It claims its existence on the fancied inconsistencies which it discovers in religious creeds, without having one original virtue to entitle it to respect. It is a system of negatives, if system that may be called, whose only boast is, that it discovers errors in Revelation; and hence assumes a title to credit, by instructing its votaries to disbelieve. Under the influence of this pure negation of excellence, it promotes its interests by the irritation of those passions which it should be the business of our lives to subdue, and fortifies itself in the strange commotions which it contributes to raise."

It was this his first publication which procured for Mr. Drew the notice, the patronage, and the friendship of the learned Rev. John Whitaker, then rector of Ruan Lanyhorne, a secluded parish, about twelve miles from St. Austell. To this gentleman, well known as an antiquarian, historian, and divine, he, by the advice of a friend, forwarded a copy of his pamphlet, with a note of apology for the liberty he had taken. This opened a correspondence, of which Mr. Whitaker's letters have been preserved. Those of Mr. Drew, with one exception only, were unhappily, after Mr. Whitaker's decease, consigned, with much other valuable literary correspondence, to destruction. Mr. Whitaker's opinion of Mr. Drew and of his performance is expressed in the two following letters to him:

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Friday, Feb. 14, 1800.

You

“SIR, "I give you many thanks for the perusal of your pamphlet. Your reasoning is clear, and your arguments are strong. have refuted that wretched infidel completely, even upon his own principles. I may, perhaps, send an account of it to one of our Reviews.

"It gives me pleasure to hear that you are a religious man. God give you grace to act up to the character, and give me too the same. Such a character confers more real honour than all the attributed learning in the world.

"I, therefore, subscribe myself
"Your well-wisher and friend,
"JOHN WHITAKER."

"SIR,

"I could not find leisure, under a press of business, before

this week, to read over again that phamphlet of yours with which I had been so much pleased before. But I have read it with such increased pleasure, that I have sent an account of it, with high commendations, to the Anti-Jacobin Review. I know not whether you ever see this Review; if you do not, I will send you my copy of it for April, when it comes. But it is a Review of very great merit, peculiarly opposed to the Antichrist of France.

"You are at full liberty to make any use of my name, concerning the article, that you think will gratify yourself or your friends; while I remain, with very great respect for your talents and your application of them,

"Your well-wisher, favourer, and friend, "JOHN WHITAKER."

From a congratulatory note addressed to Mr. Drew by the originator of the Cornwall Gazette, we quote a short paragraph.

"Yes, my dear sir, I have seen the Anti-Jacobin-and had thoughts of putting you to the expense of a postage a week ago, in the hope of being the herald of good news, but that I doubted it might have outflown me. I congratulate you from my heart—I am proud, too, of my good fortune, and (let me add) of my penetration :—the man I have admired and praised -the man alone, of all the religious professors around me, with whom I can converse and correspond with ease and satisfaction-the man to whom I am indebted for numberless civilities and real services-the man I have been accustomed to call 'my friend Drew'-that this man should be crowned in the face of the world with the wreath of praise so justly due to his talents and his virtues, must give real pleasure to every real friend to truth and justice, but particularly to me.

"Helston, May 16, 1800."

"T. FLINDEll.

Mr. Drew's pamphlets now appeared in rapid succession. The flattering reception of his first publication, and the honourable notice it obtained, enabled him to assume a station not often conceded to a young author. Perhaps, too, he felt conscious of his powers, and not unwillingly availed himself of fit occasions for their exercise.

His second publication was in verse. On the 25th of February, 1800, Mr. Patterson, a respectable tradesman of St. Austell, was drowned at Wadebridge, during an unusually high

tide. About a fortnight afterward Mr. Drew published an Elegy on his death, of nearly six hundred lines. The circumstances out of which this piece arose gave it much local popularity; though its publication caused the author some embarrassment. A rumour very generally prevailed, that proper means of resuscitation had not been used; and Mr. Drew having given currency to this rumour, by some allusion in his verses, was threatened by the medical gentleman who had been summoned at the time of the accident, with an action for libel; but the matter terminated without leading to such an unpleasant result. To his friend Mr. Whitaker he sent a copy. The reply, though laconic, was sufficient to deter him from appearing again before the public as a writer of poetry. From this reply it is obvious that the Elegy was published before the critic on his first pamphlet had appeared.

"SIR,

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Thursday evening, April, 1800.

"I received your poem on Mr. Patterson's death, and thank you for it. But I like not your poetry so well as I do your prose. Your pamphlet against Paine is reviewed in the AntiJacobin for April, and I send you the very Review for your inspection. You will return it to me by the bearer; and believe me to be very much and very warmly,

"Sir,

"Your friend and servant,
"JOHN WHITAKER."

