bad habits, without the slightest participation in their accustomed indulgences, is the discipline through which they are compelled to pass, and it seems to be found sufficiently severe. When habits of order and industry have been formed, and have become established by the practice of a considerable period, the severe discipline is less seriously felt and becomes comparatively pleasant. The reform of the prisoner has now been carried forward to a considerable extent, and he may look with interest to receiving the boon, which is found to be much prized and earnestly longed for, of recommendation by the Governor of the Prison for removal from Parkhurst with a good character to a foreign colony. The system, we may again observe, must be viewed strictly with reference to this ultimate object. On his removal from Parkhurst, the prisoner must still undergo the original sentence of the law, that of transportation to a foreign land, where, with few opportunities for crime, he may have the means of gaining his livelihood by honest industry. But what are the circumstances under which he now approaches the scene of his new existence? The wilds of Australia do not differ more from the dense population of our cities, than do the recent habits of the criminal from those of his earlier years. Industry, sobriety, cleanliness, order, regularity, knowledge upon moral and religious subjects, as well as secular instruction, must all have been acquired by him, and though there will unquestionably in the aggregate be a greater or smaller amount of retrogression, it is impossible to doubt that altered habits will exert a great and beneficial influence, especially when it is borne in mind that the reformed offender is thrown into entirely new scenes and cut off from all old associations. It may, indeed, be hoped (for we are not aware that results have yet been ascertained) that in the great majority of instances the effects will be such as the friends of humanity must earnestly desire. The prisoner does indeed enter the land of his future residence as a criminal, but under circumstances as favourable as possible. He starts with the character of a reformed offender. He is at once placed in the same class as those convict prisoners who by good conduct in the colony have earned what are termed tickets of leave; and if there be on his part the disposition to do well, every restriction beyond that of residence in the colony is speedily withdrawn from him.

Such is a brief sketch of the attempt which has been quietly in progress for some years past to reform the character of our convict population, and to render it a blessing instead of a curse to the countries in which it is hereafter to be established,-in any case a noble endeavour, but exposed to the risk of many errors, should comprehensive views and sound judgment not be combined with mere benevolence of purpose. Of the objections which may be made, we take the following to be the most obvious and palpable.

It may be said with much truth and justice, that in the system adopted at Parkhurst the criminal is dealt with too favourably in reference to society at large; in other words, that the treatment adopted for the worst of our criminal offenders is to give them clean and airy apartments, regular supplies of wholesome food, comfortable clothing, and a system of instruction and general education, thus placing them in a position far beyond what is within the reach of the great body of our population. As regards the latter part of the statement, we fear there

is no denying the fact; and were not the system at Parkhurst connected with ultimate transportation to a foreign colony as an inevitable consequence, there might, we think, be some fear that punishment might lose its terrors when connected with so excellent a system of training. But the proper and legitimate conclusion we take to be, not that the system of prison discipline at Parkhurst is superior, but that the general condition of our labouring population is inferior, to what it ought to be in respect of order, cleanliness, sobriety and means of education and instruction.

We hold the proper course to be, to seek to establish for society at large those improvements in regard to ventilation, cleanliness, instruction, and, in the enlarged sense of the term, education, which present so favourable a picture in the Prison at Parkhurst. We rejoice to believe that there is at the present moment every disposition to forward objects of such vast importance. We trust there is in the public generally that awakened attention to these subjects of surpassing interest to the welfare of our labouring population, without which the Government can do comparatively little. And if we might venture to hazard a conjecture upon forthcoming events, we should be inclined to say, that as the Administration of Lord Grey and his successor, Lord Melbourne, was distinguished by Political Reform, and as the period when Sir Robert Peel held power was the era of Financial Reform, the Ministry of Lord John Russell will hereafter be distinguished as the period of improvement in our Social condition,-a field of usefulness certainly not less honourable than those from which preceding Ministers have reaped the harvest of their country's gratitude and admiration.

ON THE LATER COMPOSITIONS OF WORDSWORTH.

THE living tortoise hybernates-the shell

No winter knows. The white-hair'd Tuneful One,
Who wisely made it his life's choice to dwell
Where he could listen to his heart alone,
A hermit-king with an unenvied throne,
Daily observing forms of Heaven and Earth
Mingling, in emblematic unison,
On Rydal's shelter'd mirror,-he is worth
Much, as a gracious delegate sent forth

Το

(Imperial Nature's rescript in his hand)

prove that powers, conferr'd with human birth,
Need at no point of being make a stand,
But travel on, and, when life's light turns pale,
Repair the lark's loss with the nightingale.

