will not object to be the medium of communicating to them a piece of information, which will probably afford matter of amusement to some, and of grave reflection to others.

Of the two subjects which are annually proposed for a Latin dissertation to the Bachelors of Arts of one and two years' standing respectively at Cambridge, the following has lately been announced as one. "Utrum ab hominibus fanaticis an scepticis plus detrimenti capiat respublica." Suppose any one of the bachelors, setting about to baJance the claims of the two rival classes of men upon the disesteem of their fellow-creatures, should bethink him of Cicero's maxim, " Faciam quod in principio fieri in omnibus disputationibus oportere censeo, ut, quid sit illud de quo disputetur, explanetur, ne vagari et erarre cogatur oratio, si ii qui inter se dissenserint non idem esse illud de quo agitur intelligant"-Suppose, I say, the essayist should wish to describe the subjects of discussion before he begins to institute a comparison between them; would he not be somewhat puzzled for a definition? I do not mean that he would have much difficulty in discovering that the thesis speaks of such as are fanatics and sceptics in matters of religion; though it may possibly occur to him, that there have been those who equally deserve the name in politics and philosophy. Neither is it difficult to ascertain what description of men is designated by the term sceptic, as applied to subjects of religious inquiry. But who are the "homines fanatici ?" Shall I set the phrenzied armies of the crusaders in array against the cold-blooded sons of infidelity, and compare the mischief which these have done by their pens, with the wrongs which those have committed by their swords? Or shall I draw a contrast between St. Ignatius de Loyola and David Hume? Or shall I rather strike a balance between the puritanical zealots who revolution

ized England under the elder Charles, and the licentious freethinkers who deluged it with impiety under the younger? Little satisfied with the prospect of a comparison in which it would not be easy to fix the precise points of difference and similitude, our candidate for the members' prize might, perhaps, be induced to take a view of things more subject to his own observation; and, were it not that he might be in danger of ruining his chance of success by an appearance of levity ill becoming so serious an occasion, he might be led to attempt a contrast between a well known priestess who lays claim to immediate inspiration from Heaven, and

a

German professor who will scarcely allow even the writers of the New Testament to be inspired,

In this dilemma, he may haply call to mind that it is inconvenient to require a too close correspondence between the proper and the applied signification of words;-that they are often used in a very different sense from that which their derivation imports-and that accordingly. the epithet " fanaticus," (though his dictionary may tell him that it is synonymous with "insanus," "furiosus," &c.) may, in a way of accommodation, and for the sake of distinction, be transferred to men who make a great stir about religion, talk much of its pre-eminent importance, and are inflamed with a burning zeal for the conversion of their less enlightened fellow-crea tures. Perchance he may have been accustomed to hear the term often used by those with whom the appellatives" godly, sanctified, en thusiast, methodist," &c. are famihar; and he may have learnt from their example to regard it as descriptive of a class of persons who are " righteous over-much" and are puffed up with a vain conceit of their being better than their neighbours. Feeling himself, therefore, entitled to use the word in question as it is, and not as it should be used, he is at at once set free from his ori

ginal difficulty, and is no longer at a loss for subjects of comparison. He cannot have lived so long at Cambridge without knowing that there are men in it, who, according to the usual meaning of the word, may very properly be called, and are in fact called fanatics. He cannot be ignorant that there is a Society, instituted for the purpose of distributing Bibles to every nation under Heaven, which has owed much of its astonishing success to the zealous exertions of the men so designated; and further, that it and they have met with a very warm, if not a very efficacious, opposition, from certain individuals of note in the University. By this coincidence of circumstances, he is almost tempted to believe that the bachelors of his year have an invitation given them, which it becomes them not to decline, of trying their controversial skill in a question which has been so wondrously prolific of disputation. But here another difficulty occurs:-It is indeed pretty plain that the ViceChancellor, or whoever has given 1 him the hint to appoint the subject, allowed a considerable latitude of interpretation for the expression "fanatici homines," and will not object to its application to the zealous advocate of the Bible Society. But what if the Vice-Chancellor himself should not be of that number? Will he be content that he and his friends be ranked amongst the "sceptici?" Will they not necessarily come under that denomination? Will not all the AntiBiblists, the Anti-Enthusiasts, the Anti-Pietists, do so? And though it requires no demonstration that Dr. Milner, Mr. Simeon, and others are fanatics, the charge of scepticism against the Margaret Professor of Divinity, against the learned Translator of Michaelis, surely needs to be established by proof before I presume to inquire into the mischievous consequences which may possibly have resulted from his hypothesis respecting the Gospels. I think, sir,

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you will agree with the bachelor student and with me, that here is a difficulty; and I confess I do not see how he is to get out of it ;-and though I might perhaps be able to give him a few hints which might assist him in prosecuting the discussion, should he determine even in this view of the subject to proceed with the comparison, I chuse rather to leave him to his own courage and ingenuity.

I must confess, however, sir, that the proposal of such a subject for public discussion as that to which I have called your attention, though on some accounts sufficiently ludicrous, is liable to serious objection. Highly distinguished as is the age in which we live by the wide diffusion of sound religious opinions, it must also be allowed that scepticism prevails to a very lamentable extent. Within the hallowed precincts of the Universities it is to be feared that there are many, especially amongst the junior members, who from different causes are led to embrace sceptical principles. Now what will be the effect produced upon the minds of such, by the public appointment of a subject of disputation like that before us? Can the Vice-Chancellor be igno rant that those whose minds are tainted with infidel notions, deride all religion as fanaticism; and particularly that any more than an ordinary degree of seriousness in religion is stigmatized with that contemptuous appellation? Is it reasonable to expect that academical students will trouble themselves to investigate the precise meaning of the term "fanatic," when its ordinary signification and application are so familiar to them?

