nounced, and destroyed them with almost sacrilegious wan tonness. * The Grecian orders came into favour and were adopted in the very few churches which were afterwards erected. This taste had been already established in Italy, where the finest models of antiquity yet existed, and were imitated by the great masters which flourished at that period under the patronage of the Medicean popes and their successors. Such is the capriciousness of taste that the antient orders were soon exclusively commended by ail who pretended to science; the Gothic buildings not only ceased to be imitated, but they were regarded as the cumbersome works of unlettered barbarians without rule or principle, and were soon generally despised. It was not till lately that a more free judgement in these matters has arisen among us. Thomas Warton in a note on the fourth book of Spenser's Fairy Queen, first awakened the public attention to the principles and history of Gothic architecture. Since his time, Bentham, Milner, Hawkins, Whittington, and several ingenious artists who contribute to the Gentleman's Magazine, and many others of great taste and science, have developed its rules and disclosed its beauties. Buckler and Nash, by whose pencil the work before us is beautifully illustrated, and other skilful draughtsmen have actually pourtrayed its finest specimens. The society of Antiquaries, and the learned contributors to the Archæologia, have restored it to merited celebrity. The late Mr. Wyatt did much for its practical restoration. In this revival of the English school, many of the antient cathedrals have been renovated. That noble specimen of its elaborate perfection, the chapel of King Henry VII. is in a course of complete renovation at the expence of the nation. If there should be occasion in this great metropolis to raise another magnificent edifice in honour of our national religion, we may hope that the style of our forefathers will be preferred, and London be enriched with a grand modern instance of the gothic architecture. Much as we admire the Grecian orders which command our attention not only for their beautiful proportions, "For the ornaments with which they are embellished, for the. magnificence with which they are executed, for the purposes of elegance they were intended to serve, and the scenes of grandeur they were destined to adorn, but because they derive their origin *It was the justification of Knox, for the violences which he recommended from his pulpit, that if one would drive away the rooks, the rookeries must be pulled down. from from those times, and were the ornaments of those countries which are hallowed in our imaginations, and it is difficult for us to see them even in our modern copies without feeling them operate upon our minds as relics of those polished nations where they first arose, and of that greater people by whom they were afterwards borrowed." * Much more may we boast of those elaborate specimens of what we fondly term our English architecture with which our island is enriched, and with which our earlier kings decorated their continental states. These too are sanctified by their antiquity. We behold in them also, magnificence of design, sublimity of imagination, ornaments profusely but judiciously disposed in subserviency to the general plan, and the whole intended for those solemn purposes which possess the mind most fully with the awful and the grand. They are moreover the works of our forefathers, of those who raised the system of our national preeminence and our English church. We cherish a reverential admiration of their works and actions as the main-spring of our civic duties. With this sentiment we congratulate the public on every new literary production calculated to enlighten and direct their judgement on this favourite subject. The work under our conside ration is an historical account of the Church of Salisbury, the first and only instance in England of the pure and unmixed Gothic, which never was defaced by any intermixture with an earlier or later style than that selected in the chaste and elegant conception of the original founder. This work as well for the industry and talent with which it is compiled, the simplicity and correctness of its language, and the beauty of its typography, as for the fine engravings with which it is decorated, and which really present the whole and every part of the noble fabric to the eye of the amateur is in every respect worthy of its subject. It will be esteemed a treasure by the lovers of the English architecture. The author commences his narrative by a concise biographical account of all the Bishops of the See, those of Sherborne, of Wilton, of old Sarum, and of the present Cathedral, down to the venerable Prelate who now presides in that Diocese. These sketches of personal history, when not protracted to unreasonable bulk, are exceedingly entertaining, and very often contribute to elucidate the abstruser points of more general history. In this brief collection, we may distinguish the lives of Asser, Bishop of Sherborne; of Osmund, who translated the See to Old Sarum; of Roger, his successor, who asserted against King Ste * Allison on Taste, phen, phen, the perfect independence of his order; of Joceline, who supported the royal prerogative against Thomas a Becket in the next reign; of Jewel, pre-eminent for learning and piety, under Queen Elizabeth, a successful labourer in the great work of the Reformation; of Gilbert Burnet, a favourite of King William; and lastly, of that ornament to the literature of the present reign, and a mighty defender of religious truth against the modern unbelievers, the late John Douglas, the immediate predecessor of the present Bishop. The account of the undertaking, and the progress of the Cathedral, and of the new city which arose around it, in the valley not far distant from the deserted fortress of Old Sarum, is highly interesting. It is drawn from authentic documents, and contains the history of that transaction by William de Wandu, now first published. This part of the work imparts to the classical mind the anxious feelings of the Trojan princes, when they surveyed the wonders of the rising Carthage. "Jamque ascendebant collem qui plurimus urbi Imminet, adversasque aspectat desuper arces." The author has communicated to us, in his third chapter, a very curious illustration of a religious custom of our ancestors, and of the prodigious influence on the Clergy in the times of Popery. After surmounting many difficulties, it had been determined by all the Chapter to obtain the papal