neither attempt to expose or to refute her petulant charges against him here. But her enmity to Cowper's religion, from which we deduce her enmity to his fame, naturally leads us to enquire after the religion of Miss Seward.

In a letter to Mr. Jerningham, she inveighs bitterly against Popery, Calvinism and Methodism, because their ministers preach glowing sermons ;' and in vindication of the frigid ones that are too often delivered at Church, gives the following character of a parson.

. When we see that man in the pulpit whom we are in the habit of meeting at the festal board, at the card-table, perhaps seen join in the dance, and over whose frailties, in common with our own, no holy curtain has been drawn, we expect modest exhortation, sober reasoning, chastized denunciation; and I have uniformly seen the congregation more disgusted than touched and alarmed by the bolder style you wish to see prevail, especially where the preacher was young, and not invested with the ensigns of elevated office.' Vol. V. pp. 291, 292. To suit such a divine as she has here delineated, we presume it was Miss Seward occasionally sermons, as she informs us in a letter to Mr. Hayley, (Vol. II. p. 117.) and adds: If I know any thing of my talents, sermonizing is their fort. Of the style and doctrines of these Sermons, we may probably form a fair judgment from certain passages in a letter to Mr. Whalley.

wrote

Indeed, I have every honour for Mrs. H. More's talents and virtues. It was entirely owing to my recollection how much she had, in the year 1791, when I was your guest, distressed the feelings of that dear saint, that genuine Christian, Mr. Inman, by introducing into his pulpit the rank Methodist, Mr. Newton, which induced me to believe, that her endeavours to promote Methodist principles were continued in her neighbourhood. Mrs. H. More expressed to me, at her own house, admiration of the despicable rant we had heard, the preceding Sunday, from Newton; of which Mr. Inman, yourself, and all our party, had expressed our horror, That good man imputed to Mrs. More the increase of those pernicious principles in your county. I have read nothing of the late controversy on that subject, except from your statement. Notwithstanding your acquittal of the lady, I own I thought it not likely, that she, whom Mr. Inman had heretofore so deeply blamed on that subject, should be wholly blameless in the similar arraignment brought against her "by a gownman of a different make."

The misery, the despair, which the gloomy Calvinistic tenets have produced, makes me abhor them; they are not Christianity; they

are not common sense.

Mrs. H. More's ingenious work on education, contains one chapter which proves the continuance of those principles in her mind. It maintains the absurd doctrine of original sin, as if a just God could have made the task of virtue of infinitely increased difficulty to the sons and daughters of Adam, for the sin of their first parents.

It

is a dreadful, a blasphemous supposition, founded only upon a few dark texts of St. Paul, and nowhere authorized by Christ. On the contrary, He repeatedly speaks of the primeval innocence of children, "Of such is the kingdom of heaven."

and says, Every being must be innocent, till, by sin, either of thought or deed, against the light of reason committed, and the warrings of conscience, they forfeit that innocence.

Such and no more, was the innocence of Adam and Eve, who lost it on the first temptation, and that a slight one. There is, therefore, no reason to think their first nature better than ours. Eden was to be theirs conditionally-on their obedience to the will of God. Heaven is to be ours on the same condition The commission of sin, mentally or corporally, alone renders a Mediator necessary to man. For our nature, if God is just, we cannot be accountable, since our will was not concerned in its formation; and if, indeed, that nature is so inherently corrupt and abominable, as it is represented by Mrs. H. More, Mr. Wilberforce, &c., the wickedest amongst us is more an object of pity than of just indignation in the eyes of a pure and perfect Being. But the feelings of pity; a strong involuntary sense of justice; of filial obedience due to him who created us with perceptions of happiness, and powers of enjoyment; of gratitude to that Heavenly Bestower, and to such of our fellow-creatures as have contributed to our welfare; these are innate good properties, and they acquit the Deity of the impiously imputed injustice of having given us a nature utterly depraved, and in itself deserving of damnation, because our first parents sinned.' pp. 411-413.

