guarded on the one hand, and thus excessively susceptible on the other, it may well be believed he is not a man to be led, or to lead, with certain impunity, among temples, and sacred groves, and mysteries, and sacrificial pomps, and heroic games, and festivals of the Muses. Of course, all that is imposing in the ceremonial of Popery, as having, in his view, the full sanction of Christianity, and even constituting a part of it, will be brought into exhibition with all the delight of poetry elated by the superstitious piety that will deem it impossible to work the consecrated machinery to excess. Accordingly, there are wonderful doings in the third volume, a part of which descants on the ritual institutions of Christianity. The reader's imagination will be excited to its most ambitious guesses at what our genius can do with less vulgar things, when it is seen in what style he can perform so humble a ceremony as that of ringing bells, the introductory call to so many more commanding solemnities.

As we are about to enter the temple, let us first speak of thre bells which summon us thither. To us it seems not a little surprising that a method should have been found by a single stroke of a hammer, to excite the same sentiment at one and the same instant in thousands of hearts, and to make the winds and clouds the bearers of the thoughts of men. Is silence more poetic than this breeze fraught with the sound of the bell and rendered tremblingly alive amid the unbounded expanse? Considered merely as harmony, the bell possesses a beauty of the highest kind, that which by artists is styled the grand. With what transport would Pythagoras, who listened to the hammer of the smith, have hearkened to the sound of our bells on any solemn or joyful occasion! The soul may be moved by the tones of a lyre, but it will not be rapt into enthusiasm, as when roused by the thunders of the combat, or when a powerful peal pro. claims in the region of the clouds the triumphs of the God of battles. This, however, is not the most remarkable character of the sound of bells; this sound has a thousand secret relations with man. How oft amid the profound tranquillity of night has the heavy tolling of the death-bell, like the slow pulsations of an expiring heart, startled the adulteress in her guilt! How often has it caught the ear of the atheist, who in his impious vigils had the presumption to write that there is no God! The pen drops from his fingers; he counts with consternation the strokes of death, which seems to say to him, And is there then indeed no God? O how such sounds must disturb the slumbers of a Robespierre! Extraordinary religion, which by the mere percussion of the magic metal can change pleasures into torments, appal the atheist, and wrest the dagger from the hand of the

assassin!'

But more pleasing sentiments also attached us to the sound of bells. When, about the time for cutting the corn, the tinkling of the little bells of our hamlets was heard intermingled with the sprightly strains of the lark, you would have thought that the angel of harvest was proclaiming the story of Sephora or of Naomi. And had not the

bell tolled by spectres in the ancient chapel of the forest and that which religious fears set in motion in our fields to keep off the lightning; and that which was rung at night in certain sea-ports, to direct the pilot in his passage among the rocks; in a word, had not all these murmurs their enchantments and their wonders? On our festivals, the lively peals of our bells seemed to heighten the public joy, and to express it on a scale of immense sounds: in great calamities, on the contrary their voice became truly awful. The hair yet stands erect at the remembrance of those days of murder and conflagration, all vibrating with the dismal noise of tocsins Who has forgotten those yells, those piercing shrieks succeeded by intervals of sudden silence, during which was now and then heard the discharge of a musket, some doleful and solitary voice, and, above all, the heavy tolling of the alarm bell, or the clock that calmly struck the hour which had just expired?"

Our deficiency in the art of despatch has left us no space for noticing many of the subjects of the work. There are ample sections on the Passions, as delineated by Pagan and by Christian. poets, on the Marvellous, on the Fine Arts, Philosophy, History, and Eloquence, on Tombs, on Missions, Military Orders, and the Services rendered to mankind by the Clergy.-We think that, even if we had any room to proceed, we might as well conclude here. It is probable the interest justly excited by our author's Travels will have secured a considerable number of readers for the present performance. Its place is among the higher order of works of amusement. For valuable instruction we think it cannot on the whole be recommended; though there are scattered here and there a considerable number of important and some original and profound reflections. It does not discuss, with a steady and pertinacious view to an intellectual decision, any of the multitude of questions and topics within the wide extent it is made to comprehend. Sometimes on one hand and sometimes on another, a gleam of pure and almost celestial light falls on some single object for a moment. But taking the whole compass of the intellectual scene, under the character of a system of Christian philosophy, it is to the last degree wild and crude and indistinct. The fopperies of Popery, the dogmas of Platonism, the ardours of all sorts of romantic passions, the dictates of connoisseurship, and twenty kinds of things beside, are blended in one fine fantastic confusion with some of the genuine sublimities of Christianity.---In point of poetical description, the work is, we need not repeat, of the first rank.

Art. XIII. A Charge delivered to the Clergy of the Diocese of Lincoln, at the triennial visitation of that diocese in May, June, and July 1812. By George Tomline, D.D. F.R.S. Lord Bishop of Lincoln 4to. pp. 35. Rivingtons.

Art. XIV. Answer to the Charge delivered by the Lord Bishop of Lincoln to the Clergy of that Diocese, at the triennial visitation in the year 1812. By the Rev. John Chetwode Eustace. 4to. pp. 50. Mawman, 1813.

Art. XV. Catholic Emancipation, the substance of a Speech intended to have been delivered at a meeting convened at Guildhall, in the city of Bristol, for the purpose of taking into consideration the expediency of presenting a petition to Parliament against the claims of the Roman Catholics. By William Thorp. 8vo. pp. 32. Hatchard. 1813.

Art. XVI. Catholic Emancipation, an enquiry into the principles and views of the different parties who urge and support the claims of the Roman Catholics at the present juncture. By William Thorp, of Bristol. 8vo. pp. 72. Hatchard. 1813.

