some mysterious manner into the more manifested presence of God immediately upon the dissolution of the body, the nature of the future happiness, and future misery,-the continuance of the existence of the mental habits which are formed in this state, and which constitute in some manner our future condition, the extent of redemption,—and the opposite opinions of Christians, respecting the invisible state;-these and similar considerations were alternately discussed in these calin and silent hours; and he uniformly concluded these discussions by observing, I know not, and I care not, what may be the real solution of these questions; I am in the hands of a merciful God, and I resign myself to his will, with hope and patience.' All our inquiries indeed upon these subjects, though they may be very interesting, are merely speculative, and are always unsatisfactory. We cannot raise the veil which conceals the future. We must die before we can understand death; yet the sight of an old man, full of days, riches, and honours, at the close of a religious and well-spent life, patiently expecting his end, abounding in every virtue which can adorn mankind,-in humility, in patience, in kindness, in charity to all, in serene submission to expected death, in implicit dependence upon the mercy of a God whom he believed to be his friend and father, by the atonement which had been accomplished by the Mediator of the new testament-the image of such a man can never be obliterated from my memory; and the continued enjoyment of his conversation, till within a few weeks of his death, while the strength of his body was gradually declining, and the intel. lectual, though not the spiritual powers, were decaying; that is, while he was beginning to be more averse to worldly business, and more intent upon devotional exercises, was a privilege which I cannot too much appreciate, and which may be justly envied by all who can delight in the society of the wise and good; or who would contemplate the triumph of the spirit of man, over the weakness of the mind and the infirmities of the body."

Bishop Heber.

BORN A. D. 1783.-DIED A. D. 1826.

REGINALD HEBER was the son of the Rev. Reginald Heber, of Marton, in Yorkshire, and of Mary, daughter of the Reverend Dr Allanson, of the same county. He was born April 21st, 1783, at Malpas, in Cheshire, a living at that time held by Mr Heber, as was shortly afterwards that of Hodnet, in Salop, which, together with the estate, had come into possession of his family by a marriage with an heiress of the ancient and honoured name of Vernon. In his childhood, Reginald Heber was remarkable for the eagerness with which he read the Bible, and the accuracy with which he remembered it; a taste and talent which subsequent acquirements and maturer years only served to strengthen, so that a great portion of his reading was intended, or at least was employed to illustrate the scriptures; and perhaps few men of his day had attained so masterly a knowledge of the historical parts of the Bible as well as the doctrinal, or could have thrown happier light upon its oriental customs, its difficult geography, or the civil, political, and moral

condition of the people to whom it was addressed. We believe it was once his intention to have published notes upon Calmet, a task for which he would have brought all the resources which any single individual could be expected to furnish.

He received his early education at the grammar-school of Whitechurch, whence he was afterwards sent to Dr Bristowe, a gentleman who took pupils near London. His subsequent career at Oxford, where he was entered of Brazen-nose college in 1800, proved how well his youthful studies had been directed, and how diligently pursued. The university prizes for Latin verse, for the English poem, and for the English proseessay, were successively awarded him; and Palestine' received the higher and rarer compliment of public and universal praise. Such a poem, composed at such an age, has indeed some, but not many, parallels in our language. Its copious diction,-its perfect numbers,-its images, so well chosen, diversified so happily, and treated with so much discretion and good taste,-the transitions from one period to another of the history of the Holy Land, so dexterously contrived, and, above all, the ample knowledge of scripture, and of writings illustrative of scripture, displayed in it,-all these things might have seemed to bespeak the work of a man who had been long choosing, and begun late,' rather than of a stripling of nineteen. Some few of our university English prize-poems have had an ephemeral reputation beyond the precincts of Cambridge and Oxford; but Palestine' is almost the only one(we can recollect, at most, but two others of whom any such language could be fairly used)—that has maintained its honours unimpaired, and entitled itself, after the lapse of years, to be considered the property of the nation. It might have been expected that such a poem would but have been the first of many-that so cordial a welcome would have stamped its author the follower of the muses for life; but having given to the world a small and well-known miscellaneous volume in 1812, (the whole of which did not then appear for the first time,) he withdrew almost entirely from a pursuit to which he was by temper strongly inclined, and devoted himself to the unobtrusive duties of the clerical office. Previous to the production of this volume, and whilst he was yet fellow of All Souls, a society to which (it should have been said) he had been elected from Brazen-nose, Reginald Heber travelled through those parts of Europe which were then open to an Englishman; and some of his observations upon Russia and the Crimea, which Dr Clarke was permitted to extract from his MS. journal, and publish as notes to his own work, have ever been reckoned the bijoux of the volume, and, indeed, convey more information in a few words than perhaps would have been communicated by any traveller, except Burckhardt-whose close and pithy sentences not unfrequently resemble these able memoranda.

