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ness of filial piety and the softenings of natural affection; the gentle melancholy, that the incessant memory of so indulgent a parent and so excellent a man will make habitual, will be always heightened with the sense of his present happiness; where, perhaps, one of his pleasures is his ministering-care over those which are dearest to him in life. I dare say this will be your case, because the same circumstances have made it mine.' pp. 202, 203.

I rejoice when I find a similarity of our fortunes, in the gentler parts of humanity. My mother, somewhat less indebted to years, though not to the infirmities of them, at length fell asleep, and departed, in all the tranquility and ease that your mother did. The last leave she took of all human concerns, as she winged her way into the bosom of our common God and Father, was an anxious enquiry concerning my welfare: which, being assured of, she immediately closed her eyes for ever. But I must turn mine from this tender subject, which will give us both relief." pp. 473, 4.

There is something, too, very sweet and soothing in such occasional reflections as the following.

• I think you have oft heard me say, that my delicious season is the Autumn, the season which gives most life and vigour to my mental faculties. The light mists, or, as Milton calls them, the steams, that rise from the fields in one of these mornings, give the same relief to the views, that the blue of the plum (to take my ideas from the season) gives to the appetite. But I now enjoy little of this pleasure, compared to what I formerly had in an Autumn-morning, when I used with a book in my hand, to traverse the delightful lawns and hedge-rows round about the town of Newark, the unthinking place of my nativity.'-p. 437.

The part which the Bishop of Worcester takes in this correspondence is not very considerable. He is, after his usual manner, sensible and correct, though seldom very striking or very original. His letters, too, are rather constrained and artificial; sometimes indeed servile; and he is too fond of encouraging his patron's propensity to vindictive satire. Where, however, there is no literary animosity to be gratified he manifests great sweetness and amenity of tem per; and appears to have fulfilled the relative duties of life with no common fidelity. Nothing, indeed, can be more simple and touching than the evidences he so frequently affords of filial tenderness and affection. The ensuing little piece of family history cannot, we are persuaded, be read without interest.

• I believe I never told you how happy I am in an excellent father and mother, very plain people you may be sure, for they are farmers, but of a turn of mind that might have honoured any rank and any education. With very tolerable, but in no degree affluent circumstances, their generosity was such, they never regarded any expence that was in their power, and almost out of it, in whatever concerned the welfare of their children. We are three brothers of us. The eldest settled very re

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putably in their own way, and the youngest in the Birmingham trade. For myself, a poor scholar, as you know, I am almost ashamed to own to you how solicitous they always were to furnish me with all the opportunities of the best and most liberal education. My case in so many particulars resembles that which the Roman poet describes as his own, that with Pope's wit I could apply almost every circumstance of it. And if ever I were to wish in earnest to be a poet, it would be for the sake of doing justice to so uncommon a virtue. I should be a wretch if I did not conclude, as he does,

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Fascibus et sellis nolim mihi sumere: demens

Judicio vulgi, sanus fortasse tuo.

In a word when they had fixed us in such a rank of life as they designèd, and believed should satisfy us, they very wisely left the business of the world to such as wanted it more, or liked it better. They considered what age and declining health seemed to demand of them, reserving to themselves only such a support as their few and little wants made them think sufficient. I should beg pardon for troubling you with this humble history; but the subjects of it are so much and so tenderly in my thoughts at present, that if I writ at all, I could hardly help writing about them.' PP 161, 2.

We must conclude our quotations, with the account which he gives of the manner in which he was induced to seek the acquaintance of Warburton.

For the first years of my residence in the University, when I was labouring through the usual courses of Logic, Mathematics, and Philosophy, I heard little of your name and writings: and the little I did hear, was not likely to encourage a young man, that was under direction, to enquire further after either. In the mean time I grew up into the use of a little common sense; my commerce with the people of the place was enlarged. Still the clamours increased against you, and the appearance of your second volume opened many mouths. I was then Batchelor of Arts; and, having no immediate business on my hands, I was led, by spirit of perverseness, to see what there was in these decried volumes, that had given such offence.

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To say the truth, there had been so much apparent bigotry and inso lence in the invectives I had heard, though echoed, as was said, from men of note amongst us, that I wished, perhaps out of pure spite, to find them ill-founded. And I doubt I was half determined in your favour before I knew any thing of the merits of the case.

The effect of all this was, that I took the Divine Legation down with me into the country, where I was going to spend the summer of, I think, 1741, with my friends. I there read the three volumes at my leisure, and with the impression I shall never forget. I returned to College the winter following, not so properly your convert, as all over spleen and prejudice against your defamers. From that time, I think, I am to date my friendship with you. There was something in your

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mind, still more than in the matter of your book, that struck me. word, I grew a constant reader of you. I enquired after your other works. I got the Alliance into my hands, and met with the Essay on Portents and Prodigies, which last I liked the better, and still like it, because I understood it was most abused by those who owed you no good will. Thins were in this train when the Comment on Pope appeared. That Comment, and the connection I chanced then to have with Sir Edward Littleton, made me a poor critic and in that condition you found me. I became, on the sudden, your acquaintance; and am now happy in being your friend. You have here a slight sketch of my history; at least, of the only part of it which will ever deserve notice." pp. 214-216.

