the church, without knowing how much more he ought to say to support his views, or how much he ought to leave unsaid, he will be excused in the mind of any good-natured person in consideration of his advanced age, which he tells us is three years more than the usual life of man.

German Poetry for Beginners, with Notes. By A. Bernays, Phil. Doct., Professor of the German Language and Literature in King's College, London. London: J. W. Parker. 1837. pp. 160. ALTHOUGH this is entitled only Poetry for Beginners,' it contains very much that ought to please all readers of German. In England, the readers of German too often confine themselves so much to Goethe and Schiller, with, perhaps, a few stray poems from other writers, that they are not aware how rich a variety there is, both as to matter and style, in German poetry. This selection, small as it is, will introduce them to a larger circle of acquaintances, many of whom they will delight in. The notes of Dr. Bernays, as every one knows who has seen any of his elementary books, (especially in his instructions for construing German prose,) are always most useful. Some readers of Germanthe writer of this notice for instance-would like to see more than one of Uhland's pieces introduced into another edition; but it is hardly fair for an individual to name a favourite writer, when speaking of a selection which must be made to please everybody. Uhland is, however, not so well known in England as he deserves to be.

The French Self-Instructor, &c. In Fifty-two easy Lessons. London: Simpkin, Marshall, and Co., and Wacey. 1836.

THIS is a republication, according to the advertisement prefixed to it, of the French portion of the Linguist. It is difficult, of course, to judge of elementary works in a Foreign language. The plan of the work appears to be to take extracts chiefly from poetical writers, and to illustrate and comment on them, remarking particularly the difficulties that occur, and shewing how the phrases may be varied. The writer of this notice can only say that, having looked over some of the notes in various parts of the book, he thinks them likely to be very useful to those who are desirous of knowing French well.

Chapters on Flowers. By Charlotte Elizabeth. Seeley and Burnside. 1836. 12mo.

THERE is in several of these chapters a great deal of genuine and pleasing feminine feeling, but in almost all of them it is mingled with the excitements of the doctrines of personal assurance, &c. &c. How happens it, by the way, that they who would fain teach men to give up all for religion, so perpetually make use of the most earthly means-love-stories, sentiment, graceful outward accomplishments, charming flowers, &c. &c. Are these things consistent ?

Tales about the Sun, Moon, and Stars. By Peter Parley. London : Tegg. pp. 330. 1836.

THIS Contains very plain and simple information about astronomy in a popular form, for young people. Indeed, Peter Parley is more to be recommended when he treats of other worlds than when he deals with sublunary matters, which may furnish occasions for introducing liberalism.

THE Rev. Mr. Abdy, of St. John's, Southwark, has published an excellent circular addressed to his parishioners on the subject of the Marriage and Registration Bills. It ought to be in everybody's hands.

THE Sixth Number of Mr. Bell's British Quadrupeds has been published, and is, as usual, beautiful in its plates and amusing in its letterpress. He is on Newfoundland dogs and the Phocidæ at present.

MR. WATSON, of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, has pub ished a pamphlet on Scriptural Education in Liverpool, which does him much credit. It has reached a second edition.

A LITTLE twopenny paper, published at Bristol, and by Seeley, London, entitled, the Church of England compared with Wesleyan Methodism, is recommended to the attentive consideration of clergy and laity where this form of dissent prevails.

MR. SAMUEL DUNN's Christian Theology for every Day in the Year, selected from three hundred and sixty-five Authors, is suited to almost as great a variety of persuasions, as it includes quotations from writers. of every grade of opinion-e. g., President Edwards and Jeremy Taylor, and other authors differing as widely as these.

MISCELLANEA.

THE CHRISTIAN ADVOCATE AND THE SPECTATOR.

THE mode of proceeding adopted by the Christian Advocate has been so often noticed in this Magazine, that very few remarks will be needed to illustrate the following paragraph, which appeared lately in the columns of that decent and respectable paper!

"The living of Sapcote, about four miles from Hinckley, has been given to Professor Scholefield, of Cambridge-a pluralist or person of very large income, who is to serve it by curate, or in any way he pleases, choosing the season of the year most agreeable to himself and family to honour the parish with his presence. The patron is Mr. Thomas Frewen Turner, a gentleman of the highest aristocratic notions, and president of the Leicester Conservative Club, who refused to listen to the unanimous wish of the parishioners that the living should be presented to the eldest son of the late pious incumbent." This is the text-the commentary is simply this: Professor Scholefield has enjoyed, since 1823, the enormous benefice of St. Michael's, Cambridge, which is returned in the church revenue report at 951. per annum. The parish is not very large, but the congregation is one of the most numerous in Cambridge; and Professor Scholefield certainly has not been sparing in his exer

tions. He has three full services every Sunday, and one service during the week. But then his Professorship-aye, his Professorship! His Professorship (being Regius Professor of Greek) is worth just 401. per annum, so that for the laborious duties of a zealous parish priest, and the high station of Greek Professor at Cambridge (which he has just resigned), he has received 1457.

