Pp. 92., Exclusive of Preface.
Facing the title-page is a portrait of Bishop Taylor, engraved by Van Hove. The Preface, without mentioning the author's name, informs the reader that the two sermons following, "by means of a person of Honour yet living, are now come into the press for public use and benefit." The first sermon is on Matt. xi. 30.: "For my Yoke is easy, and my Burthen is light;" and is contained in Taylor's Life of Christ (Eden's edit. of his Works, vol. ii. pp. 515-528.). The second sermon is on Luke xiii. 23, 24., and begins "The life of a Christian is a perpetual contention for mastery;" and ends, "If we strive according to his holy Injunctions, we shall certainly enter, according to his holy promises, but else upon condition." This sermon does not appear, as far as I have been able to discover, in any collection of Taylor's Works, nor amongst his Sermons in the new edition; nor do I find the volume itself noticed by any of his biographers. It would be extraordinary if, when so much has been printed as part of his works which did not belong to him, a sermon indisputably his should have been omitted by all his various editors; a sermon, too, which every reader will allow to be a fine one. Perhaps the rev. editor of the new edition of Taylor's Works can explain the reason of this omission. I shall be glad to be corrected if I have overlooked the sermon in any part of the Bishop's collected Works.
JAMES CROSSLEY.
COWLEY AND GRAY, NO. II.
Gray, when alluding to Shakspeare, in his Pindaric ode on "The Progress of Poesy," had probably Cowley in memory:
"Far from the sun and summer gale,
In thy green lap was Nature's Darling laid,
What time, where lucid Avon stray'd.
To him the mighty mother did unveil
Her awful face: the dauntless child