Murphy, Johnson, Philipps, Thomson, Young, | soft and romantic charm of the novels of the Addison, or Rowe. Otway's Venice Preserved Porters-the brilliant ease and admirable good alone-and that only in the structure of its sense of Edgeworth-the intense humanity plot is superior to the Remorse, to Bertram, of Inchbald-the profound insight into the Fazio, or Evadne. And then-more pure, more fearful depths of the soul with which the audramatic, more gentle, than all these, is the thor of Glenarvon is gifted-the heart-rending tragedy of Virginius-a piece of simple yet pathos of Opie-and the gentle wisdom, the beautiful humanity-in which the most exqui- holy sympathy with the holiest childhood, and site succession of classic groups is animated the sweet imaginings, of the author of Mrs. with young life and connected by the finest Leicester's School-soften and brighten the litelinks of interest-and the sweetest of Roman rary aspect of the age. These indications of stories lives before us at once, new and fami- female talent are not only delightful in themliar to our bosoms. selves, buf inestimable as proofs of the rich intellectual treasures which are diffused throughout the sex, to whom the next genera tion will owe their first and their most sacred impressions. We shall not be suspected of any undue partiality towards modern criticism. But its talent shows, perhaps, more decidedly than any thing else, the great start which the human mind has taken of late years. Throughout all the periodical works extant, from the Edinburgh Review down to the lowest of the magazines, striking indications may be perceived of "that something far more deeply interfused," which is now working in the literature of England. We not rarely see criticisms on theatrical performances of the preceding evening in the daily newspapers, which would put to shame the elaborate observations of Dr. Johnson on Shakspeare. Mr. Hazlitt-incomparably the most original of the regular critics-has almost raised criticism into an independent art, and, while analyzing the merits of others, has disclosed stores of sentiment, thought, and fancy, which are his own peculiar property. His relish for the excellencies of those whom he eulogizes is so keen, that, in his delineations, the pleasures of intellect become almost as vivid and substantial as those of sense. He introduces us into the very presence of the great of old time, and enables us almost to imagine that we hear them utter the living words of beauty and wisdom. He makes us companions of their happiest hours, and share not only in the pleasures which they diffused, but in those which they tasted. He discloses to us the hidden soul of beauty, not like an anatomist but like a lover. His criticisms, instead of breaking the sweetest en chantments of life, prolongs them, and teaches us to love poetic excellence more intensely, as well as more wisely. The present age is, also, honourably distinguished by the variety and the excellence of productions from the pen of women. In poetry there is the deep passion, richly tinged with fancy, of Baillie-the delicate romance of Mitford the gentle beauty and feminine chivalry of Beetham-and the classic elegance of Hemans. There is a greater abundance of female talent among the novelists. The exquisite sarcasm of humour of Madame D'Arblay-the But, after all, the best intellectual sign of the present times is the general education of the poor. This ensures duration to the principles of good, by whatever political changes the frame of society may be shaken. The sense of human rights and of human duties is not now confined to a few, and, therefore, liable to be lost, but is stamped in living characters on millions of hearts. And the foundations of human improvement thus secured, it has a tendency to advance in a true geometrical progression. Meanwhile, the effects of the spirit of improvement which have long been silently preparing in different portions of the globe, are becoming brilliantly manifest. The vast continent of South America, whether it continue nominally dependent on European states, or retain its own newly-asserted freedom, will teem with new intellect, enterprise, and energy. Old Spain, long sunk into the most abject degradation, has suddenly awakened, as if refreshed from slumber, and her old genius must revive with her old dignities. A bloodless revolution has just given liberty to Naples, and thus has opened the way for the restora tion of Italy. That beautiful region again will soon inspire her bards with richer strains than of yore, and diffuse throughout the world a purer luxury. Amidst these quickenings of humanity, individual poets, indeed, must lose that personal importance which in darker periods would be their portion. All selfism-all predominant desire for the building up of individual fame-must give way to the earnest and simple wish to share in, and promote, the general progress of the species. He is unworthy of the name of a