In the Lower House (present-the Dean of Canterbury, Prolocutor; the Archdeacons of Maidstone, Bath, Barnstaple, Bristol, Sarum, Taunton; and of the Proctors, the Rev. Drs. Mill, Spry, Coleridge, and Moore; the Rev. Messrs. Huntley, Mills, Lowther, Randolph, Woodgate, Gillett, Majendie, Yardley, Harding, and Goddard,) several petitions of a nature similar to those presented in the Upper House were presented.

A long and important Address to the Upper House of Convocation, setting forth many of the difficulties under which the Church labours, and praying that the two Houses might at once proceed to business, and especially urging the gravity of the occasion, and the mockery and unreality which the Convocation sanctioned by its practice of formal meeting for the mere purpose of adjournment, after the solemn prayers' which had been recited, was moved by Mr. Huntley and seconded by Dr. Mill. After considerable discussion on the various topics embraced in this Address, it was suggested by the Archdeacon of Maidstone, that as the House may be summoned for prorogation before so extensive an Address could be satisfactorily settled, it would be better to adopt a shorter Address; the Archdeacons of Barnstaple and Taunton strongly urging the insertion of that part of Mr. Huntley's address which related to the inconsistency between the solemn prayers offered, and a mere formal sitting. It was then urged that Mr. Huntley's Address should be referred to a Committee, consisting of Mr. Huntley, Dr. Spry, Mr. Randolph, and the Archdeacon of Maidstone, who should report upon it at the next meeting of the Convocation. Meanwhile the Archdeacon of Maidstone proposed a short form of address, which was seconded by Mr. Majendie, and, with an addition suggested by the Archdeacon of Bristol, adopted, to the following effect :

"That this Lower House of Convocation has this day received numerous Petitions from many dioceses, praying for proper steps being taken to secure the revival of the synodical action of the Church; that this House sympathises with the prayer of these Petitions, and having especial reference to the solemn character of the prayers offered at the commencement of the session of Convocation, which character appears to be altogether inconsistent with the system of continual prorogation, begs to call the attention of the Upper House to the reasonableness of the prayer of the Petitions.'

The Prolocutor having taken charge of the Address, and being about to proceed with it to the Upper House, the Apparitor at the same moment appeared to summon the Lower House for the act of prorogation.

During the Debate in the Upper House on the propriety of receiving

1 These prayers are the ordinary Litany, with the addition of the suffrage :Ut præsenti huic Convocationi Spiritu Tuo Sancto aspirare et præesse digneris, qui nos ducat in omnem veritatem, quæ est secundum pietatem ; Te rogamus, audi nos, Domine.'

And of the prayer :

Domine Deus Pater Luminum et Fons omnis Sapientiæ; Nos ad scabellum pedum Tuorum provoluti, humiles tui et indigni famuli, Te rogamus, ut qui in nomine Tuo, sub auspiciis clementissimæ Reginæ Victoriæ hic convenimus, Gratiâ Tuâ cœlitus adjuti, ea omnia investigare, meditari, tractare, et discernere valeamus, quæ honorem Tuum et gloriam promoveant et in Ecclesiæ cedant profectum. Concede igitur ut Spiritus Tuus, qui Concilio olim Apostolico, huic nostro etiam nunc insideat, ducatque nos in omnem veritatem, quæ est secundum pietatem; Ut qui ad amussim Sanctæ Reformationis nostræ, errores, corruptelas et superstitiones olim hic grassantes, Tyrannidemque Papalem, merito et serio repudiavimus, Fidem Apostolicam et vere Catholicam firmiter et constanter teneamus omnes, Tibique rite puro cultu intrepidi serviamus, per Jesum Christum Dominum et Servatorem nostrum. Amen.'

the Address, the Committee for considering Mr. Huntley's Address was appointed, and ordered to report at the next meeting of Convocation. The proceedings occupied two hours.

