88. 5, Monthly Review of Literature, (Aug. 1, 
Sieg Rep Rean wealth, commerce, andpopu- are more documents, beariag the pie es 
lation of the country, indicated that agreater change aythenticity. . These autobiographies have 
in our law and legal institutions would soon become 
irable, than had taken place at any antecedent 
od of our history. Had he prompted, promoted, 
of suiperintended this great work, the length of his 
feign, and extent of his influence, would have ena- 
bled him to bring it almost, or altogether, to its 
completion, and thus to have Jeft a monument to his 
memory, which it falls to the lot of few individuals 
to have the power of erecting. Unfortunately for the 
country, and his own reputation, he has pursued a 
totally opposite course. Feeling that his strength 
did not lie in the depth and comprehensiveness of 
his general views, so much as in the extent of his 
acquaintance with the minutie of precedent and 
practice, and perceiving also that the surest way of 
continuing in place is to abstain from all innovation, 
his love of power, combined with his love of supe- 
riority, induce him to withhold from all decided 
improvements himself, and to look with an un- 
favourable eye on those which were proposed by 
others. In this course he has invariably persevered. 
It can hardly be expected that confirmed habits and 
opinions should be changed at 75.”—** It is probable 
that, at this moment, Lord Eldon has no conception 
of the sentiments which are almost universally en- 
tertained of his judicial administration, either by the 
persons who frequent his Court, or by those who 
are capable of judging out of it.”—** It is one of his 
greatest misfortunes, that through life he has made 
age, submissiveness, and mediocrity, the passports 
to his favour, and has as studiously kept aloof from 
men of liberal and independent minds, as he has kept 
them aloof from him.”—*‘* With all the knowledge, 
industry, and sagacity which Lord Eldon possesses, 
he is even now grievously hindering the law as a sci- 
ence, and has done an injury to it as a profession 
which is almost irreparable. While he feels no reluc- 
tance to testify the sense he entertains of the errors 
and imperfections of the law and its procedure, with 
the most unaccountable inconsistency he omits no 
opportunity of ridiculing and resisting every attempt 
which is made for its rectification.” 
The following, however, is, we hope, 
prophetic : 
«« The government will at length see the indispen- 
gable necessity of no longer permitting the obstinacy 
or procrastination of one man to stand in the way of 
the wants and wishes of a whole people. The foun- 
tains of inquiry and discussion have been opened, 
the streams of information which they are sending 
forth are augmenting and collecting; and whether 
he resigns his office or retains it, he must either 
yield to the current, or with all his doubts aud diffi- 
culties he Will find himself carried away before it.” 
Memoirs of Mr. William Veitch, and 
George Brysson, written by themselves: with 
other Narratives illustrative of the History 
of Scotland, from the Restoration to_the 
‘Revolution. To which are added, Bio- 
graphical Sketches and Notes by Tuomas 
M‘Criz, D.D. 8vo.—To those who are not 
already satiated with exhibitions, historical 
and romantic, of the days of the covenant 
—the reciprocal persecutions of bigotry 
‘and fanaticism, and the austere and the 
licentious mockeries of holy blasphemy and 
religious immorality—of the saints and the 
-orthodoxers of church and state, who for 
_half-a century, in this country, “‘ played the 
fantastic ape (and tiger too) before high 
-freaven, and made the angels weep’’—here 
been written for the self-justification of suf- 
fering saints, and the exposure of the cruel 
oppressions of Babylonish Episcopacy ; but, 
in the eye of considerate reason, they are 
equally disgraceful to both— equally demon- 
strative how far the abuses of religious pre 
tension, under whatever denomination; may 
operate to the extinction of every moral 
light of the understanding, and every sym= 
pathy that should mollify and adorn our na+ 
ture ; and how far they may minister‘to the 
selfishness of tyrannic pride, the hist of 
power, and the exercise of the most ruth- 
less dominion over the property, persons, 
feelings, natural affections, and very thoughts 
of our fellow-men. Verily, in any other 
point of view, we think our historic shelves 
are overcrowded already with historic, 
anecdotic: and biographic lumber relative 
to the period to which this bulky volume 
refers. : 
A Treatise on Christian Doctrine, com- 
piled from the Holy Scriptures alone. By 
Joun Mutron. Translated from the original. 
By Cuantrs R. Sumner, mM. a. Librarian 
and Historiographer to his Majesty, and Pre- 
bendary of Canterbury. 4to.— This isa trans- 
lation of the MS. which was found, by Mr. 
Lemon, in the Treasury Gallery of White- 
hall, together with the Latin Letters written 
ofticially by Milton to foreign princes and 
states during his secretaryship. As such it 
will be read with particular interest, by the 
admirers of the divine bard—-who was, 
indeed, not less a theologian than a patriot 
and a poet. The ladies, of course, will be 
particularly amused and instructed by his 
matrimonial ,diyinity—his orthodex canons 
of authority and obedience, and his demon- 
strations of the divine right of husbands to 
absolute sovereignty over their wives (‘‘ For 
the man is not of the woman, but the 
woman of the man; neither was the man 
created for the woman, but the woman for 
the man”—1 Cor. xi. 8& 9.—‘‘T suffer not 
a woman to teach nor to usurp autherity 
over the man, but to be in silence!’?— 
1 Tim. ii. 12,—*‘‘ Thy desire shall be to 
thy husband, and he shall rule over thee !’— 
Gen. iii. 16. &c. &e !!!) but also to have, 
if it pleaseth them, more wives, at a time, 
than one. ‘To be serious, this latter is, upon 
Old Testament grounds, at least, rather a 
puzzling question for the orthodox; and 
Milton is not the only English theologian 
who has upheld, with great learning and 
by scriptural authority, the christian law- 
fulness of poligamy. Some thirty or five 
and thirty years ago, the Rey. Dr. Maddan 
marred his own promotion in the church 
by his “* Thelepthora; or a treatise on 
Female Ruin; but his book has never 
been answered. Perhaps, however, it re- 
quires no answer. We need not Moses 
and the prophets to convince us, in, this 
country at least, that the. settled order. of 
society, the well-being of offspring and the 
happiness 
