Upon his death, and the accession of Queen Mary, who by education, and in feeling, was a bigoted Romanist, all those happy beginnings received an abrupt overthrow. Mary, through her agents, Bishop Bonner and Cardinal Pole, carried back every thing once more to the darkness of Popery; issuing orders even that the sentences of Scripture, which were inscribed on the walls of many churches, should be obliterated, as" opening doors to every kind of vice!" But Providence mercifully interposed, and prevented her power from becoming equal to her will, in this respect for the good seed had now been sown in men's hearts, and the light of the Gospel could no more be quenched. During her reign, as might be expected, no step was taken towards diffusing a knowledge of the Bible: but the old Romish Primer of Salisbury was reprinted.

:

The persecution to which every leading Protestant was now either actually subjected, or felt himself to be at every moment liable, induced several of the clergy to withdraw themselves for security into foreign countries. And some of these, establishing themselves at Geneva, where Calvin was then flourishing in the plenitude of his fame, undertook the formation of a new version of the Bible. They first published the New Testament in the year 1557, and three years afterwards the entire Bible, accompanied by a profusion of notes.

But though this version was immediately brought into England, and circulated with no small industry, Elizabeth being now queen, it failed to give general satisfaction; and critical scholars pointed out faults and errors in every one of the existing translations. Upon which, Parker, the Archbishop of Canterbury, learning that a fresh supply of copies was required throughout the kingdom, seized the opportunity of causing a careful revision of former translations to be made by several very learned men, amongst whom he distributed the Bible in distinct portions, for their exact and particular revision. The majority of these divines being Bishops, the corrected version which they published, in a large folio, in 1568, obtained the name of "The Bishops' Bible." Both this and the version of Geneva continued to be used during the whole reign of Elizabeth; the former being principally made use of in churches, while many private families preferred the latter.

King James succeeding to the throne in 1602, the Puritans immediately presented to him a petition of church-grievances, which led to the well-known Conference at Hampton Court; where these complaints were solemnly examined, and were adjudged frivolous and groundless. But as they found fault, among other things, with the Bishops' Bible, and earnestly pressed the formation of a new translation, the king assented to their request; and by a Royal Commission, delegated the important work to fiftyfour of the most learned men within his dominions: these were enjoined to parcel out among themselves the several portions of the work, guiding themselves by the inspired originals, and following the Bishops' Bible as nearly as those would permit ; making no change in any thing for the mere love of novelty, and submitting every part of their labours to the de

These judicious regulations being received and attended to in the best spirit, the great work was brought to a happy conclusion, by the united labours of so many sound scholars, within seven years from the issuing of the commission; the first edition of the new Translation being published, in a large handsome folio, in black letter, in 1611.

At its first appearance, cavils were raised against this version. both by the Roman Catholics and Puritans; but these soon died away, and the translators deservedly obtained, not only from our own countrymen, but also from learned foreigners, the praise of great fidelity, united with precision and clearness of expression. The former of these qualities was the most important, but even the latter was not without its manifold use. For, since this Bible was designed, not (as formerly) only for the closets of scholars, but also for the daily use and comfort of even the humblest individual, it was essential that its language should be freed as far as possible from every needless obscurity, and every ambiguous or ill-understood expression. To this, the translators appear diligently to have attended; and this object they were enabled through God's Providence, so far to attain, that even now, at the distance of more than two hundred years, our authorized Bible continues readily intelligible to persons of every class; and perhaps contains fewer words or phrases, the meaning of which have sunk into obscurity, than any other work in the English language, of the same bulk and age.

Happily for this country, God's blessed Word is now unfettered by any human restrictions: it is open for every one's perusal : all are taught, advised, and exhorted, to make it their study, and look up to it as the Great Charter of their salvation. We own it for our sole and perfect rule of faith: we know that countless multitudes are daily deriving from it comfort, and joy, and hope: and, while we distribute it around, in tens and hundreds of thousands yearly, we pray that all into whose hands it falls may have grace to use it in such sort, that through the blessing of Almighty God it may make them wise unto salvation. H. C.

