in reproving the use I made of "the permanent principles of human nature," in the operation of prejudices inevitable under certain conditions of education and position, has united in the same censure with me some of the highest minds of present and past periods. Regretting most truly the necessity I have felt of thus intruding, and the length into which I have been unexpectedly led,-renewing, too, my admiration of the genius which confers on you so much power of doing good,—I have the honour to remain, Rev. Sir, your very obedient servant, GEORGE ARMSTRONG. THE WISH. STILL sleeping at the mountain's base, The river stays not in its race, And murmurs on its ancient tune. The foam-fall leaps, and breaks below To-morrow, other eyes shall look On other listening ears shall break,— And other feet shall slowly pace, Or in the progress of the years, The eyes that swim in lustrous light, So would I gladly leave my life, So glitter in the quiet lake So murmur in the waterfall Till Nature's spell of empire break, C. CRITICAL NOTICES. Naomi, or Boston Two Hundred Years ago. By Eliza Buckminster Lee. Pp. 448. Boston. 1848. MRS. LEE has been, in this very interesting story, happy in the choice of a subject. Naomi Worthington, the heroine of the tale, belongs by birth and education to the mother country. Her mother, a widow, marries again, and emigrates to Boston, where her husband, a cold and worldly man, occupies a high position, far higher than his deserts, both in the world and the church. Naomi falls in with George Fox, and adopts his principle of the inward light. Gaining the tardy consent of her guardians, she crosses the Atlantic to visit her mother, but on reaching Boston finds herself an orphan. At Boston, she beholds with horror the persecutions inflicted on the Quakers. For a time she keeps the secret of her sympathy, in an important article of belief, with this persecuted people. But she is followed to America by a faithful female attendant, whom she had greatly valued in England, and who had, like her young mistress, adopted the leading principle of Fox and his sect, and had afterwards become an enthusiastic disciple. Naomi first shelters this humble friend, and afterwards, when she becomes a victim of religious persecution on account of her ardent Quakerism, by the aid of a high-minded youth, a student of the Harvard College, rescues her from brutal punishment. For this offence, Naomi herself becomes amenable to the law. For a time she quits Massachusetts, and so avoids the consequences of her benevolent courage. But returning, she is thrown into a dungeon. The scenes of her trial, and her interviews with several persons who are introduced to her in prison, constitute a very interesting portion of the story. Ultimately, her beauty and gentleness work on the better feelings of her inquisitor judges, and the apprehended sentence of death is commuted for that of instant banishment, and she leaves the port of Boston, the sea and sky having all the appearance of a terrible approaching storm. But the threatened hurricane passes off. Naomi reaches her native land in safety, and is in time united to Herbert Walton, the brave student whose sympathy had been so serviceable to her in Massachusetts. Such is a hasty outline of the story. Mrs. Lee has made it the vehicle of a remarkably accurate and spirited portraiture of the manners and thoughts of the Transatlantic Puritans. Under the combined influence of patriotism and religion, great attention has of late years been paid by Americans in the Northern States to the history of their founders. Our authoress is evidently perfectly familiar with the chronicles and biographies of the Pilgrim Fathers and their immediate descendants. Her descriptive powers are considerable, and they have found a worthy theme. The portraits of the spiritual rulers of the citizens of Boston two centuries ago, and the succession of interesting groups which the progress of the story develops, are admirable. We have no sympathy with our authoress's semi-Quaker theology, and look upon the doctrine of the inward light, evidently approved by her and now professed by some of our Unitarian friends, as having no better foundation than the "orthodox" doctrine of the second birth, and as being far more liable to abuse by a fanatical spirit. The great defect of Mrs. Lee, as a writer of fiction, is her inability to realize her own conceptions, and to give them dramatic action. She can describe admirably; but the moment her characters step upon the stage and speak for themselves, her power seems gone. She is a better writer of biography than of fiction. We should have been well pleased had she woven the interesting materials of this volume into a series of historical sketches. Still we accept the book with respect and gratitude, and recommend it with confidence to our younger readers, as the means of making themselves pleasantly acquainted with some of the most striking characteristics of a very remarkable age, and a not less remarkable people. In justice to the Transatlantic Puritans, it must be remembered that Mrs. Lee's picture of them is of necessity darkly shaded. Apart from the Quaker and Antinomian controversies, and the sad persecutions which arose out of them, there was much that was admirable and even sublime in their character, and, in justice to them, our authoress ought hereafter to present us with a counterpart, drawn in stronger light and brighter colours. Between the NewEngland Puritans and their Quaker antagonists, Mrs. Lee holds the scales equally enough, so far as presenting to view the bad qualities of each; but she might have exhibited something better than the bigotry and cruelty of the one, and the spiritual pride and fanatical desire of martyrdom on the part of the other. We propose to give one or two extracts to illustrate Mrs. Lee's powers of description. We begin with Naomi's visit in England to a Quakers' meeting: "After the account Margaret had given her, Naomi consented, nay, she was eager, to accompany her to