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family of Routhillier, that he was born the 9th of January 1626, and died the 28th of October 1700. The last room which was exhibited was the library, which though not large is yet well furnished with a good collection of books and some excellent portraits; among these last are the pictures of our James the Second, the late and present pretender, and Cardinal York. (To be continued).

We fear that some of our poetical correspondents may be dissatisfied with our seeming inattention to their contributions: they must ascribe it, in a great measure, to the writer of the following letter, whose rebuke has led us carefully to reconsider some of those pieces which we had intimated an intention of admitting.

To the Editor of the Christian Observer. I READ your Miscellany with much pleasure, and am jealous of whatever may tend to lower its character, and thereby diminish its usefulness. Permit me then, as a friend, to expostulate a little with you on your too great facility in inserting the pieces of your poetical correspondents. Essays in prose admit of all shades and degrees of merit and demerit, but poetry must be either good or bad. The sentence pronounced by Horace on moderate poetry, was not more just in his age than it is in the present day. I shall refer to no particular stanzas which have appeared in the Christian Observer, because I have a sincere respect for your correspondents, and should be concerned to give pain to any of them; but some have been published by you, so much below the general merit of your work, that, I must say, the best apology I can make for you is similar to that which was made for, not indeed a great publisher, but a great writer, of verses in ancient days; aliquando bonus dormitat Homerus. Unfortunately, if a comparison were made between your verses and his, sent abroad when neither of you were in a nodding humour, I am afraid you would not, like him, be able to produce passages, the splendour of which may fairly intitle you to expect your readers to pass by the spots and deformities, that slip into your work during your nods.

I do not believe, that what I com

plain of is to be, in any degree, attributed to a notion on your part, that the general superiority of your miscellany intitles you to take occasional liberties with your readers, when you wish to oblige a poetical friend. You have heard, no doubt, as well as myself, of a great statesman of modern times, who, conscious of his merit, appeared to disdain to take the smallest pains to soften the coarseness of his Scottish dialect; and of a great orator, who seemed to think, on similar grounds, that no one had a right to complain of his uncombed head and dirty coat. I really do not at all suspect you of a similar offence against modesty and propriety; and I should not have mentioned this subject, if I had been equally certain that some of your poetical correspondents, less judicious than yourself, may not be disposed to think, that when the matter of their compositions is edifying, occasional offences against the rules of good taste are mere peccadillos, beneath their attention, or that of so religious a description of readers as those may be presumed to be who take in the Christian Observer. I fear this mode of reasoning is not very uncommon among Christians. Learned ladies have had the character of being slatterns: may not some religious gentlemen share this opprobrium with them, in what is more important than dress-in manners, in slovenly habits of composition, and in vulgar and disagreeable tones of voice, when they deliver their compositions from the pulpit? Though the pearl in the possession of a faithful minister of the Gospel be, indeed, the “pearl of great price," yet who would put such a pearl into an unsightly casket; especially when it is considered, that a number of the hearers in most congregations are tolerable, if not good, judges of the casket, but are ill-qualified to form a due estimate of the worth of the pearl?

Having taken the liberty of finding a little fault with your conduct as to poetry, I am bound in justice to say, that (with the exception of one or two pieces which appeared in your early numbers), you appear to me not to have laid yourself fairly open to a similar criticism with regard to the prose essays, &c. in your work. Now and then I may have thought there was a little room for blame; but with very few exceptions, and those

not flagrant ones, you have offered to the public a mental repast, in which genuine Christianity has been united with learning and politeness; and surely it has not appeared to less advantage in any point of view on account of this union.

R. T. B.

To the Editor of the Christian Observer. THE writer of the Life of Simon Peter is much obliged to your correspondent H. O. for pointing out a passage that seems to recommend a temper, which he thinks liable to reprehension; nor is he reluctant to acknowledge the justice of H. O.'s censure. At the same time he assures your correspondent, that the careless passage in question only seems to recommend a temper, which it never was his intention to countenance. The passage produced from a sermon as nearly parallel to the one censured in the Lite of the Apostle, viz. "That mind which is too timorous to sink to a vice, will never soar to a virtue," is of a nature so unequivocal, that it can hardly be supposed to fall from the pen of a writer, who derives his morals from the Gospel. Had the biographer of St. Peter really intended to recommend the temper, he inaccurately and unhappily seems to approve, however the passages in question might differ in terms, they would nearly, if not identically, convey the same sense; establishing a fatal alliance between vice and virtue, and making the one the necessary result of the other. This false principle is so pointedly exposed in the fourth number of the Rambler, that I cannot forbear citing the passage.

