BOOKS.

DAN= WILSON AND ROBERT NELSON.* BIOGRA.PHY that would show us men, invested with all the cir- cumstance and colour of their life, that would be at once brief, graphic, and truthful, would have a claim on our admiration such as we accord to a genuine poem or romance. To write out the thought and action of any true worker for humanity, and picture the man moving and speaking before us, a biographer re- quires more or less of what is emphatically called genius. Lives of our modern heroes or representative men appear to us, for the most part, to be composed in entire disregard of any Rich condi- tion. Is it that the heroes are not heroes ? or is it that those who try to celebrate their noble acts are not their poets but their

valets ? or is it something of both ? • Two men, of minor celebrity, have recently sat for their pic-

ture; which has been taken, as such pictures usually are in our day,—photographed with the dingy gaslight of the "talented man," not with the divine sunbeam of genial intelligence. Yet if, judged by our standard of art, those pictures are the produc- tions not of masters but of apprentices, let us correct any false impression that our criticism may have excited, by the willing avowal, that less exacting readers will find them equal, if not superior, to the majority of such pictorial compositions.

Dr. Daniel Wilson says his present biographer, has been more or less prominently before the church for fifty years. He was the eldest son of Stephen Wilson and Ann Collett West, and was born in Church Street, Spitalfields, on July 2d, 1778. At the age of seven years he was sent to a preparatory school at Eltham in Kent. In his tenth year he was removed to Hackney and en-

trusted to the care of Reverend John Eyre who had formerly been curate to the well-known Richard Cecil of Lewes. Mr. Bateman deserves our commendation for his report of the school life of Daniel Wilson. One day when the boy was idle, perverse, and refractory, his master, as he passed through the room, said "Daniel, you are not worth flogging or I would flog you." This sarcastic estimate of his value stirred the boy's pride. He was never after in similar disgrace; but became persevering, self- commanding, and indefatigable in his studies. At fourteen years of age he was removed into the warehouse of William Wilson. Here he drew upon sleep for time to keep up Latin, French, and practise English composition. During this period young Wilson exhibited no precocious saintliness. Some even testify that he scoffed at prayer, saying, that "it rose no higher than the ceil- ing;" and, his biographer thinks there can be little doubt that for a time he walked in "the counsels of the ungodly," and stood and sat in other objectionable places. A great change, however, was at 'hand. Mental anxiety led him to consult Newton and Cecil. Conviction of sin was followed by a call to the ministry. His college life commenced in 1798. At Oxford the examination was then a mere form. A candidate chose his own books and his own examiners. A pleasant breakfast often preceded and a good dinner not uncommonly followed the literary ordeal. In those days a Bible-lacking undergraduate, not yet lost to all sense of shame, would ;aity to a pious and unfashionable remonstrant, "Do you think I could by any possibility go into Parker's shop and ask for a Bible ?" In those days, too, it is said that when an examiner in the schools received no answer to the question "Quid solidus angulus," he answered himself by grasping tic corner of the desk at which he stood, and saying "Rio solfflus an- plias." What an easy, gentlemanly way of doing things! Wilson acquitted himself well at the University. In 1803 he won the English prose essay, the subject being common sense. " Well, Mr. Crouch," said one of the Heads of Houses to the Vice-Principal and Tutor of Wilson's college, "so common sense has come to Edmund Hall at last." " Yes •1 replied Mr. Crouch, with his quiet humour, "but not yet to the other colleges." It is interesting to note that a pious and accomplished predecessor of Daniel Wilson delivered his poem of Palestine on the very day that the author of the successful essay ascended the rostrum in the Oxford Theatre. Reginald Heber then sat immediately behind, "testifying his applause in the kindest manner."

It is impossible for us to trace in detail Dr. Wilson's career. Mr. Bateman shows how his energy of character was displayed in every phase of life at St. Edmund's Hall, Chobham, Oxford, Worton, St. John's, Islington and India; • how he translated and