Such was the last meeting of Convocation, of which the immediate result was the courteous conduct of the Bishop of London, who at once signified his purpose to abandon the Clergy Discipline Bill, against which the Clergy had in their petitions so strongly protested, until in some way the opinion of the Church could be formally taken upon it. Not only, then, has Convocation, for the first time for a hundred and thirty years, met-not only has it received petitions-not only has it debated -not only have the two Houses met in conference, but the principle is established that no measure deeply affecting the interests and sympathics of the Church will henceforth be submitted to Parliament without the formal intervention and consultation of some deliberative ecclesiastical body. The Bishops-ably and worthily so represented-have, in the person of the Bishop of London, declined for the future the onerous and ungenial work of legislating for all orders of the Church. This is the first success of the attempt to revive Convocation. A session so important as that which we have reported is not likely to be succeeded by a less interesting one. Are we then premature in urging attention to the composition of the next Convocation, which certainly must meet, and must agree upon an Address to the Crown, in the summer or autumn of the present year?

495

NOTICES.

UPON Sir George Stephen's Review of Mr. Barber's Case,' (Walford,)— and we own it to be a one-sided one-our sympathies are enlisted with Mr. Barber. The case-merely as one of the most remarkable of the causes célèbres of our own time-is especially interesting and dramatic; and while we frankly own that to pronounce a decided opinion on Mr. Barber's complicity requires a very technical and legal estimate of evidence, to which such as ourselves can lay no claim, still there are certain broad facts in this case which are open to the judgment of ordinary minds, and are of serious importance. Such as these: Mr. Barber is found guilty of a certain crime; sentenced, and transported for life accordingly. Subsequent facts come out; the case is further investigated; it seems very doubtful whether Mr. Barber is guilty; a conditional pardon is granted; the case is further sifted; and for some reason or other, as a fact, a full and free pardon is granted. Now this is one of those beautiful pieces of folly called a legal fiction. The law cannot acknowledge that it has done wrong; it cannot set aside its own hasty judgment; it cannot annihilate its proceedings. The verdict is still the verdict; the judgment, the judgment; the felon, the felon. So to get matters straight, the felon, who is vi termini no longer a felon, is pardoned for the crime which he has never committed. A pardon, if words have meaning, still assumes and implies the fact and existence of the crime, which, while it condones, it asseverates. But the case in question is one which, from its enunciation, is that of a man who has not committed at least the crime for which he was sentenced. Again, Sir George Stephen brings out as a fact, what, for the honour of human nature, we trust is untrue: Mr. Barber had been removed from Norfolk Island to Impression Bay; his pardon arrives, the prosecution having already utterly ruined him; when put on board the convict ship 'he was entirely destitute of ́ clothing; hence, when on receiving his pardon he was ordered to divest 'himself of his prison dress, he remonstrated on the ground that he had no other.... the superintendent compelled him to strip, as the best preparation for a walk of ninety miles to Hobart Town through the jungle .... and it was only by the charity of the convicts themselves, who supplied him, one with a coat, another with trowsers, that he was not I discharged in utter nudity, a passage by sea, even, being denied him,' (pp. 85, 86.) This exceeds all belief: a man who, whether innocent or not, is released from the penalty attaching to a charge which is now relinquished, is transported 20,000 miles, ruined, and left without a rag of his own; it is discovered that he ought not to have been transported, and then, by the tender mercies of our Christian authorities, who have done wrong, he is turned upon the world stark naked to find his way without a shirt or a sixpence ninety miles through the Australian bush. There must be mistake or exaggeration in this.

A really good abridgment of an expensive standard work cannot fail to be a benefit to the public. Mr. Clinton's 'Fasti Hellenici' has been too

long before the world to need any praise of ours: but its size and price have hitherto rendered it inaccessible to the great mass of ordinary classical students. This evil is now remedied by the author himself, in an Epitome of the Civil and Literary Chronology of Greece, from the Earliest Accounts to the Death of Augustus.' (Oxford: University Press.) The substance of those quartos is presented in a single compact octavo. In the present ' volume,' Mr. Clinton says, the quotations and references are omitted, 'the principal facts and observations are retained, and sometimes the argu'ments by which the facts are established.' There is also some additional matter, founded on evidence which has been collected since the last edition of the Fasti' was published. Not the least interesting feature in the book is a reply to Mr. Grote's chapter on the application of Chronology to Grecian Legend, going over nearly the same ground as Colonel Mure in his recent pamphlet. Without pretending to enter deeply into the controversy, we confess that our sympathy with Mr. Grote's view remains substantially unimpaired. Whether from indolence or from any better reason, we naturally listen to an author who tells us that all attempts to extract pure history from pure legend are a mere labor ineptiarum. Mr. Clinton warns us against thinking that the fables engrafted by the Epic poets on the tale of Troy cast a doubt on the reality of the event itself, and appeals to the Crusades as a parallel case. But we believe in the Crusades on the strength, not of contemporary fiction, but of contemporary history—rather an important difference. Nor does it seem to us conclusive to say that the Homeric poems, to be 'plausible fiction,' must have had a basis of truth. The argument merely proves that Homer did not invent the whole of his plot and characters, which Mr. Grote, we suppose, would grant, asserting that he took the substance of the legend as he found it. But whether Mr. Clinton be right or wrong in his view of the Heroic age of Greece, the usefulness of his book will be impeached by no one-least of all by Undergraduates reading for the Schools.

