(the Roman peasantry of Ireland) must be injured, and not benefited, by the withdrawal from among them of the most constantly resident, the most active, the most benevolent class of the Irish gentry? Is that description too strong? Permit me, my lords, to confirm its truth by quoting the words of one, who, while he lived, was one of the brightest ornaments of the Irish church, and who died, deeply regretted by all its friends, the late bishop Jebb. That excellent prelate delivered a speech in this house, in the year 1824, which he afterwards printed, and which has since been republished. It well deserves the perusal of every one who wishes to understand the real state of the church in Ireland. The statements which that speech contains have long been before the public, and to this day, my lords, not one of them has been controverted. The testimony of bishop Jebb, valuable as it is in itself, is the more so, because it is the testimony of one who was at all times animated with a spirit of the utmost liberality and kindness towards the Roman Catholics, and who, as he deserved, was respected and loved by them in return." Among the high qualities of bishop Jebb's mind, there was, perhaps, none more truly deserving of admiration, though none so little likely to conciliate the respect of men, as his moderation, arising as it did from no fallacious liberalism, but from a temper, at the same time Christian and philosophic. In all things, but most of all in the concerns of religion, the tendency of the human mind is to extremes. The vulgar understanding can take no other hold of great general truths; and among the better minds, it is too often by opposition they are held. This will be easily exemplified in politics, but still easier in religion, in which it has been the fruitful principle of a hundred shades of schism. The bishop's sober-minded liberality was shown in his kindly conversation with the clergy of the church of Rome; an intercourse unvitiated by the slightest taint of concession. He could join them cordially in the offices of charity and love, nor was he constrained by any fear of pharisaical censure in his intercourse among them, which was frank and affectionate. But when a very decided and extensive increase of conversions from that church took place in his diocese, he was not withheld by any weak tendency to compromise from taking the post which properly should belong to a prelate of the church, in front of the movement. As he had never been impelled by the zeal of proselytism, so his own popularity did not restrain him from his duty. In the parish of Askeaton, a large conversion of upwards of 470 persons had occurred, under the faithful and judicious care of the Protestant minister of the parish, Mr. Murray. To this new congregation bishop Jebb had determined to preach two sermons on the liturgy, for their confirmation and instruction, as well as to declare his sanction; but this was not permitted. We now come to the last period of this good man's life, a period full of instruction were it permitted us to enter upon the detail of its affecting course. A sudden stroke of paralysis, at once ended his active labours in the church, and sent him to strive for the remainder of his days with a complaint which, though to him it was providentially lightened in an unusual degree, never ceased to press upon the powers of life, till in a few more years it put a period to his innocent and use2 E VOL. VI. ful course. line. From this we must content ourselves with a mere out The bishop was seated at dinner with his chaplain, when he was attacked with a sensation of numbness, extending so rapidly that he had only time to direct that his physician should be sent for, before he was speechless. By great care he recovered his consciousness; and slowly after a severe struggle, during which the best medical advice was obtained, recovered so far as to be considered out of immediate danger, and what was more important, in the full possession of reason and speech. To this merciful disposition of providence, he owed the comfort and utility of his remaining years. We may add, that during the heaviest period of his suffering, his composure, thought for others, recollections of duties, and tenderness for friends are very remarkably apparent in Mr. Forster's narrative. The affecting sympathy and kindliness of all classes, particularly the titular bishop and priests of the Roman church, are also brought into a clear and striking light. It is needless to trace a course which we cannot bring distinctly to the view. The bishop was removed to England, where he pursued his studies with an assiduity not often equalled by the most diligent students in unbroken health. It seems during this period to have been his aim chiefly to bring such theological writings into notice as he considered most practically useful. And Dr. Townson's discourses gave an agreeable occupation to his mind. He also entered with earnest zeal into the political questions which at that time so disastrously affected the church, and through it the state of England. The letter in which his sentiments were then expressed, breathes the soundest sense, and has indeed received the sure confirmation of events. He also joined the clergy of his diocese in a petition on the same subject, in which the same view is uncompromisingly conveyed. In 1829 he suffered a second attack of paralysis, which fell on the limbs which had been previously attacked: and though the symptoms were less severe, yet they left him additionally disabled; he became more exclusively confined to