their natural genius: none at all in their excessive After all this, it can surprise us very little "You were made for higher things: and my greatest pleasure is, that you give me a hint you are impatient to pursue them. What will not such a capacity and such a pen do, either to shame or to improve a miserable age! The church, like the Ark of Noah, is worth saving; not for the sake of the unclean beasts and vermin that almost filled it and probably made most noise and clamour in it, but for the little corner of rationality, that was as much distressed by the stink within, as by the temest without."-pp. 83, 84. In another place, he says, "I am serious upon it. I am afraid that both you and I shall outlive common sense, as well as learning, in our reverend brotherhood;" and afterwards complains, that he has laboured all his life to support the cause of the clergy, and been repaid with nothing but ingratitude. In the close of another letter on the same subject, he says, with a presumption, which the event has already made half ridiculous, and half melancholy, "Are not you and I finely employed? -but, Serimus arbores, alteri quæ seculo prosunt." But these are only general expressions, arising, perhaps, from spleen or casual irritation. Let us inquire how he speaks of individuals. It would be enough, perhaps, to say, that except a Dr. Balguy, we do not remember of his saying any thing respectful of a single clergyman throughout the whole volume. The following is a pretty good specimen of the treatment which was reserved for such of them as dared to express their dissent from bis paradoxes and fancies. Now, this is not said in jest; but in fierce anger and resentment; and really affords as wonderful a picture of the temper and liberality of a Christian divine, as some of the disputes among the grammarians do of the irritability of a mere man of letters. The contempt, indeed, with which he speaks of his answerers, who were in general learned divines, is equally keen and cutting with that which he evinces towards Hume and Bolingbroke. He himself knew ten thousand faults in his work; but they have never found one of them. Nobody has ever answered him yet, but at their own expense; and some poor man whom he mentions "must share in the silent contempt with which I treat my answerers." This is his ordinary style in those playful and affec tionate letters. Of known and celebrated individuals, he talks in the same tone of dis gusting arrogance and animosity. Dr. Lowth, the learned and venerable Bishop of London, had occasion to complain of some misrepre sentations in Warburton's writings, relating to the memory of his father; and, after some amicable correspondence, stated the matter to the public in a short and temperate pamphlet. Here is the manner in which he is treated for it in this Episcopal correspondence. the purest spirit of friendship. His wit and his "All you say about Lowth's pamphlet breathes reasoning. God knows, and I also (as a certain critic said once in a matter of the like great importance), are much below the qualities that deserve those boldness in publishing my letters without my leave names. But the strangest thing of all, is this man's or knowledge. I remember several long letters passed between us. And I remember you saw the that I am at a loss for the meaning of these words. letters. But I have so totally forgot the contents, "In a word, you are right.-If he expected an answer, he will certainly find himself disappointed: though I believe I could make as good sport with this Devil of a vice, for the public diversion, as ever was made with him, in the old Moralities." pp. 273, 274. Among the many able men who thought themselves called upon to expose his errors and fantasies, two of the most distinguished were Jortin and Leland. Dr. Jortin had ob jected to Warburton's theory of the Sixth Eneid; and Dr. Leland to his notion of the Eloquence of the Evangelists; and both with great respect and moderation. Warburton would not, or could not answer;- but his faithful esquire was at hand; and two anonymous pamphlets, from the pen of Dr. Richard Hurd, were sent forth, to extol Warburton, and his paradoxes, beyond the level of a mortal; to accuse Jortin of envy, and to convict Leland of ignorance and error. Leland answered for himself; and, in the opinion of "What could make that important blockhead all the world, completely demolished his anknow whom) preach against me at St. James'? tagonist. Jortin contented himself with laughHe never met me at Court, or at Powis or New-ing at the weak and elaborate irony of the castle-House. And what was it to him, whether the Jews had a future life? It might be well for such as him, if the Christians had none neither!Nor, I dare say, does he much trouble himself about the matter, while he stands foremost, amongst you, in the new Land of Promise; which, however, to the mortification of these modern Jews, is a lit le disant from that of performance."