"Ages, however, will perhaps roll away, before Russia will become a formidable naval power. The Black Sea is of difficult navigation, and the egress to the Mediterranean easily disputed by the people possessing the shores of the Bosphorus. The Baltic is ill adapted to the use of large vessels, which are either injured by the ice, or blocked up in the harbours for several months of the year; while their passage to the ocean is also subject to interruption by a hostile power. The Arctic ocean is still more unfavourable, and the eastern sea is not only too remote, but its shores are too barren, and their population too scanty and uncivilized, to afford any maritime advantages." [vol. i. pp. 376, 377.]

With so much to commend in this elaborate and most useful work, we have neither disposition nor occasion for censure. A few errors have, however, been noted as we proceeded with our analysis, and those we will point out for correction. At page 58, vol. i. "there is scarcely any work in metals which has not either originated in, or resorted to, Birmingham," struck us as too metaphorical and rhetorical an expression, for such a mere matter-of-fact statement. At the next page, a word is wanted to make the sentence grammatical. "The town is in general well built; some of the streets [are] spacious and handsome, and mostly well paved."

We extract the account given by our author of that great palladium of our liberties, the trial by jury, that we may correct two or three trifling inaccuracies, or at least seeming inaccuracies, which it contains.

"In case of a trial, the person accused is furnished with a list of the jury who are to be his final judges, and is allowed in open court to object to any against whom he can assign reasons for their not being admitted, until twelve unexceptionable men are approved; and in order to secure all possible impartiality in the trial, if the person indicted be a foreigner, half the jury are also to be foreigners, if the accused person so desire; otherwise it is not compulsory that the jury should be thus constituted. They are then sworn that they shall well and truly try, and deliverance make, between the king and the prisoner whom they shall have in charge, according to the evidence. On these juries the prisoner rests his cause, and the verdict they pronounce is final. After they have fully heard the evidence produced, the prisoner's defence, the comments of the judge on the testimony given, his exposition of the nature of the crime, and the bearings of the law upon it, under every possible aspect, they are confined without meat, drink, or candle, till the whole are unanimous in acquitting or condemning the prisoner. Trial by jury, as thus constituted, is evidently one of the greatest bulwarks of the English constitution. If one of the jury die while they are locked up, the prisoner is acquitted;

for as that man could not join in the verdict, the law does not regard it as the unanimous act of the whole.” [vol. i. P. 97.]

Now, in the first place, a prisoner, save in cases of treason, or in special juries, is not furnished with a list of the jury, except by hearing those called in open court who are to try him; and in cases of treason and felony, he has the power of challenging them up to a certain number, not only for cause shewn, but peremptorily, and without giving any reason for his conduct. The sentence respecting the manner in which the jury deliberate on their verdict, would necessarily lead one to conclude, that in all cases they are confined; whereas, in fact, their even retiring from the box to consider their verdict, is a circumstance scarcely occurring once in an hundred times. We are satisfied, however, that Mr. Myers meant not to give such an impression, tho' an inaccuracy of expression, into which it is difficult to avoid falling in so extensive a work, has subjected him to the liability of being thus misunderstood. The same remark applies to a sentence, from which those who were not better informed might conclude that Hindostan was an island. We allude to the following, at page 137 of the first volume: "In Asia the English possess Hindostan, Ceylon, and various other islands in the Indian ocean and Eastern Archipelago."

Of the merits of the work, it would be difficult to speak in too high terms of approbation. We consider it a most valuable addition to the shelves of our own library, on which we have not failed long since to place it, and we very earnestly recommend our readers to give it a niche in theirs. The maps are well executed, and the plates of views and costumes judiciously selected, and very carefully engraved. An abridgment of the work for schools and young persons, would, we are satisfied, meet with great encouragement; and if Dr. Myers's leisure will permit, we very urgently recommend him to undertake it.

1. An Account of a Miracle wrought by Prince de Hohenlohe, (Priest of the Catholic Church,) the 16th of June, 1823, on Miss Maria Lalor, of Roskelton, who had been dumb for six years and five months.

*,

Communicated in a Letter to the Clergy and People of the United Diocese of Kildare and Leighlin. By the Right Rev. Dr. James Doyle, O.S.A. Second Edition. 12mo. pp. 18. Manchester, 1823. Robinson.

2. The Life and Miracle of St. Winifred, Virgin, Martyr: Abbess and Patroness of Wales. To which are added, the Litanies of the Holy Saint. 18mo. pp. 148. London. An

drews.

"No real Catholic," says Mr. Andrews, in his address as editor of the latter of the two works at the head of this article, "will deny that God has in every age since its first "establishment, distinguished his true church by miracles. "The extraordinary interpositions of Divine Providence may have been less frequent in one age than in another, "but have never entirely ceased. This truth, the lives of "the saints testify in the most authentic and satisfactory "manner, and most of the miracles recorded in their genuine "histories cannot be denied, except upon grounds that would equally invalidate the miracles of our Saviour." It is to these high pretensions of the Catholic church, (for, to avoid at once offence to its members, and circumlocution in our own expressions, we will adopt, for convenience' sake, the title which she has somewhat arrogantly, because exclusively, assumed to herself,) that an alleged miracle of the current year, has induced us to devote a few of our pages. Taking, therefore, the bold assertion of a man who is considered by many as the great champion of his party in the present day, as the faith of the church to which he belongs, we will without further preface enter into an examination of its correctness.

