Page images
PDF
EPUB

the feeling of Taiwoos, and the judgment of Lanpos, of whom Dr. Parr might be happy to say, that they have profundity without obscurity-perspicuity with out prolixity-ornament without glare-terseness without barrenness-penetration without subtlety-comprehensiveness without digression-and a great number of other things without a great number of other things.

their copiousness, and their fancy, we are in danger of being suffocated by a redundance which abhors all discrimination; which compares till it perplexes, and illustrates till it confounds.

To the Oases of Tillotson, Sherlock, and Atterbury, we must wade through a barren page, in which the weary Christian can descry nothing all around him but a dreary expanse of trite sentiments and languia words.

In spite of 32 pages of very close printing, in deTence of the University of Oxford, is it, or is it not The great object of modern sermons is to hazard true, that very many of its Professors enjoy ample nothing: their characteristic is, decent debility salaries, without reading any lectures at all? The which alike guards their authors from ludicrous character of particular colleges will certainly vary errors, and precludes them from striking beauties. with the character of their governors; but the Uni- Every man of sense, in taking up an English sermon, versity of Oxford so far differs from Dr. Parr in the expects to find it a tedious essay, full of common. sommendation bestowed upon its state of public edu. place morality; and if the fulfilment of such expecta cation, that they have, since the publication of his tions be meritorious, the clergy have certainly the book, we believe, and forty years after Mr. Gibbon's merit of not disappointing their readers. Yet it is residence, completely abolished their very ludicrous curious to consider, how a body of men so well edu and disgraceful exercises for degrees, and have sub-cated, and so magnificently endowed as the English tituted in their place a system of exertion, and a clergy, should distinguish themselves so little in a scale of academical honours, calculated (we are wil- species of composition to which it is their peculiar ing to hope) to produce the happiest effects. duty, as well as their ordinary habit, to attend. To We were very sorry, in reading Dr. Parr's note on solve this difficulty, it should be remembered, that he Universities, to meet with the following pas- the eloquence of the Bar and of the Senate force age:themselves into notice, power, and wealth-that the penalty which an individual client pays for choosing a bad advocate, is the loss of his cause-that a prime minister must infallibly suffer in the estimation of the public, who neglects to conciliate the eloquent men, and trusts the defence of his measures to those who have not adequate talents for that purpose: whereas, the only evil which accrues from the promotion of a clergyman to the pulpit, which he has no ability to fill as he ought, is the fatigue of the audience, and the discredit of that species of public instruction; an evil so general, that no individual patron would think of sacrificing to it his particular interest. The clergy are generally appointed to their situations by those who have no interest that they should please the audience before whom they speak; while the very reverse is the case in the eloquence of the Bar, and of Parliament. We by no means would be understood to say, that the clergy should owe their promotion principally to their eloquence, or that eloquence ever could, consistently with the constitution of the English Church, be made out a common cause of preferment. In pointing out the total want of connection between the privilege of preaching, and the power of preaching well, we are giving no opinion as to whether it might or might not be remedied, but merely stating a fact. Pulpit discourses have insensibly dwindled from speaking to reading; a practice, of itself, sufficient to stifle every germ of eloquence. It is only by the fresh feelings of the heart, that mankind can be very powerfully affected. What can be more ludicrous, than an orator delivering stale indignation, and fervour of a week old; turning over whole pages of violent passions, written out in German text; reading the tropes and apostrophes into which he is hurried by the ardour of his mind; and so affected at a preconcerted line, and page, that he is unable to proceed any farther!

Ill would it become me tamely and silently to acquiesce in the strictures of this formidable accuser upon a seminary to which I owe so many obligations, though I left it, as must not be dissembled, before the usual time, and, in truth, had been almost compelled to leave it not by the want of proper education, for I had arrived at the first place in the first form of Harrow School, when I was not quite fourteen -not by the want of useful tutors, for mine were eminently able, and to me had been uniformly kind not by the want of ambition, for I had begun to look up ardently and anxiously to academical distinctions-not by the want of attachment to the place, for I regarded it then, as I continue to regard it now, with the fondest and most unfeigned affection-but by another want, which it were unnecessary to name, and for the supply of which, after some hesitation, I determined to provide by patient toil and resolute self-denial, when I had not completed my twentieth year. I ceased, therefore, to reside, with an aching heart: I looked back with mingled feelings of regret and humiliation to advantages of which I could no longer partake, and honours to which I could no longer aspire.'

