Recollections of a Long Life. By Theodore Lidyard Cuyler, D.D.
(Hodder and Stoughton. 5s. net.)—The chapters with which all Dr. Cuyler's readers will be pleased are those which contain his early recollections of great writers. He had the honour, shared by very few now living, of taking a walk with the poet Words- worth. He was entertained by Charles Dickens sixty years ago, and he talked with Joanna Baillie. In Paris he saw a Virade of veterans who had fought at Austerlitz, Jena, and Wagram by Napoleon's tomb. Among the most interesting meetings which he describes are those with Carlyle in 1842 and again in his extreme old age. One of his best stories is concerned with Horatio Boner, the hymn-writer. Dr. Boner was at the time a stout conservative on the question of psalmody. Nothing but the "paraphrase" should be allowed, he thought, in public worship,— a curious phase of thought, limiting the "psalms and hymns" of Christians to a Hebrew anthology. Dr. Cuyler said in the Free Church General Assembly, which he was attending as a dele- gate from the Presbyterian Church of the United States : "We Presbyterians in America sing the good old Psalms of David." Dr. Boner led a round of applause. He went on : "We also sing the Gospel of Jesus Christ as versified by Watts, Wesley, Cowper, Toplady, and your own Horatio Bonar." There was a burst of laughter, which became a roar when the speaker added : "My own people have the privilege, not accorded to my brother's congrega- tion, of singing his magnificent hymns." Dr. Bonar afterwards gave way ; he must have been a little weakened by so palpable a hit. There are things in Dr. Cuyler's volume with which we can- not agree, and much in which we sympathise with him would be scarcely appropriate to the present occasion ; but we would express the special pleasure felt in reading chaps. 16 and 17, headed "A Retrospect."
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