dignified, courteous and earnest strain, counselling the Queen to have two things in her supreme regard: “First, that every reformation of the Church and of religion be conducted agreeably to the Word of God;” and second, that she restrain her counsellors from hindering or reversing the good work. Better than from the best-digested pages of history, one may learn from these fresh and admirable letters, down to the most minute detail and incident, the cross-workings, the entanglements, the progressive advance, the obstructions, the retrograde and opposing forces and influences connected with the oscillations of the reform in England. Nowhere else in our abounding literature on the subject are the Puritans and Nonconformists presented more faithfully and intelligently in their conscientious, scrupulous, and certainly well-meant efforts, within the Church itself, to have its institutions, ceremonial, and discipline disposed after a pattern which should have regard equally to discountenance the impositions and superstitions of the Papal system, which had been nominally renounced, and to make the purified Church a power to advance the best interests of true religion. The intelligent American visitor to Zurich, if his attention is drawn to this highly valued and admirably arranged collection in its library, can hardly fail of the impression that he has before him most sincere evidences of the depth of thought and the nobleness of spirit of men who were working out the principles of wisdom and righteousness. Considering the influence exerted upon some of the English Puritans by their residence on the Continent, and their frequent reference afterward to the different ecclesiastical system and discipline adopted there, an interesting phase of the controversy is presented in the two following works. At the opening of the eighteenth century, Dr. William Nichols,—as he says, at the prompting of others, though, it was intimated, of his own motion,—wrote a _Defence of the Doctrine and Discipline of the Church of England_, addressed especially to foreign divines and churches. This was replied to by James Peirce in his _Vindication of the Dissenters; or, an Appeal to Foreign Divines, Professors, and all other Learned Men of the Reformed Religion_. In this volume, originally written and published in Latin, afterward translated by the author and published in English, there is in the main a thorough and candid review of the rise and the conduct of the cause of Nonconformity, and a searching examination of the principles of the Church of England. Peirce quotes with care the original authorities, and puts them to a good use. He follows the history into the fortunes of those who had taken refuge and established their religion in New England, and while he says he differs with Mr. Cotton, of Boston, “in many of his opinions,” defends him and all the “Independents” from the charge of being “Brownists.”