It is impossible to view the cheerfulness, and happiness of animals and birds without pleasure; the latter, especially, appear to enjoy themselves during the fine weather, in spring and summer, with a degree of hilarity which might be almost envied. It is astonishing how much man might do to lessen the misery of those creatures, which are either given to him for food or use, or for adding to his pleasure, if he were so disposed. Instead of which, he often exercises a degree of wanton tyranny and cruelty over them, which cannot be too much deprecated, and for which no doubt he will be one day held accountable. Animals are so capable of showing gratitude and affection to those who have been kind to them, that I never see them subjected to ill-treatment, without feeling the utmost abhorrence of those who are inflicting it. I know many persons who, like myself, take a pleasure in seeing all the animals about them appear happy and contented.

Cows will show their pleasure at seeing those who have been kind to them, by moving theirs ears gently, and putting out their wet noses. My old horse rests his head on the gate with great complacency, when he sees me coming, expecting to receive an apple or a piece of bread. I should even be sorry to see my poultry and pigs get out of my -JESSE'S Gleanings. way with any symptoms of fear.

THERE is nothing in the world which does not show either the misery of man, or the mercy of God, either man's impotence without God, or his power with God. The whole universe teaches man that he is corrupt, or that he is redeemed; teaches him his greatness or his misery.— PASCAL.

ANNIVERSARIES IN FEBRUARY,

MONDAY, 11th.

1650 René Descartes, the mathematician, died in Sweden. His body was carried to Paris, and buried with great pomp. 1763 William Shenstone, the pastoral poet, died at the Leasowes, in Worcestershire.

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philosophy, died at Richmond, in Surry.

TUESDAY, 12th.

1554 Lady Jane Grey and her husband, Lord Guildford Dudley, (fourth son of the Duke of Northumberland,) beheaded in the Tower of London. These illustrious young persons fell victims to the ambition of their father, the duke. Lady Jane, though not then quite eighteen years of age, having been prevailed on to allow herself to be proclaimed Queen of England, on the demise of the young King Edward VI., she and her husband were, after a reign of a few days, taken prisoners, tried, and condemned, by the powerful party who espoused the cause of Queen Mary. Lady Jane was executed in about an hour after Lord Dudley. She was the most eminent for her piety and learning, of all the ladies of her age and time, being, in addition to her other great accomplishments, a perfect mistress of the Greek and Latin languages.

1804 Emmanuel Kant, the German philosopher, died.

WEDNESDAY, 13th.

1542 Catherine Howard, fifth Queen of Henry VIII. of England, beheaded on Tower-hill.

1689 WILLIAM and MARY proclaimed King and Queen of Great Britain; they were crowned on April the 11th. In British history, the accession of the Protestant King William to the throne is styled the GLORIOUS REVOLUTION.

THURSDAY, 14th.

VALENTINE'S DAY, or Old Candlemas Day. Valentine, who was a Roman bishop, was beheaded under the Emperor Valerianus, in the year 278. It was the common opinion, that on this day birds chose their mates; whence, probably, the custom of choosing Valentines.

1400 Richard II., King of England, basely murdered in Pontefract castle, Yorkshire, where he was a prisoner. His strength and courage were so great, that he slew four of the eight assassins who attacked him.

1779 Captain James Cook, who had more than once sailed round the world, killed in a skirmish with the savages of Owhyhee,

one of the Sandwich Islands, in the Pacific Ocean. 1780 Sir William Blackstone, author of the celebrated Commentaries on the Laws of England, died.

1797 Sir John Jervis, afterwards Earl St. Vincent, obtained a signal victory over the Spanish fleet, off Cape St. Vincent, in Portugal.

FRIDAY, 15th.

1695 On this day, King William III. was to have been assassinated by conspirators, on his return from Richmond to London. The plot was defeated by the conveyance of timely notice to His Majesty and his Ministers.