his chair: a striking mark of his frame of mind, still regarding life but in relation to its useful employment, is mentioned by his biographer. On the day of his attack, he was heard to say with a cheerful countenance, "Well, Townson is done at any rate.” In the same year he published these discourses, and entered on the preparation for the press of his sermons on the liturgy, which he afterwards published in the following year. He had been chiefly resident at Leamington, but finally removed to the vicinity of London, and took his abode at East Hill, near Wandsworth. His decline seems to have been progressively hastened by successive attacks of illness, and by the constant repetition of bleeding to guard against paralysis. All this was, however, not sufficient to arrest his zeal and his literary diligence; and he was efficiently watched over, and kept in the best condition that nature could admit, by the friendly zeal and the profound skill of Sir Henry Halford. He still found benefit from occasional visits to Leamington. And notwithstanding the occasional returns of languor and spasmodic affections, he proceeded with extraordinary despatch and efficiency in the editorial labours he had undertaken. On one occasion, shortly before his death, he expressed himself in these character istic words to Mr. Forster, "Well, the more I think of it, the more I am full of wonder and thankfulness at the goodness of Providence to me." A thankfulness surely arising from the most entire resignation, and a mind wholly turned from the deceits of the world to the "things above." From his very infirmities this good man derived a pleasurable sense; having one evening rung for the servants to carry him to his bed, he thus addressed his chaplain, "It's a pleasant thing, Mr. Forster, to be brought to the state of a little child; to be put to bed; to see it coming on; I thank God for it." It is indeed beautifully apparent through the latter portion of Mr. Forster's narrative, how wholly the bishop's heart was with God, and where all his thoughts had rest. In 1831 he prepared and published a memoir of the Rev. William Phelan, amidst the increasing returns of his distressing languor. In this year he received a trying shock from the death of his friend Alexander Knox. He still, in every interval that could be gained from his distressing infirmities, endeavoured with a conscientious sentiment of responsibility to dispose of his strength for the advantage of the Church. His labours were chiefly bestowed on the revival of such old English divines as he considered likely to be seviceable to the promotion of piety. In 1832 he was attacked with jaundice, which rose to an alarming height. It was conquered by medical skill; but is considered to have been the forerunner of his death. He had regained his ordinary state of spirits, and was even projecting larger labours than he had been for many years engaged in the first effort, however, discovered to him that he had overrated his strength: and by several passages in Mr. Forster's narrative, it becomes easy to understand that he was at the time himself fully sensible of his approaching departure. The death of Wilberforce seems to have drawn a strong expression of this feeling. He nevertheless was, with his wonted activity of mind, meditating a new edition of Berkely's "Minute Philosopher," when he received an intimation which turned out to be the last. One evening when he was about to retire, seeing the disappointment expressed in his chaplain's countenance, he mentioned what he would otherwise have suppressed, "I have had a pain about my heart the whole day, and I feel quite worn out with it." From this there was a short struggle; and then the jaundice again rose to its height. Sir Henry Halford resumed his attendance, and desired that he should endeavour to sit up for some time every day; but to this, after two trials, the bishop found himself unequal. We shall not attempt to convey the affecting impression of this good Christian's death-bed scenes, because we cannot afford to follow the details of Mr. Forster's statement, which we should only mutilate to no effect. It was, indeed, the lively exemplification often found in the Christian's death-bed, and nowhere else, of all that humanity can be under the renewing power of grace. His departure took place in December 1833, in the fifty-ninth year of his age. Bishop Jebb's writings are too long in the hands of the public to require any comment from our pen in the nature of a critical estimate. Nor has it been our custom, in the prosecution of these memoirs, unless in the case of important unpublished writings, or when the duty of stricture has been imposed upon us by a sentiment of civil or Christian obligation. It would be a boundless labour, and demand far more knowledge and skill than we can truly pretend to award merits on fine distinctions in the scale of orthodoxy. Nevertheless in this, as it has happened in some other cases, there is that on which we are in duty bound to offer some comment. We advert to the opinions long and forcibly put forward by the bishop and his friend, and master Alexander Knox, clarum et venerabile nomen, most speciously in point of reason and most worthily in respect to design, but with a most fatal oversight of consequences on the subject of Catholicity as a character of the church. It is quite evident from the writings of these two eminent men, that they neither intended nor foresaw the remote consequences of their arguments. The enthusiastic study of the fathers, and with these of the records and