WORKS OF THE REV. SIDNEY SMITH. WHOEVER has had the good fortune to see Dr. Parr's wig, must have observed, that while it trespasses a little on the orthodox magnitude of perukes in the anterior parts, it scorns even the Episcopal limits behind, and swells out into boundless convexity of frizz, the peya Davμa of barbers, and the terror of the literary world. After the manner of his wig, the Doctor has constructed his sermon, giving us a discourse of no zommon length, and subjoining an immeasurable mass of notes, which appear to concern every learned thing, every learned man, and almost every unlearned man since the beginning of the world. For his text, Dr. Parr has chosen Gal. vi. 10. As we have therefore opportunity, let us do good to all men, esperially to those who are of the household of faith. After a preliminary comparison between the dangers of the selfish system, and the modern one of universal benev. olence, he divides his sermon into two parts: in the first examining how far, by the constitution of human nature, and the circumstances of human life, the principles f particular and universal benevolence are conpatible: in the last, commenting on the nature of the charitable institution for which he is preaching. make some extracts from it. feated; the public good is impaired, rather than increased; and the claims that other virtues equally obligatory have to our notice, are totally disregarded. Thus, too, when any dazzling phantoms of universal philanthropy have seized our attention 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 comparado not say any hold whatsoever, but that strong and lasttive insignificance will prevent them from recovering, I ing 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 impor tunity of its demands to obtain a hearing will be proporconsequences? A perpetual wrestling for victory between the refinements of sophistry, and the remonstrances of indignant nature-the agitations of secret distrust in opinions which gain few or no proselytes, and feelings which excite little or no sympathy-the neglect of all the usual duties, by which social life is preserved or adorned; and in the pursuit of other duties which are unusual, and indeed imaginary, a succession of airy projects, eager hopes, tumultuevery wise man foresaw, and a good man would rarely ous efforts, and galling disappointments, such, in truth, as commiserate.' tionate to the weakness of its cause. But what are the In a subsequent part of his sermon, Dr. Parr handles the same topic with equal success. The former part is levelled against the doctrines of "The stoics, it has been said, were more successful in Mr. Godwin; and, here, Dr. Parr exposes, very strong-weakening the tender affections, than in animating men to ly and happily, the folly of making universal benevo- the stronger virtues of fortitude and self-command; and lence the immediate motive of our actions. As we consi- possible it is, that the influence of our modern reformers der this, though of no very difficult execution, to be by the neglect of their ordinary duties, than in stimulating may be greater, in furnishing their disciples with pleas for far the best part of the sermon, we shall very willingly 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 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 They tempt us to substitute the ease of speculation, and the pride of dogmatism, for the toil of practice. To a class of artificial and ostentatious sentiments, 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 vir tue; 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 use ful, though limited, effect.' 'To me it appears, that the modern advocates for universal philanthropy have fallen into the error charged upon those who are fascinated by a violent and extraordinary fondness for what a celebrated author calls "some moral species." Some men, it has been remarked, are hurried into romantic adventures, by their excessive admiration of fortitude. Others are actuated by a head-we have daily and hourly occasion in the events of real life. strong zeal for disseminating the true religion. Hence, while the only properties, for which fortitude or zeal can be esteemed, are scarcely discernible, from the enormous bulkiness to which they are swollen, the ends to which alone they can be directed usefully, are overlooked or de "A great scholar, as rude and violent as most Greek scholars are, unless they happen to be Bishops. He has left nothing behind him worth leaving: he was rather fitted for the law than the church, and would have been a more considerable man, if he had been more knocked about among his equals. He lived with country gentlemen and clergymen, who flattered and feared him an attempting to show the connection between parti. cular and universal benevolence, Dr. Parr does not ap- may outlive him for a long period; and we all hate pear to us to have taken a clear and satisfactory view each other's crimes, by which we gain nothing, so of the subject. Nature impels us both to good and much, that in proportion as public opinion acquires asbad actions; and even in the former, gives us no cendancy in any particular country, every public instimeasure by which we may prevent them from degene- tution becomes more and more guaranteed from abuse. rating into excess. Rapine and revenge are not less Upon the whole, this sermon is rather the producnatural than parental and filial affection; which latter tion of what is called a sensible, than of a very acute class of feelings may themselves be a source of crimes, man; of a man certainly more remarkable for his if they overpower (as they frequently do) the sense of learning than his originality. It refutes the very refu justice. It is not therefore, a sufficient justifica- table positions of Mr. Godwin, without placing the tion of our actions, that they are natural. We doctrine of benevolence in a clear light; and it almost must