with men of eminence in public life and in the republic of letters; the formation and development of his Christian character, and the habits of his domestic life. On all these and collateral topics, the memoir puts us in possession of much interesting information. There are also some striking sketches of his two brothers, Captain Hugh Mackay, who fell gallantly in the memorable battle of Assaye, on the 23d September 1803; and Captain William Mackay, who in 1795 was wrecked on the coast of Arracan, in the ship Juno, and of which event he lived to publish one of the most heartstirring narratives in the English language. Some of the finest and most touching incidents in Lord Byron's description of a shipwreck, in his poem of Don Juan, are taken almost verbatim from the narrative of the Juno. The noble poet's biographer, Mr Moore, speaking of the two versions, that of the real distress, by William Mackay, and that of the fictitious by Lord Byron, gives a decided preference to the former. It will be felt, I think,' says he, in a foot-note to his Life of Byron, (quarto edition, vol. i. p. 32), by every reader, that this is one of the instances in which poetry must be content to yield the palm to prose. There is a pathos in the last sentences of the seaman's recital, which the artifices of metre and rhyme were sure to disturb, and which indeed, no verse, however beautiful, could half so naturally and powerfully express.'

The following sketch of the character of Mr Mackay has been drawn by an intelligent friend, and we insert it as at once true and beautiful. The remarks suggested by it to the mind of the biographer at the close indicate sagacity as well as feeling.

"In the character of those who achieve great fame, not of the best kind, there are too often no small disproportions. The superhuman powers they manifest in one department, form, not unfrequently, a striking contrast with the mediocrity or scantiness of measure observable in other portions of their nature. The subject of your Sketch' belonged not to this class. He was not one of those, who, by the display of some one or two gigantic powers, obtain the vulgar epithet of great. His character, formed not to astonish, but to command love, veneration, and esteem, exhibited a universal force and manly vigour. Every power and affection was well and actively developed. There was great completeness in his nature, and proportionately complete and universal was the range of his intelligence and sympathies.

"The delight he took in the society of great, and gifted, and experienced minds, never incapacitated him for the enjoyment of more ordinary communion. Youth and immaturity were no ground of exclusion from his intimacy; on the contrary, that benignant necessity inherent in his nature to labour for the improvement and elevation of his fellow beings, impelled him powerfully towards the fresh impressibility of youthful natures. With the young his sympathy was quick and earnest; and his appreciation of their characters generous and just; his influence over them was therefore great. No frivolous trifler ever had such power as he-full, at all times of large purposes and serious thoughts, to arrest their roving fancies, and to charm their minds into a strange harmony with his own. He could be sportive, though his

pleasantry was never of an idle sort, but set off by a serene gravity of manner, that gave notice to the observer of its having wise significance. It unconsciously surprised others into serious thought-shot sparks of generous feeling into colder breasts, and communicated insensibly to all, its own tone of hopeful, cheerful, tolerant superiority to the good and evil things alike of this brief earthly scene.

"The authority and solemn weight which all his words derived from the deep goodness of the speaker, was greatly heightened by the outward impression of his voice and aspect. The even and untroubled tones, the ever-placid smile of that blind, upraised visage, have struck at times upon my youthful sense, like emanations from another world than this visible and outward one, on which he looked not. What wonder if his words had then a weight almost oracular to my listening ear. The spell, which with no exuberance of fancy I have thus felt, others, no doubt, at times experienced too. But be this as it may, there was that at all times in his conversation with the young, that needed no adventitious help from fancy to commend it. To the hours which it was my fortune occasionally to pass, in my younger days with him, I look back as among the happiest and most improving of my life. Numbers of men now acting important parts throughout the globe, could doubtless tell how large a share his strong, yet unasserted influence had in forming and strengthening them to their present moral stature. To notice, as it deserves, the rela tion in which he thus stood to all the young men within his sphere, would give, I presume to think, more truth and completeness to the portrait you sketch, and would contribute special and valuable illustration of the extent, and variable exercise of his sympathies and powers.'

