affumed religion, as his cloak for his treason to the constitution he had fworn to preserve, he would have acted as Cromwell did before him, and in the midft of his violence have iffued fome pious ejaculations. Away with fuch infulting flippancy; the world is now too well acquainted with real motives, to adopt, as part of its creed, the fanciful palliatives of this female fcribbler."

Letter the 26th, "On the State of Women in the French Re public," is only to convince us of their vast importance in general, and particularly of their influence on public opinion in revolutionary

times.

Her "Obfervations on the judicial Organization of the Republic", in letter the 27th, are not worthy the perufal of any one who wishes to obtain real judicial knowledge of the fubject.

Letters the 28th, 29th, and 30th are "on the State of Religion in the French Republic."-" Had," fays fhe, "the revolution effected only the overthrow of the hierarchy of France, &c. that effect alone would have counterbalanced much (why not speak out, and at once fay all?) of the enormous mafs of its relative evils." From a Writer fo thoroughly perverted, fo decidedly prejudiced, is truth, or wisdom, to be expected? Befides, the fubject itself is utterly beyond her faculties.

Letter the 31ft on Moreau's Campaign in Germany; the 32d on Bonaparte's Departure from Paris; the 33d on his Appearance in Italy; and the 34th on the Battle of Marengo, are confiftently adulatory of the French.

Letter the 35th" on Egyptian Monuments," excepting fuch grofs flattery as the following, is the best in the book. "After the numer

ous changes which have taken place in Egypt from the eruption of Cambyfes who used the privilege of a conqueror only to defroy, to the invafion of Bonaparte who went only to restore," &c. &c. Are we now to be told this? fie upon it!

Letter the 36th, "on Bonaparte's return to Paris," is full of rejoicings and fetés. At the end of it, there is a pretty story of a little Barbet-dog belonging to an Auftrian officer killed at Marengo which, while ftanding by its dead mafter, knew the firft Conful on his approach, as it were by infpiration; and by a certain "mute eloquence" induced him to put an end to the carnage and pursuit." How noble a motive for the exercife of humanity!

Letter the 37th is to convince us there is little or no Atheism in France. Letter 38th, on the death of Madame Helvetius, may be very interefting to thofe who knew her.

Letters the 39th and 40th. Obfervations on the Financial Works of M. D'Ivernois; the author may be equal to the little "Barbetdog," or to the "bellows-mender;" but the public are not now to be told that she is not equal to the difcuffion of fiscal operations.

Letter the 41st, on the Profpect of Peace, and the 42d, on National Fetes, and Obfervations on the State of Literature in the Republic;" are defultory, and without much information. Her rage

againft

against the poor queen of Naples, even in the 41ft letter, has loft none of its malignity. Had he been a private perfon, who, by her machinations had aided the French to deftroy the kingdom of Naples, and been exiled for her crime, moft dolorous would have been the wailings for her fate. But being a queen, and hoftile to the enemies of her husband, and her children, fhe is thus defcribed by the gentle author. "Wherever he points her footsteps, their traces are like that of a baneful comet, thaking peltilence from its horrent hair, and with the fear of change affrighting monarchs." Whatever pity fhe might have been entitled to as a fufferer, and a female, is abforbed in the mighty guilt of being a queen and a foe of the French. Juft and charitable!

To the letters above noticed, are added eight juftificatory pieces (as they are called) of the counter-revolution of Naples; of the authenticity of which, as the author was "intrufted with the original papers figned by the refpective parties," (P. 178, V. 1ft.) the world muft, of courfe, not prefume to entertain the fmalleft doubt, but receive them as documents of the moft indifputable validity. We have thus, with no small portion of wearinefs, waded through the work before us. And to fay merely that we have been difgufled with the pedantry, the arrogance, of the author, is, to ufe the mildest terms; the has excited fenfations that require much stronger language, our abhorrence, and our contempt. What! becaufe fhe, Helen Maria Williams, has thought fit to renounce her native country, as too moral for her propenfities, to live avowedly to the world with the husband of her friend, and as" juftificatory" of fuch an abandonment of principle, to take up her refidence in a country of unlimited licentioufnefs; fhall a woman of fuch fentiments, of fuch practices, be fuffered to transport into this country, her mifchievous effufions, and imperiously offer her ftatements of important events to a credulous public as facts incontrovertible? And all this without one word of reprobation, one particle of cenfure, or one attempt at defence? never fhall that be faid fo long as we can hold a pen for the fupport of religion, decency, morality, patriotifm, and all that is eftimable in the human character.

