hints contained in the following letter from Dr. Davies to Mr. Williams, who had applied to him for advice, and the reflections which Mr. Gilbert has subjoined, we consider as too valuable to be omitted.

"After acknowledging the receipt of your last, I must crave your indulgence for not replying sooner to your former letter. Assure yourself that my silence was not owing to any want of respect, but I wished to be able to write with some deliberation, that I might convey some advice which might help you in the discharge of the important trust which, I believe, has devolved on you by the direction of a wise and kind Providence. I am truly sorry for the loss which Abergavenny has sustained, while I rejoice that the academy is under your direction. I would by no means advise you to conform yourself to my method. I was long sensible of its defects, though I knew not well how to alter it. Upon the whole, I believe, my chief error was, to give too many lectures, which led the students to depend more on the communications from the tutor, than on their own researches. I observed to them often, that if they did not gain much more from their own diligence and application than they could receive from me, their improvements at last would be but poor and inconsiderable. My idea is, that a tutor acquits himself best when he is enabled to keep his pupils diligently at work, after he has put them upon a proper track of study. Therefore, dear Sir, adopt every improvement you can make, and may the Lord bless you and your charge."

*

The justice and importance of the observation contained in the above extract from Dr. Davies's letter, will be acknowledged generally by those whose experience and reflection qualify them to judge of it. Mr. Williams, in future life, formed his course of lectures completely upon the suggestion; and it was fully approved by him when long practice in teaching, and careful attention to the subject, had matured his judgement. The method of dictating lectures, complete in their outline, and amplified in detail to students, so as to supersede that labour of acquisition which is requisite to the full understanding and personal appropriation of truth, though almost universal, must surely, at no distant day, give place to a more rational course. He teaches most successfully, who best calls forth the energies of his pupil's mind.

But a more certain sedative to the powers of thinking can scarcely be supposed, than the kind of lectures commonly in use. It is difficulty which excites attention, and creates interest; and it is labour which impresses and secures the knowledge, in the attainment of which it was expended. No method more likely to perpetuate ignorance can be devised, than to dispense knowledge with too free a hand. The value of every acquisition is generally estimated by its cost; and it is almost a universal truth, that no young men will take the pains to write on their minds the information which they may hold in their possession, by merely writing it on paper.'

pp. 158-160.

It was during his residence at Oswestry, that Mr. Williams Commenced author. In 1786, he published an edition of Maurice's Social Religion in an abridged form. In 1789, he appeared in the Baptismal controversy, in reply to Mr. Booth. Next followed his Abridgement of Dr. Owen on the Epistle to the Hebrews, accompanied by Letters to Dr. Priestley and Mr. David Levi. In 1791, he published a discourse occasioned by Mr. Belsham's sermon at the Old Jewry before the supporters of the New College at Hackney, with a letter addressed to that gentleman. Of these several publications, Mr. Gilbert has given a detailed account, particularly of the work on Baptism, to which an entire chapter of eighty pages is appropriated. The time when religious controversy will have become a most useful and not less agreeable exercise of the powers of the human mind,' has not yet arrived; and the instances are comparatively few in which the discussion of theological questions by Christian writers has at all resembled the friendly collision of gifted minds, mutually endeavouring to assist each other in their attainment of knowledge and happiness.' We agree with Mr. Gilbert in thinking, that,

To endeavour, both by precept and example, after such a reform of this portion of theological inquiry, were conduet far nobler and more consistent, than to decry investigation, and proscribe discussion; -a practice which makes currency a substitute for evidence, and teaches us to acquiesce in what is received, rather than be concerned about what is true.'

In 1791, Mr. Williams left Oswestry, and removed to Birmingham, to take the charge of a congregation. His continuance there was but for a short period; and in 1795, he again entered upon the office of Tutor, having received an invitation to superintend the Institution formerly under the direction of the Rev. James Scott of Heckmondwick, near Leeds, and afterwards under the care of the Rev. Sam. Walker, at Northouram, but now re-established at Masbro' near Rotherham. At the same time he accepted the pastoral charge of a society of Dissenters at Rotherham. This was the last and most important station which he occupied. In this scene of his labours, he acquired, by the assiduous discharge of his official duties, and the exemplary consistency of his conduct, a celebrity to which but few of his contemporaries attained; and here, after repeated attacks of hepatic disease, his life was closed on March 9, 1813.

During his residence at Rotherham, Dr. Williams published his "Essay on the Equity of Divine Government and the So"vereignty of Divine Grace," the most elaborate of all his

works, and which he had announced while he was at Oswestry; also, his " Defence of Moderate Calvinism," in reply to Bishop Tomline, the best written of all his publications. Of these works, Mr. Gilbert has inserted an account at large; and in respect to the former, he has not only given a copious description of its principles, but has added a considerable number of pages as an appendix, in elucidation of the more abstruse topics brought into discussion in Dr. Williams's writings. The publication of the Essay was productive of such consequences as not unfrequently attend the declaration of sentiments by an Author who does not write in accordance with the prevailing opinions of his connexions. Attempts to discredit the Doctor's character for orthodoxy were so successful as to make an impression for a time upon his congregation, and to alarm the friends of the institution over which he presided, lest it should suffer material injury in public patronage. His reputation, however, stood too high, and was too solidly established, to be permanently affected by insinuations in prejudice of his evangelical probity; and they who are most indisposed to the reception of the peculiarities of his doctrinal system, are equally forward with those who most entirely admit of them, to acknowledge his superior excellence in every public and private relation of life.

Mr. Gilbert has closed his Memoir' with a general character of Dr. Williams. An extract from this must conclude our notice of the volume, which is worthy of our warmest recom mendation, and which no one can peruse without being amply repaid in instruction and gratification.

