technical cadence. Can we wonder at formality beneath so intense a process of formalizing? Does not "a little leaven leaven the whole lump?" The remedy is within our reach; but it will never be applied till we find that it is both within our reach and our responsibilitiesin other words, that it is within the functions of Christian intelligence, and a duly exercised, but not scientifically instructed, sensibility, to pronounce whether our actual music is actually doing its duty. PRESBYTER.

NOTICES OF NEW BOOKS.

Lyra Domestica: Christian Songs for Domestic Edification. Translated from the "Psaltery and Harp" of C. J. P. Spitta. By Richard Massie. Crown, 8vo., pp. 142. Second Edition. Longmans. 1861.The literary and theological intercourse of England with Germany, which many circumstances have conspired to quicken during the last half century, has been productive of some very painful results. But whilst we owe to it those tendencies to neology and pantheism, which have lately proved such a scandal in our church, we owe to it, also, many and signal advantages: a greater fulness and accuracy in research, but sometimes carried to a pedantic pitch of excess; a more unbiassed tone of exposition, though sometimes degenerating into a one-sided candour; and a criticism which, though apt to be too exacting and precise, is, on the whole, more faithful and just than that which had been previously much in vogue. And there is one obligation, for which we can render thanks to our kith and kin in the Anglo-Saxon fatherland, with unmingled satisfaction. Their hymnology, much more varied and more rich than ours, introduced to the English reader by excellent translations, has already supplied us with many superior strains of devotion, and is likely to effect a much needed improvement in our own compositions of this kind. Mr. Massie is one of the most successful labourers in this field of translation from the hymnology of Germany. To him we owe an excellent version of "Martin Luther's Spiritual Songs," published at Hatchard's in 1854. And Mr. Mercer, in the thirteenth and enlarged edition of his Church Psalter and Hymn Books, published at Nisbet's in 1857, states in the preface, how largely he is indebted to Mr. Massie for the translation of several hymns from the German, expressly for that work.

The hymns in the volume before us are all translated from the compositions of C. J. P. Spitta, as contained in his volume entitled the "Psaltery and Harp;" thus characterized by the translator in his preface: "What particularly distinguishes these hymns is the genuine piety, and truly christian and catholic feeling, which pervade them. Love of Christ and of His word is the golden thread which runs through the whole." After all, it must be confessed, that neither in this, nor in any other of the recently published collections of hymns from the German, do we meet with as many suited for public worship, or indeed directly expressive of worship at all, as we could wish.

Nothing, in fact, is so difficult to write as that which is at once poetical and devotional; poetry having its domain in the realms of imagi nation, dealing much with figure, if not with fiction, and being apt to seek illustrations in the regions of mythology; whilst devotion, whether praise or prayer, addressed direct to the Most High, would violate sound taste no less than true piety, if it were in anywise to transgress the limits of simple scriptural truth. Within these limits there is so much that is transcendantly sublime and beautiful, that a large accession to our present limited number of hymns fit to use in actual worship is not to be despaired of. Meanwhile we are very thankful for the many short devotional poems, edifying in the closet or in the family, as didactic and meditative compositions, when not actually fit for congregational use as hymns addressed to the Almighty, which Mr. Massie has largely helped to introduce to the English reader. And we cannot better recommend the volume, than by subjoining a specimen of its contents, selected for its brevity, as adapted to our space, rather than for its superiority to the rest; merely adding, to the credit of the translator, that these hymns would hardly be known to be translations if it were not for a peculiar and pleasing vein of thought, unmistakeably foreign, which is to be met with throughout :

"EVENING DEVOTION.

"How smiling the day departed,

How sweetly evening steals on!
How jocund and how merry hearted
The birds sing their evening song!

"The flowers have no power of singing
Their prayers with audible sound;
And yet are they silently praying,

As they bend their heads to the ground.

"Wherever I look is devotion,

God's praise is the general theme;
From the distant boom of the ocean,

To the voice of the murmuring stream.

"And all around us is praying

For rest from the toils of the day;
And seems as though it were saying,
'Poor mortal, do thou also pray.'

"LYRA DOMESTICA, p. 10."

