"The venerable Company of Pastors" had, for a long while, no apparent misgivings as to the propriety of all that Calvin had done, and had therefore no motive for attempting the concealment or suppression of the records in which his proceedings were registered. It was not until it became evident that his reputation had greatly suffered from the construction put by many on some of the entries in these documents, that they thought of interposing any obstacle to the free inspection of them. Their first step was to instruct the curator of the archives to refuse an application to consult them for the settlement of a dispute respecting some part of Calvin's reported proceedings. Then followed new instructions to remove the documents from their places, in order that their absence might be pleaded in justification of future refusals. In consequence of this removal, they were in time neglected and forgotten; until, upon a late thorough investigation of the contents of the archives, ordered by the authorities, these long-lost registers were fortunately discovered.

We have stated, that for a long period before these important documents were so improperly concealed, they had been of easy access to the public, and had been thoroughly examined by the earlier historians of Servetus. On this account it was not to be expected, nor was it at all likely, that the recovery of them would place the transactions in any new light, or furnish new information which could favourably affect the characters of Calvin and his agents and associates.

But M. Rilliet says, that those who professed to have written on the authority of these documents had omitted some things and mistaken others, and therefore had not given a faithful representation of what Calvin had actually done. He names especially La Roche and Mosheim; and he complains, moreover, of the want of sufficient accuracy in a transcript of a large portion of the registers, made before their removal, for the public Library at Berne, employed by M. Trechsel. But he has not substantiated the charge of inaccuracy in any one of these instances by a single example, which, if the rectification of error had been his object, he was bound to do. No stronger evidence can be given of the groundlessness of these imputations and of the general accuracy of the old accounts, as founded on the public registers, than the circumstance that M. Rilliet, though writing with the records before him, and consulting them with the ardent desire of extracting from them materials for the justification of Calvin, has not adduced a single new fact of any real moment to invalidate the statements of former writers, or alleviate in the slightest degree the load of obloquy which rested on the fame of the Reformer.

M. Rilliet and his translator, complacent in their fancied success, seem not to have calculated upon the propable consequence of their injudicious and abortive attempt to clear the character of Calvin, and at the same time perpetuate the calumnies promulgated against Servetus. They have roused the sympathies of those who love truth and justice above all creeds of human device and all authorities claiming dominion over conscience, who hate spiritual oppression, whether the oppressor be a Protestant or a Catholic Pope,-who are ever ready to plead the cause of the victim of tyranny, even though the tyrant rank among the high and honourable of the earth, and be deemed to be specially approved and "consecrated" of heaven.

On the appearance of M. Rilliet's book, with Mr. Tweedie's annotations, we deemed it to be our duty to scrutinize its contents and to controvert its conclusions;* and Dr. Drummond, in the work now before us, has taken up the subject in a more deliberate, complete and efficient manner. A Life of Servetus in English has long been a desideratum in our biographical literature, and we rejoice to see such a work undertaken by a gentleman so eminently qualified to do justice to the subject by his varied erudition and acknowledged abilities. Dr. Drummond has not limited his design to the refutation of the attempted justification of Calvin in his treatment of Servetus. His plan has contemplated a wider field of inquiry, and embraced the entire subject of his life from the

Christian Reformer, January, 1847, Vol. III. pp. 1, et seq.

