TIME AND FAITH. * THE double title of this book would

seem to point on the one hand to an exposition of the religious principle in man, as it has manifested itself at various times, under varying circumstances of culture, locality, and race ; on the other, to a critical examination of the materials for the history of the Christian Church. The actual contents of the work correspond very imperfectly to these indications of the author's purpose. He appears to have a notion that all ancient mythology arose out of astronomy, and that all its symbols and legends are nothing but corruptions of zodiacal emblems. So far as we can trace any leading idea throughout the two volumes, this would appear to be the author's patent key for unlocking the mysteries of all religions, from Chaldaism through the worship of ancient Egypt and Judteism to Christianity ; and the theory finds its consummation in a novel interpretation given to the famous standard of Constantine, which has usually been taken to be a purely Christian emblem, but which the author of the work before us attempts to prove was nothing but an astronomical symbol representing the supposed completion of the periodicities of the sun and moon, "the soli-lunar period before described of 600 ordinary years." The same key opens also the vexed question of the names of tribes and nations. Thus, we have been accustomed to consider the S.P.Q.R. of the Roman standards as equivalent to the initial letters of " Senatus Populusque Romanus " ; but the author of Time and Faith tells us that "this explanation is open to doubt, as "not in accordance with the enigmatical and generally religious character of ancient national symbols. In the lapse of centuries, the sense of the original characters may have been lost, and their form changed. It is far from improbable that in the time of Remus. lus the letters were IPE 365." The reader is informed that these Greek characters, taken in their numeral signification and added together, make up 365, the number of days in the solar year. On this principle of taking the numeral force of the Greek characters which make up the names of nations, the author interprets the names into symbols of astronomical significance, and supposes that the names were in each case given because the nations carried these characters on their standards as the S.P.Q.R. of the Romans. Thus, the Greeks were ypaLKot, because the Hellenes bore upon their banners the talismanic word Abraksas, which, written in Greek characters and numerically interpreted, gives the numbers which added together make up 365; and Greens is only a perversion of Graksas, from which the derivation of Grakoi or Greed is easy. The method is applied with equal success to many other national names, belonging to various races of the inhabitants of the world. We hope our readers see the full force and glory of this discovery, which rivals Dr. Forster's famous method of interpreting the Sinaitio inscriptions. In fact, it rests Upon much the same charming assumption. The Doctor supposed, that if by hook or by crook he could make out the characters on the rock into any resemblances to the letters of any known alphabet, he was at liberty so to do, and by this method established that the inscriptions were written by one Semitic tribe at one time. Our author simply assumes that he has a right to represent all national names in Greek characters, and then to interpret them by the system of Greek arithmetical notation. This astronomical hobby-horse is trotted out continually by the author of Time and Faith. If he has a leading idea this is it ; and it is just the sort of maggot that breeds in the brain of a man of extremely inaccurate scholarship who has yet a taste for learning and for research into the beginnings of things. Apart from this notion, we should describe the book as a collection of wornout Rationalistic interpretations of the history in the Old and New Testament, followed by a kind of summary of the history of the Roman Empire till the death of Constantine the Great. In these interpretations the writer follows the exploded school of Paulus, rather than the more recent developments of Rationalism. The principle is, to eliminate from a professedly historical narrative all supernatural elements, and to treat the residuum as true fact. We need scarcely remind readers of the Spectator, of the antiquated nature of a procedure which Mr. Grote 's History of Greece, among ether well-known works, has thoroughly discussed and shown to be fallacious and unsatisfactory. Thus, the writer upon whom we are commenting tells us, that "the history or tradition of one of those moral paroxysms, or religions panics, when a holocaust of human victims was usually called for in ancient times, may be gathered from the account given us of the origin of the Passover ; when the Lord slew all the first-born of the land of Egypt, both the first-born of man and the first-born of cattle."' His • Time and Faith : an Inquiry into the Data of Ecclesiastical History. In two isslumes. Published by Groombndge and Sons. explanation amounts in brief to the statement that the plagues mentioned in Exodus were the natural phsenomena of Eastern climates aggravated by accidental circumstances, and accompanied by some visitations that were unusual; that these were referred to Divine displeasure ; and that a state of things which we now meet by a proclamation for a general fast was then usually met by a national sacrifice. "In the temples," he goes on to say, "a nobler burnt-offering than a lamb was to be offered on the part of the nation,—the first-born of man ; to be taken from every house the door-posts of which the priests had not directed to be sprinkled with blood in token of sufficient purification. The Israelites were in a position to learn the secret sign of the families to be spared, and to profit by it ; for 'Moses was very great in the land of Egypt, in the sight of Pharoah's servants, and in the sight of the people.' Moses communicated the intelligence to his own countrymen ; and, having already successfully impressed the