me-And if they were to drill in the afternoon; what with cleaning their arms and brushing up their accoutrements and preparing themselves by a hearty dinner, they could not have any leisure beforehand for public worship. So it is much better for them to think of one thing instead of two: and to second the wishes of the legislature by making the most of Sunday. Besides," added he, "Papists beyond sea make no difficulty about such things, nor about playing at cards on Sundays: and why are we to be more superstitious than they?" Indeed he could not bear persons who intimated an opinion that it might have been as well to select a weekday for drilling. He told me with great delight and triumph how he had silenced a Scotch apothecary of the place, who had shewn himself of that way of thinking, and had boasted of the compliment paid in Parliament to his nation when Sunday drilling was ordered, by producing to him a passage in a Scotch historian, one Doctor Smollet, wherein that worthy divine, as no doubt he was, writes as if he had purposely tried to make his modern countrymen ashamed of their scruples. As you may like to have the passage ready upon occasion, I will just observe (the clergyman having provided me with a copy of it) that it is where the reverend Doctor is giving an account of the year 1757, and trimming a parcel of Dissenters and Churchmen who were afraid that Parliament might order the Militia to drill on Sundays, and therefore petitioned against it. "Though nothing," he goes on, "could be more ridiculously fanatic and impertinent than a declaration of such a scruple against a practice so laudable and necessary, in a country where that day of the week is generally spent in merry-making, riot, and debanchery: the House paid so much regard to the squeamish consciences of those puritanical petitioners, that Monday was pitched upon for the day of exercise to the Militia; though on such workingdays they might be much more profitably employed both for themselves and their country. And that no religious pretence should be left for opposing the progress and execution of the bill; proper clauses were inserted for the relief of Quakers." (8vo. ed. of 1800. vol. iv. p. 46.) Between ourselves, Mr. Editor, I have since thought that if the Scotch Apothecary had had his wits about him, he might have done something towards standing his ground by denying that the day was spent in his country in the manner described; and by asking his opponent whether Sunday drilling was the best way of curing such evils here: It is true that I should return from this Parson to my own Rector. Whenever I met him, which I never did willingly, he really looked so kindly, though I had left his church and was threatening him with a law suit; that I could scarcely help feeling at the moment some little Then he was so regard for him. attentive to the poor, especially if they were sick, and so liberal among them; that, although I was convinced that all was hollow at the bottom, I could hardly bring myself to think quite so ill of his proceedings as I was satisfied that I ought. The parish too became beyond dispute more orderly through his means. Less damage was done to my plantations: and the depredations on my game seemed less extensive. There was one circumstance however, which strongly attracted my notice. A beautiful little river runs through my estate, and the Rector was frequently observed taking a solitary walk along its banks: sometimes standing still, as if he was thinking about something; sometimes looking at the water; sometimes bringing out a snug pocket book and fumbling in it and then putting it back again. People fancied that he was pondering about his sermons: but for my own part I shrewdly suspected that he was watching his opportunities to wire a pike or tickle a trout. One day after dinner I was walking down to this river, as I was accustomed often to do, with a general eye to the protection of its inhabi. tants for my own angle-rod and casting net. All at once I saw a dark coloured coat lying at a little distance from me on the bank; and heard a rustling among the long grass and weeds on the margin of the stream. I stole nearer; and there I discovered the Rector, in his waistcoat, lying flat on his breast, close to the water, on the root of an alder, where I had been that very morning for half an hour watching a chub of three pounds, and twisting myself into all sorts of postures among the branches for the sake of becoming thoroughly acquainted with its hold. There, Sir, lay the Rector, with his shirt-sleeve tucked up to his shoulder, and groping with his naked arm under the bushes. My first impulse, and I am astonished that I did not follow it, was to rush forward and tumble him headlong in. But a thought struck me, that I would deliberately enjoy his confusion on detection. So I crept nearer still. And just when I was got up to him, he was withdrawing his arm from the bottom; and at the same instant I perceived below the surface that yellow gleam, which, if you were a fisherman, you would often have seen glancing from the side of a trout in high season, when bringing out of the water. I could scarcely contain myself: when all in a moment, springing nimbly up, he turned round, perceived me, stepped up to me, and putting into my Land my gold watch, assured me that he thought himself fortunate in having chanced to see it in the water and to recover it. The confusion, Mr. Editor, was now all on my side. I thanked him in much embarrassment: he put on his coat: and we walked homewards silently together. At last, after three or four short sentences, separated from each other by long intervals, had been exchanged, he began of himself upon the subject of his sermon, and