"Some have advanced," says Dr.

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Johnson, “ without due attention to the consequences of this notion, that certain virtues have their correspondent faults. Thus men are observed by Swift to be grateful in the same degree they are resentful.' This principle, with others of the same kind, supposes man to act from a brute impulse, and pursue a certain direction the object; for, otherwise, though it of inclination, without any choice of should be allowed that gratitude and resentment arise from the same constitution of the passions, it follows not that they will be equally indulged when reason is consulted; yet unless that consequence be admitted, this sagacious maxim becomes an empty sound, without any relation to prac tice or to life. Nor is it evident, that even the first motions to these effects are always in the same proportion; for pride, which produces quickness of resentment, will obstruct gratitude, by unwillingness to admit that inferiority which obligation implies; and it is very unlikely that he who cannot think he receives a favour, will acknowledge or repay it. It is of the utmost importance to mankind, that positions of this tendency should be laid open and confuted; for while men consider good and evil as springing from the same root, they will spare the one for the sake of the other; and, in judging, if not of others, at least of themselves, will be apt to estimate their virtues by their vices. To this fatal error all those will contribute, who confound the colours of right and wrong; and, instead of helping to settle their boundaries, mix them with so much art, that no common mind is able to disunite them."

REVIEW OF NEW PUBLICATIONS.

XCVI. The Life and Posthumous
Writings of William Cowper, Esq.
With an introductory Letter to the
Right Honourable Earl Cowper. By
WILLIAM HAYLEY, Esq. Johnson,
2 vols. 4to. £2. 12s. 6d*.
We know not of any biographical
publication more calculated both to

M. H.

awaken and reward curiosity, than the one which is now in our hands. Whoever has read and 'relished the exquisite poetry of Cowper, or heard of his great sufferings and piety, will desire to become acquainted with the circumstances of his life, and the excellencies of his character; and wil

We must complain of this as a very disproportionate price. Without the aid of

a large margin and wide spaces, there is not matter enough to form more than two decent octavos.

CHRIST. OBSERV. No. 18,

acknowledge themselves proportionably indebted to Mr. Hayley, for having furnished an able view of the history of this extraordinary man, and a collection of his interesting letters.

Mr. Hayley was, in some respects, well qualified for the work which he has here accomplished. He was furnished with abundant materials for the composition of it, by the surviving relatives and correspondents of Cowper, with whom he also himself enjoyed an intimate acquaintance, from which appears to have resulted a sincere and animated attachment: he could not, therefore, fail to obtain a considerable insight into the habits and character of his friend*.

In the arrangement of Cowper's Letters, Mr. Hayley has shewn considerable judgment. In recounting the incidents of his life, he seems anxious to give a fair statement of facts; and in delineating Cowper's character, and displaying the merits of his writings, he seldom suffers the sober impartiality of the biographer to be lost in the affectionate admiration of the friend. He has very properly chosen to let Cowper speak for himself, whenever it was possible, by quoting his correspondence; and in interspersing explanations and comments he is, in general, rather sparing than profuse; but those which he has introduced are, with a few exceptions, judicious and useful, and tend to illustrate his subject: in short, by this publication, Mr. Hayley has given to the public a work, the interest of which will remain undiminished as long as epistolary elegance, sublime, and simple poetry, and genuine piety, are relished by mankind.

It is but reasonable to expect, that in such a work some sentiments or expressions should occur, which render it necessary to qualify the language of general praise with occasional disapprobation. The instances, however, are not numerous.

Speaking of Cowper's education,

*It must, however, be acknowledged, that the religious part of Cowper's character is that which was the least accurately understood, and is the least definitively described by Mr. Hayley. This circumstance appears from several passages, in which Mr. Hayley's inadequate comprehension of this important subject renders his representations and reasonings incorrect and unsatisfactory.

Mr. Hayley says, "With these acquisitions he left Westminster, at the age of eighteen, in 1749; and as if desti ny had determined that all his early situations should be peculiarly irksome, &c. &c." (Vol. I. p. 11.) Again, speaking of his residence in the house of a Mr. Chapman, Mr. Hayley says, "Here he was placed for the study of a profession, which nature seemed resolved that he never should practise." (Ibid.) To the use of the terms "destiny" and "nature,' in the foregoing passages, we have a strong objection; and we must express our serious concern, that Mr. Hayley should sanction the use of phrases which favour the prevailing disposition of mankind to overlook God and his providence, by referring events to agents which human ignorance, or heathen superstition, has invested with the government of the world.

