oddly enough, meets with an English gentleman, in the service of Russia, an enthusiastic and intelligent admirer of America and her institutions, and who showed him the most assiduous attentions, during his stay in the city; at Moscow, too, a similar piece of good fortune awaits him. He finds there an old French officer, who had been taken prisoner in Napoleon's disastrous campaign, and resided in Moscow ever since, and who had a sister living in America, from whom he had not heard for many years, and of whom our traveller was able to give him the most gratifying information, which he repaid with the kindest attentions. We have a few pleasant sketches of the most prominent objects of interest in Moscow; the Kremlin, with its churches, palaces, and museums, not forgetting the great bell, of which every school boy has heard, and a glimpse or two of Russian life and manners, as seen in theatres, public gardens, and watering places. A journey of four days brings him to St. Petersburgh, of whose splendor and magnificence he gives us the most glowing and graphic pictures. We accompany him in his visits to the regular and authentic lions of the Russian capital, the Winter Palace, the Hermitage, the Statue of Peter the Great, the Summer Islands, etc. At an imperial fête he sees the emperor, whose distinguished personal appearance makes the same impression upon him as upon all strangers, and whom Mr. Wilkins aptly described by saying, that were the Russians a tribe of savages, he would have been chosen for a chief. His whole account of his residence in St. Petersburgh is quite entertaining, and we should have been well pleased had he extended his visit, and given us further sketches of the great Northern Capital.

From St. Petersburgh he travels by land to Warsaw, and the fatigues of his journey even in the recital are enough to make the bones of his reader ache with sympathy. His route constantly reminds him of the disastrous retreat of the French army, of which he gives some vivid details; and while in Poland, his mind and thoughts are most occupied with recollections of her late unsuccessful struggle for independence, of which some interesting anecdotes are told. His sketch of the battle of Grokow is drawn with a most spirited pencil, and the few glimpses he gives us of Polish life and manners are pleasing, and increase the commiseration which one feels for that unhappy people. On the banks of the Vistula we take leave of our entertaining companion with regret, having been unconscious of the feeling of weariness during the long journey we have travelled together.

We feel bound to return an acknowledgment to the author of these volumes for the entertainment he has afforded us. They will not convey a great deal of information; they contain little that is new or profound, and no elaborate disquisitions on the state of society, literature, politics, science, etc., in the several countries

which he visited. He has been wise enough not to attempt doing that which could only be successfully done after long residence and patient examination. He has contented himself with describing those things which can be seen and observed by the passing traveller, and giving those traits of life and manners which can be picked up by the roadside; and this he has done well. This, and his previous more elaborate work, have given him as much literary reputation as a professional man can afford to have.

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We have found occasionally some conventional vulgarisms, which might easily be corrected in a second edition. He calls his guide in Greece, for instance, a slouch ;" and says of some one, that "he had no tire in him;" expressions which have not the ароlogy of necessity or convenience. What does he mean by saying that Kosciusko fell fighting before Warsaw, when all the world knows that he died in his bed, in Soleure in Switzerland. There are a few engravings scattered up and down, which are poor shabby daubs, fit for nothing but a child's picture book.

3. Notes, Critical and Practical, on the Books of Joshua and Judges, designed as a general help to Biblical reading and instruction. By GEORGE BUSH, Professor of Hebrew and Oriental Literature in the New York City University. New York: E. French, 146 Nassau Street. 1838. pp. 403.

In his acute and comprehensive idea of what the sciences should be, Lord Bacon has by no means forgotten theology, and we devoutly wish, that every divine would study his last book, de augmentis scientiarum. It is not a little remarkable, that, notwithstanding the high notions and pretensions of the present day respecting sacred criticism, no one has yet thrown out better hints than he, respecting appropriate annotations on the Bible. Cumbrous and prolix commentary seems not to have suited his taste, better than that of some among ourselves, whose feelings have been thought too fastidious, because they have preferred making their own reflections upon Scripture, rather than force down the inexhaustible outpourings of pious but diluted minds. Quod desideramus," says the great chancellor, "autem est hujusmodi. Collectio scilicet succincta, sana, et cum judicio, annotationum et observationum super textus Scripturæ particulares; neutiquam in locos communes excurrendo, aut controversias persequendo, aut in artis methodum redigendo, sed quæ planè sparsa sint, et nativa."

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If Professor Bush has not so complete an idea, as Bacon's, of what his attempted labor ought to be, still he has a good one; and

this is no mean qualification in a Biblical expositor. His execution of his scheme is proportionably happy; indeed, we know no volume of annotations upon historical Scripture, which, as a whole, we prefer to his. He has, so far as we can see, mingled ethical and explanatory observations, in a manner well calculated to interest, and thereby profit, the hearts of his readers, at the moment he_gratifies their understandings. This is a grand achievement. Long formal "practical remarks," in the rear of solid columns of commentary, are apt to be tiresome and unprofitable; but where a moral sentiment seems to grow naturally out of a passage, and is thrown in, as it were, incidentally, it sinks gently into the mind, and is absorbed, like rain upon a softened soil.

We could have wished that the special plea in behalf of “ much, very much," in this volume, "not to be met with any where else,” (the underscoring is not ours,) had been preferred less sedulously, or left among the things to be "understanded of the people;" for we have an instinctive dread of all ambition for novelty and originality, in an interpreter of the Bible.

