feat of his antagonist is in my opinion complete.

I have only to observe, in conclusion, that with all Dr. Copleston's learning and talent, his reputation as a sound reasoner is greatly impaired by the present publication. He has absurdly attempted to identify the doctrines of Fate and Philosophical Necessity; he has failed in proving the two pernicious consequences which he attributes to the latter; his principal example of fallacy in the use of language is irrelevant to the purpose for which it was introduced; and his reasoning on the distinction between analogy and resemblance has been combated with signal success.

SIR,

CLERICUS CANTABRIGIENSIS

LATE occurrence in my neigh

A bourhood led me to reflect upon

the gross inconsistency of the ultra-religious, who place so much of their religion in the Jewish observance of the sabbath. They will harass and distress a poor widow who sells for her livelihood a bunch of greens on the Sunday, and yet they themselves will countenance and uphold practices which are equally a violation of the sanctity of the day, according to their own notion of sanctity. Without any doubt of its propriety, they take places in short stage-coaches, (the difference between shorts and longs in this respect involves a great deal of religion) or call hackney-coaches on the Sunday, though these vehicles cannot run without taking many persons (horsekeepers, drivers, watermen, &c.) from church duties, and laying a burden upon the poor beasts employed, which the Jewish sabbatic law forbids. They will also open without compunction letters by the Monday's post, which have been on the road all the preeeding day, and in their transit have made a host of sabbath-breakers. And again, who reads more eagerly the Monday morning newspapers, the getting up of which is well known to occupy the printers a great part of the Sunday in labour?-These inconsistencies should surely teach the eager observers of days and prosecutors, or, correctly speaking, persecutors, of non-observers, that they have something of the Pharisee in

them; for while they strain at the gnat, they swallow the camel.

A few years ago an association was formed for enforcing, by the strong arm of the law, "the better observance of the Lord's day." An appeal was made to the public for support in a project which was to divert the wrath of God from a guilty land. One of the patrons of the pious scheme was, at the very time of its announcement, seen every Sunday driving a pair of jaded horses from pillar to post-from a Tabernacle here, to an Ebenezer there, in order, no doubt, to explain and recommend the duty of man and beast doing no manner of work on the seventh day, which in popular oratory is always assumed to be the first day of the week. The projector of the combination was young in a profession, the members of which sometimes make work for

themselves; and if this sabbatic com

pany be dissolved, it may be supposed to be owing to other and more profitable companies having been projected.

Works of necessity and charity have been generally allowed on the Sunday by the severest Sabbatarians; but so far do some professors of the sabbath day carry this their religion, that they hold it unlawful to take off the beard on this day, and even begin to look with an evil eye upon Sunday-schools. The Wesleian Methodists have determined in Conference that the sabbath is profaned when it is employed in teaching poor children to write!

With all this zeal for the sanctity of the Lord's day, we see the chapels of the zealots frequently turned into seats of money-changers. Sunday is the great day for collections, though it is contrary to the Jewish law of the sabbath to touch money within the sacred twenty-four hours. Nay, there is a great trade carried on in some of the most thronged chapels on the Sunday; the vestry being turned into a shop for the sale of hymn-books, tune-books, sermons and pamphlets.

I am no enemy, I am a sincere friend, to the religious employment of the first day of the week; but I cannot consent to the application to Christians of merely Jewish laws, nor hear without strong dislike professions contradicted by practice.

ONE OF THE GENTILES.

(Continued from p. 489.)

Menthe the same spirit of li

RS. BARBAULD's poems all

berty and humanity; without interfering with political questions beyond the limits that her sex marked out for her, she was well known to sympathize with the supporters of liberal opinions, and her feelings are beautifully expressed in many of her verses. We take the following, not as the best specimen, but as being accordant with the object of the Monthly Repository, and not very likely to be transplanted into any other periodical work:

"TO DR. PRIestley,
December 29, 1792.

"Stirs not thy spirit, Priestley! as the

There is great tenderness in the following elegiac verses, I. 168-172.

"Epistle to Dr. ENFIELD,

On his revisiting Warrington in 1789. "Friend of those years which from Youth's sparkling fount

With silent lapse down Time's swift gulf have run!

Friend of the years, whate'er be their amount,

Which yet remain beneath life's evening sun!

O when thy feet retrace that western shore

Where Mersey winds his waters to the main,

When thy foud eyes familiar haunts explore,

And paths well nigh effaced are tracked again;

Will not thy heart with mixed emotions thrill,

As scenes succeeding scenes arise to view?

While joy or sorrow past alike shall *fill

Thy glistening eyes with Feeling's tender dew.

Shades of light transient Loves shall pass thee by,

And glowing Hopes, and Sports of youthful vein;

And each shall claim one short, halfpleasing sigh,

A farewell sigh to Love's and Fancy's reign.