Art. XVII. A Protestant Layman's Letter, in reply to the Rev. Mr. Thorp's Speech against the Catholic Emancipation. pp. 20. Hamilton. 1813.

Fall changes which affect large bodies of men, those are invariably the slowest which relate to general truths. The sentiment of a nation is expressed loudly and at once on measures and opinions which have an aspect on its temporary interests; but to fix its attention on those fundamental principles in which the lesser modes of policy are comprehended, requires much time, and is accomplished by many struggles. In regard to these, men are in general contented to take the world just as they find it; and are sure to meet every proposal of improvement with certain standard observations on the solidity of experience and the hazard of innovation.

In proportion, however, to the difficulties and impediments which obstruct the progress of salutary opinions, does it become those who are anxious for their final triumph to exercise unwearied perseverance in bringing them frequently into public notice, in exposing mistakes and misrepresentations, obviating real or imaginary objections, and enforcing reasonings which, though in themselves unanswerable, may have hitherto failed of their effect. The strongest and most inveterate prejudices may be expected to yield to repeated attacks; and arguments rejected with scorn while the mind was heated by passion, have been found to work conviction if presented in moments of tranquility. Such expectations seem to be encouraged even by the subject of the present pamphlets. For though it is to be regretted that, in the course of its discussion, many passions have VOL. X.

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been roused hostile to the interests of truth; and though it must be confessed both parties have discovered an indecent spirit of exaggeration, invective, and crimination; yet we hold it to be quite clear, that great advances have been made in removing honest scruples, in diffusing tolerant maxims, and in convincing the reflecting of all parties that the advantages of a good government are best recured by giving all sects an interest in their preservation. Not to lose the ground that has been gained, it is necessary to persevere until success be complete.

If it were possible for those who oppose innovations favourable to the improvement and happiness of mankind, to abstain from arguments and objections that have been thoroughly refuted, we should have been spared the trouble of examining the present assortment of pamphlets against the Catholics. They absolutely contain nothing which has not been proposed and solved times without number. If therefore we are obliged to repeat what has been repeated, the fault is not ours.

It is very remarkable that the most violent adversaries of further concessions to the Catholics, set out with loud professions in favour, not of a limited but of a full and perfect toleration. This is an encouraging circumstance. Formerly, the great advocates of tolerant maxims were content to propose them with many exceptions and limitations. Now, those who plead for restraint discover a sort of horror at the least infringement of the most ample toleration. The Bishop of Lincoln, Mr. Thorp, and, indeed, the great body of the anti-catholics protest that no men are more atttached to tolerant principles than themselves, or more anxious that the Catholics may enjoy the most perfect religious toleration, while in the very act of declaiming against all mitigation of the present disabling statutes. From this paradoxical inconsistent conduct, it is evident that these persons labour under some radical misapprehensions upon the subject. 'Toleration,' says Paley, is of two kinds,---the allowing to 'dissenters the unmolested profession and exercise of their reli'gion, but with exclusion from offices of trust and emolument, which is partial toleration; and the admitting them without distinction, to the civil privileges and capacities of other citizens, which is a complete toleration*. In confounding, as they generally do, a partial and complete toleration, the advocates of restriction cannot be acquitted of unfairness and disingenuity. To them indeed this confusion is of too much advantage to be easily foregone. By this means they avoid the odium of intolerance, and represent the Catholics as extremely unreasonable in not resting satisfied with what they already enjoy. If

* Moral and Political Phil. Vol. II. p. 334.

the anti-catholics plainly avowed it as their opinion, that complete toleration should not be granted to Catholics, their conduct would at least be manly and ingenuous. But to panegyrize themselves as liberal, while they plead for restriction; to pretend that the Catholics are in possession of complete toleration while they labour under so many disabilites; is mean in itself, mortifying and insulting to the Catholics, and ridiculous in the eyes of the impartial and discerning.

But though we think it right to expose the inconsistency and unfairness of the anti-catholics in pretending to be friendly to complete toleration, while they are the advocates of restraint and exclusion, we by no means intend to maintain that every man, whatever be his religious opinions, is entitled to complete toleration. Cases have occurred in which restriction was a most wise and justifiable policy. Superstitions now exist which a Christian legislature, if it had the power, ought to suppress. Here we concur with Mr. Thorp. What the Protestant Layman' has written to the contrary, we cannot help thinking mere rhetoric and rant. The question, as it seems to us, between the advocates and the opponents of the Catholics, is, whether it be expedient to continue the present restrictions? It lies of course on their opponents to evince the existence of such an expediency; since the restrictions, if something very important cannot be alledged in their favour, ought to be abolished, as well on account of the general principle that every restraint is an evil, as of the particular advantages that the nation would derive from their abolition. The Bishop of Lincoln as well as Mr. Thorp have attempted to make out a sort of necessity for perpetuating the disabling statutes. Their line of argument often coincides; but the former insists chiefly on the safety of the religious, the latter on that of the civil establishment of the empire as turning on the continuance of the restraining laws. To abrogate these laws, they wish it to be believed, would be the overthrow of church and state.

The Bishop of Lincoln is of opinion that the Catholic question derives its whole importance from its connexion with the safety of the established church.' p. 27. Before adverting to the arguments or rather asseverations by which his Lordship pretends to make out this connexion, it may be proper to expose a mistake that pervades the whole of his charge. It is supposed that the disabling statutes form the pillars and barriers of the established church, and that if those pillars and barriers were removed, the enemy would break in, and, seizing upon its honours and emoluments, would lay it entirely waste. Happily for the church it rests upon a more solid basis, and is protected by firmer bulwarks than any laws excluding dissentients from honour and authority. The established church reposes