just in time to escape the execution of the most peremptory mandate for making his ship a Chinese fixture. He doubtless felt, though he has kept the thought in silence, some indignant pleasure in the idea, that the time may probably not be very remote, when the growing power of the Russian empire will be able to repay the complaisance of these two arrogant and im becile monarchies, by giving them the law. The Captain has gone at large into the internal state and policy of China, and has furnished some interesting facts and observations illustrative of the disordered and precarious state of the government.On the 9th of February, 1806, the Nadeshda and Neva sailed from Whampoa, and arrived at Cronstadt on the 19th of August, after an absence of three years and twelve days. The Nadeshda did not lose, during this circumnavigation, a single man of her crew, excepting the cook, whose health was bad at the time of leaving Russia. She lost not one yard or mast, and only two cables and one kedge anchor. All observations would be quite superfluous on these signal proofs of the ability and attention with which this enterprise was conducted.

4

Having occupied a space so very much beyond our intention, and beyond all reasonable limits, with the work of Krusenstern, and Langsdorff's first volume, we are under the absolute necessity of dismissing the Doctor's second part, the title of which stands at the head of this article, with very few words. Both his volumes together contain only about the same quantity of matter as the work of the Captain. The lively naturalist's work will be found, we presume, very considerably more entertaining to general readers than that of the very accurate and intelligent mariner, to whom it was a matter of propriety, and even duty, to record a vast number of minute nautical details, on which it may be observed once for all, that the perpetual series of observations appears to have been made with all possible accuracy, and may be perfectly relied on by any future navigator who may have need to avail himself of them.

When the ambassador Resanoff (reduced, at the departure from Japan, to Chamberlain Resanoff) tempted Dr. Langsdorff to accompany him as physician in the expedition to the northwest coast of America, it was by the lure of promised advantages for his favourite pursuit of natural history; a pursuit, however, which it appears in the sequel that the Chamberlain would do nothing at all to facilitate;-as if, having failed in his own undertaking, he was unwilling that other men should succeed in theirs.

The object of this subordinate voyage to the Aleutian islands, America, and the islands on its coast, was to examine into the

state of the whole system. of the fur-trade, and the various settlements established for carrying it on. The vessel and the crew that conveyed him from St. Peter and St. Paul on this adventure, presented a picture of filth and wretchedness hardly to be paralleled in the marine of the world, except in some instance of extraordinary disaster and distress. The Aleutian islands, with their small establishments of Promüschleniks, that is, bunters, or fur-takers, exhibited striking views of wildness, desolation, barbarism, and wretchedness. The Doctor's lively spirits sunk under an almost insupportable weight at what he beheld in the condition of the people on the land, and in the ship. The case was still worse at the principal settlement of Sitcha, the Norfolk Sound of the English, where he resided a very considerable time, and witnessed such scenes of systematic oppression, destitution, disease, and death, created by the administration of Russian government,-as we wish that our contemporary chroniclers had printed, if not for the sake of humanity, at least for the sake of poetical effect, in corresponding columns to the descriptions of the sumptuous festivities prepared as if on purpose for a contrast with whatever scene on, earth could present the extreme of want and hopeless distress.

The greatest proportion of these wretched Promüschleniks are Russians, some of them culprits, who have escaped or been expelled their country; but many are destitute or restless adventurers, who have been induced to go over to these dreary regions in the hope of obtaining, in the employments of the fur-trade, some little property, with which to return home after a few years. Rarely, however, do any of them live to return; and if this ever happens, it is with ruined, health, and in a state of as utter beggary as that which probably had impelled to the adventure.

After many adventures and some perils, on the western coast: of America, the Doctor returned to Kamtschatka, of which he has given many interesting sketches. At length he went to Ochotsk, and travelled overland to Petersburgh. We confess we think this second part of Langsdorff's travels greatly the most entertaining portion of the whole mass of writing that we have been travelling over. It abounds in lively pictures of natural scenes and modes of life, of a very wild, and striking, and romantic character. Some accessions too are supplied to natural history.

T

His two volumes contain twenty plates, including a small map and the Doctor's portrait. As most of the subjects are curious, we wish the authority had been made more complete in: all of them, by the inserted name of the delineator. Some of the drawings were by Dr. Tilesius, the official, naturalist of the expedition. The greater number of the plates are elegantly

engraved by Elizabeth and Letitia Byrne, and several by Storer..

The translator of Krusenstern says he did not consider the plates accompanying the original of the work as of sufficient value to be imitated for the English edition.

Art. III-A Brief Memorial of the Repeal of so much of the Stat. 9 & 10. WILL. III. as relates to Persons denying the Doctrine of the HOLY TRINITY: addressed to all who believe the Christian Religion to be a True Religion, and who are desirous of maintaining the Religious Institutions of their Ancestors. To which is prefixed a Demonstration of the Three Great Truths of Christianity, together with Specimens of Unitarian Rejection, of Scripture and of all Antiquity. By the Bishop of St. David's. 8vo. pp. 86 Rivingtons. Pr. 2s. 6d. 1814.

