frequently met with, which have seldom failed of puzzling me with some enigmatical quaintness.' *

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.' †

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.'¶

One more extract from this correspondence shall suffice. It

refers to a public transaction which was recent in July 1790, 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.*

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 'dreamed of in the philosophy' of ancient Greece or Rome. Having already laid his 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, as far as practicable, in their chronological order :-Irenæus, Origen, Hippolytus, Clemens Alexandrinus, Eusebius, Epiphanius, Didymus, among the Greeks: Tertullian, Cyprian, Optatus, Jerome, Augustine, among the Latins.

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 alluded to the fate his inscription had experienced.

He

He was ordained deacon at Park Street Chapel, Grosvenor Square, by Philip, Bishop of Norwich, December 21st, 1777.

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 periodindeed, 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 earlier 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.'

The following is his note on 1 St. John v. 6: 'di' údaтos Kaì aiμaros. 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. 16: · ἔστιν ἁμαρτία πρὸς θάνατον. Fortasse designatur peccatum de quo Dominus noster in evangelio pronuntiat.' On St. Luke i. 32, he writes: 'Ostenditur his verbis Maria ex Judæ tribu orta.' On v. 23: Tí éσTIV EÙкоπάτEрov, &c. Sensus verborum est, rí ἐστιν,

ἐστιν, &c. An facilius est dicere, &c.' On ix. 27: 'ews âv iswoi Thy Bacinelav Toû Beoû. Vidend. annon istud de sequentibus exponendum sit. Confer comm. 26 et 32.' On xiii. 11: • πνεῦμα ἀσθενείας. Confer Marc. 9, 17, ἔχοντα πνεῦμα ἄλαλον. Hujus capitis comm. 16. Satanæ attribuit infirmitatem mulieris ipse Domimus, ac similiter alibi.' On St. Mark xv. 21: Tòv πατέρα Αλεξάνδρου καὶ Ρούφου. Christianorum, ut verisimile est, quod dignum notatu est. Conf. de Rufo, Rom. xvi. 13.'

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 ἐλθὼν ἆρα εὑρήσει τὴν πίστιν ἐπὶ Tŷs yns (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-‘TOÙS TWλOÛνTAS. Væ vadentibus!' In truth, his 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, 'ådeλpòs dè 'lakóßov Kai 'Iwon. Constat ex cap. xv. com. 39 filios hos extitisse alius Mariæ, non τῆς θεοτόκου. And on 1 Cor. xv. 29, 6 τί καὶ βαπτίζονται, &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 Wolfio in Itinerario [1839], p. 186. Humiliter, super asinos sedent.' And against St. John v. 17, “ ὁ πατήρ μου ἐργάζεται. Relegat nos ad Justin. M. Dial. cum Tryphone, § 23. D'Israeli, Commentaries on _Ch. i. [1830], vol. iii. p. 340.' . . . These specimens of the President's private Annotations on the N. T. may suffice.

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

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 well-meant piety offered to stand in the gap. At this critical juncture, Mr. Routh was invited by Bishop Thurlow to a party at his house in London, where he met Dr. Cooper, President of the Theological College at New York, and a friend of Seabury, who was then seeking consecration. He succeeded in impressing Dr. Cooper with the fact (well understood now, but then not so clear) that the Danish succession was invalid. Speaking of this incident of his youth some sixty years after,—' I ventured to say, sir, that they would not find what they wanted.' Bishop Lowth, who happened to be present, confirmed his statement; and Seabury, in consequence, acting on the sagacious counsel of Mr. Routh, applied to the Scottish Church, whose orders are unimpeachable, and was consecrated soon after. A great separation was thus providentially averted by the counsel of a wise and thoughtful man. The spark became a flame, which has kindled beacon-fires throughout the length and breadth of the vast American continent; and, at the end of well-nigh a century of years, the churches 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