calls" a great and a good man," gave him this excellent advice" If you desire to be extensively useful, do not spend your time and strength in contending for or against such things as are of a disputable nature, but in tes, tifying against open and notorious vice, and in promoting real essential holiness." But at this time the fever of enthusiasm made him reject this wise counsel, and exclaim, "God deliver me from what the world calls Christian prudence.". Towards the end of the year Whitefield returned from Georgia to receive priest's orders, and to raise contributions for founding and supporting an orphan-house in the colony. He was ordained by Bishop Benson, who had laid hands on him as a deacon. But the business of raising money was not so soon accomplished, and detained him long enough in England to take those measures which, in their consequences, led step by step to the separation of the Methodists from the Church of England, and their organization as a sect. A large room in Fetter-Lane had hitherto been the central place of meeting. Here they kept their love feasts, at which they ate bread and water, and sung and prayed. "On the first night of the new year," says Wesley," Mr Hall, Kenchin, Ingham, Whitefield, Hutchins, and my brother Charles, were present at our love feast, with about sixty of our brethren. About three in the morning, as we were continuing instant in prayer, the power of God came mightily upon us, insomuch that many cried out for exceeding joy, and many fell to the ground. As soon as we were recovered a little from that awe and amazement at the presence of his Majesty, we broke out with one voice, We praise thee, O God; we acknowledge thee to be the Lord." It was a Penticost season," says Whitefield; "sometimes whole nights were spent in prayer." This conduct gave offence to the clergy, and they began generally to refuse their pulpits to preachers who seemed to take a pride in setting prudence at defiance. This would have led to field preaching, but it began from a different necessity. Whitefield was preaching in Bermondsy Church, but more than a thousand could find no admittance; so when he had finished the service in the church, he felt a strong desire to mount on the tomb-stones and ad VOL. VII. dress those who had not found room within. "This," he says, 66 put me first upon thinking of preaching without doors." Soon after he went to Bristol, and actually put this scheme in practice at a coalliery in the neighbourhood of that city, named Kingswood. On the 17th of February 1739, he stood there on a mount called Rose Green, and preached to as many as came to hear him. He had some disputation about this novelty with the chancellor of the diocese, but he still proceeded in his own way, regardless of authority. He had not Wesley's ambition, but he had a great longing to be persecuted, and seems rather to have been disappointed, that, notwithstanding his provocation of persons in power, suffering was so tardily and so sparingly awarded to him. He now addressed himself to congregations upwards of 20,000 in number. "The open firmament above me," says he, " the prospect of the adjacent fields, with the sight of thousands and thousands, some in coaches, some on horseback, and some in the trees, and at times all affected and drenched in tears together, to which sometimes was added the solemnity of the approaching evening, was almost too much for, and quite overcame me." at Bristol, the Wesleys were preachWhile these things were transacting ing with equal success in London. A convulsive and an infectious disease, "believed to be part of the process of regeneration," had begun to manifest itself among their adherents. convulsive motions, and frantic cries of the patients, were offensive at first. Charles Wesley thought them " no sign of grace.' The whole party, however, soon agreed that they indicated the crisis of the new birth; they became very common, and a large part of Wesley's Journal is taken up with details of the more extraordinary cases. The In compliance with the earnest solicitation of Whitefield, Wesley went to Bristol, where the foundations of Methodism, as a distinct sect, were now laid by the practice of fieldpreaching, "I could scarce reconcile myself," says Wesley, 66 at first to this strange way, having been all my life, till very lately, so tenacious of every point relating to decency and order, that I should have thought the saving of souls almost a sin if it had PP not been done in a church." The disease which Methodism excited had not appeared at Bristol under Whitefield; but it became frequent after Wesley arrived there. One, and another, and another, sunk to the earth; they dropt on every side as thunderstruck." There was a man named John Haydon, who laboured to convince the people, that the fits into which so many of Wesley's auditors fell were the effects of a delusion of the devil. He is said also to have been zealous for the church, and against dissenters of every denomination. This man chose one day to finish a sermon on salvation by faith, which he had borrowed, before he began to eat, after he had sitten down to dinner. In reading the last page, he changed colour-fell off his chairbeat himself against the ground-and screamed so terribly, that the neighbours were alarmed and ran into the house. Wesley was informed that the man was fallen raving mad: He found him on the floor. "c " he Aye,'" exclaimed, "this is he who I said was a deceiver of the people! But God has overtaken me.