"Could the hint here thrown out by our friend be carried into effect, no doubt the end he and we have at heart, would thereby be essentially promoted; but there are two obstacles to its accomplishment. How few are there who can trace and appreciate the influences which operate on the formation of their moral and intellectual powers! Refined and sensitive natures, only, are impressible by such unasserted power as he describes; and these are rare and lovely plants, and peculiarly subject to decay and death; then throughout how many climes are those now scattered who shared in the advantages so beautifully depicted, in the course of Mr Mackay's fifty years' withdrawal from more fixed and active duties. There are some around us who would joyfully add their testimony to the warmest eulogy we could indite, but individually it is not in our power.-Pp. 54-56.

Mr Mackay's classical attainments were high, and he retained to the last his intimate acquaintance with the best writers of Greece and Rome, from whose pages he frequently quoted, and with great taste and accuracy. Notwithstanding the defect under which he laboured so long, he was always a most cheerful and instructive companion. He took an enlarged view of most things; and even when near the borders of fourscore, he retained the vivacity of his early years; called up to pleasing recollection the scenes and incidents of other times; and his mind was cheered with the anticipation of brighter days to the world and the church. Few specimens have we seen of a faith more clear and solid than hisa hope more calm and heavenly-or a conversation more in accordance with the tone and the temper of heaven.

We close this article with the following short extract from a sketch of Mr M.'s character as an office-bearer in the church.

May his mantle fall on many of the sons of the church in these her days of trial!

"Mr Mackay sat as elder for the presbytery of Dornoch (of which his native parish Lairg constituted a part) for several years, in the General Assembly of our church; and nothing delighted or surprised me more than to see him listening for hours to protracted debates, and waiting till midnight and beyond it, that he might record his testimony in favour of a righteous cause. He understood well the laws of the church; he studied thoroughly every subject that came under discussion; and he valued the church of his fathers as entitled to his most ardent efforts in her support. He took a deep interest in her present struggles; every effort he could make in her behalf, was cheerfully placed at the call of her agents or friends. He held the principles of the present contest as bearing directly on her well-being as a national church. He was thoroughly versant in the history of her former struggles; and he bad in him much of the calm, the determined, the lofty spirit of her martyrs and confessors."-Pp. 61, 62.

ART. V.-Oxford Tractarianism, the Scottish Episcopal College, and the Scottish Episcopal Church: substance of a Speech delivered before the Presbytery of Perth on the 30th of March 1842. By the Rev. ANDREW GRAY, A.M., Minister of the West Church, Perth. Perth: J. Dewar. Perth: J. Dewar. London: J. Nisbet & Co. 1842.

Popery and high-church prelacy have long ago shaken hands and become sworn brothers." Their principles, their tastes, their aims being so congenial, if not identical, it is no wonder that they should have maintained all along a close amity, and lived like kindred spirits, on the best of terms with each other. Pleased with themselves, and pleased with each other, they have dogmatized in the most lordly style upon their several pretensions to spiritual authority, their exclusive possession of apostolicity,-their sole right to declare the mind and dispense the ordinances of Christ: and in general, these ambitious claims have risen in proportion to the want of every thing that deserves the name of ministerial character, piety, learning, talent, or even common morality. Sometimes, when their claims and pretensions threatened to interfere with each other, there may have been something like a collision or quarrel, with mutual recriminations; but in general these have been soon over and quickly healed. In fact, containing as the high-church party has always done, many jesuits in disguise, it could not be expected that these skirmishes should be very sincere or deadly. Doubtless they were often for show, and to prevent the public from being alarmed with too close an alliance. The pope never had more suitable or more efficient tools than he has had in the ranks VOL. XV. NO. II.

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of prelacy. Apart from his own emissaries, stealthily introduced into their ranks, (and few churches afford greater facilities for introducing these than the Church of England, just as on the other hand, no church presents obstacles so insurmountable to this as the Church of Scotland,) he could not have found more willing agents than among the high-churchmen of England and Scotland, both clerical and lay. No out-post ever maintained its ground more faithfully in covering the main army than this party has done in regard to the armies of Rome. They have mustered together, taken the field together, fought together, retreated together, rallied together, and will doubtless be finally vanquished and meet their doom together.