-p. 55. Bishop's anonymous champion, and with wondering at his talent for perversion. Hurd never owned either of these malignant pamphlets; and in the life of his friend, no notice whatever was taken of this inglorious controversy What would have been better forgotten, how ever, for their joint reputation, is judiciously brought back to notice in the volume now be-ing, than the immediate prospect of this fore us; and Warburton is proved by his learned man's death, who had once been his letters to have entered fully into all the paltry friend, that he gives vent to this liberal imkeenness of his correspondent, and to have putation. indulged a feeling of the most rancorous hostility towards both these excellent and accomplished men. In one of his letters he says, "I will not tell you how much I am obliged to you for this correction of Leland. I have desired Colone Harvey to get it reprinted in Dublin, which I takut a proper return for Leland's favour in London." We hear nothing more, however, on this subject, after the publication of Dr. Leland's reply. With regard to Jortin, again, he says, "Next to the pleasure of seeing myself so finely praised, is the satisfaction I take in seeing Jortin mortified. I know to what degree it will do it; and he deserves to be mortified. One thing I in good earnest resented for its baseness," &c. In another place, he talks of his "mean, low, and ungrateful conduct;" and adds, "Jortin is as vain as he is dirty, to imagine that I am obliged to him," &c. And, after a good deal more about his "mean, low envy," ," "the rancour of his heart," his "selfimportance," and other good qualities, he speaks in this way of his death "Had he had, I will not say piety, but greatness of mind enough not to suffer the pretended injuries of some churchmen to prejudice him against reli gion, I should love him living, and honour his memory when dead. But, good God! that man, for the discourtesies done him by his miserable fellow-creatures, should be content to divest him the asylum, &c. &c. is perfectly astonishing. I self of the true viaticum, the comfort, the solace, believe no one (all things considered) has suffered more from the low and vile passions of the high and low amongst our brethren than myself. Yet, God forbid, &c."—pp. 40, 41. When divines of the Church of England are spoken of in this manner, it may be sup posed that Dissenters and Laymen do not meet with any better treatment. Priestley F accordingly, is called "a wretched fellow; and Dr. Samuel Johnson, who, in spite of considerable temptations to the contrary, had spoken with great respect of him, both in his preface to Shakespeare and in his notes, is thus rewarded by the meek and modest ecclesiastic for his forbearance. I of an H "The remarks he makes in every page on my "I see by the papers that Jortin is dead. His commentaries, are full of insolence and malignant | overrating his abilities, and the public's underra- reflections, which, had they not in them as much ting them, made so gloomy a temper eat, as the an- folly as malignity, I should have had reason to bei cients expressed it, his own heart. If his death dis-offended with. As it is, I think myself obliged to tresses his own family, I shall be heartily sorry for him in thus setting before the public so many this accident of mortality. If not, there is no loss-my notes with his remarks upon them; for, though even to himself!"-p. 340. have no great opinion of that trifling part of the public, which pretends to judge of this part of That the reader may judge how far con- literature, in which boys and girls decide, yet 1 troversial rancour has here distorted the fea- think nobody can be mistaken in this comparison; tures of an adversary, we add part of an though I think their thoughts have never yet ex admirable character of Dr. Jortin, drawn by tended thus far as to reflect, that to discover the ne who had good occasion to know him, as gacity to restore it to sense, is no easy task: But corruption in an author's text, and by a happy sa appeared in a work in which keenness, when the discovery is made, then to cavil at the andour, and erudition are very singularly conjecture, to propose an equivalent, and defend lended. "He had a heart which never dis-nonsense, by producing, out of the thick darkness aced the powers of his understanding.-it occasions, a weak and faint glimmering of sense With a lively imagination and an elegant out) is the easiest, as well as dullest of all literary (which has been the business of this Editor through taste, he united the artless and amiable negli- efforts."