To those who know the truly honourable and respectable character of Dr. Parr, the vast extent of his learning, and the unadulterated benevolence of his nature, such an account cannot but be very affecting, in spite of the bad taste in which it is communicated. How painful to reflect, that a truly devout and attentive minister, a strenuous defender of the church establishment, and by far the most learned man of his day, should be permitted to languish on a little paltry curacy in Warwickshire?

-Dii meliora, &c. &c.*

DR. RENNEL. (EDINBURGH REVIEW, 1802.) Discourses on Various Subjects. By Thomas Rennel, D. D.

Master of the Temple. Rivington, London.

We have no modern sermons in the English lan. guage that can be considered as very eloquent. The merits of Blair (by far the most popular writer of sermons within the last century) are plain good sense, a happy application of scriptural quotation, and a clear harmonious style, richly tinged with scriptural language. He generally leaves his readers pleased with his judgment, and his observations on human conduct, without ever rising so high as to touch the great passions, or kindle any enthusiasm in favour of virtue. For eloquence, we must ascend as high as the days of Barrow and Jeremy Taylor: and even there, while we are delighted with their energy,

The prejudices of the English nation have proceed. ed a good deal from their hatred to the French; and because that country is the native soil of elegance, animation, and grace, a certain patriotic solidity, and loyal awkwardness, have become the characteristics of this; so that an adventurous preacher is afraid of violating the ancient tranquillity of the pulpit; and the audience are commonly apt to consider the man who tires them less than usual, as a trifier, or a char. latan.

Of British education, the study of eloquence makes little or no part. The exterior graces of a speaker are despised; and debating societies (admirable in. stitutions, under proper regulations) would hardly be tolerated either at Oxford or Cambridge. It is commonly answered to any animadversions upon the eloquence of the English pulpit, that a clergyman is to * The courtly phrase was, that Dr. Parr was not a pro-recommend himself, not by his eloquence, but by the ducible man. The same phrase was used for the neglect purity of his life, and the soundness of his doctrine; of Paley. an objection good enough, if any connection could be

pointed out between eloquence, heresy, and dissipa- | Jealousy, rage, and revenge, exist among gamesters in their tion: but, if it is possible for a man to live well, preach well, and teach well, at the same time, such objections, resting upon a supposed incompatibility of these good qualities, are duller than the dulness

they defend.

The clergy are apt to shelter themselves under the plea, that subjects so exhausted are utterly incapable of novelty; and, in the very strictest sense of the word novelty, meaning that which was never said before, at any time, or in any place, this may be true enough, of the first principles of morals; but the modes of expanding, illustrating, and enforcing a particular theme are capable of infinite variety; and, if they were not, this might be a good reason for preaching commonplace sermons, but is a very bad one for publishing them.

sity to them-at THY hands will it be required, surely, at the tribunal of God in the next world, and perhaps, in most instances, in his distributive and awful dispensations towards thee and thine here on earth.'

