numbers.  The payment stipulated was the magnificent sum of a guinea a number!  This was the origin of the famous Commentary.  There is no need to make many remarks on this well-known work.  As a practical and devotional commentary it did not perhaps attain to the permanent popularity of Matthew Henry’s commentary, and in point of erudition and acuteness it is not equal to that of Adam Clarke.  But it holds an important place of its own in the Evangelical literature of its class, and its usefulness extended beyond the limits of the Evangelical school.  Its immediate success was enormous, perhaps almost unparalleled in literary history, or at least in the history of works of similar magnitude; 12,000 copies of the English edition and 25,250 of the American, were produced in the lifetime of the author.  The retail price of the English copies amounted to 67,600_l._ and of the American 132,300_l._ One would have been glad to learn that the author himself was placed in easy circumstances by the sale of his work.  But this was not the case; on the contrary, it involved him for some time in very serious embarrassments.  Scott died, as he lived, a poor man.  But one is thankful to know that his old age was passed in comparative peace.  His change from London to Aston Sandford, if it was not a remunerative, was at least a refreshing change.  In the pure air of his country living he was liberated from the unsatisfactory wranglings, the bitter jealousies, and vexatious interference of his London patrons, whose self-sufficiency and spiritual pride were, like those of many amateur theologians at the present day, in inverse ratio to their knowledge and ability.  He had the satisfaction of seeing a son grow up to be worthy of his father.  To that son we are indebted for the very interesting biography of Thomas Scott, a biography in which filial piety has not tempted the writer to lose sight of good sense and honesty, and which is therefore not a mere panegyric, but a true and vivid account of its subject.

From Newton and Scott we naturally turn to one who was the friend of both and the biographer of the former.

Richard Cecil (1748-1810) differed widely in point of natural character from his two friends.  He was perhaps the most cultured and refined of all the Evangelical leaders.  Nature had endowed him with an elegant mind, and he improved his natural gifts by steady application.  He was not trained in the school of outward adversity as Newton and Scott had been; but he had trials of his own, mostly of an intellectual character, which were sharp enough.  His delicate health prevented him from taking so busy a part as his friends did in the Evangelical movement.  But in a different way he contributed in no slight degree to its success.  There was a stately dignity, both in his character and in his style of writing, which was very impressive.  His ‘Remains’ show traces of a scholarly habit of mind, a sense of humour, a grasp of leading principles, a liberality of thought, and capacity of appreciating good wherever it might be found, which render it, short though it is, a valuable contribution to Evangelical literature.