they give the most dangerous triumph over the genuine and salutary dictates of nature. They delude and inflame our minds with pharisaical notions of superior wisdom and superior virtue; and, what is the worst of all, they may be used as 'a cloke to us' for insensibility, where other men feel; and for negligence, where other men act with visible and useful, though limited, effect."

In attempting to show the connexion between particular and universal benevolence, Dr. Parr does not appear to us to have taken a clear and satisfactory view of the subject. Nature

notice, are totally disregarded. Thus, too,, ease of speculation and the pride of dog. when any dazzling phantoms of universal matism, for the toil of practice. To a class philanthropy have seized our attention, of artificial and ostentatious sentiments, the objects that formerly engaged it shrink and fade. All considerations of kindred, friends, and countrymen drop from the mind, during the struggles it makes to grasp the collective interests of the species; and when the association that attached us to them has been dissolved, the notions we have formed of their comparative insignificance will prevent them from recovering, I do not say any hold whatsoever, but that strong and lasting hold they once had upon our conviction and our feelings. Universal benevolence, should it, from any strange combination of circumstances, ever become passionate, will, like every other passion, justify itself:' and the importu-impels us both to good and bad actions; nity of its demands to obtain a hearing will and, even in the former, gives us no be proportionate to the weakness of its measure by which we may prevent cause. But what are the consequences? them from degenerating into excess. A perpetual wrestling for victory between the refinements of sophistry, and the re- Rapine and revenge are not less natural monstrances of indignant nature-the agi- than parental and filial affection; which tations of secret distrust in opinions which latter class of feelings may themselves gain few or no proselytes, and feelings be a source of crimes, if they overpower which excite little or no sympathy-the (as they frequently do) the sense of neglect of all the usual duties by which justice. It is not, therefore, a sufficient social life is preserved or adorned; and in justification of our actions, that they the pursuit of other duties which are unare natural. We must seek, from our usual, and indeed imaginary, a succession of airy projects, eager hopes, tumultuous reason, some principle which will enefforts, and galling disappointments, such able us to determine what impulses of in truth as every wise man foresaw, and a nature we are to obey, and what we good man would rarely commiserate." are to resist such is that of general utility, or, what is the same thing, of universal good; a principle which sanctifies and limits the more particular affections. The duty of a son to a parent, or a parent to a son, is not an ultimate principle of morals, but depends on the principle of universal good, and is only praiseworthy, because it is found to promote it. At the same time, our spheres of action and intelligence are so confined, that it is better, in a great majority of instances, to suffer our conduct to be guided by those affections which have been long sanctioned by the approbation of mankind, than to enter into a process of reasoning, and investigate the relation which every trifling event might bear to the general interests of the world. In his principle of universal benevolence, Mr. Godwin is unquestionably right. That it is the grand principle on which all morals rest that it is the corrective for the excess of all particular affections, we

In a subsequent part of his sermon, Dr. Parr handles the same topic with equal success.

"The stoics, it has been said, were more successful in weakening the tender affections than in animating men to the stronger virtues of fortitude and self-command; and possible it is, that the influence of our modern reformers may be greater in furnishing their disciples with pleas for the neglect of their ordinary duties, than in stimulating their endeavours for the performance of those which are extraordinary, and perhaps ideal. If, indeed, the representations we have lately heard of universal philanthropy served only to amuse the fancy of those who approve of them, and to communicate that pleasure which arises from contemplating the magnitude and

grandeur of a favourite subject, we might be tempted to smile at them as groundless and harmless. But they tend to debase the dignity, and to weaken the efficacy of those particular affections, for which we have daily and hourly occasion in the events of real life. They tempt us to substitute the

believe to be undeniable: and he is only erroneous in excluding the particular affections, because, in so doing, he deprives us of our most powerful means of promoting his own principle of universal good; for it is as much as to say, that all the crew ought to have the general welfare of the ship so much at heart, that no sailor should ever pull any particular rope, or hand any indiidual sail. By universal benevolence, we mean, and understand Dr. Parr to mean, not a barren affection for the species, but a desire to promote their real happiness; and of this principle, he thus speaks:

"I admit and I approve of it, as an emotion of which general happiness is the cause, but not as a passion, of which, according to the usual order of human affairs, it could often be the object. I approve of it as a disposition to wish, and, as opportunity may occur, to desire and do good, rather than harm, to those with whom we are quite unconnected."