public mind with a belief that the bondage of the Israelites was the national sin for which Egypt was suffering, took advantage of this night of terror to effect their deliverance." We are not well enough acquainted with Rationalistic commentaries on the Old Testament to know whether this ingenious interpretation is original or not ; but it is evident that the only authority we have for the death of the first-born at all as an historical fact knows nothing of such an explanation ; and therefore, if we reject the account given by this authority, we have no reason to believe the fact at all. We may remark further, that as Pharoali and his chief men must have known as well as Moses the real nature of the transaction, we see no reason to suppose that the escape of the Israelites would have been facilitated by the panic. We call this nothing better than ingenious trifling. In fact, though the author of Time and Faith is evidently a person of wide miscellaneous reading, we see good reason to doubt whether he is in any sense competent for the task he has undertaken. The foundation of all investigations into the remote past must base themselves upon linguistic researches ; and unless a man is a good scholar, he is liable to be constantly led astray by fancied analogies which have no foundation in reality. No man is competent to publish works of this kind unless he has laid the foundation of his knowledge deep in the ancient languages. Now we do not pretend to criticize this writer's general attainments ; but in some particulars within our own knowledge we can see that he is most ignorant and superficial. The instance we have given above would alone demonstrate an incapacity for his task : no scholar could have been seduced into such an extravagance as the assumption by which this writer interprets all kinds of national names into astronomical symbols. But throughout his book he proceeds on a similar principle with respect to language, interpreting Semitic names by Gothic, and vice versa ; and while he utterly neglects the higher and more essential considerations offered by the structure of languages, dwelling with the childishemphasis and credulity of the old etymologists upon accidental resemblances of sound. It is, however, in his Greek and Latin that we perceive most clearly how loose and inaccurate his scholarship is. Thus, he tells us that prophets among the Greeks were called. chresmologia—a word which we should have supposed to be a misprint for chresmologi or chresmologoi, if it were not repeated in the same form, and if a note were not appended to inform us that it is derived "from chresmos, an oracular response, and logios, learned "; and, more than all, if Greek words were not written and spoken of throughout the book in the same loose unsoholarlike way. Perhaps the strangest instance occurs among some remarks on the habit of the translators of the New Testament of rendering what are, in this writer's opinion, the titles of sects, into English words corresponding to their etymological significance. Thus, he would have IcXn.rot translated not " called " but the sect of kleti, isXstcroi and assX00L not elect and brethren but the sect of Eklecti and the sect of Adelphi. In the course of this discussion he has occasion to quote from Philo a phrase about the Essenes--Tos Xaxearra OniXov n-un, hraatum ij Inytwv--and this he renders by the astounding English "the Lekthenta company of the Essaioi or Hosioi," apparently not in the least knowing that N-Exesirra is the passive participle of the verb an's,. If this is to be matched at all, it can only be by his own etymology of the word "catholic," of which he says that the authors of our dictionaries have entirely mistaken the ancient signification. He refers to the C'hotti and Gothi as kindred people with a kindred name ; and on this analogy announces that " 'Catholic' is a form of the German GOttergleich," adding, as a reason why the term was first applied to the Church at Smyrna in the Ignatian Epistles, that "the Church of Smyrna probably consisted largely of Asiatic Gets, either as naturalized citizens of Smyrna, or as bond servants or slaves, the prisoners of former wars ; and the incursions of the Parthians and Chatti, at this time renewed, doubtless added to the bitterness felt by the Romans against alien forms of worship ; and against those forms especially which in the common rejection of images seem to have the nearest affinity with the religion of these nations." That is, the term "Catholic Church" was originally applied to the Church at Smyrna as a term of reproach, meaning the church of the savage Chatti ; for that is what the statement reduces itself to in the last result. And this is affirmed without an iota of positive evidence, in the teeth of Christian antiquity, and in utter ignorance that KaSexoces is a genuine Greek adjective formed regularly. Surely the author of Time and Faith must know Greek enough to be aware that the adjectives of that language end in ,K02 not unfrequently ; and that if from Pacasos we have an adjective Paramus, there is no reason why from an adverb eadace we should not have taeoL.Kog : and for the fact we refer him to Liddell and Scott, who support the word by the authority of Polybius and Philo. Again he tells us, that the Synoptical Gospels are so called from " synn together and optuo to see " ; neither of these words being Greek words at all, but sounding something like the Greek words from which synoptical is derived.. But the richest nest of blunders is found in an explanation of the word Donzinieuna in the sense of a small ecclesiastical building. First we are told that donuts is derived from dome gift (author's Greek*) and that hence a cathedral was called downs because a place of sacred offerings. The relation of Dona:ileum to dontu.9 is explained by referring the mini to 211171Z118 less and. the Greek minutiae "to lessen " ; and the termination cum is, we are told, the Greek aye, which became cum from being sometimes written CrN.' Dr. Donaldson must tremble for his reputation, and Professor Key turn pale with envy.