If, as we believe is the cafe, fhe write for bread, her prefent fituation is pitiable, although the conduct she has purfued would naturally lead to it, and he might have avoided it; if the be the hired engine of the first Conful, degraded as fhe is, in the eyes of the people of this country, fhe may find there her reward; but if fhe write only for fame, he has mistaken her path; the way fhe has chofen will neither lead her to fame, to peace, nor to happiness; but to disgrace, to wretchedness, and woe; and we would advife her to quit it as foon as poffible.

It is from general principles of good will to all, that we offer her this advice, for perfonal regard we have none; and although we should rejoice to hear of her reformation, we defpair of effecting it by any admonitions we can offer; we rather fufpect that either to pamper her own vanity, to gratify the profligate paffions of her "cavalier," or

Dd 3

to

to prove her devotion to the Monarch of the day in France, fhe would

"Like another Helen, fire another Troy."

We have at present done with her; and unless she again infult the people of this country by a fresh dole of revolutionary poifon, fhe may quietly enjoy her rides in the park of St. Cloud, and the fmiles of her cavalier."

We have

One word only we will add, respecting her tranflator. been informed, that he is a beneficed clergyman; we believed this to be a calumny in one inftance, and an error in another; but we will make the stricteft enquiry into the fact; and if we find the charge to be juft, no earthly confiderations fhall deter us from bringing the culprit to the bar of the public.

Six Sermons, preached in Charlottle Chapel, Edinburgh. By the Rev. Sydney Smith, A. M. and Fellow of New College, Oxford. Edinburgh, Manners and Millar. 12mo. Longman and Rees.

London. 1800.

Sermons. By the Rev. Sydney Smith, A. M. late Fellow of New College, Oxford. The Second Edition, with confiderable Additions, in two volumes. Vol. II. 12mo. Longman and Rees. London. Manners and Millar. Edinburgh. 1801.

THE

HE Sermons contained in both of these volumes, or, at least, the greater part of them, were lately preached, if our information err not, in CHARLOTTLE CHAPEL, EDINBURGH, before an epifcopal congregation in that city, which, for feveral years paft, has been inftructed by the learning, and edified by the piety, of the Rev. DANIEL SANDFERD, late a Fellow of St. John's College, Oxford. The piety and learning of the prefent author, Mr. Sydney Smith, feem, indeed, to be of a caft very different from that of the truly respectable, and exemplary clergyman just now mentioned. As the performance, however, of a young writer, which he appears to be, thefe his pulpit effufions fhould have paffed without much notice from us; had not our attention been attracted by the fingularity of the preface, with which he has thought fit to introduce them. Viewing, with regret, the decay of piety, and the growing indifference to public wo fhip in thefe kingdoms, he does not scruple to charge them, in a great meafure, on the clergy themfelves, by whom, he fays, the eloquence of the pulpit has been m.ferably neglected; and, feized with the ambition of effectually new modelling it, he undertakes, in this prefatory effay, to point out the defects for which he thinks it is most particularly remarkable, and the falutary means he proposes for its improvement. Of both of these we fhall endeavour to convey fome notion to our readers, accompanied with fuch curfory remarks, as may be suggested by the novelty and importance of the subject.

He

He fets out with informing us, that "the English clergy, though, upon the whole, a very learned, pious, moral, and decent body of men, are not very remarkable for profeffional activity; and, when they have discharged the formal, and exacted duties of religion, are not very forward, by gratuitous infpection and remonftrance, to keep alive and diffufe a due fenfe of religion in their parishioners.' P. 12. This obfervation, befides the trifling circumftance of being not founded in fact, contains a compliment, which, we are perfuaded, will be highly gratifying to the great body of the clergy of our national church, and, in the eyes of our bifhops, and other perfons, who have livings to beftow, muft particularly recommend the author to preferment. Does he mean to fay, that the clergy of Scotland (where, we understand, he now refides) are, upon the whole, a more "learned, pious, moral, and decent body of men "than our own;" or, amidft his partiality for the Scotch, whether Prefbyterians or Epifcopalians, has he wholly overlooked the ardent, ftrenuous, and "gratuitous" diligence, with which the excellent paftor of Charlottle Chaple, as we are well informed, unweariedly labours to "keep alive and diffuse a due fenfe of religion among his parishioners?" But Mr. Smith has taken compaffion on the great body of the English clergy. He has difcovered the prefent "low ftate of their pulpit eloquence ;" and he has refolved, by his precept as well as example, to form a new and memorable era in the "Preaching," he says, "has become a bye-word for long, and dull, converfation of any kind; and whoever wishes to imply, in any piece of writing, the absence of every thing agreeable and inviting, calls it a fermon.' "" PP. 12, 13.

art.

