sion of all reasonings a priori. Gesner, to be sure, but Gesner was not much of a poet, though he could pastoralize prettily enough-moreover he cannot properly be called a Swiss. But as for the divines of Scotland, there is not one who could be classed among the Barrows and the Clarkes and the Butlers of England. We can proudly boast, indeed, of philosophers, and historians, and poets, of high and deathless fame; and, in criticism, we stand unrivalled, and, perhaps, beyond the reach of rivalship; in theology alone, though its practical spirit is every where abounding in the land, we are far outdone, and miserably deficient. We have, no doubt, a few names somewhat respectable, such as Boston, Campbell, Blair, Macknight, and a few others; but even they are of minor note, and sink into insignificance when put in comparison with the master spirits of other countries. But let us consider their claims to distinction a little more closely, that we may not be accused of misrepresenting the matter.

Boston was a pious man, and gave himself industriously to the perusal of his Bible; and, if a memory stored with biblical phraseology, and scripture texts, could constitute a great divine, Boston must stand in the highest ranks. But the consequence of his absurd plan of study was, that his works are literally crammed with texts, and have the appearance of a very ill arranged common-place book, exhibiting, in their unreadable pages, a marked picture of the confused and labouring jumble going on in the good man's mind when he wrote them.

Campbell, no doubt, was a man of no ordinary powers. He had some scholarship, though he was not quite a Warburton or a Cudworth. He was rather acute and critical in his perceptions; and he had a large share of what may be called good sense. His fame, however, will ultimately rest on his Philosophy of Rhetoric, rather than on his Four Gospels, and the long cumbering dissertations with which he has prefaced them. As to the merits of his metaphysical talents displayed in his Essay on Miracles, philosophers are not quite agreed; and we perceive that Professor Brown, in his late masterly work on Cause and Effect, has made some shrewd objec

tions to its leading arguments; but whatever may be thought of it, now that the controversy is almost at rest, it certainly had at the time of its publication a powerful effect in checking the wild spirit of infidelity which had gone increasingly abroad, and in this view it is above all praise, and claims our highest regard, though we may not go quite so far as to say with a pigmy champion in the same cause, that Hume appeared before the divine "like a withe of straw." His works on Pulpit Eloquence and Ecclesiastical History are very useful books to tyros in the study; but upon the whole, as a divine, he cannot be ranked much above mediocrity, and must take his place with Fawkes, and Henry, and Matthew Poole; yet he is perhaps the brightest star in our theological hemisphere. It is as a belles-lettres critic and philologist that Campbell stands on conspicuous ground, equalling, if not surpassing, his distinguished contemporaries, both in his own country and abroad.

Blair was an eminent man in his day, though as a divine he is even inferior to Campbell. He was less of a scholar, and he possessed little shrewdness of remark or stretch of thinking. The popularity of his sermons is now slowly, but surely on the decline, and with justice; they are cold, dull, laboured essays, much better fitted for appearing in the sleepy pages of Johnson's Rambler, than for stirring up and animating the glow of religious feeling. There are, indeed, occasional touches in them of something like a warmer eloquence, yet these but seldom break in upon his monotonous chant and his regularly balanced periods, and many even of these glittering patches are borrowed, without acknowledgment, from the French. It would, to be sure, have been rather scandalous to acknowledge pilfering from such a book as Rousseau's Nouvelle Heloise a splendid paragraph to ornament a sermon on the crucifixion; yet such is the case, however much the statement of it may offend his admirers. He was also inferior to Campbell in belles-lettres, though his lectures on that subject have furnished our youth with a very popular textbook, displaying, indeed, no great depth or originality, and particularly deficient in the accounts given of the great works of the Grecian school;

but with all its want of crudition, and its defects of style, the book affords an introduction to the study, well adapted to the capacities of the mass of our college youths.

Macknight was a sounder divine than either Campbell or Blair, and his Epistles will always be esteemed among biblical critics; for though he had not much profundity nor much taste, he was possessed of a good understanding, and was a laborious, pains-taking man. But even Macknight is far from being eminent, and very far from rivalling the great divines of Germany and England.

