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then they enlarge upon two faults and extravagances, as they consider them, of the famous man. Now, it is well known, the persons with whom they profess to agree in substance, protested against him as an "enthusiast, a censorious, uncharitable person, and a deluder of the people; and against his practice of itinerating and encouraging itinerants, as evil in itself, and pernicious in its effects." Alas, says Mr. C. and his tutors, "the miseries, confusions, disorders and convulsions, which you have by these means laid the foundation of in our churches, can scarcely be paralleled in ecclesiastical history."

CHAUNCY (CHARLES, D. D.) This is a just and impartial account of a man, whose theology is at variance with that to which the biographer appears devoted. He gives the doctor a gentle rap for not thinking well enough of the great apostle Whitefield in one or two particulars. "In regard to Mr. W. than whom there was never a more disinterested man, it was suggested that in soliciting subscriptions he might have had a fellow feeling with the orphans in Georgia." We believe Mr W. had clean hands. Yet the Dr's. surmise was not peculiar, nor wholly without colour. The college and other testimonies on this subject express their dislike of the "account which Mr. W. has given to the world of his disbursements of the several contributions for the use of the orphan house, wherein are several large articles, and a thousand pounds charged for sundries."

DAVENPORT (JOHN) minister at New Haven. It seems it is no new thing for poor sick Boston to be thought by the brethren at a distance to need more of the tonick, stimulating practice than it is inclined to use with itself. For Mr. Davenport of N. H. at the age of 70, left his people for our metropolis to their grief and our division. "But he hoped to be more useful in Boston, where the strictness of former times, in relation to ecclesiastical discipline, had been somewhat relaxed."

EDWARDS (JONATHAN, President.) This great and good man is cleared from all blame and even mistake in his controversy with the people of Northampton; and the people are charged with loose principles and a dereliction of all discipline. The English editor of his Works, p. 66. Life of President Edwards, qualifies this statement by some very just remarks In this life, and more especially that of many others, Mr. A. seems to consider the contest about the width of the door inte

the church or society of communicants, as being, on the part of those who are for making it narrow, a contest for the purity of the church--whereas a pure church, that is a true church, in its visible character, is one constituted according to the rules of its founder; be the members converted or unconverted, tares or wheat. There is a great deal of pragmatical humour mingles itself often with this zeal for a pure church. The question is, does communion imply that all participants think themselves and their brethren in a state of salvation; and make a decided judgment of each others hearts; or, may those come who credibly profess a desire and intention to make the gospel their rule of faith and practice. Is the ordinance a sign of a precise measure of religious attainment, or is it a means of religion?

Speaking of Mr. Edwards' treatise on the will, Mr. Allen says "those who embrace the Calvinistick sentiments, think that he has forever settled the controversy with the Arminians by demonstrating the falsity and absurdity of their principles." This is a very extraordinary assertion-Mr. Edwards's doctrine of philosophical necessity is rejected by many Calvinists, and feared and avoided as an "unknown and unknowable" subject by many more and many Arminians are with him in his metaphysicks. Dr. Priestley says of his essay on the freedom of the will, that he should suppose an Arminian wrote it.--The application of necessity to Calvinism is perhaps not more clear, than to deism or universalism.

SHERMAN (ROGER)--" he was never ashamed to advocate the peculiar doctrines of the gospel, which are generally so unwelcome to men of cultivated minds." Sad case indeed; that cultivation should spoil the produce.--We doubt however the justness of this position. If it be true that the peculiar doctrines are apt to be rejected by cultivated minds, the inference will be made that it is because they will not bear examination. If they who have more means than others, and equal motives to judge right upon the subject, judge these doctrines false, we are afraid they will fall under suspicion. Is it said, that such persons have not equal motives, or equal advantages; for they are given to pride? The pride of ignorance is commonly greater than the pride of knowledge. What some persons call the "peculiar doctrines" are, we believe, generally, or at least frequently, unwelcome to men of cultivated minds; and for a very good reason, as they think, that they are not scriptural or rational.

RETROSPECTIVE REVIEW.

ARTICLE 23.

Poems on several occasions, original and translated. By the late reverend and learned John Adams, M. A. Boston; printed for D. Gookin, in Marlborough Street, over against the Old South Meeting House.

1745.

