to the images, were already affected with what was done to them in effigy. The knowledge of this was received with the loudest laughter, and in many congratulatory words they applauded one another's wit and power."

To these visions, as published in the Spectator and Guardian, a fifth was added by Pope, when he collected the works of his friend. It may be entitled the Vision of a Library of Books, and can justly establish a claim to the epithets ingenious and amusing.

8. HENRY GROVE, a nonconformist divine of great literature and piety, was born on the 4th of January, 1683, at Taunton, in Somersetshire. He was descended from the Groves of Wiltshire and the Rowes of Devonshire, families of great antiquity and respectability, and who had suf fered much under Charles and James the IId. for their zealous and firm attachment to the rights of conscience, and the cause of religious freedom.

His parents, who were highly esteemed for their singular worth and christian virtues, early impressed the mind of their son with an ardent love for religion and morality. To this, the best foundation for future excellence, were added the accomplishments of a classical education; and such rapid proficiency did he make at the gram

mar school, that, at the age of fourteen, he was deemed fully qualified to enter upon a course of academical study. The taste which he had acquired at this period for the elegant authors of Greece and Rome, he cultivated through life with unwearied fondness and assiduity, and with a success which rendered him a very acute and perspicacious critic, and which imbued his compositions with much of the fine flavour, and many of the happy graces of antiquity.

Upon leaving school, he was placed under the care of the Rev. Mr. Warren, of Taunton, who for many years presided over an academy at that place with high reputation; and with this gentlewhose opinions were liberal and unfettered by prejudice, he studied philosophy and theology, and obtained an intimate and critical knowledge of the sacred scriptures.

man,

On the conclusion of his course with Mr. Warren, he removed to London, and prosecuted his literary career under the superintendence of his near relation, the Rev. Thomas Rowe. Here he made himself master of the systems of Descartes and Newton, and applied himself with such diligence to the acquirement of the Hebrew language, as enabled him, in a short time, to peruse the Old Testament in the original. He formed, likewise, during his residence in the metropolis,

several very valuable connections, and was particularly happy in entering into a strict friendship with Dr. Watts, which, though they differed upon some controversial points, continued unbroken during his life.

Mr. Grove, having spent two years in London, returned into the country, and, at the age of twenty-two, assumed the office of a preacher. For this important duty he was eminently qualified; his learning was considerable, his imagination lively, his address and manner solemn and impressive, and his voice, though not strong, was clear, sweet, and judiciously managed. He consequently became a very popular preacher; and the devotional spirit which pervaded his discourses very early attracted the attention of Mrs. Singer, afterwards Mrs. Rowe, who expressed her friendship and esteem for Mr. Grove, by an Ode addressed to him on Death.

Very shortly after the commencement of his ministry, Mr. Grove entered into the matrimonial state; and, in 1706, when only twenty-three years of age, he was nominated, on the decease of Mr. Warren, to succeed him as tutor to the academy at Taunton, assisted by two other gentlemen of established reputation. Ethics and pneumatology were the departments that he chose; and finding it necessary, in consequence of this.

undertaking, to reside at Taunton, he, for eighteen years in succession, preached to two small congregations in the neighbourhood, upon a salary of only twenty pounds per annum! Notwithstanding the scantiness of this income, he was exemplary and indefatigable in the discharge of his duty; and the sermons which he delivered in those meetings, though his auditors were few, and probably of the lower class, were models worthy of imitation; they were composed with uncommon attention and propriety, "adapted," says one of his biographers, " to the improvement of the meanest understanding, while they were calculated to please and edify the most polite and judicious hearers *;" a task of great difficulty, but which ought ever to be the aim of all who preach to a mixed congregation ↑.

The first production which Mr. Grove committed to the press, was an essay drawn up for the use of his pupils, entitled, The Regulation of

* Vide Morgan's Life of Grove, in Aikin's General Biography, vol. iv. p. 582.

+ I have great pleasure in referring my readers for specimens of this atchievement to the Sermons of the Rev. John Bidlake, 2 vols. 8vo. They appear to me, with regard to language, models of simple elegance; and, what is of still superior importance, they are purely practical; that is, they are free from all mysticism and controversial matter.

Diversions, and published, in 1708, in octavo. It is well calculated for the purpose it was meant to answer; to call off the attention of youth from the too eager pursuit of pleasure, and to fix it with emulative desire on the acquisition of knowledge and virtue. Dr. Clarke having given to the public, about this period, his "Discourse on the Being and Attributes of God," our author, not satisfied with one of the proofs, deduced from our necessary ideas of space and duration, commenced an epistolary controversy with the Doctor on the subject; which, though it terminated, as is usual, without conviction on either side, was closed with mutual expressions of candour and good will.

Our author's second appearance in the literary world took place in the year 1714, by the publication of his first paper in the eighth volume of the Spectator; and, in 1718, he again came for ́ward with An Essay towards a Demonstration of the Soul's Immateriality; a work which displays much argument, chiefly, however, upon the grounds which Dr. Clarke has occupied in his controversy with Collins.

Mr. Grove's health had always been delicate; he had been subject for several years to frequent attacks of the head-ach, and the spring seldom returned without affecting him with a febrile