one of the meetings of the Quakers. It was the afternoon of a November day, and the place of meeting in the neighbourhood of Charing Cross. Long before they reached the place, Naomi and her attendant, both wrapped in close hoods and cloaks, became involved in the dense crowd of persons all passing the same way and for the same purpose. George Fox, at this time, while in London, drew immense crowds to hear him. The afternoon was extremely dark, and this, added to the habitual fog of the city, made it impossible to distinguish one countenance from another. Naomi, alarmed, pressed closer and closer to Margaret; but what at first excited her fears, was in fact her protection. No one saw her fair, pale face, and the contrast her appearance would have presented to many in the throng. The two young women were carried along by the pressure from behind, and taken several times off their feet, till they were landed in a large upper chamber, lighted and furnished with plain deal seats. A kind of reading-desk was placed on one side, upon which was laid a large Bible. The room was instantly filled to overflowing; every inch of standing-room upon the floor was occupied, and the window-sills filled with those who had the temerity to venture upon so insecure a foothold. When Naomi looked around, she saw that the audience was composed of the middling class of persons; many with close-cut hair and steeple hats, and a sprinkling here and there of velvet cloaks and curled wigs; although at this very time the Protector's family, and even his daughters, attended in disguise upon the preaching of George Fox. They waited a quarter of an hour, and then, when he entered, every sound was hushed and every eye turned toward him. Naomi saw a tall, large and very remarkable person enter. His face was comely, with close nut-brown hair, covered, however, with a broad-rimmed hat, which he did not remove from his head. The striking peculiarity of his appearance was occasioned by a complete suit of untanned leather, not well fitting, nor made by a very skilful tailor. His whole expression and bearing was gentle, heart-soothing, inspiring confidence, and composing the feelings to respect and love. "He sat nearly half an hour in silence, and the silence of the whole assembly was so intense, that Naomi felt oppressed by it. But George Fox himself, as he sat there collecting his soul in inward quietness, was the absorbing object of interest. It is remarkable how his personal character has been impressed upon the whole sect of his followers, and is not perhaps effaced from them as a peculiar people. "The silence was at length broken by the slow, calm accents of Fox in prayer. Prayer was one, perhaps the most remarkable, of his gifts-the weight, as it were, of his inward spirit. The fewness, but complete fulness, of his words of power reached every heart in that assembly, filling them either with admiration or A little latitude must be conceded to Mrs. Lee as to her dates. It was not till 1654 (when he was carried prisoner to London) that Fox attracted so much attention from the friends of religion in the metropolis. It was at the Mermaid at Charing Cross that Fox was a prisoner. In his Journal (I. p. 262) he says, "I staid not long there." It was in "the city" that he records he had "great and powerful meetings; so great were the throngs of people, that he could hardly get to and from the meetings for the crowds." The distinction between "the city" and "Charing Cross" probably escaped Mrs. Lee's notice. with contrition, with consolation or with hope and love. He was like one who had been dwelling near to the Source of Perfection, Wisdom and Love, and brought, as it were, the spirit and the language of that higher world to spread abroad in this. It was when he finished, as though to every one of that assembly he had brought a gift; as though he had laid a rose in every hand, or a wreath upon every brow. Naomi felt as though she had received a jewel of inestimable price-that precious white stone of the Scriptures on which a name is written, that no man knoweth save he that receiveth it.' "If such was the effect of the prayer, how much more completely was this precious doctrine confirmed to her by the exhortation that followed the prayer, in which the precious doctrine of the inward light, the perceptible guidance of the Holy Spirit, the light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world, was made logically clear and rationally true to her perceptions, and its influence to comfort and sustain for ever established over her mind."-Pp. 46–49. Our other extract describes a visit to an Indian village, and a sermon from the good Eliot, the "Apostle to the Indians." "The venerable Eliot placed himself with the elders and teachers upon a small eminence, under the shadow of an ancient hemlock, whose deeply-dark and spreading branches threw an imposing shade upon the noble and serious faces of the pale men, contrasting so strongly with the brilliant October sunshine, and heightening their striking dissimilitude with the dusky children of the forest. These were gathered round in peaceful groups, their gaudy and wild garments floating in the air, and striking the eye in lively contrast with the sombre attire of their visitors,-their dark and serious faces all turned towards the Apostle. Upon a few of these bronzed features could be traced the varying emotions of their souls-curiosity, wonder, love-while others retained the imperturbable solidity of the Indian, and turned away in sullen and proud indifference. "Behind the groups of men the savage women crouched, in attitudes expressive of their sense of inferiority to their lords, their meek, subdued countenances stamped with the seal of patient endurance and humble servitude. The reverend Eliot began the service with a prayer in English, pronounced with the deep pathos of that voice always so touching. The wind made, as it were, melodious responses, as it stirred the reedy branches of the hemlock. Every heart was touched and soothed, and the Indian women, although they understood not a word, were melted into tears. How appropriate was the text that he chose for his Indian sermon ! 