retranslated all Cioero's Epistles in Epistles, in acquire a good Latin style ; how he kept a journal and corresponded for years in Latin with familiar friends in order to retain and improve that style ; how he moved reluctant parishioners, and induced them, as one man, to lay a rate and build three churches ; lastly, how he en- tered Burmah at the age of seventy-eight, lived in houses made of mats, founded churches in Christ's honour, and took spiritual possession of the country in God's name. "His most notable evangelizing achievement," says the Archdeacon of Calcutta, " was perhaps the authoritative repudiation and ejection of the caste system from the native churches of Southern India." His sermons are described as masterly in matter and delivery. He made constant visitations over his vast diocese, until driven home by sickness in 1845 for eighteen months. After his return his • The Life of the Right Reverend Daniel Wilson, D.D., late Lord Bishop of Cal- cutta and Metropolitan of India. With his extracts from his Journals and Corre- spondence. By the Reverend Josiah Bateman, M.A. In two volumes. Published by Murray. Memoirs of the Life and Times of the Pious Robert Nelson. By the Reverend C. F. Secretan, M.A. Published by Murray.

visitations were resumed. There were seven in all. Wilson la- boured as the zealous and untiring Vicar of Islington for eight years, from 1824 to 1832. In 1831, Turner, fourth Bishop of Calcutta, died, and Wilson, with small respect for the conventional "nob episcopari" principle, professed his readiness to go as his successor to India, if no one else could be found. In 1832 he received episcopal consecration; on January 2, 1858, he died, at the age of eighty, Bishop of Calcutta and Metropolitan of India, in the country of his adoption. Dr. Wilson was a man of fair intellectual abilities. His lite- rary productions appear to have been entirely theological. The preface contributed to "Butler's Analogy" has been the subject of panegyric from two high ecclesiastical personages, the present Archbishop of Canterbury and Dr. Copplestone. In his political opinions, the Bishop of Calcutta was so far liberal as to act in toncert with Wilberforce and Clarkson in the abolition of slavery and warmly advocate the righteous measure of Catholic Emanci- pation. In his theological opinions he seems to have been deci- dedly "Low Church," addicted at one period of his life to un- wholesome journalistic practices, lamentations over the 'sin of not introducing spiritual discourse at a party where he sat for above an hour at tea. Dr. Wilson was strongly opposed to the divinity taught in the Tracts for the Times. Of their writers he says, that "the calmness of their manner, and the tone of piety which runs through their writings, form a part of their system, as they did that of the Jesuits before them." The imputation is a serious one, and comes with an ill grace from a man who, having sub- scribed to the formularies of the Church of England, which as a mere matter of fact unquestionably teach the doctrine of baptis- mal regeneration and priestly absolution, repudiated both. Wil- son, however, seems to us to have been a man of genuine good- ness.

With the Pious Robert Nelson, the hero of Mr. Secretan's bio- graphy, he would have had little theological sympathy. The "life " of this excellent man is now written for the first time in an extended form. Nelson was the grandson of Lewis Roberts, an eminent trader of London, accredited with the authorship of the "Merchants' Map of Commerce." His father was Mr. John Nelson, a wealthy Turkey Merchant. Robert was born July 8 16.56; was educated first at St. Paul's school, when he formed a boyish friendship with Edmund Halley the mathematician ; and afterwards at Dryfield, where he acquired, under the tuition of the famous Bishop Bull, all the learning he ever possessed. Though he imbibed from Bull a strong reverence for primitive antiquity and church authority:, he early numbered the great preacher of lati- tudinarian religion Tillotson, among his friends. In 1660, Nel- son accompanied galley on a foreign tour. "On their journey between Calais and Paris, they obtained their first view of the celebrated comet upon which Halley founded his cometary theory." On the 23d November, 1682, Nelson married Theophila, the daughter of the Earl of Berkeley, and widow of Sir Kingsmill Lucy, then twenty eight years of age, and like himself possessed of a competent estate. About three years after the marriage, Lady T. Nelson, under the influence of Cardinal Howard and Bossuet, Bishop of Meaux, became a convert to the Roman Catholic faith. A second visit to the continent in 1688 re- sulted in Nelson's accession to the ranks of the Jacobites ; and Tillotson's expressed opinion that he was not justified in attending the church services since he could not take part in the prayers for the " Littprping " king and queen seems to have decided him in joining " the Nonjuring communion, and to have interrupted the confidential intercourse which he had so long enjoyed with the friend of his youth." Three years passed before Tillotson's death- bed revived an affection which "bridged over all their differences in politics and religion." Nelson held the dying Bishop in his arms and befriended his widow after his decease.