worst and most frantic excesses, and end frequently in consequences of the most atrocious violence and outrage. By perpetual agitation the malignant passions spurn and overcan oppose. From what source are we to trace a very large whelm every boundary which discretion and conscience number of those murders, sanctioned or palliated indeed by custom, but which stand at the tribunal of God precisely upon the same grounds with every other species of murder? From the gaming-table, from the nocturnal receptacles of distraction and frenzy, the duellist rushes with his hand lifted up against his brother's life!-Those who are as yet on the threshold of these habits should be warned, that however calm their natural temperament, however meek and placable their disposition, yet that, by the events which every moment arise, they stand exposed to the ungovernable fury of themselves and others. In the midst of fraud, protected by menace on the one hand, and on the other, of despair; irritated by a recollection of the meanness of the We had great hopes, that Dr. Rennel's Sermons remediless ruin has been inflicted; in the midst of these artifices and the baseness of the hands by which utter and would have proved an exception to the character we feelings of horror and distraction it is, that the voice of have given of sermons in general; and we have read brethren's blood "crieth unto God from the ground"-" and through his present volume with a conviction rather now art thou cursed from the earth, which hath opened her that he has misapplied, than that he wants, talents for mouth to receive thy brother's blood from thy hand." Not pulpit eloquence. The subjects of his sermons, four-only THOU who actually sheddest that blood, but THOU teen in number, are, 1. The consequences of the vice who art the artificer of death-thou who administerest inof gaming: 2. On old age: 3. Benevolence exclusive-them-improvest the skill in them-sharpenest the propencentives to these habits-who disseminatest the practice of ly an evangelical virtue: 4. The services rendered to the English nation by the Church of England, a motive for liberality to the orphan children of indigent ministers: 5. On the grounds and regulations of national joy: 6. On the connection of the duties of loveing the brotherhood, fearing God, and honouring the first sermon, we are sorry so soon to change our euloHaving paid this tribute of praise to Dr. Rennel's King: 7. On the guilt of blood-thirstiness: 8. On gium into censure, and to blame him for having selectatonement: 9. A visitation sermon: 10. Great Brit-ed for publication so many sermons touching directly ain's naval strength, and insular situation, a cause of and indirectly upon the French Revolution. We congratitude to Almighty God: 11. Ignorance productive fess ourselves long since wearied with this kind of disof atheism, anarchy, and superstition: 12, 13, 14. On courses, bespattered with blood and brains, and ringthe sting of death, the strength of sin, and the victory ing eternal changes upon atheism, cannibalism, and over them both by Jesus Christ. Dr. Rennel's first sermon, upon the consequences of lution there can be but one opinion; but the subject is apostasy. Upon the enormities of the French Revogaming, is admirable for its strength of language, its not fit for the pulpit. The public are disgusted with sound good sense, and the vigour with which it com-it to saiety; and we can never help remembering, that bats that detestable vice. From this sermon, we shall, this politico-orthodox rage in the mouth of a preacher with great pleasure, make an extract of some length. may be profitable as well as sincere. Upon such subFarther to this sordid habit the gamester joins a disposi-jects as the murder of the Queen of France, and the tion to FRAUD, and that of the meanest cast. To those who great events of these days, it is not possible to endure soberly and fairly appreciate the real nature of human ac- the draggling and the daubing of such a ponderous tions, nothing appears more inconsistent than that societies limner as Dr. Rennel, after the etherial touches of Mr. of men, who have incorporated themselves for the express Burke. In events so truly horrid in themselves, the purpose of gaming, should disclaim fraud or indirection, or field is so easy for a declaimer, that we set little value affect to drive from their assemblies those among their associates whose crimes would reflect disgrace on them. Surely upon the declamation; and the mind, on such occathis, to a considerate mind, is as soleinn and refined a ban- sions, so easily outruns ordinary description, that we ter as can well be exhibited: for when we take into view are apt to feel more, before a mediocre oration begins, the vast latitude allowed by the most upright gamesters, than it even aims at inspiring. when we reflect that, according to their precious casuistry every advantage may be legitimately taken of the young, the unwary, and the inebriated, which superior coolness, skill, address, and activity can supply, we must look upon pretences to honesty as a most shameless aggravation of their crimes. Even if it were possible that, in his own practices, a man might be a FAIR GAMESTER, yet, for the result of the extended frauds committed by his fellows, he stands deeply accountable to God, his country, and his conscience. To a system necessarily implicated with fraud; to associa tions of men, a large majority of whom subsist by fraud; to habits calculated to poison the source and principle of all integrity, he gives efficacy, countenance, and concurrence. Even his virtues he suffers to be subsidiary to the cause of vice. He sees with calmness, depredation committed daily and hourly in his company, perhaps under his very roof. Yet men of this description declaim (so desperately deceit ful is the heart of man) against the very knaves they cherish and protect, and whom, perhaps, with some poor sophistical refuge for a worn-out conscience, they even imitate. To such, let the Scripture speak with emphatical decision-seau, Condorcet, D'Alembert, and Volney, and to say When thou sawest a thief, then thou consentedst with him.'

