and they contain, first an explanation of the moral qualities which our Lord recommends, and then an illustration of the blessedness annexed to them; which is the ordinary mode pursued by all preachers, and which Doddridge has exhibited in his Paraphrase. Indeed, these sermons are for the most part little more than a very expanded or dilated view of the matter contained in the compressed paraphrases of the " Family Expositor." As for the philosopher and man of science, he will look in vain for a full and well arranged system of Christian ethics; and he will probably turn with displeasure from some passages in which the preacher, in order to terrify the sinner, sacrifices the justice of God. To help the formation of these thin volumes, four sermons on the principle and effects of Faith, Sin, and Eternal Life, are offered by way of introduction, though our Saviour did not commence his sermon on the Mount with any preliminary matter of this description; and at the end are subjoined four other sermons on Prayer, on the Sacrament, on Preparation for Death, and on the Improvement of the restored Bodies of the Saints at the final Judgment. We are too dull to perceive the necessity of these prolegomena and addenda to set of discourses professedly on the Beatitudes; otherwise than as their publication might be useful towards increasing the number of pages in each volume, though the author tried by, every means to swell out his matter; two, and in one instance three, sermons being employed on each beatitude. To avoid the possibility of misrepresentation, we shall copy Mr. Wintle's own words from his introductory preface:

In the discussion of each of these beatitudes, and the rewards annexed to them, I have had occasion to employ two discourses; and in one instance have found it expedient to extend the discussion to a third. And though I have constantly had an eye to moral rectitude, or the suggestions of our own unprejudiced reason, yet I have taken care in general to urge the duties herein considered on Christian principles; not only as taught by our great Lawgiver, but, often as enforced by motives and considerations peculiarly Christian. Yet, lest I might be thought not to have paid so much attention as was requisite to this last suggestion, I have begun my work with two preparatory discourses on Faith; the one explaining the right grounds and reasons of it; the other designed to shew its influence on the hearts and lives of Christians, especially in that ordinary classification of our duty, as relating to God, our neighbour, and ourselves. And as the demerits of sin, and the rewards of righteousness, are of the utmost importance, in order to awaken men to a right and permanent sense of duty, I have considered these also in two discourses, before I have entered upon an enlargement of the beatitudes.

After I had finished my original plan in the discussion of the duties, I conceived it might be of no small use to subjoin two discourses, one on Prayer, and the other on the reception of the Holy Sacrament; in order to forward our growth in the Chritian life, or to render the practice of the duties more easy and ready to the devout Christian. I have also added two other discourses, with

a view to excite our more active pursuit; the former on preparation for death, the latter on the improvement of our restored bodies at the final judgment.'

Though we think that Mr. Wintle's sermons are often needlessly dilated, his explanations of the qualities of mind recommended in the several beatitudes are judicious, and well discriminated; while his exhortations are calculated to rouse the Christian to the exercise of the characteristic virtues of his religion.

We may be allowed to express our surprize that the preacher should select John vi. 53. for his text to the sermon on the sacrament, when he admits that the passage has no reference to this ordinance; and which, when placed in this connection, strongly favours the popish Other texts might easily have been

doctrine of transubstantiation.

found, more adapted to his purpose.

If any where we should look for novelty, it is in the concluding sermon, the subject of which invites the preacher to supply his want of knowlege from the storehouse of the imagination. Speculating on the incorruptible bodies of the saints, he seems to think that they will be all eye or all nerve; at all events, abundantly more capable of enjoyment than our present mortal bodies. That sinners, however, may have no pleasure in this sublime contemplation, he begs to be indulged with the following short digression:

It is suggested that the bodies of unrepenting sinners may also be so raised or reformed as to experience a change likewise; a change which will render them more susceptible of pain and anguish than what can be now felt, when the most delicate parts of their present texture are suffering from the most excruciating disorders or defects. A very awful consideration this! which I mean not to insist on farther; for it would be vain to attempt a description of those bitter agonies, which may harass the improved bodies of the damned in the future abodes of inexpressible torment. Enough is discovered to us in holy writ to engage us to dread and abhor those horrid practices, which would not fail to bring us to that abyss of infernal misery; and may the tremendous account be suffered to have such a happy effect upon us, as to incline us to shun the ways of wickedness, and with all our souls to pursue the path of righteousness!'

