of art, though cramps to vigour, are crutches to feebleness. My impression is, however, that the effusions of our author's mind, disposed more artificially, would have lost in richness what they gained in precision, and the gain would have been overbalanced by the loss. From the structure and flow of his discourses, I should conjecture it to have been his custom, when he had determined to write on any subject, to ruminate on it till his mind had assumed a corresponding form and tone; after which he poured forth his conceptions on paper without pause or effort, like the irrepressible droppings of the loaded honeycomb. So imbued was his holy soul with the principles of the gospel, or so completely, I might better say, was the whole scheme of revelation amalgamated in the menstruum of his powerful intellect, that whatever he wrote on sacred subjects came forth with an easy flow, clear, serene, and limpid. In all his compositions there is a delightful consistency: nothing indigested and turbid; no dissonances of thought, no jarring positions; none of the fluctuations, the ambiguities, the contradictions, which betray a penury of knowledge, or an imperfect assimilation of it with the understanding. Equally master of every part of the evangelical system, he never steps out of his way to avoid what encounters him, or to pick up what is not obvious: he never betakes himself to the covers of unfairness or ignorance; but he unfolds, with the utmost intrepidity and clearness, the topic that comes before him.

Moreover, it not a little enhances the value of his writings, that he is fully aware how far the legitimate range of human inquiry extends, and what is the boundary Divine wisdom hath affixed to man's inquisitiveness. While the half-learned theologian beats about in the dark, and vainly attempts a passage through metaphysical labyrinths, which it is the part of sober wisdom not to enter, the sagacious Leighton distinctly sees the line, beyond which speculation is folly: and in stopping at that limit he displays a promptness of decision, commensurate with his unwavering certainty in proceeding up to it.

Such a writer as Leighton was incapable of parade. He was too intent upon his subject to be choice of words and phrases, and his works discover a noble carelessness of diction, which in some respects enhances their beauty. Their strength is not wasted by excessive polishing: their glow is not impaired by reiterated touches. But, though he was little curious in culling words and compounding sentences, his language is generally apt and significant, sufficient for the grandeur of his conceptions, without encumbering them. If not always grammatically correct, it is better than mere correctness would make it; more forcible and touching; attracting little notice to itself, but leaving the reader to the full impulse of those ideas of which it is the vehicle. Leighton is great by the magnificence of thought; by the spontaneous emanations of a mind replete with sacred knowledge, and bursting with seraphic affections; by that pauseless gush of intellectual splen

dour, in which the outward shell, the intermediate letter, is eclipsed and almost annihilated, that full scope may be given to the mighty effulgence of the informing spirit.

Dr. Doddridge applies to his eloquence the description, given by the great epic Poet of the oratory of Ulysses:

ἔπεα νιφάδεσσιν ἐοικότα χειμερίησιν

but in this, he seems to have misconceived the meaning of Homer, who compares the thronging words and forcible elocution of the Grecian hero to a storm of pelting rain and driving sleet, and not to flakes of snow descending in rapid yet gentle succession.

A sweet and mellow pathos is certainly the characteristic of his style: but there is nothing in it languid and effeminate. While the suavity of his spirit flavours all his productions, the strength of his well-informed and masculine understanding makes them abundantly solid and nutritious. He is not like a pulpy reed, distilling luscious juices; he is a rock pouring forth rivers of oil.

Leighton never affects a concise sententiousness. He is perfectly free from that trick of antithesis, which hit the vicious taste of the day; or was tolerated under the plea that a sentiment would be more securely lodged in the memory, if the sentence which conveyed it were armed with an epigrammatic point. But his copiousness does not consist in a vain prodigality of words. It is the redundance of a full

mind, venting itself that it may be refreshed, and not of a perplexed mind, painfully disembarrassing itself by endless explanations. He is not the literary mechanic, who sets himself to spin out a scanty material into a vast expanse of web, or to hammer out a petty ingot into an immense surface; but his dif fuseness, or rather profuseness, proceeds from the large stores he has amassed; from the broad survey of his commanding intellect; and from that acuteness, which at once resolves into its elementary truths a complex proposition, and tracks a remote consequence to its principle through all its gradations. It may be safely affirmed, that there are not many theological writers, in whose volumes are more of "the seeds of things." Perhaps he is less entitled, than some of his great contemporaries, to the praise of being an original thinker: yet the thoughts of others become so identified in him with whatever it is that constitutes the intellectual individuality of a writer, as to issue from his mind with a new cast, bearing his own peculiar stamp and superscription. Attentive students of his works will be repaid by an abundance of excellent matter; and will never perceive symptoms of the knowledge and vigour of the writer being nearly run out. In fact, he is never exhausted, till he has exhausted the subject; and this he makes no efforts to accomplish, but he stops. the exundation of his flowing mind, when enough has been produced, lest he deluge instead of irrigating.

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ship it may partly be ascribed, that with all his knowledge and fertility of invention, Leighton is never betrayed into wearisome and subtile details. There is in him no puerile ambition of dissecting a principle into its minutest ramifications, when such elaborate precision would serve no higher end, than to display the skill of the artist. He lays down the fundamentals of christian faith and practice, with just enough of individual application to give them weight and clearness, and then leaves them to take root and fructify in the bosoms of those whom he addresses.

Neither can it have escaped the observation of one at all conversant with his writings, that it is never the purpose of his mind to make good any particular system of divinity, nor to fortify its weak positions, and set off its strong proofs and advantages. He is constantly aiming at higher matters; and shakes off with disdain the servile fetters, which would shackle the free and generous spirit of religion. Brought up in the school of rigid Calvinism, he adhered, in the judgment of his maturer years, to the tenets of the French reformer, divested however of their rigour. To say that he coincided, for the most part, with Calvin in the interpretation of scripture would be correct; but it would be most incorrect to denominate him a Calvinist, if that appellation imply an assent to a particular scheme of theology, on the authority of that famous divine. Leighton, though the humblest of mankind, was not weakly distrustful of his own