entitled to particular consideration, and possesses great advantages over many interpretations that have been given of the obscure phrases in question; it is consistent in its several parts, and is perhaps liable to no weightier objection than the ironical character which it assumes as being the quality of the advice. The passage to which we refer is chap. vii. verses 16th and 17th. Be not righteous over much; neither make thyself, overwise: why shouldest thou destroy thyself? Be not overmuch wicked, neither be thou foolish: why shouldest thou die before thy time?"

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Th whole passage seems to be an instance of serious and impres sive irony; of which the subject is, the line of conduct most prudent to be pursued, supposing the end in view to be the securing of favour, honour, and prosperity in the world. Thus :-" There is a just man that perisheth in his righteousness, and there is a wicked man that prolongeth his life in his wickedness." If, therefore, you wish to avoid the enmity of the world, with its mischievous and sometimes deadly consequences, and to ensure favour, success, honour, and long life,—“ be not righteous overmuch :”—remember that religion is a matter, in which men, in general, are particularly fond of moderation; and beware of assuming an appearance of sanctity greater than the world is disposed to approve of, or to bear with. "Neither make thyself overwise; why shouldest thou destroy thyself?" Recollect, that the same feelings of envy and malignant jealousy may be excited, as they very often have been, by high degrees of superior intelligence and wisdom. Be not obtrusive, therefore, with your eminent endowments. Deal prudently. Be cautious of exasperating the jealous pride of others. Besides the risks that arise from envy, such qualities may bring you often into the critical situation of an arbitrator; in which you must unavoidably expose yourself to the resentment of one or other of the parties, and possibly even of both. And from various other sources, danger may arise to you. But, at the same time, beware. Similar effects may be produced by opposite causes. Although men do not like overmuch religion, you must be on your guard, on the other hand, against the extreme of wickedness;-"Be not overmuch wicked." You will expose yourself to suspicion and hatred, as a dangerous member of society: men will become your enemies from fear, and will think they confer a benefit on the community, by making riddance of you: nay, in the excess of riotous and unbridled profligacy, you may be betrayed into deeds which may awaken the vengeance of human laws, and bring you to an untimely end. Let prudent consideration, then, set bounds to your licentiousness:-" Neither be thou foolish, why shouldest thou die before thy time?" As there are hazards attending high pretensions to wisdom, so are there risks peculiar to folly. The absolute fool becomes the object of contempt. His life is hardly thought worth an effort, far less a sacrifice, for its preservation. The fool is easily made the tool and the dupe of a party; exposing himself to be the prey of virulent enemies, or of selfish pretended friends. Folly leads a man into innume VOL. XVIII. N.S.

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rable scrapes. It may induce him heedlessly to mix with wicked associates, and may thus, as has many a time happened, occasion his suffering for crimes, in the perpetration of which he had no active hand, and which, fool as he is, he would shrink from committing. And in numberless ways he may come, by his folly, to" die before his time." If, therefore, I repeat, your object be to shun the world's enmity, with its possible and probable effects, and to secure the world's favour, with its desirable accompaniments and consequences, take care of these extremes :—as "there is a just (man) that perisheth in his righteousness,—be not righteous overmuch, neither make thyself overwise; why shouldst thou destroy thyself?"-and though "a wicked (man)" may; and sometimes does, 66 prolong (his life) in his wickedness," yet "be not overmuch wicked, neither be thou foolish; why shouldst thou die before thy time?" Vol. II. pp. 7-10.

All moral description should be a mirror into which men might look for the exact resemblance of themselves. In the representation of the counterpart of the "wise man," (Lecture xx.) many might detect their own likeness.

