mon creed-the questions which have been discussed in the presbyterian church, pertaining to a strict construction of their articles of faith-and the controversy which relates to the claims of episcopacy, have enrolled able writers on either side of the matter in dispute, and light has been thrown on important principles of truth and church order. It is an abatement, it must be confessed, of the value of some of these publications, that evil, suspicious, and uncharitable feelings, have been engendered between the undoubted friends of virtue and the Bible. Where so many have written and published, and with nearly equal power, it is impossible to give an account of their productions singly and in detail. Several, if not all, of the writers above named, have employed their pens on other subjects, some of which remain to be mentioned.*

While interesting discussions of this kind have been carried on in the church, many pens have been employed in the production of a miscellaneous religious literature, under the titles of Essays, Lectures, Addresses, &c. In this department, JAMES P. WILSON, JESSE Appleton, ELIPHALET NOTT, JEREMIAH EVARTS, JOHN H. RICE, HEMAN HUMPHREYS, JOEL HAWES,WILLIAM B. SPRAGUE, and many others, have distinguished themselves.

tended religious treatises on important topics, both of the doctrinal and practical kind, have been somewhat numerous, within the latter part of the present period. Among the more prominent writers, we may name SAMUEL MILLER, Edward D. Griffin, LeonaRD WOODS, LYMAN BEECHER, GARDINER SPRING, W. C. BROWNLEE. Some of the productions of these authors, have partaken more or less of a controversial character. Within a few years, a class of productions has issued from the American press, having special reference to the religious welfare of youth, or adapted to the various domestic and social relations of life. Many of these are engaging and able works, and have been extensively circulated abroad as well as at home. They have furnished many important and lively illustrations of what may be called, the economy of social, religious life. LYDIA H. SIGOURNEY, JOHN S. C. ABBOT, JACOB ABBOT,

*AN ED.

STUART.-ROBINSON.-HODGE.-BUSH.

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G. D. ABBOT, THOMAS H. GALLAUDET, SAMUEL NOTT, CHARLES A.GOODRICH, F. L. DIMICK, HARVEY NEWCOMB, and others, have excelled as writers of books of this description. The study of biblical criticism and literature has been prosecuted for a number of years past in the United States with much success- -the result of which has appeared in several publications of sterling excellence. PROF. MOSES STUART has distinguished himself in works of this description. His Commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews, and that on the Epistle to the Romans, show the critical skill and various learning of the author, as well as throw much light on the portions of scripture of which he has treated. They have been well received, both in Europe and in the United States. Several other works pertaining to the study of the Hebrew language, to the investigation of scripture, or to the general interests of religion, have proceeded from his pen, and are valuable contributions to learning and piety. PROF. EDWARD ROBINSON, formerly editor of the Biblical Repository, has published in that work and in other forms, the fruits of extensive acquaintance with oriental literature, and philological analysis. His books have added. much to the stock of sacred learning, and to the literary credit of the United States. A Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans has proceeded from the pen of PROF. C. HODGE, and also a Commentary on the Psalms by PROF. GEORGE BUSH, began to make its appearance in 1835, to be published in periodical numbers. The learning and talent of the authors of these works, will not fail to insure to them a desirable reputation.*

TRAVELLERS AND VOYAGERS.

In the department of travels and voyages, this period exhibits an increase of writers, proportioned to the increasing spirit of enterprise which has animated natives of Britain in exploring distant countries and seas. JAMES BRUCE of Kinnaird, in Stirlingshire, a gentleman of singular intrepidity, and extensive accomplishments, devoted the year 1768, and the five which followed, to a journey along the northern coast of Africa, and into

* AM. ED.

Abyssinia;-the main end which he had in view being the discovery of the source of the Nile, which no European had ever before reached. After succeeding in this undertaking, he returned to his native country; and, in 1790, published an account of his travels in five quarto volumes, with an additional volume of drawings. The more extraordinary details of this work were doubted at the time of its appearance, but have since been confirmed by other travellers into Abyssinia, of whom the chief are Lord Valentia and Mr. Henry Salt.

The voyages of the celebrated circumnavigator, CAPTAIN JAMES COOK, which commenced in 1768, and were prosecuted, with but few interruptions, till 1779, might have been noticed with more propriety perhaps under the preceding period. The history of the first expedition of this great discoverer, as well as of the undertakings of his predecessors, Byron, Wallis, and Carteret, was written by Dr. John Hawkesworth, who has been already mentioned. The second voyage was described by the navigator himself, who also brought down the narrative of his third enterprise till within a short period of his death.