[ocr errors]

The reader will easily observe, in this quotation, a command of language, and a power of style, very superior to what is met with in the great mass of ser

mons. We shall make one more extract.

But in addition to fraud, and all its train of crimes, propensities and habits of a very different complexion enter into the composition of a gamester: a most ungovernable FEROCITY OF DISPOSITION, however for a time disguised and latent, is invariably the result of his system of conduct.

We are surprised that Dr. Rennel, from among the great number of subjects which he must have discussed in the pulpit (the interest in which must be permanent and universal) should have published such an empty and frivolous sermon as that upon the victory of Lord Nelson; a sermon good enough for the garrulity of joy, when the phrases, and the exultation of the Porcupine, or the True Briton, may pass for eloquence or sense; but utterly unworthy of the works of a man who aims at a place among the great teachers of morality and religion.

Dr. Rennel is apt to put on the appearance of a holy bully, an evangelical swaggerer, as if he could carry his point against infidelity by big words and strong abuse, and kick and cuff men into Christians. It is a very easy thing to talk about the shallow impostures, and the silly ignorant sophisms of Voltaire, Rous

that Hume is not worth answering. This affectation of contempt will not do. While these pernicious writers have power to allure from the Church great num. bers of proselytes, it is better to study them diligent ly, and to reply to them satisfactorily, than to veil insolence, want of power, or want of industry, by a pretended contempt; which may leave infidels and wavering Christians to suppose that such writers are abused, because they are feared; and not answered," because they are unanswerable. While every body, was abusing and desvising Mr. Godwin, and while Mr.!

Godwin was, among a certain description of under- This passage, at first, struck us to be untrue; and standings, increasing every day in popularity, Mr. Mal- we could not immediately recollect the afflictions Dr. thus took the trouble of refuting him; and we hear Rennel alluded to, till it occurred to us, that he must no more of Mr. Godwin. We recommend this exam- undoubtedly mean the eight hundred and fifty actions ple to the consideration of Dr. Rennel, who seems to which, in the course of eighteen months, have been think it more useful and pleasant, to rail than to fight. brought against the clergy for non-residence. After the world has returned to its sober senses upon Upon the danger to be apprehended from Roman the merits of the ancient philosophy, it is amusing Catholics in this country, Dr. Rennel is laughable. enough to see a few bad heads bawling for the restora. We should as soon dream that the wars of York and tion of exploded errors and past infatuation. We have Lancaster would break out afresh, as that the Prosome dozen of plethoric phrases about Aristotle, who testant religion in England has any thing to apprehend is, in the estimation of the Doctor, et rex et sutor bo from the machinations of Catholics. To such a scheme nus, and every thing else; and to the neglect of whose as that of Catholic emancipation, which has for its works he seems to attribute every moral and physical object to restore their natural rights to three or four evil under which the world has groaned for the last millions of men, and to allay the fury of religious century. Dr. Rennel's admiration of the ancients is hatred, Dr. Rennel is, as might be expected, a very so great, that he considers the works of Homer to be strenuous antagonist. Time, which lifts up the veil the region and depository of natural law and natural of political mystery, will inform us if the Doctor has religion. Now, if, by natural religion, is meant the taken that side of the question which may be as lucra will of God collected from his works, and the necessitive to himself as it is inimical to human happiness, ty man is under of obeying it, it is rather extraordi- and repugnant to enlightened policy. nary that Homer should be so good a natural theolo- Of Dr. Rennel's talents as a reasoner, we certainly gian, when the divinities he has painted are certainly have formed no very high opinion. Unless dogmatí. a more drunken, quarrelsome, adulterous, intriguing, cal assertion, and the practice (but too common among lascivious set of beings, than are to be met with in the theological writers) of taking the thing to be proved, most profligate court in Europe. There is, every now for part of the proof, can be considered as evidence of a and then, some plain coarse morality in Homer; but logical understanding, the specimens of argument Dr. the most bloody revenge, and the most savage cruelty Rennel has afforded us are very insignificant. For in warfare, the ravishing of women, and the sale of putting obvious truths into vehement language; for men, &c. &c. &c. are circumstances which the old expanding and adorning moral instruction; this genbard seems to relate as the ordinary events of his tleman certainly possesses considerable talents: and times, without ever dreaming that there could be much if he will moderate his insolence, steer clear of theoharm in them; and if it be urged that Homer took his logical metaphysics, and consider rather those great ideas of right and wrong from a barbarous age, that is laws of Christian practice, which must interest manjust saying, in other words, that Homer had very im- kind through all ages, than the petty questions which perfect ideas of natural law. are important to the Chancellor of the Exchequer for the time being, he may live beyond his own days, and become a star of the third or fourth magnitude in the English Church.