THIS little volume affords a specimen of the style, which the ordinary class of poems of a moral or devotional kind exhibited in the days of our fathers. Though the writer, we imagine, could never boast the ultimate favours of the muses, yet he undoubtedly possessed that taste for versifying which Horace has asserted in his own person. Me pedibus delectat claudere verba. Whether it be better to harness words and sentences in indifferent rhyme, than it would be to let them grovel in their original prose, every one must decide from his own convictions.

Of the author's character we should be led to form an opinion not a little exalted, could we bring our credulity to swallow the immoderate eulogiums bestowed on him by the publisher in his introductory address to the reader. The following is but a part.

"Nor would I be looked upon as attempting the author's character, which is fixed on a surer basis, and shines in more lasting colours than the publisher could possibly produce with the utmost stretch of thought and force of language. His own works are the best encomium that can be given him, and as long as learning and politeness shall prevail, his sermons will be his monument, and his poetry his epitaph."

The book contains several poems on abstract subjects, several elegies and consolatory epistles, a few translations from Horace, and numerous scripture paraphrases, among which is the whole book of Revelations. The merit of these pieces is pretty uniform. They all contain "versum fas atque nefas," some good verse and much bad. In conformity to a good old custom, founded in classical example, our author seldom hazards an original effort without a previous parley with his He has even gone beyond this, and the first piece in

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the book is "An address to the Supreme Being for his assistance in my poetical compositions."

A poem "on Society" occupies a conspicuous part of the book. The first of its three cantos describes in a most fanciful manner the friendship or reciprocity, which exists among orders of beings distinct from man. The following will serve as a specimen.

"The tall and amorous trees with folded boughs
Receive the tempest when its fury blows;

And when the winds their sounding terrours cease,
The zephyrs ask their pardon with a kiss."

The translations in general are free and diffuse; and the author, after expressing his sense in one line, does not hesitate to coin a second to help on with the rhyme. For instance : Levius fit patientia

Quicquid corrigere est nefas.

This he has rendered:

Again,

"With humble patience then let's bear the load
Which Jove appoints, nor murmur at the God."

Ergo Quinctilium perpetuus sopor

Urget!

This is given,

"Quintilian's eyes are closed in endless sleep,

What eyes with streaming tears refuse to weep?"

There are many orthographical errours in the proper names, the fault probably of the publisher.

The versions from scripture are perhaps the best portion of the work, and in the scale of merit may be ranked above the psalms of Tate and Brady. The following extract from Revelations chap. xiv. is a specimen of the best.

"Thus spoke the spirit; when upon my eyes
A cloud of glory whiten'd through the skies;
The lucid meteor, form'd into a throne,
Contain'd the presence of the Eternal Son.
The semblance of the Son of Man he bore,
And flaming on his head a crown he wore,
The golden ensign of his regal pow'r.

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As from his hand a glittering scythe depends,
An angel from the heavenly dome descends;
To him who sat majestick on the cloud
Moving he spoke, submissive, yet aloud.
See the ripe harvest nodding for the fall,

Through the wide fields of earth for reaping call!
Soon through the globe the golden harvest bow'd,
And own'd the sickle of the reaping God."

In the use of figures the author is eccentrick, and in several instances has outfigured the rules both of rhetorick and common sense. The following notable lines are contained in a description of an earthquake, page 80.

"Th' inhabitants with wild affright
Out of their houses pour their flight.
The streets, amaz'd no less than they,
Haste from their quivering feet to flee."

The portrait of a melancholy man, page 17, is better accommodated to a dancer of hornpipes and fandangos, than to the silent and moping penseroso.

"Muse, sing the man, whose overclouded head
Is with a mist of rising shades o'erspread.
Whose fancy wild a thousand evils forms,
And shakes and shudders at imagined storms;
Whose mind in endless whirls is toss'd around,

Whose quivering feet scarce touch the solid ground.”

All these extravagancies, however, the writer has eclipsed in his account of the death of Sisera by Jael, in the song of Deborah and Barak. Here, after the nail is driven into the head of the victim, after "the frighted soul has rushed to the narrow wound," and "the pale corpse lay trembling on the ground" after the heroine has severed his head, and spread a sanguine river through the tent; the author proceeds to surprise us with the additional intelligence, that,

"The astonish'd chief bow'd suppliant at her feet,
Downward he fell, and prostrate lay his weight,
Down where he fell his bulk gigantick lay,

Then fetch'd a groan, and sigh'd his soul away."

Thus we have the following succession of events. 1. The man is slain and tumbles to the ground. 2. He is decapitated and deluges the ground with blood. 3. He is astonished and

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