great poet, who is not contented that the loveliest of his imaginations should be lost in the general light, or viewed only as the soft and delicate streaks which shall usher in that glorious dawn, which is, we believe, about to rise on the world, and to set no more' ON PULPIT ORATORY. WITH REMARKS ON THE REV. ROBERT HALL. THE decline of eloquence in the Senate and at the Bar is no matter of surprise. In the freshness of its youth, it was the only medium by which the knowledge and energy of a single heart could be communicated to thousands. It supplied the place, not only of the press, but of that general communication between the different classes of the state, which the intercourses of modern society supply. Then the passions of men, unchilled by the frigid customs of later days, left them open to be inflamed or enraptured by the bursts of enthusiasm, which would now be met only with scorn. In our courts of law occasions rarely arise for animated addresses to the heart; and even when these occur, the barrister is fettered by technical rules, and yet more by the technical habits and feelings, of those by whom he is encircled. A comparatively small degree of fancy, and a glow of social feeling, directed by a tact which will enable a man to proceed with a constant appearance of directing his course within legal confines, are now the best qualifications of a forensic orator. They were exhibited by Lord Erskine in the highest perfection, and attended with the most splendid success. Had he been greater than he was, he had been nothing. He ever seemed to cherish an affection for the technicalities of his art, which won the confidence of his duller associates. He appeared to lean on these as his stays and resting-places, even when he ventured to look into the depth of human nature, or to catch a momentary glimpse of the regions of fantasy. When these were taken from him, his powers fascinated no longer. He was exactly adapted to the sphere of a court of law-above his fellows, but not beyond their gage-and giving to the forms which he could not forsake, an air of venerabieness and grandeur. Any thing more full of beauty and wisdom than his speeches, would be heard only with cold and bitter scorn in an English court of justice. In the houses of parliament, mightier questions are debated; but no speaker hopes to influence the decision. Indeed the members of opposition scarcely pretend to struggle against the "dead eloquence of votes," but speak with a view to an influence on the public mind, which is a remote and chilling aim. Were it otherwise, the academic education of the members-the prevalent disposition to ridicule, rather than to admire-and the sensitiveness which resents a burst of enthusiasm as an offence against the decorum of polished society-would effectually repress any attempt to display an eloquence in which intense passion should impel the imagination, and noble sentiment should be steeped in fancy. The orations delivered on charitable occasions, consisting, with few exceptions, of poor conceits, miserable compliments, and hackneyed metaphors, are scarcely worthy of a transient allusion. But the causes which have opposed the excellence of pulpit oratory in modern times are not so obvious. Its subjects have never varied, from the day when the Holy Spirit visibly descended on the first advocates of the gospel, in tongues of fire. They are in no danger of being exhausted by frequency, or changed with the vicissitudes of mortal fortune. They have immediate relation to that eternity, the idea of which is the living soul of all poetry and art. It is the province of the preachers of Christianity to develope the connection between this world and the next-to watch over the beginnings of a course which will endure for ever-and to trace the broad shadows cast from imperishable realities on the shifting scenery of earth. This sublunary sphere does not seem to them as trifling or mean, in proportion as they extend their views onward; but assumes a new grandeur and sanctity, as the vestibule of a statelier and an eternal region. The mysteries of our beinglife and death-both in their strange essences, and in their sublimer relations, are topics of their ministry. There is nothing affecting in the human condition, nothing majestic in the affections, nothing touching in the instability of human dignities, the fragility of loveliness, or the heroism of self-sacrifice-which is not a theme suited to their high purposes. It is theirs to dwell on the eldest history of the world-on the beautiful simplicities of the patriarchal age-on the stern and awful religion, and marvellous story of the Hebrews-on the glorious visions of the prophets, and their fulfilment-on the character, miracles, and death of the Saviour-on all the wonders, and all the beauty of the Scriptures. It is theirs to trace the spirit of the boundless and the eternal, faintly breathing in every part of the mystic circle of superstition, unquenched