1821.]

THERE are many well-meaning persons, especially female enthusiasts, who judge of sermons and porter by the same standard; viz. that neither is good without a great deal of froth. We literary brewers know, however, the secret. Sermons ought to be doctrinal and practical expositions of Scripture, plain malt and hops, well chemicized; and, if founded upon the Gospels or Lessons, such sermons are capable of being made very interest ing. The Sermons of Blair are Moral Essays, because they were intended for reading, as English Classicks; and had they been otherwise, they would have fallen dead from the Press, and done no good at all. No person will read fanatical discourses, but gormandizing enthusiasts, to gratify their insatiable appetite for excitement; while Blair commands readers of all descriptions, and converts persons not already converted, by pure wisdom. The grand orations of Alison, breathing the fragrant holiness of the dignified subject, rank equally high, but are of different character. We have thus spoken in a strong figure, because we do not think that one in a thousand has an idea of Christianity sufficiently exalted. It is a sublime and beautiful system of Philosophy, founded upon the most elevated reason, and illustrative of the wisdom and goodness of Providence. Alison displays this connexion, and to such an idea of it the most cultivated mind willingly submits itself; and the Love of God thus becomes a pleasurable feeling, and no pleasurable feeling can exist without mighty influence. This then is the edification, which, by forming principles, overcomes the world; and it results from Sermons, like those of Alison, i.e, it renders abstract impressions of operative action. It refines and spiritualizes. But the process is too clarified for the ignorant. We think that they ought to have plain expositions of Scripture; but the Conventicle having introduced a vitiated taste, many able and well-meaning Clergymen have, in order to thin the Meet

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ing Houses, adopted the Belles Lettres of the Poor, and played off Sin and Satan, like Punch and his wife, in a style at which educated people revolt, as well as others of strong mind and knowledge of the world. Now Sermons of this kind ought not to be published, for not a single principle of literature is consulted in the composition of them; and the mat ter consists of one unvarying round of common place, drest up in a jargon of Scriptural quotation, which rather degrades than embellishes, at least destroys that sublimity which pervades the Holy Writings, and is sure to appear, when they are judiciously exhibited. We need only mention the excellent manner of Dr. Mountain, Bishop of Quebec, to show, that there is no necessity for this tautological trash (the adoption of which has caused an able man, Mr, O'Donoghue to be ejected from the Chaplaincy of the Trinity House), but that Orthodoxy and Theology may be so united, as to produce attraction, in respect to`auditors of all kinds. The Orthodox Church still retains power; but the annoyance of the Bishops from bad taste is not far distant; and Enthusiasm is the claim of passion to merit without the toil: still cant, jargon, nor a black coat, do not form a sound Divine; merely a mimic or echo.-Mr. O'Donoghue considers the manner of preaching reprobated, as a principle essential to Christianity, and himself, accordingly, as a martyr; but, if he found his congregation disgusted, how was it possible that he could do any good? Does not the Holy Spirit, the patron and guide of the Church, direct the Minister to be all things to all men, that he may gain sonte? Is not manner to be subservient to success, if that manner includes principle? and would St. Paul, that glorious Apostle, turn out Alison, engaged in the difficult task of Christianizing men professionally aspirants of riches, and educationally fastidious, in order to substitute a Methodist, whom they would account a solemn buffoon; and who treats his congregation, however enlightened, by putting on an apron, as a Soul-carpenter, whose trade it is to hammer religious tinned tacks into walking coffins, enclosing embodied souls, dead in trespasses and sins. We feel for Mr. O'Donoghue

as

1821.]

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sions, is SENTIMENT. This might be tolerated in a small degree, for the sake of enlivening the general comment, for no one could dislike a few running scintillations of idea. But it is of the extent that we complain, and we should as soon seek for music in a saw-pit, as a clear and unaffected style in the cadences of the

38. The Retrospective Review. Vol. III. 8vo. pp. 379. C. and H. Baldwin.

[Reviewed by a Correspondent.] WE lately noticed the first two volumes of this interesting work, and have now a third lying before us. With its general features few of our readers are unacquainted, and it is but just to inform those few that the Retrospective' is worthy of perusal. The best essays in this volume are undoubtedly the ones, in which an extensive research is manifested, on the various Translations of Homer, Poetical Literature of Spain, Pilpay's Fables, and Imitations of Hudibras; but the rest have their individual, and the whole work its collected, merit. Still the defects which we noticed in the former volumes attach to this, for which reason we shall now take a more particular view of them.