Nor has the love of popery manifested by the prelatical party we alluded to, been greater than its hatred to protestantism. In this also there is a marvellous similarity of sympathy between these two branches of antichrist. Even against a protestant government, no less than against a protestant church, this antipathy has been displayed; and especially by the prelatists of Scotland. In the last century they were the foremost in rebellion and treason against the throne of these kingdoms. Nor was this mere constructive rebellion, such as we are charged with now; it was open, avowed resistance by force of arms. The prelatists of Scotland were the abettors and supporters of the different rebellions of the last century; confederating with popish pretenders, and levying armies to overthrow the protestant succession of Britain. How bitter, how desperate must have been their enmity to protestantism! It is well that both England and Scotland should be reminded of this, that they may learn to estimate aright both the ecclesiastical and political principles of these right-hand bosom-friends of the popish rebels of other days. Jacobites, papists, prelatists, and rebels, were then interchangeable terms, and if a similar crisis were occurring again, protestants would soon find to whose forehead the brand of rebellion might with most truth be affixed.

In their hatred of presbytery as well as of protestantism, the loving congeniality of spirit between the two bodies referred to, has been abundantly manifested. It is against this that their enmity has been especially excited, and their efforts directed; and against this has the fulness of their bitterness and arrogance been poured out. No other protestant body, either great or small, has ever come in for such a share of unrelenting hostility, handed down from generation to generation unquenched and unabated. No names have ever been so much hated as those of Knox and Melville. No ecclesiastical polity has ever been so much reviled and opposed as presbytery. The reason is obvious. What men fear they hate. No reformation was ever so much dreaded as our

own, and therefore no reformers were ever so much hated. No system was ever so much the object of alarm, and therefore none ever was so cordially disliked by its prelatical opponents. The presbyterian battlements of Scotland have been the most formidable barriers that either popery or prelacy ever encountered. The resolute, indomitable, manly tone of honest-hearted presbyterianism has always proved too much for the patience, as well as the pride of these arrogant exclusives. They hate presbytery, because of all systems, and churches, and sects, they find it the most unyielding and formidable,-one that, after every effort, they have failed either to bribe, or to over-reach, or to flatter, or to overawe, or to uproot. Hence the fierceness of the opposition. Hence the persecution of other days, when popery and prelacy joined hand in hand to hunt our fathers upon the mountains, and shed the blood of war in peace. Hence the hostility of the last century, and the rebellions in favour of a popish king. Hence the hereditary bitterness of the present day,-a bitterness roused into wrathful warmth by the returning energics of our church, and at the same time stimulated and cheered on by the divisions and conflicts which have taken place amongst us.

This brings us to the pamphlet before us. Its object is chiefly to expose the arrogant and intolerant pretensions of prelatical highchurchmen, especially the Scottish episcopal sect. It is the substance of an able speech before the Presbytery of Perth, by Mr Gray, when bringing forward an overture in reference to the Puseyite college, which is proposed to be erected near that city. Many have objected to Mr Gray's procedure, as well as to his line of argument. We are fully convinced, both of the necessity of the one, and the soundness of the other. Just as there is a necessity for us to take every possible means to oppose the College of Maynooth, and for our church to lift up her protestant testimony against it, so the same necessity lies upon us in the case before us. And just as the most effectual way of opening men's eyes to the moral and religious nuisance of such an establishment as Maynooth, is to expose the doctrines maintained and taught by its upholders, so nothing can be more proper or more effectual in the other case, than to display to the world the almost incredible mass of error, arrogance, and bigotry, with which the writings of prelatical authors are crowded, and which, in fact, constitutes their staple commodity and substance. Maynooth and Perth! par nobile fra

trum!

Mr Gray's speech is one of great vigour, clearness, and research. It is altogether unanswerable. Nor do we very well see why honest prelatists should be solicitous to answer it, or be uneasy under its exposures. For of what does it consist, but a collection of opinions