this pleasant way? We see no reason why a clergyman should be denied the privilege of writing miscellaneous pieces in which wit and drollery are employed for good purposes, provided he never violates the sanctity of a religious character. When thus occupied he is not in the pulpit, nor is it the sabbath day. He cannot, it is true, condescend to any thing low or vulgar; the sentiment and manner of his writing must be pure as the waters of Zion; but must all his words be measured by the rule which prescribes the subject, the manner and the external seriousness of his official discourses? May he not, like other men, think, and feel, and write, on other subjects than religion? May not the corruscations of wit play upon his pages, and a story occasionally proceed from his pen, which shall overpower the gravity of his reader? For the tendency of all his writings he is responsible to his Maker, and to the world, and this he must keep constantly in view; but who shall deny him the liberty of throwing off his professional character when he wishes to render a service, which is not directly religious, to the literature, or the morals, or the miscellaneous character of his times?

We have of late been led to fear, that our clergy, at the present day, are becoming too neglectful of the literary interests of our country. Not, that they do not exercise a commendable watchfulness over our seminaries of learning; this they do but they do not interest themselves, as we think they might do with advantage to the cause of religion, in the character of our periodical, and other literature. Few among them, so far as our acquaintance extends, are what we term literary men. Their reading, and their writing, is mostly confined to professional topics, or to the common-place matters of the day, which have no connection with letters. Now we are aware of the almost insupportable load of ministerial duties which presses upon the clergymen of our times, when, according to custom, he must preach and visit as much in three months as, perhaps, the venerable divines of NewEngland, in former days, did in a year. We know, also, the thousand objects, connected with the state of the times, which solicit his attention, but with which our fathers had nothing to do. this we know, and commiserate the man who is obliged to carry such a burden; but still, is it not possible, and would it not be better on the whole, 'even for the interests of religion, for those of our ministers, who, when entering on their profession, have a fondness for literary matters, and are qualified to exert a commanding influence on the literature of their times, to keep up their acquaintance with polite learning and science, to such a degree, that they might contribute their portion to the literary journals, and standard miscellaneous works of their native country? We would not have them neglect an iota of professional duty, or diverge into any path,

that would endanger, in the least degree, their usefulness as the ministers of relgion. We would have "UNITY OF PURSUIT" written in capitals in every minister's study. But would not the firm and decided resolution, of a young clergyman of talents, to be and act the part of a literary man, be such a stimulus to his mental powers, and such a motive to industry, as to enable him to accomplish more in his profession, in addition to his miscellaneous reading and writing, than he would accomplish in it if he gave himself wholly up to the prescribed duties of his vocation, and determined to do nothing more than they required of him? What pastor in our country has not hours of leisure, which, would he appropriate them to well-directed literary effort, might yield him an amount of pleasure and profit, and the community an amount of usefulnesss altogether beyond our ordinary calculations? Resolution has been said to be omnipotent; add to it untiring and well-directed industry, and the language is scarcely hyperbole. We were struck, on reading, not long since, an obituary notice of the late chief justice of the United States, by a proof of the power of industry in that extraordinary man. His public career was one of unremitted toil. His adjudications, and the drawing up of the decisions of the court, must have cost an immense amount of labor. He was the author of an elaborate biography of the Father of his country, the last edition of which work was almost re-written from the first. And, in addition to all his other labors, he kept up an extensive and thorough acquaintance with the polite and miscellaneous literature of the day. He often corresponded, with one of his associates on the bench, on purely literary topics. Now who does not see, that it would have been a very easy, and a very natural thing for him to have done nothing more than his official station demanded? If he had loved leisure better than he did effort and its results, he would never have been a biographer, nor a literary man.

It seems to be a somewhat current opinion, that our literary journals are not open to articles on subjects on which it would be appropriate and profitable for clergymen to write. But this we believe to be a mistake. There is not a quarterly, nor hardly a monthly, in our land, in which subjects both moral and religious may not be presented and discussed, if sectarianism is not suffered to intrude itself into them. And who, when writing for the public on any general topic, wishes to be sectarian?

From what we have said above, it might be inferred, that we believe a man may have as high a purpose in writing a volume of essays, as another may have in writing a book on some strictly religious subject. His object may be to do good, and one on which he may conscientiously ask the blessing of heaven. We know not the feelings with which the Spectator was begun, but the commencement of the Rambler was a matter of great importance with

So

its author, hardly less than that of the work whose immortal author invoked the aid, to his adventurous song, of that Spirit who can illumine what is dark, and what is low raise and support. desirous was Dr. Johnson to benefit the age by this production, that he began to write with the solemnity of a preparatory prayer. In a volume of his devotions, published after his death, we find the following; entitled "Prayer for the Rambler." "Almighty God, the giver of all good things, without whose help all labor is ineffectual, and without whose grace all wisdom is folly,-grant, I beseech thee, that in this my undertaking, thy HOLY SPIRIT may not be withheld from me, but, that I may promote thy glory, and the salvation both of myself and others. Grant this, O Lord, for the sake of JESUS CHRIST, Amen." Perhaps some might deem so solemn a prayer, on such an occasion, inappropriate; but we cannot but venerate the conscientiousness, and deep sense, both of dependence and responsibility, by which it was called forth. At the time it was written Dr. Johnson was not a pious man, in the evangelical sense of the words; but was not that part of his petition which related to his own salvation verified in his subsequent conversion, near the closing scene of his life? That the other parts of his prayer, respecting the glory of God, and the salvation of his fellow-men, have been in some degree fulfilled, we cannot doubt, when we consider the incalculable influence of this single production of the British moralist on the minds of nearly all who have read the English language since his day.