This is then what we are to understand another time, when we hear of pluralists or persons of large incomes. Are the terms synonymous in the dissenting vocabulary?

The following specimen of kindliness and good feeling, according to the Utilitarian school, is copied into the Christian Advocate from the Spectator:"The recent death of the Rev. Charles Simeon, an evangelical clergyman of eminence at Cambridge, provoked a grand display of pious sorrow from his admirers. The high church party seem to have been much annoyed thereat; for, while the Standard professed godly sorrow for the loss of so great and good a person, the John Bull, on Sunday last, blurted out something like a malediction on Simeon and Co., in reference to the refusal of Mr. Crick to shut up his class on the occasion of Mr. Simeon's funeral."-Spectator. Truly these papers run a goodly race together.

CHAPLAINS TO UNION WORKHOUSES.

(From the Cambridge Chronicle.)

AN advertisement for a workhouse chaplain has been inserted in our last two publications by the board of guardians of a poor-law union in this county. A notice of such a strange and altogether novel character must have caught the attention of many of our readers, and excited their wonder and astonishment, if the terms in which it is couched did not give rise to feelings of a different and a sterner kind. It appears on the face of it to have been issued with the connivance at least of the poor law commissioners. We may almost take for granted that it was promulgated with their entire approbation; and it is not altogether improbable that it was framed and concocted under their immediate advice and express directions. We are therefore at liberty to consider it as "published by authority;" and in offering the following remarks on it, we must not be suspected of making personal strictures on the individuals composing the board of guardians alluded to,-for with not a single member of that union are we acquainted, even by name,-but we must be understood as discussing a document which embodies the deliberately formed opinions of the framers of our pauper criminal code, and those of the willing enforcers of its severest penalties.

So long as the valuable and highly desirable office which this public advertisement offered to the competition of educated gentlemen, pursuing a liberal profession, was undisposed of, we held our peace. We were determined that no observations we might make should deprive the union of the services which so liberal an offer as this deserved, and we were unwilling to throw obstacles in the way of the preferment of any able and meritorious clergyman who became a candidate! But as the appointed time for receiving applications expires to day, we feel at liberty to congratulate the-unknown to us-happy successful candidate on his extreme good fortune! for most extraordinary has his good fortune proved to him in this instance, whether the almost extravagant liberality of his stipend be considered, or the desirable character of the situation he has accepted, or the "other duties," which are not named, but which may be found "described in the general order of the Poor Law Commissioners."

The advertisement of which we have been speaking sets forth, with most amusing nonchalance, that the benevolent guardians of this union are ready to receive applications from clergymen of the Established Church, desirous to

undertake the office of Chaplain to the Union Workhouse, to be sent in to their clerk, on or before December 9th.

The duties of the Chaplain will be to perform Divine Service and Preach in the Workhouse in the Morning of every Sunday, to conduct a similar Service once in the middle of every week, at a time to be fixed by the Board, to bury the dead in the workhouse burial ground, and to perform the other duties of a chaplain described in the general order of the Poor Law Commissioners.

"" SALARY, FORTY POUNDS PER YEAR."

A salary of 40l. per year! By the genius of Joseph Hume, a handsome, a splendid, an extravagant allowance! A magnificent sum! An astonishing twelvemonths' wages, not paid for doing nothing, but wages that will be rendered doubly dear and welcome, from the reflection that they have been earned ten times over, at the very least, in the course of the year! The fortunate chaplain, after performing the ordinary duties of the workhouse, as set down in his bond, and after satisfying the extraordinary demands that may be made on him, may pocket his 15s. a week (we hope that the salary will be paid weekly) with a safe conscience, and rest satisfied that he has robbed nobody to get it, nor taken advantage of any man's necessities. In this union, if in no other, there seems but little probability that either pauper clergymen or pauper labourer will be allowed to eat the bread of idleness.

