ing region, and collected much information which his predecessors had not been able to obtain. He first visited the seven churches of the Apocalypse, of which he formerly published an interesting account; and he has now examined other places equally connected with sacred and profane history-some of which had not been noticed, or had escaped the research of others.

There is nothing which creates more confusion in the minds of careless readers, than to find the same name given in ancient writers, to many different places. Olympus and Ida were appellations by which various mountains were known, but often confounded together. In the same way were cities mistaken; the Phoenician Hercules gave his name to many towns which he built in his voyages, and Alexander to others in his conquests. The successors of Alexander followed his example. There were two distinguished cities called Antioch, one in Syria, well known as the place where the disciples were first called Christians, which is a flourishing city at this day; the other, in Asia Minor, often confounded with the first, but of which not a trace was supposed to exist. It, however, as well as the other, was distinguished in the sacred writings; when Paul and Barnabas were separated by the Holy Ghost, in the former, to go abroad and preach the gospel, they proceeded to the latter, which was situated in the province of Pisidia, in Asia Minor. Here they offered salvation to the Jews, but being rejected by them they turned to the Gentiles. It was in this second Antioch, therefore, that the universality of the gospel was established, and the whole world embraced within the pale of Christianity. To visit this city, so consecrated by the expansion of the word of God, and so dear to all the human race, was one of the first objects of our author's journey. He proceeded thither, accompanied by some friends as zealous as himself, ascertained its almost obliterated locali ty, and has illustrated it in the work before us, by a very distinct and wellexecuted view of its scanty remains. All that remains of the edifices is the ponderous remnant of an aqueduct, and what might be the ruins of a church; and all that exists of the Gentile converts, a solitary Greek who attends the khan.

"Not a church, nor any priest to officiate where Paul and Barnabas, and their successors, converted the thousands of idolaters to the true faith." Besides Antioch, he visited and ascertained the site of Apamea, the occasional residence of Cicero, explored Logalassus, and made a second visit to Laodicea and Ephesus, two of the seven churches, through which it would exceed our limits to accompany him in his book.

The exploring of these ruins is not sometimes very free from danger, not so much from the malaria which some travellers, with reason, complain of as generated, nor for the banditti that conceal themselves in them, but from the wild animals which make them their abode. It is not " the fox that looks out at the window," as in our deserted dwellings, that the oriental traveller may expect to see, but he walks, at every step, with apprehension of breaking in upon the wolf and the hyena. Our author says, in visiting the ruins of Logalassus

"My apprehensions, while in the dark vaulted passages of the corridor, were not altogether fanciful. Mr. Dethier heard a rustling in a thicket near him, and had the agreeable sight instantly after, of a wild boar within six feet; the long, curved, ivory tusks, displayed with full effect upon the black, bristly coat. Fortunately the wild boar, unless attacked, does not alter the line of his march, and, therefore, though Mr. D. was so near him, he only gave a horrible grunt, and then moved on.'

"

Mr. D., it seems, fired small shot after him, which, we think, he had better have left alone; it rebounded from off the tough hide of the animal without his feeling it, for he passed by another of the company without turning on him.

A poor camel broke its leg, and it was necessary to kill him. The travellers wished for a steak, which, it seems, is considered a luxury, but they were not gratified. An extraordinary circumstance, however, is quoted of the use to which a dead camel is sometimes applied :

"One that is poisoned being put into the belly of a camel newly killed, is helped thereby, the heat thereof dissolv ing the poison, and strengthening the spirits."

A similar method has been tried, we know, to extract the poison of serpents; and it is not unusual to split a fowl and immerse the wound of a person bitten by a rattle-snake, in the warm entrails; but we remember to have seen the practice tried on a human subject in the south of Ireland. A gentleman who had made a large for tune in the East Indies, returned home with a constitution broken by the climate; and after labouring for some time under its effects, it was given out that he died rather suddenly. It was said that he suffered from poison administered to him in his illness, and some of his oriental attendants advised that he should be immersed in the warm entrails of an animal newly killed. A camel could not be had, so they killed a cow, and the body was actually laid in the open belly. The man certainly recovered after the experiment, and we remember to have seen him walking about after it had been reported he was dead and buried. Among the miscellaneous matter recorded in the course of their journey, is some that is interesting as the most recent news of events not well understood as yet in Europe. Among these was the approach of the Egyptian army which crossed the path they were then travelling. We have heard it assigned as one reason why the army made so rapid and decided a progress was, that the Greek landholders were disgusted and disaffected to the sultan, The principal of these was Cara Osmyn Oglow, who is long known as, the most extensive territorial proprietor in Turkey in Asia, and whose good deeds, particularly his attention to the comforts of travellers, are the theme of many a traveller's panegyric. He was reported to have favored the progress of the Egyptians with all his influence. We have had occasion to combat this opinion in a former number, and we now add Mr. Arundell's account to confirm what we said :

"Kutoieh was for a long time the head quarters both of Tamarlane and Ibrahim Pasha. It was here the latter erected a tribunal for reforming the abuses of the sultan's government. The sultan's officers were displaced and his own appointed in their room. At Smyrna the Egyptian rule was of very short duration. The moment the news reached Constantinople, orders were sent to strike

all the consular flags, a measure immediately followed by the restoration of the former governors, and the flight of the other to the camp of Kutoieh.

