of puzzling me with some enigmatical quaint- | transaction which was recent in July, 1790, ness. ' * Next year, Peter Routh writes : 'Your acquaintance with the Fathers is leaving me far behind; and I am apprehensive of not being qualified to talk with you about them when we meet. By the way, Sam has given me some little hope of seeing you in a wig, which I look forward to as the breaking of a spell which has counteracted most of your purposes of exertion, excursion, and amusement.'t Occasionally the old man indulges in a little pleasantry, and many a passage proves that he was by no means deficient in genuine humour. One of his daughters (Polly') was qualifying herself to undertake a school. After explaining the young lady's aspirations, he suddenly breaks off : 'But I think it is not impossible, from the rapid steps taken by our present maccaroni towards working a confusion in the sexes, that if you should ever choose to be a schoolmaster yourself, you may want her assistance to finish the education of your boys by giving them a taste, and a dexterity upon occasion, for tambour-work and embroidery.' It is, however, when he is communicating to his son some piece of local intelligence, entertaining him with the doings of some familiar friend of his early days, that Peter Routh's wit flows most freely : 'Last Tuesday, Mr. Elmy derived immensity of happiness from the apotheosis of his daughter. Lest the rite should be disgraced by inferiority in the sacrificing priest, Mr. Prebendary Wodehouse came over upon the occasion. I rather think Sam Carter is making a first attack on Miss who has lately had an addition of 2000l. to her fortune. Weddings have been very rife here for half a year past. '§ In the ensuing August (Martin being then in Warwickshire), Ought I' (asks his father) to run the hazard of spoiling your visit to Dr. Parr by transmitting Mr. Browne's report that Miss Dibdin is not there, but on the eve of marriage to a gentleman in the Commons?' || Ten years had elapsed when Peter Routh writes: If you do not exert yourself shortly, your friend Boycatt is like to get the start of you at last in the matrimonial chase.' T One more extract from this correspondence shall suffice. It refers to a public * Beccles, May 18th, 1786. Bungay, February 15th, 1796. Concerning the Rev. W. Boycatt, see the Reliquiæ,' vol. ii. p. 329. and recals two names which were still famous fifty years ago, or, as the writer would have said, ' agone' :— 'The immaculate patriots, so worthy of trust and honour, are showing themselves every day more and more in their true colours. Having gotten a substitute for their old calves'head clubs, they figure away with it to purpose. At Yarmouth (where, by the way, but for the tergiversation of Lacon, the Church candidate, they would have been foiled at the election) an anniversary feast was held, Dr. Aikin in the chair, in the national cockade. He had been till very lately looked upon as a candid moderate Dissenter; but has now vented his rancour in a pamphlet which it has been thought proper to buy in. His sister, Mrs. Barbauld, has signalized herself in like manner.' The first-fruits of Routh's studies saw the light in 1784 (the year of his Senior Proctorship), when he was twenty-nine years of age. It was a critical edition of the 'Euthydemus' and 'Gorgias' of Plato, with notes and various readings filling the last 157 pages: a model of conscientious labour and careful editorship, which will enjoy the abiding esteem of scholars. It was dedicated to Dr. Thurlow, Bishop of Lincoln and Dean of St. Paul's, brother of Lord Chancellor Thurlow, whose epitaph in the Temple church Routh wrote.* เ But though the classics were ever Routh's delight, and scholarship amounted with him. to a passion, he had long since given his heart to something nobler far than was ever Greece or Rome. Having already laid his dreamed of in the philosophy' of ancient foundations deep and strong, he proceeded to build upon them. Next to the Scriptures (to his great honour, be it said), he saw clearly from the first, notwithstanding the manifold discouragements of the age in which his lot was cast, the importance to one who would be a well-furnished divine of a familiar acquaintance with the patristic writings. Next to the Scriptures :-for, like every true master in Israel,' he was profoundly versed in them. This done, besides the Acts of the early Councils and the Ecclesiastical historians, he is found to have resolutely read through the chief of the Greek and Latin Fathers; taking them, order: Irenæus, Origen, Hippolytus, Clemas far as practicable, in their chronological ens Alexandrinus, Eusebius, Epiphanius, It is printed by Lord Campbell in his 'Lives of the Chancellors' (v. 632), but 'merendo' appears instead of 'merendi,' which provoked the old President immensely. His Scotch Latin, sir!' he exclaimed indignantly to one who al luded to the fate his inscription had experienced. 