Star.
London, England, 1830-12-28 00:00:00

LITERATURE.

That Christmas is a period of retrospection and of reckoning is too
well known to many in this metropolis We Ind, like others, that we
are sadly in arras in this department of our journal; and as we are
unwilling to carry over our debts into the new year, we shall endeavour
in this, and the ensuing days of the nld one, to clear them off, and thus
gain credit for another score.

We have before, more than once, called our readers' attention to
the series of " Divines of the Church of England," now in course
of monthly publication, by Mr. VALPT. The works of BaraLocit
are just completed; and we have already two volumes of BARROW
before us. The work is edited by the Bev. T. & Breves, B.D. of
Emmanuel College. The Sermons are neatly, and yet most legibly
printed. After each discourse is an analysis or summary of it; and at
the commencement of the week of each author, is an original biogra-
phical memoir.

The digestion of a wise and good man, placed in oar hands, very early
in life, a volume of seven sermons, by ISAAC Baum.", on Content-
ment. The volume was published by Dr. BARROW'S father in 1678.
We have, ever since we read this excellent volume, considered ISAAC
%many as a writer whose works we w ould place next our Bible
With the acuteness of a great mathematician. be united a taste, if not
a genius, for poetry ; and his sermons display mote of the latter, than
the former. They are not the austere, logical disquisitions of a school..
man ; but the oratorical, yet sometimes exuberantly eloquent harangue.
of the ardent orator. At the same time, there is enough of exact res•on':
to discover in their author, the mathematician ; and thicedm.xt,tre of
poetry and mathematics, in the mind of the author, bas occasioned his
sermons to be differently appreciated. Le Cr.sac is generally correctly
descriptive of BARROW'S merits, when he says:—" Les sermons de
set autcur sent plutot des usit6s ou des dissertations mutes, que de
simples harangues."
We conceive that emancipating such works, as the sermons of Ban -
Row from the state prison of their folio editions, and placing them in
the accessible, and elegant form, we are now reviewing, is bringing
them into new life, and performing a valuable service to the present
generation; who would not be the worse, in our opinion, of reading
such works, a little more frequently than is at present the fashion.—
The Biography of Baaaow, affixed to the Edition, is by far
the best we have perused. Mr. HUORIS has rendered
it new in its details; and entertaining, by the introduction into it, of
all the matter of a biographical character to be found in Dr. Basiow's
Latin poetry. The Doctor had travelled; and had related his travelling
incidents and remarks in his poetry ; which, it appears, all his biogra.
phers, before Mr. Hughes, had been too indolent to raise from their
quarry. We cannot conclude without recommending this work to sill
whoare forming a library, and to families who still see the importance
of keeping good books on their table.

The terrific monosyllables' A Swing,' were used in the
reign of George 111. by the opposition, as a toast, on ac-
count of the initials of the Cabinet Ministers names at that
time, viz—Amherst, Sandwich, Weymouth, Jenkinson,
North, and Germaine.—The Cambrian.
Captain Edward Galway, the oldest of a list of six Post-
Captains, submitted by Sir Jas. Graham to Lord Anglesey,
the new Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, has been appointed to
the command of the Royal Charlotte yatcht ; in attendance
upon the Lord Lieutenant.
The ten years service to entitle a naval officer's widow to
receive a pension, is allowed to include any service while ac-
tually attached to a ship in commission.
An East India order for 6,000 pieces, and other work in
hand, gives employment to the Norwich weavers during the
winter months.
The Skaiting Club had their first meeting on the Serpen-
tine River in Hyde-park, yesterday afternoon, at two o'clock.
It is composed of the best akaiters in town, and the ipem-
' hers are distinguished by wearing a small model'
of a skit in
silver suspended from the button-hole. They have regular
servants belonging to the club, and a tent, which will be
pitched on the ice to-day. The club will now meet daily at
two o'clock, near the Receiving-house, in Hyde-park.
Gus RA LTA a, Dec. 6.—The muter of the Sicilian brig
Colombia, just arrived from Rio Janeiro, reports that on the
25th of October, he was spoken by his Majesty's brig
Falcon, six or seven days from Ascension, bound to Bermuda,
and informed that a pirate ship of fifty guns bad been cap-
tured by a British frigate, in company with the Falcon, after
a severe engagement, in which the British ships lost 22
killed, and the pirate 100: the pirate had been carried to
Ascension, where the survivors of her crew, 200 in number,
had been hanged.