dreadful punishment. According to which the words may be rendered, When you are told, the pitched fhirt being placed before you, you must either burn in this flirt, or offer a little incenfe with your own hand, it is a greater inftance of fortitude to say, I will not do it, than even to burn off that hand.' For fo The laft words, non facio,' are not eafily tranflated. They mean not only, I will not do it, but, I will not facrifice. facio fometimes fignifies; as in Virgil: Cum faciam vitula pro frugibus. Ecl. iii. 77.' At the clofe of this year, 1790, he wrote the following ode, to his friend William Drake *, jun. efq. in return for a present he had received from him: Aufus et ipfe manu juvenum tentare laborem. GULIELMO DRAKE, JUNIORI, ARMIGERO, Integer vitæ Gulielme, tecum Tiberis ripas adiiffe gratum eft, Quaque florentis populi alluebat Tunc avans amnis; neque enim fciebat Urbem agitaret. Nunc dolet prifcis pietas ab aris Rege caivo, et trepidante, plebis Gens levis, gens funt malefida Galli, Anglicâ terrâ retinet-tuoque Quas pares grates tibi, proque cultis The gentleman whofe eloquence in the houfe of commons renders him to the minifter fo powerful a coadjutor. Exeat felix abiturus annus ; Ducat et longam feriem fequentûm, He had, in truth, the most perfect command of all his intellectual ftores; and fo intimately was he verfed in the celebrated authors of Greece and Rome, and their great English rivals, that there was fcarcely a fhining paffage in their immortal works, that was not treasured up in his wonderful memory. His converfation, whether with a few or with more, was rich, animated, and interesting; and perhaps no one, endowed with any degree of fenfibility, ever was in his company without feeling himself, for the time, happier and better. His cheerfulness was invariable, and his civility the genuine virtue of the heart; and that a heart overflowing with benevolence, and hallowed by religion. From this fource ftreamed an effuigence of countenance, which thofe only who beheld can adequately conceive; but which perhaps never was better expreffed, than in the words of our great poet: • Till oft converse with heav'nly habitants He was graceful in perfon, of middle ftature, and rather thin, till he made his fecond tour into Italy, when he returned and continued of a fuller habit. He had long ufed glaffes; but, fight excepted, his bodily fenfes were unimpaired, and his teeth as firm and as white as ivory. But, "of the foul alone the form is immortal,” and of that the faireft ornament was piety. We have before spoken of his devotion, domeftic and public. His more private afpirations to heaven, the exercife of his closet, I prefume not to "draw from their facred abode." They were known to Him who feeth in fecret; and He will one day reward them openly. Public facts, however, are within the province of the hiftorian; and, if good, fhould be held forth to imitation. His piety was an early habit, and it never forfook him. It was the guide of his youth, the fupport of manhood, the crown of old age. In foreign countries this was his comfort; in all the felicity of his native land, whose constitution none more ardently loved and admired, as few better understood; in all the felicity of this favoured land, religion was his delight, and the church of England his glory. The full effects of this piety can be known only at that day, which fhall reveal all things; but many, doubtlefs, were in every way won to righteousnefs by its tranfcendent loveliness. It was humble and unobtrusive, never dashed harmless mirth, never courted human applaufe; but, affociated with joy and ferenity, was ever ready, at hone or abroad, in the moment of gladness or day of affliction, to advance the love of God, the belief of his gospel, and the good of mankind. His candour was as ftriking as his other virtues. He gave full praise to merit, wherever it appeared; and was moft willing to make allowance for human infirmity. The depravity of the age, that ftale topic of the idle and cenforious, was no fubject of complaint with him; he hoped and believed better things of the world he lived in. He was a kind and gracious mafter; a moft generous and faithful friend. Greater humanity has rarely dwelt in man; nor ever with more perfect obedience to a fill higher principle. To behold him when he parted with thofe he loved, or when they were removed by death, was a leffon of affection to the heart, and of faith to the foul. He who records this had long been treated by him with parental tendernefs; and in his laft illness, when moments were. precious, he never fuffered him to retire to reft, without fome act or expreflion of kindeft regard. Never, perhaps, in thefe latter ages, has any man, in a like fituation, been equally eftecmned, and equally lamented. His parith, his friends, and all good men grieved for an event, that extinguifhed one of the brightest ornaments of religion and learning, and took from the poor, the widow, and the orphan, a protector, a guide, a father of whom we may affirin, almost without a figure, that his every fentiment was piety, and every deed beneficence; his fpirit was meeknefs, and his foul charity. Such was his life; and his death was fimilar, equally ferene, refigned, and edifying. Without a ftruggle, without a figh, his heart fixed on heaven, and his looks directed thither, he clofed his eyes, never to open till the refurrection of the juft.' This narrative includes many proofs of Dr. Townson's critical fkill; and the indexes, by Dr. Loveday, furnifh an admirable model which we hope to fee followed. The Principles of Eloquence; adapted to the Pulpit and the Bar. By the Abbé Maury. Tranflated from the French; with additional Notes, by John Neal Lake, A. M. 8vo. 55. Boards. Cadell. 