1777. 6 On Didymus, among the Greeks: Tertullian, | 16:σTIV άμарríα лроs 0άvατov. ἔστιν ἁμαρτία πρὸς θάνατον. Cyprian, Optatus, Jerome, Augustine, Fortasse designatur peccatum de quo Domamong the Latins. He was ordained deacon inus noster in evangelio pronuntiat. at Park Street Chapel, Grosvenor Square, by St. Luke i. 32, he writes: Ostenditur his Philip, Bishop of Norwich, December 21st, verbis Maria ex Judæ tribu orta.' On v. 23 : ' Τί ἐστιν ευκοπώτερον, &c. Sensus verborum est rí ¿OTIV, &c. An facilius est dicere, &c.' On ix. 27: ws äv ἴδωσι τὴν βασιλείαν τοῦ θεοῦ. Vidend. annon istud de sequentibus exponendum sit. Confer comm. 26 et 32.' On xiii. 11:пνεvμα ασ0εveías. Confer Marc. 9, 17, xovта пνενμа άλalov. Hujus capitis comm. 16. Satanæ attribuit infirmitatem mulieris ipse Dominus, ac similiter alibi.' On St. Mark xv. 21: ToV πατέρα 'Αλεξάνδρου καὶ Ρούφου. Christianorum, ut verisimile est, quod dignum notatu est. Conf. de Rufo, Rom. xvi. 13.' The nature and extent of his patristic reading at this time may be inferred with sufficient accuracy from a mere inspection of his MS. notes in a little interleaved copy of the N. T. (Amsterdam, 1639); into the frequent blank pages of which it is evident that he had been in the habit, from a very early period-indeed, he retained the habit to the end of his life-of inserting references to places in the writings of the Fathers where he met with anything unusually apposite in illustration of any particular text. On the fly-leaf of the first volume of this book (for it had been found necessary to bind the volume into two) is found the following memorandum, which (as the writing shows) must have been made quite late in life : • Quæ in sequentibus quasi meo Marte interpretatus sum, ea inter legendum libros sacros a me scripta sunt, raro adhibitis ad consilium interpretibus recentioribus, qui meliora fortasse docuissent.'-M. J. R. 'At vero initio cœptis his adnotationibus, et per longum tempus, meum judicium iis interponere haud consuevi; dum quidquid mihi auctores veteres legenti ad illustrandam S. Scripturam faciens occurreret, illud hic indicare volebam.' The foregoing statement as to what had been his own actual practice is fully borne out by the contents of these interesting little tomes, where all the carlier notes consist of references to the Fathers, followed occasionally by brief excerpts from their writings. In a later hand are found expressions of the writer's individual opinion; while the latest annotations of all, or among the latest, are little more than references to Scripture. These last are often written in a hand rendered tremulous by age. A few specimens will not perhaps be unwelcome. When a young man, he had written against St. Mark xiii. 32, Vid. Irenæ. L. 2, c. 28, p. 158, ed. Massueti. Exponere conatus est Didymus, L. 3, De Trin. c. 22, et Tertull. adv. Praxeam, c. 26.' Long after he added, Non est inter ea, quæ ostendit Filio Pater, ut hominibus significet, diei illius cognitio. Confer S. Joan. v. 19, 20, et cap. xiv. 28, et xv. 15, et xvi. 13, et Act. i. 7.' เ The following is his note on 1 St. John ν. 6 : ' δι' ὕδατος καὶ αἵματος. Deus et Homo. Vid. Reliq. Sacr. vol. i. p. 170, et p. 171, de hoc et commatibus sequentibus. Interpretatio eorum impediri mihi videtur accessionibus Latinis.' And on ver. 6 21 In truth, his But the most interesting of his annotations are perhaps the shortest; as when, over against St. Luke xviii. 