tive of my publication was-not merely justifiable-but cogent and imperious."

Mr. Bowles then proceeds to defend the authority on which he made his assertions:

"This authority was no less than a clergyman of the Church of England, who related to me the facts in question, not indeed, in the shape of a vague rumour, or a current and untraced report, but as communicated to him by the clerk of the parish where the nobleman, to whom they related, actually resided, and in the parochial church of that nobleman!

"But Mr. Adam seems not disposed to allow me the benefit of Mr. Agutter's testimony; for he says "upon the hearsay of Mr. Agutter you publish as facts matter to make good your charge." I might object to this construction, on the ground that it involves an attempt to fetter the investigation of a case before the public, by those technical rules which have been adopted, from necessity, in forensick proceedings. But the tribunal of the public cannot be bound by those rules. There all witnesses may be heard, and all circumstances may be brought forward in the best manner that the nature of the case will allow."

In the present instance, the remarks made on an injudicious defender of a former Duke of Bedford may be applied to Mr. Adam. "He will not permit us to judge of the motives of men by the manifest tendency of their actions, nor by the notorious character of their minds. He calls for papers and witnesses with a triumphant security, as if nothing could be true but what could be proved in a court of justice," "But," as Mr. Bowles observes:

"Even Mr. Agutter is an unexceptionable witness, for the purpose for which alone I can desire to call him. For the object of his testimony is to prove, not the disputed facts about the fishpond, and the payment of labourers, but that I was justified in stating them, because they were derived from the authority of Mr. Edward Mansell. Having given this evidence, he withdraws, and leaves Mr. Edward Mansell to account, for having authorised the assertion of those facts, as well as he may be able.

"On the above point the evidence of Mr. Agutter is conclusivė as well as competent. No one, I presume will deny, that if, being at Woburn myself, I had there received the information in question from the mouth of Mr. Edward Mansell, I should have been fully justified, as far as authority could justify me, in communicating it to others. Now I assert, without fear of contradiction, that, with regard to the weight of testimony, I stand precisely on this ground; and that, to me, in point of authority,

Mr.

Mr. Agutter was, to all intents and purposes, the same person as Edward Mansell. For otherwise I must have supposed it possible, for a clergyman of the Church of England to have fabricated the whole story-to have forged a foul calumny against the memory of a nobleman, just before removed from the world by a most awful and sudden visitation of Providence-to have fathered this calumny upon an unoffending old man, who might be thereby involved in misery and ruin-to have, moreover, endeavoured to impose upon the confidence of a friend, in order to make him the instrument of promulgating so base a falsehood, which, however, could scarcely fail at last to revert to its real author-and to have done all this without any conceivable motive, without any assignable cause. Laying aside the sacredness of the clerical character, no one, I conceive, could easily be induced to impute such deep and aggravated guilt-such a combination of folly and depravity-to any of his fellow-creatures."

Having thus established the purity of his motives for his original publication, and the competence of the authority on which he relied, Mr. Bowles justifies his refusal to publish the statement drawn up by Mr. Adam, under the imperious terms prescribed by that gentleman, a compliance with which," says Mr. Bowles:

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"Would have been the most disgraceful mode, that could be devised, of criminating myself before the public; since it would have amounted to a confession, that I had wantonly and maliciously calumniated the memory of a deceased nobleman. In pro portion as I value the public estimation, I rejoice that instead of thus appearing as a self-convicted calumniator, I am now entitled to plead, not merely a complete justification of my whole conduct on this occasion-and that in regard to candour, as well as authority-but also a conscientious, and I trust not altogether an useless discharge of one of the most important duties, that can belong to a member of society."

He then, in that strain of rational piety that pervades Mr. Bowles's writings, animadverts on the pernicious speech of Mr. Fox, which first gave rise to the discussion. We wish that our limits would allow us to introduce them. We cannot, however, refrain from quoting the conclusion of this excellent pamphlet, as it cannot fail of giving pleasure, from the animation of the language and the solidity of the truth which it inculcates:

"The place too where the eulogy was pronounced, tended greatly to heighten its effect. If there be a place which, beyond

all

all others (independently of those consecrated to devotion), des mands a most solemn testimony to the importance of Religion, whenever the world is called to form an estimate of human worth-that place is parliament. For there, on such an occaslan, to omit such testimony, by pourtraying, as a perfect model, a character in the delineation of which no religious qualities are to be found, is to convert the high authority that is entrusted with the security and maintenance of religion, into an instrument to bring religion into neglect; and by a short but natural transition, into contempt.

"In thus pointing out the natural effects of a speech, against which I have felt it my duty to put the public on their guard, far be it from me to impute to the speaker any intention of producing such effects. That honourable gentleman must himself shudder at the conclusions into which, for want of consideration, he has been betrayed by the enthusiasim of friendship. He cannot but abhor the doctrine which, unintentionally, he has been the means of inculcating, that religion is not essential to perfection of character..: A doctrine which tends to deprive society of its main pillar; to take from man his chief comfort in life, and his. only hope in death, his appointed guide to virtue here, and to eternal felicity hereafter. At all times such a doctrine must be fraught with incalculable mischief; but it must be peculiarly mischievous at a time when thoughtlessness and levity have taken place of that seriousness of mind, that solidity of character, by which the British nation has been so long distinguished; a time too so awfully eventful, as to warrant an apprehension that we may soon have urgent occasion for the aid of religion, to support us under trials far more severe than any that we or our ancestors have ever experienced.

