tion will be undertaken against the Mahometans, which she supposes will end in their total destruction, and the peaceful re-establishment of the Jews in their own country, who will by that time be all converted to Christianity. This she conjectures will be effected at the full expiration of the 1260 years, namely in 1896, or about that date. One circumstance must not here be omitted. Miss F. wrote this work in the year 1800, and it is not a little singular, that in pursuing her ideas upon this part of the Apocalypse, she conjectured that in 1822, being twelve centuries from the date of the Hegira, or flight of Mahomet, the question of war against the Turks would begin to be agitated in various cabinets, though probably without any present intention of driving them out of Europe. No one can look back to the last year without being struck with the accurate fulfilment of this conjecture; nor without considerable curiosity to see what the next evenful year, 1836, may produce. We cannot help wishing that on this momentous subject, this lady's conjecture may be fulfilled; for the odds are fearfully against us, if instead of the Christian powers exterminating the Mahometans by one grand and united effort against them, the conjectures of Pastorini should be verified, and those antichrist tian infidels should spread slaughter and desolation over the greater part of the earth for three years and a half. But we must now briefly speak of the period of the so called reforma. mation of Luther; having unavoidably been led by Miss F.'s conjecture to speak of the two other grand events together.

Pastorini explains of Luther and the reformation the fifth seal, trumpet and vial. The star which St. John saw falling from heaven is Luther, and the locusts coming out of the bottomless pit, are the reformers in general, and the countless sectarians who sprung from the defection of Luther. The locusts were allowed to torment for five months, and subsequently to hurt for five other months. This Pastorini explains of five month of years or 150 years, allowing thirty years to a month: so that the Protestants were first to torment by various cruelties and persecutions for 150 years, or the year 1675, and afterwards only to hurt, which indicates an abatement of their first rage, for 150 years more, which will expire in 1825. Then the fifth vial of the wrath of God will, according to Pastorini's

conjectures, be poured out upon the throne of the beast, that is principally Germany and those countries where the reformation is established. This is the famous prediction, which has created such a sensation in Ireland. Whether the Irish peasantry expect that in 1825 all the churches will fall down, and the Protestant clergy all at once disappear, we know not; but they have lately displayed the most enthusiastic belief in the venerable prelate's prophetic conjectures.

The power and duration of the locusts have also invited the conjectures of Miss F. in a very remarkable manner, but they are totally different from the ideas of Pastorini. With her, Luther is the rider of the pale horse, whose name was death, &c. but without staying to pursue the application, we pass to her explanation of the fifth seal. She considers it to relate to the French revolution, and the locusts are the philosophers, and propagators of revolutionary and irreligious principles generally. Their permission to torment and hurt for five months, she understood of the existence of anarchy and government, contrary to that of the legitimate monarchs of France, for the space of 25 years, the amount of five months of years, counting five weeks of years for each month. She began these 25 years from the first open act of revolution, the taking of the bastile in 1789, and they expired in 1814, when the government of Napoleon ceased by his own abdication, and the royal family were recalled. This is another very susprising accomplishment of Miss F.'s predictions; especially when we consider that her conjectures were formed so far back as the year 1800.

Thus it will be seen that upon the most important parts of this sublime book, the two commentators are completely at variance; and we must leave Time to decide. It appears that Miss F. had not any knowledge of the work of Pastorini till several years after writing her interpretation; and after perusing it, she added to her book a letter containing some remarks upon it. We must say that we were astonished on reading these remarks to witness the little respect which this lady shews for Dr. Walmesley's opinions, and the self-sufficiency and presumption with which she sets forth her own. She was not ignorant of the character of Pastorini, since she

calls him in the introduction, "a respectable prelate," but in the course of her remarks she calls his interpretation" entirely unsupported, and at variance with all probabilities," that some of his applications are "impossible," that his work is "full of contradictions, and not at all satisfactory, that he is "terribly deceived" in some instances—and to his opinion as to the reign of Antichrist being limited to three years and a half, she exclaims with flippant self-sufficiency, Quelle singu liére idée bon Dieu! and further on in the same strain, quel raisonnement mon Dieu! on plutôt quel déraisonnement! And, where her opinions happen to coincide with those of Pastorini, she thinks it "singular that he should have found out the true signification!" But enough of this assurance; it is really disgusting and painful to see a venerable prelate of the profound erudition and enlightened piety possessed by Dr. Walmsley, treated with so little ceremony, or rather with so much disrespect by a lady who commented upon the most mysterious of all books without research or study. She even finds some of his remarks laughable, “ridiculous in the extreme," and full of pleasantry, and passes a sweeping condemnation at once upon 166 pages, a third part of the work, by saying with a surprising, presumption that those who have followed Pastorini şo far, would do well to close his book, there being nothing further worth their notice! Notwithstanding which condemnation, she contradictorily says at the end of her letter that his work is not without merit, and the latter part has more than the former!

