their connexion with it; and the appearance of the masterly articles on "Zeal without Innovation," from the pen of the late Rev. Robert Hall, led to the angry denouncement of the Review, (in 1810,) by the evangelical party in the Establishment, in no very courteous or charitable terms. The Rev. Mr. Greatheed, of Newport Pagnel, was for some time the Editor. He was succeeded by Daniel Parken, Esq., of the Inner Temple, under whose able management the Journal rapidly increased in reputation. At his lamented decease, the Editorship was confided to Theophilus Williams, Esq.*, son of the late Rev. Dr. Edward Williams of Rotherham, who held it till the year 1814; when the original Proprietors, disappointed at the limited success which had attended their public-spirited exertions, announced their intention to discontinue the Journal.

It was under these circumstances that the Eclectic Review came into the hands of the late Proprietor and Editor; and on the 1st of January, 1814, appeared the first Number of the Second Series, which extends to thirty volumes. In 1829, as complete sets were no longer to be obtained, a Third Series was commenced under the same management, which closes with the present volume.

It is with mingled feelings of allowable satisfaction and pensive recollection that the Editor looks back upon the long array of forty-six volumes which he has had the not ungrateful labour of preparing, with the aid of his respected Contributors; some of whom no longer survive to receive his grateful acknowledgements, while others, by their avowed works, have risen to occupy their just place in the estimation of their contemporaries. Among the regular or more occasional Contributors to the Review, during the Second Series, he may be allowed to mention the distinguished names of the late Rev. Robert Hall, the Rev. John Foster, the Rev. Dr. J.P. Smith, the Rev. Dr. Chalmers, James Montgomery, Esq., Dr. Olinthus Gregory, John Ryley, Esq., the Rev. J. Robertson, the late Rev. Henry Steinhauer, the late Dr. Benjamin Robinson, (Physician to the London Hospital,) Dr. Uwins, the late Professor Park, the late Dr. Polidori, the late Rev. Cornelius Neale, the late James Mill, Esq., the late Charles Marsh, Esq.,

* Mr. Williams subsequently conformed and took orders.

(of the East India House,) the late Rev. W. Orme, the Rev. Dr. Redford, the Rev. Jos. Gilbert, the Rev. Dr. Payne, the Rev. T. Morell, and his early and accomplished friend, Isaac Taylor, Esq., Author of "The Natural History of Enthusiasm."

From some of the surviving Contributors to the Second Series, the Editor has continued to receive valuable aid throughout the one which he is now closing, to whom he is anxious to take this opportunity of tendering his warmest thanks. He has also been indebted for occasional papers to the Rev. Professor Vaughan, the Rev. T. Binney, Rev. F. Watts, the Rev. Dr. Styles, Rev. S. Thodey, Henry Rogers, Esq., Henry Dunn, Esq., and James Douglas, Esq., of Cavers. More particularly he is bound to refer to his valued friend, John Ryley, Esq., of Leicester, to whose varied articles of sound criticism the readers of the Eclectic Review have been indebted during nearly the whole period of its existence.

Having discharged this debt of personal feeling, the Editor cannot refrain from adverting to the gratifying fact, that, although the Eclectic Review has had to struggle against very powerful prejudices, as a Journal avowedly conducted by Protestant Dissenters, and its circulation has thus been for the most part limited to a section of what is termed the religious world; although too, in addition to this unfavourable circumstance, it has witnessed the rise of many formidable competitors, and a sort of revolution has taken place in periodical literature, by the multiplication, first of Quarterly Reviews, and latterly of hebdomadal Journals; the Eclectic Review has still maintained its stability, and, it is believed, its influence. Among its extant juniors may be enumerated, the Quarterly Review, the Westminster Review, the Foreign Quarterly, the Congregational Magazine, the Christian Guardian, the Christian Remembrancer, the New Monthly Magazine, the British Magazine, the Monthly Repository, Blackwood's, Tait's, and Fraser's-all of them partaking more or less of the character of a Review. The British Review, the Christian Review, and the Investigator, all now defunct, have also, with several monthly publications, come into existence and passed away since the Editor commenced his la bours. Besides these, we have found ourselves surviving several long established Journals of older date;-as, the Critical Review,

the British Critic (Monthly), the Antijacobin Review, the Literary Panorama, the Annual Review, the European Magazine, the Universal Magazine, the Monthly Epitome, and a host of ephemeral publications now forgotten. Contemplating the wrecks of our contemporaries, and the upstart novelties around us, we are tempted to exclaim, where is the literary world into which we entered?

In the course of so extended an editorial career, it is impossible that the Editor should have escaped from the angry imputations of parties dissatisfied with the literary awards dealed out to them, or have avoided rendering himself obnoxious to others by the independence which the Review has maintained. He has, however, the consolation of reflecting, that, in not a few instances, he has received the cordial thanks of authors whose unpatronised merit the Eclectic Review has been the instrument of first bringing into notice; and in no instance can he reproach himself with having suffered the Journal to be prostituted to the purposes of personal spleen or party animosity. Erudite clergymen of the Establishment have found the Eclectic Review quite as ready to do justice to their labours and scholarship as the Reviews conducted by their own brethren. And if, in any instance, works of merit have been passed over in apparent neglect, he feels it to be due to himself to state, that this has never proceeded from intention, but has sometimes been the result of having entrusted the review of such works to contributors whose other engagements have prevented the fulfilment of their task within a reasonable time. Yet, upon the whole, it is believed, that a more fair and complete view of the literature of the past five and twenty years is furnished by the Eclectic Review, than by any contemporary publica-. tion. The Editor has still higher satisfaction in reflecting, that, in the cause of the Bible Society, in that of Missions, of the Abolition of Slavery, of Scriptural Education, and of Religious Liberty, the Eclectic Review has been found a steady, zealous, honest, and, he trusts, not inefficient advocate. In challenging this character, he is not referring to his individual contributions to the Review, but to the uniform spirit of its articles. Whatever personal obloquy he may, in any instance, have drawn down upon himself by the conscientious discharge of his public duty, either as conductor of the Review, or as a writer in it, has occasioned him

neither serious annoyance at the time, nor regret, on his own account, in the retrospect. Surely he may be permitted, without exposing himself to the charge of egotism, to make this avowal on resigning an office which, though attended with many gratifications, is in some respects a thankless and invidious one, and which he would have often felt insupportably irksome,—especially in conjunction with other literary toils,-had he not been sustained by the considerations to which he has adverted, and by the endeavour to fulfil his assigned part

"As ever in (his) great Task-Master's eye."

JOSIAH CONDER.

WATFORD FIELD HOUSE,

DEC. 31, 1836.

ERRATA.

WE have to request the correction of three errata in pages 492 and 493 of the present volume. In a moment of exhausted attention, the names of Glass and Stock, two German divines, were inadvertently transferred from a list prepared for another object, but which was principally composed of Dutchmen, into that which we there gave of the worthies of the Reformed Church of Holland. The mistake escaped our eye in the correction of the proofs, and was not detected till we read the article as a whole on the day of publication. With regard to the third error, we must confess we were under a mistake. Ikenius was a theologian of Bremen, a German city contiguous to Holland. Our error arose from the great circulation and influence of his work on Jewish Antiquities in the Dutch universities; and it is certainly a very remarkable circumstance, that, while Germany was adopting as her text-books in that branch of study, the English work of Godwin, intituled "Moses and Aaron," (on which Carpzov published an elaborate quarto Commentary,) and the Dutch work of Reland, the professors of Holland should so frequently have preferred to arrange their lectures according to the German system of Ikenius.