Now we hope fervently, and from the bottom of our hearts, that there exists not, in England through, one single minister of the gospel so steeped in poverty as to be compelled, by pinching want and dire necessity, to accept this situation. And most firmly do we believe that, from one end of England to the other, no minister who serves at the altar of the established church will be found willing, for the sake of the beggarly sum of 15s. per week,—the price of groans and sighs, in many instances, of unavoidable yet hopeless suffering, -to belie that which must be the settled conviction of his understanding and his conscience, namely, that poverty is no crime, and countenance by his presence, week after week, the exquisitely cruel determination to which, it appears, this board of guardians has arrived, of shutting the miserable poor from even that communication with their fellow-men of assembling for worship once only in every seven days, in the parish church; for no other reason, too, but because they are poor.

How painful must such a ministry as this prove to a compassionate man, were it undertaken as a labour of love merely! How tenfold wretched would it be to him when he reflected that, by receiving a regular salary for his services, his very presence in the workhouse chapel implied his approval and support of the system which banishes, during life, the aged and infirm, the widow and the orphan, from the parish church, and, after death, consigns their remains to the unconsecrated burial ground in the yard of the union workhouse, with no reverential attendance of relations and friends, but in the presence merely of the task-master, and a few miserable beings, which the happier deceased has left behind, and in whom the feelings of human affection are all dried up and passed away.

Much more might we here add, but we forbear. Yet is this, let us ask, a fitting manner of administering a system of laws which their very authors acknowledge need to be administered with judgment and discretion, and, above all, with discriminating kindness? Is the scheme we have been speaking of humane? Does it "care for the poor" as they ought, as they have a right, to be cared for? Is the first and great rule of Christian charity, of "doing unto others as we would others do to us," the principle which ought to pervade and regulate all our communications with one another, fulfilled in this instance? If unexpected poverty should suddenly come upon any of us, brought on by no fault of our own, would it not be felt as the very extremity of harshness and cruelty if we were shut up in rigorous confinement, scarcely less strict than that to which the felon is subjected, with no hope of release,

till death itself should come to free us from this living death? Is not this board of guardians aware, that no stronger feelings prevail in humble life— call them prejudices, if you will, yet they are not unnatural prejudices, and others, besides the ignorant and superstitious, entertain them quite as strongly as they do than those which relate to the rites of sepulture? The most abject of the poor would cheerfully, even gladly, submit to the greatest extremities of privation and suffering, sooner than be deprived of what is their most undoubted right, of having their remains after death, when they are released from the mortal ills of poverty, deposited with decent ceremonial in the parish church-yard.

We wish to give a parting hint to the chaplain that is to be. We beg of him to remember, that although he may be able, with a clear conscience and one untouched with compunctious visitings, to perform the other duties of his situation to the complete satisfaction of his employers, yet it will behove him to be on his guard, lest, when after reading the burial service in the unconsecrated workhouse church-yard, he render himself amenable to episcopal censure, a punishment which might perhaps, under such circumstances, be remitted, if a proper application were made to the Home Office,—and also bring himself within the penalties of the ecclesiastical courts, which it is in the power of any one to enforce who pleases. We cannot, however, bring ourselves to imagine that this attempt to lower the respectability of the clerical profession, by imposing duties inconsistent with the obedience a clergyman owes to the canons, and rewarding this deviation from duty by a pittance hardly exceeding in amount the wages of a bricklayer's labourer, will ever be successful. The establishment of parochial medical clubs under the patronage of the poor law commissioners, must have by this time done quite enough in the way of lowering the estimation of professional men in the eyes of the public.

LITURGY AMONG DISSENTERS.

"In the press, and will be published on January 1st, 1837, in 8vo, with very commanding type and superior paper,

"SERVICES suited to the solemnization of matrimony-the administration of baptism-the celebration of the Lord's supper-the visitation of the sick-and the burial of the dead; extracted, arranged, abridged, and altered from the offices of the church of England; with eighty-four original hymns, adapted to the several occasions. By WILLIAM BENJO COLLYER, D.D., LL.D., &c. &c. "London: Samuel Bagster, 15, Paternoster Row."-(Advertisement in Evangelical Magazine, for December.)

DOCUMENTS.

OPERATION OF THE TITHE COMMUTATION ACT.

(Abridged from the Cambridge Chronicle.)

In the parish of Bradwell-by-the-sea a meeting took place on the 1st of December, after proper notice; Mr. H. Dixon, assistant commissioner, being present. A map of the parish, and rate-books, &c., were produced. lt appeared the parish contains 4733 acres, consisting of 3158 arable land, 1071 grass, 67 woodland, 411 homesteads, &c., and 26 public roads. The rated amount to the poor (in the Malden union) is 41357. 10s.; and the average of the whole rates for the seven years previous to Christmas, 1835, is 9417.