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We are very sorry, that when Mr. Hayley mentioned Foote's Comedy of the Minor, (Vol. I. p. 111,) he entirely omitted to express any degree of disapprobation of that miserable piece of buffoonery, which no man, who feels the least respect for religion, could read without disgust, and which no writer, who regards public decen cy and morality, should name without censure. In this mass of profane ness and vulgar ribaldry, it is religion itself, and not merely an individual teacher of it, that is held up by the irreligious dramatist to public ridicule. It were easy to prove this by many quotations; but respect for the feelings of our readers forbids our transcribing any of them. And here we cannot but notice, that Mr. Hayley seems through the whole of his work to have too much proceeded on the plan of censuring no one, and of lavishing profuse and undistinguishing commendation on all whom he was called to mention.

In the 256th page of the second vo lume, Mr. Hayley having justly observed, that Cowper's poem of the Task has its blemishes (what human composition has not?) adds "the greatest of them is that tone of aspe rity in reproof, which I am persuaded its gentle and benevolent author caught unconsciously from his frequent perusal of the prophets."

We regret that Mr. Hayley should have conceived so very objectiona ble an opinion; and still more, that

66

he should have so confidently avowed The record now before us furnishes, it. Other poets, who, perhaps, never we conceive, sufficient evidence of read a line in any one of the prophets the justice of this opinion-“The inin their lives, have displayed far more fancy of Cowper," says his biogra asperity than the author of the Task. pher, was delicate in no common Whatever may be the keenness of degree, and his constitution discoverCowper's rebukes, they may surely ed, at a very early season, that morbe accounted for without resorting to bid tendency to diffidence, to meso bold a measure as to charge the lancholy, and despair, which darkenword of God with a contagious aspeed as he advanced in years into perity. We would also point out as lia- riodical fits of the most deplorable de ble to misconstruction in the connec- pression." (Vol. I. p. 6.) tion in which they stand, such expressions as "innocent,' perfect exemption," &c. (Vol. I. p. 28. and p. 66.)

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The incidents of Cowper's life, though it was for the most part past in retirement, are pregnant with interest and instruction. The record of even his boyish days is not unimportant, and especially serves to expose the absurd, injurious, and barbarous custom, of subjecting the members of the junior classes of public schools to the arbitrary and, generally, tyrannical sway of those who occupy the higher forms. However this custom may be defended, (and some have attempted to defend it,) the grounds assumed by its advocates must be entirely independent of Christianity, And the principle generally resorted to for the vindication of it, however it may consist with the dwarfish policy of curing one evil by encouraging or tolerating another, is, and ever must be, completely repugnant to the spirit and dictates of that religion. The deep and dreadful sufferings with which it pleased God to afflict Cow per, in the middle and more advanced periods of his life, are detailed by Mr. Hayley with great delicacy, and yet with as much minuteness as was necessary for the purpose of information. In the instance of Cowper we see some of the noblest and most vigorous exertions of intellectual ability, interrupted by an affecting suspension of the operations of the reasoning faculties, and darkened by long periods of deep mental dejection. The source of derangement in so energetic and excellent a mind, as to its secondary cause, (for the first cause cannot be questioned), is a subject of useful and interesting enquiry. Our firm and clear persuasion is, that it originated solely in the circumstances of his bodily constitution, and that it was in no degree increased by his religious principles or impressions.

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When Cowper was only twentythree years old, he described himself, in a short poem, as being assailed by gloomy thoughts led on by spleen." (p. 15.) That when he thus described himself he had no very serious impressions of religion is evident, from his having, in this same short poem, twice repeated the sacred name of God in a light and irreverent manner. Our readers need not be told, that whatever indications of piety may appear in an individual, they will all be disproved by a vain and trifling use of any of the titles of God, either in writing or conversation. It is evident, indeed, that at a period still later, Cowper did not possess those views of Christian truth which he afterwards embraced; since he applauded the Sir Charles Grandison of Richardson as a "hero and a saint."

It is also observable, that the immediate effect of his attaining juster views of religion is represented (p. 28) as consolatory and cheering; and the following extract from the fiftythird page is quite decisive on the subject.

