Imatges de pàgina
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preffions of throws, breathes, and browner horror, are, I believe, the boldest and strongest in the English language.' He thinks the defcription of high mafs, which came from the poet's soul, is fublime, and very striking. I believe,' adds he, few perfons have ever been prefent at the celebrating mafs in a good choir, but have been extremely affected with awe, if not with devotion: which ought to put us on our • guard against the infinuating nature of fo pompous and alluring a religion as popery. Lord Bolingbroke being one • day prefent at this folemnity, in the chapel of Verfailles, and feeing the Archbishop of Paris elevate the hoft, whispered his companion, the Marquis de ***, If I were King of France, I would always perform this ceremony myself."

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The following lines the Author recommends as a fubject for the pencil of a capital painter. Eloifa reprefents herself as lying on a tomb, and thinking she heard some spirit calling to her, in every low wind.

Here, as I watch'd the dying lamps around,
From yonder fhrine I heard a hollow found,
Come, fifter, come! it faid (or feem'd to fay)
The place is here, fad fifter, come away!
Once like thyself, I trembled, wept, and pray'd,
Love's victim then,, tho' now a fainted maid

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The painter,' fays he, might place Eloifa in the long ifle of a great Gothic church. A lamp fhould hang over her head, whofe dim and dismal ray fhould afford only light enough to make darkness visible. She herself fhould be reprefented in the inftant when fhe first hears this aerial voice, and in the attitude of starting round with aftonishment and fear. And this was the method a very great master took to paint a found, if I may be allowed the expreffion.'—

Eloifa, at the conclufion of the epiftle, is judiciously reprefented as gradually fettling into a tranquility of mind. She can bear to speak of their being buried together, with· out violent emotions. Two lovers are introduced as vifiting their tombs, and the behaviour of the ftrangers is finely imagined,'

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From the full choir, when loud Hofannas rife,
And fwell the pomp of dreadful facrifice,

Glance on the ftone where our cold relics lie,

Amid that scene, if fome relenting eye

Devotion's felf fhall fteal a thought from Heav'n,
One human tear fhall drop, and be forgiv'n.

With this line, the Criticthinks, the poem fhould have ended, for that the eight additional lines concerning fome poet that

haply

haply might arife to fing their misfortunes, are languid and flat, and diminish the pathos of the foregoing fentiments.

Nor are these the only lines our Author has found fault with. He thinks it improper for a person in the circumftances of Eloifa to mention Cupid. Mythology is here out of its place.

Love free as air, at fight of human ties,

Spreads his light wings, and in a moment flies.

And he is of opinion, that theVifion, which is partly from Dido's dream, tho' picturefque, is not appropriated, nor descriptive enough of that diftrefs which could only happen to Eloifa, and which should be drawn from objects which have a reference only to her story.

Methinks we wand'ring go

Thro' dreary waftes, and weep each others woe.

In the notes he justly praises a poem of Catullus's, inscribed Atys. But we cannot subscribe to his opinion, that it is of a frain fuperior to any thing in the Roman poefy, and more paffionate and fublime than any part of Virgil. And tho' it is much above any other of Catullus's pieces, yet do we fee no reason for its being thought a translation from some Greek writer. Might it not be the work of the Author of the Pervigilium Veneris? He was equal to the task. As we have no old Dithyrambics, we cannot fay whether the Atys is an exact model of that compofition. It is, however, very animated, and the changes are fudden, and well fupported.

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The epiftle of Eloifa to Abelard is, on the whole, fays our Author, one of the most highly finished, and certainly the most interefting, of all Mr. Pope's pieces; and, to"gether with the elegy to the memory of an unfortunate lady, is the only inftance of the pathetic he has given us. I think one may venture to remark, that the reputation of Pope as a poet, among pofterity, will be principally owing to his Windfor-Foreft, his Rape of the Lock, and his Eloifa to Abelard; whilft the facts and characters alluded to in his later writings, will be forgotten and unknown, and their poignancy and propriety little relifh'd. For wit and fatyr are tranfitory, and perishable, but nature and paffion are eternal.’

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Thefe are, indeed, Omnium tatum poemata; yet are we of opinion, that even without thefe, the Veries to the Memory of an unfortunate Lady, and the Meffiah, not to mntion the Ode to St. Cecilia, would, with pofterity, have lecured to Pope the character of a Sublime and Pathetic Poet.

Upon the whole, altho' we judge that this Eflay is partly calculated to fink Mr.Pope's reputation to a lower degree in the

poetical fcale than he has hitherto been ftationed at, yet do we hope, that the ingenious Author will continue his Óbfervations. A Gentleman of fo fine a tafte, and mafter of fo much learning, cannot fail of throwing out many beautiful and interefting particulars. But we could wish, that in his future volumes he would be more fparing in the use of fynonimous terms *, where one word fully expresses the idea. Verbofity is a fault in every fpecies of writing, but more especially in works of Criticism.

* A few of these we have taken the liberty to omit, in fome of our extracts.

The Ufe of Reafon afferted in Matters of Religion: or Natural Religion the Foundation of Revealed. In Anfwer to a Sermon preached before the University of Oxford on Act-Sunday, July 13, 1755, and lately published at the Request of the Vice Chancellor, and other Heads of Houfes: by Thomas Patten, D. D. Fellow of Corpus Chrifti College. By Ralph Heathcote, A. M. Preacher-Affiftant at Lincoln's Inn. 8vo. the fecond Edition corrected. Is. 6d. Payne.