earliest known incidents of his boyhood and youth, to his unrighteous condemnation by a Protestant inquisition and his immolation at the stake. Nor has he been content to present to the reader a hasty sketch, filled up with vague generalities, unauthenticated by adequate evidence. He has resorted with laudable industry to the best available authorities for his facts, and accompanied them with the means of testing their truth by constant references to documentary proofs. From the most approved and important writers who have professedly treated of the life and labours of Servetus, Dr. Drummond has, with great care and excellent judgment, selected for notice the subjects and events most worthy of commemoration. After tracing with a rapid pencil, but with great distinctness and force, the earlier portion of Servetus's life, he dwells at greater length, and with a more minute attention to details, on the more important and eventful period of his residence in Germany and France, during which he was prosecuting his philosophical and theological inquiries, and pursuing those literary labours, the fruits of which still survive to demonstrate the extent of his erudition and the splendour of his talents. The recent endeavours of his calumniators to palliate and justify the proceedings of his enemies and persecutors at Geneva, have induced Dr. Drummond to do what the truth of history seemed to demand,-to bring distinctly into view the whole naked facts of the solemn but nefarious mockery of his misnamed "trial;" and he has fully exposed to public reprobation the intolerant bigotry, the deep personal hatred, and the insatiable thirst for vengeance, which combined their unhallowed influence to silence and torment, and finally to crush and destroy, a learned and estimable man, not because his prime accuser was able to convict him of any punishable offence, but because he had found him an astute, uncompromising and unconquerable theological adversary. In this undertaking Dr. Drummond has fully corroborated the views taken by most of his predecessors on this branch of his subject, and left the defenders of Calvin, the homicidal Reformer as he styles him, not a particle of ground whereon to rest their cause. Had we not of late appropriated so large a portion of our pages to this interesting subject, we should have been pleased to lay before our readers a fuller analysis of Dr. Drummond's excellent work. Though it contains some passages referring to local and to temporary matters, meant to illustrate the pernicious effects of Calvinism, which we think might with advantage have been omitted, we recommend the book to the careful perusal of our readers. We can promise that it will yield them valuable information and much gratification, a gratification, however, necessarily modified by the commiseration which every sensitive mind must feel in contemplating the tragical fate of a man raised by his genius high above his age, by his appreciation of religious truth; and entitled to esteem and veneration for the display, in circumstances of unusual suffering, of a Christian fortitude which no trials could shake, and of an enlightened piety and devout resignation which sustained his agonized spirit amidst the torments of an excruciating death.

Lives of the Queens of England. By Agnes Strickland. Vol. XII. Pp. 462. London, 1848.

MISS STRICKLAND'S Lives of the Queens, now brought to a conclusion, have obtained a large circulation and been received with general favour. Her

Dr. Drummond quotes with due approbation a memoir of Servetus which was printed in the Monthly Repository for 1810. It may not be known to some of our readers that that valuable communication was written by the Rev. Andrew Vanderkemp, of Olden Barnaveldt, in the State of New York. Mr. Vanderkemp was by birth a Dutchman, and for some time had officiated as a minister among the Baptists or Menonites of Holland. He was eminently learned in the history and the principles of the early Unitarian Reformers, and had enjoyed an extensive intercourse with the descendants of the Polish Socinians dispersed through parts of Prussia and the Low Countries.

style is lively and graphic, though often incorrect, and sometimes bordering on vulgarity; her industry is untiring; and the success of her early volumes appears to have opened to her manuscripts rich in the materials of secret history. In dressing up an anecdote, she has tact and smartness; but, to counterbalance her good qualities, she has one fault, fatal to her as a writer on historical subjects-we mean party-spirit, which we can only describe as coarse and virulent. In the early volumes, her leaning to the side of prerogative was sufficiently perceptible, but it sat not ungracefully on her, and did not often obviously interfere with biographical impartiality; but the moment she comes to treat the subject of the Stuart race, she appears to lose her selfcommand, and writes history after the fashion of the John Bull or the worst articles of the Quarterly Review. Our lady friends, therefore, should be warned, however they may be amused by these volumes, to repose no faith in their politics. A non-juror of the 17th century could scarcely have written more bitterly of William III. and his Queen than Miss Strickland has done. But in the last volume, treating of the reign of Queen Anne, the spirit of the authoress is especially partial and bitter. A Conservative historian has properly enough described this monarch as " a very weak woman, full of prejudices, fond of flattery, always governed blindly by some female favourite;" as one who, in the words of Swift, "had not a stock of amity to serve above one object at a time." But she had a fanatical attachment to the Church of England, and this wins for her the sympathy of her new biographer, who forthwith industriously describes her as gaining "the personal affections of all sorts and conditions of the people," and as "the most popular female sovereign who had up to that time ascended the English throne." It would be a miserable waste of time to follow Miss Strickland in her tortuous party course, and correct her long series of exaggerations and misstatements; but, in order to shew that our censures are not ill-deserved, we will notice (taking them almost at random) some of her singularities.

