eulogy of Christianity proceeds merely on the grounds of temporal utility, and that the gospel of Jesus is recommended in England for purposes which would have secured equal enthusiasm in favour of Mahometanism in Turkey, or Brahminism in Hindostan. You are thus coupled, in the minds of those who know not your character but cannot fail soon to recognise the recurrence of your very remarkable style, with that band of humble wits who have been so long contented to earn the applauding smile of the vulgar, by jokes filtered and refined from the rotten fountains of the Taureau Blanc and the Dictionnaire Philosophique. That foreible sweep of language with which you are accustomed to confound the enemies of your creed, is associated, in the minds of these strangers, with the ideas of audacious deceit and unblushing charlatanerie. Your sublime flights are supposed to belong to the same school with the majestic exordiums of the Edipus Judaicus; and you are perhaps classed with the author of that singular performance, as a man who degrades genius, erudition, and oratory, into the instruments of a superstitious and visionary deism. It is needless to explain to you at greater length the dangerous purposes to which your conduct may be twisted, or the malicious ways in which it may be misrepresented, by the giddy, the superficial, the heartless, the thoughtless, the faithless, and perhaps the godless readers of this Review. Be assured, that however you may be courted and flattered at head-quarters, you will be regarded by the understrappers of the array in no other light than that of a hireling and dishonourable auxiliary. You will consult well for your own character before you proceed farther. You will pause before you plunge more deeply into the pit of error. You will hesitate before you entangle yourself in such a manner, as might render retreat a shameful, perhaps a fruitless, attempt. You will, above all, consider with yourself, by what means you are most likely to prevent your name from being joined, in the mouths of the public, with those of certain scoffing priests, and envious renegadoes, who are already branded with an everlasting infamy for the share which they have taken in the guilty triumphs of the Edinburgh Review.

Pardon me, if I have been betrayed into a warmth of language unsuitable to one who willingly confesses that he is addressing his superior. Be assured that I have no motive in all that I have said, but a strong zeal, both for your reputation, and for the cause of Christianity. It would be superfluous to tell you, that this is not a period in which Christians might expect to be pardoned for deserting, even for a moment, the standards around which it is their duty to be rallied. Infidelity does not indeed speak so boldly as it once did among us; but I fear—I greatly fear-whether her silence be not ominous, rather of her settled hostility than of her genuine repentance. I much suspect, that the candour of Hume is the only part of his garment which has fallen upon no disciples. It is useless to multiply names and facts,—but I am sure you internally acknowledge the justness of my position, when I assert, that infidelity is at this moment more extensively diffused among the higher orders of British society,-aye, and taught in a manner more dangerous by British authors, than was ever known, even in the days when unbelief was the ally of open democracy, and the enemies of our faith enlisted in their cause all the zeal and bigotry of a political insurrection. In common with many of my countrymen I rejoiced in the rise of your name, and saw in you a brilliant luminary likely to dispel much of the darkness which envelopes the religious atmosphere of the land. I trust my forebodings were not in vain. Nay, I know and feel that you are born to do great things,-that you are gifted with very singular talents and feelings,

and that these are not more admirable in themselves, than in their adaptation to the necessities of the time. Surely you will not allow your name to be sullied by the breath of calumny, merely that you may gratify your own vanity or that of Mr Jeffrey.But, indeed, I imagine you have quite mistaken the relation in which your name and character at present stand to his.

He has had his day. The world is agreed that he is the cleverest of reviewers, but that he is not, nor ever can become, one of the great men destined to occupy a place in

"That temple where the dead Are honoured by the nations." Your reputation, on the contrary, is

not yet settled. You have done much and delighted many, but your works abound in marks of hurry and false taste, which all your readers hope to see removed hereafter. Your writings have been accepted as the promise of a vigorous genius, new in the occupation to which it is devoted; and all men are willing to believe that your future exertions may very far surpass those which you have as yet exhibited. It rests with yourself, whether you may not go down as a British classic, perhaps as the first, or in the very first rank, of our divines. You will not facilitate your path to these worthy objects of ambition, or remove any misgivings which we may have in respect to your future career, by making yourself familiar in the hackneyed walks of secular criticism and political economy. You will do well to devote yourself entirely to your profession; you are at present its ornament, but by its means alone, and in the strength of its protection, are you destined to achieve for yourself a literary immortality. You can gain nothing from Mr Jeffrey; he may hope for much from you. You should calculate well before you consent to be generous, when the object is not good, and the return is sure to be insignificant.

