otic, and as much beloved as any clergyman in the state. His chief theological work is a dissertation on The Supreme Deity of Christ. Samuel Davies, born in Delaware, is prominent in the list. He laboured for some years in Virginia as a pastor, and proved the ablest advocate of the rights of Protestant dissenters in the province. While there, he preached a patriotic sermon to animate the people, on the intelligence of Braddock's defeat near Fort Du Quesne; in which he referred, as follows, to Washington, then only twenty-three years of age,-by whose valour and skill the remnant of Braddock's army was saved. "I may point out to the public that heroic youth, Colonel Washington, whom I cannot but hope Providence has hitherto preserved in so signal a manner, for some important service to his country." Davies expired in the thirty-sixth year of his age, and owed his dissolution to an awkward bleeder. Dr. Green represents him as, probably, the most eloquent and accomplished pulpit orator that our country has ever produced. His three volumes of posthumous sermons have passed through many editions, both in Great Britain and the United States; and the same writer affirms of them, that, perhaps, there are none in the English language which have been more read, or for which there has been so steady and constant a demand, for more than half a century past. Being pressed by an intimate friend to preach extemporaneously, Davies answered-"It is a dreadful thing to talk nonsense in the name of the Lord:"a good hint to the rhapsodists. Dr. John Witherspoon, of whom there is a detailed account in the fifth volume of the Biography of the Signers of the Declaration of Independence, was, in 1768, drawn from Scotland, in consequence of his great reputation there, to preside over the New-Jersey College, which he governed for a long series of years with almost unrivalled lustre and ability. But he rather belongs to the division of patriots and statesmen; for, few of the leaders in our revolutionary councils were more active, efficient, and conspicuous. He rendered the most important services to his adopted country, no less than to the college. He triumphed as an admirable debater, and a keen wit; and signalized himself further by political and ethical works of rare merit. Some of his printed sermons are deemed master-pieces. His works were published in four octavo volumes, in the year 1802. He enjoyed all honour in private life, except on one occasion,-that of his second marriage at the age of seventy, with a lady only twenty-three years old. "This," says his biographer, "excited much noise and attention." Amour, tu perdis Troie!

In adverting to the Presidents of Nassau Hall, and to the ca

talogue of American clerical writers, it is impossible to overlook Samuel Stanhope Smith, whose name stands in the boldest relief. An edition of his sermons, in two volumes octavo, was published in Philadelphia in 1821, and edited by his learned friend, the Reverend Dr. Beasley, Provost of the University of Pennsylvania; who added a suitable Memoir of his Life and Writings. Dr. Smith was born in Pennsylvania, which he quitted, in the first instance, a ripe scholar and an enthusiastic missionary, to pursue his sacred vocation, like Davies, in Virginia; where the College of Hampden-Sydney was founded for him, and enjoyed his auspices before he was called to Nassau Hall, to co-operate with Dr. Witherspoon. As Professor of Moral Philosophy in the latter institution, he dispensed to his pupils, and afterwards to the world, a Course of Lectures, which his biographer does not overrate in declaring it to be certainly one of the best productions of the kind extant. That work, his Principles of Natural and Revealed Religion, his Essay on the Causes of the Variety in the Figure and Complexion of the Human Species, his Lectures on the Evidences of Christianity, and his three volumes of Sermons,—all of which have been republished and sanctioned in Europe-are among the most valuable and successful efforts of American authorship. The sermons are upon the French model-rhetorical, but still practical;-richly essenced and worded. He is described as a most graceful orator, and a luminary in the ecclesiastical councils in which he assisted to prepare the existing and applauded form of American Presbyterial church government.

Passing to Pennsylvania, we could cite names of dignity and celebrity in the ecclesiastical annals. The Allisons, the Tennents, the Smiths, the Ewings, the Linns, the Duchés, the Andrews, and others, have left reputations and works creditable to the commonwealth. Dr. John Ewing, a native of Maryland, established his fame as a savant, by a course of lectures on Natural Philosophy, delivered in the University of Pennsylvania, and afterwards published. He became Provost of that institution, and Vice President of the American Philosophical Society, to whose volumes of Transactions he contributed profound and ingenious papers. In 1773, he visited Great Britain, where his virtues, general intelligence, and scientific reputation, procured for him the most flattering marks of honour and kindness. In Scotland, the cities of Montrose, Glasgow, Dundee, and Perth, respectively presented to him their freedom; and the University of Edinburgh conferred on him the degree of Doctor of Divinity. Dr. Robertson, the hisforian, who was then the Principal, welcomed him as a most VOL. I. No. 1.

4

deserving colleague. On his return to London, he had frequent conferences with Lord North, the British minister; to whom he predicted, with characteristic frankness and patriotism, the issue of the struggle with America, if the British government persisted in their scheme of taxation. The following anecdote, which has been related upon his authority, illustrates, as much as any other we have seen, the social habits and moods of the author of the Rambler.

