With respect to the heavy charges which the Bishop of Lincoln has so rashly brought against this large division of the clergy, Mr. Scott justly complains, that no proofs are adduced of their truth. The only attempt which is made to substantiate them, is by the quotation of a few passages from Mr. Overton's wellknown work; in which, says Mr. Scott, supposing even that a few expressions could not be wholly justified, what do they amount to, when compared with the mass of conclusive, unanswerable arguments which pervades that publication, and with the distinct and various statements which it contains, of the absolute necessity of good works, of every kind, to a well-grounded confidence of justification, and a joyful hope of eternal life?

But," continues Mr. Scott, had Mr. Overton's objections to other writers, been frivolous, or snarling, (which they are not) would it have been equitable to make the whole company of evangelical preachers answerable for them? Some of these disapprove his book; and are they also, notwithstanding this, to be condemned for his of fence; if he have committed one? If any minister fails to inculcate on his congrega. tion, the things here mentioned," (viz. the practice of piety and holiness), "let him be censured for his neglect: but let not those who do circulate them, be joined with him in this condemnation. Judge not according to appearance, but judge righteous judg

ment."" Vol. i. pp. 375, 376.

There is nothing in which the Christian temper and the mature piety of Mr. Scott more evidently appear, than in the calm, yet dignified, firmness with which he meets and refutes those unrighteous, because indiscriminate and unsupported, charges of the Bishop of Lincoln against the writings and the discourses of the evangelical clergy. He even does more; he accounts and apologises for their accusers. In the midst of a just complaint of that general and undistinguishing condemnation to which they are exposed, he thus expresses his indigna

tion:

"But I retract: it is not so much, in many instances, the want of candour and equity, as the want of information. We preach very public. ly, but they" (the opponents of the evangelical body) "disdain to hear us: we publish books on various subjects, but they will not deign to read them! for I hope no one, who has read them, would persist in charging us with tenets, which we openly disavow, and labour to discountenance, to the utmost of our ability."

We seriously hope, that for the honour (not to use a stronger word) of those who have maintained these odious charges against the evangelical clergy, they will either be retracted, or applied with that discri mination, and with that distinct and unquestionable evidence of their truth, which the case so imperiously requires. For Mr. Scott himself, and for many other authors of similar sentiments, no apology is needed. Their writings, as well as their sermons, abound with the most powerful calls to holiness of life; and many of them contain an ample and laborious detail of Christian virtue. So that, in reading or hearing their productions, we are persuaded that their present adversaries would only complain, with that inconsistency which has been but too often remarked, of the strictness and severity of their practical doctrines. sides the evidence which thus arises from their books and from their discourses, considered in themselves, many of the evangelical clergy can, with Mr. Scott, confidently, yet humbly, appeal to the numbers, who have been in various degrees instruct ed, reformed, and edified by their labours. These are testimonies and seals to the general truth and ex cellence of their doctrines, which cannot even now be resisted, and which will be hereafter their " joy and crown of rejoicing in the day of the Lord Jesus;" when "they that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament, and they that turn 3 C 2

Be

many to righteousness as, the stars for ever and ever."

We have already made so heavy a demand on the patience of our readers, that we must here, for their Bakes, as well as for our own, pause in our consideration of this work; only entreating them to favour us with their good wishes for our happy deliverance out of the labyrinth of Calvinism*, into which a second volume of eight hundred pages is about to conduct us.

(To be continued.)

Childe Harolde's Pilgrimage. A Romaunt. By LORD BYRON. The Second Edition. London: Murray, Fleet Street. 1812. 8vo. pp. 300. Price 12s.

If the object of poetry is to instruct by pleasing, then every poetical effort has a double claim upon the attention of the Christian observer. For we are anxious that the world should be instructed at all rates, and that they should be pleased where they innocently may. We are, therefore, by no means among those spectators who view the occasional ascent of a poetic luminary upon the horizon of literature, as a meteoric flash which has no relation to ourselves; but we feel instantly an eager desire to find its altitude, to take its bearings, to trace its course, and to calculate its iufluence upon surrounding bodies. When especially it is no more an "oaten reed" that is blown; or a "simple shepherd" who blows it; but when the song involves many high and solemn feelings, and a man of rank and notoriety strikes his golden harp, we feel, at once, that the in

* We have said nothing of the Calvinism of the doctrine of justification by faith only, because, as we quoted in our Review of the *Refutation,” p. 587. the decided avowal by Arminius of his agreement with Calvin upon this article, we think it quite sufficient to leave the Bishop of Lincoln to settle that point with the former of these able divines.

creased influence of the song demands the more rigid scrutiny of the critic.

