as they had the power in their hands, they preferred a form of government nearly allied to that ascribed to the Culdees. pp. 321-323.

Whether Dr. J.'s readers will admit so much resemblance between the form of ecclesiastical government established at the reformation in Scotland, and that of the Culdees, as he has endeavoured to demonstrate, or will regard him as biassed by a natural and pardonable predilection for presbyterianism; we cannot but consider the very different dispositions of the commonalty, in the two divisions of our island, toward a reformation from popery, as well as the very different forms in which it was consequently established, as effects of the early expulsion of the Culdees from England, and their subsequent and permanent ministry in the lowlands of North Britain. We have lately had occasion of recalling the attention of our readers to the rise and progress of the Scotch reformation; and all of them who are well informed respecting that of England, must be aware of the contrast which it exhibited. In Scotland, the reformation was effected by the zeal and resolution of the people, without, and even in opposition to, the will of the court: whereas it is well known, that, in our country, a stretch of arbitrary power was necessary to enforce its general reception. The very same measure, an universal prohibition of public preaching, was used, in one country to suppress, and in the other to support, the reformation. In Scotland also, the de parture from popery was incomparably wider than among us. The religious change which took place in the two nations, can hardly, indeed, be defined by the same term. If in ours, it Imay be named a reformation, in theirs, it might be called a -transformation, of the established religion, which in both countries was previously the same.

But a difference of unspeakably greater importance has since subsisted, which we are far from ascribing to diversity of rituals, or of ecclesiastical governments. Its source must be traced further and higher than the reformation; and to no adequate cause can we attribute it, but to so pious, so zealous and so learned a ministry, as that of the Culdees, operating more or less freely on the populace during six or seven centuries. We obviously refer to the religious character of the Scotch peasantry. It has been, we believe universally admitted, that Burn's admirable poem, the Cotter's Saturday night, was a faithful delineation of their manners, at least within thirty years past. Among the poor of our own country, there are many, no doubt sincerely pious; but how widely different is the prevailing character of the English people! If we point to the East, or to the West Indies, what Christian nation, papist or protestant, ever did so little, either to convert heathens to Christianity, or to preserve Christians from becoming heathens?

And though at home, much has been done within twenty years past, for the amelioration of the lower classes; yet who can contemplate the dreadful frequency of bloodshed the ex· tent of systematic plunder, and riotous conspiracy-in a word the multiplication of sanguinary laws, on the sole ground that those existing cannot be put into execution;-who can contemplate all this without trembling for our moral character as a nation?

Most heartily do we congratulate those among the higher ranks of society, who have at length joined the inferior, in their praiseworthy exertions to diffuse the sacred Scriptures throughout the world. It is true, that much, very much was need ed nearer home. It is lamentable, that while our missionaries are braving all climates, and the most distant nations are receiving the scriptures from our hands, our battalions should seek the field of slaughter, and our squadrons dare the waves, without a teacher to admonish them, without a Bible to console them when languishing or expiring! But we have no doubt, if a zeal for religion be but maintained, that it will eventually redound to our domestic benefit, in whatever direction it may operate at first. The pitiable state of distant heathens is the most likely object first to awaken its dormant energies; but their re-action will in time amend the condition of all around us. Such was the process by which the labours of the Culdees became productive of their most permanent utility. They teach us the inestimable value of a serious and zealous ministry of the gospel, and the fatal consequences of sacrificing so great a privilege to the gratification of party spirit, and the dictates of worldly policy. We earnestly wish that Dr. Jamieson's performance may excite due attention to a subject from which so much useful admonition may be deduced. From the sketch which we have attempted, it is evident that a complete account of the Culdees would comprize a most interesting and instructive portion of our own ecclesiastical history; and though the volume before us was not designed to occupy so wide a field, nor indeed, according to the author's avowal, to have attained nearly to its actual extent, yet we feel our obligations to him for what he has done, and especially for the facility which a more comprehensive work on the subject may derive from it.

Art. II. Captain Foote's Vindication of his Conduct, when Captain of his Majesty's Ship Sea-horse, and Senior Officer in the Bay of Naples, in the Summer of 1799. Second Edition. 8vo. pp. 198. Price 7s. Hatchard 1810.

IT is no very respectable characteristic of the times that all sorts of persons are encouraged to rush into print with long

statements and personal vindications about all manner of foolish matters. A nation which, besides the supporting of an unprecedented and continually augmenting load of taxes, is pressed without remission by the most momentous and perilous concerns, either has, or is presumed to have, attention to spare for vast printed quantities of silly ostentation and bad rhetoric, in explication and celebration of squabbles among players and singers, rivalries of underling statesmen, and petty matters of contested consequence among officers, which might have been settled by the wisdom of the mess, aided by a genteel hint of such a proceeding as the vindication of my honour may appear to require.'

The publication of Captain Foote, however, is of a widely different character. It will not be held to make an excessive claim on the public attention, even regarded simply as the vindication of the conduct of a meritorious officer in the most important public transaction of his life. That transaction implicated, in such a manner, him and one other individual, now deceased, and whose name is in the first rank of renown, that a charge of no ordinary aggravation must necessarily rest on one of them. Various publications, adapted by their subject to gain an extensive currency, attempted to fix the charge on Captain Foote, some of them directly and others virtually, by justifying that other individual, to whose reputa tion he complains that his own was thus to be made a sacrifice. Against this sacrifice he thought he owed it to himself to protest, notwithstanding his high admiration of that celebrated person; for he had not only the consciousness that his conduct, in the important affair in question, had been the result of right intention, but an absolute confidence that it was right in every sense.

