before Luther, in the bosom of the Roman Church itself; that the Papal See first led the way in schism from the parent stock in liberty of private judgment; that some of the most important points in which the Latin is now distinguished from the Greek Church, have been actually copied and imported from the new Churches of the Protestant West. between the different branches of the Occidental Church, is the To trace this family resemblance polemical object of an able treatise by a zealous member of the Church of Russia; to trace it in a more friendly and hopeful spirit, is a not unworthy aim of students of the Church of England........ "And we, too, with all our energy and life, may learn something from the otherwise unparalled sight of whole nations and races of men, penetrated by the religious sentiment which visibly sways their minds, even when it fails to reach their conduct, which, if it has produced but few whom we should call saints or philosophers, has produced, through centuries of oppression, whole armies of confe-sors and martyrs. We may learn something from the sight of a calm strength reposing in the quietness and confidence of a treasure of hereditary belief, which its possessor is content to value for himself, without forcing it on the reception of others. We may learn something from the sight of churches, where religion is not abandoned to the care of women and children, but is claimed as the right and the privilege of men; where the Church reposes, not so much on the force and influence of its clergy, as on the independent knowledge and manly zeal of its laity."-pp. 55-9.

We are surprised, alike by the length of our citations, and by the little way we have made, notwithstanding, in the volume. We would fain have made larger extracts from the different Lectures, illustrating the Council of Nicæa, its principal characters-the part taken by themtheir coming, their going, their feasting with the Emperor. There is, perhaps, nothing new in the narrative, but it has never been put together go well or so attractively. Nor is the biography of Constantine other than a masterpiece in point of style. Commending all these to our readers, we think that the following description of the rendezvous cannot but tempt them to pass beyond the threshold.

Such

"Beneath us lay the long inland lake, the Ascanian Lake, which, communicating at its Western extremity by a small inlet with the Sea of Marmora, fills up almost the whole valley; itself a characteristic of the conformation of this part of Asia Minor. another is the lake of Apollonius, seen from the summit of the Mysian Olympus. Such another is the smaller lake, seen in traversing the plain on the way from Broussa.

"At the head of the lake appeared the oblong space enclosed by

the ancient walls, of which the rectangular form indicates, with unmistakable precision, the original founders of the city. It was the outline given to all the Oriental towns built by the successors of Alexander and their imitators. Antioch, Damascus, Philadelphia, Sebaste, Palmyra, were all constructed on the same model, of a complete square, intersected by four straight streets, adorned with a colonnade on each side. This we know to have been the appearance of Nicæa, as founded by Lysimachus, and rebuilt by Antigonus. And this is still the form of the present walls, which, although they enclose a larger space than the first Greek city, yet are evidently as early as the time of the Roman empire; little later, if at all, than the reign of Constantine. Within their circuit all is now wilderness; over broken columns, and through tangled thickets, the traveller, with difficulty makes his way to the wretched Turkish village of Is-nick, which occupies the centre of the vacant space. In the midst of this village, surrounded by a few ruined mosques, on whose summits stand the never-failing storks of the deserted cities of the East, remains a solitary Christian church, dedicated to the repose of the Virgin.' Within the church is a rude picture commemorating the one event which, amidst all the vicissitudes of Nicæa, has secured for it an immortal name.

"To delineate this event, to transport ourselves back into the same season of the year, the chestnut woods then, as now, green with the first burst of summer, the same sloping hills, the same tranquil lake, the same snow-capped Olympus, from far, brooding over the whole scene, but, in every other respect, how entirely dif ferent will be my object in this Lecture."-pp. 94-5.

Our last, and perhaps most gorgeous extract, must be the portrait of Peter the Great; we have no space left for Vladimir, Ivan the Terrible, or the Russian Church in its early, middle, or reforming age. With him, we bid adieu to Professor Stanley, and in hope to meet again. Only, let him not be ashamed of confessing the faith of Christ crucified before men, or of owning true fellowship with His saints. This even Peter the Mighty did not think beneath him.

"Look at him, as he presents himself in the gallery of the portraits of the Czars. From Ivan the Terrible, each follow each in grotesque barbaric costume, half Venetian, half Tartar, till suddenly, without the slightest preparation, Peter breaks in amongst them, in the full uniform of the European soldier. The ancient Czars vanish, to appear no more, and Peter remains with us, occupying henceforward the whole horizon. Countenance, and stature, and manner, and pursuits, are absolutely kept alive in our sight. We see the upturned look, the long black hair falling back from his fine forehead, the fierce eyes glancing from beneath the overhanging

brows, the mouth clothed with indomitable power. We gaze at his gigantic height, his wild rapid movements, the convulsive twitches of his face and hands, the tremendous walking-staff, almost a crowbar of iron, which he swings to and fro as he walks, the huge Danish wolf-dog and its two little companions, which run behind him. We are with him in his Dutch house amidst the rough pieces of wood which he has collected as curiosities, the tools, the lathe, the articles of wood and ivory that he has turned. No dead man so lives again in outward form before us, as Peter in St. Petersburg. But not in outward form only. That city represents to us his whole Herculean course, more actually Hercules-like than any of modern times, and proudly set forth in his famous statue erected by Catherine II...................................