even amidst the most barbarous rites of savage tribes, and all the cold and beautiful shapes of Grecian mould. The inward soul of every religious system-the philosophical spirit of all history— the deep secrets of the human heart, when grandest or most wayward-are theirs to search and to develope. Even those speculations which do not immediately affect man's conduct and his hopes are theirs, with all their high casuistry; for in these, at least, they dis cern the beatings of the soul against the bar:: of its earthly tabernacle, which prove the immortality of its essence, and its destiny to move in freedom through the vast ethereal circle to which it thus vainly aspires. In all the intensities of feeling, and all the regalities of imagination, they may find fitting materials for It appears, therefore, at first observation, strange, that in this country, where an irreligious spirit has never become general, the oratory of the pulpit has made so little progress. The ministers of the Established Church have not, on the whole, fulfilled the promise given in the days of its early zeal. The noble enthusiasm of Hooker-the pregnant wit of South-the genial and tolerant warmth of Tillotson-the vast power of reasoning and observation of Barrow-have rarely been copied, even feebly, by their successors. Jeremy Taylor stands altogether alone among churchmen. Who has ever manifested any portion of that exquisite intermixture of a yearning love with a heavenly fancy, which enabled him to embody and render palpable the holy charities of his religion in the loveliest and most delicate images? Who has ever so encrusted his subjects with candied words; or has seemed, like him, to take away the sting of death with "rich conceit;" or has, like him, half persuaded his hearers to believe that they heard the voice of pitying angels? Few, indeed, of the ministers of the church have been endued with the divine imagination which might combine, enlarge, and vivify the objects of sense, so as, by stately pictures, to present us with symbols of that uncreated beauty and grandeur in which hereafter we shall expatiate. The most celebrated of them have been little more than students of vast learning and research, unless, with Warburton and Horseley, they have aspired at once boldly to speculate, and imperiously to dogmatize. their passionate expostulations with their fel- | Liturgy sunk deep into the heart, and prelow men to turn their hearts to those objects vented the devout worshipper from feeling the which will endure for ever. want of strength or variety in the discourses of the preacher. The church-yard, with its gentle risings, and pensive memorials of affection, was a silent teacher, both of vigilance and love. And the village spire, whose "silent finger points to heaven,” has supplied the place of loftiest imaginings of celestial glory. Obstacles of a far different kind long prevented the advancement of pulpit eloquence among the Protestant Dissenters. The ministers first ejected for non-conformity were men of rigid honesty and virtue, but their intellectual sphere was little extended beyond that of their fellows. There cannot be a greater mistake than to suppose that they sacrificed their worldly interest from any regard to the principles of free inquiry, which have since almost become axioms. They believed that their compliance with the requisitions of the monarch would be offensive to God, and that in refusing to yield it they were doing his will; but they were prepared in their turn to assume the right of interpreting the Bible for others, and of condemning them for a more extended application of their example. Harassed, ridiculed, and afflicted, they naturally contracted an air of rigidity, and refused, in their turn, with horror, an extensive sympathy with the world. The controversies in which the learned men among the Dissenters were long occupied, having respect, not to grand and universal principles, but to petty questions of ceremony and minor points of faith, tended yet farther to confine and depress their genius. Their families were not the less scenes of love, because they preserved parental authority in its It cannot be doubted, that the species of pa- state; but the austerity of their manner tended tronage, by which the honours and emoluments to repress the imaginative faculties of the of the establishment are distributed, has tended young. If they indulged themselves in any to prevent the development of genius within relaxation of manner, it was not with flowing its pale. But, perhaps, we may find a more eloquence, but with the quaint conceit and adequate cause for the low state of its preach-grave jest that they garnished their conversaing in the very beauty and impressiveness of tion or their discourses. Their religion wore its rites and appointed services. The tendency a dark and uncouth garb; but to this we are of religious ceremonies, of the recurrence of indebted, in no small degree, for its