If you become a regular writer in the Edinburgh Review, you will certainly learn to look upon that work with somewhat of the feelings of parental partiality. I hint it merely-I may add, modestly and hesitatingly-is there no danger for yourself? There is no wisdom so secure that it may be entitled to despise temptation. No precept is more safe than that which says that we should "flee from danger."

I have spoken of this Review in terms which may appear harsh to many, and to some unjust. To those who understand, as you do, the purport and scope of the work, no apology nor explanation can be necessary. To those who are blind enough to be gulled by its external smoothness, or dull enough to be incapable of penetrating its hidden treacheries, I shall at present say nothing. If any hesitate to adopt the opinion which I have expressed concerning it, let them signify their wishes, and I shall gladly present them in a future letter, with such a body of evidence, as, I flatter myself, has not often been called forth VOL. III.

against so formidable a band of transgressors.

For you, sir, I cannot conclude without again assuring you of my love, respect, and veneration. Had I esteemed you less, or rated your talents more lowly, I should have spared myself the trouble of a long address, which many will not fail to consider as impertinent, but which you yourself, I feel satisfied, will acknowledge to be founded in justice and truth. I am sensible that you are placed in a delicate situation. The amiable manners and kindly dispositions of Mr Jeffrey are known to none better than to myself. I pity his errors, but I never cease to entertain a certain lurk

ing affection for the man. It is for you to consider how far feelings of this kind should be allowed to interfere with matters of a higher order,with feelings yet more sacred than any to which acquaintanceship, or even friendship, can give birth. That Mr Jeffrey is entitled to the warmest love of those with whom he associates, no man who has the least knowledge of him and his habits can for a moment doubt. Had he been the only person interested in the Edinburgh Review, I believe the character of that work, even in a religious point of view, would have been very superior to what it is. But although he is the responsible man, and although the world is quite entitled to take him to task for all the errors of the book, it is well understood, among them who are near the fountain of information, that of those things which have most offended either the critical or the religious opinions of intelligent readers, comparatively a very small part has been the actual production of his own pen. His situation is, indeed, in my opinion, very far from being an enviable one. He is obliged to stand and receive the blame of blunders which he has not committed, and of meannesses which his nature would teach him to despise. In the vigour of his faculties and of his manhood, he is compelled to bear the burdens of querulous and despairing age on the one hand, and of pert, presumptuous, ignorant boyhood on the other. Himself a man of brilliant fancy and happy temperament, he is the captain of a set of obtuse imitators and envious pigmies. The lash which he himself wields is sharp and cutting, but the wound which it leaves is only

X

in the flesh, and there is no poison in the stroke. But his hireling crew of executioners indulge in their office the malignant invention of infants, and the persevering cruelty of savages. You must not think of Mr Jeffrey alone, when you think of quitting the Review. You must take it into consideration, that your contributions assist not him alone, but all his confederates. Among these of later years are to be found some, whom a man of true genius, such as you, cannot but despise; whom a man of pure morality and honour, like Mr Jeffrey, should blush for a moment to admit into any portion of his confidence. You were formed by nature for higher things than to be the companion and coadjutor of such reprobates as these. Have a care, lest a name which might have gone down to posterity in all the majesty of purity, receive any stain from others, with which you are thus compelling it to be associated.