-pp. 272, 273. gence of a schoolboy. Wit without ill-nature, and sense without effort, he could, at will, catter on every subject; and, in every book, e writer presents us with a near and distinot view of the man. He had too much discernment to confound difference of opinion with malignity or dulness; and too much candour to insult, where he could not persuade. He carried with him into every subject which he explored, a solid greatness of soul, which could spare an inferior, though in the offensive form of an adversary, and endure an equal, with or without the sacred name of a friend."* Dr. Middleton, too, had happened to differ from some of Warburton's opinions on the rigin of Popish ceremonies; and accordingly he is very charitably represented as having renounced his religion in a pet, on account of the discourtesy of his brethren in the church. It is on an occasion no less serious and touch • See preface Two Tracts by a Warburtonian. p. 194. It is irksome transcribing more of these insolent and vindictive personalities; and we believe we have already extracted enough, to satisfy our readers as to the probable effect of this publication, in giving the world a just impression of the amiable, playful, and af fectionate character of this learned prelate. It is scarcely necessary, for this purpose, to refer to any of his pathetic lamentations over his own age, as a "barbarous age," an "ime pious age," and "a dark age,"to quote murmurs at the ingratitude with which own labours had been rewarded,-or, indea to do more than transcribe his sage and mag nanimous resolution, in the year 1768, to be gin to live for himself-having already live. for others longer than they had deserved of him." This worthy and philanthropic person had by this time preached and written him self into a bishopric and a fine estate; and, at the same time, indulged himself in every sort of violence and scurrility against those from whose opinions he dissented. In these E ne V circumstances, ve really are not aware either | ready to run back naked to the deserts, as on the how he could have lived more for himself, or less for others, than he had been all along doing. But we leave now the painful task of commenting upon this book, as a memorial of his character; and gladly turn to those parts of it, from which our readers may derive more unmingled amusement. The wit which it contains is generally strong and coarse, with a certain mixture of profanity which does not always seem to consort well with the episcopal character. There are some allusions to the Lady of Babylon, which we dare not quote in our Presbyterian pages. The reader, however, may take the following:"Poor Job! It was his eternal fate to be persecuted by his friends. His three comforters passed sentence of condemnation upon him; and he has been executing in effigie ever since. He was first bound to the stake by a long catena of Greek Fathers; then tortured by Pineda! then strangled y Caryl; and afterwards cut up by Westley, and anatomised by Garnet. Pray don't reckon me amongst his hangmen. I only acted the tender part of his wife, and was for making short work with him! But he was ordained, I think, by a fate like that of Prometheus, to lie still upon his dunghill, and have his brains sucked out by owls.. One Hodges, a head of Oxford, now threatens us with a new Auto de Fè."-p. 22. We have already quoted one assimilation of the Church to the Ark of Noah. This idea is pursued in the following passage, which is perfectly characteristic of the force, the vulgarity, and the mannerism of Warburton's writing: "You mention Noah's Ark. I have really for got what I said of it. But I suppose I compared the Church to it, as many a grave divine has done before me.-The rabbins make the giant Gog or Magog contemporary with Noah, and convinced by his preaching; so that he was disposed to take the benefit of the ark. But here lay the distress; it by he could not enter in, he contented himself to ride upon it astride. And though you must suppose that, in that stormy weather, he was more than half-boots over, he kept his seat and dismounted safely, when the ark landed on Mount Ararat.Image now to yourself this illustrious Cavalier mounted on his hackney: and see if it does not bring before you the Church, bestrid by some lumpish minister of state, who turns and winds it at his pleasure. The only difference is, that Gog believed the preacher of righteousness and religion." no means suited his dimensions. Therefore, as pp. 87, 8 , 88. The following is in a broader and more ambitious style, yet still peculiar and forcible. After recommending a tour round St. James' Park, as far more instructive than the grand tour, he proceeds "This is enough for any one who only wants to study men for his use. But if our aspiring friend would go higher, and study human nature, in ari for itself, he must take a much larger tour than that of Europe. He must first go and catch her n dressed, nay, quite naked, in North America, and at the Cape of Good Hope. He may then examine how she appears cramped, contracted, and buttoned close up in the straight tunic of law and custom, as in