preservaold festivals, and of a solemn and dignified tion through times of demoralizing luxury. form of worship, is, doubtless, to keep alive A great change has taken place, of late tender associations in the heart, and to pre- years, in the literature and eloquence of Proserve the flame of devotion steady and pure, testant Dissenters. As they ceased to be obbut not to incite men to look abroad into their jects of persecution or of scorn, they insensibly nature, or to prompt any lofty excursions of lost the austerity and exclusiveness of their religious fancy. There have, doubtless, been character. They descended from their dusty eloquent preachers in the church of Rome, retirements to share in the pursuits and innobecause in her communion the ceremonies cent enjoyments of "this bright and breathing themselves are august and fearful, and because world." Their honest bigotries gave way at her proselyting zeal inspired her sons with the warm touch of social intercourse with peculiar energy. But episcopacy in England those from whom they dissented. Meanwhile, is by far the most tolerant of systems ever the exertions of Whitefield,-his glowing, pasassociated with worldly power. Its ministers, sionate, and awful eloquence;-his daring and until the claim of some of them, to the exclu-quenchless enthusiasm,-and the deep and exsive title of evangelical, created dissensions, breathed almost uniformly a spirit of mildness and peace. Within its sacred boundaries, all was order, repose, and charity. Its rights and observances were the helps and leaning-places of the soul, on which it delighted to rest amidst the vicissitudes of the world, and in its approach to its final change. The fulness, the majesty, and the dignified benignities of the tensive impression which he made throughout the kingdom, necessarily aroused those who received his essential doctrines, into new zeal. The impulse thus given was happily refined by a taste for classical learning, and for the arts and embellishments of life, which was then gradually insinuating itself into their churches. Some of the new converts who forsook the establishment, not from repug nance to its constitution, but to its preachers, distinguished of these, we propose to direct maintained, in the first eagerness of their faith, the attention of our readers. the barbarous notion that human knowledge MR. HALL, though perhaps the most distinwas useless, and even dangerous, to the Chris-guished ornament of the Calvinistic* Dissenttian minister. The absurdity of this position, ers, does not afford the best opportunity for however strikingly exemplified in the advan- criticism. His excellence does not consist in tages gained by the enemies of those who the predominance of one of his powers, but in acted on it, served only to increase the desire the exquisite proportion and harmony of all. of the more enlightened and liberal among the The richness, variety, and extent of his knownon-conformists, to emulate the church in the ledge, are not so remarkable as his absolute intellectual qualification of their preachers. mastery over it. He moves about in the lofThey speedily enlarged the means of educa- tiest sphere of contemplation, as though he tion among them for the sacred office, and en- were "native and endued to its element." He couraged those habits of study, which promote uses the finest classical allusions, the noblest a refinement and delicacy of feeling in the images, and the most exquisite words, as though minds which they enlighten. Meanwhile, their they were those which came first to his mind, active participation in the noblest schemes of and which formed his natural dialect. There benevolence, tended yet farther to expand their is not the least appearance of straining after moral horizon. Youths were found among greatness in his most magnificent excursions, them prepared to sacrifice all the enjoyments but he rises to the loftiest heights with a childof civilized life, and at the peril of their lives like ease. His style is one of the clearest and to traverse the remotest and the wildest re- simplest-the least encumbered with its own gions, that they might diffuse that religion beauty-of any which ever has been written. which is everywhere the parent of arts, chari- It is bright and lucid as a mirror, and its most ties, and peace. It is not the least benefit of highly-wrought and sparkling embellishments their Missionary exertions, that they have are like ornaments of crystal, which, even in given a romantic tinge to the feelings of men their brilliant inequalities of surface, give "in populous city pent," and engrossed with back to the eye little pieces of true imagery the petty and distracting cares of commerce. set before them. These form the true Evangelical chivalry, supplying to their promoters no small measure of that mental refinement and elevation, which the far less noble endeavours to recover the Holy Sepulchre shed on Europe in the middle ages. It