on the extinction of personal respect or attachment to ancient institutions, the united influence of ten thousand such men as compose the great body of the English clergy, though dispersed among as many millions, cannot but be considerable. For their united exertions

against the torrent of jacobinical frenzy they have never hitherto received their just reward. Yet, as a body, they are neither dismayed nor dissatisfied; and divided as they are in sentiment, on some abstruse and certainly non essential doctrines, we are persuaded, that, with very few exceptions, they are ready to unite with head and heart against all the sectarian adversaries of the church. Let not such men be discountenanced; let not their services be refused, their professions of zeal and attachment suspected, their very persons marked and avoided: it is quite sufficient to have so many enemies without. ΣΤΑΣΙΣ ΕΝΔΟΝ, to use the brief and energetic language of Thucydides, was the end of many a Grecian city, which had long, and would yet longer have withstood every hostile aggression. The same calamity may be our's, and we may regret our foolish dissensions when it is too late.

But another enemy often baffled, and as often returning to the charge, is once more at our gates. Of this adversary, subtle, acute, united and persevering, the variations of the Protestant churches' ́have long been a favourite theme. They have friends, honest we hope, and unsuspecting friends, within our own camp, who are labouring to disunite and to embroil us. At the same time the protestant enemies of the church, by a monstrous combination, which their predecessors of better times rejected with abhorrence, are almost universally their allies.

To recur, after a long digression, to the immediate subject of this article. Who that loves the peace-who that wishes for the very existence of the church, when he contemplates the character of Bishop Taylor, can forbear to exclaim Utinam viveres! With his admirable teinper, with his comprehensive views of church polity, with his contempt for foolishi minutiæ, on which bigots of every class would rest the ark itself,-had he been placed in the metropolitan chair of his master Laud, he might have saved the church of England, the life of his sovereign, and the constitution. of his country; to the destruction of all which, that honest, passionate man, and worst of all politicians, principally contributed. We accuse not the present age, because it has not multiplied such men as he was; they are, in fact, not the productions of every age, or every country; and what is more unhappy, their dispositions, which are attainable, are rarely found but in union with understandings which are not. Yet has this generation been blessed with one example which might serve to prove what the united powers of genius, activity, gentleness, and vigour can achieve, even in days

wayward

wayward and perverse as those on which we have been unhappily cast. The eloquence of Taylor, without his affectation-the most fervent devotion, accompanied by a manner which would otherwise have been somewhat theatrical-the most captivating simpli city and grace of manner in Bishop Porteus, conciliated multitudes of prejudiced and bigoted persons, not only to his person, but to the decent forms, and even elegances, of the church of England. They did more :-they enabled him occasionally to act with the decision of former times, to exercise, without clamour and without reproach, acts of discipline which, in most of his brethren, would have been highly unpopular. Genius indeed, a graceful person, a captivating elocution, those peculiar graces, in short, which animate every discourse, and give a spirit to the performance of every ordinance, are precious gifts of nature very sparingly bestowed on mankind; and those who, for the benefit of their country, are entrusted with the selection of men for high offices in the church, can only chuse out of such materials as they have. It were as idle and as absurd to remit men to such works as are now before us, in order to acquire these incommunicable talents, as it would be to send a mathematician to the Life of Newton in order to teach him to write another Principia.

But from such volumes as the Life of Taylor, many lessons of attainable improvement may be learned by those who exercise the same functions, in times almost as perilous as his own. A deep sense of their duty and their responsibility—an anxiety to avoid that bigotry which they condemn in others—a diligent attention to the popular duty of preaching—an unwillingness to exercise vexatious acts of power on those who are placed under their government, for inere matters of opinion, (not of order,) accompanied by extreme vigilance to detect and to punish every appearance of immorality and licentiousness, which too often secures to itself impunity by high pretensions to zeal for the church-these were, in Taylor and in others, great qualities, which, after years of anarchy and fanaticism, reconciled the people of these kingdoms to the restoration of episcopacy; and these, above all others, will contribute to its perpetuity.

We now dismiss the lives of Melancthon and of Taylor; on which we have been the more diffuse, partly from some peculiar circumstances in the temper and spirit of our own church at present, to which they may be profitably applied, and partly because the two biographers, though sensible and well-principled men, have contented themselves either with mere narrative or undistinguishing panegyric. In point of composition, there is nothing greatly to censure or commend; but the portrait of Melancthon yet requires a hand more capable of drawing the lights and shades

which are necessary to the finished likeness of so peculiar a character; and that of Taylor, as a writer at least, requires much more shade than his present biographer has bestowed upon it. As a man, a Christian, and a bishop, no more seems to have been wanted than to delineate the countenance of an angel.

ART. XIII. 1. Appendix to the Remains of John Tweddell. By Robert Tweddell, A. M. London. 1815.

2. Letter to the Editor of the Edinburgh Review, on the Subject of an Article in No. L. of that Journal, on the Remains of John Tweddell. By the Earl of Elgin. Second Edition. 8vo. pp. 63. London. 1816.

3. Postscript to a Letter to the Editor of the Edinburgh Review. By the Earl of Elgin. pp. 32.

4. A Narrative of what is known respecting the Literary Remains of the late John Tweddell. By Philip Hunt, LL.D. formerly Chaplain to H. E. the Earl of Elgin. 8vo. pp. 47. London. 1816.

OF

F the Remains of Mr. John Tweddell an account will be found in a former article of this Number.-We have reserved for a separate consideration, the Appendix to that volume, and the other publications to which it has given birth. The controversy is indeed of a nature so extraordinary, and so interesting to literary men, that we feel ourselves bound to lay a statement of it before our readers; in doing so, we shall be sure to observe, because we feel, a strict impartiality, and we hope to avoid all that intemperance of language which has marked one at least of the parties.