* Plutarch does use dolia in this sense. But the absurdity of the derivation is, if possible, increased by supposing an old Latin word derived from a form introduced into Greek only in the decadence of the language.

DR. DORAN'S MONARCHS RETIRED FROM BUSINESS.*

Tins is a better book than so forced and flippant a title might lead one to suppose. The characteristic laxities of the author will of course be found in it. He is not more careful than heretofore in the choice of his facts ; only let them be funny, or telling, or serve to hang on a reflection that looks witty or profound, and he will not scrutinize the innate likelihood of the story or the credibility of the raconteur. He is equally lax about his authorities. In his life of Christina Queen of Sweden, he passes by Whitelocke's Embassy to Sweden, the most trustworthy authority on a part of the subject, for inferior and even anonymous writers. He is lax, or so lazy, that he continually contradicts himself in matters of fact. Having stated, truly enough, that the house of Lancaster "ruled in England." sixty-two years—from 1399 to 1461, he says within a page or two, that "the house of York held dominion over England only two years more than that of Lancaster," and then im mediately gives the right dates, 1461-1485, which show it to have been thirty-eight years less. He says the last and deposed King of Poland, Stanislaus Poniatowski, died in 1798; yet compels him to submit to the " indignity " of appearing at the coronation of Alexander, which did not take place till 1801. If these were casual slips they might not amount to much, but we fear in Dr. Doran's case it is merely one form of haste and looseness. The plan of the work, even in reference to its title, is pushed too far. Who cares about dry or apocryphal accounts of chief tains of the Heptarchy or Frankish " Kings " who retired or

were forced. into monasteries P The interest is even less with remoter peoples. But Dr. Doran is not satisfied with overlaying his subject in that way.; he often gives a sketchy coup d'oeil of the history of the empire in which his subjects have "retired from business," and whose private lives are to be done as fully as the materials will allow. The Roman, the Byzantine, the Russian empires, are so treated, and indeed England and France.

A. well-selected group of lives of monarchs, whom misfortune, caprice, infirmity, or philosophy, have compelled or induced to descend from a throne, would form an interesting and instructive work. An unavoidable drawback felt in Dr. Doran is, that the leading features of the more eminent monarchs are already fami liar through liistory, or in some cases—as the Emperor Charles the Fifth and. Napoleon Bonaparte—by separate accounts. However, there are still a good many of whom little is popularly known, at least in their retirement, especially since the Revolu tion of 1688. Even lit our days, how many sovereigns have had to leave off "business," not driven away by the wars and con quests ensuing upon the French Revolution, but compelled by their subjects or their own feelings ! Gustavus the Fourth of Sweden led the way, and, after latterly living in almost sordid poverty, died in absolute obscurity some twenty years ago. Charles the Tenth in 1830, Louis Philippe in 1848, are familiar to us all; and neither the elder nor the younger branch of the Bour bons was able to maintain itself for twenty years. The retired Em peror of Austria was of no more consequence off the throne than on it. William Frederick of Holland rather threw a respect ability into the part of "All for Love " ; which is more than can be said. of Ludwig of Bavaria. The late King of Sardinia heroically closed. a questionable career, but lived too short a time after the battle of Novara to furnish much material for gossip. As for the petty Peninsular or Transatlantic Princes who have "retired from business," their names are not worth the enumeration. One of the most interesting stories in the volumes is the life of James the Second. This may arise from the air of pious resignation he contrived to throw over his exiled state, or more truly perhaps from our associations with the English King. There is something touching in this natural weariness breaking through the assumed part.