If you have opinions to express upon any subject whatever, be assured that the authority of your name in a title-page, goes at least as far at the present time as the protecting cover of the Edinburgh Review. You are not in the situation of a young nameless author, whose lucubrations, that they may not languish in obscurity, have need to catch a little secondhand splendour from the established reputation of Brougham, Hazlitt, and the Rev. Sidney Smith. You have no need of leading strings, and you should no longer allow yourself to be dazzled by baubles. Stand on your own strength, and there are none who will overlook you. Your mind was not meant to be a parasitical plant,-you were born to grow and flourish in independence. I shall conclude with a sentence from the writings of one whom you will allow to have been at least as great a man, and as good a judge of conduct, as any of all your coadjutors in this Journal.

"The Spreit of God," says the firm and fearless JOHN KNOX, "willeth ws to be sa cairfull to avoyd the company of all that teachis doctrine contrarie to the treuth of Chryst, that we communicat with thame in nathing that may appeir to manteane or defend thame in thair corrupt opinionn, for hie that bidis thame Godspeid, communicatis with thair syn; that is, hie that appeiris, by keiping thame company, or assisting unto thame in thair proceedings, to favour thair doctrine, is guilty before God of

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So much, both good and bad, has been written concerning Horace Walpole, that we are sure our readers would not easily pardon us should we invite them to any new dissertation upon so old a subject. We are not aware, however, of any publication which introduces one to so perfect a knowledge of the lord of Strawberry-hill as the present. In it we are presented with a complete and unflattering portrait of him, his thoughts, and occupations. The last, as our readers well know, were in general sufficiently trifling; the collecting of anecdotes about departed and forgotten rags of quali◄ ties," as he himself calls them,-buying, begging, and borrowing bits of painted glass,-and flattering himself that he was making a castle, when he was only overloading an ill-built cottage with the gilding and varnishing of a Dutchman's cabinet. Walpole was indeed a very effeminate person in most of his tastes, but he was undoubtedly a man of elegant education and much wit. When young, he speaks of every thing with the apparent heartlessness of a Frenchman; but he seems to have grown much wiser as he grew older, and throughout these letters of his, written with all possible haste, and certainly without the most remote expectation of their ever being made into a book, there occur many traces of profound feeling and sober reflection, which would do great honour to heads that made much greater pretensions to gravity and wisdom. were addressed by him to his friend

Horace

These letters

* See his first letter to Mrs Marjory Bowes, ap. M'Crie.

+ Letters from the Hon. Horace Walpole to George Montagu, Esq. from the year 1736 to the year 1770. Now first published from the Originals in the possession of the Editor. 4to, pp. 446. Rodwell and Martin, &c. London.

George Montagu, between the years 1736 and 1770, the first of them written before he had left Cambridge, and the last from Strawberry-hill almost immediately before his death. Nothing can be more interesting than to hear exactly what people of fashion in London did and said at the time when the young Pretender landed in 1745, and when the Scots lords were tried and executed in 1746,-or when the present king came to the throne in 1760. With regard to these, and a thousand other matters which are so near as to be wonderfully attractive, and yet so far off as to be in general pretty obscure, we can hear whatever Horace Walpole knew or felt, exactly as we should have done had we been his contemporaries, and he our daily correspondent. We have no intention at present, except of giving a few extracts of various kinds from this correspondence. The first shall be from his letters written during the year

1746.

"Arlington Street, Aug. 2.-You have lost nothing by missing yesterday at the trials, but a little additional contempt for the ; and even that is recoverable, as his long paltry speech is to be printed, for which, and for thanks for it, Lord Lincoln moved the House of Lords. Somebody said to Sir Charles Windham, Oh! you don't think Lord -'s speech good, because you have read Lord Cowper's :'* No,' replied he, but I do think it tolerable, because I heard Serjeant Skinners.' Poor brave old Balmerino retracted his plea, asked pardon, and desired the lords to intercede for mercy. As he returned to the Tower, he stopped the coach at Charing-cross to buy honeyblobs, as the Scotch call gooseberries. He says he is extremely afraid Lord Kilmarnock will not behave well. The duke said publicly at his levee, that the latter proposed murdering the English prisoners. His H was to have given Peggy Banks a ball last night, but was persuaded to defer it, as it would have rather looked like an insult on the prisoners the very day their sentence was passed."