Lord Byron is the author, beside the book before us, of a small volume of poems, which gave little promise, we think, of the present work; and of a satyrical poem, which, as far as temper is concerned, did give some promise of it. It had pleased more than one critic to treat his Lordship's first work in no very courtier-like manner; and especially the Lion of the north had let him feel the lashing of his angry tail. Not of a temperament to bear calmly even a "look that threatened him with insult," his Lordship seized the tomahawk of satire, mounted the fiery wings of his muse, and, like Bonaparte, spared neither rank, nor sex, nor age, but converted the republic of letters into one universal field of carnage. The volume called English Bards and Scotch Re viewers is, in short, to be considered, among other works, as one of those playful vessels which are said to have accompanied the Spanish armada, manned by executioners, and loaded with nothing but instruments of torture.

This second work was of too sanguinary a complexion to beget a very pleasant impression upon the public mind; and all men, who wished well to peace, politeness, and literature, joined in the paæan sung by the immediate victims of his Lordship's wrath, when he embarked to soften his manners, and, as it were, oil his tempers, amidst the gentler spirits of more southern climes. Travelling, indeed, through any climes, may be expected to exert this mitigating influence upon the mind. Nature is so truly gentle, or, to speak more justly, the God of nature displays so expansive a benevolence in all his works; so prodigally sheds his blessings " upon the evil and the good;" builds up so many exquisite fabrics to delight the eyes of his creatures; tinges the flowers with such colours, and fills

O she is fairest in her features wild, Where nothing polished dares pullute her path;

To me by day or night she ever smiled, Though I have marked her when none other hath,

And sought her more and more, and loved

her most in wrath." p. 79.

Our author having re-landed upon his native shores, his first deed is to present to his country the work before us, as the fruits of his travels. It is a kind of poetical journal of journeys and voyages through Spain and Portugal, along the shores of the Mediterranean and Archipelago, and through the states of ancient Greece. When we speak of journal, we mean rather to designate the topics of the work than the manner of its execution; for this is highly poetical. Most contrary to the spirit of those less fanciful records, his Lordship sublimely discards all facts and histories; all incidents; A. M. and P. M.; and bad inns and worse winds; and battles and feasts. Seizing merely upon the picturesque features in every object and event before him, he paints and records them with such reflections, moral or immoral, as arise in his ardent mind.

The Childe Harolde" is the traveller; and as he is a mighty surly fellow, neither loves nor is loved by any one; through sin's long labyrinth had run, nor made atonement when he did amiss;" as, moreover, he is licentious and

sceptical; Lord Byron very naturally, and creditably to himself, sets out in his Preface with disclaiming all connection with this imaginary personage. It is somewhat singular, however, that most of the offensive reflections in the poem are made, not by the "Childe," but the poet.

The poem begins by describing the "Childe;" and though not a very favourable specimen of Lord the stanza, in order, though we feel Byron's powers, we shall extract the acquaintance is no honour to them or us, to introduce the unhappy creature to our readers. "Whilome in Albion's isle there dwelt a youth, Who ne in virtue's ways did take delight; But spent his days in riot most uncouth,

And vexed with mirth the drowsy ear of

night.

Ah me! in sooth he was a shameless wight, Sore given to revel and ungodly glee.”— "Childe Harolde basked him in the noontide sun,

Disporting there like any other fly; Nor deemed before his little day was done,

One blast might chill him into misery. But, lo! ere scarce a third of his past by,

Worse than adversity the Childe befell; He felt the fullness of satiety:

Then loathed he in his native land to dwell,

Which seemed to him more lene than eremite's sad cell." * pp. 4, 5.

stanza, as descriptive of his very cheerless state and truly romantic feelings.

"And now I'm in the world alone,

Upon the wide, wide sea:
But why should I for others groan,

When none will sigh for me?
Perchance my dog will whine in vain,
Till fed by stranger hands;
But long ere I come back again,

He'd tear me where he stands."

It will be seen by this, that not only, like Hamlet," man delights not him, nor woman either," but that no rash transfer of his regards has been made to the brute creation. We are, we conless, astonished, that when he sailed by Ithaca, or, as he poetically describes it,

"the barren spot,

Where sad Penelope o'erlooked the wave”—

he did not either expunge this stanza, or tremble at the angry ghost of Ulysses.

Lisbon, Cintra, and the surrounding scenery, are powerfully described in the occasionally abrupt manner of Spenser.

