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till then unknown to them, came armed; and the marks of good-will and friendship of which they were fo lavish towards a handful of ftrangers, who could not have appeared to them formidable, cannot be attributed to a fentiment of fear, with which no act on the part of the French either could or aught to have infpired them: for our voyagers did not even indulge themfelves, either in Welcome Bay or Poffeffion Bay, in firing a fingle fhot ar any fea-bird; they were ap prehenfive that the report of a fire-arm would spread terror among imple and inoffenfive men to whom they owed gratitude. Thele worthy people are yet ignorant of the effect of European arms: and may they never know it! Marchand's Inland will then be reckoned in the too fmall number of the islands of the Great Ocean, the dif covery of which has not been polluted by the effufion of human blood." P. 152.

The track pursued by Marchand was this: from Marfeilles, he proceeded across the Atlantic, along South America, to Cape Horn, doubling which, he entered the Great South Sea. Paffing the various iflands there fcattered, and those which he difcovered, he arrived at Tchinkitanay, on the coaft of Northweft America. His return was along the coaft fouthward to Nootka Sound, thence by the Sandwich Islands, and through the Archipelago of the Ladrones to Canton. From Canton he failed, through the Straits of Sumatra, to the Ifle of France, whence, doubling the Cape of Good Hope, he proceeded through the Straits of Gibraltar to Toulon.

More than two thirds of the second volume are for the perufal of fcientific readers only, as they are occupied with giving a detail of the refults of the obfervations for the latitude and longitude, ferving to determine the changes occafioned by the currents in the apparent courfe and rate of failing of the ship in the different tracts of fea which fhe croffed, &c. Thefe muft neceffarily be of great value to navigators, and to navigators alone.

The narrative of the editor (C. P. Claret Fleurieu*) is strongly distinguished by the vanity which characterizes his countrymen; a contemptuous and impertinent mode of speaking of the enterprifes and difcoveries of others, with only few exceptions; and a fpirit of licentioufnefs which very ill becomes one who ftyles himself Member of the Clafs of Moral and Political Sciences. Wherever the females of the

* M. de Fleurieu published in 1790 a book entitled "Decouvertes de François en 1768 et 1769, dans le fud-eft de la Nouvelle Guinée." But he did not put his name to it. He ftyled himself "ancien Capitaine de Vaiffeau." His book was tranflated in 1791, and published here by Stockdale, 4to. 5

different

different iflands vifited by Marchand are to be defcribed, he feems entirely to lofe fight of the dignity and the ferioufnefs which his fituation and character ought to have impofed upon him. We think alfo that the publication is very dear. Three guineas and a half is too large a price for two volumes, in which fo little attention has been paid to the paper and typo, graphy, and the embellishments to which are neither numeïous nor important.

ART. II. An Hiftory of the original Parish of Whalley, &c. By Thomas Dunham Whitaker, LL. D. &c. &c.

THE

(Concluded from our last, p. 108.)

HE Hiftory now proceeds with portions of the Parish lying between the Calder and the Hyndburne. The genealogical account of the family of Radcliffe, and an exact defcription of the remains of Radcliffe Tower, render this Chapter particularly interefting to the English antiquary. The plate of the noble hall is an agreeable illuftration of the fplendor and hofpitality which were obferved in the feats of our ancient gentry. It fhould be obferved, that Radcliffe is not properly within the bounds preferibed by the hiftorian to this work, as it is feparated by Irwell from the parish of Bury, the extremity of the honor of Clitheroe, p. 401. The admiffible apology of Dr. W. for tranfgreffing thofe bounds is the important hiftory of the place. He concludes the account by relating," that to this place and family are attached the tradition and ballad given by Dr. Percy*, under the name of Ifabella, but here applied to a Lord Thomas and faire Ellenor, father and daughter,

Dependent Parishes are the principal fubjects of the fifth Book; and thefe are Blackburn and Rochdale, with feveral chapelries. Among the incumbents of the wealthy vicarage of Rochdale, feveral eminent names occur. Of this benefice, as of Whalley allo and Blackburn, the Archbishop of Canterbury is the patron. In Dr. W.'s defcription of Blackburn, we find no notice taken of the marvellous narrative, given by Dr. Owen of Warrington, in his Natural Hiftory of Serpentst, of a monftrous reptile, whofe chief refidence was in a

"Ancient Songs and Ballads, vol. iii. p. 154."