'The Vegetation of Europe,' by Mr. A. Henfrey, (Van Voorst,) is the first of a series of hand-books on the natural history of the European continent. It is a succinct but able and full account of the climatic distribution of plants. The general features of the physical geography are firmly and decisively touched: the mutual influences of geology and temperature, as dependent upon marine currents and the structural conformation of land, are elegantly shown; and we do not know where, in so small a compass, to find the results of the great generalization conducted by Humboldt and the scientific physicists of the age. The botany of a country is the most unerring key to its various physical characteristics. An ingenious and, for its size, a full isothermal map is prefixed.

Dr. Alison, the historian of Europe, has, in a new and enlarged' Life of Marlborough,' (Blackwood,) collected all that is important in the great captain's perplexed and varied career. In the concluding chapter, where a parallel is drawn between him and the other military notables of modern times, the author rises above himself-his style, often languid, becomes pointed, and he evidently kindles with his theme. The care and elaboration displayed in the arrangement of materials is the same of which Dr. Alison

is so great a master: the politics-and, may we say, prejudice?—and the redeeming heartiness and good purpose, are the same as in the History of Europe.

We

An important little volume on 'Irish Ethnology,' by Mr. G. Ellis, (Hodges and Smith,) establishes a fact which politicians are reluctant to face. feel that statesmen who will not grasp the great facts of national character, and of the tendencies and characteristics of race, labour very much in the dark. It was one of the faults of the Irish Union, that its purpose, in itself unexceptionable, of forming one national organization, had not sufficient plasticity to adapt itself to the strong marks which separate, and seem likely to separate, Celt and Saxon, in religion, industry, manners, and politics.

'A Manual of Hebrew Antiquities,' (Rivingtons,) appears to be close and systematic. It is one of a series, produced under the able superintendence of Mr. Kerchever Arnold. Mr. Browne, of Chichester, is the Editor, and has judiciously woven up much of the German information on the subject.

Mr. Watkins, of Brixworth, has resuscitated an old collection of verses, which he published some twenty years ago, on the Human Hand,' &c. (Pickering.) He has added some new pieces, chiefly celebrating the illustrious squirearchy of Northamptonshire, who, in considerable numbers, have come forward with their applause and shillings. We could willingly

have let these effusions die. In case our Protectionist readers are curious to know how their leaders will live in immortal song, they may like to see Mr. Watkins' anticipation of the poetical as well as political fame which awaits them. In an Elegy on the sudden Death of Lord George Bentinck,' Mr. Watkins takes courage:

'But let not gloom and sorrow long prevail

With short and manly grief we best bewail.

Thine and our own great Leader, Stanley, lives;
Thy meet yoke-fellow, too, Disraeli, gives

His splendid eloquence to aid the cause

Of hearth and home, of liberty and laws;

And Rutland's sous, of true patrician race :

And Richmond, staunch and firm in every place,' &c.-P. 105.

Mount Athos, Thessaly, and Epirus.' (Rivingtons.) The author, Mr. Bowen, Fellow of Brasenose, from his late official connexion with Corfu, and his intimate knowledge of the Romaic, has had peculiar means for acquiring information, which is very pleasantly imparted in this agreeable volume. A continual reference to classical association, happy quotations and allusion, make us respect Mr. Bowen's genial scholarship as much as we admire him as a companion in a tour.

The Psalter, or Seven Hours of Prayer, according to the Use of the Church of Sarum,' (Masters,) is a remarkably beautiful book in its typography. It is sumptuously decorated, and illustrated with praiseworthy skill and diligence, and few, except those conversant with the old OfficeBooks, can understand what amount of pains and research and difficulty an editor must encounter in this thorny field of investigation. As an