The reader will naturally wish to know what this lady found so offensive in the commentary of Pastorini. She finds fault in the first place with his arrangement of the seven periods or ages. As it happens to differ very materially from her own, she finds him deficient in method in the distribution of his matter; and confined (reserré) in his applications, because he comprises the three first ages in the space of 600 years. But even the slight outline we have given of Pastorini's plan and manner must have satisfied the reader that so far from wanting method, his work is precise and methodical in the highest degree, so that his applications are ever the most easy and natural. And with what face can this authoress

accuse Pastorini of being contracted in the division of his three first ages, when her own first age occupies no more than 64, years, her fifth not a hundred, and her sixth age little more than 200 years? She triumphs in having found in the directions to the seven churches of Asia the key to the whole prophecy, which Pastorini overlooked. But we feel very sure that he would not have passed over these, if they really were as Miss F. would in a manner force us to believe, "connected with the seals and trumpets, and an inseparable introduction to them, without which it is impossible to interpret them justly." But while this writer shewed such acuteness in this discovery, how came she not to find a similar correspondence with the seals and trumpets, in the seven vials? She has distributed these in the most arbitrary and irregular way without any method or proof of the justice of their application; while Pastorini makes powerful and obvious use of them after every trumpet, and shews their connexion by observing that the same expression is used in the trumpet and vial of the same age. At the first trumpet, hail and fire and blood were cast upon earth: and the first vial was poured out upon the earth. At the second trumpet a mountain was cast into the sea; and the second vial was poured out upon the sea. The third trumpet announced a great star falling upon the rivers and fountains of waters; in like manner the third vial was poured out upon the rivers and fountains of waters. At the fourth trumpet the Sun was smitten, and the fourth vial was poured out upon the Sun. The same connexion is observable in all; but these four instances will more than suffice to shew that the vials do manifestly correspond to the respective seals and trumpets.

Miss F. finds Pastorini full of contradictions, but her only attempt to prove him so, is by bringing forward some passages where she differs from him, and pronouncing his applications impossible of course, aud contradictory. Her only attempt at direct proof is by quoting a sentence from Pastorini in which she suppresses a material clause, which appears to us at once to clear him of the charge of being contradictory, and convict this lady of want of candour. Pastorini says that no single Pagan persecution lasted more than three years and a-half. Here Miss F. accuses him of contradicting himself, because he says elsewhere: "Thus was the persecution carried on by Dioclesian in the

East, and Maximian in the West; and afterwards by their successors, for the space of ten years." Here she terminates the sentence, whereas Pastorini continues with this important qualification, with some interruptions." (See Pastorini's History, p. 43, 2d edit.) It must be a poor cause to stand in need of unfair quotations for its support.

We shall not follow all her objections to Pastorini, but confine ourselves to the grand error of that author, if we are to believe Miss F. when he conceived the singulière idée that Antichrist is not yet come, but will reign for three years and ahalf towards the end of the world. Here she employs all her artillery against the opinion of Pastorini; but the reader shall see a specimen of her proofs.

"He says that Mahomet and the 4th age are signified by the pale horse: that is at once impossible, for that impostor appeared in 622."

That is to say, that because Miss F. has chosen to date her fourth age from the year 800, and to make thé pale horse the sign of the reformation, Pastorini's applications must be impossible! We shall take the liberty to tell Miss F. that Pastorini's opinions are certainly neither singular nor impossible; for his ideas are very generally adopted; and we may here mention that a very high ecclesiastical and literary author, Dr. Milner, has followed Pastorini's plan throughout, with very little variation, in his "Brief Summary of the Holy Scriptures." But after all, what is the grand difference between the two commentators concerning the person and period of Antichrist; and to which will the charge of inconsistency and contradiction be more justly applicable? Pastorini conjectures that Antichrist will come towards the end of the world to reign three years and a-half and then be destroyed; and thinks it probable that he will be a Tartar and Mahometan, of the name of Mahomet. Miss F. lays it down somewhat positively, that Antichrist came long ago in the person of Mahomet; and will continue to reign till about the year 1896. We confess we have discovered no contradiction nor any improbability in the opinion of Pastorini; while it may easily be objected to Miss F. that if Mahomet himself was Antichrist, he has been long since dead; but if, as she says, to obviate this difficulty, there will yet arise some