1732 Francis Atterbury, Bishop of Rochester, a celebrated poet and

political writer, died in exile at Paris; having been banished from England for corresponding with the exiled royal race of Stuart. His body was brought to England, and interred in Westminster Abbey.

SATURDAY, 16th.

1497 Birth-day of Philip Melancthon, the celebrated divine, and coadjutor with Martin Luther in the great work of the Reformation of the Christian Church. He was one of the wisest and greatest men of his age, and composed the famous "Confession of Augsburg," which to this day remains a monument of his judgment and eloquence. He died April 19th, 1560. 1754 Dr. Richard Mead, a distinguished London physician, died. His abilities and eminence in his profession, as well as his general learning, and fine taste for those arts which embellish human life, long rendered him an ornament of the age in which he lived. It was under his auspices that inoculation for the small-por was first introduced into this country; the experiment being successfully tried on seven condemned criminals in Newgate, in the year 1721.

1796 Amboyna, a noted spice island in the East Indian Seas, belonging to the Dutch, capitulated to the English: they relinquished it, however, at the Peace of Paris, in 1814. SUNDAY, 17th.

QUINQUAGESIMA SUNDAY: SO called from being the first Sunday before LENT, and about the fiftieth day before EASTER. On this day, the Feralia, or festivals in honour of the Dead, were kept at Rome.

1461 The second Battle of St. Alban's fought; wherein Queen Margaret defeated the Earl of Warwick, and freed her husband from captivity.

1563 Michael Angelo, a man illustrious for his extraordinary talents as a painter, sculptor, and architect, died at Rome, in the eighty-ninth year of his age.

1571 An earthquake occurred in Herefordshire, which, according to the historians Speed and Camden, removed Marcley Hill to a considerable distance from where it formerly stood. The ground moved was about twenty-six acres; and in its progress it overturned or carried away every thing which impeded its passage. In 1583, a similar phenomenon occurred in Dorsetshire.

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CHEPSTOW CASTLE. CHEPSTOW CASTLE is a ruin of considerable interest to the antiquary, and offers to the eye of one who knows nothing of it but what its present appearance conveys, an object which can never fail to arrest attention. As the engraving will sufficiently show, it is built on the very brow of a precipice, which rises boldly from the Wye, whose tide, every ebb and flow, washes its foundation of solid rock-one side being advanced close to the edge, and constructed in such a manner as to appear a part of the cliff itself; the same ivy which overspreads the walls, twines and clusters round the high fragments, and down the perpendicular side of the rock. The other parts of the castle were defended by a moat, and consist of massive walls, flanked with lofty towers.

The area occupies a large tract of ground, and is divided into four courts. The grand entrance to the east is a circular arch between two round towers. The first court into which it leads, contains the shells of the great hall, kitchens, and numerous apartments of considerable size, retaining vestiges of baronial splendour. Some Roman bricks which have been found in different parts of the ruin, have suggested that a portion at least of the castle was of Roman workmanship; but evidently the work was of Norman origin; the shell appears to have been built on one plan, and at the same time; but alterations and additions were made by successive proprietors. Not less than twenty-four chimneys still remain; the principal one is handsomely decorated on the outside, and the inside is glazed, a process which seems effectually to have prevented the accumulation of soot. This is in the part inhabited in modern times, VOL. II.

and we are told it was never swept for at least eighty years.

"Though

Like many other of its fellows, this castle has repeatedly changed lords. Its early history is very obscure. The best authorities seem to fix its origin within a very few years after the Norman conquest, when William Fitz Osborn, earl of Hereford, built the castle of Striguil, which is doubtless the same with Chepstow. Soon after his death, in 1070, his third son, Roger de Britolio, was deprived of his estates, and sentenced to perpetual imprisonment. Dugdale furnishes us with the following anecdote relating to his conduct in confinement. he frequently used many scornful expressions towards the king, yet was the king pleased, at the celebration of the Feast of Easter, in a solemn manner, as was then usual, to send to this earl Roger, at that time in prison, his royal robes, who so disdained the favour, that he forthwith caused a great fire to be made, and the mantle, the inner surcoat of silk, and the upper garment, lined with precious furs, to be suddenly burnt; which, being made known to the king, he became not a little displeased, and said, Certainly he is a very proud man who hath thus abused me; but-(adding an oath, as was too much the irreligious unchristian practice of the age; would we could say only of that age!)-by the brightness of God, he shall never come out of prison so long as I live.' This Roger died in prison, and his estates being forfeited, Chepstow Castle was transferred to the powerful family of Clare. (Of this family was Walter de Clare, who founded the neighbouring Abbey of Tintern, the ruins of which excite the admiration of so many of our countrymen every year). Richard de Clare, sur

