therefore, afks," where did Bishop Sherlock get the idea of the time to come,' when the Church should have a better and plainer light of the things hoped for,' and when all her expectations fhould be juftified in the accomplishment?" the answer is obvious. He got it from the very nature of the thing, which neceffarily implies that, in proportion to the number of prophecies fulfilled, is the evidence of these truths which prophecy was intended to establish. We fhall conclude with copying the last paragraph of our authors book, which confifts of a curious mixture of modefty with contemptuous and undifcriminating cenfure. Our author, furely knew that all Reviewers, whatever may be their other demerits, are not "faithful fons of the French Encyclopedifts." The indelicacy of the image which closes the scene we pals without any animadverfion.

"Upon the perufal of the preceeding obfervations, and of my brief commentaries upon the Revelation, &c. the well difpofed and careful reader will perceive that I have differed, in many inftances, from former commentators, and, among them from Dr. Newton, a former Lord Bishop of Briftol, and Dr. Sherlock, formerly Lord Bishop of Salisbury: two divines eminent for their piety as well as learning. On that account, I have only to entreat him to do me the juftice to believe that I have not done this without a fear and diftruft of my own inferior abilities, which cannot boaft of a liberal and learned education; and that, as the truth, which leads to the peace and comfort of mankind in this world, and to eternal life hereafter, is my only aim, that [dele] I cannot receive a higher reward and gratification, than a candid refutation and detection (in the course of fair argument and honeft difcuffion,) of any mistakes [which] I have undefignedly committed. But as to the cavils and fophiftry of Reviewers, thofe faithful fons of the French Encyclopedifts, I thall treat their dishonest criticisms and philofophifms with the contempt [which] they deserve, leaving them to wallow in their own filth, and to fubfift upon their own vomit, the only proper food for such vitiated ftomachs."

The Antient Cathedral of Cornwall, Hiftorically Surveyed. By John Whitaker, B. D. Rector of Ruan-lanyhorne, Cornwall. 2. Vols. 4to. PP. 782. Stockdale, 1804.

MONG the many excellencies which diftinguish the writings of Mr. Whitaker, is the happy combination of individual intereft with general truth and important inftruction. He whofe fenfe of right and fufceptibility, of the appropriate impreffions from beautiful and exalted objects, without deviating from facts, exhibited the lovely Mary, a charming, defencelefs, forlorn woman, receiving every mortification from favages, and yet great, elevated, and engaging in all the viciffitudes of her fortune; and exhibited a true cafe as ftrongly as if it had been the fiction of Defdemona and Belvidera, fhewed his dramatic powers and hurried the reader into every view and fentiment which he entertained himself. Here fhone a man of genius, tafte, and feeling, a cavalier eagerly attentive to the dignities and diversities

of

of life. While he thus interested mankind in the fortunes of Mary, a charming and diftreffed woman of rank, he rose to a different view of the fubject, and traced rebellion and anarchy from the new levelling principles, which Calvin had diffeminated on the Continent, and John Knox fpread with fuch deftructive rapidity through Scotland, as to depofe the fovereign, and fend her ultimately to what proved a fcene of regicide.

From this view he rifes to a third, the abfurdity of all violent innovations, and draws a contrast between moderate reformers and boundlefs revolutionifts. Of the former caft was Luther, who proposed to correct abufes without deftroying effentials; of the latter Calvin, who proposed to overturn hierarchy and monarchy, and to level all ranks and diftinctions. In the former of the above mentioned qualities Mr, Whitaker must always delight; and in the latter must always inftruct. The fubject of Mary commanded and excited an interest; but Mr. Whitaker from the ardour of his fenfibility, and the vigour of his imagination can bestow impreffiveness on topics which in themselves appear little fufceptible of interefting exhibition. Our author is the uniform, able, and ardent fupporter of the crown and mitre, as the best confervators of beneficial polity and genuine religion. To monarchy and prelacy he never fails to afcribe the transcendent fuperiority of the British nation. There are and have been countries in which bishops have, and have had more power than in England; but in no country have prelates and other clergymen fuch an influence over all true votaries of Chriftianity and the Church, as in our own country. Mr. Whitaker, deeply impreffed with the momentous importance of kings and bishops, is anxious to prove, hiftorically,. that their jurifdiction exifted in certain parts of Britain at an earlier period than is embraced by authenticated records.

