America was when it was first visited by Europeans; and Asia is much better fitted for it, inasmuch as Asia enjoys a considerable degree of civilisation, and some degree of it is necessary to the successful introduction of Christianity. The commerce, and the colonisation of Christian states have civilised America; and they will, in time, civilise and Christianise the whole earth. "Whether it be a Christian duty to attempt, by lenient methods, to propagate the Christian religion among Pagans and Mahometans can be doubted, I think, by few; but whether any attempt will be attended with much success till Christianity is purified from its corruptions, and the lives of Christians are rendered correspondent to their Christian profession, may be doubted by many; but there certainly never was a more promising opportunity for trying the experiment of subverting paganism in British India, than what has for some years been offered to the Government of Great Britain. * "Our empire in India, said Mr. Hastings, has been acquired by the sword, and must be maintained by the sword. I cannot agree with him in this sentiment. Most empires have originally been acquired by violence; but they are best established by moderation and justice. There was a time when we showed ourselves to the inhabitants of India in the character of tyrants and robbers; that time, I trust, is gone for ever. The wisdom of British policy, the equity of its jurisprudence, the impartiality of its laws, the humanity of its penal code; and, above all, the incorrupt administration of public justice, will, when they are well understood, make the Indians our willing subjects, and induce them to adopt a religion attended with such consequences to the dearest interests of human kind. They will rejoice in having exchanged the tyranny of pagan superstition, and the despotism of their native princes, for the mild mandates of Christianity, and the stable authority of equitable laws. The difference between such different states of civil society, as to the production of human happiness, is infinite; and the attainment of happiness is the ultimate aim of all individuals in all nations. I am, &c. R. LANDAFF.' (P. 431-435.) In July, 1807, we find a curious and affecting letter with the following title prefixed: "Extract of a letter to the Duke of Grafton, dated Calgarth, July, 1807, who had sent me a despairing account of himself." Το say nothing of the indelicacy of this title revealing a fact which the noble person concerned could not possibly mean to escape beyond the bounds of intimate friendship, we cannot but think that the letter itself presents a melancholy picture both of the sick person and of his mental physician. Did the despairing account transmitted by the one, and the meagre consolations supplied by the other, originate in that peculiarity of creed which is ascribed to both? If repentance is the only way to pardon, who does not feel his repentance to be as defective as any other of his qualities? What then is to atone for his defective repentance? Happy they who can take refuge in that doctrine which appears to have no place in the creed of the Bishop, that Christ died "the just for the unjust, to bring us to God." The Bishop's almost unqualified commendation of a work, called "The improved Version of the New Testament," but which ought to have been simply called the "Socinian Version," and which is not less notorious for disingenuousness than for inaccuracy, may perhaps serve to explain the exclusion of some topics in his letter to his dying friend, which, where they are received, will necessarily constitute the prominent topics in every letter of religious consolation. The letter is as follows: "On my return to this place, I met with your obliging letter, and am sincerely sorry to find, that my apprehensions respecting your health were not unfounded. "Your body cannot be in better hands than in those of your physician, nor your mind in better than in your own. Were your body in perfect health, your mind, I think, would not be disturbed by anxiety; for which, I trust, there is no reasonable ground. Divines, with the best intentions, have said more than the Scriptures have said concerning repentance, and have thereby precipitated men into despair, and consequent impenitence and hardness of heart. The state of a man, who having left off sinful habits, returns to them again, is certainly dangerous; because it shows the strength of habit to be superior to his resolution; but I do not know that it is any where represented in Scripture as desperate, and a return to virtue as impossible; for neither Heb. x. 38, nor Second Peter, ii. 20, 21, though referred to by Tillotson on this point, will bear out the conclusion. "I dislike extremely that gloomy theology, which would make the Supreme Being more inexorable than a man: the whole tenour of Scripture speaks a contrary language; and we know nothing from reason of his divine attributes, except from their bearing some analogy to our own. Now, what father of a family would say to a repentant son, Your repentance comes too late, and I will never forgive you.' The father may suspect the sincerity of his son's repentance, and from that suspicion may withhold his forgiveness; but God cannot suspect, for he knows our repentance to be sincere, or otherwise; and if sincere, I trust he will, of his fatherly clemency, accept our repentance, though we may have swerved from the rectitude of former resolutions. "Repentance is a change of principle, accompanied by a change of conduct; we may be snatched away, and have no opportunity of proving the sincerity of our principle by our practice; but God, who knows things that would be, as if they were, will judge of the sincerity, or insincerity, of our principle, by what would happen; and if our plavo be, at any time of life, even after repeated lapses, in his judgment, sincere, I see no ground, in reason or Scripture, for despairing of his forgiveness. "In thinking of our Heavenly Father, we ought to bear in mind Lord, the answer which our Saviour made to Peter's question:- The last letter of the Right Reverend Author in this volume is one addressed to Mr. Wyvill, Oct. 21, 1813; and on the 4th of July, 1816, he expired, "illustrating," says his biographer, "in death the truth of his favourite rule of conduct through life, 6 Keep innocency, and take heed unto the thing that is right, for that shall bring a man peace unto the last.'" And now having followed the Bishop somewhat hastily through the steps of his protracted life, and presented our readers a sample of the contents of one of the most entertaining volumes which we remember to have read, we shall attempt something like a sketch of the very singular character of the author. It was impossible to have been the contemporary of Bishop Watson without having been continually desirous of coming to some decision as to his character. Our method of arriving at an unprejudiced decision, was, as we read the volume, to range every part under