to Almighty God: 11. Ignorance pro- | this quotation, a command of language, ductive of atheism, anarchy, and super- and a power of style, very superior to stition: 12, 13, 14. On the sting of what is met with in the great mass of death, the strength of sin, and the sermons. We shall make one more victory over them both by Jesus Christ. extract. Dr. Rennel's first sermon, upon the consequences of gaming, is admirable for its strength of language, its sound good sense, and the vigour with which it combats that detestable vice. From this sermon we shall, with great pleasure, make an extract of some length.

"Further, to this sordid habit the gamester joins a disposition to FRAUD, and that of the meanest cast. To those who soberly and fairly appreciate the real nature of human actions, nothing appears more inconsistent than that societies of men, who have incorporated themselves for the express purpose of gaming, should disclaim fraud or indirection, or affect to drive from their assemblies those among their associates whose crimes would reflect disgrace on them. Surely this, to a considerate mind, is as solemn and refined a banter as can well be exhibited: for when we take into view the vast latitude allowed by the most upright gamesters, 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 associations 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 deceitful 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- When thou sawest a thief, then thou consentedst with him."

The reader will easily observe, in

"But in addition to fraud, and all its a very different complexion enter into the train of crimes, propensities and habits of 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. Jealousy, rage, and revenge, exist among gamesters in their 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 overwhelm every boundary which discretion and conscience can oppose. From what source are we to trace a very large 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 artifices and the baseness of the hands by which utter and remediless ruin has been inflicted; in the midst of these feelings of horror and distraction it is, that the voice of brethren's blood 'crieth unto God from the ground'-' and now art thou cursed from the earth, which hath opened her mouth to receive thy brother's blood from thy hand. Not only THOU who actually sheddest that blood, but THOU who art the artificer of death-thou who administerest incentives to these habitswho disseminatest the practice of themimprovest the skill in them-sharpenest the propensity 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."

Having paid this tribute of praise to Dr. Rennel's first sermon, we are sorry so soon to change our eulogium into

censure, and to blame him for having that Hume is not worth answering. selected for publication so many This affectation of contempt will not sermons touching directly and indi- do. While these pernicious writers rectly upon the French Revolution. have power to allure from the Church We confess ourselves long since wearied great numbers of proselytes, it is better with this kind of discourses, bespattered to study them diligently, and to reply with blood and brains, and ringing to them satisfactorily, than to veil eternal changes upon atheism, canni- insolence, want of power, or want of balism, and apostasy. Upon the enor-industry, by a pretended contempt; mities of the French Revolution there which may leave infidels and wavering can be but one opinion; but the sub- Christians to suppose that such writers ject is not fit for the pulpit. The are abused, because they are feared; public are disgusted with it to satiety; and not answered, because they are and we can never help remembering, unanswerable. While every body was that this politico-orthodox rage in the abusing and despising Mr. Godwin, mouth of a preacher may be profitable and while Mr. Godwin was, among a as well as sincere. Upon such subjects certain description of understandings, as the murder of the Queen of France, increasing every day in popularity, and the great events of these days, it is Mr. Malthus took the trouble of not possible to endure the draggling refuting him; and we hear no more of and the daubing of such a ponderous Mr. Godwin. We recommend this limner as Dr. Rennel, after the ethereal example to the consideration of Dr. touches of Mr. Burke. In events so Rennel, who seems to think it more truly horrid in themselves, the field is useful, and more pleasant, to rail than so easy for a declaimer, that we set to fight. little value upon the declamation; and the mind, on such occasions, so easily outruns ordinary description, that we are apt to feel more, before a mediocre oration begins, than it even aims at inspiring.