.........

"What must the man have been, who, born and bred in this atmosphere, conceived, and by one tremendous wrench, almost by his own manual labour and his sole gigantic strength, executed the prodigious idea of dragging a nation, against its will, into the light of Europe, and erecting a new capital and a new empire amongst the cities and the kingdoms of the world? St. Petersburg is, indeed, his most enduring monument. A spot up to that time without a single association, selected instead of the holy city, to which even now every Russian turns as to his mother; a site which, but a few years before, had belonged to his most inveterate enemies; won from morass and forest, with difficulty defended, and perhaps even yet doomed to fall before the inundations of its own river; and now, though still Asiatic beyond any capital of the West, yet, in grandeur and magnificence, in the total subjugation of nature to art, entirely European. And the change from Moscow to St. Petersburg is but a symbol of the revolution effected in the whole empire by the power of Peter. For better, for worse, he created army, navy, law, dress, amusements, alphabet, some in part, some altogether, anew. Much that was superficial, much that was false, much that broke out under his successors into frightful corruption and depravity, at least of the higher classes, came in with the Western civilization. But whatever hopes for the world or the Church are bound up with the civilization of the West, did penetrate into Russia, through Peter, and through no one else." pp. 453-6.

ART. IV. 1. Catalogue of the Antiquities of Stone, Earth, and Vegetable Materials, in the Museum of the Royal Irish Academy. By W. R. Wilde, M. R. I. A. With Illustrations. 8vo. Dublin: Gill. 1857.

2. Catalogue of the Antiquities of Animal Materials and Bronze, in the Museum of the Royal Irish Academy. By W. R. Wilde, M. R. I. A. With 373 Illustrations. 8vo. Dublin: Hodges, Smith, and Co. 1861.

A

CATALOGUE is commonly the driest and least interesting of all literary compositions. Few catalogues, indeed, can claim a place in the ranks of literature properly so-called; their merit seldom rising beyond the mechanical accuracy of the copyist, or at best the servile fidelity of the compiler: and their traditionary fate, when once they have served the passing purpose for which they were designed, has been to be thrown aside and forgotten for ever.

The few marked exceptions to this ordinary fortune of their class have been indebted for their exemption mainly to the taste and ability of their authors. For, even where the intrinsic merit of the collections described might in itself have sufficed to create an interest in their details, this interest must necessarily have proved transient, unless in so far as the description was made to convey a permanent and systematic lesson," whether it was in the department of history, of antiquities, or of art. And of all these subjects, the one which is most dependent for its permanent interest on the skill of the compiler, is undoubtedly that of antiquities.

The time is not very remote indeed, when, in the estimation of the world, the study of antiquities was but another name for solemn trifling, if not for pedantic credulity. Sir Walter Scott's Monkbarns was an average, and perhaps a favourable, specimen of the class; and that ponderous scholarship, the humorous and characteristic exhibition of which forms the great charm of this inimitable picture, may be regarded as fairly representing the notions which our fathers entertained of the learned lore to the accumulation of which the lives and energies of a class which, if not very practical, was at least undeniably enthusiastic, were devoted.

There is one view of the study of antiquities, however, the importance of which has come to be better understood, and the true nature and value of which are now more fairly appreciated-we mean their bearing on the social, literary, and religious condition of the people to whom they belong. Men have ceased to form collectious of antiquities for the mere antiquities' sake; and museums are no longer regarded as retreats in which to while away an unoccupied hour, or even to indulge a learned curiosity. The selection and classification of strictly national remains are now regarded as second in importance only to the preservation of the objects themselves; and the very meanest, and intrinsically the least precious relic of a past time-a rude fragment of stone, or a coarse scrap of pottery-may have its value in the eyes of the antiquarian, far above objects of the most costly material and the most skilful and elaborate artistic execution.

The Museum of the Royal Irish Academy has been fortunate in at least this respect. The Catalogue of its contents, so far as it has progressed, is complete in its enumeration, is methodical in its arrangement, is scientific in its explanations, and is copious in the illustrations and analogies from other collections, whether of our national antiquities or of the remains of kindred races, as literally to leave nothing to be desired at least in these particulars.

The collection itself has been formed under many disadvantages. Although the Royal Irish Academy, from the period of its formation, occasionally received donations of ancient objects of interest discovered from time to time in Ireland, it was not until after many years that a regular depository for their safe custody was established. Very many of the objects originally presented to the Academy are said by Mr. Gilbert" to have been embezzled. Others were deposited in the museum of Trinity College, and it was not until the year 1839 that the project of a regularly organized collection, illustrative of the history of the people of Ireland, and especially of the Celtic race, was seriously entertained, or at least was practically initiated. At so late a period, it need hardly be said, that the harvest of antiquities had been actually gathered in by pri

* History of Dublin, iii. 240.