40

named Strongbow (as his father Gilbert had also been) succeeded to the possession of this fortress in 1148.

The castle is now in possession of the Duke of Beaufort, whose ancestor Sir Charles Somerset, married Elizabeth, daughter and heiress of William, Earl of Huntingdon, whose grandfather William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke, appears to have possessed the castle and manor of Chepstow, by purchase.

Through the civil wars, this castle was considered of great importance by both contending parties. It was at first garrisoned for the King, but was surrendered to the parliament forces under the command of Colonel Morgan. Afterwards, the royalists, under Sir Nicholas Kemys, took it by surprise, and made the garrison prisoners of war. So much was the possession of this place valued, that Cromwell marched against it then in person; but after making himself master of the town, assaulted the castle without success. He then left Colonel Ewer to prosecute the siege. But the garrison defended themselves valiantly, until their provisions were exhausted, and even then refused to surrender, though under promise of quarter, hoping to escape by means of a boat, which they had provided for that purpose. A soldier of the parliament army, however, swam across the river with a knife between his teeth, cut the cable of the boat, and brought it away. The castle was at length forced, and Sir Nicholas Kemys, with forty men, slain in the assault. This event was considered by the parliament so important, that the captain who brought the news was rewarded with 507., and a letter of thanks sent to Colonel Ewer, and the officers and soldiers engaged in that service. In 1645, the castle and park of Chepstow, together with the chase of Wentwood, and several estates which belonged to the Marquis of Worcester, and other loyalists, to the amount then of 25007. a year, were settled on Oliver Cromwell. At the restoration of Charles the Second, the castle, &c., were restored to the Marquis of Worcester, and has since continued in the possession of his descendants.

But the parts of this border-fortress around which history has thrown the greatest interest, is the tower in which Harry Marten, the regicide, was confined. It is not, as some doleful descriptions would represent, a dungeon in which the regicide was immured and lingered out his days in a damp, dark, cold, narrow cell, "and which scarcely admitted a single ray of light to alleviate the horrors of his solitary confinement." Instead of this, (says Coxe, in his Historical Tour through Monmouthsire, from which this article is chiefly extracted,) I was surprised to find a comfortable suite of rooms. The first story contains an apartment occupied by himself and nis wife; and above, were lodgings for his domestics. The chamber in which he usually lived, is not less tnan thirty-six feet in length, twenty-three in breadth, and of proportionate height. It was provided with two fire places, and three windows."

Harry Marten, was a man of considerable talent, but of great dissoluteness of life: after taking his bachelor's degree at Oxford, he repaired to London for the purpose of studying the law. But he was far too volatile and unsteady to succeed in that pursuit. He shortly married a rich widow, whom he afterwards treated with much neglect. He rejected Christianity, whose pure precepts were inconsistent with his licentiousness; and taking a decided line in politics hostile to the monarchy, ran the full career of revolu tionary violence.

When the temper of the times enabled him to disclose his sentiments with less restraint, Marten added

insult to hatred of loyalty. "He forced open a great iron chest, (says Anthony Wood,) within the College of Westminster, and thence took out the crown, robes, sword and sceptre belonging anciently to King Edward the Confessor, and used by all our kings at their inaugurations: and, with a scorn greater than his lusts and the rest of his vices, he openly declared that there should be no longer any use of these toys and trifles; and in the jollity of that humour, he invested George Wither, a Puritan satirist, in the royal habiliments; who, being crowned and royally arrayed, (as well right became him,) did forth march about the room in a stately garb, and afterwards, with a thousand apish and ridiculous actions, exposed those sacred ornaments to contempt and laughter."