Lo there the seats where Science loved to dwell,

Where Liberty her ardent spirit breathed;

While each glad Naiad from her secret cell

Her native sedge with classic honours wreathed.

O seats beloved in vain! Your rising dome

With what fond joy my youthful eyes surveyed;

Pleased by your sacred springs to find my home,

And tune my lyre beneath your growing shade!

Does Desolation spread his gloomy veil Your grass-grown courts and silent halls along?

Or busy hands there pile the cumbrous sail,

And trade's harsh din succeed the Muse's song?

rous Love

The grave rebuke of careful Wisdom drew,

With wholesome frown austere, who vainly strove

To shield the sliding heart from Beauty's view.

Go fling this garland in fair Mersey's stream,

From the true lovers that have trod his banks;

Say, Thames to Avon still repeats his theme;

Say, Hymen's captives send their votive thanks.

Visit each shade and trace each weeping rill

To holy Friendship or to Fancy known, And climb with zealous step the fircrowned hill,

Where purple foxgloves fringe the rugged stone:

And if thou seest, on some neglected

spray,

give;

Some of the lighter pieces now first presented to the public are exquisitely finished. We select the following, I. 212-214, which, though less playful and less rich in imagination than some others, comes recommended to us by its moral:

"PEACE AND Shepherd.

"Low in a deep sequestered vale,

Whence Alpine heights ascend,
A beauteous nymph, in pilgrim garb,
Is seen her steps to bend.

Her olive garland drops with gore;

Her scattered tresses torn,
Her bleeding breast, her bruised feet,
Bespeak a maid forlorn.

'From bower and hall and palace driven,
To these lone wilds I flee;
My name is Peace, I love the cot;

O Shepherd, shelter me!'

'O beauteous pilgrim, why dost thou
From bower and palace flee?
So soft thy voice, so sweet thy look,
Sure all would shelter thee.'

'Like Noah's dove, no rest I find;
The din of battle roars
Where once my steps I loved to print
Along the myrtle shores:

For ever in my frighted ears

The savage war-whoop sounds; And, like a panting hare, I fly Before the opening hounds.' Pilgrim, those spiry groves among, The mansious thou mayst sce, Where cloister'd saints chaunt holy hymns, Sure such would shelter thee!'

Those roofs with trophied banners
stream,

There martial hymus resound;
And, Shepherd, oft from crosiered hands,
This breast has felt a wound.'

Ah! gentle pilgrim, glad would I Those tones for ever hear! With thee to share my scanty lot, That lot to me were dear.

But lo, along the vine-clad steep, The gleam of armour shines;

The prose works consist of letters

The helpless swain resigns.

And now the smouldering flames aspire,
Their lurid light I see;

I hear the human wolves approach;
I cannot shelter thee."

scene:

Till on some fated day Thou with a tiger-spring dost leap upon thy prey,

And tear his helpless breast, o'erwhelm'd with wild dismay."

The conclusion, in which Remorse is described as effacing guilt and subsiding into penitence, and a prayer is offered for the atoning "tears of meek contrition," will not be regarded by the many as orthodox in its theology, but must still be admired for its genuine poetry by those that cannot take delight in it as the effusion of Christian charity.

The "Hymns" are inserted together at the end of the 1st volume. It is

singular that some of them are not regular in the metre. There are several metrical irregularities in H. VII., "Come, said Jesus' sacred voice,' which the author corrected in the copy from which the hymn was printed in Mr. Aspland's Selection. This is a great fault in compositions designed to be sung. Only one new Hymn is here introduced (H. IX.), and we find it difficult to believe that it is really Mrs. Barbauld's: it is of various metres, if of any, and the sense is not always discoverable. What can be

made of the first stanza?

the first time, and of tracts published at various periods during Mrs. Barbauld's life, some with and some without her name.

The "Correspondence," which oc cupies a third of the volume, is peculiarly interesting. There is an ease and grace in the letters which reminds us of Cowper. Could a volume have been made up of Mrs. Barbauld's epistolary effusions, it would no doubt have obtained great popularity.

Some of the letters were written on a tour on the Continent: we meet in them, as might have been expected, with some interesting accounts of the French and Swiss Protestants.

"Nismes is the very centre of the Protestants. They are computed to be 30,000, and the richest part of the inhabitants; for here, as the Dissenters in England, they give themselves to trade. They have no church, nor even barn; but assemble in the desert, as they call it, in the open air, in a place surrounded by rocks, which reverberate the voice. The pulpit is moveable, and there are a few seats of stone for the elders. Oa their great festivals they say the sight is very striking."-II. 46, 47.

