And it concluded, without its having left any abiding impression on the mind, without having aroused any new train of thought, or thrown fresh light on any topic, by the opening of the orator's eyes, which had been closed during the greater part of his discourse, and by a graceful flourish of his pockethandkerchief."-Pp. 211-214.

Whether or not this sketch be conceived in the spirit of caricature, or be a faithful portrait, we know not from personal observation; but the description accords but too well with private accounts that have reached our ear. Certain it is that affectation, driven from the bar and the senate, has found in the pulpit an asylum, and there too often displays its little arts, to the admiration of silly boys and women not too wise. Cowper's honest and indignant satire* ought for ever to have routed the disgusting tribe of man-milliners who infest the pulpits of fashionable chapels.

"From such apostles, † O ye mitred heads,

Preserve the Church!-and lay not careless hands
On skulls that cannot teach and will not learn."

A stronger contrast could scarcely be than that which our author has presented in his volume in his description of this preacher at Percy Chapel, and in that of the sage and saint whose portrait we previously copied. How exactly did our late venerated friend realize the poet's noble description of "a preacher" indeed:

66- simple, grave, sincere ;

In doctrine uncorrupt; in language plain;
And plain in manner. Decent, solemn, chaste,
And natural in gesture. Much impressed
Himself, as conscious of his awful charge,
And anxious mainly that the flock he feeds
May feel it too. Affectionate in look
And tender in address, as well becomes
A messenger of grace to guilty men."

That we may not be supposed to select passages from this book under a sectarian bias, we will next give the sketcher's portrait—which he has worked at con amore-of another unsparing opponent of our own religious denomination-of one who has proved the generality and the all but universality of his Christian love, Unitarians being the only religious body whom he treats with harshness and injustice,-we mean the Hon. and Rev. Baptist Noel.

* See The Task, Book ii.

Whether our author is safe from an action for libel and heavy damages for his criticisms on the minister of Percy Chapel, is more than we dare avouch, with the recent extraordinary trial before our eyes, and the monstrous dictum of Judge Parke, more or less countenanced by the Judges, who afterwards refused Mr. Miall his application for a new trial. If, indeed, the clergy are a privileged order, and are to be protected from that criticism which neither Judges, nor Statesmen, nor Royalty itself, can escape, our author has clearly given to Mr. Montgomery the right of action; and woe betide him if, by some special plea, the case should be withdrawn from a Middlesex jury to be decided by twelve wise men of Cambridge or Oxford, especially should Mr. Baron Parke be again called on to expound the law in relation to men who have libelled any one belonging to the tabooed clerical order. Baron Alderson, it is true, threw a sop of consolation in the admission, that clerical performances, if guilty of dulness, might be properly criticised; but as unintelligibleness and coxcombry can scarcely be admitted under the head of dulness, our author must not hope to escape.

VOL. II.

2 z

*

"His head is beautifully shaped. It is covered by lightish-coloured hair easily and naturally disposed over a finely-shaped, marble-white forehead. There is in the face of this gentleman a remarkably sweet expression. The eyes are grey, and beaming with mild radiance, the nose Grecian, and the mouth and chin finely formed. The whole head and face somewhat reminds one of some of the portraits of Byron. It is the Hon. and Rev. Baptist Noel, one of the most popular of the Evangelical section of the Church of England. Some persons think him, when he is arrayed in his surplice, much like Bishop Heber. Listen as he speaks. Surely there never was so sweet a voice as his-clear, distinct and extremely musical. Although he commences in a somewhat subdued tone, not a word is uttered which is not heard by the most far-away individual in the hall. As he proceeds, his voice increases in volume, and is beautifully modulated. A sweet smile occasionally irradiates his countenance, but its prevalent and general expression is that of calm and dignified repose. His heart is in his subject, for he talks of missions. With an easy grace he introduces the subject, and then, having impressed on his hearers its importance, he takes a survey of the rise and progress of that society whose claims he may be advocating. Listening to his description of what has been done and is doing, is like taking a journey through the scenes he describes. With amazing facility he passes over the vast plains of Hindostan, painting the lovely scenery on the banks of the Ganges, and exhibiting, as it were, panoramic views of places

'Where all but the spirit of man is divine.'

We sit with him beneath the banyan or the palmetto, and behold the Brahmin with his shastor, and the heathen perishing for lack of knowledge. He takes us to where China, with its teeming millions of Budhists, and the countless followers of Confucius, sit in darkness. We sail amidst the coral reefs of the Southern Pacific, or feel

the spicy breezes

Blow soft o'er Ceylon's Isle."

He guides us over the sterile African deserts, and pictures the Hottentot lying in his kraal, more like a brute than one of God's intelligent creation. With a power peculiarly his own, he depicts such scenes as these, and then he appeals to the hearts of his hearers for their aid and support. And seldom does he plead in vain; for Baptist Noel is beloved by all parties, in the Church of England as well as out of it. To be sure, a few of the HighChurch party affect him not, because he is liberally disposed towards the Dissenters, and respects every man's conscience; but that is of little consequence. Royalty has gone to his chapel incog. to hear him, and he is now, I believe, one of the Queen's Chaplains."-Pp. 243-245.