China and Japan; or spread out, and enlarged above her common size, in the long and flowing robe of enthusiasm amongst the Arabs and Saracens; or, lastly, as she flutters in the old rags of worn-out policy and civil government, and almost Mediterranean coast of Africa. These, tell him, the citizen of the world, to contemplate. The are the grand scenes for the true philosopher, for Tour of Europe is like the ertertainment that Plutarch speaks of, which Pompey's host of Epirus gave him. There were many dishes, and they had a seeming variety; but when he came to examine them narrowly, he found them all made out of one hog, and indeed nothing but pork differently dis guised. "Indeed I perfectly agree with you, that a scholar by profession, who knows how to employ his time in his study, for the benefit of mankind, would be more than fantastical, he would be mad, to go ram. bling round Europe, though his fortune would permit him. For to travel with profit, must be when his faculties are at the height, his studies matured, and all his reading fresh in his head. But to waste a considerable space of time, at such a period of life, is worse than suicide. Yet, for all this, the knowledge of human nature (the only knowledge, in the largest sense of it, worth a wise man's con cern or care) can never be well acquired without seeing it under all its disguises and distortions, arising from absurd governments and monstrous religions, in every quarter of the globe. Therefore, I think a collection of the best voyages no despicable part of a philosopher's library. Perhaps there will. be found more dross in this sort of literature, ever when selected most carefully, than in any other. But no matter for that; such a collection will contain a great and solid treasure."—pp. 111, 112. These, we think, are favourable specimens of wit, and of power of writing. The bad jokes, however, rather preponderate. There is one brought in, with much formality, about his suspicions of the dunces having stolen the lead off the roof of his coachhouse; and two or three absurd little anecdotes, which seem to have, no pretensions to pleasantry-but that they are narratives, and have no serious meaning. To pass from wit, however, to more serious matters, we find, in this volume, some very striking proofs of the extent and diligence of this author's miscellaneous reading, particularly in the lists and characters of the authors to whom he refers his friend as authorities for a history of the English constitution. In this part of his dialogues, indeed, it appears that Hurd has derived the whole of his learning, and most of his opinions, from Warburton. The following remarks on the continuation of Clarendon's History are good and liberal: "Besides that business, and age, and misfortunes had perhaps sunk his spirit, the Continuation is not so properly the history of the first six years of Charles the Second, as an anxious apology for the share himself had in the administration. This has hurt the composition in several respects. Amongst others, he could not, with decency, allow his pen that scope in his delineation of the chief characters of the court, who were all his personal enemies, as he had done in that of the enemies to the King and monarchy in the grand rebellion. The endeavour to keep up a show of candour, and especially to prevent the appearance of a rancorous resentment, has deadened his colouring very much, besides that it made him sparing in the use of it; else, his inimitable pencil had attempted, at least, to do justice to Bennet, to Berkley, to Coventry, to the nightly cabal of facetious memory, to the Lady, and, if his excessive loyalty had not intervened, to his infamous master himself. With all this, I am apt to think there may still be something in what I said of the nature of the subject. Exquisite virtue anc Hurd: : enormous vice afford a fine field for the historian's | memory, we think it our duty to lay one ơ genius. And hence Livy and Tacitus are, in their them at least before our readers. Warburton way, perhaps equally entertaining. But the little had slipped in his garden, and hurt his arm intrigues of a selfish court, about carrying, or defeating this or that measure, about displacing this whereupon thus inditeth the obsequious Dr and bringing in that minister, which interest nobody very much but the parties concerned, can hardly be made very striking by any ability of the relator. If Cardinal de Retz has succeeded, his scene was busier, and of a another nature from that of Lord Clarendon."