selves to be anxious about the end. Thus, for instance, if you have land to manage, do every thing you can, to work it properly, and make the best of it; beseeching God to bless your industry. But if your harvest do not answer your expectations; or if the seasons. are not exactly as you could wish, or if any little adverse matter unexpectedly happen, be not anxious or distressed, but cast all that care on God. Or, if you find your family increase more than your means, do what you can to maintain them: be industrious and frugal; but do not distress yourself about the future: cast that care on God. When you have given your children a religious education and have brought them up in industry and frugality, you have done your part; and God will be a better father to your children if they continue to be religious, than you could have been yourself. Thus again, if any of you have sickness in your families, or meet with' worldly losses, endeavour not to distress yourselve, but cast all that care on God. He can bring things right again by means which you do not foresee. In short, in matters of every kind, both of a public and private concern, let us not distress ourselves with looking anxiously into the event of things, which is invading God's part. They happen, in a thousand instances, contrary to our suppositions. Let us therefore make ourselves easy about them, and cast the care of these things on God. Thus the duty of casting your care on God amounts only to this-you must leave those things to the care of God, which your own care cannot provide for. So that at any race, you see, you cannot lose by casting your eare on God: what you gain by it is the last point to be considered." Perhaps we may not have chosen the most striking parts of the volume; and there are, no doubt, others superior: but we selected these because they seemed to agree best with our contracted bounds, and to afford a suitable view of the strain and fashion of the discourses. Some few of them relate to what may be termed doctrinal subjects, which are discussed in a very general way indeed, and regarded merely as what are to be received. The sermon on the Lord's supper is, in our apprehension, one of the most defective in this volume: but the work, on the whole, is so acceptable and likely to be of so beneficial a tendency, that village pulpits, and perhaps many others, will often resound its contents; and some ingenuous minds, we are persuaded, will make them their own by thoroughly considering, forming, or enlarging them according to their particular ideas, and as they judge most likely to render them useful. The numerous Hints, which constitute a considerable part of this publication, are well calculated to assist the student in discoursing from different passages of the Scriptures. ART. ART. XIII. Sermons on various Subjects. By Samuel Stanhope Smith, D. D., President of the College of New-Jersey, America. 8vo. pp. 400. 7s. 6d. Boards. Mawman. 1801. IF novelty of the source whence a work originates can prove a recommendation, without doubt it attaches to this volume, which is imported from what may even yet be called the new world: but it must be acknowleged to possess superior merit. Great Britain abounds with this class of publications; many of which must be considered as highly estimable, while there are numbers also of but little worth. We should have perceived, had the author not informed us, that it was his aim to gain somewhat of the manner of French authors who have been celebrated in this line. I have endeavoured (Dr.S. also says in the preface,) to consult the public taste, without sacrificing to it the plainness and gravity of evangelical truth. As far as I have been able, I have studied to unite the simplicity that be comes the pulpit, with a portion of that elegance which is now so loudly demanded in every kind of writing.'-Were merely a general character to be given of these discourses, it might be said that, notwithstanding objections which may be produced, they are sensible, animated, and calculated to impress and improve those who will attend. Such are the first two, on infidelity,' and that which follows, on the dangers of pleasure.' In the fourth, on the rich man and Lazarus,' we find it remarked concerning the parable; the lesson which it conveys is the more instructive, because it is that of a man who, as far as appears to us, was neither profligate, cruel, nor unjust. His supreme object seems to have been to enjoy himself. Vain perhaps and ostentatious, he lived in splendour and in luxury: but, amid these indulgences, he seems to have been forgetful of his duties to heaven, rather than impious; inattentive to the offices of charity, rather than inhuman; incapable of the self-government and self-denial which religion requires, rather than abandoned in his morals: yet, at last, we see him make his bed in hell.'