+ See the Effay towards a Natural History, &c. 4to. Lond. 1747. P. 144.

wood

wood near this place. Out of the original parish of Whalley, feveral parifhes appear to have been taken. In the defcription of thefe portions, Mitton is moft confpicuous, both on account of feveral very ancient memorials in tlie church-yard, and of the Sherburne chapel on the north fide of the choir of the church, containing numerous monumental figures and infcriptions.

The laft Book commences with Biographical Collections. The union of biography with local hiftory is highly to be coinmended. "Let me add," fays an elegant writer and critic who had been pleading the caufe of topography*, "that, as notices of the lives of celebrated perfons make a part of our county hiftories, and as anecdotes of this fort are notorious or acceffible in a private neighbourhood, which cannot be discovered or collected at a diflance; from this mode of research, many confiderable improvements would accrue to the prefent ftate of our national biography." Among those who are the fubjects of Dr. W.'s memoirs, the name of Alexander Nowell, Dean of St. Paul's, is the moft diftinguifhed. The fketch of his life is perfpicuous and neat; to which is added, the pleafing information that a more expanded life of this eminent divine may foon be expected from the excellent biographical pen of the Rev. Ralph Churtont..

As we have not yet given any confiderable fpecimen of the matter of this work, we fhall here infert the whole of the life of this valuable man.

"ALEXANDER NOWELL, fecond fon of John Nowell, Efq. fon of Roger Nowell, Efq. and Grace, his wife, daughter of John Townley, of Townley, Efq. and Ifabel Sherburne, of Stonyhurst, was born at Read, A. D. 1506. Wood, Bishop Tanner, and the compilers of the Biographia Britannica, are alike miftaken in fuppofing him to have been the fon of Dowfabell Hefkett, who died leaving an only fon, Rogert, from whom the prefent family are defcended; for, on her decease, John Nowell, the father, contracted a fecond marriage with Elizabeth Kay, of Rochdale, by whom he had iffue, Alexander, the fubject of the prefent article; Lawrence, of whom, in the next,

* T. Warton's Hift. of Kiddington, 1783. Pref. p. v.

+ See his Memoirs of Bishop Smyth, reviewed, Brit. Crit. vol. xx. P. 283.

"Roger Nowell was a very irreligious man, and never attended any public worship. This may illuftrate Dr. Paley's remark, that the English practice of leaving the whole eftate to the eldeft fon fpoils only one in a family; but when it is confidered, that the younger brother of this man was one of the moft eminent Chriftians which the Church of England ever produced, it is impoffible to forget a more ferious paffage, "I here shall be two men in one bed, the one shall be taken, the other left." Luke xvii., 34."

Robert,

Robert, Attorney of the Court of Wards, and Elizabeth, who, A. D. 1530, marrying Thomas Whitaker, of Holme, Gent. became, in 1547, mother of the celebrated Doctor William Whitaker.

"Of young Alexander, it may reasonably be conjectured, that he received the firft tincture of claffical learning in the neighbouring abbey, then probably one of the best feminaries in the country, where an apartment ftill retains the name of the Old School Houfe. At thirteen, he became a member of Brazen-nofe College, Oxford, where he is faid to have continued thirteen years, and took both the degrees in Arts, though, for fome reafon which does not appear, not till some years after he became of fufficient ftanding.

"He was elected, in courfe, Fellow of his College; and foon became diftinguished, not only for learning and piety, but for his zeal in the caufe of the Reformation, during the laft dangerous years of Henry VIII.

"Dec. 5, 1551, he was inftalled Prebendary of Westminster; and. in the firft parliament of Queen Mary, had the fingular fortune (for it could fcarce be fought by himself) to be returned burgefs for Loo, or Weftlow, in Cornwall; though his election, as might have been forefeen, was declared void, on account of his having a vote in the house of convocation.

"About the fame time, being fchoolmaster of Westminster, he appears to have drawn up, for the ufe of his pupils at least, an outline of that admirable Catechifm, which he lived to complete and publish in more aufpicious days. But he now difcovered, and happily in good time, that purity and perfpicuity of ftyle, when employed in the caufe of Reformation, had no charms for Bonner; and, like Erafmus, whom he appears fomewhat to have resembled, both in elegance and timidity, feeling no appetite for martyrdom, he put himself under the protection of Mr. Francis Bowyer, a merchant, afterwards Sheriff of London, and by his affiftance withdrew to Frankfort.