-I said it was all a delusion; but this is no delusion! He then roared out, thou devil, thou cursed devil,-yea, thou legion of devils! thou canst not stay! Christ will cast thee out: I know his work is begun! Tear me to pieces if thou wilt; but thou canst not hurt me.' He then beat himself against the ground again, his breast heaving, at the same time, as in the pangs of death, and great drops of sweat trickling from his face. We all betook ourselves to prayer. His pangs ceased, and both his soul and body were set at liberty." The next day Wesley found him with his voice gone, and his body weak as an infant's, "but his soul was at peace, full of love and rejoicing, in hope of the glory of God." This may serve as a specimen of those "spiritual struggles," as they were called. Some of them were even more violent; but all the patients in a moment were filled with peace, and love, and joy. They received" the plerophory of faith." On Wesley's arrival in Bristol, that part of the Methodist discipline was introduced which he had adopted from the Moravians, and male and female bands were formed as in London, that the members might meet together weekly to confess their faults one to another, and pray one for another. In May 1739, the first stone of a preaching house was also laid in that city," with the voice of praise and thanksgiving." The property was at first settled on eleven feoffees; but when it was represented to Wesley that they would always have the sole power over the building, being alive to the evils of congregational tyranny, he called the feoffees together, cancelled the writings, and took the trust, as well as the management, in- . to his own hands. These measures, though adopted without any prospect of separating from the Church, were, step by step, leading to that event. Having spent three months in Bristol, he took leave for a while of his growing congregation there, saying that he had not found such love," no, not in England." (To be continued.) ITALIAN LITERATURE. MONTI (From Sismondi's Litterature du Midi.) VINCENZIO MONTI, a native of Ferrara, is acknowledged, by the unanimous consent of the Italians, as the greatest of their living Poets. Irritable, impassioned, variable to excess, he is always actuated by the impulse of the moment. Whatever he feels is felt with the most enthusiastic vehemence. He sees the objects of his thoughts, they are present and clothed with life before him, and a flexible and harmonious language is always at his command, to paint them with the richest colouring. Persuaded that poetry is only another species of painting, he makes the art of the poet consist in rendering apparent to the eyes of all, the pictures created by his imagination for himself, and he permits not a verse to escape him which does not contain an image. Deeply impressed by the study of Dante, he has restored to the character of Italian poetry those severe and exalted beauties by which it was distinguished at its birth; and he proceeds from one picture to another with a grandeur and dignity peculiar to himself. It is extraordinary, that, with something so lofty in his manner and style of writ ing, the heart of so impassioned a character should not be regulated by principles of greater consistency. In many other poets this defect might pass unobserved; but circumstances have thrown the fullest light upon the versatility of Monti, and his glory, as a poet, is attached to works which display him in continual opposition to himself. Writing in the midst of the various Italian revolutions, he has constantly chosen political subjects for his compositions, and he has successively celebrated opposite parties, in proportion to their success. Let us suppose, in his justification, that he composes as an improvisatore, and that, his feelings, becoming highly excited by the given theme, he seizes the political ideas it suggests, however foreign they may be to his individual sentiments. In these political poems, the object and purport of which are so different, the invention and manner are, perhaps, but too similar. The Basvigliana, or Poem on the Death of Basville, is the most celebrated; but, since its appearance, it has been discovered that Monti, who always imitated Dante, has now also very