Several reprints and compilations which though not exactly new books are yet deserving of attention, now lie before us. We notice with peculiar pleasure a new edition of Bishop Daniel Wilson's Life, by Mr. Bateman, complete in one volume. About a third of the matter contained in the former edition is omitted; but, so far from injuring, we think the omission has rather improved the work than otherwise, while in substance it is the same. It is presented in a more portable and convenient form, and at a much cheaper cost. A stronger light is thrown upon the subject of the memoir, and attention is more concentrated upon his character. It is still a handsome volume, fit for the library, and will, we doubt not, have a large and lasting circulation.

Autobiography of the Rev. Dr. Alexander Carlyle, Minister of Inveresk. William Blackwood and Sons. 1860.-Until the publication of this autobiography but few of our readers can have heard much of the Rev. Dr. Carlyle, Minister of Inveresk, and one would naturally suppose that the career of such a man would be incapable of affording incidents and materials sufficient for a history. On perusing the book, however, we find that Dr. Carlyle, instead of being merely a presbyterian minister in an obscure parish in Scotland, was acquainted with most of the literary and political celebrities of the last half of the past century. His autobiography contains memorials of the men and events of his time.

age.

Alexander Carlyle was born in 1722. The son of a presbyterian minister, we find him, at the precocious age of six, reading the Bible to a dozen old women who had been excluded from his father's church by the crowd, which had made him leave it also. At the age of 14, he proceeded to the university of Edinburgh. He lived in an eventful He was present at the Tolbooth church when Robertson made his escape. He witnessed Wilson's execution. He mingled with the Porteus mob. It is needless to detail events which have been described by the pen of Sir Walter Scott, in "The Heart of Midlothian." During his residence in the northern metropolis, Carlyle made the acquaintance of many men who afterwards attained to eminence. Amongst them were Dr. Hugh Blair, Robertson the historian, and Home the dramatist. He gives us a very curious description of college life a hundred years ago. On "students dining at ordinaries at fourpence a head for a very good dinner of broth and beef, and a roast and potatoes every day, with fish three or four times a week, and all the small beer that was called for till the cloth was removed;"-making journeys into East Lothian, and dining at a tavern with the minister of the town at which they stopped, discussing small Lisbon wine-deistical controversy and moral philosophy.

In 1743, Carlyle entered the University of Glasgow. Of the town and its society he gives us a dreary picture: no post chaises nor hackney coaches in the town, "and only three or four sedan chairs for carrying midwives about in the night, and old ladies to church, or to the dancing assemblies once a fortnight. Carlyle was out in the "'45." Being a staunch Whig, he was one of the four hundred who volunteered the defence of Edinburgh. After the abandonment of that city, he went on a visit to his father, who was minister of Preston Pans, where he was a spectator of the battle that took its name from the place. Shortly afterwards, he went to Leyden University, where he met with many persons who became, in after life, prominent in English history: amongst others, Charles Townshend and John Wilkes. The latter he describes as being of an ugly countenance, of daring profligacy, but a sprightly entertaining fellow. After a stay of a few months, Carlyle returned to England, and went to London, where he was introduced to Smollett, and Thomson the poet. Having some aristocratic relations, he also contrived to be carried to Court on an evening, when George the Second held drawing-rooms, his Majesty playing at cards with the Princess Amelia. In fact, while he resided in our metropolis, the future minister of Inveresk mixed with all

kinds of society: now going to a play in the Haymarket, then supping with the officers of the Horse Guards, with whom he was very intimate, although even he considered the majority of them worldgiven (one of these acquaintances was Captain Elliott, afterwards Lord Heathfield, the defender of Gibraltar); at other times going with John Blair, Smollett, and other literary friends, to a small tavern, where they had frugal suppers and a little punch, as the finances of none of the company were in very good order. When the news of the battle of Culloden arrived in London, Carlyle was at a coffee-house with Smollett. On leaving that place, they, in consequence of the fire-works and the unruly mobs, put their wigs in their pockets, and carried their swords in their hands, Smollett cautioning his friend against speaking a word, lest the mob should discover his country, and become insolent.