-In the above judicious passage, incapable is surely not the proper word: nor can we much approve, on so grave a subject, of the antithesis which follows; From the flattering arms of unsuspected joys, he descends to the cruel embrace of everlasting flames.' The sermon on Industry may be classed among the best; its latter pages consist of an address to the students of the college, very appropriate to the occasion: but we speak of what more directly regards the subject as a general concern, from which we know not that we can select one part as superior to another. -We make therefore a short extract from that which enforces X 2 enforces this virtue by the consideration of our relations to society:' • No man liveth to himself alone. We are all members one of another, and are linked together by innumerable ties of mutual interest and dependence. The joint efforts of all are necessary to the happiness of all. Man, as an insulated individual, is capable of little improvement, and even of little enjoyment. Arts are invented and cultivated, society advances and is refined, and the public spirit is promoted only by united labours. Each is called to contribute his portion to the common stock. Every man, therefore, who is not usefully employed, may be said to steal so much from the sum of general benefit and happiness as his labours ought to have added to it. He does more. His example infects the community; and the idle become injurious, not only by their own indolence, but by their pernicious influence on the industry of others. Who has a right to enjoy the advantages of society, if he contribute nothing to maintain and increase them? Shall the wealthy claim this dishonourable privilege as if, being the spring of action in others, and the channels through which the rewards of labour flow, they might remain idle? No: the ties of reciprocal dependence connect all the orders of the community, and reach, like a mighty chain, from the highest to the lowest. Beside, is it not manifestly unjust that those, who enjoy the bounties of Providence in the greatest profusion, should employ them to the least worthy purposes; should render themselves the least worthy of men; should suffer their powers to stagnate, for want of necessary exercise; and become, by their example, the corruptors of society?If God has elevated them to conspicuous stations, and put into their hands the means of doing extensive good, has he not laid them under proportionally higher obligations than other men to cultivate an intrinsic worth of character, and to co-operate with himself in promoting the happiness of mankind? Can this be effected by an indolent selfenjoyment, which takes no interest in the affairs of men? or by a luxurious dissipation, in which, though men may be active, they are worse than idle, and active only to become pernicious?-To the law of useful industry, therefore, the rich as well as the poor, the great as well as the humble, are, by their relations to society and to God, equally and indispensably subject.' The justness of this reasoning will no doubt be allowed; and it is not destitute of animation. Several similar passages form a great part of the volume; and elsewhere we find what is more pathetic and awakening.-Occasionally, the author may appear declamatory or discover too much his aim to engage the passions, or may seem to be rather systematically biassed; and here, also, as in the work which is the subject of the preceding article, we apprehend that the discourse which relates to the Lord's Supper is likely to afford the least satisfaction.-The remaining titles are,- The penitent woman at the feet of Jesus. -The united influence of reflection and sacred reading in cul tivating tivating and purifying the morals;-The forgiveness of injuries, two sermons ;-The pleasures of religion ;-Secret faults;-Public vices ;-Death;-The last judgment;-Happiness of good men in a future state.' ART. XIV. The Maid of Lochlin; a lyrical Drama. With Legendary Odes, and other Poems. By William Richardson, A. M. Professor of Humanity in the University of Glasgow. Small 8vo. 3s. Boards. Vernor and Hood. 1801. Α As s Mr. Richardson is already known to the public by several ingenious productions, when we say that in the miscel lany before us he has not derogated from his former reputation, we shall be sufficiently understood both by his discriminating and his partial admirers. The subject of his drama will not perhaps be deemed judiciously chosen, at least on this side of the Tweed, where the poems attributed to Ossian are no longer regarded with enthusiasm. The Professor, indeed, seems to have been aware of this disadvantage; for he observes, in his Preface, that it is not a consideration of any consequence on the present occasion, whether the author believes or not, in the full authenticity of all the performances ascribed to the Gaëlic Bard. Nor does he think it derogatory to their acknowleged merit, or to the honor of Scotland, to suppose them chiefly the work of an ingenious Caledonian, enlightened with the literature of the present age, rather than of a Caledonian, such as Caledonians were in the second or third century." There is a considerable difference, however, between the estimate of compositions supposed to be produced on one side by an unlettered savage (as Ossian must have been), and, on the other, by a schoolmaster in the eighteenth century, acquainted in some degree with good authors, and certainly master of the English Bible; in which he has indicated parallelisms with his Ossian, in his own notes on the Translation of the Highland Bard. Passages which would be regarded, on the first supposition, as proofs of original genius, must be considered, on the latter, as mere plagiarisms, devoid of merit. Whether the fault consist in the nature of the story, or in Mr. Richardson's method of treating it, the Maid of Lochlin' is certainly deficient in point of interest. We begin to read without curiosity, and we finish without emotion. The dialogue moves on with solemnity undisturbed by passion. Of the lyric part, the following is a fair specimen, for it is directed. to be sung with emotion: X 3 Matrons V. Red 'mid turmoiling clouds, unfurl Far let thy pealing voice resound; In another act, we think, the author has been more happy; and the imagery is particularly appropriate, because it exhibits an instance of Second-Sight: Strangers in a foreign land, Far from our native home, Wand'ring on a weary strand, And lakes, reflecting party-colour'd skies? • When |