8, is written: · πλὴν ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου ελθών ἆρα εὑρήσει τὴν πίστιν ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς (the old man had taken the trouble to transcribe the Greek in a trembling hand, in order to introduce the pious ejaculation which follows). Concedat hoc Deus.' With the same pregnant brevity, his note on St. Matth. xxv. 9, is but- TOUS AWAouvτas. Væ vadentibus!' suggestive way of merely calling attention. to a difficulty is often as good as a commentary; as when (of 1 Cor. xv. 23-25) he says,Quomodo exponi debent verba Apostoli, disquirendum. Even more remarkably, when he points out concerning St. Luke xi. 5, Quæ sequuntur Domini effata usque ad comm. 13 maxima observatione digna sunt.' Sometimes his notes are strictly critical, as when against St. James iv. 5 he writes, Difficillime credendum est, Apostolum non attulisse verba alicujus scriptoris incomperti.' His translation of St. Luke vi. 40, is as follows: Discipulus non superat magistrum; sed, si omni parte perfectus sit, magistri æqualis erit. On St. Mark vi. 3, he says, adɛλφὸς δὲ Ἰακώβου καὶ Ἰωσή. Constat ex cap. xv. com. 39 filios hos extitisse alius Mariæ, non τns Oεоτоónov.' And on 1 Cor. xv. 29, τí nai Banτičovτai, &c. Mos fuisse videtur ut multi baptizarentur in gratiam Christianorum jam defunctorum qui sine baptismo decessissent, ut vicaria tinctione donati ad novam vitam resurgerent.' Rare, indeed, are references to recent authorities and modern books; but they are met with sometimes. Thus against St. Matthew, xxi. 7, he writes: His quoque temporibus super asinos vecti iter faciunt pauperes Palæstini, referente Josepho | peachable, and was consecrated soon after. Wolfio in Itinerario [1839], p. 186. Hu- A great separation was thus providentially militer, super asinos sedent.' And against averted by the counsel of a wise and St. John v. 17, 'ó пατýρ μον έрy άčeraι. thoughtful man. The spark became a Relegat nos ad Justin. M. Dial. cum Try- flame, which has kindled beacon-fires phone, § 23. D'Israeli, Commentaries on throughout the length and breadth of the Ch. i. [1830], vol. iii. p. 340.' vast American continent; and, at the end These specimens of the President's private of well-nigh a century of years, the Churches Annotations on the N. T. may suffice. of England and America flourish with independent life and in full communion. In every notice which has hitherto appeared of Dr. Routh, an unreasonable space is occupied by his friendship with Dr. Samuel Parr, who was an enthusiastic (and of course a grandiloquent) admirer of the future President of Magdalen. Faithful to the friend of early life until the time of Parr's death in 1823, Routh must yet have shrunk from his adulation; must have despised his vanity, disliked his egotism, been annoyed by his pedantry. He complained (not without reason) that he was scarcely able to decipher Parr's letters. John Rigaud expressed a wish to have one (as he collected autographs), and was at once promised a specimen. I have a good many of his letters, sir; I haven't read them all yet myself! To the present writer Routh once remarked that his inscriptions were to be traced to the pages of Morcellus. But he provided a shelter for Parr's books (they were piled in boxes under the principal gateway of the college), when the Birmingham rioters threatened to burn his library at Hatton, and often entertained him in his lodgings at Magdalen. His dinnertable to the last retained marks of the burning ashes of Parr's pipe. In 1782, being then only in his 28th year, it became Routh's singular privilege to direct the envoys of the American Church to a right quarter for the creation of a native Episcopate. Incredible as it may seem to us of the present day, who witness constantly the creation of new colonial sees, it is a fact that for nearly two centuries our American colonies were left without a native channel of ordination. From the settlement of the first American colony in 1607 to the consecration of Bishop Seabury in 1784, or rather until on his return in 1785, all clergy of the Anglican communion who ministered in America were either missionaries, or had been forced to cross the Atlantic twice, if not four times, for orders. The difficulties which attended the just demand of the American Church for a native Episcopate grew out of the political troubles of those times. Because episcopacy was identified with the system of monarchical government, its introduction was resisted by a large party among the Americans themselves, who