Liverpool.

*

HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE TRINITARIAN CONTROVERSY FROM THE ACCESSION OF WILLIAM III. TO THE PASSING OF THE BLASPHEMY ACT.

No. IX.

Soon after the issuing of the Oxford Decree, which condemned the doctrine advanced by Mr. Bingham in his discourse before the University, that Decree appeared in the weekly newspapers, with a Postscript, in which it was stated that the doctrine thus censured was that which Dr. Sherlock had so pertinaciously defended. The Doctor, in his own defence, published A Modest Examination of the Authorities and Reasons of the late Decree of the Vice-Chancellor, and some Heads of Colleges and Halls, concerning the Heresy of three distinct infinite Minds in the Holy and Ever-blessed Trinity. In this Examination, which made its appearance very early in the year 1696, the author reiterates, with confidence, his former assertions; contending, that what the Oxford Heads have condemned as heretical and impious, is the very Catholic faith, and that their Decree, or declaration, censures the Nicene faith, and the faith of the Church of England, as heresy, and exposes both to the scorn and triumph of the Socinians. He adds, moreover, that "three divine persons who are not three distinct minds and substances, is not greater heresy than 'tis nonsense."

This vindication of himself, and his favourite doctrine, satisfied no one; and to many it gave great offence. Some of Dr. Sherlock's most zealous adversaries hesitated not to express their opinion, that his book, in which he had subverted, as far as lay in his power, the primary article of the Christian faith, afforded ample ground for summoning a convocation. But the Doctor persisted in saying, that he was sure he was in the right.

The Modest Examination drew forth several replies. One was entitled, An Answer to Dr. Sherlock's Examination of the Oxford Decree; London, 1696: another, Remarks upon a Book lately published by Dr. William Sherlock, Dean of St. Paul's, &c., intituled A Modest Examination of the Oxford Decree, &c.; Oxford, 1696: and a third, Decreti Oxoniensis Vindicatio in Tribus ad Modestum Examinatorem, Modestioribus Epistolis, a Theologo Transmarino; excusa A. D. 1696. All these replies were published anonymously, and in the usual size, which was small quarto. The second was attributed to Dr. Jonathan Edwards, Principal of Jesus College, Oxford, who afterwards published, with his name, A Preservative against Socinianism, which is almost as notorious for its violence and scurrility, as the attacks of his namesake, John Edwards, upon the author of The Reasonableness of Christianity. The last of the above-mentioned replies to Dr. Sherlock, written in Latin, is dated Uni-trino-poli, 13 cal. Mart. 1696. There were probably others, of which no record has been preserved; for the question excited as much discussion among Churchmen in those days, as Tractarianism has done in our own. But the controversy was conducted in such a bitter spirit on both sides, that the King interposed between the contending parties, and issued Directions to the Archbishops and Bishops, for the preserving of Unity in the Church, and the Support of the Christian Faith concerning the Holy Trinity. These Directions were drawn up by Dr. Tennison, who then presided over the province

of Canterbury, and were dated Feb. 3, 1695 [for 1696]. They ordered, "That no preacher whatsoever, in his sermon or lecture, should presume to deliver any other doctrine concerning the blessed Trinity, than what is contained in the Holy Scriptures, and is agreeable to the three Creeds and the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion:" and, "That in the explication of this doctrine, they should carefully avoid all new terms, and confine themselves to such ways of explication as have been commonly used in the Church." The attention of the clergy was particularly directed to the fifty-third Canon, which prohibits public opposition between preachers, and bitter invectives and scurrilous language against all persons. An observance of these rules was also enjoined upon all who wrote on the disputed questions, whether clergymen or laymen.

The tone of these injunctions was sufficiently peremptory; and they had the intended effect. The public saw no more defences of Tritheism : but after the awkward position in which Dr. Sherlock had placed himself, and the bold and confident air which he had assumed on the promulgation of the Oxford Decree, he excited the surprise of some, and the disgust of others, by the manner in which he backed out of the controversy. He continued, as before, to bid defiance to all his opponents, and had not the manliness to own that he had been in the wrong; but in the midst of this senseless bravado, he gave up all the leading points for which he had before contended, and settled down into a good, orthodox Churchman.