seek, from our reason, some principle which leaves us to suppose, that the particular affections are will enable us to determine what impulses of na- themseives ultimate principles of action, instead of ture we are to obey, and what we are to resist: convenient instruments of a more general principle. such is that of general utility, or, what is the same The style is such, as to give a general impression of thing, of universal good; a principle which sanctifies heaviness to the whole sermon. The doctor is never and limits the more particular affections. The duty of simple and natural for a single instant. Every thing a son to a parent, or a parent to a son, is not an ulti- smells of the rhetorician. He never appears to forget mate principle of morals, but depends on the principle himself, or to be hurried by his subject into obvious of universal good, and is only praiseworthy because it language. Every expression seems to be the result of is found to promote it. At the same time, our spheres artifice and intention; and as to the worthy dedicatees, of action and intelligence are so confined, that it is bet- the Lord Mayor and Aldermen, unless the sermon be ter in a great majority of instances, to suffer our con- done into English by a person of honour, they may duct to be guided by those affections which have been perhaps be flattered by the Doctor's politeness, but long sanctioned by the approbation of mankind, than to they can never be much edified by his meaning. Dr. enter into a process of reasoning, and investigate the re- Parr seems to think, that eloquence consists not in lation which every trifling event might bear to the gene- exuberance of beautiful images-not in simple and ral interests of the world. In his principle of universal sublime conceptions not in the feelings of the pasbenevolence, Mr. Godwin is unquestionably right. That sions; but in a studious arrangement of sonorous, exoit is the grand principle upon which all morals rest- tic, and sesquipedal words: a very ancient error, which that it is the corrective for the excess of all particular corrupts the style of young, and wearies the patience affections, we believe to be undeniable: and he is only of sensible men. In some of his combinations of words erroneous in excluding the particular affections, be- the Doctor is singularly unhappy. We have the din cause, in so doing, he deprives us of our most power-of superficial cavillers, the prancings of giddy ostentaful means of promoting his own principle of universal tion, fluttering vanity, hissing scorn, dank clod, &c. good; for it is as much as to say, that all the crew ought &c. &c. The following intrusion of a technical word to have the general welfare of the ship so much at heart, into a pathetic description, renders the whole passage that no sailor should ever pull any particular rope, or almost ludicrous. hand any individual 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 unconnectcd.' 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. In the latter part of his sermon, Dr. Parr combats the general objections of Mr. Turgot to all charitable institutions, with considerable vigour and success. To say that an institution is necessarily bad, because it will not always be administered with the same zeal, proves a little too much; for it is an objection to political and religious, as well as to 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 that we should have 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 we 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, these celestial sounds, and the hand which signed your in 'Within a few days, mute was the tongue that uttered denture 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.' 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 phenomenon 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 his 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 shades of merit, and the degree of immortality conferred. 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 Πάντες μὲν σοφοί. ἐγὼ δε Ωκηρον μὲν σέβω, θαυμάζω dè Báppovov, kai pite Tailwoov. See Lucian in Vita Demonact. vol. ii. p. 394.-(Dr. Parr's note.) the feeling of Taiλwoos, and the judgment of Nênpos, of whom Dr. Parr might be happy to say, that they have profundity without obscurity-perspicuity with out prolixity-ornament without glare-terseness without barrenness-penetration without subtlety-comprehensiveness without digression-and a great number of other things without a great number of other things. sage: their copiousness, and their fancy, we are in danger To the Oases of Tillotson, Sherlock, and Atterbury, In spite of 32 pages of very close printing, in de fence of the University of Oxford, is it, or is it not The great object of modern sermons is to hazard true, that very many of its Professors enjoy ample nothing: their characteristic is, decent debility, salaries, without reading any lectures at all? The which alike guards their authors from ludicrous zharacter of particular colleges will certainly vary errors, and precludes them from striking beauties. with the character of their governors; but the Uni- Every man of sense, in taking up an English sermon, versity of Oxford so far differs from Dr. Parr in the expects to find it a tedious essay, full of common. commendation bestowed upon its state of public edu. place morality; and if the fulfilment of such expecta cation, that they have, since the publication of his tions be meritorious, the clergy have certainly the book, we believe, and forty years after Mr. Gibbon's merit of not disappointing their readers. Yet it is residence, completely abolished their very ludicrous curious to consider, how a body of men so well eduand disgraceful exercises for degrees, and have sub-cated, and so magnificently endowed as the English stituted in their place a system of exertion, and a clergy, should distinguish themselves so little in a scale of