with this Latin compliment, Cum tales fint, utinam essent noftri; but the important and fincere duty which I owe to the preservation of the ecclefiaftical and civil establishments of my country, obligeth me thus to invert the compliment, and no doubt but it will be esteemed highly uncomplaisant by the whole fraternity of separatists,

-Cum tales fint, gaudeo non effe noftros.'

We need say no more, surely, of this noble Defence; the extracts we have given will speak for themselves.

ART. IV. An Elegy on the Ancient Greek Model. Addressed to the Right Reverend Robert Lowth, Lord Bishop of London. Cambridge printed; and fold by T. Payne, London. 410. 18. 6d.

1779.

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HATEVER be the modern idea of elegy, it was anciently applied to very different purposes than at present. Originally appropriated neither to love or lamentation, it was equally extended to every subject that was confidered as serious or important: and so far from being confined to the trifling display of amorous impatience, or to reiterate the complaints of funeral forrow, the elegiac muse not unfrequently mares animos in martia bella

Verfibus exacuit.

In short, whatever related to the conduct of human life, or the interests of society, was looked upon to come within her province. Hence, the strains of elegy, accordingly as the occafion demanded, were political, patriotic, or prudential. Such are the elegies of Solon, and Tyrtæus, and the γνωμαι of Theognis. In imitation of these models is written the Elegy before us.

The Writer's object will be best seen by the following introductory lines:

• Mourn! Son of Amos, mourn! in accent sharp
Of angry forrow strike thy heav'nly harp.
Mourn! thou sublimest of the fainted choir!
Those lips, that, touch'd with thy cœleftial fire,
Clear'd, from the gather'd clouds of many an age,
The bright'ning flame of thy prophetic rage;
Those lips, thro' Learning's facred sphere renown'd,
Have stain'd their glory by a servile found.
Envy with ranc'rous joy these accents heard,
And dwells with triumph on the fatal word;
Waging against Renown eternal wars,
Thus the insults the merit she abhors:

"How has the radiance of the mitre ceas'd!
Oblivion's poppy shades the prostrate priest:
In dark Servility's expanding cave
Forgotten prelates hail thee from the grave;

See Ifaiah, chap. xiv.

O Lucifer!

O Lucifer! of prophecy the star,
Rolling through Hebrew clouds thy radiant car
Art thou too fall'n as we? Can Flatt'ry's tide
Drown thy free spirit and thy Attic pride?
Is this the man who spoke, in language strong,
The praise of Liberty's Athenian song?
Blest are her notes, but curit the fordid things
That priestcraft offers to the pride of Kings;
For never, never thall fair Freedom's hand
Enroll one prelate in her facred band!"
Peace! Envy, peace! nor deem, with bigot rage,
Long labours cancell'd by a hasty page.'

He then digresses in praise of those mitred sages, who have approved themselves the friends of freedom and the people; though not without an oblique glance at such, as

' fond of dull repose,

Without a dream of Learning's friends or foes,
Enjoy their table, or from thence withdrawn,
Sink in soft slumber on their fleeves of lawn.'

The names that are mentioned with peculiar approbation, are Langton and Hoadley amongst the dead, and amongst the living Shipley and Law.

Retuming his subject, he proceeds :

• O Lowth! we faw thy radiant name on high
Amid the purest lights of Learning's sky;
And long, if true to Freedom's guiding voice,
Long in thy splendor shall that sphere rejoice;
One paffing vapour shall dissolve away,
And leave thy glory's unobstructed ray.
But while on Fame's high precipice you stand,
Be nobly firm! nor bend the virtuous hand,
Fill'd with rich sweets from Freedom's flow'ry mead,
To pluck Servility's oblivious weed!
High in the Court's rank foil that creeper winds,
And oft with dark embrace the Crofier binds;
While squeez'd from thence the fubtle Prelate flings
Its luscious poison in the ear of Kings'.

After justifying the motive of his address, and doing justice also in the most ample manner to the very respectable character to whom it is directed, he adds:

• Shall Lowth adapt no more his Attic style
To the Meridian of my fav'rite ifle?
But feebly speak, in France's languid tone,
Faint as beneath Oppression's burning zone?
Or, blazing only with a bigot's fire,
Awake the flumb'ring flames of regal ire;
Stretch the state-theorist on Pristehood's rack,
And from the pulpit † aim the personal attack?
Far other precepts fuit the hallow'd fage.'

† See the late fermon by the Bishop of London, and his note on Dr. Price.

He

He then takes occasion to compliment a late attempt to restrain the practice of adultery, and accounts for the trespasses of woman, by supposing that,

- When her guard, in Luxury's venal hour,

Yields his chaste soul a prostitute to Pow'r,
Heav'n, in just vengeance on the abject slave,
Corrupts the purest gifts its bounty gave.'

Whether this theory be altogether true or not, we shall not at present, take upon us to determine. To' correct the rank abuses of the time,' he calls upon the diftinguished prelate, to whom his poem is particularly directed, in the following animated lines.

