insipidity and flatness of the performance are sufficiently wearisome qualities'; but it possesses others, which, to our taste, are far more repulsive. It is written throughout in a drawling, smirking tone of pretty sentimentality, and puny connoisseurship. We have, in one page, a commemoration of one Filippo Mori, from whom the author professes to have received 1 "One of those courtesies so sweet so rare!" which, after all this and a great deal more, (so nambypamby!) turns out to have been a present of a bunch of grapes! In the next, we are told of "feasts painted by Cagliari❞—or (as the unversed in dilettante lore are benevolently apprised in a note) the Painter "commonly called Paul Veronese;" which same feasts, the Poet says, resemble a scene on the lake of Como, "Where the World danced Under the starry sky, while I looked on, an extraordinary effect to have been produced by so thin a potation: "gramolata" being, as is (injudiciously we think) confessed in a note, nothing more than "a sherbet halffrozen." To talk, however, of "gramolata," and "lucciole," and "tre-quattro-cinque" is too delightful a privilege of the travelled man of taste, to be omitted by this writer, wherever he can find, or make an opportunity: one great object of his book being, as it appears, to persuade the world, that, like Sir Andrew Ague-cheek, "he plays o' the viol-de-gambo, and speaks three or four languages word for word without book, and hath all the good gifts of nature." The poem before us is anonymous, as we before stated; it requires however no extraordinary discrimination to divine the author; and it is because his name is as plainly delineated in the peculiar kind of nonsense with which these foolish verses abound, as if it had been printed in the title page, that we have noticed them. Had the poem been the first appearance of its author upon the stage, we should have spared ourselves the trouble of expressing our opinion of it. ART. VIII. An Apology for the Pastoral System of the Clergy: A Sermon, preached at the Visitation of the Venerable the Archdeacon of Huntingdon, May 6, 1822, and Published by his Command. By J. H. Brooke Mountain, A.M. Rector of Puttenham, Vicar of Hemel Hempstead, Herts, and Prebendary of Lincoln. 8vo. 28 pp. Rivingtons. 1822. IT is seldom that a single discourse, beit from whom, or on what occasion it may, excites much public attention; indeed it is necessarily a rare case, to find such publications possessing intrinsically any fair claim to general notice. A printed sermon has usually been written for some particular occasion, or to meet the circumstances of some particular body of hearers; and if the subject treated, be nevertheless one of extensive importance, the prescribed limits within which the preacher is compelled to compress his views of it, seldom allow him an opportunity of doing more than merely pointing out a few of its principal bearings. In the selection and management of these, much talent and knowledge may undoubtedly be displayed; but it is an exercise of ability, the efforts of which are entirely unseen by the ordinary reader, and which is not always properly appreciated even by more competent judges. It is, however, chiefly in this point of view, that the interest of a single discourse, considered, at least, as a literary composition, is to be regarded; as dissertations they are commonly very incomplete; and the circumstances under which they are composed, and for which they are intended, rarely afford room for the exhibition of what is technically called learning. But although, for these reasons, we doubt whether it would be easy to compile a very full and complete body of divinity from the great variety of single sermons, which are continually issuing from the press; yet such a compilation would, in one respect, possess a very striking interest: it would shew more strongly, perhaps, than any other fact whatever, the extraordinary quantity of talent and information which is diffused among the Parochial Clergy of England. This is a remark which we have very frequently been induced to make while reading occasional sermons; but we hardly remember any occasion, on which it was more forcibly suggested to our minds, than while reading the sermon before us, Without any affected display of learning or ele gance, it is obviously the production of a most accomplished mind; and it is truly gratifying to observe, at the same time, how easily the pursuits of the scholar and the refinement of the gentleman, may be made compatible with the learning of the divine, and with the piety of the Christian. Mr. Mountain's text is taken from Gen. xxxiii. 13. My Lord knoweth that the children are tender, and the flocks and herds with young are with me; and if men should over-drive them one day, all the flock will die. The title of the Sermon is expressed, "An Apology for the Pastoral System of the Clergy;" or, as it is stated in another place," An Apology for that system of edification which the Constitution and Services of our Church mark out, and which the prudence of the Clergy has generally adopted: a system, if I mistake not, of gentle, gradual, and regular instruction, as incompatible with inconsiderate vehemence and incautious haste, as it is certainly unattainable without fervent zeal, and unremitting industry." The preacher then proceeds to shew, how naturally the words of the text adapt themselves, without any violence of metaphor, to the case of every Christian congregation. "That as it is the duty of the literal shepherd to provide for the safety of his whole flock; to consider that the slow are often the most valuable, the heavy most productive, the young and weak most capable of improvement; and for their sake to content himself, and to make the strong leaders of the flock content with a moderate pace, and a gentle progress; so it is the duty of a Faithful pastor of the spiritual flock, however ardent his zeal, however fervent his delight may be in accompanying the higher ranges of bold and strong spirits, to remember, in the public exercise of his function, that all have an equal right to his attention, all are entrusted to his charge, all