Except these, and one or two sectaries, such as Brown of Haddington, the Erskines, and others of similar distinction, we do not recollect a single name in the annals of the Scottish Church which we can record as eminent in theology. Reid, and Robertson, and Ferguson, and Murray, were men of unrivalled eminence in the departments of history and philosophy, and any one of those illustrious per-, sons would have reflected imperishable glory on the country he belonged to. But why did none of these great men direct their talents to theology, which was the immediate line of their profession?-why have the superior powers of our Scottish clergymen so evident a bias to deviate from the path of divinity, and wander into the byeroads of literature and science?-and why can we not catalogue such men as Colin Maclaurin and Adam Smith among our ministers? Because, we answer, they have no adequate excitements to spur them on,-no goal of distinction to call forth exertion or emulation, no places of honour and rank, nor livings that bring in a rich overflowing harvest of tithes, to awaken them to aspirings after opulence and power. We do not say that this is wrong, that the system of keeping our clergy poor, or at best with their heads just above poverty, is not the parent of many beneficial results; we merely state this as a leading cause why we have had so few eminent theologians in our church; and we shall try to make good our position.

In England, and in the Catholic countries of Europe, situations in the church are aspired to even by men of high birth. An Archbishop or a Cardinal is accounted nothing inferior to a nobleman or a prince, who derives untainted blood and the legitimate

heritage of glory from an interminable line of ancestors, and even the minor dignities of the church are looked up to as worth coveting, both from their liberal emoluments and the rank and respect which they confer on those who fill them. Many of the younger sons of noble families are in consequence designed for the church from infancy and educated accordingly. In Scotland, the case is very different. The church here is not considered as conferring rank, and no man of birth is now-a-days educated as a clergyman. Our ministers, indeed, are a most respectable body, but among the great they are looked upon only as a superior class of farmers or schoolmasters, according to the cast of their pursuits, with something more of polish than the one, and a little more learning than the other: most commonly, indeed, they retain more than enough of rusticity or pedantry to jus tify the comparison. Nor is this at all wonderful; it would be much more strange if it were otherwise, as will be obvious when we follow a Scottish clergyman from the commencement of his education to his settlement in his manse.

We believe we are correct when we say, that not one in a hundred of our ministers is even from the middle ranks of society. They are chiefly the sons of our less opulent farmers, industrious mechanics, or small village shopkeepers. The richer class of farmers have become too calculating to think the church a sufficiently lucrative speculation for their sons, and small proprietors of land have a similar objection. To the more respectable of the ranks immediately below these, the church is the highest object of ambition, and every nerve is strained and every scheme of thrift and saving is put in practice to obtain and husband money sufficient to put the hope of the family forward to the pulpit. A considerable number of our ministers also have been previously taught some mechanic employment, and have wrought as journeymen, till, by their own industry, they saved money enough to pay their college expences during the first winter session, in some cases returning to their manual toil again during the summer vacation. Nay, even those who are in the earlier stages of their course maintained by their pa rents, are almost universally com

pelled during their studies to have recourse to the drudgery of teaching schools or families to increase their scanty pittance; for low as the price of education is in our Universities, the expence of living in such cities as Edinburgh and Glasgow becomes heavy to a young man, who, though poor, is obliged to live and appear somewhat like a gentleman.

The consequence of all this is, that our clergymen are by no means such accomplished scholars as in countries where the whole circumstances and system are different. So far it is honourable to our country to afford such facilities for instruction, that even our peasants may rise to distinction, not by a fortunate run of extraordinary chances, but in the usual and regular course of things. Of this we can exultingly boast, and challenge a comparison with nations the proudest of their erudition and learning, It is a system of things altogether unknown at Oxford, and Cambridge, and Dublin, where aspiring students, destitute of money, must submit to perform the most mean and degrading offices for the haughty gentlemen commoners, and be content to dine on the scraps and fragments of their lordly feasts. To do this a Scotchman would disdain, and would rather, with true independence of soul, borrow hours from his sleep and his studies to ply his mechanic task, and earn a humble meal. All this is done here every day, and persevered in with enthusiasm; it is not an extreme case got up for illustration; it is frequent, very frequent, and again we say, that it is a thing we can proudly exult in; but, at the same time, it clearly accounts for the want of great divines in our church.