Every one, who is at all acquainted with the history of religion, knows very well that it has at all times been a favourite system with the impugners of Christianity to wound her through the sides of her avowed friends, and to lay to ber charge all the errors and extravagancies which may have beeu com

mitted by deluded or hypocritical professors. However, therefore, it may be urged in defence of the thesis under consideration that it puts in competition with scepticism, not religion, but the abuses of religion, not sober piety, but wild enthusiasm yet if the distinction between piety and enthusiasm is not generally recognized, if it is fashionable to confound them together without examination, I much fear that in the place of so undefined an object of attack as fanaticism,

Narrative of a Tour taken in the Year 1607, to La Grande Char treuse and Alet. By DOM CLAUDE LANCELOT, Author of the Port Royal Grammars, &c. &c. &c. London: J. and A. Arch. 1813. pp. 261. price 8s.

THERE is no occasion on which we feel more disposed to condemn extremes, than, while we yield to the reflections which press upon us, when taking our favourite walk within the hallowed precincts of Westminster Abbey. Surrounded on all sides by the awful shrines of departed greatness, and met in every direction by the memorials of those who were trained to excellence in one and another school, and many of whom conscientiously maintained, on the great theatre of life, sentiments widely different from each other, we find our preju dices softened, our minds less disposed to imagine that we cannot be in the wrong, our sense of rival worth increased, our allowances for human frailty strengthened. Though we still feel in all its force the importance of ardently seeking truth, and strictly adhering to it, modera tion insinuates itself into our judgments, and we find ourselves equally distant from that spirit of bigotry which refuses to acknow

ledge the existence of any principles truly Christian in a rival church or community, as from that latitudinarian spirit, which, by seeking to mingle into one mass principles very discordant, confounds the distinctions of Truth and Error, and perplexes common readers, who may not always have it in their power to detect the fallacy.

We wish that the volume before us, while it alludes to persons and circumstances whose history ought to put all Protestant bigotry to the blush, did not, at the same time, present too near an approach to that incongruous compound to which we have just adverted.

The history of the Monastery of Port Royal, and of several illustrious individuals, who either actually ranked among its members, or were less strictly connected with it, is the subject of which it principally treats. Various particulars relative to the monastery of the Grande Chartreuse, together with a particular account of the Bishop of Alet, and of De Rancé, the celebrated Abbè de la Trappe, are also embodied in the work. The eccentric and austere regulations of the La Trappe Monastery have been made more known in this country than those of other monastic institutions,

by the existence on the British soil of a branch of that society. But the stern decree which long ago levelled with the ground the vene rable walls of Port Royal, and the obscurity with which time has bedimmed the record of those great men, who for a course of years imparted to it a fame so resplendent, has drawn over its whole history a veil which well deserves to be removed by an impartial and able hand. With some of the qualities requisite for this undertaking, the author of the volume before us appears to be well endowed. It contains throughout the indications of a vigorous mind, aided by a vivid imagination. This imagination, however, has dazzled by its own force the eye of his soberer judgment. We look throughout, in vain, for that strict fidelity in the narration of facts which becomes the able historian, or that clear discrimination in detailing the diversities of doctrine which designate the enlightened divine. In the narrative, the reins are too wildly yielded to fancy and to fiction. In the more serious parts, the Roman Catholic Religion is made to undergo a complete transmutation, and comes forth from this process protestantized. Could the Bishop of Alet, or the Abbe de St. Cyran have foreseen the manner in which our author makes them speak, most earnestly would they have deprecated such dangerous friendship. Indeed, could this work have passed through the hands of the latter of these good men, he would hardly have ventured to proceed in the perusal of many pages, without stopping to exorcise the book as being pregnant with heresy. But

We are told by Lancelot, in his memoirs of St. Cyran, that although the Abbè read the works of heretics, in order to refute them, he never ventured on this dangerous employment without first éxorcising them"ne doutant point que le demon n'y residat actuellement parce que disoit il, ces livres ont une secrette malignité qui pourroit, sur

if the Catholic may justly complain of such conduct, surely the Protestant has no less reason to protest against it. For while he recognizes with pleasure the great body of most important truth, however encrusted with certain errors, which exists in the Roman Catholic Church; while he admires the delightful spirituality, the elevated devotion, the superior learning and ability which mark a large number of her writers, be cannot shut his eyes to the mass of dangerous error and absurdity which sullies her creed and breaks forth in the pages of het writers; errors and absurdities, which cannot fail to produce a pernicious influence even on her most enlightened members, and especially to siuk and degrade the minds of the lower classes in abject superstition. Now the history of an institution like that of Port Royal, which perhaps, on the whole, exhibited the Roman Catholic religion in the most favourable and attractive aspect that it has ever assumed since the existence of the Papal usurpation, affords a fair criterion whereby to judge how far, even under the most favourable circumstances, the influ ence of error extends in sullying the purity of Christian doctrine, and leading to error in practice. An impartial history of this celebrated society, in which the lights and shades should be fairly balanced, or even one exhibiting, without any comment, the simple facts as they are stated in the Port Royal writers, would have proved interesting to the public at large (especially at the present period), as well as offered much matter to the consideration of a philosophical and reflecting mind. How little the present volume realizes either of these designs, has already been stated with sincere regret.

To substantiate these general remarks we shall now proceed to give

prendre les plus forts, s'ils n'avoient soin de sé recommander a Dieu en les lisant."-Memoires de St. Cyran, vol. I. p. 227, - - ..