Towards the close of the eighteenth century, a strong wish took possession of the public mind that the interior of the large continent of Africa should be explored, with a view to commerce; and the task was undertaken by MR. MUNGO PARK, a Scottish surgeon, who, in 1795, travelled from the Senegal to the Niger, and traced the latter river for a considerable way through a well-peopled country. A history of this expedition was published in 1799, and is a work of much interest. A second journey, undertaken by Mr. Park in 1805, terminated in the destruction of his own life, and that of most of his companions; and of this enterprise an account appeared in 1815. In 1822, and the two subsequent years, a journey into the same vast continent, from the vicinity of Tripoli, was performed by MAJOR DENHAM, CAPTAIN CLAPPERTON, and DR. ÕUDNEY, who made some important discoveries, though they did not succeed in reaching the Niger. A narrative of this expedition, chiefly written by Denham, was published in 1826.

Of a journey subsequently undertaken by Clapperton,

LANDER.-ROSS.-PARRY.-FRANKLIN.-COXE. 287 in which he penetrated from the Guinea coast to Soccatoo, where he lost his life, an account was given to the world by his attendant, RICHARD LANDER, who afterwards engaged in a similar expedition, and was successful in discovering the course of the Niger towards the sea. The latter journey was described in three volumes of the Family Library.

After the conclusion of the French revolutionary war, the British government turned its attention to the discovery of a passage to Asia along the supposed northern coasts of America; and, in 1817, an expedition sailed under the charge of CAPTAIN JOHN Ross, with CAPTAIN' EDWARD PARRY, as second in command. Another expedition in 1819-20, a third in 1821-2-3, a fourth in 1824-5, and a fifth in 1827, under Parry alone, have all been commemorated in large books, illustrated by engravings; while a journey undertaken in concert with the nautical expeditions, by CAPTAIN JOHN FRANKLIN, has been described in a similar manner. Notwithstanding the failure of the main object of these expeditions, the works in which they are narrated possess a very high interest, not only on account of the new seas and territories which they bring to view, but from the many singular forms of nature depicted in them, and the ingenious devices which were necessarily resorted to for the sustenance of human life under the extreme cold of an arctic climate.

ARCHDEACON COXE, whose historical works have been already mentioned, published in early life his Travels in Switzerland and the northern kingdoms of Europe, with an elaborate work descriptive of the discoveries made by the Russians between Asia and America. A tour through the north of Europe was also published in 1805, by SIR JOHN CARR, who was the author of several other books of travels, now forgotten. No English traveller, however, has ever attained so high a reputation as DR. EDWARD DANIEL CLARKE (1767-1822), a clergyman, educated at Jesus College, Cambridge, and who finally became professor of mineralogy in that university. In 1799, this eminent person began to travel through Denmark, Sweden, Lapland, Finland, Russia, Tartary, Circassia, Asia Minor, Syria, Palestine, Egypt, Greece, and

Turkey, returning, in 1802, through Germany and France; and after various works of inferior importance, referring to objects of antiquity which he had brought with him to England, he published an account of his extensive and laborious tour, in six quarto volumes (1810– 23). For the duties of a traveller and describer of travels, Dr. Clarke possessed unrivalled qualifications,— great acquired knowledge, unshrinking courage and power of enduring fatigue, and the ability to narrate what he observed in a lively, graphic, and agreeable

manner.

The most valuable portion of the work of Dr. Clarke is that which refers to the countries adjacent to the head of the Mediterranean, which, from their connection with Scriptural history, possess a peculiar interest in the eyes of Europeans, while their political condition causes them to be less frequently visited and described than many states which do not attract nearly so much of our regard. Since the return of Dr. Clarke, several intelligent travellers have been induced to brave the dangers of a journey through those countries, in order that the British public might be made more intimately acquainted with them. JOHN LOUIS BURCKHARDT, a Swiss, in the employment of the African Association of England, spent two years and a half in Syria and Palestine, and afterwards performed some most adventurous journeys in northern and eastern Africa and Arabia, personating a Mahometan for the purpose of acquainting himself thoroughly with the religious ceremonies of the nations, though a discovery of the deception would have subjected him to instant death. This enterprising traveller died in 1817, at Cairo, having previously sent to England the whole of his journals, from which, accounts of his travels in Syria, in Nubia and Egypt, and in Arabia, have since been published. At a period somewhat later, MR. J. S. BUCKINGHAM, formerly the conductor of a newspaper in British India, performed an overland journey from that country to England, travelling through Mesopotamia, Media, Persia, Syria, and Arabia, which he afterwards described both by books and by lectures. In 1822, SIR ROBERT KER PORTER, who had previously written Sketches of Sweden and Russia, published Trav