his Throne of Glory in another World." We omit many repetitions of the sacred names in giving these titles, for the two last Prophets were as fond of calling them out as is a Mussulman Fakir. In this last Testament the authors solve many scriptural riddles. They tell us of the form and nature of God from all eternity. They answer "the highest Querico concerning the eternal state of mankind." They assert that there is “ no reason in God," and of what substances earth and water were from eternity. They tell us, but in so loose a manner that we are no wiser than before, of what form and nature angels were, and how they were created, and who Antichrist is; and they are especially learned about "the Serpent that tempted Eve," who, they assert, was a very beautiful and graceful young angel in the form of man, who certainly did not offer to our common mother " a mere apple from a wooden tree," but, in fact, seduced her from her allegiance to Adam, and thus became actually the Father of Cain, and through him of all the wicked people or sons of the devil upon earth. But unfortunately we have heard all this before. should never have done," says Bayle, ❝ were I to relate all the fictions that are to be found in books concerning Eve and the Serpent ;" and, indeed, from Josephus to Cajetan, Lanjado and Nicholas de Lyra, there have been some pretty theories broached, none more so than those by the over curious in the first and second centuries of the Church. "We are not to believe, therefore," sneers Bayle, "all the fine compliments which Alcimus Avitus reports to have passed on both sides; for according to the narrative of Moses, this great affair was ended in a few words." 66 were. The remainder of the last Testament of these two prophets is filled with a great deal of what Mr. Carlyle terms "clotted nonsense." The authors flounder from Trinitarianism to Unitarianism, and in and out of each; they condemn the unlawfulness of cutting off the head magistrate, and yet praise Cromwell; they propagate more errors than they preach against; they are ever ready with a “damnation to all eternity" for their opponents; and, in short, they act like the wild, mad, hot Gospellers they Their books have a saddening effect on us. They prove how easily a little incoherent but vivid assertion without proof will attract the faith of man, without even an appeal to his cupidity or to his baser passions, such as have been made by other false prophets from Mohammed to Joe Smith the Mormon. Muggleton and Reeve are singularly free from any such base appeals, nor do they make any exorbitant promises to their spiritually discerning brethren— never being, to use their own trope, at variance with what they thought to be true," any more than William Lily and his learned brethren, in the astrologian figure, dare say the sun and moon were with themselves." Perhaps it is to this want of mixture of the worst traits of human folly in their scheme that they owe the decay of their sect. So late as 1832 some of their followers reprinted in three volumes the Epistles and Gospels according to Muggleton; but in the Census of 1851, their names had disappeared from the classification of sects and faith in the prophet Muggleton was not found upon the earth. BOOKS CONSULTED. Religio Medici. The Eighth Edition, corrected and amended. With Annotations, never before published, upon all the obscure passages. London, 1682. Observations on Religio Medici. By Sir Kenelm Digby. First Edition. 1682. Works of Sir Thomas Browne. Edited by Simen Wilkin, F.L.S. Three volumes. London, 1852. Jrn Burial, Christian Morals, and Miscellanies. By Sir Thomas Browne. Edinburgh, 1825. The Retrospective Review. Art. vii. Vol. 1. Article, Sir Thomas Browne. London, 1820. The Eclectic Review. No. lxii. New Series. Article, Sir Thomas Browne. IR THOMAS BROWNE is one of those writers who stand quite alone. There is no one like him either in the literature which he adorned, or in that of any other country. He is also one of whom we are never tired of hearing or of speculating, one whose very weaknesses are so peculiar that we would not part with them, and whose faults shine, in the eyes of some, with a lustre that surpasses the virtues of less original writers. His effect upon English literature has been very great indeed; he seems to have inspired half-a-dozen at least of our most weighty preachers: and it was upon his style that Dr. Johnson formed his own,style upon which many of the most thoughtful and weighty, one indeed might say heavy, of our Quarterly reviewers and leader writers, yet build their own, and which descended to, and was admired when practised by, Dr. Parr, although with him remained only the nodosities of the oak with -a |