Among the caufes which have contributed to this horrible degradation of fermonical compofition, the fir, he thinks, is the bad choice of the fubjects. Instead of what are very expreffively called moral difcourfes, light, airy, and fashionable like his own, we fuppofe, the miftaken clergy of England notoriously perfift in diverfifying their fermons, by enlarging on doctrinal topics of religion; by explaining difficult and important paffages of Scripture; and while they labour to connect the wonderful train of prophecies in the Old Teftament with their fulfilment in the New, they vainly imagine that they add ftability to faith, or perhaps evidence to revelation. The fecond caufe he affigns, is a bad tafte in the language of fermons, by the heterogeneous admiffion of fcriptural phrases; a practice, which however it may have given weight to precept, and elevation to ftyle two hundred years ago, is now declared to be entirely out of fashion; as all fuch phrafes, by perfons of refined tafte, are found to" pafs through the ear without leaving any impreffion but that of ridicule or difguft." We will do Mr. Smith's Sermons the juftice to fay, that they are entirely free from fo very dull, and fervile a fpecies of plagiarism; and that fcarcely a fingle expreffion occurs, from the one end to the other of his book, that is borrowed from the facred volume! The THIRD cause which this profeffor of eloquence points out for the unpopularity

Dd 4

of

of fermons, is the extremely ungraceful manner in which they are. delivered.

"The English," he obferves, "generally remarkable for doing very good things in a very bad manner, feem to have referved the maturity and plenitude of their awkwardnefs for the pulpit. A clergyman clings to his velvet cushion with either hand; keeps his eye rivetted upon his book; fpeaks of the ecftacies of joy and fear, with a voice and face which indicate neither; and pinions his body and foul into the fame attitude of limb and thought, for fear of being called theatrical and affected. The moft intrepid veteran of us dares no more than wipe his face with his cambric fudarium. If, by mis chance, his hand flip from his orthodox gripe of the velvet, he draws it back as from liquid brimitone, or the cauftic iron of the law, and atones for this indecorum, by fresh inflexibility, and more rigorous fameness. Why this holoplexia on facred occafions alone? Why call in the aid of paralyfis to piety? Is it a rule of oratory to balance the ftyle against the subject, and to handle the moft fublime truths in the dulleft language, and the driest manner? Is fin to be taken from men, as Eve was from Adam by cafting them into a deep flumber? Or, from what poflible perverfion of common fenfe, are we all to look like field-preachers in Zembla, holy lumps of ice, numbed into quiefcence, and ftagnation, and mumbling ?" PP. 19-22,

If this curious delineation will not pafs for argument, we have little difficulty in believing that it is intended for wit. A propenfity to indulge in merriment, or, as Horace more correctly expreffes it, defipere, is a feeling, of which our author feems with great difficulty to be able to diveft himself; but whether it be here in loco, is a queftion we fhall fubmit to his learned and reverend friends of New College accurately to determine.

In order to remedy these deplorable evils, and completely to fix the attention of an audience, Mr. Smith propofes that the preacher fhall have recourse to the edifying examples of the fectary, the methodist, and the player. From the two firft he would catch their animated gefticulation, their genuine look and voice of paffion; and from the laft he might copy thofe fine and impreffive tones, by which a Garrick once obtained, and by which a Kemble can ftill obtain, an unlimited command over the hearts of his hearers. This, it feems, is his grand fecret, for the restoration of pulpit eloquence. By these means, he affures us, (which is a new doctrine) that fuperior excellence would be the refult of imitation. "Inftead of holy lumps of ice, or fieldpreachers in Zembla," we fhould foon be able to articulate with every limb, and talk from head to foot with a thousand voices. With the book of the wifdom of God in one hand, and, in the other, that eloquence, which ruled the Pagan world," we could not fail "to roufe, to appeal (appal), to inflame, to break through every barrier, up to the very haunts and chambers of the foul." In addition to the above oratorical recipé for attracting an audience, are alfo recommended the humbler methods (of which we moft heartily approve) of keeping comfortable fires, and encouraging appropriate mufic, in our churches.

When