Having now been put in possession of the valuable living of Hodnet, which had been reserved for him, he married Amelia daughter of Dr Shipley, late dean of St Asaph, and, happy in the prospect of those domestic endearments which no man was more qualified to enjoy, settled himself in his rectory. In no scene of his life, perhaps, did his character appear in greater beauty than whilst he was living here, 'seeing God's blessings spring out of his mother earth, and eating his own bread in peace and privacy.'

The Bampton lectures which he published in 1816 established his

reputation in the theological world; for, though many dissented from his views on some speculative points, every competent judge was compelled to do justice to the depth of learning, the variety of research, and the richness of illustration which those compositions displayed. In the midst of these exercises of his calling, public and private, he found time to compose many hymns; which, had he completed the series, as (with the assistance of friends) he hoped to have done, would have been in relation to the Gospels for the several Sundays throughout the year, compositions, which those who have seen them will desire that every one should have the opportunity of seeing; and which those will readily believe to be full of beauties, both poetical and spiritual, who are acquainted with the few hymns which he has actually published.

In 1822 Reginald Heber undertook a more serious task, which was to finish a life of Jeremy Taylor, and a critical examination of his writings, for a new edition of the works of that great and good man. Since the publication of his Bampton lectures, this was the first theological essay of any length in which he had openly engaged. If it be compared (as far as the subject will admit of comparison) with the 'Sermons on the Personality and Office of the Christian Comforter,' it will be found that it is the work of maturer knowledge, and a more chastised taste; the style retaining the vigour, perhaps somewhat of the floridness, of former years, but without being complicated, ambitious, or constrained; the matter exhibiting much thought, as well as ample reading, and setting forth, without reserve, the author's own views of most of the controverted points of church doctrine and discipline, which his subject naturally led him to pass in review. But the work derives a further interest from the evident sympathy with which his biographer (perhaps unconsciously) contemplates the life and writings of that heavenly-minded man. Much, indeed, they had in common-a poetical temperament, a hatred of intolerance, great simplicity, an abomination of every sordid and narrow-minded feeling, an earnest desire to make religion practical instead of speculative, and faith vivid in proportion to the vigour of high imagination.

About the time when this life appeared, Mr Heber was elected preacher at Lincoln's-inn-a very flattering distinction, whether the character of the electors be considered, or the merits of his predecessor, or those of the distinguished person before whom he was preferred; valuable, moreover, as placing somewhat more in oculis civium' a man intended by nature for a less obscure station than that which he had for years been filling, -though assuredly that was one which he, had it been so ordained, would have continued to fill to his dying day, without any querulous suspicion that he had fallen on evil times when merit is overlooked, and talent suffered to spend itself on an unworthy field.

Thus usefully and happily was he engaged;-in town, occupying an honourable and important situation, and with easy access to men of letters, of whom the capital must ever be the resort;—in the country, inhabiting a parsonage, built by himself in a situation which he had selected, in the neighbourhood of most of his kindred, amidst friends who loved and reverenced him, and in a parish where none would have desired a greater satisfaction than to have done him a service, when he was summoned from scenes where, to use a beautiful expression of Warburton's, he had hung a thought upon every thorn,' to take upon

himself the government of the church in India. What his struggles at that moment were, those who were near him at the time know well.

On Monday, 16th June, 1823, Dr Heber embarked with his family a little below Gravesend, and, accompanied to the ship by many sorrowing friends, bade adieu to England for ever. Well it is, that every great event in life, which does violence to the feelings, usually brings with it immediate demands upon our exertions, whereby the attention is diverted, and the grief subdued. On ship-board he found abundant occupation in prosecuting the study of Hindostanee and Persian, which, independently of their prospective usefulness, he, as many others had done before him, found to be possessed of high interest and curiosity,— "as establishing beyond all doubt the original connection of the languages of India, Persia, and northern Europe, and the complete diversity of these from the Hebrew and other Semitic languages. Those (he observes) who fancy the Persians and Indians to have been derived from Elam, the son of Shem, or from any body but Japheth, the first-born of Noah, and father of Gomer, Meshech, and Tubal, have, I am persuaded, paid no attention to the languages either of Persia, Russia, or Scandinavia. I have long had this suspicion, and am not sorry to find it confirmed by even the grammar of my new studies. If, in a year or two, (he exultingly adds,) I do not know thom both (Hindostanee and Persian) at least as well as I do French and German, the fault, I trust, will be in my capacity, not in my diligence."

