period of modern criticism, where general principles, one would have thought, were so much brought to the front, obtains a comparatively short and summary treatment. The much greater historic length of the earlier periods has, of course, much to do with this, but not all; as Dr. Farrar himself points out that he has only chosen the commanding figures in each age. Now we venture to suggest that there is in the interpretation of Scripture an evolution in regard of both those aspects of Scripture which we mentioned at the beginning. Let us attempt to explain this; and, first, we must observe that our conception of evolution is widely different from Dr. Farrar's. We cannot bring ourselves to believe that the Darwinian principle proves the vast mass of what has passed for Scriptural interpretation to be no longer tenable,' because we feel that if this were so in any literal or strict sense there would be no evolution at all. Evolution of truth is surely the gradual expression of it through successive stages and in successive forms; and in so far as it is really an evolution we, with our fuller knowledge, must be able to perceive that the earlier stages were not only in their day true, but contain the truth which we in our day are most anxious to assert. The difference between theories which are untenable and erroneous and those which are right and true is not a difference in degree but in kind. And so an evolution cannot be the appearance of what is right, at the end of a series of things which are absolutely wrong: rather that which is right and implicit throughout becomes explicit at the end.

So in Nature

'Man's attributes had here and there
Been scattered o'er the visible world before
Asking to be combined, dim fragments meant
To be united in some wondrous whole.

Imperfect qualities throughout creation
Suggesting some one creature yet to make.

Some point where all those scattered rays should meet
Convergent in the faculties of man.'

The emphasis in evolution is always rather on what is right than on what is wrong. This is our first point. And the second is that periods and modes of interpretation must be estimated by their relation to the two sides of Scriptural interpretation. This will explain the attitude we assumed above towards the Rabbinical and Alexandrian schools. Their lack of the true spirit of Scripture makes them inadequate representatives of the progress of Scripture interpretation. They are necessary to understand the rise of certain methods and

forms in Catholic interpretation, but no more. Then the Patristic School comes before us. Here we have before us very peculiar phenomena, which Dr. Farrar does not seem to think require an explanation. On the one side we have a body of men living saintly and pure lives, full of spiritual knowledge, embodying the results of all their spiritual history in books which have on this account an undying value for mankind. And yet, according to Dr. Farrar, they treated the Bible in a way which he can scarcely sufficiently despise. They found a meaning in the letters of the Septuagint, they gave the most abstruse mystical reasons for things which were entirely out of relation to the reasons. It is needless to remark that much of what they say is right, in spite of all this. But may we not find an answer to the difficulty in the fact that the spiritual side of the fathers was developed to its highest, and their critical side still somewhat undeveloped ? Their conception of literalism was not ours. We think it means that the exact significance of each word as it was to the writer should be drawn out as far as possible, and from this the spiritual meaning should be derived. Greek was the Fathers' mother-tongue; it lived in their minds and was full of associations to them, as every living language is. And they could not but suppose that when the Holy Spirit spoke in human language, each letter and syllable would be important. We have in our most critical moods (unless we deny the spiritual interpretation altogether) a sort of parallel to this. We recognize fully the human element in inspiration, and no longer talk of mechanical or verbal inspiration; but yet we do not feel ourselves at liberty to be careless or neglectful of the actual words; never so much as now was there such an activity in the field of textual criticism. For the men S. Paul and S. John, being full of the Holy Spirit, spoke certain words, and these at all costs we must make our own. In these we shall feel the presence of the Holy Spirit, and from these we shall learn of the spiritual life. But yet, while we are thus careful, we shall never deny that spiritual knowledge is shed from the pages of the Bible even before the text is settled. The Spirit does not depend on these points for His selfmanifestation; indeed, we know well enough that the widest knowledge of such matters is consistent with a very small degree of illumination. We may perhaps be able to correct the texts the Fathers used, or to supply their study of syllables and letters with a literalism of a higher kind; but, whatever their methods and whatever their powers, we cannot deny that in numberless cases they obtained truth. The Schoolmen in

their interpretation, we cannot but own, are very much below the Fathers. And perhaps the reason may be found in the fact that the methods which the Fathers used were gradually losing influence, and were gradually being used with less true confidence, as well as the still more terrible fact that the Church was gradually coming upon evil days, and that the efforts to purify and raise her from within were failing one by This could not but have an effect upon exegesis. With the reformers and later authors the emphasis begins to be laid on the literal and grammatical side of interpretation; and here, too, a one-sided development took place; the spiritual side was often lost in the grammatical and critical, and the consequences of this are being realized in our day.

one.