His piety was most pure and ardent, though unobtrusive and unaffected. It consisted not at all of superstitious forms and abstinen ces, but was fed by habitual meditation and prayer, and by occasional seasons of special self-examination and humiliation before God. He seemed constantly to breathe devotion, and his prayers were in nothing so much remarkable, as in their fullness, fervency, and depth of adoration. On such occasions he seemed to go as far as man could, in abhorring sin, annihilating self, and glorifying God. The word of God, with every part of which he was perfectly familiar, was still his constant study; and perceiving as he did the harmony of its doctrines, his mind was unembarrassed, and his heart invigorated by its holy sentiments. Religion was to him not so much duty as enjoyment. Devoted more than many to abstruse thinking, and possessing a ceaseless thirst after knowledge, yet his devotion was not injured by his studies; for he viewed every thing in its relation to human obliga tions and Divine claims. Such was the habitual temperament of his spirit, that all his investigations were practically religious. They lede him the more clearly to see, and the more impressively to feel, that alk. good, and only good, proceeds from God, but that evil is exclusively

from the creature; of which the result was, a more lowly disesteem of himself, a more exalted admiration of Divine grace, and a more glowing delight in the God of his salvation. In the Divine laws and sanctions, in the procedure of providence, and the general government of creatures, he recognized nothing unbefitting just conceptions of Deity, nothing capricious, nothing unsanctioned by obvious principles of equity; while every where in the work of redemption and human recovery, he beheld, with enraptured admiration, displays of unutterable benevolence, wisdom, power, and mercy. The expiatory efficacy of the Saviour's sacrificial offering, and the renovating influ ence of the Spirit, were subjects the dearest to his heart, the source of unfailing peace in his soul, and the spring of lively anticipations for the life to come. It may be said truly, that he delighted himself in the Lord, and that he had the desire of his heart.'

Though he possessed little of what is, in a sense far too confined, especially denominated genius, his intellectual power was great and peculiarly active. He was not a man of fiction, but of reality; delighting not in excursions of fancy, but in the investigation of truth. He loved to pursue nature through the amplest range of her innumerable works, tracing with sedulous and dutiful admiration, the footsteps of his God; but in the creations of man, he felt little comparative interest. For the moral sentiment, the chaste satire, and the devotional sublime of the poet, he had a feeling heart and a kindred taste; but for the airy, the ideal, the descriptive, for the qualities which commonly captivate and entrance, he possessed not responsive emotions. He had imagination enough to illustrate by apt comparison, but not so to adorn his composition, as to inspire it with life and action. He could not abstract the mind of his reader from personal consciousness, call up scenes before the eye at pleasure, or make whomsoever he would, follow the bidding of his imagery; but he could instruct the willing learner, and lead forth the attentive mind to a noble maturity of judgement. They who sought repose from doubt, and solid ground to stand on amidst the fluctuations of time, and the approaching realities of eternity, could not commit themselves amongst men, to a safer or more skilful guide. To discriminate, disentangle, separate; to make truth and error, right and wrong, be discerned apart; to mark out their boundaries; to set the understanding right; and teach the affections where they might safely wind their flexile shoots; were kindly offices in which he could not be excelled. Truth in every thing was to him the greatest attractive; truth in the comparatively small things, was not uninterest ing,-in lowly arts, in the more common walks of nature;—but truth® in morals and theology, the true sciences of man and of God, were, most of all, and amidst all, his darling pursuits. His penetration was keen, his judgment solid, his memory tenacious, and his conceptions clear and forcible. In closeness of argument, he had few equals, and such was his pleasure in it, that he noted no flight of time, while so engaged.' pp. 529-532.

Art. II. Memoir on the Roads of Cefalonia. By Lieut. Col. C. J. Napier, C. B. 8vo. pp. 110. Map and Plates. Price 7s. London. 1825.

VANITY is at all times a mischievous quality; but in few

cases is it more annoying than when it prompts the inflexible determination to make a book. Travellers, in particular, are apt to be misled into this offence, and, instead of a prudent adjustment of their means and their pretensions, yield to the seductions of typographical ambition, and blaze before the public in all the pride of ornament and magnitude. Now to say nothing of the absence of humility in all this, it is excessively impolitic; since the reading public,' taught by experience, has become wisely shy of quartos, and turns, with benigner aspect, to the less imposing forms and sizes of the press. A man of intelligence, let him sojourn where he may, will find something worthy of remark; and if his track lie along an untrodden path, or one imperfectly known, society has a claim upon him for his contribution to the general stock. of instruction. We could wish that all individuals thus situ-. ated would take a lesson from Colonel Napier, and communicate their intelligence clearly, fully, and cheaply. In a thin and reasonably priced octavo, this gentleman has contrived to combine valuable materials, interesting illustrations, important suggestions, strong reasoning, and well executed decorations. We are sorry that he should have adopted a title that gives an inadequate notion of the comprehensive charac-, ter of a book which comprises topography, history, hydrogra-, phy, military and financial details, meteorology, and statisti-. cal tables. We expected a mere Cefalonian M'Adam, but we have found in the Author an agreeable narrator and an accom- . plished engineer.

Cefalonia is both an interesting and a productive island, but the want of roads forms an insurmountable bar to general. and effective improvement. It consists wholly of mountain and valley, the latter divided and subdivided by various intersecting ridges, which are passable only by difficult mule tracks, in many places dangerous, and in some impracticable to a loaded animal.

The consequence of this is, that many of the great proprietors seldom visit their estates, although only a few hours' distance from Argostoli. Men will not risk their safety by travelling on a bad mountain road, where, should their mule make a false step, they would be thrown down a precipice of many hundred feet, into the sea. Their country-houses are, therefore, allowed to decay; are generally destitute of furniture; and, if the owner has energy enough to take