#

Towards the more liberal clergy of the days of Queen Anne, Miss Strickland's aversion is strong. How little she is qualified, however, to censure them, appears from the fact, that she does not know how to spell the name of the illustrious Hoadly. The following is her account of the Convocation :

"Queen Anne extended her beneficence to the Church of England so far as to permit the sittings of her convocations, which her sister and brother-in-law had interrupted, and as far as they could abolished. The convocation is the parliament of our Church, and, like the temporal parliament, consists of upper and lower houses, the first composed of the dignitaries, the other of the commoners, of the clergy. It still exists, being still convened with all legal forms simultaneously with new parliaments; but the moment a clergyman proceeds to speak, he is silenced ostensibly by order of the sovereign, and the assembly is dissolved, according to the precedent of William III. The Queen permitted the spiritual parliament or convocation to proceed to business without arbitrary interruption. Her Majesty of course received the thanks and benedictions of her clergy, especially of the lower house, for her grant of the first-fruits and tenths, which was an incalculable relief to the commonalty of the Church. Strange to say that the lower house was, according to the jargon of her political history, 'High-church,' the upper house of convocation was Low-church.'

"The explanation of this seeming paradox is not difficult. The upper house of convocation consisted of those who enjoyed the great riches and high dignities of the Church; they had been given them by the will and pleasure of William III. If those whose business it is to inquire into this matter will form a list of the dignitaries of the Church appointed by William and Mary, and trace their names and lives through the 'Biographia Brittanica,' they will find very few of their archbishops, bishops or deans but had been educated as Dissenters, and that some had officiated as Dissenting preachers and teachers. In general, the 'conforming prelates' were not beloved and esteemed equally with those who embraced poverty, rather than give up, for the lucre of temporal advantage, the

* Lord Mahon, Hist. of England, I. 30.

principles in which they had been educated. Such was the majority of the upper house of convocation. It is easy to imagine that the lower house of convocation could not agree with prelates and dignitaries who had been put over the heads of the sons of the Reformed Church of England, bred up with earnest devotedness to her ordinances and works of beneficence. Such are the simple facts wherefore the upper house of convocation was deemed 'Low-church,' the lower house High-church;' their strife, as may be supposed, became violent; and unfortunately the object of angry debate comprised discussions on the first principles of Christian belief, to the great anguish of the Queen. However, she permitted the two houses of convocation to open business, or rather to struggle together and defy each other at the outset of her Whig ministry in 1705."-Pp. 125, 126. Miss Strickland adds the following note:

"A great swarm of deistical works, from the pens of Toland, Asgill and Wollaston, with reprints and discussions on Hobbes, marked this epoch, and caused great injury, not only to the Church of England, but to the general cause of Christian belief. The dreadful state of the morals of the poor at the end of the seventeenth and beginning of the eighteenth centuries, form the best criterion of the influence of the latitudinarian bishops, appointed at the dictum of freethinking ministers. No deistical philosophers trouble themselves with the poor.” Miss Strickland of course knows nothing of Thomas Firmin, the friend of the latitudinarian bishops, and the patron of the most latitudinarian Christian writers of his age. If she had ever read the narrative of his numerous and judicious charities, she would have spared this unworthy sneer.

In the following passage, Miss Strickland would seem to imply that Hoadly impugned revelation itself:

"The people of England, who believed in the principles of Christianity, were greatly alarmed at the now frequent publication of works, under the patronage of the new ministers, which, wholly leaving the common path of polemics to the numerous Dissenters who raged at each other and the Church of England, flew on the Christian religion itself, and boldly attacked the very existence of divine revelation. The known infidelity and the immoral lives of Somers, Wharton and Pembroke, joined to these proceedings, gave determination to the great body of the people to oppose the first flagrant injuries to the Church or clergy that the new powers meditated. The Queen, absorbed in her grief, seemed disposed to let the world go on its own way, during the first winter of the widowhood. Her people remained in moody quiet, waiting respectfully till the Queen should be roused from her torpor to make some response to their feelings; but they watched with jealousy the rise of such clergymen as the 'facetious Hoadley' (Hoadly) who were nominated to vacant benefices at the caprice of the ministers of state."-P. 244.