It would appear, from this kind of language, that a desire of promoting the universal good were a pardonable weakness, rather than a fundamental principle of ethics; that the particular affections were incapable of excess; and that they never wanted the corrective of a more generous and exalted feeling. In a subsequent part of his sermon, Dr. Parr atones a little for this over-zealous depreciation of the principle of universal benevolence; but he nowhere states the particular affections to derive their value and their limits from their subservience to a more extensive philanthropy. He does not show us that they exist only as virtues, from their instrumentality in promoting the general good; and that, to preserve their true character, they should be frequently referred to that principle as their proper criterion.

charitable institutions; and, from a lively apprehension of the fluctuating characters of those who govern, would leave the world without any government at all. It is better there should be an asylum for the mad, and a hospital for the wounded, if they were to squander away 50 per cent. of their income, than that they should be disgusted with sore limbs, and shocked by straw-crowned monarchs in the streets. All institutions of this kind must suffer the risk of being governed by more or less of probity and talents. The good which one active character effects, and the wise order which he establishes, may outlive him for a long period; and we all hate each other's crimes by which we gain nothing, so much, that in proportion as public opinion acquires ascendency in any particular country, every public institution becomes more and more guaranteed from abuse.

Upon the whole, this sermon is rather the production of what is called a sensible, than of a very acute man; of a man certainly more remarkable for his learning than his originality. It refutes the very refutable positions of Mr. Godwin, without placing the doctrine of benevolence in a clear light; and it almost leaves us to suppose, that the particular affections are themselves ultimate principles of action, instead of convenient instruments of a more general principle. The style is such as to give a general impression of heaviness to the whole sermon. The Doctor is never simple and natural for a single instant. Every thing smells of the rhetorician. He never appears to forget himself, or to be hurried by his subject into obvious language. Every expression seems to be the result of artifice and intention; and as to the worthy dedicatees, the Lord Mayor and Aldermen, unless the sermon be done into English by a person In the latter part of his sermon, Dr. of honour, they may perhaps be flattered Parr combats the general objections of by the Doctor's politeness, but they can Mr. Turgot to all charitable institutions, never be much edified by his meaning. with considerable vigour and success. Dr. Parr seems to think, that eloquence To say that an institution is necessarily consists not in an exuberance of beaubad, because it will not always be ad-tiful images-not in simple and sublime ministered with the same zeal, proves conceptions-not in the feelings of a little too much; for it is an objection the passions; but in a studious arrangeto political and religious, as well as to ment of sonorous, exotic, and sesquipedal

words: a very ancient error, which shades of merit, and the degree of imcorrupts the style of young, and wearies mortality conferred. the patience of sensible men. In some of his combinations of words the Doctor is singularly unhappy. We have the din of superficial cavillers, the prancings of giddy ostentation, fluttering vanity, hissing scorn, dank clod, &c. &c. &c. The following intrusion of a technical word into a pathetic description renders the whole passage almost ludicrous.

"Within a few days, mute was the tongue that uttered these celestial sounds, and the hand which signed your indenture lay cold and motionless in the dark and dreary chambers of death."

In page 16, Dr. Parr, in speaking of the indentures of the Hospital, a subject (as we should have thought) little calculated for rhetorical panegyric, says of them

"If the writer of whom I am speaking had perused, as I have, your indentures and your rules, he would have found in them seriousness without austerity, earnestness without extravagance, good sense without the trickeries of art, good language without the trappings of rhetoric, and the firmness of conscious worth, rather than the prancings of giddy ostentation."

Why should Dr. Parr confine this eulogomania to the literary characters of this island alone? In the university of Benares, in the lettered kingdom of Ava, among the Mandarins at Pekin, there must, doubtless, be many men who have the eloquence of* Bappovos, the feeling of Taiwpos, and the judgment of knроs, of whom Dr. Parr might be happy to say, that they have profundity without obscurity — perspicuity without prolixity ornament without glare-terseness without barrenness - penetration without subtlety comprehensiveness without digres

sion and a great number of other things without a great number of other things.

In spite of 32 pages of very close printing, in defence of the University of Oxford, is it, or is it not true, that very many of its professors enjoy ample salaries, without reading any lectures at all? The character of particular colleges will certainly vary with the character of their governors; but the University of Oxford so far differs from Dr. Parr in the commendation he has bestowed upon its state of public education, that they have, since the publication of his book, we believe, and forty years after Mr. Gibbon's resi

The latter member of this eloge would not be wholly unintelligible, if applied to a spirited coach-horse; but we have never yet witnessed the phe-dence, completely abolished their very nomenon of a prancing indenture.

