Contemporary Literature [pp. 563-580]

Coitemporajry Literature.
WILLIAM P. DICKSON, Professor of Divinity in the University of Glasgow.
The high merits of this commentary are recognized among exegetes and
biblical students, and it is eagerly sought for their libraries by all of this class
who can afford to purchase them. For sale in Princeton by McGinness &
Runyon.
HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHY.
Ex-President iiaclean's History of Princeton College. One of the most
important among recent historical productions has reached us at the
last moment. It is entitled the History of the College of New 7ersey from
its Origin in I746 to the Commencement of I854, by JOHN MACLEAN, the
tenth President of the College, in two handsome octavo volumes; published
by J B. Lippincott & Co. of Philadelphia, in a style as creditable to the publishers as the contents are to its honored and venerable author. It is the
first and only thorough history of Princeton College that has yet been written. Interesting and valuable historical fragments and monograms have
been published, but this is the first complete and continuous history of one
of the earliest and largest of the great historical colleges of the country. It
is from the hand above all others qualified for the task. President Maclean,
himself the son of an eminent early professor of the institution, born and
reared within its classic shades, personally connected with it as student, tutor, professor, president, for more than half a century, a resident
of Princeton since his retirement from office, has had means of knowledge,
and access to trustworthy sources of information, possible to no other
man. The preparation of it has afforded him becoming and useful occupation during his declining years; and it is fortunate that he has had leisure
to test the truth of his narrative, to work it up thoroughly and well, and to
make an enduring monument for himself and the college out of materials
that were fast passing into an oblivion from which they could not otherwise
have been rescued.
Of course these volumes will be precious and attractive, not merely to the
graduates and immediate friends of the college, but to all lovers of high education, and especially those interested in the successive stages of its development in our larger and elder seats of learning. But this is not all. These
volumes shed great light upon important epochs and passages of American
history, civil and ecclesiastical-particularly the Revolutionary epoch, with
the periods preceding and following it. Old Nassau Hall was alternately
barracks for one or the other of the contending armies. Dr. Witherspoon,
its president during the Revolutionary era, was equally conspicuous as a
civilian, a divine, and an educator; and was among the foremost of the Revolutionary statesmen that declared our national independence and brought
our nation to its birth, as also of the divines that framed the Constitution of
the Presbyterian Church. His line of predecessors, Dickinson, Burr, Edwards, Davies, Finley, contains the most illustrious names of early Presbyterian and ecclesiastical history, while those that follow were among the
burning and shining lights of the church. Indeed, the college was founded,
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