sanction for the canonization of Osmund, the founder of the new Cathedral. "This created a general and lively interest, as is evident from the applications which were immediately made by personages of high rank to be admitted into what was called the confraternity of the Church. In December 1389, John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, came to Salisbury; and with Constance, his wife, Henry, Earl of Derby, their son, afterwards King Henry the fourth, and many of their noble attendants, obtained this privilege. In March 1395, Edward, Earl of Rutland, was fraternised in a full Chapter. In 1404, the same favour was conferred on Louis, the Pope's nuncio. In 1406, on John, Earl of Somerset. In 1408, on Henry, Prince of Wales, afterwards King Henry the fifth, his brother, Duke Humphrey, and several of their followers. In 1410, on Joanna, the Queen, of Henry the fourth, with many of her ladies and gentlemen. In 1413, on Walter Hungerford, Knight; on Joanna, Countess of Westmoreland, Richard Neville, her son, and Alicia Montague, his wife. In 1417, on the Lady Matilda Lovell. In 1418, on Thomas, Duke of Exeter. In 1421, on Henry, Bishop of Winchester. In 1424, on Eleanor, Countess of Saint Amand. In 1427, on Thomas Montacute, Earl of Salisbury. In 1430, on John Stourton, Knight; and doubtless on many more, whose names are now lost. The advantages which this privilege was was supposed to convey, may be estimated from the forms of admission. The candidate, or some person accredited in his behalf, appeared in the Chapter-house, and preferred his demand prostrate. Admission being given by a regular vote, the suppliant was addressed in the following words by the Dean, or received the formulary engrossed on parchment. In the name of God. Amen. We the Dean and Chapter of the Cathedral Church of Sarum, with the assent and consent of our brotherhood, rece ve you into our Confraternity. We will and grant that you participate, as well in life as in death, in all the masses, prayers, preaching, vigils, and every other meritorious work which may be performed by us and our brotherhood, the Canons, Vicars, and other members of this Church and its dependences. The candidate then rose, returned thanks, and respectfully saluted the Dean and Canons." We do not recollect any notice of this custom and ceremony in any previous work of ecclesiastical history. It is an additional proof of the mummeries practised in the corrupt state of the Roman Catholic Church. We deprecate the vanity and illusion which led to such prostration of the laity before the altars of superstition; but we cannot suppress our wishes, that in these times, when the Church is weeded of its follies, and is under the government of the temporal sovereign, but is still assailed on every side by powerful adversaries, our great men would fraternize with her ministers, and perceive that their ho nour and interests are identical. We venture to recommend this publication to those who colleet splendid books, with rich and valuable decorations: to the lovers of ecclesiastical antiquities: to the patrons of the fine arts; and to those who are pleased with topographical histories, in which much curious matter is involved. In the execution of the work, there is much most unequivocally to commend, and nothing to offend the most fastidious critic. ART. IV. Comparative View of the Churches of England and Rome. By Herbert Marsh, D. D. F. R. S. Margaret Professor of Divinity in the University of Cambridge. Svo, pp. 250. 75 6d. Cambridge, Deighton. London, Rivingtons. 1814. IT is scarcely credible to how many monstrous positions that spirit of religious amalgamation which under the specious name of liberality, deludes the present age, has given birth. Among other modest declarations of the same nature, it has been gravely + asserted, asserted, that between the Churches of England and of Rome, no material character of distinction exists; or in other words, that no reason can be drawn from the internal structure of the two, why they should not be united as the joint religion of the state. Still more incredible it is, with how much complacency this position has been admitted by those, who by the united suffrages both of themselves and of their admirers, are ranked as the illuminati and oracles of the day. That those who feel a decided repugnance to all religions in general, should be unwilling to enter upon the doctrinal distinctions of any in particular is by no means extraordinary; but that those who profess themselves calculators and economists upon these points, should overlook the political consequences which history has uniformly shewn to have resulted from such distinctions, can be attributed only to ignorance or to fraud. They have either from a long indulgence in the abstractions of political theories deluded their own senses; or from a consciousness of the powers of such a spell, they have practised it upon the credulity of others. Some attempts have also been made upon the part of the more moderate clergy among the English Catholics to conceal those differences which they know to exist, and to throw a temporary ambiguity over that barrier line, which must for ever separate the confines of the two churches, and above all by general professions of personal moderation to withdraw from a particular review the intolerant dogmas of their church. Now even allowing, as we are in candour disposed to allow, that such individuals are sincere in their personal and private charity, we cannot suppose them to assert, either that they speak the language of their brethren, or that their declarations are in conformity with the canons of that Church which they are ex professo bound to obey. Not an iota of her primary and discriminating principles has been abandoned, no canon of her councils has been abrogated, no feature, even among the sternest lineaments of her despotism, has been effaced. The few opportunities which the transient calm of the past year afforded to the Pontiff of replacing his power upon its ancient foundation, were seized with an avidity, which confounded even the staunchest advocates of the supposed mitigation and change in the genius of the Catholic religion. The united voice both of the clergy and of the laity in Ireland have proclaimed it unchangeable and unchanged and by such a declaration have afforded the best answer to the fallacies of those, who would argue from their own personal feelings to the spirit both in principle and practice of the whole Romish Church. Under the present disinclination to examine into the consti |