sketch was at Eton, a periodical work, entitled "The Miniature," (having the "Microcosm" for its prototype,) was conducted by him and three of his contemporaries. Of this publication, which went through two editions, it is enough to say, that, considered as the production of boys, which it exclusively was, it is a striking evidence of early genius and acquirements; and that the papers in particular, which the letter affixed to them marks as Rennell's, exhibit a strength of intellect, and an elevation of thought, far beyond his years. It was indeed the manliness of his understanding and taste by which, at this period of his life, he was chiefly characterized. In this respect it may be said of him, that he was never a boy. His views and notions, whether intellectual or moral, were not boyish; the authors who were his chosen favourites and models, were not those whom boys in general most admire and imitate: everything, in short, indicated that early ripeness which too often, as in his case, is found to be the forerunner, and as it were the compensation, of early decay. Nor was he less exemplary in conduct than eminent for talents and proficiency in learning. Deeply impressed from his very childhood with sentiments of genuine and practical piety, he was habitually virtuous upon religious principles, and exhibited in his life lucid proof that power of mind finds its best ally in purity of heart, and that genius and licentiousness have no natural union with each other. In 1806, Mr Rennell was removed, in the regular course of succession, from Eton, to King's College, Cambridge; and here the excellent gifts and qualities which had already more than begun to open themselves, found ampler space for expansion and luxuriance. He brought with him indeed from school the somewhat questionable advantage of a very high repu

tation: but his course in the University only proved how well he had earned his title to it.

In 1808, Sir William Browne's annual medal for the best Greek ode was adjudged to Mr Rennell's beautiful composition on Veris Comites?" During the period of his residence at Cambridge, and occasionally afterwards, he was also a contributor to the "Museum Criticum," published at irregular intervals by some eminent scholars of the University. He was, in a word, unceasingly active, always engaged in honourable and useful pursuits. But all his studies had a tendency to that sacred profession for which he ever entertained a strong predilection, and to which, from a well-grounded conviction of his fitness for it, he had long determined to devote himself.

Accordingly, soon after taking his Bachelor of Arts degree, he entered into holy orders, under a deep sense of the heavy responsibility which he was incurring; and firmly resolved, by the divine grace, to do the full work of an Evangelist, and give up his time and talents unreservedly to the ministry-a resolution which God enabled him strictly to fulfil. He was then immediately appointed by his father to the office of assistant preacher at the Temple, for which he was singularly qualified, and in which he acquitted himself in a manner altogether equal to the expectations which had been formed of him, and worthy of the eloquence which his father had for a long series of years displayed in the same place. Nor was it long before an opportunity was afforded him of manifesting, in another way, his professional zeal and ability. A bold attempt to wrest scripture to their purpose was made by those the tendency of whose creed is to divest the Gospel of Christ of its most distinguishing and vital doctrines, and reduce it to a corpus sine pectore,' in

the publication of An Improved Version of the New Testament,' accompanied with an introduction and notes. The principles of its authors are thus summed up by Mr Rennell, in the preface to his " Animadversions." "No Redeemer nor Intercessor, no Incarnation nor Atonement, no sanctifying nor comforting Spirit, is to be found in their creed; both heaven and hell, angels and devils, are equally banished from their consideration." But of this new attack upon "the faith once delivered to the saints," he was not content to be an inactive witness. In 1811, under the modest title of " A Student in Divinity," he put forth " Animadversions on the Unitarian Translation or Improved Version of the New Testament." In this acute and learned tract he exposed in a concise, but remarkably clear and satisfactory manner, the principal of those "unwarrantable interpretations, artful sophisms, and palpable contradictions," with which both text and comment of the improving translators abounded. Had the even then respectable name of Mr Rennell been prefixed to this publication, it would probably have had a more extensive circulation. But the author was not concealed from those who took a particular interest in such matters; and their attention and hopes were in consequence earnestly directed to one, who, in such early youth, had shown himself so able a champion for "the truth as it is in Jesus."-About this time, too, he undertook the important and laborious charge of the editorship of the "British Critic," a work which has long stood forward in support of religion and virtue; and presented a steady and successful resistance to infidelity on the one hand, and fanaticism on the other. He was himself also a frequent contributor to its pages. Thus was he at once, both in the pul

pit and by his pen, actively engaged in promoting the glory of God, and the well-being of his fellow-creatures.

It was not likely that merit thus pre-eminent would escape the notice of so vigilant a guardian of religion, and so conscientious a patron of those who distinguished themselves in its support, as the then and present bishop of London. Accordingly, in 1816, he called Mr Rennell from the Temple to a station of no ordinary consequence, the Vicarage of Kensington. Hitherto his public ministry had been confined to the preacher's office: the care of a populous and important parish was now added; and high as was the reputation which in the former capacity he had acquired, it was yet to receive a great accession from the exemplary diligence and powerful effect with which he discharged the arduous and manifold duties that now devolved upon him. It must suffice, however, at present to say, that in this discharge he was unwearied and unremitting; till it pleased that Providence which gives and takes away for reasons equally wise, to deny to his flock the longer continuance of services, which, both temporally and spiritually, were indeed a blessing.

