English word Lord. The learned Jews who were employed by Ptolemy to turn the Scriptures of the Old Testament into Greek have every where in their translation substituted the corresponding word of the Greek language. Later translators have followed their mischievous example-mischievous in its consequences, though innocently meant: and our English translators among the rest, in innumerable instances, for the original Jehovah,' which ought upon all occasions to have been religiously retained, have put the more general title of the Lord.”

The contrast of the Jewish and Christian covenants at the conclusion of the fourth Sermon is in the author's best manner.

The seventh Sermon in the volume, which is on the raising of Lazarus, is full of curious matter. It is satisfactorily shown, we think, that the Apostles are not what they have sometimes been called, "credulous men." On the contrary, it is easy to state instances of their incredulity, but not so easy to assign for it a philosophical cause. Our readers may not be sorry to receive this from the hands of the bishop.

"However," says the author, "certain modern pretenders to superior wisdom may affect to speak contemptuously of the credulity of the vulgar, and think that they display their own refinement and penetration by a resistance of the evidence which satisfies the generality of men, the truth is, that nothing is so much a mark of general barbarism as an obstinate incredulity. The evil-minded and the illiterate, from very different causes, agree however in this, that they are always the last to believe upon any evidence less than the testimony of their own senses. Ingenuous minds are unwilling