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Othing has done more honour to Chriftianity, than the late Defences of it, by men who have infifted upon the ufe of Reason in Religious Matters; and who have shewn, that the fuperftructure of revealed, is properly raifed on the foundation of natural, Religion. In times of greater fuperftition than the prefent, the adverfaries of Revelation attacked it, or rather the advocates of it, because the fyftem then adhered to, was not to be fupported by Reafon and Argument: we fay the fyftem, because we think, that true Chriftianity is the fame, tho' fyftems vary; and if Infidels have refuted fyftems, they have not refuted Chriftianity. The mistakes and errors of Chriftians have often been attacked, and thro' them the Chriftian Religion has as often been mifreprefented and abufed; but are the character of our bleffed Lord and his doctrines ever cenfured but by the moft profligate of men? St. Paul, indeed, has been very ill treated by a late unbeliever, but it was for afferting opinions no where to be found in St. Paul's writings.

As nothing tends more to the honour of Chriftianity, next to the good lives of its profeffors, than the proving it to be a reafonable fervice, fo nothing, on the other hand, can dif

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grace

grace it more than to affert, with certain modern Infidels, that Chriftianity is not founded on Argument. Whilft Chriftians feemed to depreciate Human Reason as a dim light, and a carnal weapon, their adverfaries cried it up as the only light, and an all-fufficient guide; but when Chriftians, equally averse to Superftition and Impiety, defended Chriftianity by Reason and Argument, the Infidel joined the Bigot, and denied the ufe of Reafon in Religion: Surely, therefore, he is fairly beat out of the field! and we believe the world will have nothing more of any confequence from that quarter, until the enemies of Human Reafon, amongft Chriftians, prevail over the Rationalifts.

From a due fenfe of the vaft importance of Reason to the Proteftant Religion, Mr. Heathcote has undertaken the Defence of it against certain men, who having oppofed Reason, will find it very difficult to answer him; for Reason will never concur to dethrone herself.

That our readers may form a true judgment of the real merits of this performance, we shall lay before him the following extracts.

Dr. Patten's Sermon, when cleared from that perplexity and diforder in which he has delivered it, amounts to the ⚫ following particulars: firft, that Chriftianity cannot be founded upon Argument, because Reafon is blind, and all her de⚫ductions precarious and vain; and, confequently, that Na⚫tural Religion neither is, nor can be any criterion of Re⚫vealed. Secondly, that the true and proper foundation of the Gospel is the miracles it records, because miracles are facts, and facts the only ground of all our reasonings; upon ❝ which account we should always, in our difputes with Un• believers, content ourselves with infifting upon the miracles ⚫ alone. But for fear a fpeculative affent of Reason to these 'miracles, even if we could gain it, should not be fufficient for the Converfion of Unbelievers, he recommends, in the third place, an active, lively, and energetic Faith, from which we may learn, what no human instructions, no admonitions of • Reafon, can teach us; that victorious principle, he says, which, • by the grace of God, is made to grow and Spring up one knoweth not how, in every foul, which turneth itself to him with an • awakened earnestness of defire, &c. This, I fay, is the fub• ftance of his Sermon; through which there runs also such a bitterness of spirit, as perhaps never animated any Sermon before it: a fpirit, which, under the mafk of piety, difcharges itself against all orders of men, but with peculiar malice and rancour against the Clergy. And for the doctri

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⚫nal part, it is delivered with so much spiritual pride, and in fo contemptuous and dogmatical a ftrain, as is hardly to be • excufed in a creature, who is fallible. Ifhall venture, however, to withstand this Doctor to his face, and will undertake to fhew, that this new scheme of Defence, which he has offered us, is very abfurd and irrational; that it is ⚫ grounded upon principles, which are contrary not only to the express declarations, but even to the whole tenor of the Gospel; and that, instead of supporting this Gospel, it "would actually overturn it.

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But, because it will illuftrate and confirm my argument not a little, give me leave, before I proceed any further, • just to take notice, that the ablest and most confiftent adverfaries of the Gospel have pursued the fame plan in undermining its foundation, which this Doctor recommends in order to establish it; that they have ufually employed the very fame topics, and frequently expreffed themselves in much the fame language. They have reprefented Reason 6 as weak, and utterly incapable of judging at all about it: they have advised men, not to examine into its original, but to adhere to it, as a Fact already established: and they have cried up and exalted Faith, as the only means, by which it can gain admission into the heart.

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If a Revelation treateth of matters which relate to the Being of a God, and to his Juftice and Goodness, I must previously know, that fuch a Being exifts, and have ideas alfo of the Attributes of Juft and Good, or else I can by . no means comprehend the Revelation. If a Revelation

layeth down a Syftem of Morality, which dependeth on the Notions of Right and Wrong, 1 muft have, antecedently within myself, fome general notions of Right and Wrong, I am perfectly incapable of understanding the Revela

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⚫tion.

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The late Lord Bolingbroke, whofe aim, as well as this Doctor's, was to destroy Natural Religion, but for purpofes, as we fhall fee, much more confiftent, maintained, • that the mind has no power of framing fuch general notions ; ▾ that it neither does nor can frame any ideas of Moral or Immoral in general; no, nor any general idea of these particular kinds, Juft or Unjust.

Plato and Ariftotle have been our Guides in Divinity: ⚫ and this may explain the reason, why Chriftianity has always been corrupted with bafe and foreign mixtures; why it still wants reforming in fo many countries; and why it

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is profefied in its original and genuine purity, perhaps, in

none.

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