Rife, then, O rise! with Hoadley's spirit fir'd,
But in thy richer eloquence attir'd:
Teach us to guard from ev'ry mean controul
That manly vigour of the judging soul,
Which Faith approves, which Loyalty allows!
Teach us, while Honour to thy doctrine bows,
That Duty's praise in no blind worship lies,
But Reason's homage to the just and wife!
So to thy Country, to thy God endear'd,
By Heav'n protected as on earth rever'd,
May thy mild age in purest fame rejoice;
In fame, where Envy hears no jarring voice!
So may Religion, with divine relief,
Drop her rich balm on thy parental grief!
May that sweet comforter, the heav'nly Muse,
Who fondly treasures Sorrow's sacred dews,
In Glory's vase preserve the precious tear
Shed by paternal Love on Beauty's bier!
And O! when thou, to Learning's deep regret,
Must pay at Nature's call our common debt;
While life's last murmurs shake the parching throat,
And Pity catches that portentous note;
While in it's hollow orb the rolling eye
Of Hope is turn'd convulsive to the sky,
May holien vifitants, each fainted seer
Whofe-w all known accents warble in thine ear,
Descend, with Mercy's delegated pow'r,
To foothe the anguish of that awful hour:
With lenient aid release thy struggling breath,
Guide thy freed spirit through the gates of Death,
Shew thee, emerging from this earthly storm,
Thy lov'd Maria in a seraph's form,
And give thee, gazing on the Throne of Grace,
† To view thy mighty Maker face to face.'

† This bold exprefsion of exalted piety was borrowed from St. Paul, by the great Conde, the fublime and enviable circumstances of whose death are thus described by the eloquent Boffuet.--“ Oui, dit-il, nous verrons Dieu comme il est, face à face, il repetoit en After the ample extracts we have given of this truly liberal and manly performance, to add any further commendation, might feem fuperfluous.

ART. V. The Duty of univerfal Benevolence enforced; in Three Sermons: To which is prefixed a short Address to the Lincolnshire Clergy. By the Rev. H. Hodgson, B. A. of Peterhouse College, Cambridge, Curate of Market Rasen. 8vo. Printed at Gainsborough, and fold by Rivington. 1778*.

V

IS.

ANITY of vanities, says the preacher, all is vanity! The church is no fanctuary from it, and Sunday is no Sabbath-day to it.' It will force its way even to the pulpit, and play such phantastic tricks before high heaven as make the angels weep.' As for beings of a lower sphere, and of a groffer compofition, they will be more inclined to laugh at the farcical exhibition; for when the question is put, whether Man had better be merry, mad, or melancholy, he will prefer the former: because life itself, without the vanity of coxcombs, both in and out of the church, will furnish him with too many materials for the exercise of the two last.

This Rev. H. Hodgson of Peterhouse College, Cambridge, hath unfortunately taken it into his head that he is a genius!

Some Demon whispered' it to him: and since that fatal moment, the poor man hath been in a delirium: and like others of his brethren, the curate of Rasen stalks abroad with the fancied majesty of a king, and waving his fceptre while he nods his laurelled head, he surveys his work with filent rapture: till swelling with the great idea, he gives it utterance: and like another Nebuchadnezzar, before he was driven from among men to graze with the beasts of the field, he proclaims what he hath done by the might of his power.'

'This Curate of Rafen must certainly think himself capable

of

Things unattempted yet in prose or rhyme;" for it is a maxim with him, that' an ounce of a person's own reason is worth a tun of any other's.' He adopts this maxim principally for his own fake: for though the expreffion is general, the meaning is undoubtedly particular; and it is the Rev. H. Hodgfon's ounce that carries all the weight in his scale.

Latin, avec un gout merveilleux, ces grands mots: Sicuti eft: facie ad faciem, et on ne se lassoit point de le voir dans ce doux transport." Oraison Funebre de Louis de Bourbon.

• An earlier account would have been given of these Sermons, and of the Author's ' Effufions of the Heart, &c.' but we were unable, till very lately, to procure copies of them.

This

This Author tells us, that he hath a quarrel with the

word faith, and for that reason he always carefully avoids using it.' And the cause why he hath picked this quarrel with that poor word is, he informs us, ' from its having been prostituted by divines, so that it seldom or never raises an idea of its fcriptural fignification in the unenlightened mind.' 'Thence, fays he, arose my quarrel with it.' My quarrel! - Yes, Mr. Hodgson's!-and who, or what can stand when He is angry?' Faith, from henceforth and for ever, must be kicked out of door, to wander like a battered prostitute, to be picked up by fome poor cull of methodism, till it hath lost its influence over the groffeft fool amongst them, and is left to rot and perish on a dunghill!-Alas! poor faith! what haft thou got by keeping company with divines!

،

Mr. Hodgson is not sufficiently acquainted with critics and commentators on the bible, to have a quarrel with fuch fort of folks. No! in truth. They are a race of men (fays he) to whom I pay little regard.' He may have heard of the names of a few of them: but the rest are huddled together in an heap with people that nobody knows; and if he had perchance heard of their existence, his high rank would not have suffered him to remember their names, had they been announced by his valet.

But we have made our introduction so long that, as John Bunyan says of a certain episode, which he wrote, that it was like to fwallow up the whole of the performance; so we may fay of our exordium, that it will contain much more than the doctrine, the argument, the illuftration, and the inference; for in one word, if we are afked, what is our opinion of Mr. Hodgson's Sermons and Address, we can only say, even by the help of candour itself, that they treat of something about being good and doing good. And now having faid this we have faid all.

ART. VI. Effufions of the Heart and Fancy: in Verse and Profe. By the Rev. Henry Hodgson, B A. of Peterhouse College, Cam bridge; and Curate of Market Rafen, Lincolnshire. 8vo. 3s. 6d. Sewed. Rivington. 1779.

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to a periodical essayift, to endeavour to preferve the literary taste, as well as the morals of his cotemporaries from contamination: and therefore, he ought to keep a watchful eye over the press.'-Now, this is one part of the HIGH CONCERN of us Reviewers: and such Authors as Mr. Hodgson shall be convinced of our vigilance. We will endeavour to preserve the literary taste, as well as the morals, of our cotemporaries from contamination,' by warning them not to come too near REV. Nov. 1779.

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