WITH deep and unfeigned grief have we read this pamphlet

of a most worthy, learned, and laborious prelate. The excellent Bishop has here presented us with some useful remarks on the Scriptures and the Fathers, in relation to the Socinian controversy: but he has dishonoured them by the unhappy mixture of a long declamation in favour of the radical principle of persecution. It cannot but excite amazement that the mind of a man of elevated station, in a protestant country, and in the nineteenth century, should be the seat of prejudices so palpable, and supported by arguments so transcendently puerile, as we find in the present instance. Such an instance is mournful, as well as surprising. We can scarcely conceive any greater advantage possible to be given to the cause of religious error, than the virtual confession of the advocates of truth, that their interests need the support of measures from which justice, humanity, and common sense, revolt. The good Bishop is not aware of the high ground which he has given to the Unitarians, nor of the actual exultation which they have manifested on the account.

By the statute 9 & 10. Will. III. he who shall deny any one of the persons of the Holy Trinity to be God,is, for the first offence, rendered incapable of any office or place of trust; and, for the second, adjudged incapable of bringing any action, being guardian or executor, purchasing land, or receiving a legacy, and to be farther punished by imprisonment for three years without bail. In Scotland the same offences were visited by a series of punishments, the last of which, inflicted for the third offence, was DEATH. By a recent act of the legislature, which passed unanimously both the houses of parliament, (the Bishop of St. David's, prah dolor! having been absent at the

time,) these laws have been repealed. His Lordship, however, has resolved to compensate for the lack of his parliamentary opposition, by proclaiming that the repeal is likely to have 'effects on the public mind very injurious to Christianity, to the 'State, and to the Established Church;' and that' THE OLD LAW OUGHT TO BE RESTORED.' P. iii. His feelings are shocked at the thought that a man may hold opinions which the Royal authority and the House of Commons (!!!) have pronounced to be impious and blasphemous, and contrary to the fundamental doctrines of the Christian religion;— subversive of Christianity, and destructive to the welfare of the State ;-and yet be admissible to places of trust in this our Christian country.' p. 67.

It would not readily have been credited, had it not been thus self-recorded, that a Lord in Parliament could appear so ignorant of the matter on which he is writing. The reiterated outery of this pamphlet is, that the obnoxious characters referred to, are rendered

'Admissible to offices and places of trust, from which they were before excluded.' (p. 69, &c.)

Now the fact is, that all such persons (unless they will com mit an act which, on their principles, is flagrantly inconsistent and even impious) are excluded from places of office and trust, along with all other Dissenters, by the Test and Corporation Acts, which are not at all affected by the late repeal. The design of the Legislature in that measure, was only to place Antitrinitarians on the same footing of toleration and security as the orthodox Dissenters, who form the large majority of those whom reasons numerous and cogent (but of which the Bishop of St. David's is so comfortably and profoundly ignorant!) compel to a peaceable and respectful separation from that sect of Christians which Acts of Parliament have vested with exclusive privileges. It is observable, however, that his Lordship dwells only on this misapprehension; and keeps quite out of sight the SOLE object of the repeal, the abolition of barbarous and cruel penalties! To increase the inconsistency, he does once glance at the Corporation and Test Acts as rendering the repeal, in some measure, inoperative.' p. 11.

Could we persuade his Lordship to lift up the veil of popish prejudice, and to look at the subject in the plain light of day, we should be happy to propose to him a very obvious question. He knows, or may easily know, that the religious sentiments uniformly supported in this work, are in accordance with the fundamental doctrines of his Church; and that no periodical publication is more decidedly opposed to the doctrines improperly styled Unitarian; but-fiat justitia. What if his complaint VOL. II. N. S. N

were no longer a chimera? What if the Test and Corporation Laws were actually repealed?-Would the Church be endangered? We readily answer, no. Our negative rests on many reasons, two of which we will mention. The apprehension of such danger could only arise, with the semblance of reason, from the circumstance of the supposed measure opening to Dissenters a share in the legislative counsels and authority of the realm; since no alteration could be effected in any, even the least part of the constitutions, canons, formularies, rights, or possessions, of the Established Church, but by the authority which created that establishment,-the authority of the Legislature. Now, i may astonish some zealous exclusionists, and possibly it may be novel information to the very worthy Bishop himself, to be assured that Protestant Dissenters now have and always have had equal access with their conforming fellow subjects, to both the Houses of Parliament. For a considerable time, both before, and subsequent to, the Revolution, several peers and some commoners were public and zealous Dissenters. They have, however, been nearly extinct in the Upper House for many years, while their number has been rather increasing in the Commons.-And what has been the character of Dissenting members of Parliament? Have they been leaders of faction, sowers of dissension and sedition, disturbers of the state, and plotters against the Church?-So far from this, or any approach to such a character, they have always been among the most respectable members, generally men of known moderation and hostile to party-extremes, and not seldom their usual seats have been on the ministerial side.

The other consideration to which we alluded is this. The operation of a repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts would be, principally, in rendering Dissenters admissible (not in giving them any right or claim whatever to actual admission) to a number of subordinate offices, whether municipal, or under the Crown; which are not only offices of trust, but of great lahour and high responsibility. Now the experiment to ascertain how Dissenters, in general, are likely to conduct themselves under such circumstances, is no speculation:-it has been tried, and is at this moment undergoing the trial, in many instances. Some corporations, by a sort of understanding which has grown up into a usage, connive at the declining to qualify, IN ORDER to get Dissenters to serve. A striking testimony this, to the integrity and usefulness of such persons! There are, also, offices which, not being offices of profit, but of gratuitous trouble and expense, are not included in the enumeration of the Test Law and into these Dissenters are put and even forced every day. Many parishes in and about London, have so found the advantages of order, economy, and fidelity, when