frequently imitated himself. * Hugh Basville was the French Envoy, who was put to death at Rome by the people, for attempting, at the beginning of the Revolution, to excite a sedition against the Pontifical government. Monti, who was then the poet of the Pope, as he has since been of the Republic, supposes, that, at the moment of Basville's death, he is sav ed, by a sudden repentance, from the condemnation which his philosophical principles had merited. But, as a punishment for his guilt, and a substitute for the pains of Purgatory, he is condemned, by Divine Justice, to traverse France, until the crimes of that country have received their due chastisement, and doomed to contemplate the misfortunes and reverses to which he has contributed, by assisting to extend the progress of the Revolution. An angel of Heaven conducts Bas- Sleep, O belov'd companion of my woes, Heaven's trumpet-summons shall awake the dead! shower, * The observation of a French author (le Censeur du Dictionnaire des Girouettes) on the general versatility of poets, seems so peculiarly appropriate to the character of Monti, that it might almost be supposed to have been written for the express purpose of such an application" Le cerveau d'un poète est d'ane cire molle et flexible, Be the earth light upon thee! mild the où s'imprime naturellement tout ce qui le flatte, le séduit, et l'alimente. La muse du And soft the breeze's wing, till that dread chant n'a pas de parti; c'est une étourdie sans consequence qui folâtre également et sur de riches gazons et sur d'arides bruyères. Un poète en délire chante indiffer. emment Titus et Thamasp, Louis 12me, et Cromwell, Christine de Swède, et Fanchon la Vielleuse." hour, Nor let the wanderer, passing o'er thee, breathe Words of keen insult to the dust beneath. pyre, There live no flames of vengeance or of ire, 300 Italian Literature. Where mercy's home hath been, from days Thus, to its earthly form, the spirit cried, And, rising in their flight, on that proud Whose walls enshrine the guardian saint of Lo! where a tower'd, cherub-form sublimely But dreadful in his glory! sternly lower'd On high amidst the burning lamps of hea ven, Seen in the dread, o'erwhelming visions To the rapt seer of Patmos. Wheels of fire Seem'd his fierce eyes, all kindling in their And his loose tresses, floating as he stood, 1 While his left hand sustain'd a shield, so vast, Far o'er the Vatican beneath was cast As the plume Of the strong eagle spreads, in sheltering gloom O'er its young brood, as yet untaught to soar; And while, all trembling at the whirl wind's roar, Each humbler bird shrinks cowering in its nest, Beneath that wing of power, and ample breast, They sleep unheeding; while the storm on high Breaks not their calm and proud security. In the second Canto, Basville enters The air was heavy, and the brooding skies nize With his pale aspect. Through the forest round Not a leaf whisper'd, and the only sound Terror and stillness! boding signs of woe, Of labour or of mirth, and in their stead, A fearful watch around; and sadness deep At intervals, in many a broken word; breast; Voices of wives, with fond, imploring And the wild eloquence of tears and sighs, Affection's gentle bonds, in that dread hour Rag'd in their bosoms, fierce and uncon- The deepest crime that ere hath dimm'd Blood, human blood, hath stain'd their On the winds tossing, with a sanguine Like him, who, breathing mercy till the last, Pray'd till the bitterness of death was past: E'en for his murderers pray'd, in that dark hour, When his soul yielded to affliction's power, And the winds bore his dying cry abroad, "Hast thou forsaken me, my God, my God ?" E'en thus the monarch stood; his pray'r arose, Thus calling down forgiveness on his foes, "To thee my spirit I commend," he cried, It seems an act of equal necessity to do justice to the dead as to the liv ing; nay, there is a disposition in hu man nature to do even fuller justice to the merits of the dead than to the merits of the living. Our contemporaries are incident to the same pas sions, and are incited by the same ambitious motives as ourselves; there must, of consequence, be rivalry, and where there is rivalry, there is very apt to be jarring and envy. But when the grave is closed over a man-when he is confined to that dark and cheerless mansion, his character is looked upon with more tenderness-its brighter parts become brighter-its blemishes are hidden in the shade of death; and his writings, if he has been an author, are received with pe culiar respect and awe, as the language of an inhabitant of another world. I was led into these reflections by reading the "Poetical Remains of the late Dr J. Leyden:" a work which possesses much merit-which I have seen noticed in few periodical journals, but which, as a countryman of Leyden's, I feel an anxiety-a kind of duty, to introduce to such of your |