Mr. URBAN, August 18. ERCEIVING in p. 149, some menPERCE tion of the Lee Priory Press, I cannot refrain from indulging myself, and, I hope, such of your Readers as are lovers of Old English Poetry, by noticing one of its recent publications, which has afforded me peculiar pleasure. Among the Poets of the

early, part of the sixteenth Century the name of William Browne is eminently distinguished; but, it must be owned, that his published works have not quite justified, in modern estima tion, the repute in which we find him to have been held by his contemporaries. The work to which I refer, “The original Poems of William Browne, never before published," sanctions, in my opinion, the judg ment of the Editor, and amply vindicates the celebrity the Poet acquired. These compositions, now first printed from the manuscript copy, do indeed, to borrow the Editor's words, possess a simplicity, a chasteness, a grace, a facility, a sweetness, full of attraction and delight." I am not one of those who, presuming to de

spise the effusions of modern genius,

discover some wonderful merit in every production that is old, and who can devour with insatiable avidity all the quaint metaphysical jargon of many Poets contemporary with Browne. But, in testimony of the value of a volume like this, I am happy to concur with the most ardent of black-letter enthusiasts.

That is a noble Ode, commencing, "Awake, fair Muse, for I intend These everlasting lines to thee! And, honour'd Drayton, come and lend An ear to this sweet melody; [string, For on my harp's most high and silver To those Nine Sisters whom I love I sing."

"The Happy Life" has all the sharm, and ease, and unaffected flow of moral feeling, of Horace's more serious lyrical pieces.

Of his Sonnets the following may be a specimen :

So sat the Muses on the bank of
Thames,

And pleas'd to sing our heavenly Spenser's wit, [flames, •Inspiring almost trees with powerful As Calia, when she sings what I have

writ: Methinks there is a spirit more divine, An elegance more rare, when aught is sung [mine, By her, sweet voice, in every verse of Than I conceive by any other tongue.

So a Musician sets what some one plays With better relish, sweeter stroke, [weighs,

than he

That first composed; nay, oft the maker

If what he hears his own or others' be. Such are my lines: the highest, best of choice, [voice.' Become more gracious by her sweetest There is an extraordinary coincidence with this in the following thought of Cowper, who could never have seen these poems:

"My numbers that day she had sung, And gave them a grace so divine, As only her musical tongue

Could infuse into numbers of mine: The longer I heard, I esteem'd The work of my fancy the more, And ev'n to myself never seem'd

So

tuneful a Poet before."

It is hardly necessary to observe, that this rare volume is adorned with all the beauty of typography for which the Lee Priory Press is so remarkable.

MOST of your Readers well know

that the subject of DEATH is shrouded by a gloom that renders it always unwelcome it is generally shunned, as much as weak people defer, because they cannot resolve, to make their wills, lest the very act should accelerate their dissolution, although the one would give the fittest preparation for the event, and the other be better done while the mind is not hurried by its near approach. These alarms arise from the delay of reflecting upon it: Children are never taught it as a lesson of instruction, although thousands of their own age are falling round them; Youth are generally too much occupied with the progress of every other part of education than what concerns their latter end, which is then supposed, often very falsely, to be far off; and Maturity is busy in the promotion of worldly prosperity to a degree which renders them perfectly rals with their secular concerns, they satisfied, if, by unifing Christian mo. are above leading intemperate lives. Thus the subject of Death gains but few disciples until a period of life when there is scarcely time left to study it in its full view. Some philosophers have said that the dread of dissolution arises from our love of life, a first principle, which was given

us

through all parts of the United Kingdom and of the world. The tutors should have questions relative to this ́event, to the certainty of its approach, to the advance of years, to all the stages of human life, and to the subsequent judgment, and the promises of future bliss, as a reward for a willing and grateful obedience: these should be answered by such short details as should awaken in the pupil's mind, from the earliest period, increasing but familiar encouragement; and expectation of his coming to those promises, which neither eye hath ever seen, nor ear heard, nor hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive, for those that love God and keep his commandments. Assuredly this would be a great improvement of catechisms and spelling-books, till the child's curiosity, if it were nothing more, should be awakened, so as to excite him to conduct himself in such a manner as to hope to attain this extraordinary reward, which is never to be withdrawn!-He would thus grow up familiarized rather with a fixed security of obtaining heavenly bliss, than of dreading the moment of Death; and he would consider Death as so secondary, though instrumental to bring him to it, that he would at least overcome his fears insensibly, aud reflect only with a grateful cheerfulness on what is far beyond it, and to which he is hastening. Thus his life would be a constant preparation for. Death, which would render hit habitually good, and he would banish one grand enemy to joy. By this means his present days would be far happier, he would supply the deficiency of his present information in spiritual things above-mentioned; the gloom that overcast his brow when he turned to this subject would be dispelled and the unmixed purity of an Eternal Life in glory would unite to secure his mind from the dangers of falling away, through a dread or uncertainty whether his hopes of happiness were secure!