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We trust the publication will have had nearly all the defensive efficacy that he could desire. It will naturally be inquired for by those who have particularly thought on the remarkable circumstances to which it refers; and though some of them may think that a somewhat more condensed statement might have been made by a man more accustomed to the pen, we do not see how any unprejudiced reader is to retain the smallest question or doubt, relative to either the principle or the judgement of Captain F., as manifested in the juncture to which the Vindication relates,

It is not, however, in its primary character, of a personal defence, that we should have regarded this production as

auth professional limits. It is the most formally

authenticated statement that we recollect to have scen, of one part, at least, of a most memorable transaction; a transaction respecting which it is not perhaps very strange, that the generality of our writers have maintained a profound silence, but

respecting which they would all have been very profuse of strong language, and very justly so, had it been one of the deeds of some rival nation. Future historians, however, will be under the necessity of giving it a place not a little conspicuous in even such a course of events as that of the last twenty years; but at the same time, they may deliberate in very considerable doubt whether to hazard their credit so far 'as to say, that such a thing could take place among English transactions, without being followed by a public, solemn, judicial inquiry and award.

As our patriotism is of that genuine kind which scruples to admit that a nation should never be told of any of its qualities and works but its virtuous and beneficent ones, and our admiration of heroism is still accompanied by a perception that it is not right, notwithstanding there is among mankind a strong tendency, to make heroes absolutely into idols and adore then,we think it may be of some little service towards the judicious regulation of these sentiments in the 'minds of our readers, as well as to mere correctness of historical knowledge, to state in very few words, and with very little comment, the short series of facts related in this Vincication. And it can hardly be necessary to premise, that we have as high a respect as it is possible to feel, within the limits of sober reason, for the heroism, and for all the really estimable qualities of the distinguished warrior, whose conduct in one particular instance the present work brings to judgement.

Captain Foote explains how he was induced to refrain from any proceeding tending to give more complete notoriety to the affair, till he found himself directly and publicly

criminated on account of it.

On my return to England in the year 1800, I found the transactions in the Bay of Naples had become a common topic of conversation; and, from rumours that some blame might possibly be at tached to my conduct, I was inclined to request, that a public inquiry should take place, upon what concerned my signing the capítulations.' p. 8.

That is, he thought of demanding a Court-Martial. What decided him to forbear?

Before taking this step, I understood from a naval member of the Admiralty, and many other respectable friends, that by urging. a public investigation I should act injuriously to my country, and in some measure attach myself to a party. p. 8. All those who were acquainted with the true state of the case, and who regarded the character of Lord Nelson, or the reputation of the country, saw the necessity of burying the whole transaction in oblivion, as far as that could be done.' P. 10.

Reputation of the country where?-within that country

itself? or on the continent, a large portion of which already rang with the story, and was waiting to see whether, in a 'nation always jealous concerning its character for good faith, impunity would follow the inquiry which was to be considered as quite inevitable in such a nation?-The dissua sive argument that, in provoking an inquiry, the Captain would be attaching himself to a party,' is explained by a fact which, he acknowledges, gave weight to that argument with himself. This fact was, that the affair of the Bay of Naples was, on the 3d of February, 1800, adverted to in the House of Commons, with great indignation, by Mr. Fox. The Captain does not say he took the moral principle of this argument to be, that it was better to justify such a transaction by silence and impunity, than to fall into one single act of coalescence with Mr. Fox, on any possible subject. We shall not presume to judge whether, after having shewn this extreme scrupulosity of doing any thing which could by possibility contribute the slightest aid to Mr. Fox, even in one insulated case, and a case in which he himself at least regarded that statesman as the just denouncer of a great iniquity, he is quite generous in taking the benefit of Mr. Fox's unsupported zeal, and securing a first strong impression in favour of the statements and self-defensive claims he is going to make, by citing the following passage from Mr. Fox's speech.

Naples has been, among others, what is called delivered; and yet, if I am rightly informed, it has been stained and polluted by murders so ferocious, and by cruelties of every kind so abhorrent, that the heart shudders at the recital. It has been said, not only that the miserable victims of the rage and brutality of the fanatics were savagely murdered, but that, in many instances, their flesh was eaten and devoured by the cannibals, who are the advocates and the instruments of social order! Nay, England is not totally exempt from reproach, if the ru mours which are circulated be true. I will mention a fact, to give Ministers an opportunity, if it be false to wipe away the stain that must otherwise affix on the British name. It is said, that a party of the republican inhabitants of Naples took shelter in the fortress of Castel del Uovo. They were besieged by a detachment from the Royal Army, to whom they refused to surrender, but demanded that a British Officer should be brought forward, and to him they capitulated. They made terms with him under the sanction of the British name. It was agreed that their persons and property should be safe, and that they should be conveyed to Toulon. They were accordingly put on board a vessel; but, before they sailed, their property was con fiscated, numbers of them taken out, thrown into dungeons, and some of them, I understand, notwithstanding the British Guarantee, absolutely executed!' p. 9.

The Captain notices, pointedly, that this speech closed the