Having exhausted all his powers of eulogium upon the times that are gone, Dr. Rennel indemifies himself by the very novel practice of declaiming against the present age. It is an evil age-an adulterous age-an ignorant age-an apostate age-and a foppish age. Of the propriety of the last epithet, our readers may per haps be more convinced, by calling to mind a class of fops not unusually designated by that epithet-men clothed in profound black, with large canes, and strange amorphous hats-of big speech, and imperative presence-talkers about Plato-great affecters of senility-despisers of women, and all the graces of life-fierce foes to common sense-abusive of the living, and approving no one who has not been dead for at least a century. Such fops, as vain, and as shallow as their fraternity in Bond Street, differ from these only as Gorgonius differed from Rufillus.

In the ninth Discourse (p. 226,) we read of St. Paul, that he had an heroic zeal, directed, rather than bounded, by the nicest and most profound humility.' This is intended for a fine piece of writing; but it is withoupt meaning: for, if words have any limits, it is a contradiction in terms to say of the same person, at the same time, that he is nicely discreet, and heroically zealous; or that he is profoundly humble, and imperatively dignified: and if Dr. Rennel means, that St. Paul displayed these qualities at different times, then could not any one of them direct or soften the

other.

[blocks in formation]

JOHN BOWLES. (EDINBURGH REVIEW, 1802.) Reflections at the conclusion of the War: Being a sequel to Reflections on the Political and Moral State of Society at the Close of the Eighteenth Century. The Third Edition, with Additions. By John Bowles, Esq.

If this piece be, as Mr. Bowles asserts,* the deathwarrant of the liberty and power of Great Britain, we will venture to assert,that it is also the death-warrant of Mr. Bowles's literary reputation; and that the people of this island, if they verify his predictions, and cease to read his books, whatever they may lose in political greatness, will evince no small improve. ment in critical acumen. There is a political, as well as a bodily hypochondriasis; and there are empirics always on the watch to make their prey, either of the one or of the other. Dr. Solomon, Dr. Brodum, and Mr. Bowles, have all commanded their share of the public attention: but the two former gentlemen con. tinue to flourish with undiminished splendour; while the patients of the latter are fast dwindling away, and his drugs falling into disuse and contempt.

The truth is, if Mr. Bowles had begun his literary career at a period when superior discrimination, and profound thought, not vulgar violence, and the eternal repetition of rabble-rousing words, were necessary to literary reputation, he would never have emerged from that obscurity to which he will soon return. The intemperate passions of the public, not his own talents, have given him some temporary reputation; and now, when men hope and fear with less eagerness than they have been lately accustomed to do, Mr. Bowles will be compelled to descend from that mo derate eminence, where no man of real genius would ever have condescended to remain.

The pamphlet is written in the genuine spirit of the

It is impossible to conceive the mischievous power of the corrupt alarmists of those days, and the despotic manner in which they exercised their authority. They were fair objects for the Edinburgh Review.

Windham and Burke School; though Mr. Bowles can- | not be called a servile copyist of either of these gentlemen, as he has rejected the logic of the one, and the eloquence of the other, and imitated them only in their headstrong violence, and exaggerated abuse. There are some men who continue to astonish and please the world, even in the support of a bad cause. They are mighty in their fallacies, and beautiful in their errors. Mr. Bowles sees only one half of the precedent; and thinks, in order to be famous, that he has nothing to do but to be in the wrong.

War, eternal war, till the wrongs of Europe are avenged, and the Bourbons restored, is the masterprinciple of Mr. Bowles's political opinions, and the object for which he declaims through the whole of the present pamphlet.