A miracle is any deviation from the common course of nature, which evidently requires the direct interposition of divine agency to produce it. To perform a miracle, is therefore the exclusive prerogative of Omnipotence; a creature may be the instrument, but the power by which he acts must be that of God.

It follows, if the above definition of a miracle be correct, that miracles are possible; all things but absolute contradictions are possible to God: but there is nothing like a contradiction, nothing contrary to our reason, in the assertion, that He who at first established, and still preserves the laws of nature, can suspend them, reverse them, or deviate from them, when and how he pleases.

There being no antecedent impossibility of miracles, in the event of a revelation of the will of God being given to mankind, their actual existence becomes probable, and even necessary. There are appearances in nature, so strange, and contrary to the ordinary experience which we have by observation of her operations, that to a perfectly ignorant

mind, they must have all the force of miracles; and it is in the power of men of science to present phenomena to the view of an untutored rustic, as completely beyond the reach of mere human agency, to his apprehension, as the greatest miracle can be to the profoundest philosopher. It cannot, therefore, be unreasonable, that He who has the ability to perform actual miracles, should really do so, when some worthy occasion, involving his own glory, and his creatures' happiness, requires it. Such an occasion, we conceive, is the gift of a divine revelation to mankind. If such a gift be desirable, it is desirable that it should fully accomplish all the wise and benevolent designs intended by it: but this cannot be the case, unless those to whom it is given, have the fullest confidence in it as a revelation from God, binding upon their faith and practice. It is highly important, therefore, that it should be accompanied by such an evidence of its divinity, as shall powerfully impress the minds of men, and either secure its influence upon their faith and conduct, or, in the event of their rejecting it, leave them without excuse. But what less than miracles could furnish such a species of evidence as this? An immediate revelation or mission from the Deity, is certainly a most extraordinary thing, and he who comes professing either the one or the other, must bring with him something more than his own bare assertion, or the assertion of others, whatever may be his or their character for veracity, if he would have us believe him. His word, alone, may indeed be sufficient in attestation of an ordinary fact; but here, in so remarkable a case, in a matter that involves such high and eternal interests, we have a right to demand a proof of his divine authority, proportioned to the magnitude of his claims. For he may be an impostor-he may be deceived-he may be under the influence of some infatuation, and fancy that he has a divine commission to declare certain things immediately from God to men ; and where an individual is actually so commissioned, it is natural to suppose that he will be furnished with such means of satisfying mankind upon the subject, as shall leave no doubt, upon the minds of reasonable persons, of the truth of his assertions. Endowed with the power of working miracles, he has these means, but he has them with nothing less. It is true, that in the event of a divine revelation, God might secure its general acknowledgment as a revelation from himself, by an immediate influence upon the mind of every individual of every age, but the producing of such an impression would be in itself mira

culous; for it is contrary to the ordinary course of his proceeding, and involves the immediate agency of God.

Let us suppose a case,-A man rises up in the present day, affirming that he has received a revelation from God, and that he is solemnly commissioned to publish that revelation to the world; enjoining the reception of it upon all to whom it is proclaimed. We demand of him some adequate evidence of the truth of his assertions, and immediately he singles out an individual from the crowd, known to have been born blind, and imparts to him the blessing of perfect sight-or, going into the chamber of one grievously diseased, he restores him to perfect health before our eyes -or, meeting the cripple in the public street, he imparts by a word, such vigour to his limbs, that he throws away his crutch, and follows him, leaping for joy-or, entering a neighbouring churchyard, commands the stone to be removed from the grave where the body of a friend had lain four days, and on the removal of the coffin lid, speaking to the corpse, exclaims, "Come forth," and the dead instantly arises, and, disencumbered from his shroud, rushes to the congratulations and embraces of his kindred. Suppose him to do all this publicly, to do it so completely in the face of day, and in the midst of competent and credible witnesses, that no one could deny the fact. Suppose the parties themselves, on whom the miracles were wrought, should immediately begin to celebrate his fame, and, appealing to the eyeballs that were once dark, to the limbs that once were crippled, to the frame that once was cold in death, in the hearing and the view of those who had seen them in their former state, were to publish the change they had undergone at the time, and on the spot, and to the people, where and when, and in the midst of whom, they had experienced it, as an evidence of the divinity of their deliverer's mission; who but the most unreasonable men, would refuse their cordial and entire assent to the truth of that individual's testimony concerning himself, seeing he is evidently attended by the great power of God. And, further, suppose these facts, with all their attendant circumstances, should be committed to paper by those who were eye and ear witnesses, and published in this form at the period when any incorrectness, and exaggeration or falsehood in the statements, might be detected and exposed; and suppose the record, unimpeached in its veracity at the time, committed to posterity; would not posterity be bound to admit it as true, on the very same principles by which they would deem