academical honours, calculated (we are wil- species of composition to which it is their peculiar ing to hope) to produce the happiest effects. duty, as well as their ordinary habit, to attend. To We were very sorry, in reading Dr. Parr's note on solve this difficulty, it should be remembered, that the Universities, to meet with the following pas- the eloquence of the Bar and of the Senate force themselves into notice, power, and wealth-that the penalty which an individual client pays for choosing Ill would it become me tamely and silently to acquiesce a bad advocate, is the loss of his cause-that a prime in the strictures of this formidable accuser upon a seminary minister must infallibly suffer in the estimation of the to which I owe so many obligations, though I left it, as must not be dissembled, before the usual time, and, in public, who neglects to conciliate the eloquent men, truth, had been almost compelled to leave it not by the and trusts the defence of his measures to those who want of proper education, for I had arrived at the first have not adequate talents for that purpose: whereas, place in the first form of Harrow School, when I was not the only evil which accrues from the promotion of a quite fourteen-not by the want of useful tutors, for mine clergyman to the pulpit, which he has no ability to were eminently able, and to me had been uniformly kind-fill as he ought, is the fatigue of the audience, and the not by the want of ambition, for I had begun to look up discredit of that species of public instruction; an evil ardently and anxiously to academical distinctions-not by the want of attachment to the place, for I regarded it then, so general, that no individual patron would think of as I continue to regard it now, with the fondest and most sacrificing to it his particular interest. The clergy unfeigned affection-but by another want, which it were are generally appointed to their situations by those unnecessary to name, and for the supply of which, after who have no interest that they should please the ausome hesitation, I determined to provide by patient toil and dience before whom they speak; while the very reresolute self-denial, when I had not completed my twen- verse is the case in the eloquence of the Bar, and of tieth year. I ceased, therefore, to reside, with an aching heart: I looked back with mingled feelings of regret and Parliament. We by no means would be understood humiliation to advantages of which I could no longer par- to say, that the clergy should owe their promotion take, and honours to which I could no longer aspire.' principally to their eloquence, or that eloquence ever could, consistently with the constitution of the English Church, be made out a common cause of prefer ment. In pointing out the total want of connection 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 farther! To those who know the truly honourable and respectable character of Dr. Parr, the vast extent of his learning, and the unadulterated benevolence of his nature, such an account cannot but be very affecting, in spite of the bad taste in which it is communicated. How painful to reflect, that a truly devout and attentive minister, a strenuous defender of the church establishment, and by far the most learned man of his day, should be permitted to languish on a little paltry curacy in Warwickshire? -Dii meliora, &c. &c.* DR. RENNEL. (EDINBURGH REVIEW, 1802.) Discourses on Various Subjects. By Thomas Rennel, D. D. Master of the Temple. Rivington, London. WE have no modern sermons in the English lan. guage that can be considered as very eloquent. The merits of Blair (by far the most popular writer of sermons within the last century) are plain good sense, a happy application of scriptural quotation, and a clear harmonious style, richly tinged with scriptural language. He generally leaves his readers pleased with his judgment, and his 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, *The courtly phrase was, that Dr. Parr was not a producible man. The same phrase was used for the neglect of Paley. ed a good deal from their hatred to the French; and Of British education, the study of eloquence makes pointed out between eloquence, heresy, and dissipa- | Jealousy, rage, and revenge, exist among gamesters in their tion: but, if it is possible for a man to live well, preach well, and teach well, at the same time, such objections, resting 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 good reason for preaching commonplace sermons, but is a very bad one for Publishing them. 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 over.. can oppose. From what source are we to trace a very large whelm every boundary which discretion and conscience custom, but which stand at the tribunal of God precisely number of those murders, sanctioned or palliated indeed by 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 however calm their natural temperament, however meek on the threshold of these habits should be warned, that 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 We had great hopes, that Dr. Rennel's Sermons remediless ruin has been inflicted; in the midst of these artifices and the baseness of the hands by which utter and would have proved an exception to the character we feelings of horror and distraction it is, that the voice of have given of sermons in general; and we have read brethren's blood "crieth unto God from the ground”—“ and through his present volume with a conviction rather now art thou cursed from the earth, which hath opened her that he has misapplied, than that he wants, talents for mouth to receive thy brother's blood from thy hand." Not pulpit eloquence. The subjects of his sermons, four-only THOU who actually sheddest that blood, but THOU teen in number, are, 1. The consequences of the vice who art the artificer of death-thou who administerest in of gaming: 2. On old age: 3. Benevolence exclusive-them-improvest