"Cara Osmyn Oglow, though obliged to fly from his government of Gozel Hiscar, was so fortunate as to escape with his life, though he suffered severely in his estates, from the excessive exactions of Ibrahim. His uncle, the musselim of Magnesia, and his venerable preceptor, the Aga of Cassaba, were not so fortunate, with being accessary to the deposition of both being thrown into prison, and charged large sum of money was fixed by Ibrahim Ibrahim's government at Smyrna. A as the penalty for their offence, and given to the aga of Cassaba as a commutation of the sentence of death. It was in vain for the unfortunate man to protest either his innocence or his inability to raise the required sum. He engaged to pay it, on the solemn assurance that his life should be spared.

"The time allowed for raising it was so short that it seemed almost impossible; yet so great was the interest his hard case excited, that the whole sum was promptly procured—a merchant of Smyrna, known to the writer, furnishing a proportion of it, amounting to 40,000 piasters. The money was ready and paid before the time stipulated-the bags were unsealed, the mahomoudies and dollars counted, declared to be right in amount, a receipt given, and instantly after, the body of the venerable old man, strangled by order of the governor of Magnesia, was thrown into the streets of Cassaba."

These were the invaders who were said to be received with open arms by the subjects of the sultan, from their hatred of his cruelty and oppressions, and their love of the humanity and justice of his enemies.

their utility. There are very few readers of the Greek Testament, who will not derive much valuable instruction from Mr. Geoghegan's comments. We have been particularly pleased with the introductions prefixed to each book, in which there is presented to the reader, in a compendious shape, a condensation of the results of historical research, on points very necessary to a full understanding of the sacred writers. We are sure that the work will be found a very valuable aid to those who are preparing for the examination-the very strict examination that precedes admission into holy

orders.

Mr. Geoghegan has, however, fallen into an error, which perhaps in the execution of such a task, it was very difficult to avoid-an error to which we feel ourselves the more bound to notice, because it is not by any means confined to the writings of the Biblical critic, but has also become too common in the pulpit. We mean the practice of explaining, or, to speak more properly, getting rid of difficulties, by suggesting new and ingenious interpretations for the passage in the original. With regard to classical commentaries in general we believe that the very fact of an interpretation being ingenious, is primâ facie evidence against it; and, in the sacred writings, we always look with suspicion on any, even the slightest departure from the authorized versiona version which should by no means be brought, however remotely, into disrepute, upon light or trivial grounds, as it is the only version in the hands of the unlearned: it is wrong to diminish, by groundless alterations, their confidence in its correctness. The authorized version is, besides, the most faultless translation that has ever been performed; and though many ingenious commentators have exercised their skill in endeavouring to amend it, we have never been fortunate enough to meet with a proposed alteration, which would have been an improvement. Take one of Mr. Geoghegan's, for instance. His note on the word dadargous in the 22nd verse of the 17th chapter of Acts, is as follows: "This word is sometimes taken in a good sense, and sometimes in a bad one. The context and the circumstances require that we take it in the former, i. c. more

than others, attentive to religious matters; as Schleusner explains it, adding that Paul would of course use a word which could not irritate the Atheman mind; and that so he judged this fittest for that purpose, and yet to convey a tacit reproof of their superstition." Now, the fact is, that the word "superstitious," by which our translators have rendered didaus is perfectly correct. St. Paul had perceived but one solitary altar dedicated to the supreme Spirit of the Universe, while innumerable shrines arose every where around to those false deities, those dans whom the folly of paganism had placed between the Father of the world, and the adoration of his creatures. And the word conveys a rebuke to that childest folly, which had created these imaginary demigods, while the Apostle subsequently offers to explain to his hearers the nature of that mysterious being, whom they now worshipped in ignorance. "Superstition" is, perhaps, the only single word in our language, that would give the force of the original-superstition literally implies that slavish fear which casts down the human mind in prostrate subjection to imaginary terror; whether it be the fear of the hobgoblin of modern ignorance; or of the more poetic Demon the Neptune or the Mercury of the mythology of the Greeks.

This however, although it be an error, does not interfere with the usefulness of Mr. Geoghegan's booka book which we heartily recommend as one of the most useful that has for some time issued from the press. Our observations, indeed, on the practice to which we have alluded, have not been so much directed against the few instances of it which occur in the volume before us, where it is comparatively, if not altogether, innoxious, as against the introduction of it into the pulpit, where we have heard crude and at best unnecessary emendations of the authorized version of the Holy Scriptures, proposed by men whom, as ministers, we cannot but respect. But surely before a general congregation, all such displays of erudite ingenuity, may indeed shew off the critical acumen of the preacher, but can only tend to unsettle the minds, if not disturb the faith of those among their hearers, whose want of classical knowledge obliges them to take the authorized version upon trust.