The purpose of this work is to fhew, from a collation of paffages and facts in authors preceeding the ninth or eighth centuries, that Cornwall was a bishoprick and a monarchy. This is naturally, and neceffarily, a fubject which involves a great mass of antiquarian conjecture; and of which the really hiftorical materials being very fcanty must be supplied by ingenuity and imagination. Of the Cornifh our author admits we knew very little until the tenth century, when, being conquered by Athelftan, they became part of the kingdom of England. Having brought them to this point, our author takes a retrofpective view of what the Cornish may have been before; but his main object of enquiry is the fituation of the Cornish cathedral. It is difficult, and indeed almost impoffible, to analyze antiquarian conjectures. We fhall therefore exhibit rather than analyze, and present the most essential parts in the author's own words. He enquires where was the feat of the Cornifh bifhoprick, whether at St. German's or Bodmin. The following is the paffage :

"The entire conqueft of Cornwall being thus fhewn to have been made by Athelstan in 936; and Athelftan being thus proved to have fignalized

the

the year of his conqueft, by the wife meafures which he took in that year for fecuring them, by conciliating his newly-acquired fubjects, with acts of pious liberality to their country, and with deeds of devout reverence to their faints; I go on to point out what was the feat of the Cornish bishoprick, St. German's or Bodmin, before or under this new fupremacy of England. Grofs mistakes have been made upon the fubject, but I hope to rectify them. The study of antiquarian litertature is yet in its infancy only among us; and the manly deduction of inference from premises judicioully ftated, has been little practifed hitherto by our antiquaries."

"To St. German's, as Camden tells us, 'the bishop's fee was tranfJated,' from what place he does not exprefs, but certainly means from Bodmin, for greater fafety in the time of the Danish wars; though, in the very line preceeding, he acknowledges St. German's to be merely a village' at that period. Where then could poffibly exift the greater fafety of the fee? The bufhopes fea', with more explicitnels adds Norden, who wrote his work in 1594, was planted here (at St German's) in the Danish troubles, browghte hyther from Bodman; or, as Norden writes ftill more explicitly in another place, one Herftane, about ao 906, was confecrated bufhop' of Cornwal, whofe fee was at Bodmyn and called St. Petrocks whiche churche, with the cloyfter, was confumed by the Danes, and then was the fee removed to St. German's'. But Dr. Borlafe fubjoins to both, with an aftonishing confufion of ideas, what tells us nothing befides the tranflation of the fee from Bodmin to St. German's. ..King Athelstan,' he cries, is said to have appointed one Conan bishop here (A. D.936). King Edred, brother to Athelftan, who began his reign in 946, and died in 955 (Speed, Chron. p. 346), is also said to have ordained St. German's to be a bishop's see; but, as all hiftories agree, that the bithop of Cornwall did not remove from Bodman till the year 981, it is very unlikely that there fhould be a bishop here before that time, as bishop Tanner rightly observes; neither does it feem neceffary that there fhould be two bishops in fo narrow a flip of land as Cornwall, and but one at Crediton for all Devon, a country of fo much larger extent. The following particulars ferve in some meafure to discover the truth. I find Edred a benefactor to the fee of Bodman; for Henry III. confirmed to the monks there the manor of Newton, in the same manner as king Edred had granted it. Very likely this was given in order to augment the revenues of the bishopric there; and, for the fame reason, he might have appointed the the bishop of Bodman to be bishop of St. German's too. Again: Conan is faid to be the name of the first bishop, placed here by king Athelstan. I find also that Conan was second bishop in the fee of Bodman, in the time of king Athelstan; it is possible therefore that Athelftan might annex his new priory of St. German to the see of Bodman, for the better maintenance of the epifpopal dignity, and [might have] ordered alfo that St. German's should partake of the episcopal title; by which difpofition I imagine that Conan, at that time bishop of Bodman, became bishop of Bodman and St. German's too ;and this might give occafion to the mistakes of St German's being one bishopric, and Bodman another; but these things I offer only as conjectures.' I fhall not ftop to expose this mass of conjectures, all pleading a falfe probability of reafon against a pofitive affertion of hiftory, all founded upon a false affumption, and all tending to a falfe conclufion. I fhall only fhew the reality, and leave these reveries to die away at its fide.

may

"In the divifion of the Weft-Saxons bishopric.' as Malmsbury informs

us,

Us, this is obfervable, that he who had his fee at Winchester poffeffed two counties, Hampshire and Surry; the other who had his fee at Shireburn, poffeffed Wiltshire, Dorfetfhire, Berkshire, Somerfhire, Devonshire, and Cornwall-On the death of Ethelward,' bishop of Sherborn, the Weft-Saxon epifcopate cealed for feven years, under the compelling violence of hoftility. But at laft Pleymund, archbishop of Canterbury, and king Edward the fon of Alfred, obliged by the threats and edicts of the Pope, appointed five bishops instead of two, Ethelm to the Church of Wells, Edulf to that, of Crediton, Werftern to that of Shireburn, Aihelstan to that of Cornwall, Fideftan to that of Winchester. Ethelm therefore. had Somersetshire, Edulf Devonshire, Athelstan Cornwall.' That Cornwall then formed, or was then to form bishopric of itself, is evident from this appointment of Athelstan to it, and of Edulf to Devonshire. This was fo early as 910, because Fideftan, we know, 'feng to di'copdome on Wintercefire, or became bishop of Winchester in that year. But it must have been a part of one, many centuries before. As the Britons, on the Roman dereliction of the ifland, naturally loft the Roman divifions of provinces, and relapfed again into their only divifions by realms; fo every realm becoming a bishopric, Damnonium formed at once a kingdom and a prelacy. Thus does the epifcopate of Damnonium mount up for its origin, even to the middle of the fifth century! This had its feat undoubtedly at Exeter, equally the capital of the realm and the metropolis of the bishopric; continuing to have it as long as the kingdom of the Damnonii continued entire. But when Damnonium, east of the Exe, was reduced by the Saxons, and Exeter itself was poffeffed only in part by the Cornish, under the permiffion too of the English; a new capital and a new metropolis muft have been appointed, by the Damnonii west of the Exe. At what time this event happened, and Exeter loft its civil with its fpiritual fupremacy over Cornwall, we may afcertain by these fucceffive incidents of history.