We were not prepared for such a finale to a series of discourses on the Beatitudes, or a treatise on Christian Ethics.

POLITICS.

Art. 20. An Oration delivered June 29. 1814, at the Request of a Number of Citizens of New York, in Celebration of the recent Deliverance of Europe from the Yoke of military Despotism. By the Honourable Governour Morris, Esq. 8vo. Printed at New York, and reprinted in London for Wilson. Price 18.

Not even M. Chateaubriand could have displayed a more ardent enthusiasm on this occasion than the honourable Esquire before us; who is so very zealous in behalf of the Bourbons that he seems to forget that he is among republicans, and furiously declaims against Democracy. To interest his American audience in behalf of Louis XVI., Mr. Morris artfully reminds them that this unfortuuate monarch

was

was their friend in the hour of danger; and, to impress them in the strongest manner with horror at the recollection of "his most foul and cruel murder," he does not hesitate to compare it to a second fall of man.'

The orator reviews the instructive history of the last twenty-five years, and traces the changes which France has experienced from the assembly of the States General of the spring of 1789, to the abdication of Bonaparte and the restoration of the Bourbons in the spring of 1814. After having mourned like a true royalist over the holy martyr, he proceeds to advert to the operations of the French republic, and to trace the tumults of democracy to their termination in despotism. Now Bonaparte regularly comes on the stage:

What had been foreseen, and foretold, arrived. The power of usurpation was directed and maintained by great talents. Gigantic schemes of conquest, prepared with deep and dark intrigue, vast masses of force, conducted with consummate skill, a cold indifference to the miseries of mankind, a profound contempt for moral ties, a marble-hearted atheism, to which religion was only a political instrument, and the stern persevering will to bend every thing to his purpose, were the means of Napoleon to make himself the terror, the wonder, and the scourge of nations. The galling of his iron yoke taught Frenchmen feelingly to know how much they had lost in breaking the bands of their allegiance. They had, indeed, to amuse them, the pomp of triumph, the shout of victory, and the consciousness of force, which made the neighbouring nations groan. But the fruits of their labour were wrested from them to gratify the extravagance of vanity, or supply the waste of war.'

His reverse of fortune and downfall are next oratorically introduced:

In the month of September, 1812, the son of an obscure family, in a small island of the Mediterranean, was at the head of a greater force than was ever yet commanded by one man, during the long period to which history extends. His brows encircled with an imperial diadem, his sword red with the blood of conquered nations, his eye glaring on the fields he had devoted to plunder, his feet trampling on the neck of kings, his mind glowing with wrath, his heart swoln with the consciousness of power unknown before, he moved, he seemed, he believed himself a god. While at one extremity of Europe his ruthless legions drenched, with loyal blood, the arid soil of Spain, he marched with gigantic stride, at the other extremity, to round his vast dominion in the widest circle of the civilized world. Already he had pierced the Russian line of defence. Already his hungry eagles were pouncing on his prey. -Pause. View steadily this statue of Colossal power. The arms are of iron; the breast is of brass; but the feet are of clay. The moment of destruction impends. Hark! The blow is given. It totters. It falls. It crumbles to dust. This mighty man, this king of kings, this demi-god, is discomfited. He flies. He is pursued. He hides. Stript of royal robes, distracted with apprehension, flapping the wings of fear, he scuds in disguise across the wide plain of Poland, not daring to look behind. He takes a moment's breath, and slakes the feverish thirst of his fatigue in the waters of the Elbe. A second flight brings

him to the Rhine. After a third effort, he is within the walls of Paris.'

The magnanimity and clemency of the Emperor Alexander form a subject of appropriate eulogy: but the Bourbons occupy the highest place in Mr. Morris's affections; and, having given democracy a slap in the face, calling her the child of squinting envy and self-tormenting spleen,' he thus concludes an oration which seems not very well calculated for the meridian of America:

That royal house now reigns. The Bourbons are restored. Rejoice France! Spain! Portugal! You are governed by your own legitimate kings. Europe! rejoice. The Bourbons are restored.'

The oration of Mr. Morris has the same general character with a sermon delivered by an American preacher on the same event, and which is noticed in another part of this number (p. 111): but the layman is more of an enthusiast than the divine.

Art. 21. Reflections of a French Constitutional Royalist. By Duschene, of Grenoble, Advocate. Translated by Baron Daldorf. 8vo. 3s. Souter, &c.