'We cannot wonder that the fool's words should be represented as thus hazardous to himself as well as to others, when we consider the description of them in the thirteenth verse (chap. x.):-" The beginning of the words of his mouth (is) foolishness; and the end of his talk is mischievous madness."-When he speaks at all he speaks foolishly; and commencing in folly, he concludes in madness: he either works himself up to a pitch of frenzy by the very power of eager and continued vociferation, fretting and fuming with ridiculous and extravagant passion, at phantoms possibly of his own creation, which his wild and incoherent mind has embodied into reality, and, by dwelling upon them and talking of them, has aggravated to a hideous magnitude :-or, if he happens to meet with the smallest check or contradiction,-if he is not listened to with the attention to which he deems such an oracle entitled,if his hearer does not appear to feel along with him to the full extent to which he absurdly feels himself;-he is instantly on fire, all blaze, and smoke, and noise; he is thrown more and more off his guard; till his passion becomes "mischievous madness," perilous to all within his reach, and whom he has power to injure, and not less perilous to himself. Were it not for the harm which such a combustible talker, in his moments of inflammation, may occasion, along with the pain produced by the humiliating spectacle of a fellow-man exposing himself as the wretched dupe of his own imbecility and senseless passion, he might well be laughed at for the ludicrous incongruity between his feelings and their exciting causes, between his endless and overpowering talk, and the subjects of his voluble vehemence.-The character is in this verse shortly but strikingly touched. It is far from being uncommon. And there are few more dangerous, or more difficult to manage.'

Vol. II. pp. 201-202• We entirely agree with Dr. Wardlaw, that the common inter

pretation of chap. xii. 3-7, is the most probable; and we have perused with much interest and pleasure his explanation of those striking and highly figurative passages. They have never before been so naturally and excellently elucidated, and so admirably harmonised. We should not be doing any service by extracting for the use of our readers detached portions of this connected explanatory lecture, which they can peruse with advantage only in the Author's pages. One paragraph, however, we may transfer from the concluding remarks of the Lecturer.

Of all the periods and events of life, the concluding scene is the one of deepest interest to the person himself, and to surviving spectators. Various are the ways in which it comes, and various the aspects it presents; but in all it is solemn. What can be more so, than the approach of that moment, which, to the dying man, is the boundary between time and eternity! which concludes the one, and commences the other; which terminates all his interests in this world, and fixes his condition for a never-ending existence in the world unknown !---What can be more so, than those moments of silent and indescribable anxiety, when the last sands of the numbered hour are running; when the beat of the heart has become too languid to be felt at the extremities of the frame; when the cold hand returns not the gentle pressure; when the restless limbs lie still and motionless; when the eye is fixed, and the ear turns no more toward the voice of consoling kindness; when the breath, before oppressive and laborious, becomes feebler and feebler, till it dies slowly away, and to the listening ear there is no sound amidst the breathless silence, nor to the arrested eye, that watches with the unmoving look of thrilling solicitude for the last symptom of remaining life, is motion longer perceptible;—when surrounding friends continue to speak in whispers, and to step through the chamber on the tiptoe of cautious quietness, as if still fearful of disturbing him—whom the noise of a thousand thunders could not now startle,-who has fallen on that last sleep, from which nothing shall rouse but "the voice of the archangel, and the trump of God."

Such a passage as this should not have been repeated, as we find it is in the discourse appended to this volume, which was preached on the occasion of the decease of the Author's father. To the merits of these volumes no further testimony can be necessary.

Art. V. Memoirs and Select Remains of an Only Son, who died · Nov. 27, 1821, in his nineteenth Year. By Thomas Durant, Poole, Dorset. 2 vols. 12mo. pp. x, 554. Price 10s. 6d. Poole. 1822.

THERE can be, we think, but one opinion respecting the very brilliant promise of intellectual and moral excellence

displayed in the Remains of this much lamented young man. To natural abilities above mediocrity, he united qualities of mind as rare as they are valuable. The soundness and vigour of his judgement were far above his years, while the variety and extent of his attainments gave witness to his unwearied industry. There was a maturity in his whole mental character, essentially different from the precocity of genius which has so often proved a fatal though brilliant endowment ;--a manliness united with a simplicity of mind, which afforded the surest indication of future eminence. The clearness of his conceptions,' says Professor Mylne,

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the precision of his language, and the closeness and accuracy of his reasoning his candour in comparing and estimating different philosophical doctrines; his caution in forming opinions; his moderation and temper in stating and defending them; and the mild but decisive firmness with which he maintained them, when he felt their evidence to be satisfactory, and their consequences important; appeared to me clear indications of an intellect which had not only been naturally endowed with great acuteness and perspicuity, but which also had already reached to no common degree of eminence in steadiness, coolness, mildness, and other qualities, which we scarcely expect to find except in those whose powers have been matured, whose principles have been fixed, by lives spent, not merely in the pursuits of science, but in the cultivation of practical wisdom."