Mr. Dilly, a fashionable London bookseller, invited Dr. Ewing to dinner, adding" You will meet the great Dr. Johnson, but you must not contradict him; we never contradict him." The day arrived, and Dr. Ewing, on entering the parlour of Mr. Dilly, found several eminent literary characters engaged in easy conversation, which, however, was instantly suspended when Dr. Johnson entered the room. There was a general silence. He scarcely noticed any one; but, seizing a book which lay on the table, read in it attentively until dinner was announced. Here every one seemed to forget himself, and anxious to please him by the most assiduous attentions. He attended, however, to nothing but his plate. He did not seem to know that any one was present, until, having eaten voraciously, without exhibiting many of those graces which constituted so great a portion of Chesterfield's morality, he raised his head slowly, and, looking around the table, surveyed the guests for the first time. They were then engaged in a discussion of the expected controversy with America; and, as Dr. Ewing had lately left his native country, he, with his usual frankness, and without adverting to, or regarding the prejudices of Dr. Johnson, began to defend the cause of the colonies. Johnson looked at him with sternness, and said-" What do you know, Sir, on that subject?" Mr. Dilly's caution was forgotten, and Dr. Ewing calmly replied, that, having resided in America during his life, he thought himself qualified to deliver his opinions on the subject under discussion. This produced an animated conversation. Johnson's prejudices against the Americans were strong; he considered them, as he always termed them, rebels and scoundrels, and these epithets were now by no means sparingly used. It is difficult to say how far he might have been provoked, by opposition in argument, if a fortunate turn had not been given to the dispute. Johnson had rudely said, "Sir, what do you know in America? You never read: you have no books there." "Pardon me, Sir," replied Dr. Ewing, "we have read the Rambler." This civility instantly pacified him; and, after the rest of the company had retired, he sat with Dr. Ewing until midnight, speaking amicably and eloquently, and uttering such wisdom as seldom falls from the lips of man.

The name of Dr. William Smith, for a long time Provost of the College and Academy of Philadelphia, and a clergyman of

the Episcopal Church, has strong claims to distinction. Two octavo volumes of his works, containing a selection of his Sermons, Orations, and Essays, were published in Philadelphia in 1803, the year of his dissolution. Some of the sermons had gone to a second edition in England. Their author received the degree of Doctor in Divinity from the Universities of Oxford and Aberdeen, and Trinity College, Dublin. He appears, by the warmth of sentiment, beauty of diction, vigour of thought, and affluence of knowledge, which pervade his compositions, and by the forcible testimony from a venerable source, which is expressed in the preface of the edition of 1803, to the purity and usefulness of his life, to have well earned the large share of personal consideration and celebrity that gladdened and strengthened the greater part of his protracted term. John Blair Linn, a poet, richly endowed and cultivated, adorned the sacred ministry, from which he was too soon snatched by disease. Even when descending rapidly to the tomb, he could cope, in pamphlets, with such a disputant as Dr. Priestley, on such a subject as the comparative merits of Jesus Christ and Socrates, involving the peculiar Socinian doctrines generally. His friends claimed the victory for him; on both sides he was acknowledged to be equal to the contest. His principal poem, the Powers of Genius, passed to a second edition in a few months, and was reprinted in London in a splendid style. His popularity as a preacher was scarcely rivalled by that of any of his youthful American contemporaries. Brown, the novelist, exerted his fine genius in sketching the life of his friend, for a posthumous edition of Linn's narrative poem, entitled Valerian.

Although we have already allotted as much of our space, as our readers are likely to think due to the indication of worth in the ecclesiastical department, we cannot refrain from dwelling on the life and character of one whom we held to be the model of prelates, Christians, and scholars. We refer to the late Roman Catholic Archbishop of Baltimore, the venerable John Carroll, first Catholic Bishop in this country. The annexed biographical outline, communicated from the proper source, is, we believe, exact in every particular.

John Carroll was born in Maryland, in the year 1734. His parents were Catholics of distinguished respectability. At the age of thirteen, he was sent to the College of St. Omers, in Flanders, where he remained for six years, when he was transferred to the Colleges of Liege and Bruges-all under the superintendence of the Jesuits-for the higher branches of literature. In these two last institutions, alternately pursuing his studies in both,

he remained until the year 1769, when he was ordained priest, and soon afterwards became a Jesuit himself. According to the concurrent statements of his contemporaries, he was unrivalled in all these schools for rapid proficiency in literary attainments, and was no less remarkable for the kindness of his disposition and the strength and solidity of his judgment. In the year 1770, he became the private tutor and preceptor of the present Lord Stourton, the son of a highly respectable Roman Catholic nobleman of England. He immediately commenced the tour of Europe with his pupil, which he did not finish until the year 1773. Upon his return to Bruges, he resumed at once a Professorship in the same College, to which he had been before attached. Here, in the month of September of that year, whilst, with the permission of his superiors, he was meditating a return to his own country, he received the afflicting intelligence of the entire suppression by the Pope, of the Society of Jesus; and this intelligence was soon followed by the breaking up of all their schools and colleges in the Low Countries, and elsewhere.

On that event, he retired to England, and lived in the family of Lord Arundel, another respectable Roman Catholic nobleman, until the next year, 1775, when he returned to his native country. During the tour with Lord Stourton, he wrote a concise and interesting history of England, for the use of his pupil, which is still preserved in manuscript. He also kept a journal of his extensive travels, which strikingly displays the liberal good sense, sound and enlightened judgment, and diffusive observation, which ever distinguished him. He continued in Europe longer than he had intended, in consequence of the dissolution of the society of Jesuits, principally with the view of assisting his brethren, by his writings and counsels, in procuring some mitigation of the severe sentences of sequestration and confiscation, which had been passed against them, in common with all other members of the same society, in regard to the temporal interests of their order. He acted as Secretary General of the dispersed fathers, in their remonstrances with the courts by which they were persecuted. For this station he was peculiarly qualified, as well by his learning and talents, as by the remarkable purity and elegance of his style in the French, as well as in the Latin language. Upon his arrival in Maryland, he immediately commenced the arduous and laborious duties of his ministry, as a parish priest, taking under his charge a number of congregations in distant and separate situations.

In the year 1776, at the solicitation of the then Congress of the United States, he accompanied Dr. Benjamin Franklin, Charles Carroll of Carrollton, and Samuel Chase, their three Commissioners for that purpose, on a political mission to Canada, with the view of inducing the people of that province to preserve a neutral attitude in the war between the mother country and the United States;