The first apprehensions which Mr. Bowles seems to entertain, are of the boundless ambition and perfidious character of the First Consul, and of that military despotism he has established, which is not only impelled by the love of conquest, but interested, for its own preservation, to desire the overthrow of other states. Yet the author informs us, immediately after, that the life of Buonaparte is exposed to more dangers than that of any other individual in Europe who is not actually in the last stage of an incurable disease; and that his death, whenever it happens, must involve the dissolution of that machine of government, of which he must be considered not only as the sole director, but the main spring. Confusion of thought, we are told, is one of the truest indications of terror; and the panic of this alarmist is so very great, that he cannot listen to the consolation which he himself affords: for it appears, upon summing up these perils, that we are in the utmost danger of being destroyed by a despot, whose system of government, as dreadful as himself, cannot survive him, and who, in all human probability, will be shot or hanged, before he can execute any one of his projects against us.

trample on every nation which co-operates with the Divine intention.

In the 60th page, Mr. Bowles explains what is meant by Jacobinism; and, as a concluding proof of the justice with which the character is drawn, triumphantly quotes the case of a certain R. Mountain, who was tried for damning all kings and all governments upon earth; for, adds R. Mountain, I am a Jacobin. No one can more thoroughly detest and despise that restless spirit of political innovation, which, we suppose, is meant by the name of Jacobinism, than we ourselves do; but we were highly amused with this proof, ab ebriis sutoribus, of the prostration of Europe, the last hour of human felicity, the perdition of man, discovered in the crapulous eructations of a drunken cobler.

This species of evidence might certainly have escaped a common observer: but this is not all; there are other proofs of treason and sedition, equally remote, sagacious and profound. Many good subjects are not very much pleased with the idea of the Whig Club dining together; but Mr. Bowles has the merit of first calling the public attention to the alarming practice of singing after dinner at these political meetings. He speaks with a proper horror of tavern dinners,

where wine serves only to inflame disloyalty-where toasts -where conviviality is made a stimulus to disaffectionare converted into a vehicle of sedition-and where the powers of harmony are called forth in the cause of Discord by those hireling singers, who are equally ready to invoke the Divine favour on the head of their King, or to strain their venal throats in chanting the triumphs of his bitterest enemies.'

All complaint is futile, which is not followed up with appopriate remedies. If Parliament, or Catarrh, do not save us, Dignum and Sedgwick will quaver away the King, shake down the House of Lords, and warble us into all the horrors of republican government. When, in addition to these dangers, we reflect also upon those with which our national happiness is menaced, by the present thinness of ladies' petticoats (p. 78), temerity may hope our salvation, but how can reason promise it?

One solitary gleam of comfort, indeed beams upon us in reading the solemn devotion of this modern Ĉurtius to the cause of his King and country

We have a good deal of flourishing in the beginning of the pamphlet, about the effect of the moral sense upon the stability of governments; that is, as Mr. Bowles explains it, the power which all old governments derive from the opinion entertained by the people of the justice of their rights. If this sense of ancient right be (as is here confidently asserted) strong enough ultimately to restore the Bourbons, why are we to fight for that which will be done with. 'My attachment to the British monarchy, and to the out any fighting at all? And, if it be strong enough reigning family, is rooted in my "heart's core."-My anxito restore, why was it weak enough to render restora-ety for the British throne, pending the dangers to which, in common with every other throne, it has lately been extion necessary? posed, has embittered my choicest comforts. And I must solemnly vow, before Almighty God, to devote myself, to the end of my days, to the maintenance of that throne.'

To notice every singular train of reasoning into which Mr. Bowles falls, is not possible and in the copious choice of evils, we shall, from feelings of mercy, take the least.

It must not be forgotten, he observes, 'that those rights of government, which, because they are ancient, are recognized by the moral sense as lawful, are the only ones which are compatible with civil liberty So that all questions of right and wrong, between the governors and the governed, are determinable by chronology alone. Every political institution is favourable to liberty, not according to its spirit, but in proportion to the antiquity of its date; and the slaves of Great Britain are groaning under the trial by jury, while the freemen of Asia exult in the bold privilege transmitted to them by their fathers, of being tram. pled to death by elephants.