The death of Bishop Lloyd in 1709, "enabled Nelson with a good conscience to resume communion with the prelates of the Established Church. He adhered, however, to the ,Jacobite cause, and refused to join in the prayers for Queen Anne. The Non- 'wore of the time used to express their dissent when the Royal titles were given in the services of the church in different fashions, Cherry rising from his knees at the name of the Queen and facing the congregation, Dodwell sliding off his knees and sitting down upon his hassock, Parker and others turning over

• the leaves of their prayer-books to "avoid hearing if possible the unpalatable words." Nelson followed the common example. Little is known of Nelson's family relations. His father he lost in his infancy ; his mother died at an advanced age. He was with her when she breathed her last sigh. To his wife, notwithstand- ing her perversion to Romanism, he continued afectionately at- tached. She died about a year after her husband's mother. Principal legatee on the death of the latter, he succeeded also to his wife's fortune on her demise ; and was thus enabled "to en- large his always munificent charity." With his wife's children by her former husband he continued on the most kindly terms. Her son, Sir Berkeley Lucy, the correspondent of Locke and the admirer of Collins the Deist, could not have been in all re- spects a congenial associate. But Nelson was a frequent visitor at his seat of Woodeote, and by way of antidote to his sceptical ten- dencies, conjectures his present biographer, bequeathed to him his valuable theological library.

Among the celebrities of the day with whom Nelson was ac- quainted, in addition to those already mentioned, was the re- nowned satirist Jonathan Swift, who eulogizes him as "a very pious, learned and worthy gentleman of the Nonjuring party,'

Bishop Lloyd, Hinkes, Ken, the antiquary Humphrey Wanley, and Ralph Thoresby, also an antiquary. His most remarkable foreign correspondent was the illustrious Bossuet. Nelson has been highly esteemed for his literary productions. He is best known by a work entitled "Companion for the Festi- vals and Fasts of the Church of England." Of his remaining works the principal are the "Great Duty of frequenting the Christian Sacrifices," "The Practice of True Devotion," and an "Account of the Life and Writings of William Kettlewell." He also pub- blished, with biographical and critical annotations, the English works of Bishop Bull.

We have already alluded to his splendid munificence. Mr. Seeretan, in a chapter on Nelson's "ways and methods of doing good," describes him as "the patron and advocate of the Religious Societies and of the Societies for the Reformation of Manners ; a leading member and frequent Chairman of the Society for Pro- moting Christian Knowledge ; a constant attendant at the meet- ings of the sister Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts ; a liberal supporter of the Reverend Dr. Bray's Design for the establishment of parochial libraries ; a member of the It_oyal Commission for building fifty new churches in London and Westminster ; one of the chief promoters of the erection of charity schools ; taking a lively interest in the Corporation of the Sons of the Clergy, in the establishment of Queen Anne's bounty, and in the attempts then made in the provision of parochial work- houses for the poor. To an active part in all these pious under- takings he added a keen and thoughtful appreciation of those re- ligious wants which still remained unprovided," as theological seminaries for the clergy ; training colleges for schoolmasters and schoolmistresses; ragged schools under the still more offensive name of schools for blackguard boys ; penitentiaries ; foundling and other hospitals ; places of religious retirement for the devout, &c. &c.

This sincere devotion to churchly theory and practice explains Nelson's ex-official canonization as the "Pious Robert Nelson." The subject of Mr. Secretan's Memoir appears in feat to have been a tolerant, well-informed, and godly man; a prototype of the obnoxious Tractarian philanthropist of our own time ; little beloved by Islington Vicars and Low-Church Indian Bishops. A quiet exemplary gentlemen, Nelson possessed some of the character- istics of the conventional saint, but evidenced none of the qualities of the natural hero. He may be truly though alliteratively epi- tomized as a pious and prosperous man.

In the autumn of 1714, his strength began rapidly to decline.. By the advice of his physicians he selected Kensington, then re- commended for its pure air, as a residence. His cousin Delicia Woolf, a staunch Nonconformist, attended him in his illness, and Nelson acknowledged this gentle ministration by the bequest of the copyright of his festivals and fasts. His illness lasted but three months. "We get a glimpse of him on one occasion riding in the Park in his chariot, in company with his eccentric friend Lee, gazing together with him upon a glorious sun as it burst from behind a cloud, and accepting it for an emblem of the eternal brightness that should shortly break on him."

On the 16th January 1715, "this good man's soul passed away quietly into peace." 'The bulk of his estate was characteristically bequeathed to charitable uses.