passing by. In a few years, materials and elucidations, now to be obtained, might have existed no longer.

It was to be wished, then, that some competent person should undertake the task; some one, I mean, whose feelings would be interested by the subject, and yet who would be so untrammelled by party connexions, as to be determined at once to say all that was necessary, and nothing but what was true. In point of fact, I believe Mr. Southey possessed these qualifications more fully than, perhaps, any other who could be thought of for such a purpose. I am far from supposing that he possessed them absolutely: I mean, only comparatively. It is certain that he connected John Wesley and Methodism with the civil and moral interests of the country in a way neither narrow nor unfair; and, therefore, was prepared to estimate particular circumstances with less unfriendly prepossession than most who had heretofore adverted to the subject.

Mr. Southey accordingly acknowledges the deep necessity which existed, at the era of John Wesley's entrance on his career, for some means of rousing the English public from its religious torpor; and with whatever alloy he charges the religious spirit which John Wesley was the instrument of diffusing, he allows it to have been, in its substance, sincere and upright. He, therefore, regards John Wesley as a real, though not unqualified benefactor to his country; while, to countless individuals, he considers his teaching as a vehicle of the greatest blessing to be attained on earth.

To John Wesley's personal character, Mr. Southey does still ampler justice. I am even surprised at the happiness of the sketch in the first fifteen lines of the paragraph which begins on the 54th page of the 2d volume; indeed, the greater part of that 15th chapter gives so interesting a selection from John Wesley's journal, as almost to evince some natural congeniality between the mind which afforded, and the mind which culled out, such apt specimens of an amiable and highly gifted nature, as well as of ardent zeal and devoted piety.

But I am sorry to say, that the pleasure afforded by this and other similar passages, is grievously abated by the charge which Mr. Southey so strongly maintains, and so frequently repeats, of ambition and love of power being the secret spring of John Wesley's conduct, as the leader of a religious community.

This imputation is to me the greatest matter of annoyance in the whole work. Charges of credulity, precipitancy, or even fanaticism, do not necessarily affect the moral character. Be these weaknesses ever so palpable, the heart may, nevertheless, be upright toward both God and man. But systematic ambition is a poisonous worm at the root, whose influence must contaminate the whole of inward and outward life, principle, temper, intention, and action.

I deny not, that, on a superficial view, many parts of John Wesley's conduct might seem to evince a strongly ambitious mind; but Mr. Southey, as a philosopher, ought to have reflected, that, according to the laws of human nature, the vice which

he imputed was inconsistent with the virtues which he acknowledged. "No man can serve two masters," is not more the voice of incarnate wisdom than of experimental common sense; and it is no less certain, on the same ground of Divine authority and human experience, that "every one who practises sin is the slave of sin." Could John Wesley, then, have been absorbed in a passion, at once as selfish and as fascinating as any which actuates corrupt statesmen, or more corrupt demagogues, and yet enjoy a "cheerfulness" like " "perpetual sunshine" (p. 54), from "the approbation of his own mind-the certainty that he was employed in doing good to his fellow-creatures, and the full persuasion that the Spirit of God was with him in his work?" Could this singular gaiety of conscience have so maintained itself except in the cloudless atmosphere of a pure heart? But, could such a thing be, if ambition ruled within? In this case, would even John Wesley's outward conduct have been "irresistibly winning?" Would not temper have been, at least sometimes, soured? Would not the opposition of refractory men, whom he himself had raised from the plough or the workshop to the power of annoying him, have galled his heart and clouded his brow? According to Mr. Southey himself, there was nothing of this kind. Yet, had power been his idol, could he have wholly wanted these symptoms; or, had they existed, could he have wholly suppressed them? Surely, if, in the moral as in the material world, the same fountain does not produce sweet water and bitter, no other ambition than that of doing

the greatest possible good, could coexist with the qualities to which Mr. Southey bears testimony.

I allow, however, that John Wesley had a certain love of power. He was, as Mr. Southey often observes, formed for power; and, a faculty eminently possessed cannot be exercised without pleasure. Had John Wesley, therefore, lost his power, he would possibly have felt himself less in his congenial element. But, there was no more moral evil in this natural relish than in a healthy person's liking to take his food. The highest natural pleasure in eating does not make a man an epicure, provided his palate be completely under his control so soon as the call of nature is satisfied; and if, in the intervals, he does not dwell upon his meals as ingredients in the happiness of his life. Just so, I conceive, John Wesley could not but feel pleasure in the exercise of that "dominion” which, as Mr. Southey says, he "had established for himself in the hearts of his followers;" but I am equally convinced, it was a pleasure of simple sensation, and not of ruminating reflection. I think I ought to argue thus, even from the premises which Mr. Southey has furnished; but, from my own close and impartial observation, I am persuaded, that John Wesley was as free from all really ambitious designs, contrivances, solicitudes, and chagrins, as the child in the Gospel whom our Redeemer placed in the midst of his disciples as a model of humility.

Yet, as I have said, had Southey been a superficial thinker, or had he gone less deeply into the excellences of John Wesley's moral character, it

would have been natural for him to account, as he has done, for the continued intensity, and apparently deep laid policy, with which the Methodist society was both formed and conducted. But, competent as Mr. Southey was to look beyond appearances, and disposed to ascribe virtues to John Wesley incompatible with any gross inconsistency of principle or temper, he might have found, in the natural ardour of his constitution, in the singularly prompt acuteness of his intellect, in the uncommon combination of circumstances in which he was placed, and in the parental attachment he must have had to the community of which he conceived himself the providential guardian, as well as author, and which, to the last, he believed the most perfect practical institute in the Christian world; in these particulars, I say, Mr. Southey might have found sufficient explanation of John Wesley's most questionable movements, without the necessity of tarnishing his fame, or injuring the portrait which he himself, in executing it, seems to regard with liberal pleasure.

But, I am sorry to say, that, on another account, I have felt sincere regret in reading Mr. Southey's volumes I mean, that he treats the objectionable features of Methodism rather with a half sceptical ridicule than with sober animadversion.

I am quite of opinion, that, in a history of Methodism, those embarrassing particulars could not have been left out. It was the duty of a faithful historian to speak of things as they were-nothing extenuating, nor setting down aught in malice. In truth, to have stated the virtues and benefits of