monuments of ecclesiastical antiquity, produced but the natural effect on their minds in placing them under that authoritative influence (the prestige) of antiquity; the goodness, simplicity, the Christian graces, the eloquence, the propinquity to the sacred source, gave a specious weight to these venerable old writers. Their nearer community of doctrine with the reformed churches, seemed also to put them in the position of authoritative witnesses and to men zealous for the defence of the church, and enamoured of ancient things, it would seem happy to light upon an argument so persuasive in some respects, in others so powerful. If we look no further than the theory of opinion, Catholic consent has the weight of a criterion, though it would be difficult to raise it into an authority. If the existence of such a criterion be assumed, it must carry, quatenus valeat, much weight as involving the judgments of good and wise men on some questions, the testimony of witnesses on others. And if an extra-scriptural rule were to be once admitted, such a consent, did it but exist in the required degree, would be perhaps the best assignable. To ingenious intellects it came with powerful recommendations: its use was honestly adopted, and its dangerous adaptations were too easily overlooked. It was strangely overlooked how thin a partition separated the truth from the error of the assumption. The bishop and Mr. Knox saw the application of the argument by which the central character of their church could be established: they saw that, abstractedly, there is a degree and species of Catholicity which arises from the very conditions of truth. It was also plain to their apprehension, that there was a certain line of divine truth generally maintained by the writers of the first ages. Now there can be no doubt that this fact has all the weight which opinion (alone,) can have in a controverted question. Their immediate purpose did not require that they should notice the added fact, that the degree of agreement they appealed to had only relation to unquestioned points, explicitly stated or plainly and cogently implied in scripture: it was not required that they should observe, that numerous and varied shades of disagreement, wherever disagreement was possible, wholly destroyed the authority of these venerable testimonies in any other sense. They were thus led to the incautious use of this argument, both by claiming for it an undue importance and carrying its application too far. This latter charge applies with particular force to Mr. Knox, whose zeal and fluency some times went beyond his judgment, and led to incautious language: he speaks of these early writings as if he considered them an extension of the gospel. We have little hesitation in assigning to these two eminent writers, the first propagation of those tenets which have since so largely occupied the attention of the world. The rule of Vincentius, applied by the bishop with a speciousness which imposed on himself, as it must have imposed on many, and enforced by the earnest and impressive eloquence of Mr. Knox, was soon caught up with a mighty echo. The attempt was to establish the church on "other foundations;" to preach "another gospel" though made with the best and purest intent, threw open a dangerous question in an insidious form. A rule of evidence was first made a criterion of the church, and next erected into a rule of faith. A rule-nugatory precisely where alone it can have any rational application—where it applies because it is not wanted; but which, if it could be admitted, would be found to have no application in any instance where it is not anticipated and made superfluous by the plain letter of scripture. It has been at all times too prevailing an error to support right and truth by fallacy: it seems to have been a part of Catholic consent, that the argument by which a truth can be maintained must therefore be true; for there is no doctrine and few great truths which have not found this kind of support. The method has been prescriptively established, and the error it involves cannot well be reprehended without much allowance. It is the mischief which a love of casuistry, and the narrow scope and wide adventuring of human reason has entailed. It may however be pleaded in vindication of these two holy men-—for such they were that if a legitimate and unexceptionable example of the rule to which they gave their sanction could be found, it would be precisely that to which they applied it. While it has little value as a mere criterion, and none whatever as a rule, it has (if taken in a general sense), a very remarkable application as a description of the church to which they applied it. Dr. John Barrett. DIED 1821. OF Dr. Barrett's early history we have not been enabled to learn many particulars. Neither does the still tenor of a life passed rather with books than men admit of much variety. He was the son of a clergyman at Ballyroan. When he was yet but six years old his father died, and his mother left in a poor and struggling condition, removed to Dublin with her family. Young Barrett early began to show the studious and retiring habits which characterized his life. He entered college as a pensioner; obtained a scholarship in 1773, and a fellowship in 1778. In 1807 he was elected vice-provost. His uniform life demands no detail of intermediate incidents. He was reputed by those who had the means of observation to be the most extensive general scholar of his time. And this indeed seems but a consequence of his peculiar habits and the peculiar character of |