"Aug. 5.-Lady Cromartie presented her petition to the king last Sunday. He was very civil to her, but would not at all give her any hopes. She swooned away as soon as he was gone. Lord Cornwallis told me that her lord weeps every time any thing of his fate is mentioned to him. Old Balmerino keeps up his spirits to the same pitch of gaiety. In the cell at Westminster he showed Lord Kilmarnock how he must lay his head; bid him not winch, lest the

William Clavering, Earl Cowper, son of Earl Cowper, who was twice Lord High Chancellor of England.

stroke should cut his skull or his shoulders; and advised him to bite his lips. As they another bottle together, as they should never were to return, he begged they might have meet any more till -, and then pointed to his neck. At getting into the coach, he said to the jailor, take care, or you will break my shins with this damned axe.'

"I must tell you a bon-mot of George Selwyn's at the trial. He saw Bethel's sharp visage looking wistfully at the rebel lords; he said, What a shame it is to turn her face to the prisoners till they are con

demned.'

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My Lord Chancellor has had a thousand pounds in present for his high stewardship, and has got the reversion of Clerk of the Crown (twelve hundred a-year) for his second son. What a long time it will be before his posterity are drove into rebellion for want like Lord Kilmarnock. "The duke gave his ball last night to It was to Peggy Banks, at Vauxhall, pique my Lady R. -d in return for the Prince of Hesse."

"Aug. 11.-I shall not be able to be at Windsor at the quivering dame's before tomorrow se'nnight, as the rebel lords are not to be executed till Monday. I shall stay till that is over, though I don't believe I shall see it. Lord Cromartie is reprieved for a pardon. If wives and children become an argument for saving rebels, there will cease to be a reason against their going into rebellion. Lady C-'s execution is certainly to-night. I dare say she will follow Lord Balmerino's advice to Lord Kilmarnock, and not wince."

F

"Aug. 16.-I have been this morning at the Tower, and passed under the new heads at Temple Bar, where people make a trade of letting spying-glasses at a halfpenny a look. Old Lovat arrived last night. I saw Murray, Lord Derwentwater, Lord Traquair, Lord Cromartie and his son, and the Lord Provost, at their respective windows. The other two wretched lords are in dismal towers, and they have stopped up one of old Balmerino's windows, because he talked to the populace; and now he has only one, which looks directly upon all the scaffolding. They brought in the death-warrant at his dinner. His wife fainted. He said,

Lieutenant, with your damned warrant you have spoiled my lady's stomach.' He has written a sensible letter to the duke to beg his intercession, and the duke has given it to the king; but gave a much colder answer to Duke Hamilton, who went to beg it for Lord Kilmarnock; he told him the affair was in the king's hands, and that he had nothing to do with it. Lord Kilmarnock, who has hitherto kept up his spirits, grows extremely terrified. It will be diffi cult to make you believe to what heights of affectation or extravagance my Lady Tcarries her passion for my Lord Kilmarnock, whom she never saw but at the bar of his trial, and was smitten with his falling shoulders. She has been under his win.

dows, sends messages to him,-has got his dog and his snuff-box,-has taken lodgings out of town for to-morrow and Monday night,--and then goes to Greenwich, forswears conversing with the bloody English, and has taken a French master. She insisted on Lord Harvey's promising her he would not sleep a whole night for my Lord Kilmarnock; and in return,' says she, 'never trust me more if I am not as yellow as a jonquil for him.' She said gravely t'other day,Since I saw my Lord Kilmarnock, I really think no more of Sir Harry Nthan if there was no such