told me that he had been much concerned to understand that I had taken his preaching amiss. I asked him abruptly, whether he thought any person liked being preached at? He replied, certainly not: but desired solemnly to assure me that he had never preached at myself nor at any one else. As I knew that he was aware that I could make nothing of a prosecution and had therefore laid aside all thoughts of it; and being also mollified by his manner, and by finding that he had entertained no designs against the great chub; I gave some degree of credit to this declaration respecting myself. And as to his preaching at other people, I never had seriously suspected him of it. He went on to say that, in preaching a set of afternoon sermons on the early characters described in the Bible, he had taken Nimrod among the rest, as shewing the effects of violence and tyranny; but certainly without the most remote idea that any resemblance would be supposed between that character and mine. And he appealed to my own recollection whether he had not preached for several Sundays before, sermons on the characters prior to Nimrod, beginning with Adam: and added that, though I had left the church, I should learn, if I would enquire of others, that he had gone on regularly with his plan, and was now got down to Rehoboam. I had nothing to say against this statement, but told him that, if he intended to do good, he should make such sermons as no person could think were meant against him. He answered modestly, that whatever good might be thought likely to be the consequence, to proceed on such a plan would be, he believed, impossible. " For how, Sir," said he, “could I preach at all? Were I to discourse on pride, some of my hearers, whom I need not name to you, might think the sermon was meant against them. Were drunkenness noticed, the case would be the same with cause an individual to be singled out by others as a person aimed at. But I hope that I should cherish as great anxiety in every case so to preach as to cause, if it may please God, that individual to feel as coming home to himself every part of the sermon which is suited to his state. I wish not to make him known to others. But unless I am enabled to make him known to himself, my preaching and his hearing are thrown away." This conversation brought us to my doors and I rejoiced at his acceptance of my inviOur discourse tation to come in. during the remainder of the evening contributed, I trust, to make me better acquainted with myself. We now see each other frequently: and the parting is on my side always with regret, And it was not without satisfaction that I yesterday overheard a very worthless man, with whose sneers and slanders respecting the Rector I am ashamed to say that I have heretofore been pleased, declare that he believed the Squire would be, after all, a methodist. S. T. REVIEW OF NEW PUBLICATIONS. The Principles of Moral Science, by ROBERT FORSYTH, Esq. Advocate. Vol. 1. Edinburgh, Bell and Bradfute; London, Longman, 1805. 8vo. pp. 520. Critique on Forsyth's Principies of Moral Science in the Edinburgh Review, No. 14, p. 413. HAVING, in a late number, entered into some very abstruse speculations on the origin of moral evil, we are almost fearful of surfeiting our readers with metaphysics; nor should we now molest them with any strictures on Mr. Forsyth's book, did we suppose it necessary to discuss all the metaphysical ques tions which the perusal of this book may be apt to suggest. But, excepting as far as relates to the author's idea of the ultimate object of human actions, we intend to consider his opinions morally rather than metaphysically; to examine them, with a reference, not to the philosophy of the human mind, but to the Holy Scriptures. Entirely as we disapprove of Mr. Forsyth's philosophy, we must allow him to possess vigour and originality of thought. His vigour however, if not consili expers, is at least exceedingly mismanaged; and, in estimating the intellectual character of his writings, we should ascribe thein to a mind of unlimited self-confidence, considerable rapidity, tolerable acuteness, and no accuracy. If it be true, according to this author's favourite dogma, that virtue consists in improving our own intellect, and that of others, then he is certainly a man of virtue, though not superlatively virtuous. That he has exercised his own mental powers, his work itself testifies; and we will venture to predict that he will also improve the wisdom of his readers but it will be much in the same manner in which he himself declares that poisonous plants improve the wisdom of mankind,—by "teaching them caution ;" and his work will henceforth class with lions, whom Mr. Forsyth defines to be" valuable instruments of providence for promoting intellectual improvement!" The Arabic language is said to contain some hundreds of different appellatives for a lion; but we do not believe this noble animal has ever before been desig nated as a promoter of intellectual improvement. But we wish there were nothing in this publication, calculated to excite more painful feelings than those that express themselves by a smile. Before however we point out the reprehensible parts of the system which it maintains, it may be observed that the precipitancy with which this author dogmatises, and the daring serenity with which he hammers very positive conclusions out of the most imperfect data, are conspicuous in some instances not immediately connected with the peculiarities of his philosophy. Speaking of suicide, for example, he says; "it is a singular circumstance, that no ancient writer, among the Greeks, the Romans, or the Jews, has expressed any disapprobation of it." Possibly this might be singular, if it were true; but is it not still more singular that Mr. Forsyth should not have heard, or should have forgotten, a fact which we have hitherto supposed to be familiarly known to a very large propor tion of the fifteen millions, that constitute the population of this united kingdom?