24 SEPTEMBER 1870, Page 23

Memoirs of Archbishop Jason and his Times. By the Rev.

W. H. Marah. (James Parker.)—Mr. Marah is quite wrong when he says that Juxon is "entirely forgotten." On the contrary, his name is par- ticularly well remembered,—is known to almost everyone, we should say, who knows the name of Charles L The Bishop comes out a figure, se- condary, indeed, but still conspicuous, on a scene which is one of the most memorable in history, the scaffold in that window in Whitehall. In fact, he is far better known than any greatness in him would justify. An excellent man he was, of a liberal heart, and, thanks to his share in that scene of Charles's death, and to the long life which brought him to the days of the Restoration, he reached the highest dignity of the Eng- lish Church. But he had neither conspicuous ability nor much learning. In a day when every divine of note left his mark on the literature of the day, he published nothing but a sermon and a pamphlet on the Act of Uniformity. His life is singularly barren of events. Mr. Morales research can add little to the brief chronicle of the ordinary dictionaries ; that he was a native of London, a Scholar of Merchant Taylors' School ; a Fellow, then President, of St. John's, Oxford ; that he was made Bishop of London, attended in that capacity Bing Charles to his death, and surviving till the Restoration, was made Archbishop of Canterbury. Lambeth Palace still bears testimony to his liberality, and Little Compton, a Gloucestershire parish to which he retired during the period of the Commonwealth, possesses a school of his foundation. Of his personal tastes an almost solitary record remains in the fact that he was fond of hunting. So scanty are the materials at our author's disposal, that he fills seventy pages of his book with the account of what he has himself done and seen at Little Compton, of which parish he is vicar. About as much more is occupied with Juxon's works ; and so is made up a book which is not without some interest, and of which we may at least say that the author has made it as good as he could.