We could quote two pages more: but our readers have already perceived enough of the "carnal mind, which is enmity towards God," in this wretched attack upon a doctrine which, it is evident, the writer did not understand. Miss Seward's favourite theologian was the Rev. R. Fellowes, to whom many of her epistles are addressed, and whose fashionable books on religion, or books of fashionable religion, we might rather say, appear to have been very edifying to her.

to

We can expatiate no further on the numerous topics of these volumes. Of these the politics are the least interesting, though at the time, and to the writer and her friends, they were probably the most. All the letters to Mrs. T., and concerning Colonel T., an early and rejected admirer of Miss Seward's, who continued ridiculously attached her long after he had pledged his hand to another, we humbly think, ought to have been suppressed. Yet how could a Lady, an elderly Lady, descending to the grave in a state of "single blessedness," be expected to conceal so romantic a conquest from the world?-especially as that conquest extended to the wife of the unfortunate lover, who was yet more absurdly attached to Miss Seward

than her husband himself was? The whole, however, contains a very curious piece of private history, and will be perused with much more avidity by many readers than the better parts of the correspondence. From one of the letters to this doating wife, we transcribe the following tolerably drawn portrait of Miss Seward by herself.

I cannot endure to see a creature, so imperfect as myself, invested with attractions and excellencies to which I have no pretence. Perfectly do I feel the ground on which I stand. I know that I have talents, and some good qualities; that I am ingenuous; that my mind is neither stained nor embittered by envy; that I detest injustice, and am grateful for every proof of affection. I can believe what I am told about my countenance expressing the feelings of my heart; but I have no charms, no grace, no elegance of form or deportment. If, in youth, my complexion was clear, glowing, and animated; if my features were agreeable, though not regular, they have been the victims of time. When tolerably well, the cheerfulness of my temper is unclouded, but, beneath the pressure of disease, I am weakly dejected. I wish to be obliging; yet, if my manners are not rustic, there is about me an hereditary absence, which always did, and always must prevent their taking the polish of perfect good breeding: and, to balance my tolerable properties, there is frequent indiscretion from an excess of frankness, and from native and yet unconquered impetuosity of temper;-and fortitude, alas! I almost wholly want.' p. 173.

We find many amusing sketches of Characters in the course of these letters, particularly those of Mrs. G. Vol. I. Letter 20. Dr. Parr, Vol. III. Letter 59. Mrs. Hayley, Vol. V. Letter 21. Dr. and Mrs. Stokes, Vol. V. Letter 22. and of Griffiths, a conceited libertine, Vol. III. Letter 83.

or

We cannot say much in recommendation of Miss Seward's epistolary style. Her prose has every fault of her poetry. It is slow, unwieldy, and high sounding in its cadences; rugged with inversions, and uncouth with new-coined obsolete words. Yet, having considerable strength of thought and splendour of imagery to support and embellish it, we gradually became reconciled as we grew familiar with it, and if we could not forget its faults, by their perpetual recurrence, we forgave most of them as we went along. None, however, plagued and provoked us more than certain parenthetical phrases, thrust in between the article and noun, the adjective and substantive, or the nominative and verb. These, though sometimes necessary, are never graceful. -That we may be better understood, we shall mark these heterogeneous epithets with hyphens. In the, of-late-seldom, times,' &c. It possessed the, in-my-opinion, essential characteristic of a sonnet.' Mr. Hayley, in his great, his notto-be-excelled, work, the Epistles on Epic Poetry. All

6

these occur in the space of twenty lines. (Vol. II. pp. 279--80.) The following, however, is a matchless specimen, being a perfect triplet of these sesquipedalian compounds: Among the countless sacrifices fallen in this, originally-just, and once-well-promising, though for-the-last-two-years-unwise-andrash, war! Vol. IV. p. 35.

We shall close this article with three favourable quotations. Miss Seward seems to have possessed neither wit nor sprightliness, and to her credit she rarely affects them. There is some humour, however, and probably much truth, in an anecdote which we find in a letter, dated Nov. 25, 1788, during the first melancholy affliction of his present Majesty.