is not easy to estimate the advantages which spring from the extension of the imagination into the grandest regions of the earth, and from the excitement of sympathies for the condition of the most distant and degraded of the species. The merchant, whose thoughts would else rarely travel beyond his desk and his fire-side, is thus busied with high musings on the progress of the Gospel in the deserts of Africa-skims with the lonely bark over tropical seas and sends his wishes and his prayers over deserts which human footstep has rarely trodden. Missionary zeal, thus diffused among the people, has necessarily operated yet more strongly on the minds of the ministers, who have leisure to indulge in these delicious dreamings which such a cause may sanction. These excellent men are now, for the most part, not only the instructors, but the ornaments of the circles in which they move. The time which they are able to give to, literature is well employed for the benefit of their flocks. In the country, more especially, their gentle manners, their extended information, and their pure and blameless lives, do incalculable good to the hearts of their ruder hearers, independent of their public services. Not only in the more solemn of their duties,-in admonishing the guilty, comforting the afflicted, and cheering the dying-do they bless those around them; but by their demeanour, usually dignified, yet cheerful, and their conversation decorous, yet lively; they raise incalculably the tone of social intercourse, and heighten the innocent enjoyment of their friends. Some of them are, at the present day, exhibiting no or linary gifts and energies;-and to the most The works of this great preacher are, in the highest sense of the term, imaginative, as distinguished not only from the didactic, but from the fanciful. He possesses "the vision and the faculty divine,” in as high a degree as any of our writers in prose. His noblest passages do but make truth visible in the form of beauty, and "clothe upon" abstract ideas, till they become palpable in exquisite shapes. The dullest writer would not convey the same meaning in so few words, as he has done in the most sublime of his illustrations. Imagination, when like his of the purest water, is so far from being improperly employed on divine subjects, that it only finds its real objects in the true and the eternal. This power it is which disdains the scattered elements of beauty, as they appear distinctly in an imperfect world, and strives by accumulation, and by rejecting the alloy cast on all things, to imbody to the mind that ideal beauty which shall be realized hereafter. This, by shedding a consecrating light on all it touches, and "bringing them into one," anticipates the future harmony of creation. This already sees the "soul of goodness in things evil," which shall one day change the evil into its likeness. This already begins the triumph over the separating powers of death and time, and renders their victory doubtful, by making us feel the immortality of the affections. Such is the faculty which is employed by Mr. Hall to its noblest uses. There is no rhetorical flourish-no mere pomp of wordsin his most eloquent discourses. With vast excursive power, indeed, he can range through all the glories of the Pagan world, and seizing those traits of beauty which they derived from We use this epithet merely as that which will most distinctively characterize the extensive class to which it is applied-well aware that there are shades of differto call themselves after any name but that of Christ. ence among them--and that many of them would decline H primeval revelation, restore them to the system of truth. But he is ever best when he is intensest-when he unveils the mighty foundations of the rock of ages-or makes the hearts of his hearers vibrate with a strange joy which they will recognise in more exalted stages of their being. decide whether that freedom, at whose voice the kingdoms of Europe awoke from the sleep of ages, to run a career of virtuous emulation in every thing great and good; the freedom which dispelled the mists of superstition, and invited the nations to behold their God; whose magic touch kindled the rays of genius, the enthusiasm of poetry, and the flame of eloquence; the freedom which poured into our lap opulence and arts, and embellished life with innumerable institutions and improvements, till it became a theatre of wonders; it is for you to decide whether this freedom shall yet survive, or be covered with a funeral pall, and wrapped in eternal gloom. It is not necessary to await your determination. In the solicitude you feel to approve yourselves worthy of such a trust, every thought of what is afflicting in warfare, every apprehension of danger must vanish, and you are impatient to mingle in the battle of the civilized world. Go then, ye defenders of your country, accompa nied with every auspicious omen; advance with alacrity into the field, where