After the world has returned to its sober senses upon the merits of the ancient philosophy, it is amusing enough to see a few bad heads bawling for the restoration of exploded errors and past infatuation. We have some We are surprised that Dr. Rennel, dozen of plethoric phrases about Arisfrom among the great number of sub-totle, who is, in the estimation of the jects which he must have discussed in Doctor, et rex et sutor bonus, and every the pulpit (the interest in which must thing else; and to the neglect of whose be permanent and universal) should works he seems to attribute every moral have published such an empty and and physical evil under which the frivolous sermon as that upon the vic-world has groaned for the last century. tory of Lord Nelson; a sermon good Dr. Rennel's admiration of the ancients enough for the garrulity of joy, when is so great, that he considers the works the phrases, and the exultation of the of Homer to be the region and depoPorcupine, or the True Briton, may sitary of natural law, and natural relipass for eloquence and sense; but ut-gion. Now, if by natural religion is terly unworthy of the works of a man meant the will of God collected from who aims at a place among the great his works, and the necessity man is teachers of morality and religion. under of obeying it; it is rather exDr. Rennel is apt to put on the ap-traordinary that Homer should be so pearance of a holy bully, an evangelical good a natural theologian, when the 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, Rousseau, Condorcet, D'Alembert, and Volney, and to say

I cannot read the name of Malthus without adding my tribute of affection for ever lived. He loved philosophical truth the memory of one of the best men that more than any man I ever knew,-was full of practical wisdom, and never indulged in contemptuous feelings against his in

feriors in understanding.
† Page 318.

divinities he has painted are certainly a
more drunken, quarrelsome, adulterous,
intriguing, lascivious set of beings, than
are to be met with in the most profli-
gate court in Europe. There is, every
now and then, some plain coarse mo-
rality in Homer; but the most bloody
revenge, and the most savage cruelty
in warfare, the ravishing of women, and
the sale of men, &c. &c. &c., are cir-sertion; such as the following:-
cumstances which the old bard seems
to relate as the ordinary events of his
times, without ever dreaming that there
could be much harm in them; and if
it be urged that Homer took his ideas
of right and wrong from a barbarous
age, that is just saying, in other words,
that Homer had very imperfect ideas
of natural law.

ble, and imperatively dignified: and
if Dr. Rennel means, that St. Paul dis-
played these qualities at different times,
then could not any one of them direct
or soften the other.

Sermons are so seldom examined with any considerable degree of critical vigilance, that we are apt to discover in them sometimes a great laxity of as

-

Having exhausted all his powers of ealogium upon the times that are gone, Dr. Rennel indemnifies 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 perhaps be more convinced, by calling to mind a class of fops not usually designated by that epithetmen 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.

Labour to be undergone, afflictions to be borne, contradictions to be endured, danger to be braved, interest to be despised in the best and most flourishing ages of the church, are the perpetual badges of far the greater part of those who take up their cross and follow Christ."

This passage, at first, struck us to be untrue; and we could not immediately recollect the afflictions Dr. Rennel alluded to, till it occurred to us, that he must undoubtedly mean the eight hundred and fifty actions which, in the course of eighteen months, have been brought against the clergy for non-residence.

To

Upon the danger to be apprehended from Roman Catholics in this country, Dr. Rennel is laughable. We should as soon dream that the wars of York and Lancaster would break out afresh, as that the Protestant religion in England has anything to apprehend from the machinations of Catholics. such a scheme as that of Catholic emancipation, which has for its object to restore their natural rights to three or four millions of men, and to allay the fury of religious hatred, Dr. Rennel is, as might be expected, a very strenuous antagonist. Time, which lifts up the veil of political mystery, will

inform us if the Doctor has taken that side of the question which may be as lucrative to himself as it is inimical to human happiness, and repugnant to enlightened policy.

