of industry last, in the practice both of writing and committing to memory. Relaxation in this particular is so common, and so ready to grow upon most speakers in the pulpit, that there is little occasion for giving any cautions against the extreme of overdoing in accuracy.

Of pronunciation or delivery, I am hereafter to treat apart. All that I shall now say upon this head is, that the practice of reading sermons is one of the greatest obstacles to the eloquence of the pulpit in Great Britain, where alone this practice prevails. No discourse, which is designed to be persuasive, can have the same force when read as when spoken. The common people all feel this, and their prejudice against this practice is not without foundation in nature. What is gained hereby in point of correctness, is not equal, I apprehend, to what is lost in point of persuasion and force. They, whose memories are not able to retain the whole of a discourse, might aid themselves considerably by short notes lying before them, which would allow them to preserve, in a great measure, the freedom and ease of one who speaks.

The French and English writers of sermons proceed upon very different ideas of the eloquence of the pulpit; and seem indeed to have split it betwixt them. A French sermon is, for most part, a warm, animated exhortation; an English one is a piece of cool, instructive reasoning. The French preachers address themselves chiefly to the imagination and the passions; the English almost solely to the understanding. It is the union of these two kinds of composition, of the French earnestness and warmth, with the English accuracy and reason, that would form, according to my idea, the model of a perfect sermon. A French sermon would sound in our ears as a florid, and often as an enthusiastic harangue. The censure which, in fact, the French critics pass on the English preachers, is, that they are philosophers and logicians, but not orators. The defects of most of the French sermons are these: from a mode that prevails among them of taking their texts from the lesson of the day, the connexion of the text with the subject is often unnatural and forced; their applications of Scripture are fanciful rather than instructive; their method is stiff and cramped, by their practice of dividing their subject always either into three or two main points; and their composition is in general too diffuse, and consists rather of a very few thoughts spread out and highly wrought up, than of a rich variety of sentiments. Admitting, however, all these defects, it cannot be denied that their sermons are formed upon the idea of a persuasive popular oration; and therefore I am of opinion they may be read with benefit.

Among the French Protestant divines, Saurin is the most distinguished; he is copious, eloquent, and devout, though too

ostentatious in his manner. Among the Roman Catholics, the two most eminent are Bourdaloue and Massillon. It is a subject of dispute among the French critics to which of these the preference is due, and each of them has his several partizans. To Bourdaloue they attribute more solidity and close reasoning; to Massillon a more pleasing and engaging manner. Bourdaloue is indeed a great reasoner, and inculcates his doctrines with much zeal, piety, and earnestness: but his style is verbose, he is disagreeably full of quotations from the fathers, and he wants imagination. Massillon has more grace, more sentiment, and, in my opinion, every way more genius. He discovers much knowledge both of the world and of the human heart; he is pathetic and persuasive; and, upon the whole, is perhaps the most eloquent writer of sermons which modern times have produced. During the period that preceded the restoration of king Charles II, the sermons of the English divines abounded with scholastic casuistical theology. They were full of minute divisions and subdivisions, and scraps of learning in the didactic part; but to these were joined very warm pathetic addresses to the conscien ces of the hearers, in the applicatory part of the sermon. Upon the restoration preaching assumed a more correct and polished form. It became disencumbered from the pedantry and scholastic divisions of the sectaries; but it threw out also their warm and pathetic addresses, and established itself wholly upon the model of cool reasoning and rational instruction. As the dissenters from the church continued to preserve somewhat of the old strain of preaching, this led the established clergy to depart the farther from it. Whatever was earnest and passionate, either in the composition or delivery of sermons, was reckoned enthusiastic and fanatical; and hence that argumentative manner, bordering on the dry and unpersuasive, which is too generally the character of English sermons. Nothing can be more correct upon that model than many of them are; but the model itself upon which they are formed is a confined and imperfect one. Dr. Clark, for instance, every where abounds in good sense, and the most clear and accurate reasoning: his applications of scripture are pertinent; his style is always perspicuous, and often elegant: he instructs and he convinces; in what then is he deficient? In nothing, except in the power of interesting and seizing the heart. He shows you what you ought to do; but he excites not the desire of doing it he treats man as if he were a being of pure intellect without imagination or passions. Archbishop Tillotson's manner is more free and warm, and he approaches nearer than most of the English divines to the character of popular speaking. Hence he is to this day one of the best models we have for preaching. We must not indeed consider him in the light of a perfect orator; his composition is too

loose and remiss; his style too feeble, and frequently too flat, to deserve that high character; but there is in some of his sermons so much warmth and earnestness, and through them all there runs so much ease and perspicuity, such a vein of good sense and sincere piety, as justly entitle him to be held as eminent a preacher as England has produced.

