public and private labours, under the blessing of God, were rendered not only acceptable, but very useful to many. He was the honoured instrument of turning many "from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God." Several who were added to the church after his departure, owned him as their spiritual father."

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While at Brigstock, Mr. Phillips was very attentive to the younger members of his congregation. These he would request to meet him frequently in his study, when he conversed with them about their spiritual interests. His method was, to propose to them some important questions on the leading doctrines of the Gospel; and then, according to their answers, gave them suitable instruction. Many expressed the real pleasure they found in these religious exercises. "His kind and affectionate visits to the poor and afflicted," says Mr. Pickering, wére rendered very beneficial. One pleasing instance is, worthy of being recorded. A young woman had resided for a little time at Leicester, and having heard the late Rev. Mr. Robinson, her mind became deeply impressed with a sense of religion. Indisposition compelled her to return to Brigstock, her native village. At her request, Mr. Phillips went several times to converse with her, when it pleased God, in his sovereign mercy, to bless his visits to the conversion of her aged parents and two sisters. The whole family became his regular hearers, though, prior to this, they had never entered a Dissenting place of worship. These poor, but worthy people, showed by their holy and consistent walk, that they had not received the grace of God in vain."

This interesting scene of his labours, and the general state of religion while Mr. Phillips remained here, will be best described

in his own words. Writing to Dr. Williams, he gives the following account:" The prospect here is very promising in regard to usefulness. The congregation at Brigstock, on the Sabbath afternoon and evening, consists of between two and three hundred people; that at Weldon is something less numerous, though the new place, (which has no galleries,) is generally full. There is another town, within less than two miles of Weldon, where I preach once a month, on the Sabbath evening. The inhabitants are numerous, and disposed to hear; so that the meeting, which is as large as either of the other two, is always well filled. The constant hearers belonging to each congregation, dwell upon the spot, which makes the attendance more regular. There are also a few who come from neighbouring villages. In these three places there is no other Dissenting interest. There are, indeed, a few persons who meet in a private house at Brigstock, who have conceived a dislike to my preaching; but they have wrought no wonders in the earth. The person who preaches to them has gained no new ground, nor is he likely to gain any; and some who went after him at first, have returned. He is a miller, who resides in the neighbourhood. He tells the few who attend him, that Christ has done every thing for them; talks about the privileges that belong to them, as good folks; and they sit under his shadow with great delight, sometimes awake, and sometimes asleep. Here we have no opposition from church people worth speaking of. coming, prejudice has been considerably diminished, and the established clergy have not much influence. The people have an idea that they are at liberty to hear where they please. Hence, at Corby, we have the church singers

Since my

at our meeting, and at Weldon, I preach an annual sermon for what is called a Friendly Society, whose members, except two or three, are church people. It is the practice of ministers in these parts to preach a new year's sermon to young people, when they collect among themselves a sum of money, as a present for the minister, which amongst us, amounts to four or five pounds every year. The situation requires less salary than more public and genteel places; and as it respects a prospect of usefulness, I prefer it to any other that I know. The cast of the people is so far altered, that they will bear, without offence, a close, alarming, and pointed address, a mode of preaching by far the most useful in its tendency; and we are surrounded by many congregations, at no great distance, with which we maintain a Christian intercourse, so that a minister may exchange services with his brethren as often as he finds it convenient."

In December, 1794, Dr. Williams was solicited to undertake the superintendence of the Independent College at Rotherham; and on accepting the invitation of the committee in the following year, was anxious to have Mr. Phillips engaged as his colleague. He therefore wrote in June, 1795, to know his mind on the subject. "I have always thought," said he, "that your present situation was but preparatory to another, and that Providence would, at some time, place you in a sphere of usefulness more congenial with the prevailing turn of your mind. In the course of last summer, application was made to me for information, when I mentioned you to my correspondent, as not immoveable, and one whom I considered suitable for a second tutor. I hope you will open your mind freely on the subject, and with as little reserve as possible." In re

ply to this, it appears, that Mr. Phillips expressed no inclination to remove, as the Doctor says, in a letter of more than two months later date, "The committee have been requested, according to your wish, to make all the inquiry in their power for a suitable tutor, and are now engaged in that business." Speaking, however, of the Rev. Mr. Brewer, who then resided at Sheffield, and was about to succeed the Doctor at Birmingham, it was added, "He gives very little reason to expect, that the committee can succeed; and, therefore, it is probable they will be under the necessity of troubling you with an application, which, I hope, will be deemed a sufficient apology to yourself and your people, if it should be so." The event appears to have proved as Mr. Brewer expected, so that Dr. Williams was authorized to make an official application to Mr. Phillips.

In his correspondence with Dr. Williams relative to a successor at Brigstock, a passage occurs in one of his letters, which deserves to be here recorded, as showing how truly concerned he was for his people; and as being not less honourable to their piety and intelligence, than to his own character: "If some proper person do not come, and accept the pastoral charge, it will not be in my power to remove, for I have assured our people, again and again, that I will not, nor dare I, permit the seed, which I have sown with so much pains, to be picked up by birds of the air, and thus come to nothing. An incoherent preacher, a man of little or no application to study, will not do here. He will be a useless animal, the people will despise him, and the ministers around will have no connexion with him. Sometimes, when I think of leaving, I am almost wretched through fear of taking a wrong step, the conse

quences of which I am not able to foresee. I have the clearest conviction, that I would not remove on any other principle than that of obedience to the will of God; and if it be not his will, I most sincerely wish that some

thing, in the course of Providence, may effectually block up my way. To leave this retired situation, and many affectionate friends, will be a heavy trial."