"I am stout enough in appearance, yet a little illness demolishes me. I have had a severe shake, and the building is not so firm as it was: but I bless God for it with

all my heart. If the inner man be but strengthened day by day, as I hope under the renewing influences of the Holy Ghost it will be, no matter how soon the outward is dissolved. He who has in a man

ner raised me from the dead, in a literal sense, has given me the grace I trust to be ready at the shortest notice, to surren der up to him that life, which I have twice received from him. Whether I live or die, I desire it may be to his giory, and it must be to my happiness. I thank God that I have those amongst my kindred to whom I

can write without reserve of sentiments

upon this subject, as I do to you. A letter upon any other subject is more insipid to me than ever my task was when a school-boy; and I say not this in vain glory, God forbid! but to shew you what the Almighty, whose name I am unworthy

to mention, has done for me the chief of sinners. Once he was a terror to me, and his service, oh, what a weariness it was! Now I can say I love him and his holy name, and am never so happy as when I speak of his mercies to me." (p. 53.)

months, to examine the parliamentary journals, his application was rendered useless by that excess of diffidence, which made him conceive, that, whatever knowledge he might previously acquire, it would all forsake him at the bar of the house. This

distressing apprehension increased to such a degree as the time for his appearance approached, that when the day so anxiously dreaded arrived, he was unable to make the experiment. The very friends who called upon him for the purpose of atAttending him to the House of Lords, aclinquishing the prospect of a station so sequiesced in the cruel necessity of his reverely formidable to a frame of such singular sensibility." (p. 25.)

At the period to which the above letter refers, Cowper described his manner of life (which was then a life of regular and genuine piety), as consistent with the utmost cheerfulness; and he declares that he, and his friends who were with him, were happy. this time he deliberated on the expediency of taking holy orders; but abandoned the idea, from the invincible repugnance which he always felt to public personal exhibition. In this case his constitutional malady and his religious feelings were so far from being connected, that they were contrasted, and counteracted each other like distinct and hostile principles. At a still more advanced period, he declares, that the deeply impressed persuasion of one of the fundamental truths of religion 66 gave a relish to every blessing, and made every trouble light." (p. 67.)

Mr. Hayley observes (p. 71,) that perhaps the life that Cowper led, on his settling at Olney, had a tendency to increase the morbid propensity of his frame, though it was a life of admirable sanctity." Cowper's life, at the period here referred to, appears, from the preceding part of the paragraph, to have been devoted to religious pursuits. Now it appears clearly to us, that such pursuits were so far from increasing the morbid propensity of his frame, that they produced the very contrary effect; and that they must, at many periods, have kept off, and, in very many cases, alleviated the recurrence of his constitutional disease. That a worldly, public, and diversified course of life would not have been more favourable to the tranquilization of his mind, and the correction of his inherent tendency to depression, can never be questioned, while we remember the circumstances which occurred, and the conduct which he exhibited, when he expected to be called to appear in his official capacity before the

House of Lords.

more

"His terrors," says Mr. Hayley, "on this occasion arose to such an astonishing height, that they utterly overwhelmed his reason; for although he had endeavoured to prepare himself for his public duty, by attending closely at the office, for several

with "

Mr. Hayley having mentioned (p. 86,) the social labours of Cowper, (Mr. Newton), for the purpose of an exemplary man of God" lower classes of the people, says, promoting simple piety among the

"It may be doubted if the intense zeal,

with which Cowper embarked in this fascinating pursuit, had not a dangerous tendency to undermine his very delicate health. Such an apprehension naturally arises from a recollection of what medical writers, of great ability, have said on the awful subject of mental derangement. Whenever the slightest tendency to that misfortune appears, it seems expedient to guard a tender spirit from the attractions of piety itself-so fearfully and wonderfully are we made, that man, in all condiled to think of his Creator, and of his Retions, ought to pray, that he never may be deemer, either too little or too much." (p. 87.)

Certainly, persons possessing such a subjected to such regulations as are tendency as Cowper felt, should be dictated by the experience of those, who are skilled in the nature and mait may be safely conceded, that if the nagement of similar complaints: and attractions of piety are really found to increase such a malady, it may be the mind so far to other subjects, as a necessary duty occasionally to divert to prevent, if possible, the threatened which concludes the above-quoted evil. But with respect to the remark passage, it is so absurd, to say the least, that we feel inclined to impute Hayley. We may add, that the conit to inadvertence on the part of Mr. duct of mankind affords not the least reason for apprehending, that they will think too much of their Creator and Redeemer: and we cannot conceive that a mind of any piety could adopt such a prayer, as Mr. Hayley has here suggested. The impression under

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