·

Now, Sir, if I am in the least correct in these suggestions, as fair consequences resulting from my plan of familiarizing the thoughts of Death, and so preserving it ever present, but subdued in all its terrors by a concomitant life of righteousness,-let me flatter myself that I have done much for my fellow-creatures-have

blunted the edge of sorrow, and laid open a cheerful vista to Eternal Glory! But I cannot hope to accomplish such a change without your assistance: the extensive circulation of your works, and the morality of all your lucubrations, will afford to my doctrine considerable strength: and without this help I almost despair of success; for you will reach the attention of many who would otherwise turn over this letter, and seek another of more entertainment. The cheerful virtue of your own life, and its desired extent, are the best evidence I can offer for the benefit of that preparation which I would render universal. A. H.

Strictures on the Sermons of the Rev. J. EYTON; continued from p. 12.

WERE

ERE the doctrine inculcated by the Author of these Discourses in the passage already quoted by us from page 13 (viz. "Nor does it appear that God himself could have forgiven sin, without a full and sufficient atonement and satisfaction being made for it"), really agreeable to Scripture and to Truth; it would obviously and undeniably follow from it, that the Redemption of the human race through the mediation of Jesus Christ is in reason to be regarded, not as the beneficent result of pure grace and mercy on the part of God the Father, but, on the contrary, as a transaction differing in no material point whatever (as far as the First Person of the Blessed Trinity can be truly said to have been at all concerned in it) from any common act of strict legal justice.

The correctness of this inference, indeed, is not only clearly and necessarily implied, but even explicitly assorted in various parts of Mr. Eyton's Sermons. We shall content ourselves at present with citing, in proof of this, the following brief passage from page 15: "O sinners! flee for refuge to this hope set before you. Turn ye to this strong hold; and the very justice of God, that most formidable of all his attributes to the transgressors of his law, will then secure your deliverance from the wrath to come.

How far the maintenance of a doctrine such as this is capable of being in any measure reconciled with that fundamental principle of Natural Re Jigion, which teaches us to regard the

spon

spontaneous and immutable benignity of the Supreme Being as the only original source of all good gifts, is a question which well merits the most serious consideration of every sober mind. For our own part, thoroughly persuaded, as in sincerity we must needs profess ourselves to be, that between the legitimate deductions of sound reason and the genuine (or rightly expounded) doctrines of the Gospel, there really subsists, in every instance that can be named, the most perfect harmony; we hesitate

not a moment to avow our entire

rejection and cordial reprobation of the doctrine above advanced; in other words, we hesitate not to pronounce it in the highest degree irreverent and unscriptural not to consider the work of Man's Redemption (however voluntarily undertaken and benignantly completed by Jesus Christ) as actually originating wholly and exclusively in the gracious purpose and designation of God the Father.

For let us only, for a moment, mentally admit the truth of the contrary doctrine; viz. that the whole human race having become obnoxious to the fatal penalty of sin, the perfection of God's moral nature must necessarily be considered as virtually precluding the possibility of their exemption from eventual ruin, unless the demands of his avenging justice were completely satisfied by means of vicarious sufferings undergone, and vicarious punishment inflicted, to an extent fully adequate to the measure of their guilt.

Now, the case thus stated, under what character do we, in reality, represent the all-adorable majesty of the Supreme Being? Against idola trous worship we find St. Paul adducing an irrefragable argument, in a quotation from a Heathen Poet: sanctioned, therefore, by this precedent, in lieu of a more formal auswer to the preceding question, we shall beg leave to refer our Readers to the truly Evangelical description of Mercy, given us by our own inimitable Bard, in the words of Portia*. For why (we may reasonably ask) does that description so highly and so universally delight us, but from its perfect conformity with the eternal principles of moral goodness? But if of Mercy it be with truth affirmed,

* Merchant of Venice, Act iv. sc. 1,

t

that "it becomes" "the throned Monarch better than his crown,” is it possible for any reasonable mind to question its being also (in a degree infinitely superior) "an attribute to God himself?" And yet, the attri bute of God it can never be consis tently esteemed by those, who allow themselves in the least to doubt his moral power of freely forgiving sins, whenever, and to whomsoever his unbounded goodness shall incline, and his unerring wisdom shall direct him to extend forgiveness.

The chief source of men's prejudices and misconceptions on this head has long appeared to us to be the fol lowing: They are wont to consider the reconcilement of a sinful world to God, through the blood of Christ, as a kind of legal retribution; or (to express our meaning differently) as a transaction in which the former ri gorously exacts the full penalty of human guilt, and the latter as gene rously pays it.