1793. THE HE abbé Maury, a name well known in politics as the bold and ftedfaft champion of aristocracy, and not lefs in the literary world as the author of feveral eftéemed publications, chiefly ortaorical, has in this differtation given rather a feries of lively and animated remarks on the rules of eloquence, illuftrated by a number of ftriking examples, than a complete and regular fyftem of the art. His style is warm and animated, and and it is eafy to fee he had it in view, in imitation of the Grecian critic, To be himself the great fublime he draws.' Accordingly many paffages in his work fhow that his tafte and talents have qualified him to give both example and precept. Of the eloquence proper for the bar, though the title of the book equally holds it forth to view, but little proportionally is faid. Only two chapters are devoted to it; one to the comparison of Demofthenes with Cicero, in which he gives the preference to the former; the other to the mention of the chief pleaders who have diftinguifhed themfelves among his countrymen, Le Maitre, Patru, Peliffon, who gained the highest reputation by pleading for Fonquet after his difgrace; and above all Arnaud the friend of Boileau. In later times the abbé thinks there has been a declenfion of talents in this line. idea of the pulpit eloquence is thus beautifully opened: The It is only neceffary, in fact, for the orator to keep one man in view amidst the multitude that furrounds him; and, excepting thofe enumerations which require fome variety in order to paint the paffions, conditions, and characters, he ought merely, while compofing, to addrefs himself to that one man, whose mistakes he laments, and whofe foibles he discovers. This man is, to him, as the genius of Socrates ftanding continually at his fide, and, by turns, interrogating him, or anfwering his questions. This is he whom the orator ought never to lose fight of in writing, till he obtain a conqueft over his prepoffeffions. The arguments which will be fufficiently perfuafive to overcome his oppofition, will equally controui a large affembly.' He goes on: But, you may afk, where is this ideal man, composed of fo many different traits, to be found, unless we describe some chimerical being? Where fhall we find a phantom like this, fingular but not outre, in which every individual may recognize himself, although it resembles not any one? Where fhall we find him?-In your own heart. Often retire there. Survey all its receffes. There, you will trace both the pleas for thofe paffions which you will have to combat, and the fource of thofe falfe reafonings which you must point out.' The author proceeds to give directions for pulpit compofition; first for collecting ideas by meditation and study, then for arranging the plan, and next for reftraining the defire to fhine, fo apt to mislead young preachers. Reckon up all the illuftrious orators. Will you find among them them conceited, fubtle, or epigrammatic writers? No; thefe immortal men confined their attempts to affect and perfuade; and their having been always fimple is that which will always render them great.-How is this? You wish to proceed in their footsteps, and you ftoop to the degrading pretenfions of a rhetorician! And you appear in the form of a mendicant foliciting commendations before thofe very men who ought to tremble at your feet! Recover from this ignominy. Be eloquent by zeal, instead of being a meer declaimer through vanity. And be affured that the oft certain method of preaching well for yourfelf, is to preach ufefully to others. Though there is fomething of the high prieft in this apoftrophe, it is a ftriking one.-But the most valuable part of this treatise, especially to an English reader, is the account it gives of the most celebrated French preachers, with fpecimens of their manner. The pulpit cloquence of the French is not fo well-known among us as perhaps it deferves to be; their productions of that fort do not lie in the common track of French reading; moreover, partly from differences of religion and partly of taile, we are much prejudiced against them, nor are ours more agreeable to them. We have made very little progrefs, according to the abbé Maury, in true eloquence, and he treats our admired preachers, particularly Tillotfon, in a manner which can hardly fail to fhock an English reader, if he have not divelted himlelf of national partialities -The truth is, that the two nations judge of fermons by rules totally different. English preacher is fatisfied with his fermon if it be fit to be printed. A French preacher confiders his as an oration to be delivered, and has no idea of feparating the fermon from the audience who are to be affected by it; he confiders what he is to fay in connection with the geftures, the tones of voice, the ftriking paufes with which he is to deliver it: the English preacher only attends to the figure it makes upon paper.Boffuet, of all the French preachers, is the favourite of Maury; he tiles him the French De.nofthenes. An Before him, Maillard, Menot, Corenus, Valladier, and a multitude of other French preachers, whofe names, at this day, are obfcure or ridiculous, had difgraced the eloquence of the pulpit by a wretched ftyle, a barbarous erudition, a prepofterous mythology, low buffoonery, and, even fometimes, by obfcene details. Boffuct appeared. Accustomed to find himself engaged in controverfy, he was, perhaps, indebted to the critical obfervations of the Proteftants, who narrowly watched him, for that elevated ftrain, that ftrength of reafoning, that union of logic and eloquence, which distinguished all his difcourfes. • Do you with to know the revolution which he effected in the pulpit? 1 |