'meaning being understood, are empty and nugatory sounds; but the same sentiments conveyed in any language whatever, or if possible in no language at all, will (if clearly understood) 'contain the same strength, wisdom, goodness, sublimity, beauty, pathos and every other excellence; and also the same similitudes, < images and substitutions.

The best, the compositions of most value, as far exceeding all other as infinite does finite; are those, which by example, precept or story teach the means of acquiring eternal happiness, &c., which excite the greater fervency of exalted piety and superior humanity, and more restrain our vicious passions and inclinations; such as create the most sensible, the most lasting impressions on the mind, of piety, benevolence, humanity and every good thing; impressions which produce actions and · gulate our lives; and not like fleeting shadows passing over fields of corn which leave not a trace behind; such compositions it is the duty of every one to read often at stated and other proper times, with the greatest attention possible; and in all his actions to be directed by them, and from thence acquire habits accordingly.

Those claim the second place, which teach mankind something useful to their support and well being in this state.

Thirdly, those which strengthen and improve the understanding either by example or precept; these may sometimes be in⚫cluded in the preceding, but should never be pursued to their neg

•lect.

And lastly, what will innocently amuse the mind, and keep it free from idleness and every thing hurtful.”*

Now, we could almost fancy, that scarcely the most devoted admirers of Dr. Marsh would claim for his publications respecting the Bible Society, even the last and lowest degree of excellence spoken of by Dr. Waring in the above quotation. That these works amuse, we can unhesitatingly declare; but that they "innocently amuse" and keep the mind from "every thing hurtful," who will affirm? The whole tendency of them is to call into exercise both among the author's followers and his opponents, passions which it has ever been the great object of philosophers and divines to extinguish. For our own parts, though we have read the Professor's late productions with all possible good temper, we are not quite sure whether we have not now and then had to contend with rising emotions which it behoved us to repress. As to generous, benevolent, and noble sentiments, we should as soon expect to see honey exude from a crab-tree after a three month's frost, as to find them emanating from the breast which had been long brooding over the pages of Dr. Marsh, and those who espouse th same side of this great question. Do his "İnquiries," and "Letters," and "Replies," teach mankind

* Waring's Principles of Human Knowledge. p. 162.

any thing useful to their support and well being in the state?' No. Do they excite a fervency of exalted piety and superior humanity No. Do they tend to destroy bigotry, to paralyze party feeling; to heal the breaches which long have afflicted the Church of Christ, to hasten that period so ardently prayed for by holy men in all ages, when "Ephraim shall no longer vex Judah, nor Judah Ephraim;" when love of God and love to man shall universally prevail, and "they shall no more hurt nor destroy in all God's holy mountain" Alas! No. They exhibit no marks but of a frigid, narrow, calculating, and as we seriously think, dangerous policy; and they are written in an intricate and perplexed style, constituted, for the most part, of just such short and feeble sentences as are best calculated to prevent all flow of soul, and destroy all probability of contagion of sentiment. There is one, and we conjecture, only one class of men, who will be able to read these productions with tolerable patience, we mean the soi-disant rational preachers still remaining in the Church; they who will preach of virtue and vice, of heaven and hell, with all the coolness and phlegm of a philosopher; who will "prove by undeniable arithmetic, that eternity is longer than time, and evince, by the most evident demonstrations, that right is preferable to wrong, and happiness to misery."

We must now take our leave of this most renowned of modern spiritual Quixotes." The recent exploits of his Sancho Panza, one Mr. Norris, will probably be held up to the admiration of our readers in our number for January.

Since the preceding article was written, and indeed printed, we have seen the pamphlet which Dr. Marsh has published as a rejoinder to Mr. Simeon. The learned Professor has managed, by his long string of consequences, to draw the latter parts of the discussion so far from all bearing upon the Bible Society, that we shall probably notice none of his future productions on the subject; nor, most assuredly, should we say a syllable respecting this pamphlet, were it not that it tends still farther to elucidate the amiable and gentle dispositions with which the few remaining opponents of that Society vilify its friends. Mr. Simeon, after a solemn declaration that he would not knowingly and intentionally misrepresent' Dr. Marsh, quotes a passage from his reply to Dean Milner, from which he inferred, as many other persons did, that the Lady Margaret Professor of Divinity, confounded baptism, justification, and sanctification. Whether his inference from the Professor's language, was correct or not, may perhaps admit of VOL. X.

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a question; but there can be no doubt that he had not the slightest intention to misrepresent him, or to deceive the public, as to the opinions really held by Dr. Marsh; because in that case the quotations he made would of course defeat his own object. Dr. Marsh, however, upon this slender ground, accuses Mr. Simeon in the grossest manner, of wilful falsehood, and reads him a severe lecture upon the "sin of lying," which he tells him can only exist in a mind which is fallen into the sink of depravity.' But how stands the matter in point of "FACT" with this learned Professor of Divinity? Why, thus. He did not mean to connect sanctification but regeneration with baptism. Let us not misrepresent him: nor let the reader doubt our veracity, when we assure him that the following passage was not penned by a celebrated "Barrister" who a few years ago wrote himself into a snug place by opposing evangelical religion, but by Dr. Marsh himself.

When regeneration is once detached from baptism, with which our church closely connects it, a door is immediately opened for all the dreamings of fanatics, about the PANGS, both ordinary and extraordinary, of the new Birth!!!" Letter to Simeon. p. 25.