There appeared, in the year 1696, a tract from the pen of a Unitarian writer, entitled, The Judgment of a disinterested Person concerning the Controversy about the Blessed Trinity, depending between Dr. South and Dr. Sherlock: 4to. It contained a fair and candid statement of the arguments in defence of the Trinity, the Incarnation and the Godhead of the Saviour, which have been brought forward, by learned and approved writers, in different ages of the Christian Church, and especially of those which have been sanctioned by the decisions of General Councils. The author distinctly proved, by a close and connected chain of reasoning, that three infinite spiritual substances, or three eternal and all-perfect beings, minds or spirits, must be regarded, by all who understand the use of language, as three Gods; and as Dr. Sherlock and Mr. Bingham had asserted and contended for the existence of three such substances, beings, minds or spirits, he argued that the framers of the Oxford Decree acted rightly in censuring this doctrine as Tritheism. But he treated Dr. Sherlock with respect, and gave him credit for being actuated by a sincere desire of supporting what he conceived to be the truth. The unpardonable offence, however, had been committed of questioning the oracular authority of the Dean of St. Paul's; and whatever provocations that learned dignitary might put up with from a brother Trinitarian, his proud spirit could not brook the idea of being convicted of mistake by a Socinian, much less of being excused on the score of ignorance of a subject upon which he had volunteered to instruct others. In a very short time, therefore, he sent forth an angry reply, in a work entitled, The Distinction between Real and Nominal Trinitarians examined, in Answer to a Socinian Pamphlet. 1696.

The Socinian pamphleteer, as the reader will be prepared to expect

from what has been already said, is not treated with much civility. His competency to act the part of umpire between two such renowned champions as Dr. South and Dr. Sherlock is rudely questioned; and he is attacked with a degree of virulence, which could hardly have been surpassed if he had aimed a deadly blow at the tenderest part of the Dean's reputation. But notwithstanding the bad spirit which the book evinces, and the unscrupulous manner in which its author attacks the reasons advanced by his Socinian censor, it is in this very book that we catch the first glimpses of a return to a sounder state of mind. It is here that we discover the earliest traces of a disposition to re-consider and modify the strong assertions contained in his former controversial writings.

The Dean admits that the phrases, "three minds," "three spirits," "three substances," ought to be used very cautiously, and not without great necessity; and that they are liable to a very heretical sense. He says, that Father, Son and Spirit are rò avrò πрáyμa, one and the same substance; and rйs ávτóTηTOS Evwois, the unity of sameness, or identity. In an earlier stage of the controversy, however, he had peremptorily denied this; and even in his Modest Examination, which was scarcely dry from the press, he had not scrupled to designate it both "heresy" and " nonsense.'

He says again, "The Socinians will grant that one Divinity is but one God and the reason why they assert that one God is but one Person, is, because they think it impossible the same undivided Divinity should subsist distinctly in three Persons. But then, before they had charged the faith of the Trinity with Tritheism, they should have remembered that the Persons of the Trinity are not three such Persons as their one Person is, whom they call one God: and therefore, tho' three such Persons, three such Minds, Spirits and Substances, as their one Person and one Spirit is (who is the whole Divinity confined to one single Person), would indeed be three Gods; yet three such Persons as the Catholic Church owns, who are all the same One Substance, are not three Gods." Had Dr. Sherlock written thus in the first instance, he would not have exposed himself to the severe and biting sarcasms of Dr. South, and would have escaped the well-merited castigation which he received at the hands of his Unitarian opponents.

The contest between these two angry polemics was now virtually at an end; for Dr. Sherlock had conceded the main point in dispute.

During the heat of the battle, Dr. Thomas Burnet, Master of the Charter-house, published his Archæologia Philosophica, in which he impugned the divine authority of the Old Testament. This work gave great offence to the orthodox clergy, and led to the author's removal from the office of Clerk of the Royal Closet, to which he had been appointed through the interest of Archbishop Tillotson. This incident, together with the dispute between Dean Sherlock and Prebendary South, furnished materials for the following humorous ballad, composed at the time, and entitled,

THE BATTLE ROYAL.

(To the tune of "A Soldier and a Sailor.")

A Dean and Prebendary-Had once a new vagary;

And were at doubtful strife, Sir,-Who led the better life, Sir,
And was the better man.