says, perhaps less aptly, respecting the reader of this galvanized species of composition) of stumbling and falling head foremost. The readers, on the other hand, of the class who relish this rhapsodizing, experience the tickling sensation of a peasant passenger in a rail-car, whose intellect crawls out into his eyes, and who thus fancies himself vanquishing space, viewing new objects, accumulating information so rapidly!-the whole, however, being found to have evaporated, at the end, to a mere titillation of the physical organs of his five senses.

The discerning, indeed, will always comprehend that this peristaltic style of writing is, to well-compacted and well-ordered composition, very much what locomotion effected by hopping is to the easeful energy of a vigorous walker. The one, it is true, may advance more rapidly by starts: but the other not only outstrips it soon, but outlasts it indefinitely; and, besides, will never inflict that sort of sympathetic distress which readers of taste must speedily suffer from an unnatural mode of movement. In times, however, when the "reading public" is come to be the patron of authors and arbiter of books, and proportionably as this is the case more or less extensively or exclusively in particular countries, may this "physical force" notion of style be expected to prevail, until it be shown-through the gradual influence of a scientific education upon the general mind, and the correlative improvement in the logical texture of the language-to be no better, at the best, than the bustling and aimless activity of boys in a play-ground.

In the grammatical dove-tailing, the dialectical tessellationwhich alone can render with full fidelity the orderly complexity of the pattern in nature, and which forms the indispensable groundwork of all style-in this quality it is, accordingly, that writers in English are found behind even the still crude capacities of the language. But by a fortunate, or rather an unfortunate, compensation, the readers appear to be, in general, proportionably behind the writers. To arrest this course, to improve this wretched condition, of reciprocal corruption, we should think a careful study of the method explained in the foregoing pages, and exemplified admirably in the French idiom and style, to be, meanwhile, of the first importance. We are aware that the innovation just imputed to Mr. Macaulay, and denounced by the critics of more systematic antiquity as a degradation of style, is regarded in England as a vicious imitation of the very model we speak of. But this is a new form of the fundamental error which we have had occasion to note already more than once in these pages. The present case of it proceeds from confounding a similitude of means with what is

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Progressive Principle of Language and Style. [January, merely a partial or illusory coincidence of effects. The structure of our English idiom, naturally obscure and imprecise, acquires, when chopped up into short, sejunct, easily-seized sentences, an air of that clearness and simplicity which form the unrivalled characteristics of French composition. But in the former, it is that plainness which is the result of fragmentary separation; in the other, it is the perspicuity which (as the very term etymologically intimates) is, on the contrary, the attribute of an orderly combination.

This happy disposition, this lucid arrangement, therefore, so far from misleading into the dispersive expedients in question, would have the direct effect of suppressing their employment, by obviating the obscurity which they are resorted to vainly to remedy. For in proportion as the collocation of words and the construction of sentences, simple or compound, in a language have attained to a definite and fixed value upon the principle of relative position, in this degree may we dispense progressively with the cumbrous contrivances of grammar for indicating the connexion. Witness the multitude of conjunctive particles in the ancient languages, the Greek, for example, which modern times are incapable not only of translating, but even of understanding. Witness, on the other hand, the absence of all syntax in the only form of human language that has as yet attained to complete perfection-the language of pure mathematics. A wall, in fine, of cut stone does not need the quantity of spawls and cement which is requisite while we use rock rude from the quarry, or merely rough hewn on some of the sides.

Need it be remarked, in closing, that we do not mean that this model, however admirable, should be applied directly to English style, especially in the verbal collocations discussed? On the contrary, we pretend it to be the most original and valuable feature of this disquisition to have, we think, established, that any such transformation can be possibly or permanently but the logical growth of the general intellect; of which the language and literature of a people are always the actual reflex. But we are also of opinion that this rational progression-already advancing in our idiom under many other forms than we have had time to signalize-may be accelerated incalculably by pointing out the leading direction of the movement, and defining the destined goal. As the best, not yet a perfect example of the latter, we consider the French dialect to be a useful guide, and the safest mode of profiting by it to be judicious, intelligent, and conscientious translation.

As to the general law of Language, we shall be content if, on the present merely incidental occasion, these cursory indications may

lead the thinking to question the notions generally prevalent upon the subject. For it is with science, as the poet says of wisdom, and the Psalmist of the fear of the Lord: the first and principal step to proficiency is to rid one's self of that stultitude* of prejudice, both educational and national, which represents to us our literature, our law, our language, and, in short, whatever of ours is considerably above the common comprehension, as having attained not only a special or exclusive degree, but already the final term, of absolute perfection.

ART. VII.-THE REV. EDWARD IRVING.

1. A Biographical Sketch of Edward Irving. By WILLIAM JONES. London: Bennett. 2. For the Oracles of God; four Orations for Judgment to come; an Argument. By EDWARD IRVING. London. 1823.

FEW names of the present century have more signally divided the opinions of the religious and literary world than that of Edward Irving. As an orator, he has been compared to Demosthenes, Paul, and Luther; as a poet, to Milton; and while a Mackintosh, a Canning, a Brougham, and a Coleridge, have rendered admiring homage to his wonderful genius, many have yet deemed him of disordered intellect, and more have denounced him as either a mere clerical adventurer or a wild fanatic. This singular discrepancy of opinion regarding an individual so prominently presented to the world's gaze and scrutiny as was Irving, may, perhaps, in part be accounted for by the fact, that his character and claims have been, in the majority of instances, but too imperfectly understood. It is scarcely less remarkable that a name, which so radiantly blazed on the forehead of heaven, should have found but one to chronicle his life-story: and that, too, in a spirit of avowed hostility to Irving's characteristic religious tenets; and with a no less determined feeling of personal unfriendliness and bitter prejudice. We refer to the Memoir by the Rev. William Jones, author of the "Church History," &c.