In the ninth Discourse (p. 226), we read of St. Paul, that he had "an heroic zeal, directed, rather than bounded, by the nicest discretion—a conscious and commanding dignity, softened by the meekest and most profound humility." This is intended for a fine piece of writing; but it is without 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 hum-specimens of argument Dr. Rennel has

Of Dr. Rennel's talents as a reasoner, we certainly have formed no very high opinion. Unless dogmatical assertion, and the practice (but too common among theological writers) of taking the thing to be proved for part of the proof, can be considered as evidence of a logical understanding, the

afforded us are very insignificant. For | found thought, not vulgar violence and putting obvious truths into vehement the eternal repetition of rabble-rousing language; for expanding and adorning words, were necessary to literary reputamoral instruction; this gentleman cer- tion, he would never have emerged from tainly possesses considerable talents; that obscurity to which he will soon and if he will moderate his insolence, return. The intemperate passions of steer clear of theological metaphysics, the public, not his own talents, have and consider rather those great laws of given him some temporary reputation; Christian practice, which must interest and now, when men hope and fear with mankind through all ages, than the petty less eagerness than they have been questions which are important to the lately accustomed to do, Mr. Bowles Chancellor of the Exchequer for the time will be compelled to descend from that being, he may live beyond his own moderate eminence, where no man of days, and become a star of the third real genius would ever have condeor fourth magnitude in the English scended to remain. Church.

JOHN BOWLES.

(E. 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.

The pamphlet is written in the genuine spirit of the Wyndham and Burke school; though Mr. Bowles cannot 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,

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 master-principle of Mr. Bowles's political opinions, and the ob

Ir this peace be, as Mr. Bowles asserts, the death-warrant of the liberty and power of Great Britain, we will venture to assert, that it is also the death-in order to be famous, that he has 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 improvement inject for which he declaims through the critical acumen. There is a political whole of the present pamphlet. as well as a bodily hypochondriasis; The first apprehensions which Mr. and there are empirics always on the Bowles seems to entertain, are of the watch to make their prey, either of the boundless ambition and perfidious chaone or of the other. Dr. Solomon, Dr.racter of the First Consul, and of that Brodum, and Mr. Bowles, have all com- military despotism he has established, manded their share of the public atten- which is not only impelled by the love tion but the two former gentlemen of conquest, but interested, for its own continue to flourish with undiminished preservation, to desire the overthrow splendour; while the patients of the of other states. Yet the author informs latter are fast dwindling away, and his us, immediately after, that the life of drugs falling into disuse and contempt. Buonaparte is exposed to more dangers The truth is, if Mr. Bowles had than that of any other individual in begun his literary career at a period Europe, who is not actually in the last when superior discrimination and pro- stage of an incurable disease; and that It is impossible to conceive the mis- his death, whenever it happens, must chievous power of the corrupt alarmists involve the dissolution of that machine of those days, and the despotic manner of government, of which he must be in which they exercised their authority considered not only as the sole director, They were fair objects for the Edinburgh but the main spring. Confusion of

Review.

thought, we are told, is one of the object of Divine vengeance till she truest indications of terror; and the takes one. In the same page, all the panic of this alarmist is so very great, miseries of France are stated to be a that he cannot listen to the consolation | judgment of heaven for their cruelty which he himself affords: for it appears, to the king; and, in the 33rd page, upon summing up these perils, that we they are discovered to proceed from are in the utmost danger of being de- the perfidy of the same king to this stroyed by a despot, whose system of country in the American contest. So government, as dreadful as himself, that certain misfortunes proceed from cannot survive him, and who, in all the maltreatment of a person, who had human probability, will be shot or himself occasioned these identical mishanged, before he can execute any one fortunes before he was maltreated; of his projects against us. and while Providence is compelling the French, by every species of affliction, to resume monarchical government, they are to acquire such extraordinary vigour, from not acting as Providence would wish, that they are to trample on every nation which co-operates with the Divine intention.

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 without any fighting at all? And, if it be strong enough to restore, why was it weak enough to render restoration necessary?

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 recognised 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 free men of Asia exult in the bold privilege transmitted to them by their fathers of being trampled to death by elephants.

In the 8th page, Mr. Bowles thinks that France, if she remain without a king, will conquer all Europe: and, in the 19th page, that she will be an

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." Nobody 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 cobbler.

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,

to disaffection-where wine serves only to "-where conviviality is made a stimulus inflame disloyalty-where toasts are converted into a vehicle of sedition-and where