'Come from the four winds, O breath (or Spirit), and breathe upon these, that they may live! So the breath came unto them, and they lived and stood upon their feet.' The sermon was very long, and topics drawn from every abstruse branch of theology were discussed; but it was listened to with unflagging attention. When the preacher spoke of the love and suffering of the Saviour, the Son of God, mingled pity and sorrow and indignation struggled upon the uplifted faces of the women, and many of them wept aloud. This seemed to shew the kind of preaching they needed; not the abstruse doctrines of Calvinism, but the tender love of the Gospel. They, whose souls were so warm, so tender, so quickly excited to love, so easily melted to pity, would not, under such instruction, the native well of the Indian have been covered with the rich bloom of wild flowers? But now they have passed away with the wind that breathed upon them; no trace of their foot-prints is left. "After the sermon, took place the burial of a little Indian child. The father of the child wished it to be in the English mode, and had himself made a coffin and invited his friends to follow in procession. The mother consented, although she could not forego the Indian custom of dressing the little emaciated body in all the finery it had worn upon gala days. About forty Indians followed in procession, in solemn silence, without their powwows and noise; the men with stern, composed and solemn faces, the women silent, with their eyes cast down, except the poor mother, from whose lips at every moment a stifled groan burst forth. At the little grave the father prayed in their own Indian language, and then each, as he silently turned away, threw a handful of earth upon it. The mother only stood in mute sorrow, and would not leave the grave till the turf was again placed over her dead treasure. "Naomi had been attracted to the spot; she looked in silence into the grave; there lay the little bow and arrow by his side, and a small gourd at the head of the coffin. Naomi respected the mother's grief, but she ventured to ask why, as she had buried her child in a coffin after the English fashion, she placed his bow and arrow by his side? "How should I know my brave boy,' she answered, in the happy huntinggrounds, if he had not his bow and his arrow? He will be a chief, and not a squaw, in the blessed hunting-grounds; and how should I know him again without his bow and his arrow?' "The little procession turned aside into a thick grove, and there they lifted up their voices and wept aloud as they prayed in their own language. Naomi also wept with them; the prayer that comes from a bereaved mother's heart carries with it the sympathy of every other heart."-Pp. 125–129. 1. A Letter to the Rev. E. R. Eardley-Wilmot, M.A., occasioned by his NewYear's Address, 1848, to the Inhabitants of Kenilworth, and a short Scripture Proof that Jesus Christ is God, appended to it. By William Field, Fifty-three Years Minister of the High-Street Chapel, Warwick; Twentytwo Years Afternoon Preacher in the Presbyterian Chapel, Kenilworth; Author of the History of Warwick and Leamington, Memoirs of Dr. Parr, &c. Pp. 52. 2. A Letter to the Inhabitants and especially to the Churchmen of Kenilworth, in Reply to the contemptuous and calumnious Mockeries of the Rev. E. R. Eardley-Wilmot, M.A., in his Letter addressed to a Unitarian Minister. By William Field. Pp. 24. THE lovers of truth and free inquiry cannot but feel greatly indebted to the venerable author of these vigorous pamphlets for the rebuke which they administer to bigotry and evil-speaking. The first of the two pamphlets contains some interesting autobiographical statements. Mr. F. describes himself (p. 4) as "an octogenarian:" 66 During my long occupation as a teacher of youth, extending over a space of forty years, more than half the number of my pupils were the sons of Churchmen, two the sons of clergymen, and several intended for the clerical office. In giving religious instruction, my principal guides were, Grotius de Veritate Religionis Christianæ,' and 'A Series of Scripture Questions without Answers,' drawn up by myself, of which six large editions were afterwards published, and in no long time introduced into schools, both within and without the pale of the Church. One reviewer (the Critical, June 1799) even recommended the use of these Questions to the young candidates for holy orders in Oxford and Cambridge, as the means of preparing for the stricter examination which the Bishops at that time were determined to enforce."-P. 6. Mr. Field pays a pleasing tribute to the character of several clergymen whose friendship at various periods of his life he has enjoyed, viz. Rev. James Howell, Rev. George Innes, Rev. Edward Willes, Rev. John H. Williams, Bishop Butler, Dr. Parr and others. The whole of this portion of the pamphlet is very interesting. We must be contented with one short extract further. "Of all the divines resident in Warwick during my time, the claim of superior learning and talents, unquestionably, belonged to the Rev. George Innes, for many years Head Master of the Free Grammar-School. He was a Tory of high tone and temper, both in Church and State; sternly rigid in his adherence to his own principles; but, when animadverting on the opposing principles of others, he was never contemptuous, never censorious. With some appearance of reserve and austerity, when fully engaged in conversation, he was usually communicative, generally cheerful, often playful, always agreeable; and though there was much forbidden ground between us, yet many a pleasant hour I passed in his library, where I ever found a kind reception. From his abundant stores of classical literature I drew, at pleasure, ample supplies for my own deficiencies; or if not prepared at the moment, though residing at more than a mile distance, in no |