A Retrospective Review,' conducted upon sound principles of criticism, and a fair judgment, would have received the patronage of our chief literary characters, and become a standard work for the instruction of posterity. This Miscellany does not profess to meddle with politics, but is not on that account the less of a party work; we say party, be cause it is dedicated to the support of that shallow system, by which the public taste is in a great measure ruled, as well as to the praise of a class of writers who labour to overthrow whatever is established in politics, literature, and morals.

The basis of our Reviewers' effu

its imaginations and assertions were just, which they are not. From a mellowed' passage we gather a specimen of their style and judgment. Speaking of the poets of antiquity, the reader is told that

་

"Nature alone was their model, their inspirer, and their judge. From her did they drink in the feeling, not only of permanence and of grandeur, but of light, aërial grace, and roseate beauty. The rocks and eternal hills gave them the visible images of lasting might-the golden clouds of even, sailing on the bosom of the air,' sent a feeling of soft and evanescent loveliness into their souls [the souls of Ovid and Catullus were lovely!] -and the delicate branchings of the grove, reflected in the calm waters, embued them with a perception of elegance far beyond the reach of art."

From this passage we learn two things; first, what Leland meant when he said of John de Lathbury, 'Theologiæ mysteria tam altè hausit ;' and, secondly, that the writer was never cut for the simples.

That we do not unfairly and hastily condemn a system which has 'all the Talents' on its side, because from the following remarks: moreit is opposed to ours, will appear beg to refer our readers to a pas over, with respect to unfairness, we sage quoted in the former notice of this work, (p. 240 of part i.) containing a direct insult to our system.

The following extract will serve as a specimen of the style used in this work :

"His (Glover's) pathos is not, indeed,

deep and overflowing-not like the flower, which, filled with recent dew, until its bosom, no longer able to sustain the rich incumbrance, pours forth its watery treasures, relieving itself and fertilizing the earth around it; yet, it is gentle, harmonious, and might almost be called beautiful, but it is the placid beauty of the 'moonlight sleeping upon a bank,' with something of its coldness." Vol. II, p. 127.

This simile sets all comparison at defiance. Never till now were we

ready

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REVIEW.

ready to own that Comparisons are odious,' but so it is in this instance. But it is fair to use the Editor's own words respecting his productions: "Our Review is not one, which can derive assistance, of the most trivial kind, from any source, except the innate truth and beauty of Litera ture."

Alas! little assistance has it obtained from them, and, if such be the beauty of Literature, her allurements are far from being attractive. To this opinion succeeds a passage which all must approve, and some may admire.

"We cannot supply the lounger with small talk at an easy rate, or cut out a royal road to literature, for those who would be wise, deep, and learned, at the expense of an hour's study divided with a due attention to breakfast.-They who read Reviews for a 'précis' of the last new book, that they may appear to have read it, without having seen it, will skim over our 'contents' with sovereign disdain.

We can tell them of none, save those whom they might have known long since, and whom they will get no credit for knowing now." Vol. II. 150-1.

We do not think that a fair description of resignation is beauty sleeping upon the lap of horror,' or that the crispness of the descriptive passages,' &c. &c. in Rimini, 'form altogether a body of sweetly-bitter recollections, for which none but the' most heartless of critics would be unthankful;' we are unthankful, and therefore, according to the fiat of the Retrospective,' heartless. Still less, as the Writ.r noticed in the article alluded to tells us, infused healthful impulses into the torpid breast of daily life, or shaken the selfism of the age, or sent the claims of the wretched in full and resistless claims to the bosoms of the proud and thoughtless.

Lloyd, says the Reviewer, is most calm and benignant towards the errors of the world' perhaps it has been so to his, and without singing of them; and so will he be, we doubt not, towards the errors of Sylvanus Urban.

In an essay on ZINABI's Wars of Charlemagne appear some original translations, some of which (to use the Reviewer's words towards William Browne's Pastorals) are tame and weak, and others disfigured by

[Sept.

One more specimen of absurd nonsense, and we have done.