dreaded (clergy and laity alike) lest it should prove an instrument for riveting the yoke of a foreign dominion. On the other hand, the English bishops, hampered by Acts of Parliament, were constrained to exact oaths from candidates for consecration inconsistent with the duties of American citizenship. While these embarrassments were severing the Church of England from the colony, the Danish Church, which had only Presbyterian orders to offer, with wellmeant piety offered to stand in the gap. At this critical juncture, Mr. Routh was invited by Bishop Thurlow to a party at his We are apt to forget that this was a house in London, where he met Dr. period (1775-1788) when a great stirring in Cooper, President of the Theological Col- sacred science was certainly going on, both lege at New York, and a friend of Seabury, at home and abroad. Griesbach's first who was then seeking consecration. He edition of the New Testament (1775) marks succeeded in impressing Dr. Cooper with the commencement of a new era. The the fact (well understood now, but then not great work of Gallandius was completed in so clear) that the Danish succession was in- 1781. In 1786, codex A' was published valid. Speaking of this incident of his by Woide, and Alter's Greek Testament youth some sixty years after, I ventured appeared. Birch's Collations' saw the to say, sir, that they would not find what light in 1788, and C. F. Matthæi, in the same they wanted.' Bishop Lowth, who happened year, put forth the last two volumes of his to be present, confirmed his statement; own edition of the Greek Testament. The and Seabury, in consequence, acting on the Philoxenian version also was then first pubsagacious counsel of Mr. Routh, applied to lished, and Adler, in the next year, pubthe Scottish Church, whose orders are unim-lished his collations of the Syriac text. In Porson, another of his guests, shared his kindness in a substantial form; for the President in 1792, with Dr. Parr, raised a subscription for providing him an annuity. In 1794, Routh did the same kind office for Dr. Parr himself, with the assistance of Mr. Kett and Dr. Maltby, raising for him a subscription of 3007. a year. teresting it is to have to record that at this very time we first hear of Routh also as a student of divinity. The following paper (dated 1788) seems to have been drawn up in the prospect of death : 'I request that after my decease all the letters and papers of whatever kind in my possession be burnt by my brother Samuel and my friend Mr. John Hind, excepting my "Collectanea," in three volumes, from the Fathers, on various subjects; my collections from the H. Scripture and the Fathers on the Divinity of the Holy Ghost; the papers relating to a projected edition of the remains and fragments of those Ante-Nicene Fathers who have never been separately published; and finally, an interleaved copy of my Plato, wherein the Addenda are digested in their proper order amongst the notes. These papers and books, with my other property of whatever nature, I leave to the sole disposal of my Father, at the same time requesting him, if any overplus remain after paying my debts, to present the following books to the following mentioned persons :-To the present Lord Bishop of Durham, "Lord Clarendon's Life and continuation of his History." To Edw. Thurlow, Esq., Bishop Pearson on the Creed." To Granville Penn, Esq., "Ernesti's edition of Livy." To the Rev. George Hirst, "Forster's Hebrew Bible." To the Rev. John Hind, "Grotius's comment on the Old and New Testament," and "Fell's edition of St. Cyprian." 66 6 But it is time to call attention to the prospectus which Routh put forth in the same year (1788) of the work by which he will be chiefly remembered; the completion of which proved the solace of his age, as the preparation of it had been the delight of his maturity, namely, the ' Reliquiæ Sacræ ;' the first two volumes of which appeared in 1814. In the Preface he explains that this undertaking, though discontinued about the year 1790, had never been for an instant abandoned; though it was not till 1805 that he was able deliberately to resume his self-imposed task. The object of the work was to bring together and to present, carefully edited, the precious remains of those Fathers of the second and third centuries