Our sketcher is evidently both an observer and an admirer of the little_oratorical arts of the pulpit. Speaking of Mr. Sherman, the popular successor of Rowland Hill, he dwells on his "remarkably graceful and unaffected action," and his peculiar excellence in what he ventures to call " the eloquence of the hand," by which "he frequently produces the most startling effects and the happiest results." Speaking also of the late Rev. William Thorpe,* of Bristol, he describes the prodigious impression which he produced by a sudden question.

*He possessed extraordinary capabilities of voice, which he sometimes put to a singular use. On one occasion he terrified some of his crowded audience not a little by giving from his pulpit, towards the close of a sermon on future punishment, from the depths of his very broad chest, howls and shrieks to represent the cries of the damned in torment. A more offensive instance of pulpit playing could scarcely be recorded. It was worthy of the days when the populace were taught religion by mysteries and moralities enacted by monks dressed

"He had been describing the Angel of Death as hovering over the vast audience, with a scroll in his hands, on which was inscribed the names of those who would be his next victims. After a powerful passage, he suddenly paused, and then with solemn emphasis exclaimed, 'And who amongst you has his name written on that scroll ?"

The mass of highly-educated men smile as they read accounts of this kind, and yet few are insensible to the charm of animated and expressive elocution and natural and appropriate action. The same man would often assign different degrees of intellectual excellence to the very same discourse, if it were delivered ill and well. There is, in truth, no music so universally understood and felt as that of skilful human speech. Much, then, is it to be regretted that our ministers, who bring to their pulpit compositions so large a portion of scriptural knowledge, elegant taste and powerful argument, so seldom set them forth with the advantage of a popular delivery. Neither they nor their congregations are likely to set the manner before the matter. There is little danger, considering their own cultivation and that of their hearers, that they will become obnoxious to the charge of theatrical display, or of introducing into their discourses topics and illustrations foreign to the proper business of the Christian pulpit. They will make impressiveness subordinate to instructiveness. What we regret is, that by neglecting the first, they often fail to awaken the attention, and therefore cannot instruct.

Before we part with this volume, we will extract one or two passages relating to others than preachers. Of Southey (towards whom, notwithstanding his passionate prejudices against those who consistently held those opinions which in youth had been his own, we cannot but feel both tenderness and gratitude for the instruction and delight derived from many of his writings) there are some interesting particulars. Those that follow are very touching.

"In 1841, after wondering at the unusual circumstance of my letters to Southey remaining unreplied to, for he was the most punctual and courteous of correspondents, I received from a friend a heart-touching epistle, informing me of the Laureate's insanity. It came on me like a thunder-clap, after a long, ominous silence. Could it be, that he whose voluminous labours had delighted and informed thousands-that the Poet, the Philosopher and the Historian, was the victim of

'The last infirmity of noble minds'?

Alas! it was even so. His brain was worn out.

'The fervent spirit, working out its way,
Fretted the puny body to decay,

And o'er-informed its tenement of clay.'

"I was told by one who witnessed the sad scene, that, as he walked along the streets of Keswick, leaning, a frail, broken-up man, on the arm of an

out in the guise of angels and devils. Possibly Mr. Thorpe had stumbled on the curious Coventry Mystery called "Doomsday," and was modernizing the passage which therein occurs:

"Omnes demones clamant.
"Harrow and out! what xal we say?

Harraw we crye, owt and alas!

Alas! harrow! is this that day,
To endles peyne that us must pas ?

Alas harrow and owt! we crye."

attached and devoted friend, he would stare in stupid wonder at flocks of geese, and breathe an incoherent wish that he was as happy as they.' His insanity was of the melancholy and sombre kind, as might have been expected. "To the last he retained his old affection for his books. The way into his library he easily found, and thither it was his wont to repair; and he would sit with a black-letter volume open on his lap, gazing on one page for hours, and at times moving his fingers as if making written extracts. Out of the library he never could find his way without the aid of a guide. But the ruin of a great mind, like his, is too sad a spectacle for contemplation. After two years of mental incapacity,

'Death came o'er him gently,

As slumber o'er a child.'

There was no flashing-up of the taper before death-no lucid moment: but during his life he had made the great preparation, and Hope illuminated the faces of all who gazed upon him when he died."-Pp. 170, 171.

The same chapter in which these passages occur, contains an account of the author's impressions on seeing the corpse of Byron, Southey's greatest literary foe. It was in 1824, at the house of Sir Edward Knatchbull, where the earthly remains of the great poet went through the pitiable process of lying in state.