Marten cooperated with Cromwell in overthrowing all ecclesiastical establishments, dissolving the parliament, abolishing the monarchy, and bringing the king to the scaffold; and although he had renounced Christianity, yet he did not scruple to use it as a cloak for his ambitious views, boasting of having received internal motions of the Holy Spirit, and contending that the saints alone were entitled to govern upon earth. He was a member of the High Court of Justice; regularly attended the trial of King Charles; was present when the sentence was pronounced; and signed the warrant of death. On that sad occasion his conduct proved his intimacy with Cromwell, and the want of feeling in both appears from an incident which transpired on his trial. Cromwell, taking the pen in hand to subscribe his name, spattered with ink the face of Marten, who sat next to him; and, the pen being delivered to Marten, he practised the same frolic on Cromwell. Marten, and many others of those mock patriots who inveighed with unceasing and loud declamations against the abuses of the crown, its peculation and oppression, and lavish grants, were guilty, themselves, of greater oppression, peculation, and pillage, obtained more profuse grants from parliament, and increased the public expenditure in a tenfold proportion; so that, as Clarendon declared, every man that was worth one thousand pounds paid more to the government of the commonwealth than a man of a thousand pounds a year ever did to the crown, before the late troubles."

Marten, with his party, shared the plunder of the nation, and the general pillage: he received for himself an assignment of 1000l. a year out of the Duke of Buckinghamshire's estate at Emersham, a present of 30007., and his arrears to the amount of 25,000. He very soon quarrelled with Cromwell, and separated from him.

At the restoration of Charles the Second, Marten surrendered on the proclamation, and was brought to trial at the Old Bailey as one of the regicides. He was found guilty: but was respited, and ultimately received a reprieve on condition of perpetual imprisonment. He was first confined in the Tower, but was soon removed to Chepstow in both which places he was treated with great lenity.

Marten lived to the advanced age of seventy-eight, and died by a stroke of apoplexy which seized him whilst at dinner, in the twentieth year of his confine

ment.

It is a melancholy reflection that his long confinement does not seem to have been improved by him, as it might surely have been, in his preparation for eternity.

We cannot refrain from adding a few lines from Robert Bloomfield's “Banks of the Wye."

Then Chepstow's ruin'd fortress caught
The mind's collected store of thought,

A dark, majestic, jealous frown
Hung on his head, and warn'd us down.
Twas well; for he has much to boast,
Much still that tells of glories lost,
Though rolling years have form'd the sod
Where once the bright-helm'd warrior trod
From tower to tower, and gazed around,
While all beneath him slept profound;
Een on the walls, where paced the brave,
High o'er his crumbling turrets wave
The rampant seedlings. Not a breath
Past through their leaves, when still as death,
We stopp'd to watch the clouds; for night
Grew splendid with increasing light,
Till as time loudly told the hour

Gleam'd the broad front of Marten's tower,
Bright silver'd by the moon.

He gave early indications of those talents which were afterwards so extensively displayed. Mechanics owe to him many discoveries, of which the most important is the theory of falling bodies. He scarcely knew of the first trials of the telescope, before he bent his mind to bring it to perfection. By its agency he discovered the four satellites of Jupiter, which showed a new analogy between the earth and planets; he afterwards observed the phases of Venus, and from that moment he no longer doubted of the earth's motion round the sun. The Milky Way displayed to him an infinite number of small stars, which, to the naked eye, the irradiation blends in a white and continued light. The luminous points which he perceived beyond the line, which separated the light part of the moon from the dark, made him acquainted with the existence and height of lunar mountains. At length he discovered the appearances occasioned by Saturn's ring; and the spots and rotation of the sun.