Whether this patriotism be original, or whether it be copied from the Upholsterer in Foote's Farces, who sits up whole nights watching over the British constitution, we shall not stop to inquire; when the practical effect of sentiments is good, we would not diminish their merits by investigating their origin. We seriously life to the service of his King and country; and commend in Mr. Bowles this future dedication of his consider it as a virtual promise that he will write no more in their defence. No wise or good man has evert That they should be exposed to that ridicule, by the thought of either, but with admiration and respect. forward imbecility of friendship, from which they appear to be protected by intrinsic worth, is so painful a consideration, that the very thought of it, we are persuaded, will induce Mr. Bowles to desist from writing on political subjects.

In the eighth page, Mr. Bowles thinks that France, if she remains without a king, will conquer all Europe; and, in the nineteenth page, all the miseries of France are stated to be a judgment of heaven for their cruelty to their king and in the 33d page, they are discovered to proceed from the perfidy of the same king to this country in the American contest. So that cer- DR. LANGFORD. (EDINBURGH REVIEW, 1802.) tain misfortunes proceed from the maltreatment of a person, who had himself occasioned these identical Anniversary Sermon of the Royal Humane Society. By W misfortunes before he was maltreated; and while Langford, D. D. "Printed for F. and C. Rivington. Providence is compelling the French, by every species AN accident, which happened to the gentleman oof affliction, to resume monarchical government, they gaged in reviewing this sermon proves, in the mst are to acquire such extraordinary vigour, from not striking manner, the importance of this charityfor acting as Providence would wish, that they are to restoring to life persons in whom the vital power is

suspended. He was discovered, with Dr. Langford's | discourse lying open before him, in a state of the most profound sleep, from which he could not, by any means, be awakened for a great great length of time. By attending, however, to the rules prescribed by the Humane Society, flinging in the sinoke of tobacco, applying hot flannels, and carefully removing the discourse itself to a great distance, the critic was restored to his disconsolate brothers.

The only account he could give of himself was, that he remembers reading on, regularly, till he came to the following pathetic description of a drowned tradesman, beyond which he recollects nothing.

interfere, it would be presumptuous and impious to pronounce the purposes for which he interferes; and then adds, that it has pleased God, within these few years, to give us a most awful lesson of the vanity of agriculture and importation without piety, and that he has proved this to the conviction of every thinking mind.

Though he interpose not (says Mr. Nares) by positive miracle, he influences by means unknown to all but himself, and directs the winds, the rain, and the glorious beams of heaven to execute his judgment, or fulfil his merciful designs.'-Now, either the wind, the rain, and the beams, are here represented to act as But to the individual himself, as a man, let us add the they do in the ordinary course of nature, or they are interruption to all the temporal business in which his inte- not. If they are, how can their operations be consid rest was engaged. To him indeed now apparently lost, the ered as a judgment on sins? and if they are not, what world is as nothing; but it seldom happens, that man can are their extraordinary operations, but positive miralive for himself alone: society parcels out its concerns in cles? So that the Archdeacon, after denying that any various connections; and from one head issue waters body knows when, how, and why the Creator works a which run down in many channels. The spring being sud-miracle, proceeds to specify the time, instrument, and denly cut off, what confusion must follow in the streams object of a miraculous scarcity; and then, assuring us which have flowed from its source? It may be, that all the expectations reasonably raised of approaching prosperithat the elements were employed to execute the judg ty, to those who have embarked in the same occupation, ments of Providence, denies that this is any proof of a may at once disappear; and the important interchange of positive miracle. commercial faith be broken off, before it could be brought Having given us this specimen of his talents for to any advantageous conclusion.' theological metaphysics, Mr. Nares commences his This extract will suffice for the style of the sermon. avarice; raises the old cry of monoply; and expresses attack upon the farmers; accuses them of cruelty and The charity itself is above all praise. some doubts, in a note, whether the better way would not be, to subject their granaries to the control of an exciseman; and to levy heavy penalties upon those, in whose possession corn, beyond a certain quantity to

ARCHDEACON NARES. (EDINBURGH REVIEW, be fixed by law, should be found.-This style of rea

1802.)