In Dr. Barrow one admires more the prodigious fecundity of his invention, and the uncommon strength and force of his conceptions, than the felicity of his execution, or his talent in composition. We see a genius far surpassing the common, peculiar indeed, almost to himself; but that genius often shooting wild and unchastised by any discipline or study of eloquence.

I cannot attempt to give particular characters of that great number of writers of sermons which this, and the former age have produced, among whom we meet with a variety of the most respectable names. We find in their composition much that deserves praise; a great display of abilities of different kinds, much good sense and piety, strong reasoning, sound divinity, and useful instruction; though in general the degree of eloquence bears not, perhaps, equal proportion to the goodness of the matter. Bishop Atterbury deserves being particularly mentioned as a model of correct and beautiful style, besides having the merit of a warmer and more eloquent strain of writing in some of his sermons, than is commonly met with. Had Bishop Butler in place of abstract philosophical essays, given us more sermons in the strain of those two excellent ones, which he has composed upon self-deceit and upon the character of Balaam, we should then have pointed him out as distinguished for that species of characteristical sermons which I before recommended.

Though the writings of the English divines are very proper to be read by such as are designed for the church, I must caution them against making too much use of them, or transcribing large passages from them into the sermons they compose. Such as once indulge themselves in this practice, will never have any fund of their own. Infinitely better it is to enter into the pulpit with thoughts and expressions which have occurred to themselves, though of inferior beauty, than to disfigure their compositions by borrowed and ill-sorted ornaments, which to a judicious eye will be always in hazard of discovering their own poverty. When a preacher sits down to write on any subject, never let him begin with seeking to consult all who have written on the same text or subject. This, if he consult many, will throw perplexity and confusion into his ideas; and, if he consult only one, will often warp him insensibly into his method, whether it be right or not. But let him begin with pondering the subject in his own thoughts; let him endeavour to fetch materials from

within; to collect and arrange his ideas; and form some sort of a plan to himself; which it is always proper to put down in writing. Then, and not till then, he may inquire how others have treated the same subject. By this means the method and the leading thoughts in the sermon are likely to be his own. These thoughts he may improve by comparing them with the track of sentiments which others have pursued; some of their sense he may, without blame, incorporate into his compositions; retaining always his own words and style. This is fair assistance: all beyond is plagiarism.

On the whole, never let the principle with which we set out at first be forgotten, to keep close in view the great end for which a preacher mounts the pulpit; even to infuse good dispositions into his hearers, to persuade them to serve God, and to become better men. Let this always dwell on his mind when he is composing, and it will diffuse through his compositions that spirit which will render them at once esteemed and useful. The most useful preacher is always the best, and will not fail of being esteemed so. Embellish truth only, with a view to gain it the more full and free admission into your hearers' minds, and your ornaments will, in that case, be simple, masculine, natural. The best applause, by far, which a preacher can receive, arises from the serious and deep impressions which his discourse leaves on those who hear it. The finest encomium, perhaps, ever bestowed on a preacher, was given by Louis XIV, to the eloquent bishop of Clermont, father Massillon, whom I before mentioned with so much praise. After hearing him preach at Versailles, he said to him, "Father, I have heard many great orators in this chapel; I have been highly pleased with them; but for you, whenever I hear you, I go away displeased with myself; for I see more of my own character."

REVIEW.

The Life of the Rev. JOHN WESLEY, A. M., Fellow of Lincoln College, Oxford; in which are included the Life of his Brother, the Rev. CHARLES WESLEY, A. M., Student of Christ Church, and Memoirs of their Family: comprehending an account of the Great Revival of Religion, in which they were the first and chief instruments. By the Rev. HENRY MOORE, only surviving Trustee of Mr. Wesley's MSS. 8vo. Vol. I. London, 1824, pp. 571.

BIOGRAPHY is made a difficult task, equally by the superabundance and by the poverty of incidents; by the greatness which raises the subject much above the level of his fellows, or the littleness which sinks him below them; by the total absence of public interest in an obscure character,

and when that interest diffuses itself through large masses of men of different and even opposing views, prejudices, and feelings. The many lives which have been written of Mr. Wesley, and the many failures of which they are the monuments, are in proof, that a character of the utmost simpli