have been acceptable; it was this that reconciled persons of simple piety and little cultivated understanding. Many who might follow him with very imperfect apprehension and satisfaction through the preceding parts, could reckon on being warmly interested at the end."

On the whole, however, his was not a style of preaching that was likely to have much practical effect on the conduct of his hearers. He was much too general both in his exaltation of virtue and in his denunciation of vice. John Foster relates that after a sermon on the sin and absurdity of covetousness, one of the hearers observed to another-"An admirable sermon-yet why was such a sermon preached? For probably not one person in the congregation, though it is not wanting in examples of the vice in question, would take the discourse as at all applicable to himself." "Too many of the attendants," says Foster, "witnessed some of the brightest displays rather with the feeling of looking at a fine picture than of being confronted by a faithful mirror; and went away equally pleased with a preacher that was so admirable, and with themselves for having the intelligence and taste to admire him."

"It appeared a serious defect in Mr Hall's preaching, that he practically took on him too little of this responsibility of distinguishing degrees of Christian virtue. In temporary oblivion of the rule that theoretic description should keep existing fact so much in view that a right adjustment may be made between them, he would expatiate in eloquent latitude on the Christian character, bright and full-orbed' in all its perfections, of contempt of the world, victory over temptation, elevated devotion, assimilation to the divine image, zeal for the divine glory, triumphant faith, expansive charity, sanctity of life; without an intimation, at the time or afterward, that all this, so sublime if it were realised, so obligatory as the attainment toward which a Christian should be, at whatever distance, aspiring, is yet unhappily to be subjected, on behalf of our poo: nature, to a cautious dis cussion of modifications and degrees; especially when the anxious question comes to be, What deficiencies prove a man to be no Christian?"

OTHER WRITERS.

THEOLOGY.

About the beginning of this period the Evangelical movement inaugurated by Wesley and Whitefield among the lower classes, began to make itself powerfully felt in higher circles. One of its chief leaders was Charles Simeon (1759-1836), appointed vicar of Trinity Church in Cambridge in 1782. Simeon was, in the face of very bitter opposition, an energetic preacher of evangelical doctrine, and a generous patron of pious young men, such as Henry Martin and Henry Kirke White. He bore the chief part in originating the missionary schemes of the English Church. His Hora Homiletica' (complete in 21 vols., 1832) is a repre

sentative exposition of evangelical views.-Another representa tive work of this school of religious thought, of a more popular character, is Wilberforce's 'Practical Christianity,' published by the great agitator for the abolition of the Slave Trade in 1797. This work has gone through fifty editions in England and America, and has been translated into several European languages.

To the same school belonged the brothers Milner, Joseph Milner (1744-1797), vicar of Hull, and Isaac Milner (1751-1820), Senior Wrangler, Master of Queen's College, and Dean of Carlisle, two sturdy-minded natives of Yorkshire, who raised themselves from humble life. The History of the Church' was begun by the elder brother in 1794, and finished by the younger in 1812. Isaac Milner is said to have been the means of converting Wilberforce to evangelical piety, and he was an honoured member of the society that we have already mentioned as influencing the youth of Macaulay.

With these may be linked, as an Evangelical of a different type, John Foster (1770-1843), a Baptist clergyman, a friend of Robert Hall's, known in general literature as a writer of essays. Foster was far from having Hall's reputation as a preacher: he was a reserved kind of man, and his power lay more exclusively with the pen. The best known of his essays, which have passed through many e litions, is one "On Decision of Character." He cultivated originality both in thought and in expression. His command of language and illustration is copious, but his style has a want of flow, an air of labour. He repeats an idea again and again, but the successive repetitions do not, like the varied expression of Chalmers, make the meaning more and more luminous; they often burden rather than illuminate the general reader, and they strike the critic as a laboured exercise in the accumulation of synonyms and similitudes.

We may place in another group the divines that engaged deeply in politics. Chief among these (excluding Bishop Horsley, who remained during the first half of this period the Jupiter of Conservative Churchmen) stands Dr Samuel Parr (1747-1825), known in his day as the Whig Samuel Johnson, but by the present generation hardly distinguished from the founder of "Parr's Life Pills." Parr was a man of unquestionable ability, and the oblivion that has overtaken his name is due to his having left no great work on any great subject. His fame rested upon two accomplishments, both perishable foundations,-Latin scholarship and powers of conversation. His pre-eminence in Latin composition was universally acknowledged: although a Whig, he was selected to write the epitaphs of Johnson and of Burke. His powers of conversation are attested by evidence equally unequivocal: although he held no higher station than the curacy of Hatton, he

was received at the tables of the Whig nobility, and corresponded with "nearly one-half of our British peerage, and select members of the royal family." His talents secured this admission to high life in spite of a rude dogmatic manner, a homely person, and eccentricity in the matter of dress. Besides this indirect evidence of his social acceptability, we have the direct evidence of Johnson, whom the lesser Samuel imitated in the rudeness of his manner"Sir," he said to Langton, "I am obliged to you for having asked me this evening. Parr is a fair man. I do not know when I have With all this it is

had an occasion of such free controversy." strange that Parr never received the coveted distinction of a bishopric: the explanation probably is that his chief patron, Fox, died just as the Whigs came into power, and that his other friends in high circles were not so indulgent to his arrogant eccentricities and classical licence of personal invective. His style was grandi'oquent to an extravagant extreme. De Quincey speaks of "his periodic sentences, with their ample volume of sound and selfrevolving rhythmus;" and of "his artful antithesis, and solemn anti-libration of cadences." And Sydney Smith, who reviewed his 'Spital Sermon' in the first number of the 'Edinburgh Review,' characterises the style as follows: "The Doctor is never simple and natural for a single instant. Everything smells of the rhetorician. He never appears to forget himself, or to be hurried by his subject into obvious language. Every expression seems to be the result of artifice and intention; and as to the worthy dedicatees, the Lord Mayor and Aldermen, unless the sermon be done into English by a person of honour, they may perhaps be flattered by the Doctor's politeness, but they can never be much edified by his meaning. Dr Parr seems to think that eloquence consists not in an exuberance of beautiful images-not in simple and sublime conceptions-not in the language of the passions; but in a studious arrangement of sonorous, exotic, and sesquipedal words."