It is not our intention to follow Dr. Parr through the copious and varied learning of his notes; in the perusal of which we have been as much delighted with the richness of his acquisitions, the vigour of his understanding, and the genuine goodness of his heart, as we have been amused with the ludicrous self-importance, and the miraculous simplicity of his character. We would rather recommend it to the Doctor to publish an annual list of worthies, as a kind of stimulus to literary men; to be included in which, will unquestionably be considered as great an honour, as for a commoner to be elevated to the peerage. A line of Greek, a line of Latin, or no line at all, subsequent to each name, will distinguish, with sufficient accuracy, the

ludicrous and disgraceful exercises for degrees, and have substituted in their place a system of exertion, and a scale of academical honours, calculated (we are willing to hope) to produce the happiest effects.

We were very sorry, in reading Dr. Parr's note on the Universities, to meet with the following passage:

"Ill would it become me tamely and silently to acquiesce in the strictures of this formidable accuser upon a seminary to which I owe 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 a proper education, for I had ar

* Πάντες μὲν σοφοί. ἐγὼ δὲ Ωκηρον μὲν σέβω, θαυμάζω δὲ Βάῤῥονον, καὶ φιλῶ Ταίλω pov. See Lucian in Vita Dæmonact. vol. ii. p. 394.-(Dr. Parr's note.)

rived 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 rnine 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 necessary to rame, 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."

and his just 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, 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 many a barren page, in which the weary Christian can descry nothing all around him but a dreary expanse of trite sentiments and languid words.

To those who know the truly honour-is to hazard nothing: their characterThe great object of modern sermons able and respectable character of Dr. istic is, decent debility; which alike Parr, the vast extent of his learning, guards their authors from ludicrous and the unadulterated benevolence of errors, and precludes them from strikhis nature, such an account cannot but ing beauties. Every man of sense, in be very affecting, in spite of the bad taking up an English sermon, expects taste in which it is communicated. to find it a tedious essay, full of How painful to reflect, that a truly common-place morality; and if the devout and attentive minister, a stre-fulfilment of such expectations be nuous defender of the church establish- meritorious, the clergy have certainly ment, and by far the most learned man the merit of not disappointing their of his day, should be permitted to lan-readers. Yet it is curious to consider, guish on a little paltry curacy in War- how a body of men so well educated, wickshire!

Dii meliora, &c. &c.*

DR. RENNEL. (E. REVIEW, 1802.) Discourses on Various Subjects. By Thomas Rennel, D.D., Master of the Temple. Rivington, London.

and so magnificently endowed as the English clergy, should distinguish themselves so little in a species of composition to which it is their peculiar duty, as well as their ordinary habit, to attend. To solve this difficulty, it should be remembered, that the eloquence of the Bar and of the Senate force themselves into notice, power, and wealth-that the penalty which an WE have no modern sermons in the individual client pays for choosing a English language that can be consi- bad advocate, is the loss of his causedered as very eloquent. The merits of that a prime minister must infallibly Blair (by far the most popular writer of suffer in the estimation of the public, sermons within the last century) are who neglects to conciliate eloquent plain good sense, a happy application men, and trusts the defence of his meaof scriptural quotation, and a clear har-sures to those who have not adequate monious style, richly tinged with scrip- talents for that purpose: whereas, the tural language. He generally leaves only evil which accrues from the prohis readers pleased with his judgment, motion of a clergyman to the pulpit, The courtly phrase was, that Dr. Parr which he has no ability to fill as he was not a producible man. The same phrase ought, is the fatigue of the audience, was used for the neglect of Paley. and the discredit of that species of

public instruction; an evil so general, that no individual patron would dream 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 a common cause of preferment. In pointing out the total want of connexion 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 further!

an

gulations) 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 recommend himself, not by his eloquence, but by the purity of his life, and the soundness of his doctrine; objection good enough, if any connexion could be pointed out between eloquence, heresy, and dissipation: but if it is possible for a man to live well, preach well, and teach well, at the same time, such objections, resting only 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 very good reason for preaching common-place sermons, but is a very bad one for publishing them.

We had great hopes, that Dr. Rennel's Sermons would have proved an exception to the character we have given of sermons in general; and we have read through his present volume with a conviction rather that he has misapplied, than that he wants, talents for pulpit eloquence. The subjects of his sermons, fourteen in number, are : 1. The consequences of the vice of gaming: 2. On old age: 3. Benevolence exclusively 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 regulation of national joy: 6. On the connexion of the duties of loving the brotherhood, fearing God, Of British education, the study of and honouring the king: 7. On the eloquence makes little or no part. The guilt of bloodthirstiness: 8. On atoneexterior graces of a speaker are de- ment: 9. A visitation sermon: spised; and debating societies (ad-Great Britain's naval strength, and mirable institutions, under proper re-insular situation, a cause of gratitude

The prejudices of the English nation have proceeded 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 trifler, or a charlatan.

10.