"Happily a very high authority now stands forward to put to silence the teachers of such doctrines. The laudable solicitude, manifested by the Duke of Bedford, to vindicate his brother's character from the charge of irreligion, while it does honour to his Grace's feelings, is the best possible confutation of Mr. Fox's speech, and of Mr. Cartwright's sermon. For nothing can be better calculated than that solicitude, evinced as it has been by the publication of the Correspondence, to impress upon the public mind the important truth, with which both the speech and the sermon were at direct variance-that Religion, Independently of its higher objects, is necessary to entitle.a man to the approbation and esteem of his fellow-creatures,

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The Guardian of Education. By Mrs. Trimmer.

(Concluded from Page 390 of our lust Volume.)

WING to a variety of intervening circumstances, we have not been able to finish our observations on this excellent and most useful Work; and now that a -new Series of the Orthodox Churchman's Magazine has commenced, we shall not have the gratification of dwelling so much at length upon it as we could wish; consistently with the sixth article of our late Address to the Public, which obliges us to compress our Review of Books into as close a compass as possible. The violence we do to our feelings on this occasion, will prove the respect we pay to a standing rule.

In reading the Guardian, we made many notes, and acumulated materials for several pages. Instead of using them in the aggregate, we must select a portion of them from the mass.

In Number IV. page 244, the reader will find a most admirable critique on a book intituled " Bible Stories, &c.' in which the artifices of the friends of the new order of things, are exposed in a very masterly way. It formed a part of the plan of those Pioneers of the revolutionary Corps, the Encyclopedists, to insinuate their principles into the youthful mind, by means of small Tracts expressly written for children. The editor of this Story-Book, reared on the basis of the sacred volume, contrives very ingeniously to praise, and at the same time to degrade the Bible. In the very title-page the inspired penmen are "ranked with the authors of Profane History, by calling them, affectedly, "Original Historians;' and THE HISTORIES CONTAINED IN THE BIBLE are put on "a level with common Histories for Children." The author of this precious book, a parent himself, composed it, because he could not find, among the numerous works which, for the last 20 years have been published for the use of children, one which he could with satisfaction put into the hands of his own !!!" He seems " to recom mend the SACRED VOLUME as a book to be preferred to all others for exercising the Imaginations of "Children. Vol. VI. Churchm. Mag. April, 1804. Nn "IMAGI

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"IMAGINATION (says he) is the ground-plot upon which the edifice of a sound morality must be erected. Without imagination we may have a certain cold, arid, circle of principles, but we cannot have sentiments: we may learn by rote a catalogue of rules, and repeat our lesson with the exactness of a parrot, or play over our tricks with the docility of a monkey; but we can neither ourselves love, or be fitted to excite the love of others.

"IMAGINATION is the characteristic of man. The dexterities of logic, or of mathematical deduction, belong rather to a wellregulated machine; they do not contain in them the living principle of nature. It is the heart which most deserves to be cultivated, not the rules which may serve us in the nature of a compass to steer us through the difficulties of life; but the pulses which beat with sympathy, and qualify us for the habits of charity, reverence, and attachment. The intellectual faculty in the mind of youth is fully intitled to the attention of parents and instructors; but parents and instructors will perform their office amiss, if they assign the first place to that which is only intitled to the second."

"That this," says Mrs. Trimmer, "is the language of modern philosophy we scarcely need observe, and we hope every parent who has not unfortunately imbibed its principles (which by their natural tendency, and the just judgment of GOD bring the mind into spiritual darkness), will discern the folly, as well as wickedness, of leaving children to form their own principles, and regulate their own manners, without lesson or rule, as the wild flights of an unbridled imagination shall direct; instead of teaching the lessons given to mankind by DIVINE WISDOM, and the rules prescribed by DIVINE AUTHORITY-for bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of CHRIST, as the Gospel requires. Logic and Mathematics, we are ready to allow, do not contain in them the " living principle of our nature," neither is it to be found in the feelings of that false sympathy which, so far from qualifying those who indulge it for the habits of charity, reverence, and attachment," destroys them all, and substitutes the fictitious virtues of philanthrophy, mental energy, and sensibility in their stead.

How the heart is to be cultivated by the force of imagination only is to us inconceivable? We are told by God himself, that the imagination of the heart of man is evil from his youth; and we are persuaded that this will be fully exemplified in those who have been accustomed in their earliest days to be led by it.

Mr. William Scolfield, for that it seems, is the name of the extractor of these Bible stories, never loses sight of what we may fairly presume to be his main object; "there are no stories in the world," says he, "so exqui