the skill in them-sharpenest the propencentives to these habits-who disseminatest the practice of ly an evangelical virtue: 4. The services rendered to sity to them-at THY hands will it be required, surely, at the English nation by the Church of England, a mo- the tribunal of God in the next world, and perhaps, in most tive for liberality to the orphan children of indigent instances, in his distributive and awful dispensations toministers: 5. On the grounds and regulations of na- wards thee and thine here on earth.' tional joy: 6. On the connection of the duties of loveing the brotherhood, fearing God, and honouring the first sermon, we are sorry so soon to change our euloHaving paid this tribute of praise to Dr. Rennel's King: 7. On the guilt of blood-thirstiness: 8. On atonement: 9. A visitation sermon: 10. Great Brit-ed for publication so many sermons touching directly gium into censure, and to blame him for having select. ain's naval strength, and insular situation, a cause of gratitude to Almighty God: 11. Ignorance productive of atheism, anarchy, and superstition: 12, 13, 14. On the sting of death, the strength of sin, and the victory over them both by Jesus Christ. fess ourselves long since wearied with this kind of disand indirectly upon the French Revolution. We coning eternal changes upon atheism, cannibalism, and courses, bespattered with blood and brains, and ringDr. Rennel's first sermon, upon the consequences of apostasy. Upon the enormities of the French Revogaming, is admirable for its strength of language, its lution there can be but one opinion; but the subject is sound good sense, and the vigour with which it com- it to saiety; and we can never help remembering, that not fit for the pulpit. The public are disgusted with bats that detestable vice. From this sermon, we shall, this politico-orthodox rage in the mouth of a preacher with great pleasure, make an extract of some length. may be profitable as well as sincere. Upon such subFarther to this sordid habit the gamester joins a disposi-jects as the murder of the Queen of France, and the tion to FRAUD, and that of the meanest cast. To those who great events of these days, it is not possible to endure soberly and fairly appreciate the real nature of human ac- the draggling and the daubing of such a ponderous tions, nothing appears more inconsistent than that societies limner as Dr. Rennel, after the etherial touches of Mr. of men, who have incorporated themselves for the express Burke. purpose of gaming, should disclaim fraud or indirection, or field is so easy for a declaimer, that we set little value In events so truly horrid in themselves, the affect to drive from their assemblies those among their associates whose crimes would reflect disgrace on them. Surely upon the declamation; and the mind, on such occathis, to a considerate mind, is as solemn and refined a ban- sions, so easily outruns ordinary description, that we ter as can well be exhibited: for when we take into view are apt to feel more, before a mediocre oration begins, the vast latitude allowed by the most upright gamesters, than it even aims at inspiring. 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 soph-very easy thing to talk about the shallow impost istical refuge for a worn-out conscience, they even imitate. ures, and the silly ignorant sophisms of Voltaire, RousTo such, let the Scripture speak with emphatical decision-seau, Condorcet, D'Alembert, and Volney, and to say When thou sawest a thief, then thou consentedst with him.' that Hume is not worth answering. This affectation The reader will easily observe, in this quotation, a command of language, and a power of style, very superior to what is met with in the great mass of sermons. We shall make one more extract. great number of subjects which he must have disWe are surprised that Dr. Rennel, from among the cussed in the pulpit (the interest in which must be permanent and universal) should have published such an empty and frivolous sermon as that upon the victory of Lord Nelson; a sermon good enough for the garrulity of joy, when the phrases, and the exultation of the Porcupine, or the True Bríton, may pass for eloquence or sense; but utterly unworthy of the works of a man who aims at a place among the great teachers of morality and religion. bully, an evangelical swaggerer, as if he could carry Dr. Rennel is apt to put on the appearance of a holy his point against infidelity by big words and strong abuse, and kick and cuff men into Christians. It is a of contempt will not do. While these pernicious writers have power to allure from the Church great numbers of proselytes, it is better to study them diligently, and to reply to them satisfactorily, than to veil insolence, want of power, or want of industry, by a preBut in addition to fraud, and all its train of crimes, pro-vering Christians to suppose that such writers are tended contempt; which may leave infidels and wapensities and habits of a very different complexion enter into the composition of a gamester: a most ungovernable abused, because they are feared; and not answered, FEROCITY OF DISPOSITION, however for a time disguised and because they are unanswerable. While every body latent, is invariably the result of his system of conduct. I was abusing and desvising Mr. Godwin, and while Mr. Godwin was, among a certain description of under- This passage, at first, struck us to be untrue; and standings, increasing every day in popularity, Mr. Mal- we could not immediately recollect the afflictions Dr. thus took the trouble of refuting him; and we hear Rennel alluded to, till it occurred to us, that he must no more of Mr. Godwin. We recommend this exam- undoubtedly mean the eight hundred and fifty actions ple to the consideration of Dr. Rennel, who seems to which, in the course of eighteen months, have been think it more useful and pleasant, to rail than to fight. brought against