Having ourselves enjoyed the privilege of a personal acquaintance with Irving, and supposing that a better knowledge of some features of his eventful career might tend to the better elucidation of his character with the religious public in the United States, we shall indulge more freely, in this article, in personal reminiscences than might otherwise be deemed allowable.

There was a strange witchery about Irving; everything connected with him evinced the same idiosyncratic marks. His fervid and glow

* Sapientia prima stultitiâ caruisse.

ing utterances, often resembling the magnificent cadences of Milton; his majestic and stately bearing; the beauty of his more than Italian profile; the piercing glance and fascination of his eloquent eye; all tended to invest him with the insignia and attributes of rare genius. His imposing height of stature, comporting well with his dignified deportment and carriage, made him appear among our modern clergy more like the impersonation of one of apostolic mouldan illusion which the ample folds of his long, flowing jet locks, parted over his broad, expansive forehead, seemed to render but the more complete and irresistible. With an apparent austerity—almost bordering upon the asceticism of the cloister-in his official ministrations in the sanctuary, Irving yet possessed a heart singularly sensitive, gentle, humane, and loving; while his temperament was no less sanguine, ardent, impulsive, and impressible. Of his early history few facts are known; nor does it appear that his boyhood exhibited any remarkably precocious indications of that mental power which his after-life developed. He seems rather to have sought to be a worshipper at the shrine of nature, by the hill-side, or the romantic glens of his own classic soil, than to pore over the pages of the collective wisdom of the past. It is said that, at twelve years of age, he used to take his solitary ramble over the wild heather, with simply the Bible under one arm, and a loaf of bread under the other; and thus would he seek, at their very source, to draw deep wisdom and inspiration alike from the great statute-books of heaven and of earth. He imbibed the love of liberty with his pure mountain air; at early dawn and dewy eve he was wooed to worship with the whispering breeze— the matin and vesper hymn of nature-while the radiant and variegated splendors of the glowing earth, and the gorgeous beauty of the bending skies, filled his impassioned soul with lofty aspirations and earnest yearnings after that nobler estate of being the high prerogative of Christian faith-which, to his rapt vision, seemed scarcely less palpable than his own actual existence. Thus did he commune with the celestial, the ideal, and the real. It is not surprising, therefore, that he should have been moulded after a model dissimilar from that of his contemporaries and his age. Far from disdaining the toils of studious scholarship, however, Irving not only possessed, in an eminent degree, an acquaintance with the sciences, and the general branches of human lore, but he became himself essentially a poet; and, from imbibing a fondness for the master-poets of our language, he also adopted for his own the style and phraseology of the mighty minds of that Augustan age.

Our first acquaintance with the subject of our sketch commenced soon after his arrival in the British metropolis. Previous to his

acceptance of the invitation of the society at Hatton Garden Chapel, to become their pastor, Mr. Irving, who had long been the protégé of Dr. Chalmers, had won for himself some renown, as associate in the ministerial labours of his distinguished patron and friend. It was not, however, till his accession to the pastorate of that hitherto obscure and almost unknown church in London, that he laid the foundation for that brilliant, though Brief career, the parallel of which is perhaps not to be found in the annals of the Church. And what a dizzy height was that on which he stood for a while, glorying, Samsonlike, in the conscious greatness of his strength! It was the remarkable combination of powers, physical, moral, and mental, that won for him unprecedented popularity, and the most exclusive, intellectual, and distinguished of audiences. It was the correspondence and the reflection of his gigantic powers of mind upon his no less. remarkable physique, that imparted to his eloquence, both of speech and gesture, such an inexpressible fascination. Referring to this correspondence this reflection, as it were, of his powers and passions upon his person-a contemporary critic eloquently observes:-"There might be seen independence stalking in his stride, intellect enthroned on his brow, imagination dreaming on his lips, physical energy stringing his frame, and athwart the whole a cross ray, as from Bedlam, shooting in his eye. It was this which excited such curiosity, wonder, awe, rapture, and tears, and made his very enemies, even while abusing, confess his power and tremble in his presence. It was this which made ladies flock, and faint; which divided attention with the theatres; eclipsed the oratory of parliament; drew demireps to hear themselves abused; made Canning's fine countenance flush with pleasure, as if his veins ran lightning;' accelerated, in an alarming manner, the twitch of Brougham's dusky visage, and elicited from his eye those singular glances, half of envy and half of admiration; and made such men as Hazlitt protest, on returning, half squeezed to death, from one of his displays, that a monologue from Coleridge, a recitation of one of his own poems from Wordsworth, a burst of puns from Lamb, and a burst of passion from Kean, were nothing to a sermon from Edward Irving. His manner, also, contributed to the charm; his aspect, wild, yet grave, as one labouring with some mighty burden; his voice, deep, sonorous, clear, and with crashes of power, alternating with cadences of sweetest melody; his action, now graceful as the wave of the rose-bush in the breeze, and now fierce and urgent as the midnight motion of the oak in the hurricane; the countenance, kindling, dilating, contracting, brightening, or blackening, with the theme; now attractive, in its fine, symmetrical repose, and now terrible to look at, in its strong lines, and glaring excite