-we mean, that several of the most distinguished of the ancient philosophers (Socrates, Plato, Pythagoras, Aristotle, Cicero) disapproved of suicide, and that some of them have left this fact attested under their own hands. Any of the numerous common-placebooks which are at once the offspring and the destroyers of modern literature will inform him of this fact, and also, we believe, that some of the ancient legislators punished suicide, as our laws punish it, with posthumous disgrace. If the same assertion cannot be made of the Jewish Scriptures (which, we should observe, very seldom descend into the details of casuistry), and if the crime in question is, for whatever reasons, no where prohibited in the Mosaic law, still we submit that its unlawfulness is deducible from the Old Testament on principles somewhat similar to those which Dr. Paley so ably, and we think so fairly, applies in collecting the same inference from the New. The very second sentence in Mr. Forsyth's book contains another of his careless positions. "The science of morals (he very arbitrarily affirms) differs from every other science in this, that it is not occupied in the investigation of what is, or of what actually exists in the world; but in the discovery of what ought to be, or of what ought to exist." Surely a minute's reflection would have suggested to a man of Mr. Forsyth's acuteness, that this distinction is purely imaginary. The science of morals, like all other sciences, is, strictly speaking, conversant only about what is, that is, about facts; but again, all other sciences, like the science of morals, in their application to practice, lead to directions about what ought to be, or rather what ought to be done, that is, they lead to rules, Moral science, therefore, may be contrasted with practical morals, or ethics, precisely as astronomical or physical science, may be contrasted with practical astronomy, or practical mechanics. It is curious that Mr. Forsyth had made this discovery, when he wrote his chapter entitled A speculative and active life compared, where he, in effect, completely contradicts his unlucky doctrine about the distinction between the science of morals and other sciences. These specimens may prove that, in censuring our author as a precipitate reasoner, we are not ourselves precipitate. And now, without farther loss of time, let us proceed to give a compendious account of his philosophy. The ultimate object of human pursuit, ought, this author thinks, to be the improvement, first, of our own intellectual faculties, and, next, of those of mankind in general. Intellectual excellence consists in a capacity to judge clearly, and a capacity to act vigorously; or in wisdom and self-command. Wisdom discerns proper objects of pursuit, and proper means of pursuing them; self-command or fortitude pursues these objects with steadiness. To promote the progressive advancement of ourselves and others towards the perfection of intellectual excellence, is virtue. The desire of happiness has been generally regarded as the primum mobile of human actions: Mr. For syth thinks, improperly. Our ultimate object ought not, he says, to be happiness, but intellectual improvement; because we cannot materially increase our happiness, while intellectual advancement is without limit; and because such seems to have been the design of providence in forming the world, which is full of natural evils, hostile to perfect happiness, but admirably adapted to sharpen our faculties. As we should improve our own intellect, so ought we to improve, if possible, those of others; because in improving their faculties, we facilitate the improvement of our own, by providing ourselves both with a field of exertion and with fellow-labourers; and because mind is the most excellent thing in the universe, and therefore the diffusion of mind must be the most excellent object of action. Most other systems of moral philosophy, the author of the present system asserts, err in two ways. So far as they represent happiness as the proper object of human pursuit, they send us upon a vain chase to catch a rainbow."-" So far as they represent propriety or reasonableness of conduct as the great rule of moral action, they are defective, inasmuch as they afford no precise measure by which this propriety or reasonableness can be judg ed of." Some philosophers have regarded benevolence, and others have set up sympathy, as the great moral law of conduct; but "neither benevolence nor sympathy, nor any other involuntary feeling, can ever be justly regarded as a rule of conduct;" since such feelings require, in a thousand instances, to be trained and set right by reason, and nothing can be an ultimate rule, which itself requires to be ruled. ei But though, in speculation, happiness has been generally considered as the most valuable object of human pursuit, yet in practice, we find that men seldom approve, ther in themselves or in others, actions performed on this principle; and on the contrary, that they greatly admire a heroic contempt of pain, and a vigorous prosecution of enterprises attended with hazard and toil, and issuing in misery. Thus the feeling of mankind, Mr. Forsyth contends, is, after all, in his favour. The Deity neither wills the happiness of mankind nor their misery. His sale object is to promote, by every method, their intellectual improvement. Pain and pleasure are instruments in his hands for this purpose, and instruments which he |