"The body was not attired in that most awful of habiliments, a shroud. It was wrapped in a blue cloth cloak, and the throat and head were uncovered. The former was beautifully moulded. The head of the poet was covered with short, crisp, curling locks, slightly streaked with grey hairs, especially over the temples, which were ample and free from hair, as we see in the portraits. The face had nothing of the appearance of death about it; it was neither sunken nor discoloured in the least, but of a dead marble whiteness; the expression was that of stern quietude. How classically beautiful was the curved upper lip and the chin! I fancied the nose appeared as if it was not in harmony with the other features; but it might possibly have been a little disfigured by the process of embalming. The forehead was high and broadindeed, the whole head was extremely large; it must have been so, to have contained a brain of such capacity.

"But what struck me most was the exceeding beauty of the profile, as I observed it when the head was lifted, for the purpose of adjusting the furni ture. It was perfect in its way, and seemed like a production of Phidias. Indeed, it far more resembled an exquisite piece of sculpture than the face of the dead—so still, so sharply defined, and so marble-like in its repose.”

P. 157.

At p. 186, we have an anecdote of good Dr. Tuckerman's visit to consult Mr. Abernethy. Although we could give some good reasons why the Dr. would not use the words put into his mouth by the sketcher, we will leave the story as we find it. The oath and the impatience of Abernethy were perhaps too characteristic of the man.

Our readers will have noticed that the sketcher is careless to a fault in his style. There are, however, faults worse than carelessness, there being nearly half a score of instances of bad grammar, such as "That is him." The spelling of names is not faultless. The enthusiastic admirer of "Evenings at Home" (see p. 68), ought not to have called Mrs. Barbauld's brother " Dr. Aiken."

Prefixed to the volume is a very speaking portrait of Coleridge, engraved from a sketch in oils by Washington Allston.

CRITICAL NOTICES.

An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine. By J. H. Newman. 2nd Ed. 8vo. Pp. 453. London-Toovey. 1846.

AMONG the many "Concessions of Trinitarians," there are none more important than those made by Mr. Newman in this work, published by him since his passing over to the Church of Rome. It consists of a defence of the doctrines and practices of that Church, on the principles adopted within the last few years by Romish controversialists, and styled "the doctrine of development." This mode of evading the silence of scripture and of primitive tradition was, we believe, devised by the French and German authors, De Maistre and Möhler, and has been very generally received. For a long time, the existence of unwritten tradition in the Church was considered as a sufficient proof of the apostolic origin of doctrines; but the uncertainty of such tradition being apparent, the principle of Reserve, or the Disciplina Arcani, was next resorted to, and the silence of the Fathers accounted for by assuming that they purposely abstained from the mention of certain doctrines, either through reverence, or from the fear of misapprehension. The untenableness of this theory having been shewn, the modern defenders of Roman Catholic doctrines have boldly avowed that, in fact, the early Church was perhaps unacquainted with those doctrines, but that they have developed themselves gradually in the course of ages and under change of circumstances, so that mediaval Christianity was more perfect than that of the early Church.

Proceeding on this ground, it is the object of Mr. Newman, in the introduction to his Essay, to shew that the doctrines of the Trinity and of Original Sin will, in the Ante-Nicene ages, no more bear the test of the celebrated rule of Vincentius Lirinensis, "quod semper, quod ubique, quod ab omnibus traditum est," than the tenets peculiar to the Church of Rome, such as Purgatory and the Papal Supremacy. Speaking of the Trinity, he says,

"The Creeds of that early day make no mention in their letter of the Catholic doctrine at all. They make mention, indeed, of a Three; but that there is any mystery in the doctrine, that the Three are One, that they are co-equal, coeternal, all increate, all omnipotent, all incomprehensible, is not stated, and never could be gathered from them. Of course we believe that they imply it, or rather intend it. God forbid we should do otherwise! But nothing in the mere letter of those documents leads to that belief. To give a deeper meaning to their letter, we must interpret them by the times which came after."-P. 12.

He then proceeds to observe, that the great Bishops, Saints, and doctrinal writers of the Ante-Nicene centuries, cannot be cited as witnesses of orthodoxy, since Ignatius may be considered as a Patripassian, St. Justin arianizes, St. Hippolytus is a Photinian, and so of several others.

"Moreover," he continues, "it may be questioned whether any Ante-Nicene Father distinctly affirms either the numerical Unity or the Co-equality of the three Persons, except perhaps the heterodox Tertullian, and that chiefly in a work written after he had become a Montanist."

Considering it, then, as certain that portions of the Church system were held back in primitive times, he endeavours to solve the difficulty, and account for their present existence by the "Theory of Developments."

In his first chapter, he treats of the process of development in ideas, of the different kinds of development; and, since false or unfaithful development is a corruption, he in the third section states the distinctive tests of a true development. These he makes to be seven. 1. Preservation of Type or Idea. 2. Continuity of Principles. 3. Power of Assimilation. 4. Early Anticipation. 5. Logical Sequence. 6. Preservative Additions. 7. Chronic Continuance. Before applying his tests, our author argues for the probability and necessity of a developing authority in Christianity, on the ground of the inspired volume