-p. 217. "I thank God that I can now, with some assur ance, congratulate with myself on the prospect of your Lordship's safe and speedy recovery from yur sad disaster. "Mrs. Warburton's last letter was a cordial to His account of Tillotson seems also to be me; and, as the ceasing of intense pain, so this fair and judicious. "As to the Archbishop, he was certainly a virtuous, pious, humane, and moderate man; which last quality was a kind of rarity in those times. I think the sermons published in his lifetime, are fine moral discourses. They bear, indeed, the character of their author,-simple, elegant, candid, clear, and rational. No orator, in the Greek and Roman sense of the word, like Taylor; nor a discourser, in their sense, like Barrow ;-free from their ir regularities, but not able to reach their heights; on which account, I prefer them infinitely to him. You cannot sleep with Taylor; you cannot forbear thinking with Barrow; but you may be much at your ease in the midst of a long lecture from Tilfotson, clear, and rational, and equable as he is. Perhaps the last quality may account for it." pp. 93, 94. The following observations on the conduct of the comic drama were thrown out for Mr. Hurd's use, while composing his treatise. We think they deserve to be quoted, for their clearness and justness: "As those intricate Spanish plots have been in use, and have taken both with us and some French writers for the stage, and have much hindered the main end of Comedy, would it not be worth while to give them a word, as it would tend to the further illustration of your subject? On which you might observe, that when these unnatural plots are used, the mind is not only entirely drawn off from the characters by those surprising turns and revolu: abatement of the fears I have been tormented with for three or four days past, gives a certain alacrity to my spirits, of which your Lordship may look to feel the effects, in a long letter! "And now, supposing, as I trust I may do, that your Lordship will be in no great pain when you receive this letter, I am tempted to begin, as friends usually do when such accidents befal, with my reprehensions, rather than condolence. I have often wondered why your Lordship should not use a cant in your walks! which might haply have prevented this misfortune! especially considering that Hea ven, I suppose the better to keep its sons in some sort of equality, has thought fit to make your out ward sight by many degrees less perfect than your inward. Even I, a young and stout son of the church, rarely trust my firm steps into my garden, without some support of this kind! How improvi dent, then, was it in a father of the church to com mit his unsteadfast footing to this hazard!" &c. p. 251. There are many pages written with the same vigour of sentiment and expression, and in the same tone of manly independence. We have little more to say of this curious volume. Like all Warburton's writings, it bears marks of a powerful understanding and an active fancy. As a memorial of his per sonal character, it must be allowed to be at least faithful and impartial; for it makes us acquainted with his faults at least, as distinctly as with his excellences; and gives, indeed the most conspicuous place to the former. It has few of the charms, however, of a collec tion of letters;-no anecdotes-no traits of simplicity or artless affection;-nothing of the softness, grace, or negligence of Cowper's correspondence and little of the lightness of the elegant prattlement of Pope's or Lady Mary Wortley's. The writers always appear busy, and even laborious persons, and per sons who hate many people, and despise many more.-But they neither appear very happy nor very amiable; and, at the end of the There are a few of Bishop Hurd's own let-book, have excited no other interest in the ters in this collection; and as we suppose they reader, than as the authors of their respective were selected with a view to do honour to his publications. tions, but characters have no opportunity even of being called out and displaying themselves; for the actors of all characters succeed and are embarrassed alike, when the instruments for carrying on designs are only perplexed apartments, dark entries, disguised habits, and ladders of ropes. The comic plot is, and must indeed be, carried on by deceit. The Spanish scene does it by deceiving the man through his senses;-Terence and Moliere, by deceiving him through his passions and affections. And this is the right way; for the character is not called out under the first species of deceit,-under the second, the character does all."—p. 57. (November, 1811.) Memoirs of the Political and Private Life of James Caulfield, Earl of Charlemont, Knight of St. Patrick, &c. &c. By FRANCIS HARDY, Esq., Member of the House of Commons in the three last Parliaments of Ireland. 4to. pp. 426. London: 1810.