will be required at his hands: those perhaps, especially, who being infirm of nature, and weak in grace, stand in peculiar, need of his careful guidance and unre. mitting attention. "There are certainly, in every considerable congregation, many persons who are aptly represented by the heavy mothers and the young of the flock; persons who will not, who cannot bear to be over-driven; who would either be left behind in hopeless disgust, or harassed to death in the vain endeavour to follow the dictates of a too hasty zeal: and these persons are by no means to be regarded as of less value, or as having a less claim to our assiduous care, than those of a more ardent temperament, or of less weighty prepossessions, who may be ready to follow our most rapid movements, if not to outgo them, ὀτρύνειν καὶ ἅυτους πὲς μεμάωτας. P. 8. Having guarded against the possibility of its being supposed that he intended to advocate a less laborious, or more indolent performance of the pastoral duty, than that which would be necessary, upon a supposition, that it was only to those more advanced in the knowledge of Christianity that the preacher should address himself, or, that the minds of his hearers, were on all occasions to be stimulated and excited by alarming appeals to their passions or imaginations, he points out wherein it is, that the system which he is recommending is really distinguished. "The system which I am defending substitutes principle for enthusiasm, persevering industry for transient or occasional vehemence, an equable and impartial administration of the trust committed to us, for the indulgence of our own taste and humour, and self-love. It is a system, which excludes the stimulus of splendid success and popular admiration; which admits but one motivethe love of our Master, which draws but one inference-' feed my sheep. Its effects are not so much in a crowded, as in a devout congregation; not so much in a multitude of hearers, as in numerous communicants; not in flattering praises of the preacher, but in a reformation of manners; in the increase of Faith, the confirmation of Hope, the extension of Charity; in the discouragement and suppression of scandalous offences, and the diminished frequency of oaths and brawls, and intemperance; in the piety and virtue of the Believer; in the respect and decency of the unconverted." P. 10. Mr. Mountain next proceeds to illustrate the prudence and wisdom of the system of instruction which the Church of England has adopted and recommended, by the example of God's manner of dealing with mankind, in the gradual progressiveness of the revelations, by which the world was prepared for the reception of the Gospel. "It will powerfully illustrate this view of the subject, to observe, how gradually and systematically the Creator has caused the day-spring from on high to dawn upon the world. In the ages before the Flood, the great features of Religious truth, and moral duty, appear to have been partially and very imperfectly deve loped; mankind were taught the existence and unity of God, and his exclusive claim to Divine honours; they knew, that by disobedience, they had fallen from original purity and happiness, and that a time should arrive, when he would interpose to redeem them from the powers of sin and death; and that, in the mean while, his favour and protection would be afforded to virtue, and his vengeance would pursue guilt; but the moral restraints inposed upon them seem to have been few and simple. "Nec res hunc teneræ possent perferre laborem Georg. ii. 343. "After the purification of the world, in the baptismal regeneration of the Deluge, a clearer revelation, accompanied by a more strict rule of moral conduct, was vouchsafed to Noah. And similar communications were from time to time renewed and improved as men became better qualified to bear the knowledge and the restraints of truth, until by degrees the minds of the elect people were prepared for the clearer light and the heavier yoke of the Mosaic dispensation. "And that dispensation was itself altogether a system of gradual edification; the law was our schoolmaster, to bring us unto Christ; to open gently those more enlarged views, which, if prematurely and suddenly. displayed, could only have served to dazzle and to confound. The veil therefore of the Law was gradually withdrawn by means of successive spiritual interpretations of its signs and symbols, so that the religious part of mankind were duly prepared to receive the last and plenary revelation of the Gospel, which, like all that preceded it, has diminished the moral Jiberty, in proportion as it has extended and improved the spiri tual advantages of mankind, upon the just and reasonable principle, that to whomsoever much is given, of him shall much be required.' "But Christianity itself, far as it exceeds all former dispensations in the light and knowledge which it bestows upon the world, is still but a state of pupillage, in which we see through a glass darkly;' in which our dim intellect and feeble faith is trained to comprehend the mysteries and the glories of the kingdom of God. "Thus from the creation to the last times,' our Maker has acted upon a progressive plan of instruction, feeding his flock as a shepherd,' revealing to his creatures more and more of Divine Truth as they were able to bear it, and with tender care reserving all points of doctrine and of practice which they were not sufficiently confirmed to receive. "The same principle of gradually enlightening the world is remarkable in the conduct of the Divine Being, who condescended to become our Teacher in a human form. It will appear to every considerate reader of the New Testament that our Lord was, at all times, but particularly in the early part of his ministry, careful not to bring forward too much at once; that he slowly and almost imperceptibly introduced the Christian in place of the Jewish morality; that he studiously avoided all abrupt declarations of his own divine character, and of the higher doctrines of his Gospel, commanding his chosen disciples to keep the knowledge of these things for a time to themselves, and to reserve some part of the 3 |