The literary acquirements of Mr. Tweddell, the respective diplomatic merits of Lord Elgin and of Mr. Spencer Smith, or Smythe*, his lordship's predecessor at Constantinople, which have occupied other pens in this controversy, have in fact little to do with the question in discussion. Mr. Tweddell's Remains, whatever were their intrinsic value, were sacred, as being not only private, but, under the circumstances of his decease, national property; and any splendour of public service would but little avail Lord Elgin against the proof of having had the inconceivable baseness of secreting any of these effects for his own purposes. Why the public life of Mr. Spencer Smith has occupied so many pages of Mr. Robert Tweddell's Appendis, we shall not stop to inquire; it is sufficient to say that it

* This gentleman's name, through the whole of this volume, is, with apparent design, spelled Smythe. We have consulted the Gazettes and other authentic works in which this name is mentioned, and have invariably found it written Smith. As we are unwilling to give offence by any mistake in this matter, we have noticed both names but shall call Mr. Smith by that by which he has been hitherto commonly known.

has

has no legitimate concern with the question, and, as Lord Elgin states in his Postscript, (p. 15.) the part which Mr. Smith seems to have in the publication serves only to invalidate his testimony, by proving him to be not a witness but a party to the cause; and if, as indeed appears too probable, Mr. Smith has really contributed to the composition of this Appendix, and yet affects to come forward as an evidence in a case in which he is in fact one of the accusers, it must be admitted that such a proceeding is uncandid and disingenuous.

The facts which have occasioned this curious discussion are these:Mr. John Tweddell died at Athens, in 1799. His papers, consisting of notes made, and drawings and inscriptions collected during his travels in Greece, were found at his decease, and after being minutely examined by the British consul at Athens, were transmitted to the chancery (or public office) of the British embassy at Constantinople-the vessel conveying these effects suffered shipwreck before she reached Constantinople, the effects themselves were much damaged by sea-water, and the accidents usually attending such an event; but it seems certain that a considerable part reached the palace of the embassy.

Another portion of Mr. Tweddell's effects had been left by him at Constantinople, in the care of the late Mr. Thornton, then one of the factory there; these effects consisted of clothes and other articles of that kind, and also of some manuscript accounts of his journey through Europe, and particularly of his tour in Switzerland, (the latter fairly written out.) It is singular that, as the parcels first mentioned suffered by water, these latter should have been endangered by fire; Mr. Thornton's house was burned down; but these effects, or at least the most valuable part of them, were saved, and they were also transferred to the chancery of the embassy.

This

And here it is to be observed, that this double accident is not more extraordinary than the double good fortune by which the general mass of effects was in both cases preserved: we say the general mass, because, though Mr. Robert Tweddell and his friends assert, that all was saved without exception, their assertions are not only unsupported, but contradicted by the evidence. point, however, though vehemently insisted upon by Mr. Robert Tweddell, is really of no great importance to the ultimate question; the charge against Lord Elgin is, that he purloined Mr. Tweddell's effects, and whether the alleged theft was a little more or a little less profitable, would be of no consequence; while, on the other hand, the obstinacy and angry tone with which Mr. Robert Tweddell asserts that to be a fact, which nobody could know, and which the evidence positively contradicts, serves only to prove the prejudice with which he treats this subject, and to invalidate his opinion on other more important points.

Between

Between the consignment of the packages from Athens, and their arrival at Constantinople, the Earl of Elgin, as ambassador extraordinary, had superseded Mr. Spencer Smith, who, having been secretary to Mr. Liston, had, between the departure of the latter and the arrival of Lord Elgin, acted first as chargé d'affaires and afterwards as minister.

And this supersession appears to have been Lord Elgin's first and, in the eyes of Mr. Smith at least, his greatest offence; it makes a prominent figure in Mr. Robert Tweddell's book; and it is particularly and violently, we had almost said virulently, insisted upon, that Lord Elgin, as his Majesty's ambassador, had no right to take charge of the effects which had been consigned to Mr. Smith, as his Majesty's minister :-because, say these gentlemen, the ambassador at the Porte has two authorities, one from the king as his representative, the other from the Levant Company, as theirs ; these authorities are usually indeed conferred conjointly, and Mr. Smith had so received them; but Lord Elgin's warrant from the Levant Company was posterior, by many months, to his appointment from the king, and to the arrival of Mr. Tweddell's effects; Messrs. Tweddell and Smith therefore allege that the effects of all British subjects within the jurisdiction of the Levant Company still belonged to the latter as their accredited agent, although he had only obtained that character as being his majesty's minister, and that he had been superseded in this latter important office: and Lord Elgin's SEIZING these effects, is, for the aforesaid reasons, reprobated as an officious and indelicate encroachment on the rights of Mr. Smith, and a summary and arbitrary proceeding on the part of his lordship. (Appendix, p. 415.)

We should not give a fair view of this part of the question, if we did not quote a passage from the letter of Mr. Smith to Mr. Tweddell's father; dated, Constantinople, 15th April, 1801, which shews the temper in which this particular charge is made against Lord Elgin.

At length such a crisis has taken place in my own position, as affords an occasion, that I am not backward in availing myself of towards you. Lord ELGIN's progressive encroachment on the department reserved to me in this country, at his nomination to the embassy-extraordinary, has terminated in the way to be apprehended from his superior weight of metal; namely, by my entire supersedure, and by the transfer of all my official functions to his Lordship: I am therefore upon the point of quitting this post, to return home. And I beg leave to accompany this acknowledgment, by the expression of my regret that the interference of other persons (an interference which I must reprobate, as highly officious and indelicate, to apply no other epithet) should have made all my regard for your late estimable son's memory, as well as my