On the whole, although we do not apprehend that the letters of Warburton here published are likely to do all that honour to his memory which Bishop Hurd seems disposed to conjecture, we are persuaded they will tend to place his character in somewhat a fairer light. They do great credit to the force and aptitude of his understanding, and manifest, we think, a more friendly and affectionate temper than he has usually been supposed to possess. It is needless to say any thing more on the intemperate sallies of spleen and vanity which occasionally disgrace them; and for any reflections which might arise from the secular cast of the correspondence, we must content ourselves with referring to those already expressed in our review of the Letters of Bishop Nicolson*. Art. IX. Strictures on two Critiques in the Edinburgh Review on the Subjects of Methodism and Missions; with Remarks on the Influence of Reviews in general on Morals and Happiness. In three Letters to a Friend. By John Styles. 8vo. pp. 156. price 3s. 6d. Williams and Co. 1808.

IT is chiefly as a mark of respect for Mr. Styles's zeal in the cause of religion, that we notice this pamphlet after it has been upwards of a year before the world. At so late a period, it is scarcely possible that any remark of ours can render the smallest service either to the advocate or the cause. The trivial hindrances which prevented our recommending his pamphletin due time, would not, however, have been allowed to operate, had we thought it very necessary to interfere. On the contrary, he found a most efficient though unintentional patron, in the journal he undertook to answer. The very notice of his performance, which that supercilious work was reduced to the necessity of taking, while it passed over the attacks of other pamphleteers in total silence, was of itself such an extraordinary compliment as could not fail to give him notoriety and importance. And when the kind of notice, when the mode of defence was observed--when

*Vol. VI. pp. 61, 62.

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temperate reasoning was parried by ridicule, misrepresentation, and falsehood,-its warmest admirers (as we have had the means of knowing) were compelled to acknowledge its defeat. It was well known the doughty phalanx would not stoop to throw mud, till they were disarmed of more formidable weapons and driven from firmer ground. It is pretty well known all over England, what sort of people the bulk of the dissenters, methodists, and evangelical churchmen are: and it was evident that no man would hazard his character for common sense by calling them collectively nasty and numerous vermin' or 'consecrated coblers,' if he had any other resource than invective. Indeed it was doubted whether the mere necessity of the case would have urged any writer to such extremities, who was not enraged to desperation, and rendered absolutely blind and mad with the rancour of mortified vanity and defeated malice. Among unprejudiced and reflecting men, we are persuaded the critique has been as useful as the pamphlet; and we congratulate Mr. S., not only on having boldly and successfully attacked the vilifiers of Christian zeal, but on drawing forth such a despicable defence as amounts to a virtual acknowledgement of their guilt. The only thing which could give him the least uneasiness, in reading this wretched lampoon, must have been his unfortunate mistake of the word kime,' (a misprint of the word knife in the critique on Missions) for an instrument in use among the Hindoos. He has doubtless consoled himself under the laugh, by reflecting, that his ignorance and heedlessness in adopting the term from the Review (which had not it corrected in the errata) was at any rate no greater than that of the editor in suffering it to be printed and in future, we presume, he will not rely too implicitly upon the correctness of every thing he meets with in the work.

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We are not called upon now to describe the contents or discuss the merits of this production. It exposes, very sufficiently, the irreligious spirit and artful calumnies of the Reviewer; satisfactorily refutes several of his sophistical reasonings; and offers a shrewd explanation of his motives, from certain circumstances of secret history which the author appears to regard as authentic. If there is any truth in the explanation, we are not surprised that the Reviewer should grow outrageous, and lose all sense of decency in the vehemence of his revenge. There is no part of the pamphlet, however, more striking, than those in which this journal is convicted of two most glaring inconsistencies, we might rather say flat contradictions. When the reviewers would discourage missions to Africa, they. remonstrate against the absurdity of preaching the most abstruse mysteries of our

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holy religion' [so they call it!] to savages who scarcely can count ten; and inculcating a care of their immortal souls to misérable creatures, who, with all their labours, can scarcely find subsistence for their bodies. The order of providence,' they add, clearly recommends that those children of penury should first get into easier circumstances, and then be made converts to religious tenets.' Now this, perhaps, would be our own opinion, if experience had not proved over and over again, as well in Africa as in Greenland and the West Indies, that preaching these abstruse mysteries' was a very concise and compendious way of putting the savages into easier cir cumstances. But, at any rate, there could be no doubt of obtaining the Reviewers' concurrence, in promoting missions to a civilized people. Alas! the tables are turned directly they say we must not preach even to the Hindoos; and they have a reason for this too. The greatest zeal,' they tell us, should plainly be directed to the most desperate misery and ignorance. Now, in comparison to many other nations who are equally ignorant of the truths of Christianity, the Hindoos are a civilized and moral people!" When a missionary would instruct the savage, they drive him away to the civilized: when he gets to the civilized, they drive him away to the savage: any thing, in short, so they can but drive him away. In exactly the same strain, the Baptist Missionaries are, in one place, branded as such extravagant and pernicious' fanatics, that their absence from their own country is a public benefit; they are benefiting us more by their absence, than the Hindoos by their advice.' Yet the same reviewer, the very same clerical reviewer, is actually found to day of these very same men, that their presence in our own country would be more useful than it can be in India! We have no hesitation'-no? what no hesitation? We have no hesitation in saying, that there is scarcely a parish in England or Ireland, in which the zeal and activity of any one of these Indian apostles would not have done more good-repressed more immorality-and awakened more devotion-than can be expected from their joint efforts in the populous regions of Asia!* Such is the pious logic of our clergyman, when he writes in a review! Such is the consistency of irreligion! We are indebted to Mr. Styles for detecting the cloven foot even under a gown and cassock.

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There are several things in this pamphlet, however, which we do not approve. He has not succeeded any better than might have been expected, in clearing up the doctrine of particular providence. His reflections on the doctrine of regeneration in baptism, whatever may be their justness, border too much upon levity; and his estimate of the

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