But although, viewing the subject in this light, we ascribe to our Blessed Saviour no more than what is, with out question, justly due to his divine benevolence; yet towards GoD THE FATHER we are guilty, in so doing, of infinite injustice: nothing, confessedly, being more abhorrent from the sentiments of rational piety, than so to represent the dealings of the Almighty, as to make him by com parison appear, in any instance, the object of inferior gratitude and love.

For the purpose of removing this dangerous (and, in the present times, but too prevailing) misconception from men's minds, they should be instructed duly to reflect on the utter inadequacy both of human language and of the human intellect, when employed in disquisitions so abstruse as. those which relate to the moral attri butes and moral government of God. It is in consequence solely of this inadequacy, that men are accustomed both to think and speak of the Supreme Being under two, not only distinct, but entirely opposite and conflicting characters: to represent him, at one time, as infinitely amiable in mercy; and at another, as equally terrible in justice.

But to the eye of unclouded Reason -to an intelligence (we mean) capable of discerning clearly, and appreciating justly, the general tendencies

and

and final issues of God's moral dispensations, it is manifestly impossible that he ever should appear under any such dissimilitude and contrariety of character; since, by a mind so endowed, those dispensations of Divine Providence which we denominate judgments, and those which we term mercies, must necessarily be regarded as being, in-respect both of principle and tendency, perfectly coincident ; as all flowing equally from the same benignant source, and all equally conducing to the same beneficial end; in a word, as all in an equal degree suggested and directed in complete conformity with the harmonious influence of God's combined perfections. And therefore to impute to God the Father, with relation to the grand work of Man's Redemption by his onlybegotten Son, a severity of disposition or proceeding which is at all at variance with the suggestions of infinite benevolence, guided by those of correspondent wisdom, is to enter tain an opinion on the (still mysterious) subject, at which genuine and consistent piety revolts. A

The due consideration of which circumstance (we cannot refrain from observing further on the subject) will supply us with a ready and decisive answer to those objectors who (on the other hand) affirm, that it is wholly incompatible with a proper sense of the Divine Perfections to be lieve, that God's wrath, once excited against sinners, can ever be in any degree appeased by means of any external agency or suffering in their behalf: since, if there be any cogency and truth in the preceding argument and statement, we must needs ac knowledge, that wrath; or vindictive justice, regarded as a moral principle essentially opposite to benevolence and mercy, can at no time possibly xist in the Divine Mind.

Which admitted, we are at liberty to rely with entire confidence on the sovereign efficacy of Christ's media tion in our favour, without impeach ing in the least the consistency or immutability of his Heavenly Father's will because our reliance is, in this case, founded, not in a belief that the actions and sufferings of Christ, during his state of incarnation, tended to produce in the Divine Mind any chunge whatever of disposition towards mankind, but, in the contrary

persuasion, that the real efficacy of our Saviour's sufferings and actions is to be ascribed exclusively to their entire conformity with his Heavenly Father's antecedent will and purpose in that respect. OXONIENSIS.

(To be continued.)

Mr. URBAN, London, Sept. 16. A to point out to the reprehension GAIN do I feel myself compelled of your numerous Readers another lamentable instance of the worst species of the Bibliomania.

On the Cover of your last Magazine is a Proposal for printing a Freatise on Decorative Printing, byWilliam Savage; in which Proposal L find the following passage: "At the end of the volume, defaced impres sions of all the engravings will be given; and at the completion of the work an announcement will be issued to the subscribers, naming a day when the blocks will be destroyed; thus giving them the opportunity of witnessing the total demolition of them, so as to prevent the possibility of the book being ever reprinted.” Mr. Savage goes certainly a great way further than his illustrious exemplar: Mr. Dibdin indeed assures us that the plates of his Bibliomania were destroyed, and he also assures us that the blocks of his promised work shall in like manner be destroyed; but he is content that the work of destruction should take place in a corner; yet Mr. Savage boldly invites his subscribers to attend and witness the conflagration of his blocks, in order, as he informs us, that they may be assured of the impossibility of the work being ever reprinted. It will be curious, Mr. Urban, to witness this block-burning; and I hope you will favour us with a description of the scene, as well as the naines of the blockheads who attend.

But, jesting apart, is it not dis graceful to see the ends of literature attained by such unworthy modes as these? If a republication like the fore-mentioned should be found of use, and worthy of extended circulation, why, in Heaven's name, is it to be locked up in the cabinets of those who merely purchase it on ac count of the limited number of copies printed?

I have not sufficient time to point out at length the disgusting folly of

creating