of our era, of whose writings nothing but the merest fragments survive, and whose very names in many instances have only not died out of the Church's memory. Let us hear his own account of this matter: 'While reading the ante-Nicene Fathers, I could not but linger wistfully over many an ancient writer whose scanty remains do not bear independent editorship, nor indeed have ever as yet been brought together. Inasmuch, however, as I entertain the intention of acquainting myself with the constitution, the doctrines, the customs of the primitive Church by diligent study of its own monuments, I resolved to acquaint myself with all the writings of the earliest age, and often found my of the greatest use in clearing up the difficuldetermination to overlook absolutely nothing, ties which occasionally presented themselves. At all events, systematically to neglect so many writers, recommended as they are by their piety and their learning, simply because of the very mutilated condition in which their works have come down to us, was out of the question. On the other hand, it became needful to submit to the drudgery of hunting up and down through the printed volumes of those learned men who have treated of patristic antiquity, in order to detect any scrap of genuine writing which they might happen to contain. Such a pursuit I could in fact never have undertaken had I not been residing in an University. The resources of no private library whatever would have enabled me to effect what I desired. 'While thus engaged, I was inevitably impressed with the conviction that he would render good service to the cause of sacred learning who should seriously undertake to collect together those shorter works and fragments, especially if he could be successful in bringing to light and publishing any of the former which still lie concealed in Continental libraries, besides any genuine remains contained in unedited Catene and similar collections. The labour of such an undertaking, I further anticipated, would not prove excessive if I took as my limit the epoch of the first Nicene Council. I fixed on that limit because the period is so illustrious in the annals of the Church, and because, in matters of controversy, those Fathers are chiefly appealed to who preceded that epoch. Moreover, I could not forget that alwhich an editor would have to do would be though in respect of numbers the writers with by no means small, yet in respect of bulk they would be inconsiderable indeed, one or two writers alone excepted, whose more ample remains make one wish the more that we possessed their works entire. I knew that very seldom are passages from their writings to be met with in Catena, or in other collections there were many works set down which have from the Fathers; and I did not believe that not yet seen the light. 'I hoped therefore, if I undertook to edit such a collection, that its usefulness would not be materially diminished by its bulk. I am well aware that Grabe's "Spicilegium" (which was never completed) comprises scarcely a twentieth part of what I here publish. But then, his plan was to fill his pages with thodox Fathers which often appear in a sepaapocryphal writings, and those remains of orrate form. Grabe's work is famous, and not without its own proper use. For my own part, I strictly confine myself to genuine remains, and prescribe to myself the limits of Catholic antiquity, leaving all fragments of Fathers, whose works it is customary to edit separately, to those who shall hereafter undertake to produce new editions of those Fathers' works.' Sacræ from the first. The title originally | terest: for it becomes more than ever ap. intended for the work had been-Reliquiæ parent how precious are the golden remains Sacræ sive Opuscula et Fragmenta Ecclesi- which that remarkable man freely embalmed asticorum, qui tempora Synodi Nicænæ an- in his pages. Let the truth be added-for tecedebant, et quorum scripta vel apud it is the truth-that without Eusebius there opera aliena servantur, vel cum varii generis would have scarcely been any Reliquiæ auctoribus edi solent.' But when, at the Sacræ ' for learned men to edit. Reckoning end of six-and-twenty years, the first two the patristic matter in these four volumes (exvolumes of this undertaking appeared (viz. clusive of