[ocr errors]

soning is pardonable enough in those who argue from the belly rather than the brains; but in a well fed, and A Thanksgiving for Plenty, and Warning against Avarice. well educated clergyman, who has never been disturbA Sermon. By the Reverend Robert Nares, Archdeacon of Stafford, and Canon Residentiary of Litchfield. Lon-ed by hunger from the free exercise of cultivated don: Printed for the Author, and sold by Rivingtons, talents, it merits the severest reprehension. The farSt. Paul's Churchyard. mer has it not in his power to raise the price of corn; he never has fixed and never can fix it. He is unquestionably justified in receiving any price he can obtain: for it happens very beautifully, that the effect of his efforts to better his fortune, is as beneficial to the public, as if their motive had not been selfish. The poor are not to be supported, in time of famine, by abatement of price on the part of the farmer, but by the subscription of residentiary canons, archdeacons, and all men rich in public or private property; and to these subscriptions the farmer should contribute according to the amount of his fortune. To insist that he should take a less price when he can obtain a greater, is to insist upon laying on that order of men the whole burden of supporting the poor; a convenient system enough in the eyes of a rich ecclesiastic; and objec tionable only, because it is impracticable, pernicious, and unjust.*

For the swarm of ephemeral sermons which issue from the press, we are principally indebted to the vanity of popular preachers, who are puffed up by female praises into a belief, that what may be delivered, with great propriety, in a chapel full of visitors and friends, is fit for the deliberate attention of the public, who cannot be influenced by the decency of a clergyman's private life, flattered by the sedulous politeness of his manners, or misled by the fallacious circumstances of voice and action. A clergyman cannot be always considered as reprehensible for preaching an indifferent sermon; because, to the active piety, and correct life, which the profession requires, many an excellent man may not unite talents for that species of composition; but every man who prints, imagines he gives to the orld something which they had not before, either in matter or style; that he has brought forth new truths, or adorned old ones; and when, in lieu of novelty and into two parts-those who have any talents for reason. The question of the corn trade has divided society ornament, we can discover nothing but trite imbecility, ing, and those who have not. We owe an apology to the law must take its course, and the delinquent suffer our readers, for taking any notice of errors that have that mortification from which vanity can rarely be ex-been so frequently, and so unanswerably exposed; but pected to escape, when it chooses dulness for the minister of its gratifications.

The learned author, after observing that a large army praying would be a much finer spectacle than a large army fighting, and after entertaining us with the old anecdote of Xerxes, and the flood of tears, proceeds to express his sentiments on the late scarcity, and the present abundance: then, stating the manner in which the Jews were governed by the immediate interference of God, and informing us, that other people expect not, nor are taught to look for, miraculous interference, to Dunish or reward them, he proceeds to talk of the visitation of Providence, for the purposes of trial, warning, and correction, as if it were a truth of which he

had never doubted."

Still, however, he contends, though the Deity does

To this exceedingly foolish man, the first years of Etonian Education were intrusted. How is it possible to inflict a greater misfortune on a country, than to fill up such an office with such an officer?

when they are echoed from the bench and the pulpit, the dignity of the teacher may perhaps communicate some degree of importance to the silliest and most extravagant doctrines.

No reasoning can be more radically erroneous than that upon which the whole of Mr. Nares's sermon is founded. The most benevolent, the most Christian, and the most profitable conduct the farmer can pur sue, is, to sell his commodities for the highest price he can possibly obtain, This advice, we think, is not in any great danger of being rejected: we wish we were equally sure of success in counselling the Reverend Mr. Nares to attend, in future, to practical, rather than theoretical questions about provisions,

*If it is pleasant to notice the intellectual growth of an individual, it is still more pleasant to see the public growing wiser. This absurdity of attributing the high price of corn to the combinations of farmers, was the common nonsense talked in the days of my youth. I remember when ten judges out of twelve laid down this doctrine in their charges to the various grand juries on the circuits. The † This was another gentleman of the alarmist tribe. lowest attorney's clerk is now better instructed.

« PreviousContinue »