In 1746, Carlyle returned to his native land, where he preached his first sermon, which was received with universal approbation, "the genteel people of Preston Pans being all there." Shortly afterwards, he was presented to the church of Cockburnspath, " an obscure distant place, without amenity, comfort, or society, where, if he had been settled, he would have more probably fallen into idleness and dissipation than a course of study." In the last century, preferment in the church of Scotland was so difficult to be obtained, and so trifling when obtained, that, as our author says, it required great energy of mind not to fall asleep when you are in a country charge. As one might readily suppose, Cockburnspath was eminently unsuitable to such a society-loving man as Carlyle. He therefore greatly rejoiced when, in 1748, he was preferred to the ministry of Inveresk. This step, however, was not unopposed. The parishioners of Inveresk said he was too young, too full of levity, too much addicted to the company of his superiors; that he danced frequently, in a manner prohibited by the laws of the church; that he "wore his hat agee," and had been seen galloping "through the links" between one and two o'clock. Notwithstanding these objections, Carlyle went to Inveresk, where he remained minister for the lengthy period of fifty-seven years. Among the clergy of Scotland he was a leading man in those dark days, and had a great voice in the selection of the men who were either to be brought into the church, or who were to be advanced as leaders from having proved themselves worthy in the ranks. Nor was his influence confined to Scotland, but extended to England and Ireland. This autobiography was the great occupation of his declining years. He began it in 1800, when in his seventy-ninth year. He had, in 1805, advanced it as far as his forty-eighth year, when he died. He was engaged on it until within a few days of that event, the pen having literally dropped from his hands.

The book is no doubt amusing; but it has, too, a melancholy interest. Here is a life squandered, a fair amount of talent worse than hidden, and a Christian minister living and dying, to all appearance, a stranger to "the power of godliness.'

Manual of Phonography. By Isaac Pitman. Pitman, Paternoster Row. 1860.-Many of our readers will, we think, find this little book worthy of their perusal. Shorthand, though largely used in England, and still more so in America, has not been so generally

i

adopted by educated men as might have been expected from its general usefulness and facility of acquisition. To all classes of literary men, and especially to clergymen, it is in many respects of great service. Many celebrated divines have derived much assistance in preaching from this art. We have already, in a former number (May, 1859), expressed our sentiments and opinions concerning written discourses and extempore preaching. Where a clergyman is continually engaged in looking down on his manuscript, of course he is deprived, in a great measure, of that freedom of action which the extempore preacher enjoys; while the latter, through the entire disuse of notes, wants even those seasonable restraints which they will give to redundancy of action, and, perhaps, in some cases, to extravagances of gesture. Either way has its advantages and defects. If, however, a clergyman adopt the plan of making the notes of his sermon in shorthand characters, he will, to a great extent, combine the advantages of extempore preaching with the accuracy and finish of a written discourse. Shorthand characters, being written within a considerably smaller compass than the ordinary writing, catch the eye sooner, and more words can be taken in at a glance. In the "Life of Archbishop Sharp" we find that he used shorthand, and that the knowledge of that art contributed not a little to the acceptableness of his delivery; for he so disposed his characters as to take in a whole sentence, or as much as could be distinctly pronounced in the same breath, with one transient glance of the eye; and so disposed those sentences distinctly under each other as to be able, when he had taken his eye off, without any difficulty to recover the place where it had left the page. And we are informed that he was so expert at this, that it was sometimes thought that he had preached extempore, or that if he had notes, that he made little or no use of them. His whole attention was not required to watch over his words. Dr. Chalmers nearly always preached his sermons from shorthand notes, and this he did so skilfully, that it has been said that unless one were near him to observe the fact, it was difficult to know he was reading. A knowledge of shorthand would materially enable a clergyman to read a discourse as if he were speaking it, or, to use the words of archbishop Whately, "to read as if he were not reading."

PUBLIC AFFAIRS.

THE queen opened her parliament in person on the 5th of February; and it is gratifying to remark that the affectionate loyalty of her people, exhibited on these occasions, seems rather to increase from year to year than to suffer any diminution. The attention of the great council of the nation has been directed, so far, to questions of internal government. We are no enemies to the present administration. We should be sorry to see them displaced. But we are not