man in the world.' But of all her flights yesterday was the strongest. George Selwyn dined with her, and not thinking her affliction so serious as she pretends, talked rather jokingly of the execution. She burst into a flood of tears and rage, told him she now believed all his father and mother had said of him, and with a thousand other reproaches flung up stairs. George coolly took Mrs Dorcas, her woman, and made her sit down to finish the bottle: And pray, sir,' said Dorcas, do you think my lady will be prevailed upon to let me go see the execution? I have a friend that has promised to take care of me, and I can lie in the Tower the night before.' My lady has quarrelled with Sir Charles Windham for calling the two lords malefactors. The idea seems to be general, for 'tis said Lord Cromartie is to be transported, which diverts me for the dignity of the peerage. The ministry really gave it as a reason against their casting lots for pardon, that it was below their dignity. I did not know but that might proceed from Balmerino's not being an earl; and therefore now their hand is in, would have them make him one.'

The next is a picture from the life, of three parts of all Walpole's existence. He was never happy unless rummaging some old house for things that the owners of them despised.

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Strawberry-hill, Aug. 20, 1758.—After some silence, one might take the opportunity of Cherbourg* and Louisbourg, to revive a little correspondence with popular topics; but I think you are no violent poli

tician, and I am full as little so; I will therefore tell you of what I of course care more, and I am willing to presume you do too-that is myself. I have been journeying much since I heard from you; first to the Vine, where I was greatly pleased with the alterations; the garden is quite beauti

About the middle of this month, General Bligh had landed with an army on the coast of France, near Cherbourg, destroyed the bason, harbour, and forts of that place, and re-embarked his troops without loss.

Alluding to the surrender of Louisbourg, and the whole island of Cape Breton on the coast of North America, to General Amherst and Admiral Boscawen.

fied and the house dignified. We went over to the Grange, that sweet house of my Lord Keeper's, that you saw too. The pictures are very good, and I was particularly pleased with the procession, which you were told was by Rubens, but is certainly Vandyke's sketch for part of that great work that he was to have executed in the banquetting-house. You did not tell me of a very fine Holbein, a woman, who was evidently some princess of the white rose.

"I am just now returned from Ragley, which has had a great deal done to it since I was there last. Browne has improved both the ground and the water, though not quite to perfection. This is the case of the house, where there are no striking faults, but it wants a few Chute or Bentley touches. I have recommended some dignifying of the saloon with Seymours and Fitzroys, Henry the eights, and Charles the seconds. They will correspond well to the proudest situation imaginable. I have already dragged some ancestors out of the dust there, written their names on their portraits; besides which, I have found, and brought up to have repaired, an incomparable picture of Van Helmont by Sir Peter Lely. But now for recoveries-think what I have in part recovered! Only the state papers, private letters, &c. &c. of the two Lords Conway, secretaries of state. How you will rejoice and how you will grieve! They seem to have laid up every scrap of paper they ever had, from the middle of Queen Elizabeth's reign to the middle of Charles the second's. By the accounts of the family there were whole rooms full; all which, during the absence of the last, and the minority of the present lord, were, by the ignorance of a steward, consigned to the oven and to the uses of the house. What remained, except one box that was kept till almost rotten in a cupboard, were thrown loose into the lumber-room, where, spread on the pavement,

Half

they supported old marbles and screens and boxes. From thence I have dragged all I could, and have literally, taking altogether, brought away a chest near five feet long, three wide, and two deep, brim full. ed by rats; yet I have already found enough are bills, another part rotten, another gnawto repay my trouble and curiosity, not enough to satisfy it. I will only tell you of long ones of news of Mr Gerrard, master of three letters of the great Strafford, and three the Charter-house; all six written on paper edged with like French modern paper. There are hand-writings of every body, all their seals perfect, and the ribands with which they tied their letters. The original proclamations of Charles the first, signed by the privy council; a letter to King James from his son-in-law of Bohemia, with his seal; and many, very many, letters of negotiation from the Earl of Bristol in Spain, Sir Dudley Carleton, Lord Chichester, and Sir Thomas Roe.-What say you? will not here be food for the press?

green,