Will you hear how they pass the Sunday at Geneva? They have service at seven in the morning, nine, and at. two; after that they assemble in parties for conversation, cards and dancing, and finish the day at the theatre.

all?

"Did not you think they had been stricter at Genera than to have plays on the Sunday, especially as it is but two or three years since they were allowed at seldom much more than an hour, and I believe few people go more than once a day. As soon as the text is named, the minister puts on his hat, in which he is followed by all the congregation, except those whose hats and heads have never any connexion, for you well know that to put his hat upon his head is the last use a well dressed Frenchman would think of putting it to. At proper periods and turns his back to you, in order to of the discourse the minister stops short blow his nose, which is a sigual for all the congregation to do the same; and a glorious concert it is, for the weather is already severe, and people have got colds.

The service at their churches is

I am told, too, that he takes this time to refresh his memory by peeping at his sermon, which lies behind him in the pulpit."-II. 64, 65.

In some strictures on a sentiment of the late Dr. Fordyce's, Mrs. Barbauld is led by her correct moral taste to point out a piece of parade” in that popular preacher :

"It is not true, what (as) Dr. Fordyce insinuates, that women's friendships are not sincere; I am sure it is not: I remember when I read it I had a good mind to have burnt the book for that unkind passage. I hope the Doctor will give us our revenge, as he has begun his sermons to young men: they were advertised in the papers-was it not a piece of parade unbecoming a preacher? It would be difficult to determine whether the age is growing better or worse; for I think our plays are growing like sermons and our sermons like plays."II. 59.

The comparison of the characters of Dr. Priestley and Mirabeau in the following passage is in Mrs. Barbauld's happiest manner:

"I last Sunday attended, with melancholy satisfaction, the funeral sermon of good Dr. Price, preached by Dr. Priestley, who, as he told us, had been thirty years his acquaintance and twenty years his intimate friend. He well delineated

the character he so well knew. I had just been reading an éloge of Mirabeau, and I could not help, in my own mind, comparing both the men and the tribute paid to their memories. The one died when a reputation, raised suddenly by extraordinary emergencies, was at its height, and very possibly might have ebbed again had he lived longer :-the other enjoyed an esteem, the fruit of a course of labours uniformly directed, through a long life, to the advancement of knowledge and virtue, a reputation slowly raised, without and independent of popular talents. The panegyrist of the one was obliged to sink his private life, and to cover with the splendid mantle of public merit the crimes and failings of the man:-the private character of the other was able to bear the severest scrutiny; neither slander nor envy, nor party prejudice, ever pretended to find a spot in it. The one was followed even by those who did not trust him; the other was confided in and trusted even by those who reprobated his principles. In pronouncing the éloge on Mirabeau, the author scarcely dares to insinuate a vague and uncertain hope that his spirit may hover somewhere in the void space of immensity, be rejoined to the first

principles of nature; and attempts to soothe his shade with a cold and barren immortality in the remembrance of posterity. Dr. Priestley parts with his intimate friend with all the cheerfulness which an assured hope of meeting him soon again could give, and at once dries the tear he excites."-II. 84-86.

Mrs Barbauld's criticisms on books are, we think, generally just, and they are always candid. She thus writes of Joanna Bailie's tragedies :

"I have received great pleasure lately from the representation of De Montfort, a tragedy which you probably read a year and half ago, in a volume entitled, A Series of Plays on the Passions, Í admired it then, but little dreamed I was indebted for my entertainment to a young lady of Hampstead, whom I visited, and who came to Mr. Barbauld's meeting all the while with as innocent a face as if she had never written a line. The play is admirably acted by Mrs. Siddons and Kemble, and is finely written, with great purity of sentiment, beauty of diction, strength and originality of character; but it is open to

criticism: I cannot believe such a hatred natural. The affection between the brother and sister is most beautifully touched, and as far as I know, quite new. The play is somewhat too good for our present taste.”—II. 67, 68.

No

Does she exercise ber usual taste and judgment when she says of Burns's it "has much of the same kind of "Cotter's Saturday Night," II. 151, merit as the Schoolmistress"? two poets are more unlike than Shenstone and the Ayrshire Ploughman, nor is their dissimilarity any where more apparent than in these two poems.

There is a very striking remark, II. 137, upon the death of Lord Byron"He has filled a leaf in the book of fame, but it is a very blotted leaf."

the following passage remains to be The prediction at the conclusion of fulfilled, though we confess we do not see any indication of the fulfilment being near:

"Last week we met the American bishops at Mr. V.'s-if bishops they may be called, without title, without revenue, without diocese, and without lawn sleeves. I wonder our bishops will consecrate them, for they have made very free with the Common Prayer, and have left out two creeds out of three. Indeed, as to the Athanasian creed, the King has forbidden it in his chapel, so that will soon fall."-(1787) II. 151.