"His impatience and disappointment betrayed themselves in his occasionally-expressed weariness of life. He was, after all, tired of the burden he had been condemned to carry; and he often brought tears into the eyes of the Queen, who reproached him for his eagerness to lay down his life, and bade him think of his children. It was then that testy human nature would break out in spite of self-discipline. 'My children,' he would say, 'God will provide for them and for you. But what am I, but a poor, weak man, who can do nothing without God, and with whom God will have nought to do. He can carry out his designs without me.'

• Monarchs Retired from Business. By Dr. Doran, Author of "Knights and their Days," Sic. Sic. Published by Bentley. " These venial outbreaks of impatience,--sometimos indulged in purposely, he said, that the Queen might accustom herself to the idea of his death,— were followed by closer study than usual of the ninth book of the treatise 'On the Love of God,' by Francis de Sales. The works of this author he read even oftener than he did the Scriptures. He founded his rule of life on the works of the Gentleman Saint,' who shared with Thomas-i-Kempis, Granata, and Rodriguez, the highest esteem of the Royal recluse. He submitted to another sort of discipline also, which was not without severity. It is alluded to in the 'Circular Letter from the Religious Convent of Chaillot.' In this the pious author states= We have seen, since his death, the iron chain and the discipline he made use of; but he so carefully hid his mortifieations, that the Queen did not find them out for a long time after, having found them (chain and whip) by chance in a closet which he had forgot to shut.'

" The chief amusements of the uncrowned pair consisted in visits paid to convents and similar religious communities, at a moderate distance from St. Germains. These visits were paid when some festival was celebrated ; and, the religious ceremony concluded, nothing pleased the King more thoroughly than to assemble an audience about him in some spacious hall of the establishment, and there recount to his hearers the history of his life and conversion. The tale was told frequently enough to vex the ears of those who were repeatedly called to listen to it ; and perhaps some of those who heard the old story smiled at the King's conclusion wherein he asserted, I have lost nothing. I have been a great sinner. Prosperity would have corrupted me ; I should have lived in disorder; or, if I had not left off sinning till old age had seized me, I should never have had time nor opportunity for entering into myself,. nor of making the necessary reflections on my wretched state and condition. God in his mercy has afflicted ine, and has given me time and grace to think on my salvation. I have never desired, on my own account, to be settled on my throne again.' "

The privations of the more respectable followers of James when disbanded., the courage they exhibited in the French service, and the neglect they received in return, are pretty well known. The less creditable doings of some of the heroic band are not so familiar, perhaps because the chief writers upon the subject are Jacobites.

"Other vexations, too, continued to annoy the ex-sovereign. The disbanded troops, lately in his service, were fast falling into evil ways, and achieving a very undesirable reputation. That some of them took to the road has been already mentioned, The route between St. Germaine and Paris was not safe because of them ; and they added murder to robbery when they met with resistance. One Irish Jacobite trooper, named Francis O'Neil, was broken alive upon the wheel, for the double crime of plunder and assassination. Two other ex-soldiers in James's service, Englishmen, lacked nerve to take their chance against stout travellers on the road ; but they practised the double profession above named in a quieter and more cowardly way. On pretence of being ill, they sent for a physician, and when the latter entered their apartment, they fell upon, stabbed, and robbed him. The law was stringently applied to these Jacobite ruffians, whose desperate crimes testify at once to their own utter destitution and the fallen condition of their sovereign. James and his consort sought for such comfort as they could find, under the disgrace brought upon them by their followers, by frequent visits to convents, adoration of relies, and constant attendance at sermons and the elevation of the host. These visits were of no avail ; the town of St. Germaine became almost uninhabitable through the sanguinary violence of the Jacobite brigands. No sober citizen dared venture abroad at night, even in the summer-time ; and to what extent pillage and murder were carried by the fierce and hungry partisans who had followed the standard of James, may be seen in the fact, that on one and the same day five Irish soldiers were broken alive' in St. Germans, for the crime of robbery and assassination by night, in the town or its vicinity."