(To be continued.)

THE BRITISH MUSEUM.

I NEVER enter this national repository without a deep feeling, which I should find it extremely difficult to define. I some time since adverted to this in a paper," which was intended to have been followed up by a series, connected with the same general subject; but when I sat down to realise my plan, it so happened, whether from incapacity or indolence I cannot tell, that I was never in the writing vein. I have no intention of pursuing that topic; but I advert to the fact, in reference to the present paper, as a clue to certain sentiments and expressions which it may contain.I use a doubtful phrase, because, as I have no definite arrangement in view, my thoughts may chance to marshal themselves as they are at times rather apt to do-in a somewhat desultory way.

It is impossible to find one's-self in presence of the genius of antiquity, without strong emotion. No man, I would fain believe, can contemplate the mind of far-off ages, visibly stampt on the wonders which surround him here, without a sensation of awe, as well as of admiration. In this court and vestibule, and in yonder ranges, are fragments which carry the intellect back to times when the Pharaohs swayed the sceptre of Egypt-to that precise period when the great Primeval Tradi

"Nature and Art."

tions had merged in the inventions of men, and a system of mysteries and symbols, with all that

crew, who, under names of old renown, Osiris, Isis, Orus, and their train, With monstrous shapes, and sorceries abused

Fanatic Egypt and her priests, to seek Their wandering gods, disguised in brutish forms,

Rather than human.

Here lie scattered the wrecks of those works of art which, at a period scarcely discernible in the distance of ages, adorned the palaces of the Egyptian kings, and the temples of their divinities. It would afford matter of curious discussion to investigate the reasons why, amid finished workmanship and exuberant invention, we can trace so little of the higher principles of imitation and adjustment. In their figures we may observe a general knowledge of proportion, none whatever of the laws of muscular action. The features of the countenance are frequently wrought out with considerable skill, but the expression of varying emotion, seems never to have occurred to the artist as an object to be attained. Labour and vague resemblance appear to have been the sole ideas which the Egyptian sculptor connected with his task; and he carried them resolutely through the most repelling enterprizes. However intractable the material, he fearlessly encountered it; he patiently worked down the hardest granite to the required shape, and when

1

years of unwearied application had produced the desired effect, he turned to some equally unimpressible mass, with the same prospect before him of protracted exertion and unvarying results. Perhaps this peculiarity in the choice of his material, may assist in accounting both for the simplicity and the finish of his workmanship. The flexibility of muscle and the variation of surface, in the human body, could scarcely admit of adequate representation with so hard a texture as its medium. Marble will allow a freedom to the hand, which the granites of Thebes deny, and the powers of Phidias himself would have failed in communicating to the latter, that unrivalled pliability to which he modelled the first. It is not, however, meant to assign any thing more than a limited influence to this circumstance; the inferiority of the Egyptian artists is evident throughout the whole range of their professional exertions; the outline and the painting of their pictures, is as rude and inexpressive as their sculpture, and while we may trace in their statuary and their architecture, the naked elements of Grecian grandeur, we shall look in vain for the slightest hint of that pathos with which the latter was blended.

The architecture, indeed, of Egypt, was of a higher and more interesting character than its sculpture. Its varieties, both in design and combination are boundless. The artist revelled in the luxuriance of his imagination, and set no limit to the magnificence of his inventions. The hundred gates of Thebes seem to be removed out of the range of fiction, by the colossal grandeur, and the interminable perspective, of its massive and widely spread remains. The ornamental details of the structures of Memphis and the Memnonium, furnished the rich materials whence the Greeks se

lected the elements of Achaian art, and, with exquisite discrimination and unerring taste, restrained the wild profusion of genius within the boundaries of faultless system and scientific rule. But specimens of Egyptian structure are too unweildy for exportation, and the huge fragments which surround us here are chiefly from a different class. This gigantic bust, with its mild and gentle aspect,-what changes has it not witnessed during the thousands of years which have passed since it was first set up amid the palaces and temples of the Thebaid. The Pharaohs-ShishakCambyses-Alexander-the Ptolemies--the Romans-Amrou and his Saracens -Saladin and the Crusaders-the Mamalukes-all the dynasties, the wars, the civil and domestic tragedies, the pride, the

pomp, the misery, which connect themselves with these names, have passed away beneath the tranquil and complacent regard of this benignant countenance. Perhaps the Israelites assisted in its elevation-Sesostris may have reviewed his armies before its seat, and his harnessed monarchs may have drawn his car to the shrine which it adorned-Julius may have paused in admiration of its giant bulk-and the eye of Khaled glanced in contempt and indignation on a relic of idolatry.

These repositories of the dead, dark and funereal in their hue, have passed through strange vicissitudes, from the period when they enclosed the mortal remains of some high chieftain, to that in which one of them was made the ornament of a Turkish Mosque, and the other became a public cistern in Caïro, and the Sarcophagus-the devourer of the dead,

obtained the inappropriate distinction of the Lover's Fount. It were tedious to reckon up these various remnants of laborious art, the uncouth deities,