The letter which Mr. Drew wrote on returning the Review produced the following acknowledgment:

"GOOD SIR,

"Thursday evening, May 29, 1800.

"I have received my Review back safe and sound. I am very glad to find that you like one article so well. I wrote it in the fullness of my heart, after I had perused your pamphlet.

"As to reprinting this in London, I thought of the plan as I was writing to the manager of the Review, but did not then settle my mind about it. Now you have mentioned it, and propose to make additions, I will endeavour to do the business for you, by offering the pamphlet to the manager for his bookseller. I shall have occasion to write to him in the course of a few days, and will then make the offer for you. If he accepts, I will stipulate for his sending you half a dozen, or

half a score copies. And, in the mean time, I advise you to be correcting and enlarging it. I will give you notice whether he accepts the offer or not. In the present dearness of paper, I am doubtful whether he will accept.

"With my best wishes for your welfare, temperal and eternal, I remain your friend and servant,

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"JOHN WHITAKER.”

From Mr. Whitaker's reference to a second edition, as then contemplated, the first must have obtained a rapid sale on the ground of its own merits, and antecedent to the critic. For unknown reasons, Mr. Drew, though frequently solicited, did not reprint his Remarks on Paine's Age of Reason until twenty years after their first appearance. They were then published, with additional matter, in a small duodecimo volume.

SECTION XII.

Controversy with Mr. Polwhele and "A Friend of the Church."

In July, 1800, Mr. Drew published, in a pamphlet of seventy pages, "Observations on a Pamphlet lately published by the Rev. Richard Polwhele, Vicar of Manaccan, Cornwall, entitled 'Anecdotes of Methodism.' The publication against which Mr. Drew's artillery was directed, arose out of Mr. Polwhele's controversy with Dr. Hawker, late Vicar of Charles, Plymouth, on the subject of his occasional itinerancy. With the merits of this question we meddle not; but the "Anecdotes of Methodism" were a gratuitous and an unprovoked attack on a religious body with whom Dr. Hawker had no connection, and who, as Mr. Drew observes, "heard the tumult of the distant throng, but fondly thought that they had nothing to fear."

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Mr. Polwhele had designated his statements facts, set them forth with all the minutia of circumstance, and deduced from them the conclusion, that Methodism has a tendency to betray its votaries into every irregularity, and plunge them into every vice." To permit such a publication to circulate uncontradicted would have been a tacit admission of the truth of his allegations. More than one friend of Methodism stood forward to vindicate its tenets from such foul aspersions; but their pub

lications, being anonymous, were insufficient to counteract the effect of statements formerly published to the world by one known as a literary writer, a magistrate, and a clergyman. Mr. Drew, therefore, thought it his duty to interfere, on behalf of himself and associates who had been so wantonly assailed.

Well knowing that facts could not be set aside by argumentative process, he resolved to sift the matter thoroughly; and taking Mr. Polwhele's book, went through the whole of his facts in categorical order. He resorted to several parts of the county which Mr. P. had stated to be the scenes of his "Anecdotes," to investigate their truth; and where he could not go, he applied by letter to the highest sources of correct information. The result of these inquiries he sums up thus, at the conclusion of his pamphlet:-"I have now gone through the facts themselves, and have given a specific answer to every anecdote which is worthy of notice. Out of thirty-four anecdotes, eight are false, of six I can get no account, nine are misrepresented, five are related with the omission of many material circumstances, and all the remainder are revised and corrected. Perhaps I cannot conclude better than by adopting Mr. P.'s own words, that 'SUCH FACTS ARE LIKELY TO HAVE MORE WEIGHT THAN ALL THE REASONING IN THE WORLD.'

999

In this pamphlet, Mr. Drew pays little deference to his opponent's station in society. Anticipating an objection upon this ground, he observes, in his introductory pages, " Whether an occasion can possibly exist that can justify an asperity of language, is a point on which my readers may be divided; but if an occasion be admitted possible, that occasion now presents itself. It may be asked, why I have not made a more frequent application to Scripture? why my language is so severe ? with a variety of such questions; to all of which I reply-Because I address myself to Mr. Polwhele.

"Whatever opinion Mr. P. or any other person may form of these pages, I hope all will have penetration enough to discern. that recrimination forms no part of their contents; it is a point which I have studiously avoided, and founded this pamphlet on a principle of self-defence.

"The clergy, as a body, I respect and venerate; and feel myself attached to many from a principle of gratitude and personal obligation. To commence, therefore, an attack on them, would be as wanton as it would be base; and would be at once to imitate and condemn the conduct of Mr. Polwhele. I am not conscious of having used a single expression which carries with it a shade of disrespect to any man alive, detached from