That the essay is a species of writing in which it is not easy to excel, will be doubted by none who have attempted it. Addison, who spoke from experience, has declared it to be more difficult to write a series of periodical papers than to compose a book on a definite subject. The readers of such papers demand a sprightliness, originality and vigor of manner, in the author, which they do not expect in writings of a more dignified and commanding form. Things must be said in a way to catch the attention of the reader. The writer must take his game on the wing. Argument must be adorned and pointed with anecdote and illustration. Short pithy paragraphs must embody the substance of long and elaborate chapters in works intended to give a complete view of a particular subject. A volume of Thomas Aquinas must be thrown into the crucible, and the quintessence of his metaphysics brought within the ready apprehension of the cursory reader, and the whole fabric of

We write wholly from memory, and our recollections are not sufficiently distinct for us to say, whether the doctor ever gave any decided evidence of true piety before he lay upon his dying bed. Our impression is that he did not; and though, as "touching the law," he had been almost blameless, yet that his conversion was subsequent to the publication of the Rambler.

Sir Isaac Newton's philosophy, be so skillfully drawn in miniature, that the eye can take it in at a glance. The great ocean of truth is not to be spread out to run in its length and breadth, but its surface must be made to sparkle in beautiful phosphorescence, as the light skiff careers over its deep, unfathomable waters. The writer needs a versatility or adroitness, or what we may term an intellectual slight of hand, by which he may captivate the indifferent eye, charin the attention, and light up the vacant mind with unknown kindlings of thought. He must be a man of extensive reading, as well as of observation. If he is a little given to revery, and loves to live a short time, now and then, in the world of his own imagination, it will be no obstacle in the way of his success. The author of the Rambler, had he been somewhat more etherial and imaginative, would have been a greater favorite with the public. But why should we describe the needful qualifications of the essayist? We will only say, that he must be diligent, and make thorough preparation for his work, if he expects his name and influence to live like those of the British Essayists. Before commencing the Spectator, Addison collected three manuscript volumes of facts and references, and to this sort of diligence the interest of many of his papers is especially to be attributed. His ingenuity turned every acquisition, however trivial, to account.

It is often said, that, as yet, we have had no popular essayists,— and it is true, that we have had nothing in this department of literature which can be compared to the productions of British pens. No wonder we have not. We have had few men of letters with sufficient leisure, or, perhaps, industry, to give themselves to this species of writing. Most of the talent which might have obtained a name in this department of literary effort, has been spent in political or religious contests, in explaining or enforcing more weighty practical matters. Still, we have our Franklin, our Dickinson, our Dennie, our Sampson, and several other anonymous authors, whose productions, were they collected, would make a very respectable appearance by the side of their transatlantic predecessors. And last of all we have John Oldbug, Esquire, who, as his papers are published in two neat little volumes, and his name appears to be of English, and, we presume, of respectable origin, may perhaps be received in the mother country with the appropri ate title of the American Essayist.

On opening the work under review we were pleased to meet with the patriotic recognition, on the part of the author, of the country of his birth and residence. He acknowledges, that he is an American. This he says he has attempted to remember in every page, and to write for the wants and manners of just such a people as those among whom he was born. He rightly finds fault with our authors, for leaving, so generally, the scenes and society

of their own country for those of foreign lands. We are glad to see, that, as he is an American writer, he is neither afraid nor ashamed to write about things which exist, and treat them as they exist in America. We have often felt strong regret, and foreign critics have often sneered, at the imported character of all our literature. Even in the description of scenes purely domestic, we have loved to mingle just enough that is foreign to spoil the picture. We have not, in this respect, been true to nature, nor so patriotic as the writers of most countries. Nor have we judged aright as to the best means of interesting those who turn over our pages. Our authors have too generally disregarded a great principle of human nature, which is, to love home, and to be pleased with writings of a domestic character. They have written as though their pens could transport their readers to the shores of old England, or the classic land of Italy, or interest them in foreign scenes and manners more deeply than they could be interested in the delineations of life and nature as found among themselves. Our poets have been wont to tell us of the nightingale when they would awaken our admiration of the music of the feathered tribe; and when they would show us the beauties of a plain sheet of water, they have spread out before us some Loch Leven or Loch Lomond. When they would give us an idea of the sublimity of mountain scenery, they have almost uniformly invited our eyes to the snowy peaks of the Alps. The Tiber and the Thames have been the rivers about which almost every American has delighted to employ his pen. Now we do not object to it in the author who writes for the literary portion of the community, that he should introduce these foreign scenes into his pieces; we know, that the classic associations connected with old countries, where lived and died the authors whom he has read and studied from his childhood, are always most grateful and refreshing to the scholar we cannot even pen this paragraph without being transported, in imagination, to those regions in which we have lived, and given all our sympathies, for the time being, to the people and the times, while reading Homer, Virgil, Goldsmith, Cowper, Thomson, Burns and Scott, but we object to substituting foreign for domestic pictures in works intended for general circulation. The geography of our country is more important to an American than that of any distant land, and it should be taken for granted, that it is better understood by the great majority of readers. The writer who talks of the Andes, or the Alleghanies, or the White mountains; or the St. Lawrence, the Hudson, or the Mississippi, must be much more intelligible and interesting to the great body of American readers, than one who is so classic as to live all the time on the other side of the Atlantic. The poet who sings of the whippowil, or of the bob o'lincoln, will do more to charm the mind of