FOR ARCHIBALD CONSTABLE AND COMPANY, EDINBURGH,
AND WHITE, COCHRANE & CO. FLEET-STREET,

LONDON.

CONTENTS OF No. XXXIX.

ART. I. The Life of John Knox, containing Illustrations of

the History of the Reformation in Scotland; with

Biographical Notices of the Principal Reformers,

and Sketches of the Progress of Literature in

Scotland, during a great part of the Sixteenth

Century

II. Authentic Correspondence, and Documents, relating

to the Proceedings of the Marquis Wellesley, and

of the Earl Moira, in the Recent Negociations

for the Formation of an Administration

III. Sketch of the Political History of India, from the In-

troduction of Mr Pitt's Bill in 1784. By John

Malcolm, Lt. Col. in the Hon. East India Com-

pany's Madras Army, &c.&c.

IV. The Speech of his Royal Highness the Duke of Sus-

sex, in the House of Lords, on the Catholic Ques-

tion, on Tuesday, April 21st, 1812

V. Sixth Report of the Directors of the African Institu-

tion

VI. Elements of Geometry, Geometrical Analysis, and

Plane Trigonometry. By John Leslie, Professor

of Mathematics in the University of Edinburgh

VII. Tales of Fashionable Life. By Miss Edgeworth, Au-

thor of Practical Education, &c. &c.

-

VIII. A Letter to H. Brougham Esq. M. P., on the Subject

of Parliamentary Reform. By William Roscoe

Esq.And a Letter to W. Roscoe Esq., occasion-

ed by his Letter to Mr Brougham upon Parlia-

mentary Reform. By J. Merritt

IX. Recherches sur les Mœurs des Fourmis Indigènes.

Par P. Huber, Membre des Sociétés d'Histoire

Naturelle et de Physique à Genève, &c.

p. 1

29

38

54

89

79

100

127

149

X. Tables Barometriques Portatives, donnant les differen-

ces de Niveau par un simple soustraction, &c.

Par M. Biot

165

XI. Two Plays: Mantuan Revels, a Comedy in Five Acts;

and Henry the Seventh, an Historical Tragedy, in

Five Acts. By Richard Chenevix, Esq. F. R. &

E. S.; M. R. I. A.

XII. Considerations on the Causes, Objects, and Conse-

quences of the present War; and on the Expe-

diency, or the Danger, of Peace with France.

By William Roscoe, Esq.

у

203

- 213

XIII. The Speech of Henry Brougham Esq. M. P. in the

House of Commons, on Tuesday the 16th of June

1812, upon the present State of Commerce and

Manufactures

Quarterly List of New Publications

-

234

248

ERRATA.

p. 132, l. 13, for prowling read trouling.
138, 1.20, för courtiers read Curtius.
217, 1. 31, dele not

(but only in a few copies.

THE

EDINBURGH REVIEW,

JULY, 1812,

No. XXXIX.

ART. I. The Life of John Knox, containing Illustrations of the History of the Reformation in Scotland; with Biographical Notices of the Principal Reformers, and Sketches of the Progress of Literature in Scotland, during a great part of the Sixteenth Century. To which is subjoined an Appendix, consisting of Letters and other Papers, never before published. By Thomas M'Crie, Minister of the Gospel, Edinburgh. Svo. pp. 580. Edinburgh and London, 1812.

THERE

"HERE is a kind of luck, we think, in the inheritance of fame, as well as of more substantial possessions. In the history of great transactions, there are always some fortunate names that come instantly to the lips of all the world, and stick close to the slightest and most popular recollections of the event ;while others, at least as well entitled to that distinction, are left without honour or notoriety. But this is by no means the worst of Fortune's caprices in the distribution of historical glory. It is a case at least as common, that where some great benefit has been conferred on society by the joint efforts of many, some, who have had but a light share of the labour, run away with all the praise; while the chief agents, by whose spirit and zeal the victory was hardly won, get little more than the blame which human infirmity has made inseparable from all human exertions, and are left to answer for whatever excesses and imperfections an ungrateful posterity may discover or imagine in their proceedings.

Among the many who have suffered by this partiality of fortune, we scarcely know any one to whom harder measure has been dealt, than the eminent person who is the subject of the work before us. In the reformed island of Great Britain, no