"Merchants at that time, from their intercourfe with the Hanfe Towns, appear to have been generally favourable to the Reformation; and the fame caufe which infpired them with the inclination, furnifhed them with means and opportunities, firft of transporting the perfecuted clergy, and afterwards of remitting contributions for their fupport.

Here, in confiftency with the moderation of his own principles, Nowell united himself with the epifcopal congregation; yet, in a fpirit of charity towards all the exiled brethren, equally remote from the impofing arrogance of Cox, and the puritanical rigor of Whittingham. This character, the effect of a clear head and calm temper, followed him through life: unaltered by the charms of preferment and the funfhine of a jealous court, we find him, in his latter days, the advocate by turns of Udal, a confcientious puritan, and of Townley, a peaceable recufant.

"On the demife of Queen Mary, he was the first exile who returned to hail the acceffion, and to fhare the bounty of Elizabeth; nor were his hopes long deferred; for, on Jan. 1, 1559 60, he became Archdeacon of Middlefex; on June 21, of the fame year, Prebendary of the seventh stall in Westminster Abbey; and, on Nov. 17,

1560, he attained to the fummit of his preferments, and probably of his wishes, in the rich deanery of St. Paul's, which he enjoyed through a long and tranquil period of forty-one years, without any relaxation of diligence, or abatement of zeal, or decay of intellett; happy in the esteem of all good men, and in the general, though not uninterrupted, favour of his royal miftrefs; before whom, he was a frequent and faithful preacher for thirty years. In the pulpit, he feems to have poffeffed an useful verfatility of talents; for, in his excurfions to his native country, he is faid to have been eminently fuc. cefsful in bringing over the rude and bigotted people of Lancashire to the established Church.

"With the fame benevolent intention, he founded a Grammar School at Middleton, in that county, and endowed it with 30l. per annum, together with exhibitions of 3, 6, 81. each to thirteen scholars for fix years, provided that if that fchool fhould at any time be defi cient in perfons properly qualified, recourfe fhould then be had to the fchools of WHALLEY and BURNLEY, and in failure of candidates from thence, to any other school within the county of Lancastert.

"In the year 1570, he published the celebrated Catechism, which, as it had been undertaken as a kind of fynopfis to the doctrines of the Church of England, at the request of Cecil; as it had been reviewed and interleaved by the convocation in the year 1562, and was at laft committed to the prefs, at the joint request of two Archbishops, may in fome measure be confidered as a work of public authority. Of this little book, it is not too much to affirm, that the orthodoxy of its precepts is equalled by the purity of its ftyle; and that, as it was written at a time when the Church of England had neither forgotten nor grown afhamed of her own doctrinest, a late republication of it, by the prefent learned and vigilant Bishop of Chefter, is entitled to the gratitude of every friend to the establishment, or to genuine Chriftianity. The general introduction of Nowell's Catechifm into schools and colleges might be a means of reinfufing a new portion of

By this is meant, that he never attained any higher rank in the Church, nor probably fought it; but, after he became Dean of St. Paul's, feveral valuable pieces of preferment were heaped upon him, fuch as the prebends of Wildland and Tottenhall, in his own church, which he held in fucceffion,--the rich parfonage of Hadham, in Hertfordshire,-a -a canonry of Windfor, and, laftly, the headfhip of Brazen-nofe College, Oxford, which he held only three months.→ Oft. 1, 1595, on occafion of this laft appointment, he was created D. D. with an efpecial grant of precedence over all the Doctors in the Univerfity, as well on account of his age (at least 84) as his ftation and dignity in the Church,

+ Wood Hift. and Antiq. Oxon. ii. 204.

This unjust and invidious fentence is not worthy of the writer who has inferted it. Rev.

Dr. Cleaver, now (1801) Bishop of Bangor." The Catechifm of Nowell was alfo printed by Dr. Randolph, now Bishop of Oxford, in the Enchiridion Theologicum, in 5 vols. 12mo. Nowell's Catechifm begins the fecond volume of these tracts. Rev.

that

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