Our author concludes that Lefcard was the feat of monarchy and St. German's of hierarchy. We do not find his arguments upon the fubject altogether conclufive, but they are as probable as any that are likely to be adduced upon fubjects of fo very remote a distance from the light of true hiftory. St. German's was the original See of Cornwall founded about the year 614, when Lefcard became the feat of Cornifh royalty; but both the bifhopric and kingdom were three centuries afterwards entirely annihilated and amalgamated with England. During this ftate of Cornwall there existed several men of high rank under the names of Earls and Dukes, but the power of these nobles became fo dangerous to the kings, that they ufed every means in their power to fupprefs the orders. Our author next proceeds to an account of the Cornish monaftery. In chapter fecond lection first, he fums up the evidence on which he concludes that the original Cathedral of Cornwall was at St. German's, and then goes on to a very lively and picturefque defcription of the Cathedral itfelf; both which paffages we think worthy of quotation.

"I have now fhewn from the certain reports of history, that the original cathedral of Cornwall was at St. Germans. I therefore proceed to a new kind of teftimony, in favour of the fame point. The very church of

St.

St. German's concurs with all at this day; there we fee the cathedral exist. ing with all the fignatures of a cathedral to the present moment; while the church of Bodmin exhibits no figns, and fo preferves no traditions of any epifcopal pre-eminence that it ever enjoyed by itself or with another; the church of St. Germans prefents various relicts, and retains various traditions of that cathedral dignity which is long maintained without a partner, and even with a partner maintained in a high tone of fuperiority over all the churches of Cornwall. The church of Bodmin indeed as I have previously noted, was rebuilt about 1125; and all traces of its epifcopacy may have then perished with its epifcopal church: but as this church became epifcopal after it was built, and merely as a cathedral fubfidiary to St. German's, it could never have had any original emblems of its epifcopate, and most probably had never any permanent at all; if it had ever poffeffed fuch, they would have been protected in the demolition, we may be fure, with a folicitude fimilar to what was fhewn, concerning the chapel of St. Petrock: and the tradition, which has fled equally with the fignatures themselves, would then have been cherished with peculiar livelinefs, by appealing continually to thofe fenfible vouchers for its veracity

"The church of St. German's confifts at prefent of a nave and two ailes, almost entirely built of a stone brought from a quarry about four miles off, that is called from its pofition Tarton Down. The nave is entered under a large portal from the weft, flanked on the north and fouth with a tower. Both these rise square about two thirds of their height, even to the entablature of each; both are asserted by tradition to have then formed an octangular turret for the remainder, and that on the north ftill forms one THE

SOUTHERN TOWER AND SOUTHERN AILE COMPOSED THE SMALL

CATHEDRAL. These are apparently one whole in themselves. Close to this tower on the fouth, and with it forming the western termination of that aile, is what was the primary portal of the cathedral; a small porch of an oblong fquare, with one door to the weft, one to the fouth, and a third on the east into the Church; it was therefore the one only entrance into the church originally, but equally from the fouth and weft. The ground on both fides has rifen fo very high fince the conftruction of the church, that there is now a decent into it of one ftep by the western doorway, and of three by the fouthern; though there ftill remains, as there must always have been a decent of four from it into the church. This strongly marks the antiquity of the building. The tower adjoining to the porch has a fmall arch facing the aile, and had a large one looking north, but now closed up. The aile itself is only the breadth of this tower and that porch, about fix-andtwenty feet only. So narrow was the cathedral of Cornwall! But the whole is apparently divided, as a complete church of itself, into two parts, the body and the chancil. The former runs on with the breadth above, about eight-and-forty feet; but then contracts into a breadth of twenty-two and a half only for a length of thirty-feven.

"At the upper end of this chancil, is what was apparently formed for and is popularly confidered as THE BISHOP'S THRONE, being a rounded niche a foot deep in the very fubftance of the eastern wall, evidently made with it, and fixed in the middle between the two windows there. It is about fix feet in height, with two and a half in breadth, having a ftone feat at the bottom, and this raised fix feet nine inches above the level of the floor. At the head of this niche is within are fome small fillets of ftone; and a small dove of stone, as an emblem of the Holy Ghost, in the centre. On each