and to be intent on such designs as every man of virtue ought to oppose, even to the hazard of his life! He instantly placed himself in the attitude of patient waiting, and in part payment of the price of the good things he was going to receive, began, in parliament, to endeavour to moderate the tone of the popular party; though most zealous for their great cause, he was anxious they should not prosecute it in the spirit and language of faction. Our benevolent sympathy was extremely hurt to find, that this virtuous patriot was deceived and insulted by Buckingham, who, on second thoughts, had determined to do without him. It then became proper to discover again, that no energy of opposition in parliament could be too vehement against the designs of the favourite and the king.

That king was Charles the First, who having made a long and very strenuous effort to subdue the people and the parliament to his arbitrary government by authority and intimidation, was induced again to try the expedient of converting some of the boldest of the refractory into friends by means of honours and emoluments. He was instantly successful with Strafford, who accepted a peerage, and the presidency of the Council of York; and became, and continued to the end of his life, the most faithful and devoted servant of the king, and of his despotic system of government. He might seem to have felt an almost enthusiastic passion for despotism in the abstract, independently of any partiality for the particular person who was to exercise it. After a few After a few years of his administration as viceroy of Ireland, he exulted to declare, that in that country the king was as absolute as any monarch in the whole world. And when, after the very long series of struggles between Charles and the people, the question was coming rapidly to the last fatal arbitrement, he urged the king to the prompt adoption of the most vigorous and decisive measures; and he was mortified almost to distraction when he saw him, notwithstanding this energetic advice, falling into a wavering and timid policy. His own character and measures, indeed, had always been distinguished by an extraordinary

and almost preternatural vigour. His energy and fortitude did not desert him, even when at length he found himself falling under the power and vengeance of that irresistible popular spirit which embodied its determined force and hostility in the long parliament, aided, with respect to Strafford, by the hatred and court influence of the queen. He maintained the most graceful and dignified firmness on the scaffold, to which he was consigned in the result of the most memorable trial, except that of his royal master, in the records of our history; a trial in which a perversion of law was made the expedient for accomplishing what was deemed a point of moral justice not formally provided for by the law. As in all such cases, the bad effects became conspicuous, as Mr. Macdiarmid observes, in the admiration which the heroic sufferer excited in his death; whereas, if he had only been doomed, as he did well deserve, and would have been felt to deserve, to perpetual imprisonment or exile, his name and character would have sunk down quietly to their proper level, and he would simply have been recollected as one of the many able unprincipled men, who have chosen to identify their fame with that of the despots of whom they have consented to be the tools.

The lives of Strafford and Clarendon furnish a very wide field for observation; but it is a beaten field, and we have really left ourselves no room for repeating those political and moral reflections which ought to be familiar to every Englishman. And besides, our situation is somewhat invidious with regard to one great subject, which is unavoidably made prominent in almost every page of these two lives. By the principles of our undertaking, we are pledged not to advance any opinions on the grand controversy between the religious establishment of our country and the dissenters from its communion;-or more precisely, we are engaged to avoid discussing the abstract propriety of an establishment, and also the propriety of that form of establishment now existing in the country. These are questions, it is true, quite distinct from the conduct of the church,

or any of its distinguished members, as political agents in the transactions of an history. Viewed in this light, their operations, their influence, their virtues, or their vices, are just as fair subjects of observation as those of the eminent dissenters, or any other of the agents, involved in our national history. But it is not quite certain that we can exercise our right to this undoubted extent without giving considerable offence. Even at this liberal period, when religious churchmen and dissenters regard each other much more as brethren, and much less as even rivals, there are some whom it would be hard to avoid offending, and in whose opinion we should scarcely seem to preserve our pledged neutrality, while condemning the violent and fatal intolerance of the church during the reigns of the Jameses and the Charleses, though it be evidently impossible to discuss the merits, or even narrate the events, of those reigns without it.

[January, 1809.]

Sermons, on several Subjects. By the late Rev. WILLIAM PALEY, D.D., Subdean of Lincoln, and Rector of Bishopswearmouth. 8vo.

WE regard this book in the light of an invitation to attend the funeral of one of the most powerful advocates that ever defended the best cause. And if our regret were to be in proportion either to the value of the life which has terminated, or to the consideration of how many instances of such talent so happily applied may be expected hereafter, it would be scarcely less deep than that which we feel for the loss of our most valued friends. But the regret is not required to correspond to this latter consideration; because the Christian world does not absolutely need a numerous succession of such men. It has been the enviable lot of here and there a favoured individual, to do some one important thing so well, that it shall never need to be done again: and we regard Dr. Paley's writings on the Evidences of Christianity as of so signally decisive a character, that we could be content to let them stand as the essence and the close of the great argument on the part of its believers; and should feel no despondency or chagrin, if we could be prophetically certified that such an efficient Christian reasoner would never henceforward arise. We should consider the grand fortress of proof as now raised and finished,—the intellectual capitol of that empire which is destined to leave the widest boundaries attained by the Roman very far behind.

It would seem that the infidels, notwithstanding their perseverance in their fatal perversity, do yet nearly coincide in this opinion of Dr. Paley's writings: as none of them have presumed to attempt a formal refutation. They are willing to enjoy their ingenuity of cavilling and misrepresenting, their exemption from the

restraints of religion, and their transient impunity, under the ignominious and alarming condition of conceding, that they have no reply to a remonstrant who tells them that their speculations are false, that their moral principles are corrupt, and that their prospects are melancholy, -who calmly proves to them that certain declarations and requisitions have been made by the Governor of the world, and that if they choose to repel and ridicule them, they are indeed quite at liberty to do it, but must make up their minds to abide the consequences, which consequences are most distinctly foreshown in those declarations.

With respect to those persons whose judgments are undecided on the grand inquiry, whether Christianity is of divine authority or not, we would earnestly press on their minds the question, whether they really care, and are in earnest on the subject; whether they value their spiritual nature enough to deem it worth while to attain, by a serious investigation, a determinate conclusion on the claims of a religion which at once declares that spiritual nature to be immortal, and affirms itself to offer the only means for its perpetual happiness. If they really do not care enough about this transcendant subject, to desire above all things on earth a just and final determination of their judgments upon it, we can only deplore that any thing so precious as a mind should have been committed to such cruelly thoughtless possessors. We can only repeat some useless expressions of amazement to see a rational being holding itself in such contempt; and predict a period when itself will be still much more amazed at the remembrance how many thousand insignificant questions found their turn to be considered and decided, while the one involving infinite consequences, was reserved to be determined by the event, too late therefore to have an auspicious influence on that event, which was the grand object, for the sake of which it ought to have been determined before all other questions. If, on the contrary, a strong solicitude is felt to put an end, in the shortest time possible, to all doubts respecting the authority of the Christian religion, the

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