Another clergyman and politician, more successful in the world than Parr, was Richard Watson (1737-1816), successively Second Wrangler at Cambridge, Professor of Chemistry, Professor of Divinity, and Bishop of Llandaff. In politics he was a moderate Whig; he vindicated the principles of the French Revolution at the outset, but in 1798 he issued 'An Address to the People of Great Britain, warning them of the danger which the French Revolution taught them.' He also wrote An Apology for Christianity,' in reply to Gibbon; and 'An Apology for the Bible,' in reply to Paine. His own orthodoxy was suspected. He was an exceedingly ambitious man, and although more than once in his life he received undeserved promotion, yet in his autobiography he is indignant that the Whigs did not prefer him to a more lucrative see.-Watson's anti-revolutionary address was fiercely commented

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on by Gilbert Wakefield (1756-1801), the son of an English rector, who took orders in the Church, but left it from conscientious scruples. He was a very scholarly man, and published a translation of the New Testament, and An Inquiry concerning the Person of Christ.' An earnest creature, of sensitive excitable temperament, he felt warmly, and gave fearless expression to his convictions. He was prosecuted for his reply to the Bishop of Llandaff, and imprisoned for two years. He survived his imprisonment only a few months.

PHILOSOPHY.

In this generation the philosophy of Reid was upheld by Dugald Stewart (1753-1828), Professor of Mathematics, and subsequently, from 1785 to 1810, Professor of Moral Philosophy, in Edinburgh. He propounded little that was original in philosophy; his opinions were for the most part modifications of Reid; but as an expositor of philosophical doctrines, his reputation stands deservedly high. Most of his works were composed after his retirement from the Chair of Philosophy in 1810. A remark is sometimes made that his best works were his pupils; the plain paraphrase of which is that he was a person of stately manners and polished oratory, and -a rare thing then for a man in his position-a Whig in politics, and that several scions of the Whig nobility were placed in Edinburgh under his care. Along with a fine presence, Stewart possessed great natural eloquence. James Mill used to declare that though he had heard Pitt and Fox deliver some of their most admired speeches, he never heard anything nearly so eloquent as some of the lectures of Professor Stewart. While his account of Mind coincides in the main with Reid's, the statement and illustration of the doctrines, and the arguments on points of dispute, are his own. He is the most ornate and elegant of our philosophical writers. His summaries of philosophical systems are sometimes praised as being especially perspicuous and interesting. His manner as a controversialist is peculiarly agreeable when taken in contrast to the hard-hitting and open ridicule of such controversialists as Priestley: Stewart's copious lubricated eloquence is much better fitted to conciliate opponents than win assent.

Thomas Brown (1778-1820) was appointed colleague to Stewart in the Moral Philosophy Chair in 1810, and discharged the duties of the office till his death in 1820. Brown is an often-quoted case of precocious genius: he composed and published Observations. on Darwin's Zoonomia' before he had completed his twentieth year. He was one of the band of young men that originated the Edinburgh Review,' and he wrote a paper on Kant in the second number; but he took offence and seceded before the Review was

many months old. In 1805 he published an 'Inquiry into the Relation of Cause and Effect.' During the ten years of his professoriate, he published several poems, which possessed little original merit, and soon relapsed into the province of the antiquarian. In his philosophy, Brown agreed with Reid and Stewart in ascribing an intuitive origin to certain beliefs, and differed from them in some minor points of nice distinction relating to external perception. He was a very popular lecturer: he was more sentimental than Stewart, his style was more florid, and his criticism of his predecessors was acrimonious and racy, not to say flippant.

The most influential and original philosopher of this generation was Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832), the founder of the science of Jurisprudence, and the first to make a thorough application of the principle of Útility to practical affairs. The son of a London solicitor, he was sent to Westminster School, and to Oxford, and bred to the law; but, cherishing a strong repugnance to legal abuses, he refrained from the practice of his profession, and lived the life of a studious recluse.

His character and writings are very impartially discussed in & well-known essay by Mr John Stuart Mill (Dissertations,' vol. i.) "Bentham has been in this age and country the great questioner of things established. It is by the influence of the modes of thought with which his writings inoculated a considerable number of thinking men, that the yoke of authority has been broken, and innumerable opinions, formerly received on tradition as incontestable, are put upon their defence, and required to give an account of themselves." He "carried the war of criticism and of refutation, the conflict with falsehood and absurdity, into the field of practical abuses." Nor was he merely a negative, destructive, or subversive philosopher. His mind was eminently positive, constructive, synthetic. He never pulled down without building up. After showing that an institution was inconsistent with his fundamental principles, he always suggested a substitute that was consistent therewith. His method of procedure was more important than his results. His method "may be shortly described as the method of detail; of treating wholes by separating them into their parts, abstractions by resolving them into things,-classes and generalities by distinguishing them into the individuals of which they are made up; and breaking every question into pieces before attempting to solve it." The method was not by any means absolutely original; but "whatever originality there was in the method, in the subjects he applied it to, and in the rigidity with which he adhered to it, there was the greatest." Again, "the generalities of his philosophy itself have little or no novelty. To ascribe any to the doctrine that general utility is the foundation of morality, would imply great ignorance of the history of philo