The Conservative historian whom we have already quoted describes Dr. Sacheverell as 66 utterly foolish, ignorant, ungrateful, his head reeling with vanity, his heart overflowing with gall." Sir Walter Scott speaks of him as a "silly tool," whom the eminent men even of his own party regarded with contempt. In defiance of these weighty authorities, Miss S. strives to give this once popular idol an enduring reputation, at least for "abilities" which "speak for themselves." She fondly dwells upon his "old Norman family," his "courage and grandeur of person," and speaks of him as the leader of a nation," possessing the mighty gift of eloquence, as being "a great orator,” and doing "with his hearers whatsoever he chose," "-as a man of stainless character, and "the champion of the Church and poor."

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Inflamed by her subject, Miss Strickland ventures on statements which will somewhat surprise those at all familiar with history and biography. Speaking of Sacheverell's impeachment, she says,

* The reference intended by our authoress was probably to Thomas Woolston, but his attack on the miracles did not take place till about 1726. In the year 1725, were published Wollaston's "Religion of Nature" and "The Religion of Jesus Delineated." With theological literature Miss Strickland appears to have little acquaintance.

"The consequences, in case of his condemnation, were those to which death seems a trifle-the lash, the pillory, loss of ears, imprisonment for life-such had been dealt out to several Englishmen, even in the golden days of our Queen Anne,' not for reviling Queen or Church, but for libelling any of the members of parliament."

In a note she adds,

"The author of Robinson Crusoe (De Foe) lost his ears and stood in the pillory in this reign. Edmund Curl had likewise lost his ears, or rather the remnants of them, thrice. In short, it was not fashionable for political authors or their booksellers to possess any ears; but wigs were mighty convenient."

In all this Miss Strickland is wrong. The age of ear-cropping was that of James I. and Charles I. Of Curl's biography little is preserved, except in connection with that of Pope. But had Curl lost his ears at the pillory, it is not likely that Pope would have passed it unnoticed in the Dunciad. With respect to De Foe, Miss Strickland may indeed shelter herself from the consequences of her rash assertion behind the authority of Pope, and quote the line from the Dunciad, equally discreditable to his accuracy and to his justice, "Earless on high, stood unabashed De Foe."

But the blunder was detected long before Miss Strickland wrote, and in later editions of Pope the line runs,

"Fearless on high, stood unabashed De Foe."

If Miss Strickland will consult the London Gazette, No. 3936, she will find under the date July 31, 1703, all the particulars of De Foe's punishment in the pillory, but no mention is made of the loss of his ears. In truth, his punishment was his triumph; the people drank his health and honoured him with loud plaudits; garlands were thrown over the instrument of his disgrace, and refreshments were offered him at the close of his hour of exposure. The people felt the truth of his own lines in the Hymn to the Pillory:

"Thou art no shame to truth and honesty,

Nor is the character of such defaced by thee,

Who suffer by oppressive injury.

Shame, like the exhalations of the sun,

Falls back where first the motion was begun :

And he who for no crime shall on thy brows appear,

Bears less reproach than they who placed him there."

Queen Anne died August 1, 1714, the very day on which the Schism Act was to have come into operation. This Act, prepared by Bolingbroke and Atterbury, Anne's chosen advisers, to crush the Dissenters, made it a crime, punishable with imprisonment, for any one to keep a school, or act as a tutor, who had not préviously subscribed his conformity to the Church of England and taken the Sacrament at church. Forward as Miss Strickland is to introduce into her narrative whatever will glorify High-church principles, she makes no mention of this, which Lord Mahon honestly styles "one of the worst Acts that ever defiled the Statute Book." The omission is, in our view, irreconcileable with historical fidelity, and of itself sufficiently discloses that our authoress is not worthy of the confidence of her readers.

The Power of Faith: a Sermon preached in Essex-Street Chapel, London, on Wednesday, June 14, 1848; being the Twenty-third Anniversary of the British and Foreign Unitarian Association. By John Gordon. 8vo. Pp. 43. London-Chapman.

THIS sermon (of which we gave, shortly after its delivery, what will be found to be a correct analysis, C. R. pp. 437, 438) is characterized by comprehensive views, by sound and well-digested thoughts, and by energy of style. Beyond any living man amongst us, Mr. Gordon's mind appears to us to be strong and massive. His writings are not those which can be profitably read in a listless 4 K

VOL. IV.