Besides, among the commentators he has referred to, as having walked the same round with himself, he mentions not even one English one, so that ordinary readers (nay, clergymen-for how many of these does "the voluntary system" supply with spare cash enough to be converted into the folios of Masius, Osiander, Bucer, etc.) have no data by which to put his claim to the test. Be this, however, as it may, Mr. Bush has one most commendable quality, in these days of knight-errantry in sacred literature. He Germanizes not at all; and it is really as refreshing as the waterbrook to the meadow, to find him taking the plain tale, about the standing-still of the sun and moon, for a sober and downright miracle. We think the more of Professor Bush's moral courage, when we find such a mind as John Pye Smith's succumbing somewhat under the assaults of continental criticism, and the suspicions of the British Magazine, about the heterodoxy of Professor Stuart and Dr. Robinson. After the miserable exhibitions of the dotage of orthodoxy in Watts and Whitby, we pray to be delivered from any more of its "last thoughts."-As to the school to which Professor Palfrey belongs, we cannot expect from it much else than "mythus, allegory, and epos," to use the terms of a late most able paper in the Foreign Review, on the religious literature of Germany. But we could beg that when they brush out the miracle, they would substitute something in good keeping in its place. Kuinoel cannot admit the descent of the Holy Ghost at our Saviour's baptism, and so he converts it into a flash of lightning. This comes down upon our Lord's head, and he survives! But that we presume was no miracle at all!! Professor Palfrey will not allow Balaam's poor ass to talk save in a vision, and then makes Balaam cunningly palm off this vision upon Balak. As, however,

the animal, according to this theory, was, even on his own showing, more sensible than the prophet himself, we think the learned professor had better have left such an evidence of Balaam's astuteness alone.

More than this, Mr. Bush has a high sense of what is due to morality, and meets the objections to Rahab, Samson, etc., with openness and impartiality. We cannot say, however, that we approve his idea of supposing the faith of Samson and others, mentioned with such high distinction in the eleventh of Hebrews, as an intellectual faith in testimony, and not religious confidence in God; and we were less pleased with his management of Jephthah's case, than with his construction of any capital difficulty in the books of his present comment. Better perhaps let this go, as an unlearned mind would read it,* and let it stand as a melancholy beacon of integrity alloyed by rashness, (one of those strange mixtures we often see,) than try to evade the obvious tendency of the narrative. Better certainly, we think, than to suppose Jephthah's faith (like Samson's) not evangelical, (see p. 311,) and yet esteem him scrupulous about the fulfilment of his vow!

It would have pleased us to see the ability of Professor Bush expended upon his text, as well as upon the sentiment of it. We find him (for example, on p. 22) recommending a parenthesis. Surely a matter like this might have been inserted, and also many other articles of punctuation. We hope, in another edition, he will take the text into consideration; at least, so far as to make it uniform in some particulars, which, though minute in themselves, are blemishes in these days of typographical perfection. When, for instance, we mount our proof-reading spectacles, it seems a little odd to see "Red sea" in the text, and "Red Sea" in the notes; and so, the "spirit of God" and the "Spirit of God," etc.

4. Notes, Explanatory and Critical, on the first Epistle of Paul to the Corinthians. By ALBERT BARNES. New York: William Robinson. 1838. 12mo. pp. 357.

MR. BARNES's book savors more of certain peculiarities than Professor Bush's; it is often beaten out into somewhat tenuous paraphrase, and at the natural expense of a little tautology. And then, too, we have an occasional cavalcade of practical reflections,

*Not, however, the unlearned only. See Lightfoot's Works, vii. 155, who quotes Josephus and the Fathers generally, as of his opinion, that the daughter was sacrificed. Indeed, Mr. Bush admits, p. 312, that the balance of authority is that way. 48

NO. VI.-VOL. III.

extending on Chapter iii. to a twenty-fourthly-one more than the actual number of verses in the chapter. An old but most reverend authority tells us, we should not press the grapes too hard to obtain the purest and finest wine. We have also a due sprinkling of certain "new views," so called, when we enter the debateable land of technical theology. Mr. Barnes cannot help finding his own notions about original sin, justification, imputation, etc., as prominent in the Epistle, as to his own mind's eye. We do not fancy commentary which smacks of what has been pretty expressively styled," dogmatic theology." The writer is too apt to become "the chief speaker," rather than Paul or Christ; and his best periods, perhaps, to be but silver plating covering up the gold of the scriptures. A common reader might, perchance, become a little bewildered in the "lengthy" mazes of some of Mr. Barnes's comments, and find himself, with an overladen text, like youthful David reeling under the armor of gigantic Saul. But far from us be hypercriticism, for many may take up this volume who cannot afford others more expensive; and, to them, every word may have its value even expansions and iterations amounting to nothing but "line upon line, and precept upon precept." One thing such a reader will certainly find-an examination, and, in most instances, a full and satisfactory examination, of all the difficulties which occur. St. Paul is, we know, a trying writer for one aiming at terse comments. He embraces a multitude of "the seeds of things;" his style is parenthetical, and, to one who does not feel as deeply as himself, apparently involved; exuberance of thought prompts him to diverge continually; and, to sum up all, he handles not a few subjects "hard to be understood," as even Peter admitted, prince of apostles as he is in the ecclesiastical nomenclature of our Roman Catholic brethren. To do such a man justice, were a task requiring scarcely less than his own learning and inspiration; and Mr. Barnes must not suppose we like his commentary less, if, with some alterations, we might have liked it more. At times, he certainly does infuse into his readers a portion of the spirit of his author; and his concluding remarks on the fifteenth chapter do equal honor to his head and heart.

*Obiter, is it not a little curious, that the New School should be so scared by "imputation"? They do not hesitate to admit the imputation (though not indeed the actual transfer-for which, however, no one contends) of our guilt to Christ, when he atoned for it. Why then can they not admit the imputation (in a similar sense) of his righteousness to us? See this point ably argued in Faber's book on Justification, p. 133, etc.