Whether such a mere adventurer as Theodore King of Corsica, a sort of nine-days wonder of the last century, was worth introducing at all, may be questioned, but his closing scene furnishes a curious medley.

"In the year 1756, he 'took the benefit of the Insolvent Act'; and his schedule registered the kingdom of Corsica for the benefit of his creditors, and declared that he 'had no other estate or effects but in right of that kingdom.' He was liberated in December, but he took up his residence within the Liberty of the Fleet. Increased distress threatening him, he repaired to the Portuguese Ambassador, in South Audloy Street, near him old residence in Mount Street, to ask for aid. Without a penny in his pocket to pay for the conveyance, he engaged a chair ; and when he was set down at the Ambassador's, hie Excellency was not at home.' Perplexed in the extreme, he prevailed on the reluctant chairmen to carry him to No. Little Chapel Street, Soho, where lived an honest tailor, known to Theodore ; and in whose compassionate character he was not mistaken, for the poor fellow received the still poorer fellow who needed charity and obtained what he needed. The ex-King was in a state of inanition, and was indeed past recovery. He lay down on the humble bed of his friend the tailor, and died there the next day. A subscription was talked of to defray the expenses of the royal funeralS but an oilman, well-to-do, in Compton Street, Soho, whose name was Wright, and who was not without a particular vanity, declared that he was 'determined for once in his life to have the honour of burying a king.' He undertook to defray the expenses. They amounted only to 10/. lls. 2d.; • but the opulent oilman' would not pay more than eight guineas; and the bill of Mr. Hubbard, at the Four Coffins and Crown, in New Street, near Broad Street, Carnaby Market, St. James's, Westminster,' bears the unsatisfactory mark of balance due, 21. Ss. 2d.' "The body, after lying in such ' stute ' as could be got up for it, at the poor tailor's, was buried on the 15th December 1756. Three weeks later, Walpole writes to Mann, 'Your old royal guest, King Theodore, in gone to the place which, it is said, levels kings and beggars ; an unnecessary Journey for him, who had already fallen from the one to the other.' In September 1757, Walpole writes to the same correspondent at Florence—where Theodore was residing when the Corsican deputation offered to elect him king' I am putting up. a stone in St. Anne's Churchyard for your old friend, King Theodore ; in short, his history is too remarkable to be let perish. Mr. Bentley says that I am not only an antiquarian, but prepare materials for future antiquarians. You will laugh to hear, that when I sent the inscription to the Vestry, for the approbation of the Minister and Churchwardens, they demurred, and took some days to consider whether they should suffer him to be called King of Corsica. Happily, they have acknowledged his title ! Here is the inscription ; over it is a crown, exactly copied from his coin—' Near this place is interred,. Theodore, King of Corsica who died in this parish, December 11, 1756, immediately after leaving the King's Bench Prison, by the benefit of the Act of insolvency; in censesequence of which he registered his kingdom of Corsica for the UN of his creditors.

'The Grave, great teacher, to a level brings Heroes and beggars, galley-slaves and kings. But Theodore this lesson teamed ere dead ; Fate poured its lessons on his living head. Bestowal a kingdom, and denied bun bread.'

an adjective Paramus, there is no reason why from an adverb eadace we should not have taeoL.Kog : and for the fact we refer him to Liddell and Scott, who support the word by the authority of Polybius and Philo. Again he tells us, that the Synoptical Gospels are so called from " synn together and optuo to see " ; neither of these words being Greek words at all, but sounding something like the Greek words from which synoptical is derived.. But the richest nest of blunders is found in an explanation of the word Donzinieuna in the sense of a small ecclesiastical building. First we are told that donuts is derived from dome gift (author's Greek*) and that hence a cathedral was called downs because a place of sacred offerings. The relation of Dona:ileum to dontu.9 is explained by referring the mini to 211171Z118 less and. the Greek minutiae "to lessen " ; and the termination cum is, we are told, the Greek aye, which became cum from being sometimes written CrN.' Dr. Donaldson must tremble for his reputation, and Professor Key turn pale with envy.

* Plutarch does use dolia in this sense. But the absurdity of the derivation is, if possible, increased by supposing an old Latin word derived from a form introduced into Greek only in the decadence of the language.