In the same year Mr Rennell was elected Christian Advocate in the University of Cambridge, a choice for which the world owes a debt of gratitude to those who made it, since it gave occasion to two of his most vaÏuable productions; which, however, are too well known, to require that a particular account should be given of them here. The first was entitled " Remarks on Scepticism, especially as it is connected with the Subjects of Organization and Life; being an answer to the Views of M. Bichat, Sir T. C. Morgan, and Mr Lawrence, upon those points." To the studies of anatomy and medicine Mr Ren

nell had always been attached. He never indeed suffered them to interfere with matters which more properly belonged to him; but he delighted to turn to them at intervals as sources of rational amusement and useful knowledge, and, above all, as auxiliaries to piety; and had attended a regular course of anatomical lectures, under an eminent surgeon of the metropolis. When, therefore, he saw in the schools both of Paris and London, medical science made the handmaid of irreligion, and observed, in particular, "aconsiderable advance of sceptical principle upon the subjects of organization and life," the doctrine of materialism paving the way for infidelity and atheism, he thought that he could not better discharge the duty which from "the office he held in the University," he owed to it and the world, than "to call the attention of the public to the mischievous tendency of such opinions."-" To detect, therefore, the fallacies, and expose the misrepresentations," by which, " both at home and abroad, those opinions were advocated, and to reconcile the views of the philosopher and the Christian," was the design of his remarks. Of all his works this is the most masterly, and the most popular. It is a work "which (as Johnson said of Burnet's account of the conversion of Rochester) the critic ought to read for its elegance, the philosopher for its arguments, and the saint for its piety." It foils the sceptic at his own weapons, and makes him feel that reason and philosophy are not for him, but against him, in the great question of natural and revealed religion.

Nor was its success disproportionate to its merit. First published in 1819, it is now passing through its sixth edition; and by it, its author, though" dead, yet speaketh." "It may be hoped, indeed (to adopt his

own eulogy of another,) that his voice will yet be heard in those quarters where libertine principles, infidel opinions, and vicious practices, prevail; and that this voice may awaken, convince, and save. It is thus that, even in his grave, the servant of the gospel is daily increasing his account for good in the Book of God."

A remarkable proof of the impression which this publication produced, was afforded by the fact that an attempt was made by certain persons, whose principles were exposed in it, to exclude Mr Rennell from the Royal Society, for admission into which he was about that time proposed. This attempt, however, as might have been expected, only served to show the impotent hostility of its authors, and more fully to set off the triumphs of religion.

The other work which Mr Rennell sent forth into the world, in his capacity of Christian Advocate, was entitled " Proofs of Inspiration, or the Grounds of Distinction between the New Testament, and the Apocryphal Volume: occasioned by the recent publication of the Apocryphal New Testament of Hone." In this work, the first edition of which appeared in 1822, he has exposed and repelled, in a very luminous and decisive manner, the insidious attack made upon the authority of the New Testament itself, through the medium of the unauthorized contents of the Apocryphal volume. He has clearly pointed out the broad line of everlasting distinction between the two volumes, proving, both from external and internal evidence, the inspiration of the one, and the want of all just pretensions to it in the other. He has thus provided a very valuable manual for the use of those who may have need of compendious, yet satisfactory information, as to the grounds on which the Canon of the New Testament was

framed; and furnished a simple yet sure test for the separation of the human "reveries and impostures" of the earlier ages of Christianity from the genuine productions of divine truth.

But the course of this admirable man was now fast drawing to its close, and that too at a time when the full blaze of prosperity had just opened upon it. In the autumn of 1823, he was united by marriage to a very amiable and excellent lady, the eldest daughter of the late John Delafield, Esq. of Kensington. Not many weeks after his marriage, Mr Rennell was attacked by a fever, from which he was for some time in imminent danger. Nothing could exceed the earnest and affectionate solicitude which on this occasion was manifested by persons of all ranks, particularly by his parishioners, whose attachment had so lately displayed itself, in a very different manner, by a public entertainment given in honour of his happy marriage. From the immediate attack of the disease he recovered; but the utmost efforts of his medical attendants, who joined the most zealous assiduity of friendship 'to the highest professional skill, were unavailing to counteract the fatal effects which were left behind. He fell into a confirmed and hopeless atrophy; and having vainly tried the effects of sea air, had retired into the bosom of his family at Winchester, where at length he expired in peace, on the last day of June, 1824. "The close of his life (they are the words of a suffering witness, who, it is hoped, will pardon their introduction here) was in perfect unison with the whole preceding tenor of it; and his pious serenity, resignation, and benevolence, in his last moments, were never surpassed. In the extremity of bodily weakness and exhaustion, he said, 'I am supported by Christ.' And so he departed to be with Christ:' to have

his portion with the good and faithful servants' of the Lord; to'shine' with the wise, as the brightness of the firmament, and with them that have turned many to righteousness, as the stars for ever and ever.""

He was buried, with the greatest privacy, in Winchester Cathedral, a place to which from his earliest years he was singularly attached; a few only of his nearest relations and most intimate friends attending his remains to the grave. The shops were shut in Kensington on the day of his funeral: on the preceding evening a meeting of the inhabitants was held, at which it was resolved to erect a monument, in memory of his worth, and of their sense of the loss which they had sustained: and mourning was put on by the principal parishioners.

His piety was sincere, fervent, and rational; equally removed from lukewarmness on the one hand, and enthusiasm on the other. No man had a deeper or more awful sense of the vital truths of the gospel; no man relied with humbler confidence upon the merits of his Redeemer, or more earnestly sought direction, and strength, and comfort, from the spirit of wisdom and holiness. No man, at the same time, saw more keenly through the delusions of fanaticism, or could better distinguish between genuine and counterfeit religion.

To the Church of England he was most zealously and steadily attached; because he believed it to be the Church of God; and the most effectual instrument, under Providence, of maintaining and extending Christ's kingdom upon earth. But though he would sometimes express himself in strong general terms of its adversaries, he was ever ready to show to them 'individually the most conciliatory kindness; and to make the largest allowance for what he would willingly