to write in prose, numeris lege solutis?' It may be found in every line, but certainly in all the finest passages. Take the exquisite address to Eve, already referred to, at almost any part, from the beginning, which we have cited, to the end. But neither breath of morn, when she ascends With charm of earliest birds, nor herb, fruit, flower So the famous morning prayer Fountains, and ye that warble as ye flow, From hill or streaming lake, dusky or grey, 44 His praise, ye winds, that from four quarters sweep, Nay, the marvellous description of Death is itself as simple in the diction as may be; and can any thing exceed its power? In all this there is nothing inflated, swollen, unnatural; nothing of solid or treatable smoothness' or trencher fury'-or 'flowing at waste' or 'Dame Memory'-or conscience God's 'secretary' or ' conscience retching' and men splitting their 'faith',-nothing of irrevoluble and dateless' or ' inseparable 'hands'—or even of 'over measure.' The same language might be used in a speech at this day, where the subject was grave, and the matter was duly wrought up, and the hearers prepared. In all the description of Death, there is not a word above the common standard of conversation—not a phrase out of the ordinary way of speaking. Does Dr Channing imagine it to be the less powerful because of this plainness? Indeed, even if many inflated passages should be shown in the poetry, what an account of a prose style is it to say, that it is always of the same inflation with certain passages of a poem undertaking to describe Heaven and Hell, and record the battles of devils with the Almighty and his seraphic host? But it is also to be added, that, find out inflated passages when you may, and in whatever numbers, the admiration of ages has been stamped upon the others, as the glory of Milton's name, and that these others are written in a style as plain, as perspicuous, as natural, as the prose diction is turgid and out of nature. ART. X.-The State in its relations with the Church. By W. E. GLADSTONE, Esq., Student of Christ Church, and M. P. for Newark. 8vo. Second Edition. London: 1839. HE of this volume is a young man of unblemished Tcharacter, and of distinguished parliamentary talents, the rising hope of those stern and unbending Tories, who follow, reluctantly and mutinously, a leader, whose experience and cloquence are indispensable to them, but whose cautious temper and moderate opinions they abhor. It would not be at all strange if Mr Gladstone were one of the most unpopular men in England. But we believe that we do him no more than justice when we say, that his abilities and his demeanour have obtained for him the respect and good will of all parties. His first appearance in the character of an author is therefore an interesting event; and it is natural that the gentle wishes of the public should go. with him to his trial. We are much pleased, without any reference to the soundness or unsoundness of Mr Gladstone's theories, to see a grave and elaborate treatise on an important part of the Philosophy of Government proceed from the pen of a young man who is rising to eminence in the House of Commons. There is little dangerthat people engaged in the conflicts of public life will be too much addicted to general speculation. The opposite vice is that which most easily besets them. The times and tides of business and debate tarry for no man. A politician must often talk and act before he has thought and read. He may be very illinformed respecting a question; all his notions about it may be vague and inaccurate; but speak he must; and if he is a man of talents, of tact, and of intrepidity, he soon finds that, even under such circumstances, it is possible to speak successfully. He finds that there is a great difference between the effect of written words, which are perused and reperused in the stillness of the closet, and the effect of spoken words, which, set off by the graces of utterance and gesture, vibrate for a single moment on the ear. He finds that he may blunder without much chance of being detected, that he may reason sophistically, and escape unrefuted. He finds that, even on knotty questions of trade and legislation, he can, without reading ten pages, or thinking ten minutes, draw forth loud plaudits, and sit down with the credit of having made an excellent speech. Lysias, says Plutarch, wrote a defence for a man who was to be tried before one of the Athenian tribunals. Long before the defendant had learned tho speech by heart, he became so much dissatisfied with it, that he went in great distress to the author. "I was delighted with your speech the first time I read it: but I liked it less the second time, and still less the third time; and now it seems to me to be no defence at all." "My good friend," said Lysias, "you quite forget that the judges are to hear it only once.' The case is the same in the English parliament. It would be as idle in an orator to waste deep meditation and long research on his speeches, as it would be in the manager of a theatre to adorn all the crowd of courtiers and ladies who cross over the stage in a procession with real pearls and diamonds. It is not by accuracy or profundity that men become the masters of great assemblies. And why be at the charge of providing logic of the best quality, when a very inferior article will be equally acceptable? Why go as deep into a question as Burke, only in order to be, like Burke, coughed down, or left speaking to green benches and red boxes? This has long appeared to us to be the most serious of the evils which are to be set off against the many blessings of popular government. It is a fine and true saying of Bacon, that reading makes a full man, talking a ready man, and writing an exact man. The tendency of institutions like those of England, is to encourage readiness in public men, at the expense both of fulness and exactness. The keenest and most vigorous minds of every generation, minds often admirably fitted for the investigation of truth, are habitually employed in producing arguments, such as no man of sense would ever put into a treatise intended for publication, arguments which are just good enough to be used once, when aided by fluent delivery, and pointed language. The habit of discussing questions in this way necessarily reacts on the intellects of our ablest men; particularly of those who are introduced into