* THIS is the life of a Gentleman, written by a Gentleman, and, considering the tenor of many of our late biographies, this of itself is no slight recommendation. But it is, moreover, the life of one who stood foremost in the political history of Ireland for fifty years preceding her Union, that is, for the whole period during which Ireland had a history or politics of her own-written by one who was a witness and a sharer in the scene, a man of fair talents and liberal views, and distinguished, beyond all writers on recent politics that we have yet met with, for the handsome and indulgent terms in which he speaks of his political opponents. The work is enlivened, too, with various anecdotes and fragments of the correspondence of persons eminent for talents, learning, and political services in both countries; and with a great number of characters, sketched with a very powerful, though somewhat too favourable hand, of almost all who distinguished themselves, during this momentous period, on the scene of Irish affairs. From what we have now said, the reader will conclude that we think very favourably of this book: And we do think it both entertaining and instructive. But (for there is always a but in a Reviewer's praises) it has also its faults and imperfections; and these, alas! so great and so many, that it requires all the good nature we can catch by sympathy from the author, not to treat him now and then with a terrible and exemplary severity. He seems, in the first place, to have begun and ended his book, without ever forming an idea of the distinction between private and public history; and sometimes tells us stories about Lord Charlemont, and about people who were merely among his accidental acquaintance, far too long to find a place even in a biographical memoir;-and sometimes enlarges upon matters of general history, with which Lord Charlemont has no other connection, than that they happened during his life, with a minuteness which would not be tolerated in a professed annalist. The biography again is broken, not only by large patches of historical matter, but by miscellaneous reflections, and anecdotes of all manner of persons; while, in the historical part, he successively makes the most unreasonable presumptions on the reader's knowledge, his ignorance, and his curiosity, overlaying him, at one time, with anxious and uninteresting details, and, at another, omitting even such general and summary notices of the progress of events as are necessary to connect his occasional narratives and reflections. The most conspicuous and extraordinary of his irregularities, however, is that of his style;-which touches upon all the extremes of composition, almost in every page, or every paragraph;—or rather, is entirely made up of those extremes, without ever resting for an instant in a medium, or affording any pause for softening the effects of its contrasts and transitions. Sometimes, and indeed most frequently, it is familiar, loose, and colloquial, beyond the common pitch of serious conver sation; at other times by far too figurative, rhetorical, and ambitious, for the sober tone of history. The whole work indeed bears more resemblance to the animated and versatile talk of a man of generous feelings and excitable imagination, than the mature production of an author who had diligently corrected his manuscript for the press, with the fear of the public before his eyes. There is a spirit about the work, however,-independent of the spirit of candour and indulgence of which we have already spoken,-which redeems many of its faults; and, looking upon it in the light of a memoir by an intelligent contemporary, rather than a regular history or profound dissertation, we think that its value will not be injured by a comparison with any work of this description that has been recently offered to the public. The part of the work which relates to Lord Charlemont individually, though by no means the least interesting, at least in its adjuncts and digressions,-may be digested into a short summary. He was born in Ireland in 1728; and received a private education, under a succession of preceptors, of various merit and assiduity. In 1746 he went abroad, without having been either at a public school or an university; and yet appears to have been earlier distinguished, both for scholarship and polite manners, than most of the ingenuous youths that are turned out by these celebrated seminaries. He remained on the Continent no less than nine years; in the course of which, he extended his travels to Greece, Turkey, and Egypt; and formed an intimate and friendly acquaintance with the celebrated David Hume, whom he met both *I reprint only those parts of this paper which at Turin and Paris-the President Montesrelate to the personal history of Lord Charlemont, quieu-the Marchese Maffei--Cardinal Albani end some of his contemporaries :-with the excep.Lord Rockingham-the Duc de Nivernoistion of one brief reference to the revolution of and various other eminent persons. He had 1782, which I retain chiefly to introduce a remarkable letter of Mr. Fox's on the formation rather a dislike to the French national characand principles of the new government, of that ter; though he admired their literature, and the general politeness of their manners. year. |