Appendices) as covering 450 pages, in 1814), not only the Prospectus* (freely it is found that these would be further rerendered above), but the very title had un- duced to 260, if the excerpts, for which we dergone material alteration and improve- are solely indebted to Eusebius, were away : ment. The author was probably already and with the 190 pages which would thus conscious of a design to edit separately disappear would also disappear the names certain ancient Opuscula. Apart from of Quadratus, Agrippa Castor, Dionysius these, at all events, he proposed should Corinthius, Pinytus, Rhodon, Serapion, stand his Reliquiæ Sacræ sive Auctorum Apollonius, Polycrates, Maximus, Caius, fere jam perditorum secundi tertiique sæculi Alexander of Hierapolis, Phileas; besides post Christum natum, quae supersunt.' almost all that we possess of Papias, Melito, Claudius Apollinaris, and Hegesippus; together with Anonymus Presbyter, Auctor contra Cataphrygas, the account of the Martyrs of Lyons, and the famous epistle of the churches of Vienne and Lyons; besides the notice of the Concilium Cæsariense and the Concilium Lugdunense. Two additional volumes of this undertaking appeared in 1816 and 1818 respectively; and, looking upon the work then as complete, the learned editor added indices and corrections-some of which had been furnished by Dr. Parr, amicus summus, vir doctrinâ exquisitâ ornatus.' It was the President's wont in this manner to acknowledge literary kindnesses: namely, by enshrining the friend's name in a note, commonly with the addition of a discriminating epithet or some well-turned phrase; and the compliment (as many living will testify) used to be exceedingly coveted, and was regarded as no small honour. Thus, speaking of an epistle of Cyril,- Ejus autem lectiones variantes humanitati debeo viri reverendi Stephani Reay e Bibliotheca Bodleiana, cujus facilitatem, verecundiam, eruditionemque omnes agnoscunt ;'-as well-merited a compliment (be it remarked) as ever was paid to a good and guileless man. It is impossible to handle these volumes without the deepest interest. The passionate yearning which they exhibit after primitive antiquity-the strong determination to get at the teaching of the Church in her best and purest days, ere yet she had left her first love and declined from the teaching of her Founder, or had shown an inclination to corrupt the deposit :-this, added to the conscientious labour and evident selfdenial with which the learned Editor has prosecuted his self-imposed task, must command the sympathy and admiration of every one who has toiled ever so little in the same fields. To the diligent readers of the Ecclesiastical History of Eusebius, Routh's Reliquiæ' will have a peculiar in *It is reproduced in the 'Præfatio,' pp. x.-xiii. t'Opuscula,' ii. 95. What, then, constitutes the peculiar merit of the work now under consideration? Chiefly the erudition and sagacity with which whatever has been here brought together is edited. Unlike the industrious Grabe, to whom nothing came amiss that belonged to a primitive age (no matter who was its author), Dr. Routh confined his attention strictly to the undoubted remains of high Catholic antiquity. He might easily have enlarged his store from unpublished Catena, and other similar sources; but no one ever knew better than he with how much caution such excerpts are to be entertained. Whatever the President deemed open to suspicion, that he unceremoniously rejected. A remarkable illustration of his method in this respect is supplied by the latest of his publications, a tract to be described hereafter, in the course of which he edits from the Chronicon Paschale' four fragments of Petrus Alexandrinus (thus, at the end of thirty-nine years, adding ten pages to the twenty-nine he had put forth of the same Father in 1814); because he made the discovery in the last years of his life that what he had formerly suspected of being a fabrication proved, after all, to be an undoubtedly genuine fragment of the same Alexandrine Father.* *Hæc S. Petri Alexandrini Fragmenta, quæ in limine Chronici Paschalis, seu Alexandrini, sita respuerunt critici, propterea quod Athanasius aliquanto post Petrum scribens in iis afferri videbatur, nunc ego cæteris S. Petri reliquiis, sed tardus addidi ob verum titulum eorum in |