flexions as in the above; and it is plain that chagrin sometimes gave a turn to his sentiments, as when he asks

"How happened it, in the definitions of man, that reason is always made essential to him? Nobody ever thought of making goodness so; and yet it is certain there are as few reasonable men as there are good. Man might be as properly defined an animal to whom a sword is essential, as one to whom reason is essential. For there are as few that can, and yet fewer that dare, use the one as the other."

He is much more correct in discussing the subject of the drama.

"The proper end of tragedy," he observes, "is by the pathos to excite the passions of pity and terror, &c. Comedy delineates life by humour, to produce the sensation of pleasure; and farce, by what is called burlesque to excite laughter."

When unnatural plots are used, he continues

"The mind is not only entirely drawn off from the characters by those surprising turns and revolutions, but characters have no opportunity even of being called out and displaying themselves. For the actors of all characters succeed and are embarrassed alike, when the instruments for carrying on designs are only perplexed apartments, dark entries, disguised habits, and ladders of ropes. The comic plot is and must, indeed, be carried on by deceit. The Spanish scene.. does it by deceiving the nian through his senses; Terence and Moliere by deceiving him through his passions and affections. This is the right; for the character is not called out under the first species of deceit under the second, the character does all."

:

These observations must be admitted to be equally acute and just; yet we now despair of ever seeing any thing like legitimate comedy, so inveterate is the misguided selfishness of modern managers,

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The character of Harris the grammarian is mutually considered by these friends as now to sense, now nonsense, leaning; just as antiquity inclines him;" a sentence which is more pointed than just, and sufficiently paradoxical. The character of Byrom is much more accurate; "certainly a man of genius plunged deep into the rankest fanaticism.'

"If I were to define enthusiasm," observes Bishop Warburton, “I would say it is such an irregular exercise of the mind as makes us give a stronger assent to the conclusion, than the evidence of the premises will warrant: then reason begins to be betrayed, and then enthusiasm properly commences. This shows why enthusiasm is more frequent in religious matters than in any other; for those interests being very momentous, the passions bear the greatest sway, and reason is the least heard,"

The generally-received opinion that Pope's Essay on Man is only a versification of Bolingbroke's sentiments, is here decisively denied, and proved to be without any foundation in fact; indeed, it is not to be supposed that so decided an infidel as his lordship, and one so indifferent about morality, could have taken so much pains to "vindicate the ways of God to man." Bolingbroke's three tracts were prefaced by a letter to Pope, which is characterised by Warburton as a kind of common-place (and a poor one) of free-thinking objections and disingenuity." This statesman's spleen against the divine is ascribed to "his great jealousy of my taking Pope out of his hands by my Commentary on the great principle of the Essay, the following Nature and Nature's God." The letter he considers

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"A full confutation of that invidious report, that Pope had his philosophy from Bolingbroke, and only turned his prose letters into verse. For here it appears that the Essay on Man was published before Bolingbroke composed his first philosophical epistle. In a word, if it was not for the very curious and well-written Letter to Sir William Windham, this letter to Pope would be received with great neglect. So far for this pigmy giant!"

And so far are we pleased to find that Warburton was convinced in his private opinion that Pope owed nothing to Bolingbroke; for however many parts of the Essay on Man may be objectionable, as a whole its general tendency is too good to have originated with any person who founded his claims to distinction on no more solid a basis than that of disbelieving the great truths of religion. We are therefore sorry that the Bishop's conclusion, although legitimate, is not supported by better premises. Although Pope's Epistles appeared before Bolingbroke's, yet as the one was a regular, and the other only an occasional author, it is not improbable that the statesman (for his letters on history justly entitle him to this rare character) might have communicated the principal materials to the poet. This is the more probable, that the most inveterate infidels, never being able to quash entirely their own apprehensions that religion may be true, generally become great moralisers; and, in withholding their faith from religion, bestow it in abundance on moral precept. Still, however, it is not less possible that the contemplation of Bolingbroke's genius and infidelity might have awakened all those reflexions in Pope's mind, which appear in the Essay on Man, without any other communication; and it is at least certain, that whoever was the original author

of the reflexions, they must have been sublimed and christianised with the sentiments of the poet.

One of the first of Bishop Hurd's letters in this collection. contains such a trait of filial respect, that it would be great injustice to his memory not to notice it particularly. It is dated in July, 1754, above five years after the correspondence of these two learned divines had become regular.

"The truth is, I go to pass some time [at Shiffnal in Shropshire] with two of the best people in the world, to whom I owe the highest duty, and have all possible obligation. I believe I never told you how happy I am in an excellent father and mother-very plain people you may be sure, for they are farmers, but of a tura of mind that might have honoured any rank and any education. With very tolerable, but in no degree affluent circumstances, their generosity was. such, they never regarded any expense that was in their power, and almost out of it, in whatever concerned the welfare of their children. We are three brothers of us. The eldest settled very reputably in their own way, and the youngest in the Birmingham trade. For myself, a poor scholar, -as you know, I am almost ashamed to own to you how solicitous they always were to furnish me with all the opportunities of the best and most liberal education. My case in so many particulars resembles that which the Roman poet describes as his own, that with Pope's wit I could apply almost every circumstance of it. And if ever I were to wish in earnest to be a poet, it would be for the sake of doing justice to so uncommon a virtue. I should be a wretch if I did not conclude, as he does, "si Natura juberet," &c. In a word, when they had fixed us in such a rank of life as they designed, and believed should satisfy us, they very wisely left the business of the world to such as wanted it more, or liked it better. They considered what age and declining health seemed to demand of them, reserving to themselves only such a support as their few and little wants made them think sufficient. I should beg pardon for troubling you with this humble history; but the subjects of it are so much and so tenderly in my thoughts at present, that if I writ [wrote] at all, I could hardly help writing about them." P. 162.