How deplorably must controversy affect the heart of a man who can thus transgress the bounds of decorum. How shockingly must it lower the moral sense, when it can lead a Professor of Divinity to accuse the most active, and vigilant, and useful clergyman resident in the same University (Dr. Marsh himself dare not deny this) of wilful lying, for merely drawing an erroneous inference from his own dubious phraseology! And when, farther, it has led him to set a higher value upon the veracity of poor Porson, (whose disregard of truth was almost as notorious as his intemperance,) than upon that of the Dean of Carlisle !

The Professor devotes a postscript of four pages, to the determination of the genuineness and authenticity of the letter from the Abingdon Quaker. It shows wonderfully how ridiculous a man's bloated ideas of his own self-importance may render him, and is certainly the most amusing portion of this new pamphlet. It could only have been rendered more amusing, by the Professor's applying his celebrated" THEOREM" to this interesting inquiry; to which it would have been full as applicable, as to that for which he invented it. But, says the Professor, respecting that letter, whoever wrote it, he was a real bigot; and bigots are too impetuous to enter into distant calculations. Alas! is it possible our author can be so blind to his own character as this expression indicates! Bigots do not enter into distant calculations! What, then, is bigotry? How comes it that Dr. Marsh has been

pointed to, throughout the kingdom, as the greatest bigot amongst men of learning in the Protestant world? It is not, certainly, because he has neglected distant calculations' upon remote probabilities; for no man of talent has wasted so much time and labour upon such useless computations and speculations, as he has in reference to the Bible Society; and no man of sense, we are persuaded, ever more bitterly repented, than he has done, that what he fancied to be public spirit, but which, in truth, is rank bigotry, should have so lamentably seduced him from the path to honour and tranquillity.

Art. V. Tour through Ireland; particularly the Interior and least known Parts: Containing an accurate View of the Parties, Politics, and Improvements, in the different Provinces ; with Reflections and Observations on the Union of Britain and Ireland; the Practicability and Advantages of a Telegraphic Communication between the two Countries, and other Matters of Importance. By the Rev. James Hall, A.M. 8vo. 2 vols. pp. 670. Price 11. 1s. Moore, Dublin; Hookham, Carpenter, Booker, &c. London. 1813.

THE local specification in this title the interior and least

known parts'-seems to give promise of an interesting book; at least it indicates the choice of such a subject, that if the book be not interesting, the fault must be in the author. And after receiving this pledge of novelty, how will the inqui→ · sitive reader, a little accustomed to towns, expect to find the first three sheets employed? He will expect to find them employed in relating the voyage to Dublin, and enumerating the public buildings of that city; with an intermixture of anecdotes about hotels, and hair-dressers' shops. Nor will this pleasing anticipation be disappointed.

It is recorded that, though the author seemed to enjoy the smiles of fortune during the passage over a treacherous element, adversity awaited him amidst the gaiety and the apparent safety of Dame-street; and it was adversity in a form so new, that no mortal foresight could have apprehended it, or prudence escaped it.

"Near the coffee-room, observing a showy hair-dresser's shop, and a number of clean well-dressed workmen employed in it, I stepped in, saying, I wished to have my hair cut. Having got on a gown, one of them began to crop me immediately. After he had cut one side, which he frequently combed, he fell a combing my right eyebrow, and, with one snap of his scissars, in the twinkling of an eye, lopped all the hair off it. On perceiving this, I started from the seat, saying, "Sir, I employed you to cut the hair on my head, but not my eye-brows. You do not seem to know what mischief you have

done. That eye-brow, (putting my hand to it) has stood the test of near fifty winters, and, in the twinkling of an eye, you have destroyed it." Being really vexed, and not knowing that it is the fashion here, for young dashing people, to have their eye-brows trimmed, I added," as eye-brows are arched, and intended to prevent sweat from running from the forehead into the eyes, I will raise an action of damages against you, and have you punished." Holding the hairs of my eye-brow in his hand, he replied, shewing them to me, "These are not of much value."-" So you may think, but I do not." After my anger had subsided, and his terror abated, I allowed him to proceed with his operations on the head, and to make the one eye-brow like the other. When he had done, he wished to take nothing; but, according to the rules of the shop, which I saw hung up, I paid him eighteen-pence, and departed, still angry at the loss of my eye-brows.' p. 10.

This is one novelty at least in the present tour; and the transaction is so extraordinary and momentous that we wish the author had produced the testimony of witnesses, a confession signed by the criminal, or some other formal authentication of the statement, in order to fix it securely in the chronicles which will have to record also the present transactions in Germany and the Pyrenees.-Seriously, is it not amazing to see what incidents and what dialogues there are cultivated men capable of thinking worthy of public record, at a period in which the most magnificent and awful events are coming sq fast as to be reduced to a narrow space in history, and a transient hold on memory!

It is, unhappily, not a novelty in Irish tours to describe, under the article Dublin, those contrasts of human condition, those moral and physical extremes, though locally contiguous, which give occasion for the most melancholy reflections.

'While contemplating_the_splendour, flutter, and variety of this gay scene,' (a ball at the Rotunda) I often found my spirits damped by reflecting on the scenes of poverty and distress I had seen through the day, particularly one in a cellar. Did the rich and gay visit haunts of this kind, they would meet with scenes of distress sufficient to rouse their feelings, and to induce them to join trembling with their mirth.'

We cannot help observing here how dexterously the author has employed an equivocal word-sufficient.'

There is novelty again at page 28, where, in speaking of an elegant dinner, that would not have disgraced a nobleman's table,' given by a respectable and affluent taylor to a select company, our author states that this gentleman has fallen an an expedient for accomplishing a certain important thing; but we greatly question whether it was discreet in a man of Mr. Hall's profession to proclaim the matter; since that certain