We met, in the Dean's Walk yesterday, that vain and flitting piece of learned insanity, Dr S. He came sailing along in a bombazeen gown and cassoc, at two o'clock on a week day. "Lord! what's that?" exclaimed Charlotte, when we first spied him at some distance; his floating black sleeves, swelled out by the high wind "It is certainly a black angel." On his near approach, "How do you do, Dr. S?" "In mourning for George the Third, double mourning for George the Fourth-died last Monday night-physicians, apothecaries, ministers, all deserted him-made an epitaph in the chaise -hear it:

"The ill he did,(Then conceitedly turning his head away
and twirling his hand,) he did not mean;
The good he did (action ditto) he meant;

And thus, when virtues intervene,

The worst advices (action ditto) have the best intent."

He then sailed away before us, without saying another word, and has this morning been preaching a funeral sermon for the king.-How mad is all this! Adieu,' Vol. II. p 202.

The following reflections, though highly-laboured, are touching, and communicate the very feelings which they express to the breast of the reader.

With what kindness do you speak of our long friendship! I am soothed that its vestiges are precious in your recollection. Often do I live over again, in idea, those days in which our friendship was gladdened by frequent personal intercourse; and in which we had one object on which to gaze with delight, to listen to with transport; with whom to sympathise, and for whom to hope. Very many years have rolled away since that "silver cord was loosed," and new eras pass on in succession, without seeing those two meet, who most lament her loss, and most sacredly preserve her memory!

This is to be regretted; but many are the regrets which cloud existence. They pass away in youth, like the chill gales and transient showers of an April sky. The sun of hope and joy succeeds, as the actual syn succeeds to those wintry lingerings when he looks on the young grass and the half-blown leaves, and drinks their rain-drops: and when he expands the flowers and fruits in their germs. The

clouds of waning life are dense, and their rains are blighting. If the sun of cheerfulness sometimes disperses them, it shines, but it does not warm; it gilds, but it does not invigorate; it is often beautiful but never genial.

of

This is melancholy moralizing; imagination, however, is soothed, while she enwreaths with such pensive flowers the sepulchre time.' pp. 402-403.

Of the manner in which she lamented the loss of her last best friend, Mr. Saville, the reader may judge from one short passage.

With him the records of my youthful life are passed away; with him they were mutual and poignant remembrances; with my friends of later connection they are but cold hearsays. When I speak of them, I do but think they listen indulgently to what they deem the uninteresting descriptions of advanced life, fond to tell the tale of other times. So will it be with all who survive those dear contemporaries who had ran with them the sprightly race of youth and sensibility: "Those best of days that crown life's year;

That light upon the eyelids dart,

And melting joys upon the heart."

Time, which had silvered the locks of my departed friend, had not in the slightest degree, chilled his native and fervent enthusiasm; his generous credulity towards all apparent worth. O! he was the very few,

"Who uniformly bear to life's mild eye,

one of

Immaculate, the manners of the morn:" Vol. VI. p. 121. These extracts, we trust, will justify both our censures and commendations of Miss Seward's epistolary style. It remains only to say, that these volumes are embellised with portraits of Miss Seward and her father, a view of Litchfield, and a fac simile of the author's hand writing.

Art. 11. Sermons, by Samuel Horsley, L. L. D. F. R.S. F.A.S. Late Lord Bishop of St. Asaph. 2 vols. 8vo. pp. xxx. 358 and 447. Price One guinea boards. Hatchard, Cadell and Davies, 1810. WE came

The

to the perusal of these volumes with impressions for which we could scarcely account. controversial fame of the right reverend author had often been loudly celebrated; and in the arena of polemic theology we had beheld him crowned with victory. But it was impossible to forget that he had tarnished the glory of his conquests, by a tone of imperious dogmatism on some of the most momentous subjects of national policy; and done violence to the best feelings of our nature, by some wanton and outrageous assertions against the most sacred rights of men. At the same time we recollected, by how many instructive charges he had warned and directed the pastors