God himself Mr. Hall has, unfortunately, committed but few of his discourses to the press. His Sermon on the tendencies of Modern Infidelity is one of the noblest specimens of his genius. Nothing can be more fearfully sublime, than the picture which he gives of the desolate state to which Atheism would reduce the world; or more beautiful and triumphant, than his vindication of the social affections. His Sermon on the Death of Princess Charlotte contains a philosophical and eloquent development of the causes which make the sorrows of those who are encircled by the brightest appearances of happiness, peculiarly affecting; and gives an exquisite picture of the gentle victim adorned with sacrificial glories. His discourses on War-on the Discouragements and supports of the Christian Ministry-musters the hosts to war. Religion is too and on the Work of the Holy Spirit-are of great and various excellence. But, as our limits will allow only a single extract, we prefer giving the close of a Sermon preached in the prospect of the invasion of England by Napoleon, in which he blends the finest remembrance of the antique world-the dearest associations of British patriotism-and the pure spirit of the gospel-in a strain as noble as could have been poured out by Tyrtæus. "To form an adequate idea of the duties of this crisis, it will be necessary to raise your minds to a level with your station, to extend your views to a distant futurity, and to consequences the most certain, though most remote. By a series of criminal enterprises, by the successes of guilty ambition, the liberties of Europe have been gradually extinguished: the subjugation of Holland, Switzerland, and the free towns of Germany, has completed that catastrophe; and we are the only people in the eastern hemisphere who are in possession of equal laws, and a free constitution. Freedom, driven from every spot on the continent, has sought an asylum in a country which she always chose for her favourite abode: but she is pursued even here, and threatened with destruction. The inundation of lawless power, after covering the whole earth, threatens to follow us here; and we are most exactly, most critically placed in the only aperture where it can be successfully repelled, in the Thermopyla of the universe. As far as the interests of freedom are concerned, the most important by far of sublunary interests, you, my countrymen, stand in the capacity of the federal representatives of the human race; for with you it is to determine (under God) in what condition the latest posterity shall be born; their fortunes are intrusted to your care, and on your conduct at this moment depends the colour and complexion of their destiny. If liberty, after being extinguished on the continent, is suffered to expire here, whence is it ever to emerge in the midst of that thick night that will invest it? It remains with you then to much interested in your success, not to lend you her aid; she will shed over this enterprise her selectest influence. While you are engaged in the field many will repair to the closet, many to the sanctuary; the faithful of every name will employ that prayer which has power with God; the feeble hands which are unequal to any other weapon, will grasp the sword of the Spirit; and from myriads of humble, contrite hearts, the voice of intercession, supplication, and weeping, will mingle in its ascent to heaven with the shout of battle and the shock of arms. "While you have every thing to fear from the success of the enemy, you have every means of preventing that success, so that it is next to impossible for victory not to crown your exertions. The extent of your resources, under God, is equal to the justice of our cause. But should Providence determine otherwise, should you fall in this struggle, should the nation fall, you will have the satisfaction (the purest allotted to man) of having performed your part; your names will be enrolled with the most illustrious dead, while posterity to the end of time, as often as they revolve the events of this period, (and they will incessantly revolve them,) will turn to you a reverential eye, while they mourn over the freedom which is entombed in your sepulchre. I cannot but imagine the virtuous heroes, legislators, and patriots, of every age and country, are bending from their elevated seats to witness this contest, as if they were incapable, till it be brought to a favourable issue, of enjoying their eternal repose. Enjoy that repose, illustrious immortals! Your mantle fell when you ascended, and thousands, inflamed with your spirit, and impatient to tread in your steps, are ready to swear by Him that sitteth upon the throne, and liveth for ever and ever, they will protect freedom in her last asylum, and never desert that cause which you sustained by your labours, and cemented with your blood. And thou, sole Ruler among the children of men, to whom the shields of the earth belong, gird on thy sword, thou Most |