those heads of character to which it seemed fairly to belong. And our readers shall have the honest result of this experiment. We sincerely regret that it has not been more favourable to the individual on whom it has been tried. That we may, however, place the more favourable points in the fore-ground, we will begin by saying, that we have in every part of this volume been impressed with the highest conception of the talents of the Right Reverend Author. Now and then his temper runs away with his understanding, and in not a few instances we think that his vanity misleads it. But he is, generally speaking, an original thinker, an acute reasoner, and most luminous and delightful writer. He has a peculiar faculty of seizing the strong and popular part of every question. Instead of proving what no one wishes to have proved, instead of dwelling on admitted points, he finds his way direct to the point of highest interest and importance, and settles by a stroke what an inferior man would not accomplish in a volume. His communication with ministers might be expected to wear this character of dispatch, as being the only form in which they could be expected to gain the attention of busy men; but, in all his works, he gratifies his readers by treating them as men who have no time to waste, and by discovering to them at a glance both the topic for discussion, and the proper ground on which to discuss it. It cannot be said, perhaps, that Dr. Watson attained to the very highest eminence in any branch of science or literature. But this too arose from his having dissipated his force on many topics instead of concentrating it on one. The old and vulgar proverb on this head is as applicable to philosophers as to parish clerks; and the great powers of our author did not altogether emancipate him from this law of our nature. It is impossible, also, not to do him the justice of admitting his general candour and charity towards those who differed from him. We do not mean that he was either candid or charitable, where the opposer of his opinions was also the neglecter of his interest or honour. Kings, ministers, and the dispensers of preferment, all felt the iron thong of his indignation, if they not only differed from him, but presumed to express that difference by promoting to honour persons less deserving, in the judgment of the Bishop, than himself. He must be allowed to have been in one view more charitable than mankind in general. He was satisfied to hate men for the effect of their opinions upon himself; without hostility to the opinions themselves. A third merit, which it is impossible to deny to Dr. Watson, is that of political honesty; however anxious for preferments, we can discover no instance in which he sold his conscience to procure it. There can be no question that, had he chosen to dissemble his religious and political partialities, his talents would have forced for him a way to the highest place in the Establishment. But he always appears to have dealt with our rulers in Church and State with the most perfect transparency; and was rather wanting in the courtesy of a gentleman than in the erectness of an independent thinker. His way, indeed, of seeking preferment was altogether unprecedented. His plan was to extort by violence what others win by supplication-to frighten ministers into a surrender of the honours which he considered as his right. Having paid this tribute to the Bishop of Landaff, we are not sure that we have any thing more to say in his favour; but, on the contrary, have a somewhat long catalogue of offences to exhibit against him. In the first place, he was secular, greedy, ambitious. The volume is filled with petulant complaints of the conduct of the Monarch, the ministers, or the bishops, towards himself: and those who have shared his conversation will remember that the book is the transcript of the man. He carried his disappointments and supposed injuries into every society; he threw them in the teeth of the great; growled over them with the little; stuffed them into charges, letters, volumes, sermons, and colloquies, till bye-standers were almost tempted to inquire from what species of semi-martyrdom this unfortunate gentleman had escaped; and were surprised to learn that this degraded man was a spiritual peer, this mendicant a pluralist, and this absentee from Parliament, on the plea of poverty, one of the richest individuals on the bench. The present volume appears to us to supply many indubitable proofs, not simply of the ambition of the Bishop, but of his downright avarice. While the spirit of accumulation discovers itself in a thousand places, that of benevolence never appears, except in the evanescent shape of an offer, said to have been made of 100%. to Dr. Priestley, and of a classical dedication of 1000l. to a charitable object, not a guinea of which ever escaped from his pocket. In the next place, we are compelled to notice, as coupled with this secular and ambitious spirit, and perhaps in some degree springing out of it, a tremendous irritability of temper. To say nothing of the obstreperous complaints to which we have already referred, there pervades the whole work, like a running base in music, a sort of perpetual grumbling against every man and every thing with which, or with whom, the Bishop had any connexion. His speeches, letters, books, are all really and properly peevish; scarcely a line of them is calculated to attach us to the author. The next article of impeachment is the vanity which disfigures this volume. Almost every other clever vain man whom we have known has had wit enough to veil a little better his own infirmities. It is difficult to open a page in the volume without discovering some evidence of self-conceit, so monstrous as to cast into the shade all the high qualities with which it is associated. Had his sentiments been adopted, the country would have been saved-had ministers cherished him, he should have taken a great lead in Parliament-the conduct of the Queen would have appeared ridiculous to herself, could she have imagined how little such a mind as that of the Bishop regarded, in its honorable proceedings, the displeasure of a woman, even though that woman happened to be a queen. Such is the sample of the spirit which is diffused over the work. The author of it could not, if he were now in circumstances to resent it, complain of the severity of criticism. He who has done such exclusive honour to himself can have no right to the homage and defence of others. Another quality by which this work is, in our judgment, exceedingly disgraced, is its indelicacy. We have exhibited one specimen of the Bishop's manner of treating the members of the Royal family. The Memoirs contain several such; and, as might be expected, the deference denied to them is not extended to any portion of their subjects. His private judgment, and that a very harsh one, is given of archbishops, bishops, peers, ministers, &c. &c. founded upon facts to which his peculiar situation gave him |