theological magnates, Luther, Melancthon, Calvin, Bullinger, Bucer, Latimer, and Ridley, and a score of others, including Jeremy Taylor, Bates, Isaac Barrow, &c., but he may not be so well acquainted with that of Edward Irving; we therefore annex the following high tribute to his genius and worth from a critic no less distinguished than Coleridge. He thus speaks of him. "I hold that Edward Irving possesses more of the spirit and purposes of the first Reformers; that he has more of the head and heart, the life, the unction, and the genial power of Martin Luther, than any man of this and the last century. I see in Edward Irving a minister of Christ, after the order of Paul."

Coleridge, referring to the theological literature of the seventeenth century, asserts it as his conviction "that in any half dozen sermons of Donne or Taylor, there are more thoughts, more facts and images, more incitements to inquiry and intellectual effort, than are presented to the congregations of the present day in as many churches or meetings, during twice as many months. The very length of the discourses, with which these rich souls of wit and knowledge fixed the eyes, ears, and hearts of their crowded congregations, are a source of wonder now-a-days, and we may add, of self-congratulation, to many a sober Christian, who forgets with what delight he himself has listened to a two-hours' harangue on a loan, or tax-bill, or a trial of some remarkable cause or culprit: the transfer of the interest makes and explains the whole difference. Much may be fairly charged on the revolution in the mode of preaching, as well as in the matter, since the fresh morning and fervent noon of the Reformation, when there was no need to visit the conventicles of fanaticism, in order to,

"See God's ambassador in pulpit stand,

Where they could take notes from his look and hand;

And from his speaking action bear away

More sermon, than our preachers used to say."

The pulpit may be styled the palladium of the world's virtue-the conservator of its liberties, the panacea for its woes, and the prophecy of its future restoration and glory. Its pre

rogative is to exert a paramount power over the common heart. Its themes are sublime and momentous-the arcana of science are rendered tributary to its teachings, because the works illustrate the Will of the Supreme. This mission of the Gospel it was that fired the zeal of that worthy of old, whose eloquent appeals "shook Areopagus, and reverberated through the Forum."

"The Christian priesthood, although the temptation incident to conventional elevation may have served to develope among them many of the subtler forms of evil latent in the undisciplined heart, is yet lustrous with many virtues. What sweetness has baptised the clerical function in the past! What fortitude, what self-denial, what patience, what labour in season and out of season, have been the heritage of the great mass of these men! What stores of learning have they accumulated; what splendid additions have they made to the best literature of every land: how they have enriched the sciences by their observation and studious inquiries; how they have kept the flame of patriotism aglow; how they have encouraged the generous ambition of youth, and directed it to worthy and useful ends: how they have dignified the family altar, and cherished the purity of woman, and diffused through society the charm of honest and gentle manners; all these things must be cordially acknowledged by every one competent to speak on the question."*

THE LARCENIES OF LITERATURE.

ORIGINALITY has been defined "unconscious or undetected imitation." "As for originality," wrote Byron, in his journal, "all pretensions to it are ridiculous; there is nothing new under the sun.'" Moore, once observing Byron with a book full of paper-marks, asked him what it was. "Only a book," he answered, "from which I am trying to crib; as I do whenever I can, and that's the way I get the character of an original poet." "Though, in imputing to himself premeditated plagiarism," observes his biographer, "he was, of course, but jesting; it was, I am inclined to think, his practice, when engaged in the composition of any work, to excite thus his vein, by the perusal of others on the same subject or plan, from which the slightest hint, caught by his imagination as he read, was sufficient to kindle there such a train of thought as, but for that spark, had never been awakened, and of which he himself soon forgot the source."

Emerson says an author is original in proportion to the amount he steals from Plato; and to those who are not much acquainted with Plato, he thus divulges the secret of much of his claim to originality.

Even Seneca complains that the ancients had compelled him to borrow from them what they would have taken from him, had he been lucky enough to have preceded them. "Every one of my writings," says Goethe, in the same candid spirit, "has been furnished to me by a thousand different persons, a thousand different things; the learned and the ignorant, the

wise and the foolish, infancy and age, have come in turn, generally, without having the least suspicion of it, to bring me the offering of their thoughts, their faculties, their experience : often have they sowed the harvest I have reaped. My work is that of an aggregation of human beings, taken from the whole of nature; it bears the name of Goethe."

"It is in the power of any writer to be original, by deserting nature, and seeking the quaint and fantastical; but literary monsters, like all others, are generally short-lived. 'When I was a young man,' says Goldsmith, 'being anxious to distinguish myself, I was perpetually starting new propositions; but I soon gave this over, for I found that generally, what was new was false.' Strictly speaking, we may be original without being new; our thoughts may be our own, and yet commonplace." *

On the other hand, it must be admitted with Pollock, that while "the siccaneous critic or the meagre scribbler may hang his head in despair, and murmur out that what can be done is done already; yet he who has drank of Castalia's fount, and listened to the mighty voice of the Parnassian sisters, and who casts his bold eye on Creation, inexhaustible as its Maker, and catches inspiration while he gazes; will take the lyre in his hand, delight with new melody the ear of mortals, and write his name among the immortal in song. A contemporary, † writing on this subject, insists that, "what is often termed originality, is more a manufactured article than a natural product. Moore, in dwelling upon the elaborate care with which all the performances of Sheridan were prepared, was led to exclaim, genius is patience.' An original thinker may be considered as one who has grown mentally fat upon the food great minds in all ages of the world have afforded him. Montaigne and Emerson, as we have seen, have confessed, with careless frankness, some of the sources of their originality.

"Of course it is necessary that nature should have furnished a tolerably broad and capacious foundation for mental fatness

to be laid upon. It is impossible to make a very fat hog of a Guinea pig. All men have not a disposition, and could not cultivate one, to grapple with the deep and subtle thoughts of profound minds. Books, books,' says Bulwer; 'magnets to which all iron minds insensibly move.' Minds of a softer metal, of a less investigating character, do not move in that direction. The mind grows by what it feeds upon, and no man can be an original thinker without a good deal of knowledge. All that was wanting, perhaps, to develope the powers of the village Hampden,' 'the mute, inglorious Milton,' and 'the guiltless Cromwell,' that the country churchyard contained, was knowledge. But knowledge is of no value unless it is well digested; and in this respect nature is an infallible guide. Minds, like stomachs, have little relish for food they cannot digest; and there is every variety of strength in the digestive powers of the mind as of the body."

The same idea is enforced by another writer, in a more facetious strain. He says, "We prey upon the literary productions of the past, as we do upon the brains of Italian and French cooks of the present, and while our palates will carry a teeth-watering reminiscence of some favourite dish, concocted by the one, while the tongue which discussed it articulates, is it remarkable that our pates should retain some of the attic flavour of the former? Our constitutions are made or unmade by the food we eat. Our brains, by the books we read. Men of great natural genius, and who have not had opportunities for much book 'culture,' even as the most bodily healthy people, are evidences of the truth that strong, simple food is far superior to the diablerie of modern wizard-cooks, in either case."

Emerson assumes, that it is the duty and the province of great minds to adopt the thoughts of others-to embalm them for futurity-to take the roughly hewn blocks from the thoughtmines of others, and fashion them into mosques, feudal towers, or pyramids, as the loving, chivalrous, or sublime spirit of the builder may suggest.

This communistic appropriation of ideas-this building from