"The horrid crags, by topling convent crowned,

The cork-trees hoar that clothe the shaggy

steep,

The mountain moss by scorching skies em browned,

The sunken glen, whose sunless shrubs

must weep,

The tender azure of the unruffled deep,

The orange tints that gild the greenest bough,

The torrents that from cliff to valley leap, The vine on high, the willow branch below, Mixed in one mighty scene, with varied lustre glow." p. 17.

So Spenser:

«The willow worne of forlorne paramours,
The eugli obedient to the bender's will,
The berch," &c.
Book I. Cauto I.

The "Childe" was not likely to pass by Cintra without some characteristic reference to that convention, of which, it must be admitted, that no satisfactory solution has ever been given to the country. For this he may be pardoned; and we really began to have hopes of him

when we read, that, in his mountain wanderings here,

"he learned to moralize, And conscious reason whispered to despise His early youth."

He then strikingly describes the bounds of the rival realms of Spain and Portugal; bounds so slight, as to explain, if the general lust of power did not, the constant persuasion, on the part of the strongest of these powers, that the same sceptre should sway both countries.

"But these between a silver streamlet glides, And scarce a name distinguishes the

brook, Though rival kingdoms press its verdant sides.

Here leans the idle shepherd on his crook, And vacant on the ripling waves doth look, That peaceful still 'twixt bitterest foemen

'Twixt him and Lusian slave, the lowest of the low." p. 24.

Is there not, however, some discordancy between the meek vacancy of the shepherd, in one part of the stanza, and the proud consciousness of superiority of the peasant in the other?

As it is impossible to tread upon any acre of these desolated countries without encountering war; so a poet must be expected to describe battle is bold, and makes us doubly it. The following personification of thankful for the waters which roll between ourselves and the continent of Europe.

bard turns aside to refresh himself with a few stanzas of indignant satire upon war and warriors, and Collins's exquisite eulogy upon the brave. The preceding part of the stanza is too fine to omit.

"Three hosts combine to offer sacrifice;

Three tongues prefer strange orisons on high;

Three gaudy standards flout the pale-bluc skies;

The shouts are France, Spain, Albion, Victory!

The foe, the victim, and the fond ally

That fights for all, but ever fights in vain, Are met as if at home they could not die— TO FEED THE CROW ON TALAVERA's

PLAIN,

And fertilize the field that each pretends to gain.

"There shall they rot—Ambition's honoured fools

Yes-honour decks the turf that wraps their clay !

Vain sophistry!-in them behold the tools,

The broken tools-that tyrants cast away

By myriads, when they dare to pave their

way

With human hearts-to what?-a dream alone," &c. &c. p. 29.

We are not disposed to quarrel with this passage merely for its hostility to war, but surely such undistinguishing declamation can tend to no good. Surely, also, Lord Byron is unjust to his country in thus characterising her present war;-a war not sought by us, but forced upon us; a war in which the "tyrant" George III. did not compel his people to engage; but in undertaking which, be merely complied with their general voice.

The description of Morena's dusky height, with

"The holstered steed beneath the shed of thatch,

"Her lover sinks-she sheds uo ill-timed Lear;

Her chief is slain-she fills his fatal post; Her fellows flee-she checks their base career; The foe retires-she heads the sallying

host.

Who can appease like ber, a lover's ghost? Who can avenge so well a leader's fall? What maid retrieve, when man's flushed hope is lost?

Who hang so fiercely on the flying Gaul, Foiled by a woman's hand, before a battered wall?" p. 36.

The history then conveys us to Seville and Cadiz, of which the author paints the vices in colours so strong, as almost to makes us believe, for a moment, that he hates them. The Sunday amusement of the last city is a bull-fight, which he contrasts with what he seems to imagine the universal employments of the middle orders of his own country, on that sacred day. We trust he might have made the contrast stronger, by describing multitudes who on that day abstain from all secular amusements, and find their happiness in "going up to the house of God in company." His description is, however, very lively :

"Then thy spruce citizen, washed artizan, And smug apprentice, gulp their weekly

air;

Thy coach of hackney, whiskey, one-horse

chair,

And we doubt not that not merely the "tired jade," and the graver inhabitants, if such there be, of these invaded villages, but religion herself,

match,"

in the 51st stanza; and of "the Spanish maid," who "all unsexed," "stalks with Minerva's step where Mars might fear to tread," in the 54th stanza; are scarcely inferior, we think, to any thing in that species of writing in the language; except, indeed, it be these lines:

conciliating muse, will persuade these sabbatical vagrants to seek their pleasures a little nearer home.

The stanzas describing the bullfight are among the best in the volume, but we have space only for

one.

Thrice sounds the clarion: lo! the signal falls, The den expands, and expectation mute