In publishing these discoveries, he showed that they proved, incontestably, the motion of the earth; but the idea of this motion was declared heretical by a congregation of cardinals, and Galileo, its most celebrated defender, was cited to the tribunal of the Inquisition, and compelled to retract this theory in order to escape a rigorous prison.

Convinced, however, by his own observations, of the truth of that theory, and in order to shelter himself from persecution, he proposed to adduce proofs of it under the form of Dialogues between three interlocutors. The success of these dialogues, and the triumphant manner with which all the objections against the motion of the earth were removed, again roused the fury of the Inquisition; and, at the age of seventy, he was cited a second time before the tribunal, and compelled to abjure, as " absurd and heretical," his theory of the motion of the earth.

He was condemned to perpetual imprisonment; but released a year after, on the solicitations of the Grand Duke of Tuscany. To prevent his withdrawing himself from the power of the Inquisition, he was forbidden to leave the territory of Florence. Galileo was occupied with the libration of the moon, when he lost his sight, and died three years afterwards. In his life, is the following beautiful passage, on the fallacy of certain theories current in his day :—

"How great and common an error appears to me, the mistake of those who persist in making their knowledge and apprehension the measure of the apprehension and knowledge of GOD! as if that alone were perfect which they understand to be so! but I, on the contrary, observe that Nature has other scales of proportion and perfection which we cannot comprehend, and seem rather to class among imperfections. If the task had been given to a man, of establishing and ordering the rapid motions of the heavenly bodies, according to his notions of perfect proportions, he would have arranged them according to his rational proportions. But, on the contrary, GOD, with no regard to our imaginary symmetries, has ordered them in proportions not only incommeasurable and irrational, but altogether inappreciable by our intellect. A man, ignorant of geometry, may perhaps lament that the circumference of a circle does not happen to be exactly three times the diameter, or some other assignable proportion, to the circle, rather than such as we have not yet been able to explain what the ratio between them is; but one who has more understanding, will know that if they were other than they are, thousands of admirable conclusions would have been lost, and that none of the other properties of the circle would have been true; the surface of the sphere would not be quadruple of a great circle, nor the cylinder be to the sphere as three to two; in short, no part of geometry would be true, and as it now is. If one of our most celebrated architects had had to distribute this vast multitude of fixed stars through the great vault of heaven, I believe he would have disposed them with beautiful arrangements of squares, hexagons, and octagons; he would have dispersed the larger ones among the middle-sized and the less, so as to correspond exactly with each other, and then he would think he had contrived admirable proportions. But GoD, on the contrary, has shaken them out from His hand, as if by chance! and we, forsooth, must think that He has scattered them up yonder without any regularity, symmetry, and elegance!"

THE IMPORTANCE OF RELIGION. IN nothing does the importance of Religion appear more clearly than in its suitableness to man, in relation to an unending futurity. Man cannot wholly die- he must live for ever; and Religion is the necessary discipline for a happy eternity. To man, as a being capable of thought, and feeling, and action, related to God in the present state, and to his fellow men, there are many things of importance besides, though none so important as Religion. But to man as immortal, Religion is solely important. In this case, it not only casts other things into the shade, it absolutely annihilates them. To the man who died yesterday, it is now a matter of no consideration whether he was rich or poor; whether he was honoured or despised; whether he was a prince or a beggar; whether he spent his days in mirth, or had anxiety and sorrow for his portion; all these things, except for the influence they may have exerted on the formation of his religious and moral character, all these are now to him matters of no importance; but it is a matter of importance to him still, and will continue to be so for ever, whether he was or was not really religious; for on that single point hinges the happiness or the misery of eternity.

You may easily get other subjects on which to employ your thoughts; but none that so much deserves them as Religion, You may easily get other objects on which to fix your affections: but none that will reward them like Religion. You may make other acquirements, which will be useful to you in your social capacity; but none so universally and really useful as Religion. To be without Religion, is virtually to deny the most honourable fact which can be stated in reference to human nature; that it is closely connected with the Divinity. To be without Religion, is to be "quite unfurnished" for the awful eternity on which we must soon enter.-BROWN.