The force and beauty of his example lie, however, in the distinguishing sweetness of his disposition, his open and amiable temper, his inflexible love of truth, united to great candour, and, which was at once the basis and the crown of all, his fervent piety. Excellent and engaging as this portrait appears,' says Dr. Wardlaw, in his funeral Sermon for Mr. Durant, it is ⚫ not yet finished.

It wants a principal feature: or rather, I should say, it wants that animating soul, that living and vivifying principle, that ‘vital spark of heavenly flame,' which imparted to the whole at once its energy and its loveliness, its finest expression both of attractive grace and of commanding dignity. I need hardly say that I mean Religion. I have no hesitation in adding this to the intellectual and moral qualities that have already been enumerated. Yes: the splendour of science was, in him, united with the mild and holy radiance of sincere piety; not the sentimental piety of poetry and romance, but the intelligent devotion of examined and settled principle. He was a firm believer in divine revelation: and his was not a mind that could ever be satisfied with a belief, resting on mere educational prejudice and prepossession. True; he had been brought up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. He had seen religion under its most inviting aspects*** and why should not this have contributed to produce the early impres

sion, and to settle the matured and permanent conviction of its reality and its excellence? Such manifestations of its influence form a part of the legitimate and conclusive evidences of its truth. But his convictions did not rest on this ground alone. The truth of the gospel was a question, of which he felt the infinite importance, and which he was early encouraged to examine. He gave all his mind, with becoming seriousness, to the inquiry; he weighed proofs; he considered objections; he searched the scriptures-for himself. His faith was thus founded in evidence, and established by his own experience of the power of those motives to godliness, which the gospel presents to the mind. Amidst the temptations of youth, and especially the fascinating seductions of "the honour that cometh from men," he maintained a steady and dignified consistency; he was capable, I am well persuaded, of no unworthy compromise, of no timid sacrifice of principle, no self-interested or unmanly acquiescence in what he conceived to be erroneous in sentiment, or vicious in conduct. He did not obtrude his principles, but he never shrunk from their avowal. Those who knew him best, his associates and competitors in study, will bear me witness, that he had nothing about him of the cant of religion. He made no high and forward pretensions; no effort to appear more than he actually was. He was serious on serious subjects, and would never bear to hear them treated with levity. But he was cheerful and open as the day. He entered, with a characteristic vivacity, into every thing connected with the business either of his class, or of the University. Whatever approached to hypocritical affectation or disingenuousness, he held in unqualified abhorrence; and on no subject was his abhorrence more indignant, than on the subject of religion, of which humble sincerity is the first and most essential attribute.'

Whatever young Durant owed to his natural endowments, it is quite evident that his character was formed by education, and that to the wise and assiduous lessons of his parents he was chiefly indebted for the superiority which he so early manifested. On this account, the minute details into which his father has been careful to enter, cannot be considered as uninteresting or unimportant. They may not always be thought worth telling, in a biographical point of view, but they are highly valuable as hints on education. As young Durant was, up to his fifteenth year, brought up at home, it was particularly desirable to shew the success of a plan of education which is supposed to lie open to serious objections. Mr. Durant apologizes for having gone back almost to the nursery in giving the history of his son's progress. The Christian parent will thank him for having done so, and for having risked being charged with egotism in disclosing the secrets of his family arrangements. We can have no doubt that the first five or six years of his son's life had a great share in determining his character. If a child's education is not commenced almost as soon as he is born, there will always be much to undo; and the task of be