The Life and Correspondence of Dr. Ream will be interesting
to all those who study the history of the English Church, and love to contemplate the picture of a person of great piety, learning, and benevolence. Dr. BASIRE was one of the clergy who, during the troubles of the Civil Wars, were "sequestered, pursevanted, plundered, and forced to fly." He did not, however, waste the years of his exile in dancing attendance and living upon charity at Breda or Bruges, with his good-for-nothing Prince : his exile was a period of apostolic mission, and was spent chiefly in Hungary and Transylvania, at a period when those countries, by the position and views of the Turks, were perhaps the most interesting in Europe. " 10 July, 1666. In the afternoone, preach'd at the Abbey, Dr. Basire,' that great traveller, or rather French apostle, who had been planting the Church of England in diuers parts of the Levant and Asia. He shewed that the Church of England was, for purity of doctrine, substance, de- cency, and beauty, the most perfect under heaven ; that England was the very land of Goshen. "October 29, 1662. I went to court this evening, and had much dis- course with Dr. Basires, one of his Majesty's Chaplains ; who shewed me the syngraphs and original subscriptions of diuers Eastern Patriarchs and Asian Churches to our confession."—Evelyn's Diary.
This passage will show the quality of Archdeacon BASIRE, and the consideration in which he was held in his lifetime. The letters are such as might be expected to proceed from a man of his cha- racter and station,—learned rather than curious, pious than ele- gant, serious, if not heavy.
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