The power vested in four Cambridge professors, to appoint to
the Cambridge chair of Casuistry, Moral Theology, and Moral Philo- sophy, vacated by the death of Mr. Maurice, has been exercised by the election of the Rev. Thomas Rawson Birks, a Second Wrangler and Smith's Prizeman of 1834. The election has caused a good -deal of disappointment in Cambridge, where a man of more mark was looked for. We know nothing of Mr. Birks's claims, and for -anything we know to the contrary, he may be a man of great ability. But a reference to the Clerical Directory will show that he has written a very great deal, and that his works are very little -known, even in the literary world,—which speaks less for his power than many a reputation not founded on published works at all, might do. He is the biographer of the late Rev. E. Bicker- steth, the author of works on Astronomy, of "Matter and Ether, or Secret Laws of Physical Change," of essays on various propheti- cal subjects, of "The Two Later Visions of Daniel," of letters on Maynooth and on the Papacy, and so forth,—from which it may be inferred that he is a mild Evangelical, of speculative tendencies. We fear he is hardly a man very likely to succeed to Mr. Maurice's great influence in the University.
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