parliament at a very early age, before their minds have expanded to full maturity. The talent for debate is developed in such men to a degree which, to the multitude, seems as marvellous as the performances of an Italian improvisatore. But they are fortunate, indeed, if they retain unimpaired the faculties which are required for close reasoning, or for enlarged speculation. Indeed, we should sooner expect a great original work on political science, such a work, for example, as the 'Wealth of Nations'-from an Apothecary in a country town, or from a Minister in the Hebrides, than from a statesman who, ever since he was one-and-twenty, had been a distinguished debater in the House of Commons. We, therefore, hail with pleasure, though assuredly not with unmixed pleasure, the appearance of this work. That a young politician should, in the intervals afforded by his parliamentary avocations, have constructed and propounded, with much study and mental toil, an original theory on a great problem in politics, is a circumstance which, abstracted from all consideration of the soundness or unsoundness of his opinions, must be considered as highly creditable to him. We certainly cannot wish that Mr Gladstone's doctrines may become fashionable among public men. But we heartily wish that his laudable desire to penetrate beneath the surface of questions, and to arrive, by long and intent meditation, at the knowledge of great general laws, were much more fashionable than we at all expect it to become. Mr Gladstone seems to us to be, in many respects, exceedingly well qualified for philosophical investigation. His mind is of large grasp; nor is he deficient in dialectical skill. But he does not give his intellect fair play. There is no want of light, but a great want of what Bacon would have called dry light. Whatever Mr Gladstone sees is refracted and distorted by a false medium of passions and prejudices. His style bears a remarkable analogy to his mode of thinking, and indeed exercises great influence on his mode of thinking. His rhetoric, though often good of its kind, darkens and perplexes the logic which it should illustrate. Half his acuteness and diligence, with a barren imagination and a scanty vocabulary, would have saved him from almost all his mistakes. He has one gift most dangerous to a speculator,-a vast command of a kind of language, grave and majestic, but of vague and uncertain import,-of a kind of language which affects us much in the same way in which the lofty diction of the chorus of Clouds affected the simple-hearted Athenian. ᾧ γῆ τοῦ φθέγματος, ὡς ἱερὸν, καὶ σεμνὸν, καὶ τερατῶδες. When propositions have been established, and nothing remains but to amplify and decorate them, this dim magnificence may be in place. But if it is admitted into a demonstration, it is very much worse than absolute nonsense;—just as that transparent haze, through which the sailor sees capes and mountains of false sizes, and in false bearings, is more dangerous than utter darkness. Now, Mr Gladstone is fond of employing the phraseology of which we speak in those parts of his work which require the utmost perspicuity and precision of which human language is capable; and in this way, he deludes first himself, and then his readers. The foundations of his theory, which ought to be buttresses of adamant, are made out of the flimsy materials which are fit only for perorations. This fault is one which no subsequent care or industry can correct. The more strictly Mr Gladstone reasons on his premises, the more absurd are the conclusions which he brings out; and when at last his good sense and good nature recoil from the horrible practical inferences to which his theory leads, he is reduced sometimes to take refuge in arguments inconsistent with his fundamental doctrines; and sometimes to escape from the legitimate consequences of his false principles, under cover of equally false history. It would be unjust not to say, that this book, though not a good book, shows more talent than many good books. It contains some eloquent and ingenious passages. It bears the signs of much patient thought. It is written throughout with excellent taste and excellent temper; nor is it, so far as we have observed, disfigured by one expression unworthy of a gentleman, a scholar, or a Christian. But the doctrines which are put forth in it appear to us, after full and calm consideration, to be false; to be in the highest degree pernicious; to be such as, if followed out in practice to their legitimate consequences, would inevitably produce the dissolution of society: and for this opinion, we shall proceed to give our reasons with that freedom which the importance of the subject requires, and which Mr Gladstone, both by precept and by example, invites us to use, but, we hope, without rudeness, and, we are sure, without malevolence. Before we enter on an examination of this theory, we wish to guard ourselves against one misconception. It is possible that some persons who have read Mr Gladstone's book carelessly, and others who have merely heard in conversation, or seen in a newspaper, that the member for Newark has written in defence of the Church of England against the supporters of the Voluntary System, may imagine that we are writing in defence of the voluntary system, and that we desire the abolition of the Established Church. This is not the case. It would be as unjust to accuse us of attacking the Church, because we attack Mr Gladstone's doctrines, as it would be to accuse Locke of wishing for anarchy, because he refuted Filmer's patriarchal theory of government; or to accuse Blackstone of recommending the confiscation of ecclesiastical property, because he denied that the right of the rector to tithe was derived from the Levitical law. It is to be observed, that MrGladstone rests his case on entirely new grounds; and does not differ more widely from us than from some of those who have hitherto been considered as the most illustrious champions of the Church. He is not content with the Ecclesiastical Polity,' and rejoices that the latter part of that celebrated work 'does not carry with it the weight of Hooker's plenary autho'rity.' He is not content with Bishop Warburton's Alliance of Church and State.' The propositions of that work generally,' he says, are to be received with qualification;' and he agrees with Bolingbroke in thinking, that Warburton's whole |