It is utterly impossible, from the constitution of human nature, that, under such circumstances, our church can ever be fertile in profound and erudite scholars. For this, an uninterrupted leisure of many years, during the progress of college studies, is quite indispensable, together with some grand and bestirring motive to rouse and urge on the mind in its task. We want both. The early studies of our clergymen are broken in upon by their exertions to obtain a subsistence, chiefly by teaching; and, when they have completed their course, the livings are barely capable

of maintaining a family, and then there is scarcely a single point of elevation to which their ainbition can look up; for the chairs in the universities are of very limited number, and even they are not open to clergymen exclusively, while town livings, though of higher nominal value, are seldom so good as those in the country, in consequence of the greater expence of living.

The great body of our clergy are, therefore, deprived of adequate motives to cultivate their acquirements, which are commonly slender enough, from the difficulties they had, in their early studies, to grapple with. They consequently allow mental indolence to grow upon them, while they are immoveably fixed stagnant and stationary in their manses. The easier and more popular branches of theology are enough, and more than enough, for their simple and pious parishioners, and they seldom advance beyond these. For why should they dive into the profundities of Greek and Hebrew criticism, and puzzle themselves with subtle casuistry and points of doctrine, and make themselves learned in controversy and church history, when there may not occur a single occasion during their lives when their knowledge of such things might be called forth? And, though such occasions were, and though they might carry the palm of superiority,-to what would it lead? A professor's chair, perhaps, or one of the Edinburgh churches; but the chances are a thousand to one that it would not be so efficient, even in this respect, as superiority in philosophy, philology, or civil history.

A Scottish clergyman has little chance of excelling as a linguist, unless, like the late Dr Murray, he have an irresistible enthusiasm and untireable perseverance. The foundation which is laid at our universities for this department of knowledge is miserable indeed. We are almost ashamed to state, that it is with much difficulty the great body of our young men can hammer out a chapter of the Greek Testament when they apply for licence at the presbyterics; and Hebrew, till within these very few years, was almost totally neglected.

We think we have now made out our position most satisfactorily, that our Scottish divines neither are nor

And oaten pipe, a fon at tuneful lore,

And now am close ypent o'er auncient thinges;

(Eld that mought michel muse, is slowe to sing,)

Stil ye, as in dispite, persyste to saie,

My sister's newe-born sonne fit subject bringes:

Colin, be once againe, as whilome gaie, The litell frenne is come, and claymes your roundelaie.

Heare tho my roundelaie; or rather heare What youthly I heard by browne Sibyl sung,

Beside an impe, y-rock'd by moder deare; Whyles I, as fix'd by spel, y-wondring hung,

To weet what wysdome flowed from Beldame's tongue.

The powers of hearbes shee couth, als fortunes told;

And nowe fro meddled hearbes shee juices

Lo! in the welkin bryghte a bickeryng cloud;

Joyaunce aye linckt with bale, pleasaunce with payne;

Musyc mote han its notes both lowe and lowde;

And lyfe is an excheat; and death to all give shrowd."

Tho louting revrendly with matron grace,

Shee took the gentle parent by the hond; And castyng with prophetic eyne her face, Sain'd mystic meanings, but in language blond :

"Thilke impe ben true-love's gage, if ryghte I trace:

Heart linckt with heart, and mind with

mind agree;

Lyfe is a traveil; keepe peregall pace; Thus your true-lover's knott entrayled

bee,

Wyles I a priestesse stond, and againe marrie yee.

"And take this ring, fro faerie lond ybrought;

And it so charmed been, as fewe may tel;

Your finger ring with ilk, ne less your thought;

Heales deadly bale, I weet, and sooth can Use it ne wrong, and ilk wil use ye wel: quel

That inborn feend; sprights itt can putt to flyghte,

The caytiffs of this world, and broode of hell;

Y-spredds in dungeon dark a cheary lyght;

And into distant dayes deigns straunge seraphic sight.

"I drem'd a dreme-oh! sweete dame, what a dreme!

Beares, gryfons, tygers, lyons, rampant soche

In forme; with foregn blood yet swelt, they seme

Bursting amaine, and I ywonder'd moche;

Yet moe to see them live, as by some touch

Of Demogorgon, and for fyghte upspring;

And they wil fyghten; wo worth each one's clutch!

Ne heede hem, dame; I plyghte mee by thilke ring,

Soche fyghtes shall ne'er your impe into no daunger bring.

"On a blacke mountain's side a Dragon drere

His long long length yspredd; dreadful to see!

To warre no needes beseme him to requere; Yet cause and umpire of that warre was

hee; And he itt kent, I wot, with ravenous glee,