We have observed, that these letters abound in the paradoxes and errors of Warburton; the following is an instance of both, in reply to some objections of Dr. Hurd's against several opinions expressed in his sermons. "Nature and human society alone seem not to determine against polygamy. Why I said so was, replies Bishop Warburton, because it was allowed to the Jews; and I apprehend nothing was indulged them against the law of nature." Here the divine confounds. permission with sanction, and the corrupted institutions of the Jews with the law of nature, contrary to moral and physical evidence. The Jews not unfrequently "in

dulged" themselves in idolatry and other pollutions; so do savages: hence the bishop might as well conclude that such corruptions are not against the law of nature, although that must ever be congenial and consistent with reasonable beings. It is too a dangerous paradox to maintain that the apostle's meaning of "fornication" applied only to the violation of "the Jewish prohibited degrees" of marriage; for this is what appears to be the meaning of the author in reply to the well-founded objections of his friend. The distinction between the degrees of intermarriage prohibited by nature, and those by the Jewish laws, is eminently just; but the author evidently labours under a very gross and unaccountable misconception both of the moral law and the law of nature. A somewhat similar error, perhaps occasioned by this of Warburton, led the late ingenious but ill-judging Madden into the most extravagant and absurd notions of social virtue. We think however that Bishop Hurd, after witnessing the danger of the instance just mentioned, should either have accompanied this letter with some remarks tending to expose and obviate such a serious misconception, or have withheld it entirely from the public: the latter mode indeed was certainly preferable, as all such discussions tend only to raise, instead of settling, doubts on subjects which are so selfevident, that none but the depraved or the visionary could ever hesitate on the matter. On ecclesiastical law, Bishop Warburton is more worthy of attention, though here too his peculiar mode of thinking is apparent.

"Under the Norman and Plantagenet lines," he observes, "the prerogative rose or fell just as the pope or the barons ruled at court. But the principle of civil liberty was always in vigour [we might say that it is indigenous to the soil]. The barons were a licentious race in their private lives. The bishops threw them out a bait, which they were too wise to catch at. Subsequent marriage by the imperial laws, as well as canons, legitimated bastards as to succession. The common law kept them eternally in their state of bastardy. The barons' castles were full of bastards-the very name was honourable. At a parliament under Henry III.rogaverunt omnes episcopi ut consentirent quod nati ante matrimo⚫nium essent legitimi―et omnes comites et barones unâ voce responderunt quod nolunt leges Angliæ mutari.' Coke-Littleton, 1. 3. c. 6. § 40. This famous answer has been quoted a thousand and a thousand times, and yet nobody seems to have understood the management. The bishops, as partisans of the pope, were for subjecting England to the imperial and papal laws, and therefore began with a circumstance most to the taste of the barons. The barons smelt the contrivance; and rejected a proposition most agreeable to them,

for fear of the consequences the introduction of the imperial laws, whose very genius and essence was arbitrary despotic power. Their answer shows it, Nolumus leges Angliæ mutari;'-they had nothing to object to the reform, but they were afraid for the consti

tution.

"After the Reformation, the Protestant divines, as appears by the homilies composed by the wisest and most disinterested men, such as Cranmer and Latimer, preached up non-resistance very strongly; but it was only to oppose to popery. The case was this: the pope threatened to excommunicate and depose Edward-he did put his threats into execution against Elizabeth, This was esteemed such a stretch of power, and so odious, that the Jesuits contrived all means to soften it. One was by searching into the origin of civil power, which they brought rightly (though for wicked purposes) from the people; as Mariana and others. To combat this, and to save the person of the sovereign, the protestant divines preached up divine right-Hooker, superior to every thing, followed the truth. But it is remarkable that this non-resistance, that at the Reformation was employed to keep out popery, was at the Revolution employed to bring it in-so eternally is truth sacrificed to politics!' P. 198-200.

"In studying this period" (the civil wars, observes Dr. Warburton in a previous letter), "the most important, the most wonderful in all history, I suppose you will make Lord Clarendon's incomparable performance your ground-work. I think it will be understood to advantage, by reading, as an introduction to it, Rapin's reign of James I, and the first 14 years of Charles I. After this will follow Whitlocke's Memoirs. It is only a journal or diary, very ample, and full of important matters. The writer was learned in his own profession; thought largely in religion by the advantage of his friendship with Selden; for the rest, he is vain and pedantic; and on the whole a little genius. Ludlow's Memoirs, as to its composition, is below criticism; as to the matter, curious enough. With what spirit written, you may judge by his character, which was that of a furious, mad, but I think apparently honest, republican, and independent. May's History of the Parliament is a just composition, according to the rules of history. It is written with much judgment, penetration, mauliness, and spirit; and with a candour that will greatly increase your esteem, when you understand that he wrote by order of his masters, the parliament. It breaks off (much to the loss of the history of that time) just when their armies were new modelled by the self-denying ordinance. This loss was attempted to be supplied by Sprigge's History of Fairfax's exploits-non passibus aquis. He was chaplain to the general; is not altogether devoid of May's candour, though he bas little of his spirit. Walker says it was written by the famous Colonel Fiennes, though under Sprigge's name. It is altogether a military history, as the following one of Walker, called The History of Independency, is a civil one; or rather of the nature of a political pamphlet against the Independents. It is full of curious anecdotes; though written with much fury, by a wrathful presbyterian member, who was cast out of the saddle with the rest