In the October following, he landed in India with a field before him that might challenge the labours of an apostle, and we will venture to say, with as much of the spirit of an apostle in him as has rested on any man in these latter days. Short as his time in India was, his visitations had embraced almost the whole of his vast diocese. To the northern portion of it, which Bishop Middleton (who found ample occupation at Calcutta and in southern India) had never been able to reach, he first turned his steps; and having journeyed as far as Merut, leaving behind him,' says Mr Fisher, the chaplain of the station, an impression which I think will not soon or easily pass away,' he bent his course southwards, and traversed the country to Bombay.

"Of the way of performing these long journeys in India, I was myself (says the bishop, in one of the private letters now before us) very imperfectly informed before I came here; and, even then, it was long before I could believe how vast and cumbersome an apparatus of attendance and supplies of every kind was necessary, to travel in any degree of comfort or security. On the river, indeed, so long as that lasted, our progress is easy and pleasant, (bating a little heat and a few storms,) carried on by a strong south-eastern breeze, in a very roomy and comfortable boat, against the stream of a majestic body of water, with a breadth, during the rainy season, so high up as Patra, of from six to nine miles, and even above Patra, as far as Cawnpore, in no place narrower than the Mersey opposite Liverpool. But it is after leaving the Ganges for the land journey, that, if not the tug, yet no small part of the apparatus, preventus, et commeatus of war, commences. It has been my wish, on many accounts, to travel without unnecessary display. My tents, equipments, and number of servants, are all on the smallest scale which comfort or propriety would admit of. They all fall short of what are usually taken by the collectors of districts; and in compa

rison of what the commander-in-chief had with him the year before last, I have found people disposed to cry out against them as quite insufficient. Nor have I asked for a single soldier or trooper beyond what the commanding officers of districts have themselves offered as necessary and suitable. Yet, for myself and Dr Smith, the united numbers amounted to three elephants, above twenty camels, five horses, besides ponies for our principal servants, twenty-six servants, twentysix bearers of burdens, fifteen clashees to pitch and remove tents, elephant and camel drivers, I believe, thirteen; and since we have left the Company's territories, and entered Rajapootam, a guard of eighteen irregular horse, and forty-five sipahees on foot, including native officers. Nor is this all; for there is a number of petty tradesmen and other poor people, whose road is the same as ours, and who have asked permission to encamp near us, and travel under our protection; so that yesterday, when I found it expedient, on account of the scarcity which prevails in these provinces, to order an allowance of flour, by way of Sunday dinner, to every person in the camp, the number of heads was returned one hundred and sixty-five. With all these formidable numbers, you must not, however, suppose that any exorbitant luxury reigns in my tent; our fare is, in fact, as homely as any two farmers in England sit down to; and, if it be sometimes exuberant, the fault must be laid on a country where we must take a whole sheep or kid, if we would have animal food at all, and where neither sheep nor kid will, when killed, remain eatable more than a day or two. The truth is, that where people carry everything with them, tent, bed, furniture, wine, beer, and crockery, for six months together, no small quantity of beasts of burden may well be supposed necessary; and in countries such as those which I have now been traversing, where every man is armed; where every third or fourth man, a few years since, was a thief by profession; and where, in spite of English influence and supremacy, the forests, mountains, and multitude of petty sovereigntics, afford all possible scope for the practical application of Wordsworth's good old rule, you may believe me, that it is neither pomp nor cowardice which has thus fenced your friend in with spears, shields, and bayonets."

His sojourn at Bombay was rendered somewhat remarkable by the arrival, nearly at the same time, of a bishop from Antioch, to superintend that part of the Syrian church which refuses allegiance to the pope. After a suspension, for some years, of all intercourse with the country from which its faith originally sprung, and which in later times, by a fresh supply of ministers, had enabled it to throw off, in a great measure, the usurpations of the church of Rome enforced by the Portuguese, it was now destined to rejoice once more in a nursing-father from Syria. The favourable disposition of this branch of the Syro-Malabaric church towards our own had long been known. It is a curious fact, however, and one that may be new to our readers, that Principal Mill, in 1822, found their college and parochial schools at Cattayam, under the direction of three clergymen of the church of England, who, without compromising their own views, gave no offence to the metropolitan, who consulted and employed them: using for themselves and their own families the English liturgy at one of his chapels; and condemning by their silence those portions of the Syrian ritual which, as Protestants, they could not approve, and which they trusted the gradual influence