There is just one other point on which we would say a word, and that is Church tradition. This is popularly supposed to mean an objective body of isolated interpretations forced on an unwilling Church, and to be ipso facto antagonistic to evolution. On the contrary, it is the principle of evolution. Each age of the Church hands on to the next some legacy; and this should be accepted by the age to which it comes not as a mere body of truth which has to be carried about, as it were, like some heirloom, but as a product of the past which is living still, and still is capable of being active in the new experiences of the Church, still capable of development without ever losing its individuality or its sameness. An age which accepts in an external way the gifts of the past inevitably misunderstands them.

And so we here leave Dr. Farrar and his book. We cannot think that it will do much to help the growth just now described of Church tradition. We cannot think that Dr. Farrar has estimated the various periods with which he has dealt, fairly or sympathetically. But we must not conclude without a word to express our admiration of the tone in which he closes his last lecture. To believe in Christ is, indeed, the one thing needful. Without this no method, however scientific, will really 'interpret'; with this no method, however unscientific and apparently hopeless, can, if it be honest, wholly fail of

success.

ART. X.-THE ARCHITECTURAL HISTORY OF CAMBRIDGE.

The Architectural History of the University of Cambridge and of the Colleges of Cambridge and Eton. By the late ROBERT WILLIS, M.A., F.R.S., Jacksonian Professor of the University of Cambridge, and sometime Fellow of Gonville and Caius College. Edited, with large additions, and brought up to the present time by JOHN WILLIS CLARK, M.A., late Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. 4 vols. (Cambridge, 1886.)

It was well known to the intimate friends of the late Professor · Willis that he had for many years been collecting materials for an architectural history of the Universities of Cambridge and Oxford. The idea of undertaking such a work had been suggested to him, more than forty years ago, when he was testing his interpretation of the architectural nomenclature of William of Worcester, by applying it to the details of buildings in Cambridge. While he was gradually adopting the opinion that 'we have done little more than exchange our own medieval nomenclature for the medieval noinenclature of Italy,' and are really 'using a medley of Vitruvian and Italian terms mixed up with French and Dutch translations of the latter,' his attention was naturally directed to the varieties of the classical details which had supplanted mediæval ones; and a desire to settle the order in which these changes had taken place, ended in a determination to apply to Cambridge and Oxford the same mode of research which had led to such signal success at Canterbury. The same unrivalled sagacity which had detected the evidence of the successive masonry of Ernulf, and of William of Sens, was to be directed to the interpretation of college muniments and the puzzling medleys of college structures.

Failing health, however, as well as the pressure of official duties, interfered with the progress and completion of this design, and when he died in 1875 his executor found that he had left behind him nothing more than a mass of memoranda in various stages of preparation for the press. The separate histories of the colleges were all more or less incomplete. Some were nearly finished, some merely sketched out. 'Everywhere' (says Mr. Clark in the Preface, p. xxiii) 'there were gaps to be filled up, but no materials suitable to the purpose

were at hand.' The notes relating to colleges at Oxford were imperfect, and the materials for a proposed chapter on the revived classical style, which spread itself from Italy over the rest of Europe, and eventually, as he had pointed out, superseded all other styles, were nothing more than the headings of intended paragraphs and general notes, which show how instructive a lesson has been lost to architectural students. The original conception of the History included an account of the early lay and clerical schools and halls, out of which grew the collegiate system as we now see it; and his treatment of so obscure and neglected a subject would have been a priceless feature in his introductory chapter, but was never written. In 1869, when he witnessed the destruction of the chapel of S. John's, his capacity for continuous effort was felt to be failing by those who knew the extent of his former power, and though he lived to see the transformation of the more venerable Church of S. Benedict he had become incapable of more than a momentary appreciation of the value of the architectural disclosures which were taking place, and left to others the task of recording them.

In spite of all these formidable breaks in the continuity of his manuscript, this chaos of memoranda has been so admirably edited by the author's nephew, Mr. J. W. Clark, that the deficiencies we have mentioned are never obtrusively apparent. Accomplished, as only Fellows of Trinity can be accomplished, Mr. Clark brought to the execution of his task great gifts, and that without which the greatest gifts are useless, untiring industry. Notes and sketches existed in abundance, but they were mostly written in a kind of shorthand which no one but Professor Willis himself could have deciphered. He accordingly found it necessary to go back to the point from which Willis himself had started, and to investigate the whole subject afresh. He read and made extracts from the entire series of bursars' account books in every college in the University, besides studying the documents relating to the history of the sites, the Order-books, and all other sources of information to which he could obtain access at Cambridge and elsewhere' (Pref. p. xxiii). A similar labour was required for the University buildings. We learn without surprise that this comprehensive and thorough research occupied eleven years, and that the 'added matter' with which Mr. Clark has enriched his uncle's labours-and which he has enclosed within bracketsamounts to about two-thirds of the entire work. 'The general arrangement of the whole work had fortunately been carefully considered by Professor Willis, and he had