the clergy for non-residence. After the world has returned to its sober senses upon Upon the danger to be apprehended from Roman the merits of the ancient philosophy, it is amusing Catholics in this country, Dr. Rennel is laughable. enough to see a few bad heads bawling for the restora- We should as soon dream that the wars of York and tion of exploded errors and past infatuation. We have Lancaster would break out afresh, as that the Prosome dozen of plethoric phrases about Aristotle, who testant religion in England has any thing to apprehend is, in the estimation of the Doctor, et rex et sutor bo from the machinations of Catholics. To such a scheme nus, and every thing else; and to the neglect of whose as that of Catholic emancipation, which has for its works he seems to attribute every moral and physical object to restore their natural rights to three or four evil under which the world has groaned for the last millions of men, and to allay the fury of religious century. Dr. Rennel's admiration of the ancients is hatred, Dr. Renuel is, as might be expected, a very so great, that he considers the works of Homer to be strenuous antagonist. Time, which lifts up the veil the region and depository of natural law and natural of political mystery, will inform us if the Doctor has religion. Now, if, by natural religion, is meant the taken that side of the question which may be as lucrawill of God collected from his works, and the necessitive to himself as it is inimical to human happiness, ty man is under of obeying it, it is rather extraordi, and repugnant to enlightened policy. nary that Homer should be so good a natural theolo- Of Dr. Rennel's talents as a reasoner, we certainly gian, when the divinities he has painted are certainly have formed no very high opinion. Unless dogmatia more drunken, quarrelsome, adulterous, intriguing, cal assertion, and the practice (but too common among lascivious set of beings, than are to be met with in the theological writers) of taking the thing to be proved, most profligate court in Europe. There is, every now for part of the proof, can be considered as evidence of a and then, some plain coarse morality in Homer; but logical understanding, the specimens of argument Dr. the most bloody revenge, and the most savage cruelty Rennel has afforded us are very insignificant. For in warfare, the ravishing of women, and the sale of putting obvious truths into vehement language; for men, &c. &c. &c. are circumstances which the old expanding and adorning moral instruction; this genbard seems to relate as the ordinary events of his tleman certainly possesses considerable talents: and times, without ever dreaming that there could be much if he will moderate his insolence, steer clear of theoharm in them; and if it be urged that Homer took his logical metaphysics, and consider rather those great ideas of right and wrong from a barbarous age, that is laws of Christian practice, which must interest manjust saying, in other words, that Homer had very im-kind through all ages, than the petty questions which perfect ideas of natural law. Having exhausted all his powers of eulogium upon the times that are gone, Dr. Rennel indemifies 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 unusually designated by that epithet-men 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. In the ninth Discourse (p. 226,) we read of St. Paul, that he had an heroic zeal, directed, rather than bounded, by the nicest 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 humble, and imperatively dignified: and if Dr. Rennel means, that St. Paul displayed 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 assertion: such as the following: 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.' *I cannot read the name of Malthus without adding my tribute of affection for the memory of one of the best men that ever lived. He loved philosophical truth more than any man I ever knew,-was full of practical wisdom,-and never indulged in contemptuous feelings against his inferiors in understanding. † Page 318. are important to the Chancellor of the Exchequer for the time being, he may live beyond his own days, and become a star of the third or fourth magnitude in the English Church. JOHN BOWLES. (EDINBURGH 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 Édition, with Additions. By John Bowles, Esq. If this piece be, as Mr. Bowles asserts, the deathwarrant of the liberty and power of Great Britain, we will venture to assert, that it is also the death-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 in critical acumen. There is a political, as well as a bodily hypochondriasis; and there are empirics always on the watch to make their prey, either of the one or of the other. Dr. Solomon, Dr. Brodum, and Mr. Bowles, have all commanded their share of the public attention: but the two former gentlemen continue to flourish with undiminished splendour; while the patients of the latter are fast dwindling away, and his drugs falling into disuse and contempt. The truth is, if Mr. Bowles had begun his literary career at a period when superior discrimination, and profound thought, not vulgar violence, and the eternal repetition of rabble-rousing words, were necessary to literary reputation, he would never have emerged from that obscurity to which he will soon return. The intemperate passions of the public, not his own talents, have given him some temporary reputation; and now, when men hope and fear with less eagerness than they have been lately accustomed to do, Mr. Bowles will be compelled to descend from that moderate eminence, where no man of real genius would ever have condescended to remain. The pamphlet is written in the genuine spirit of the *It is impossible to conceive the mischievous power of the corrupt alarmists of those days, and the despotic manner in which they exercised their authority. They were fair objects for the Edinburgh Review. |