1814.

It is the opinion of this writer that the French people are cajoled by the mere semblance of a constitution; and that the nation has more reason to weep than to rejoice at the deformed embryo' which has been palmed on them for a constitutional charter. The multitude, who never look beneath the surface, considered the mode of Louis XVIIIth's return to France as auspicious to liberty: but those who were in the habit of scrutinizing the meaning of words perceived that, while he wished to be deemed gracious, he asserted the principles of despotism and divine right: taking care to represent the new constitution as emanating from his pure generosity, and not as a blessing to which they were intitled on the basis of reason and nature, and compact. Louis XVIII. first insists on the admission of the principle" that absolute authority is the inherent prerogative of majesty in France;" and then, at the desire of the French people, he consents to allow them, as a matter of pure favour, a constitutional charter. M. Duschene regards every form of liberty, under such circumstances, as no liberty. He first asks; Is it just that our constitutional charter should wear the form of a simple ordinance of reform:" but this the Chancellor of state had already answered in the affirmative, observing that the French people are "bound to bless the King, for not insisting on the exclusive prerogatives, which he inherits from God and from his ancestors." The Advocate of Grenoble demurs to this statement, both as to the right and as to the fact; remarking that his present Majesty cannot maintain that he inherits his crown from God, and from his ancestors; because it is proved, that, without the concurrence of the nation, his forefathers could not lineally have been kings-nor would he be better authorized in declaring, as some of his predecessors did, that he derives his crown from God and from his sword. Such declaration implies, that, when titles are founded in force, force may at any time annihilate them; and that would be a very silly argument indeed. We must, therefore, look elsewhere for the basis of the king's right to give us a simple

ordinance

ordinance of reform, in lieu of a constitutional charter ; which latter we have claimed from him.' Concessions in favour of the people made by the monarch of France, at different periods, are here considered as nothing more than a lingering semblance of justice offered to a nation who had a right to claim justice in a more substantial form.' The prerogatives of majesty, it is contended, are founded on the suffrages of the people, who can revoke the grant of unlimited autho rity with which a chief at any period may have been invested; and therefore a constitutional charter cannot emanate from the mere benevolence of the king, but the people must be parties to its enactment; for it is to all intents and purposes a law, though paramount to all

others.

M. Duschene proceeds to remark with great freedom on the conduct of the new legislature, and roundly asserts that the people now deplore a scandalous violation of the first and most sacred of their rights.' (p. 17.) We also find this writer adverting to the old whig principles of our own country, and maintaining that a constitutional charter implies incontestibly a contract between the king and his subjects. That which passes for a magna charta, therefore, he regards as only a royal grant, which a subsequent monarch may revoke; and, if we are to credit his report, the French nation views it in the same light. She obeys-but she applauds not. She is silent-but her heart writhes with agony, as she contemplates the dangerous councils that surround the King. If this be a true picture of the public mind in France, the volcano may burst out afresh, and torrents of revolutionary lava may again flow: - but we will hope better things.

After having condemned the constitutional charter as defective in Its fundamental principle, and as being nothing more than a mere ordinance of reform, this Advocate proceeds to discuss it in detail, and to point out its radical vices and imperfections. It will not be required of us to follow him through his remarks on the 72 articles of the constitution; and the style of his strictures may be inferred from the preceding observations, as well as from the objections which he makes to Louis XVIII. being styled King of France, instead of King of the French, and to his dating the ordinance in the 19th year of his reign. In short, it is pronounced that the royal constitutional grant is both positively and negatively bad: or that its provisions are false and dangerous; while, on account of its omissions, it leaves the people in a condition far from that of true freedom.

MISCELLANEOUS.

Art. 22. An Olio of Biographical and Literary Anecdotes and Memoranda, original and selected; including Mr. Cole's unpublished Notes on the Rev. James Bentham's History and Antiquities of Ely Cathedral. By William Davis. 12mo. 5s. Boards. Rodwell. 1814.

A judicious collector of anecdotes and memoranda can easily produce an entertaining volume by making selections from his common-place book. Mr. Davis, in catering for the literary man and the antiquary, has manifested some extent of research, and has brought together, in a narrow space, articles which will administer amusement and information. His book is properly an Olio;

10

and,