The General chronicle and literary magazine

the ingenuity, of the greatest antiquaries in Europe, more, perhaps, than any other monument of late discovery.'

In the natural world, the autumn and winter of the year 1811 have been distinguished by the successive apparition of no less than two Comets. Of these, the first and largest has been long and conspicuously visible; and on this occasion, beside collecting such contemporary observations as have been offered, we have been induced to re-print a tract of the year 1619, written by Dr. Bainbridge, on the subject of the Comet of the preceding year. This tract has an interest, as having been written before the time of NEWTON, and may recommend itself to some readers by its old spelling and old conceits: we are also of opinion, that to those who are not intimate with astronomical studies, it is capable of affording more information than they can receive from many modern writings. In this view, we particularly recommend attention to the author's infallible demonstration by parallax.'

In the moral world, and in our domestic history, a very important feature, within the same period, has been the success of the efforts of a few most meritorious individuals, by whom the country has been roused

roused to a sense of the danger with which it is threatened by a system of education put into practice for the infant poor, such as is, of all other engines, the most capable of overthrowing that ecclesiastical establishment which forms so essential a part of our political constitution of government. On this subject, to which we cannot but be always alive, we have preserved, in the present volume, Dr. Marsh's letters in defence of Dr. Bell's system, against the aspersions of Mr. Lancaster; Mr. Lancaster's letters in reply to Dr. Marsh; and the letter of a Layman Zealously Attached to the Church of England, on Mr. Lancaster's reply. These, together with the letters of a writer under the signature of Eusebius, which will be found in our succeeding volume, afford a complete view of that branch of the controversy.

Nor is it only as a means of checking and keeping within its proper bounds that enterprize which is sometimes ostentatiously called the Lancastrian, and sometimes the Scriptural System of Education, that we rejoice in the sense of danger that has been awakened. It has led also to a public acknowledgment of the necessity of a Church of England Education, as a National Education, and to the commencement of institutions upon the great and comprehensive principle, That the

national

national religion is the proper foundation for all na

tional education.

In reference to the opposite system,

it has been remarked, "That merely to admit the Bible' (which admission is the boasted basis of that system)

as constituting the basis of religious opinion, is in fact definitively nothing;' and this language, though it has given offence to enthusiasts, and perhaps to some persons of a better description, is strictly just. If to admit the Bible as the basis of religious opinion were definitively any thing, what need were there of the Thirty-nine Articles, or of any other Confession of Faith established or dissenting?

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