"The heart of a young poet is the most sacred thing on earth. How nicely strung are its fibres-how keen its sensibilitieshow shrinking the timidity with which it puts forth its gentle conceptions ! [!!] and shall such a heart receive rude usage from a world which it only desires to improve and gladden? Shall its warm energies be met with icy scorn, and its tearful joys made sport for the idle and the unfeeling? All this, and more, has been done towards men of whom this world was not worthy *."—Vol. I. 321.

Now suppose that some ill-natured person was to say that a certain Poet was not worthy of the world, the injured Bard might at least have the satisfaction of remembering that in his younger days the world was not worthy of him! As for young poets, we believe the adage of Holy Writ to be true-Spare the rod who does not know the rest?

We have gathered a few absurdities which lie open to every reader, leaving the excellences to his own judgment; and have only to observe, that, when this work shall have been amended in its style, language, and opinions, it may be considered as a book which every Library ought to possess.

1821.]

REVIEW. 39. A View of the Structure, Functions, Disorders of the Stomach, and Alimentary Organs of the Human Body; with Physiological Observations and Remarks upon the Qualities and Effects of Food and fermented Liquors. By Thomas Hare, F.L.S. &c. Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons in London. 8vo. pp. 300.

IN this work, the author has not only ensured the interest of the medical profession by the originality of his physiological and pathological views, but that of general readers by the popular and agreeable style in which the subject is treated.

The first chapter shews the sympathy between the stomach and the nervous system: the second and third, describing the organs of deglutition, afford the author an opportunity of giving his ideas as to the influence of diet on the production of calculi, and as to some properties of the saliva. The fourth and fifth chapters present physiological views of the structure and action of muscles, as preparatory to a more advanced examination of the functions of the stomach and intestines. The curious details of this part of the work, afford an ingenious explanation of the decreased sensibility of muscles in a state of contraction, and the means by which the phenomenon is effected. After comparative illustrations of the vegetable and mineral world, the fifth chapter concludes as follows:

"Animals receive nutriment and increase of bulk through absorbed fluids derived from the fermentation of animal, vegetable, and mineral substances. Vegetables receive nutriment and increase of bulk through absorbed fluids derived from mineral substances, vegetable mould, and decomposed animal matter; while minerals are only increased by the ac cession of new matter, cemented by co. hesive attraction, capable of being separated by decomposing agents, and of reuniting by new modifications of attraction and while one class of natural objects passes into another by shades more gradual than day into night, the whole chain of creation exhibits to the inquiring mind, a perpetual revolution of the sublimest harmony, promoting an elevation of thought far beyond worldly inanity."

The sixth and seventh chapters consider principally "the general structure of the stomach and intestines, and their mechanical action." The two next chapters are devoted to "the GENT. MAG. September, 1821.

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liver, its structure, offices, and morbid affections." In illustrating the separation of other fluids from the common mass of blood, Mr. Hare gives a sketch of the circulation in the following words:

66

The heart may be regarded as a powerful muscular bulb, sending off a single trunk, from which branches proceed, by division and subdivision, to the remotest parts of the body; and such are the arteries. The primordial veins may be regarded as so many radicles, which contribute to the formation of considerable roots, and these roots tend to one chief source for returning blood to the bulb. A retrograde movement of the blood in its ascent through the veins, is prevented by valves, with which they are furnished by their internal membranes, wherever necessary.

"Where the extreme branches of arteries connect themselves with the primordial branches of veins, a bulging is observable, somewhat like the condensing receiver of a chemical apparatus, as if it were the part in which the blood takes on its new character; or its office may be supposed to be analagous to that of the vegetable capsule, in which the process of fecundation is completed. This capsule-like termination of the arteries, is particularly observable, with a magnifying power, in those of the liver.

"The blood having thus undergone circulation through the general system, meets an apparatus on its return to the heart, for propelling it, in a similar manner, through the substance of the lungs, by the continuation of which process, it is maintained suitable to the service of life; and passes as before into the common arterial trunk."

We must not overlook the professional discrimination of the author in what he has to say respecting sympathetic affections of the lungs from a disordered state of the liver.

But in adverting to this subject, and also the chapters on digestion and assimilation, our limits permit us only to recommend them earnestly to the public attention.

The "comparative views of the stomach in man and animals, and their

influence on the sensorial powers," (chapter xv.) and "the reciprocal nervous sympathies which exist bctween the brain and alimentary orguns," (chapter xvi.) are likewise instructive, and of universal concern. The observations on sea-sickness, as far as our inquiries have led us, are novel and judicious.

The