REVIEW OF THE MONTH.

IN our country's poetic galaxy few lights remain. Two have gone down in one short month. John Wilson died on the 3d of April; James Montgomery on the 30th, having lived to welcome more than eighty springs; for he was born November 4, 1771. Meek, gentle, and inoffensive, as most of his Moravian brethren have been, it was his lot to have hard measure dealt to him in his earlier days. As editor of the "Sheffield Iris" he was twice imprisoned for libel; and his "Wanderer of Switzerland" was in 1807 the object of a very ungenerous attack in the "Edinburgh Review." But it all came right at last. The imprisonments were the only romance in his history, and added greatly to his fame. He lived to hear the offending article universally pronounced a blot on the "Edinburgh Review," and the "Review" lived to utter panegyrics on his poems. Of these, "The World before the Flood" is the finest effort. Among the various attempts to describe the death of Adam, we know none equal to the touching picture contained in its fourth canto. His stanzas "On the Death of an Aged Minister," and "What is Prayer?" although scarcely hymns, are exquisite gems of sacred poetry, and can never perish so long as England retains a Christian literature. But of all his compositions we are inclined to regard some of his "Songs of Zion" as the happiest and the most unique. They are not a mere rendering of the Psalms into rhyme. Still less are they, like Dr. Watts's, a replacement of Old Testament language with the words and phrases of the Gospel. But they are Hebrew psalms attuned to a Christian harp : the

Songs of Zion explained and ennobled by Pentecost. As an example we would refer to the 72d.

Lord Cockburn died at Bonaly, near Edinburgh, on the 26th of April. When he was a barrister the juries of Scotland found him resistless. With uncommon perspicacity and great plainness of speech, with a fluency that never faltered, and with a countenance the very soul of benevolent sincerity, there was a fascination in his gaze which arrested the dullest clodpole, and held him till a responsive twinkle announced that he understood the case, or the tear in his eye gave good signs of a verdict. His "Life of Lord Jeffrey" did not bring out the fund of legal and literary anecdote of which he was well known to be the richest surviving possessor; but we are told that he has written it in "a book," and that it will yet be forthcoming.

The May Meetings are over. Including 66,0091. 10s. 2d. realised by the sale of Bibles and Testaments, the receipts of the Bible Society for the year ending March 31 have been 222,6591. 5s. 10d. Of this amount 30,000l. are for the fund for supplying a million Testaments to China.

The omnibus-drivers of London hold their public meetings at midnight, "the chair to be taken at twelve o'clock precisely." The Young Men's Christian Association celebrates its annual breakfast at six in the morning. The former we have never attended; but, as the Rev. Hugh Stowell said, we have seen nothing "for beautiful freshness and morning dew that could compare with the latter." Nor is there any better hope for England than in those 500 sons of hers whom we met on the 10th of May, and who, to help one another in every good work, are banded together in such a delightful brotherhood.

From the census it appears that in England and Wales the Sunday scholars in 1851 amounted to 2,407,409. It is calculated by Mr. Baines, of Leeds, that the Sunday School

RELIGION AND EDUCATION IN SCOTLAND.

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teachers are not fewer than 300,000, of whom only 10,000 are stipendiary. Could means be found for depositing within the Church all the population now growing up within these schools, our country might soon deserve the name of Christian.

The religious and educational census of Scotland is now published. Of the actual attendance at public worship on March 30, 1851, the following are the most important items:

In Scotland the number of day scholars is 368,517. In schools supported by religious bodies, the Established Church educates 36,995; the Free Church, 62,660. The Sunday scholars of Scotland amount to 292,549, being ten per cent of the population.

To our stores of Christian Biography we have received some valuable additions. Mr. Andrew Bonar has republished the Life (by Tyler) of Nettleton, the American revivalist,a most animating example of a ministry at once earnest and successful. From the hand of his widow we have a Memoir of the Rev. J. J. Weitbrecht, the admirable agent in Bengal of the Church Missionary Society,—a book likely to do more

for the Church's Missions in India than any publication since the Journal of Henry Martyn appeared. To the pen of an accomplished daughter we owe the record of a Christian worth and a feminine culture "far above rubies," in a Memoir of Mrs. Ridley Herschell. We have also taken up and begun with much interest the Life of Mrs. Sherwood,— the frank and amusing autobiography of a good and cheerful old lady. From the other side of thirty summers these pages bring back the days when "Henry and his Bearer" and "The Fairchild Family" first entranced our childhood; and in listening to her own story we recall the charm of that time so full of faith and wonder, and when the leaves of a new book had a fragrance quite as delicious as the May and the lilac under which we nestled and read it.

In three stout octavoes Dr. Waagen has revealed to Great Britain its "Treasures of Art." It is hard to say which is most admirable,—the learning, the industry, or the taste of this German connoisseur. But in his description of illuminated manuscripts, and in his account of galleries public and private, he has provided a fund of exhaustless amusement and instruction for those who appreciate art and who wish to understand it better.

The war has given rise to a literature sufficiently copious to form a little library. Of books on Russia the best which have fallen in our way are the works of the Marquis de Custine and Schnitzler,-Golovin on the Caucasus, Oliphant on the Shores of the Black Sea, and Hill's Travels in Siberia. We have just received an excellent epitome of Nicholas and his doings by the Rev. H. Christmas. And opportunely for those who wish to travel and see for themselves Mr. Murray has published a Hand-Book of Turkey.

INDEX.