Leiter from Ida of Wirtemberg, to Herman of Unna.

Herman, is it a dream? Or is it a reality? I have learnt things that most nearly concern you. Confider what I am going to tell you at least as a truth. Obey my injunctions: it is your Ida who exacts obedience. . . . Fly, Herman, fly! Vengeance purfues thee! !... Thy prince, exalted as is his goodness, great as is his power, will not dare be thy protector. The INVISIBLE are thine enemies!....

This fingle fentence, I first thought would be fufficient to induce you to depart, the only step that now remains for you, and I had intended to close with it my letter. I am obliged to fteal from fleep the moments I devote to you, and, in my prefent fituation, I am unable to write much. But my fears whisper that you may refuse to obey me, that you may regard my dream as one of thofe ordinary reveries to which no faith is to be given. I will therefore tell you all, that you may judge for yourfelf of the dangers that threaten you.

I heard two men talking of you. One of them appeared to be my father. But no, it could not be he! for can the father of Ida be the enemy of innocence? Could he be influenced by the perfidious infinuations of a villain, who wishes perhaps to escape the punishment of his own crime by charging it on you? . . . . I liftened, fecretly liftened. . . . in a dream, as it feems to me, for your Ida is not accustomed to fuch practices when awake. . . . and I heard these men fay to one another, that you were the murderer of duke Frederic. Your fabre found near the place where he had fallen, the depofition of Kunzman at the fcaffold, and the fecret enmity you were supposed to bear to the betrothed spouse of Ida of Wirtemberg, were the arguments employed to prove your guilt: it was added, that the princes. having acquitted you would be of no avail; your crime was of a nature to come within the cognizance of another tribunal. . . . Oh, Herman! That infernal tribunal, which your Ida but too well knows.

My dream is not yet finished. You know there are dreams which have the fame duration and the fame confiftency as the events of our lives which pafs when we are awake.... I heard, I thought, the converfation I have related, word for word; and I immediately began to reflect on the means of faving you. Some days elapfed. I faw a number of trangers in my father's house, among whom I once obferved Walter, the man with one hand. I remember him well. A journey was talked of, which my father was about to undertake. I gueffed what was its object. I bribed one of the fervants, appointed to attend him, and with difficulty prevailed on him to let me take his place. I difguifed myself in the black dress which he brought me, and repaired to my poft. We fet off. The count of Wirtemberg was attended only by me and another domeftic.

Our way was not long, Strange as it may feem, we entered, I thought, that ruinous building, which perhaps you have obferved, at a little diftance north of the city. . . . But for heaven's fake, Herman, be difcreet; occafion not our ruin! You are not ignorant how important it is to keep filence on this fubject. Befide, is it not all a dream?

The count and his principal domeftic entered without any question being afked. My figure probably appearing new to the three perfons

who

who guarded the gate, they examined me by fome very extraordinary queftions. They asked me the four ways to hell, and I answered in the words I had been taught the fame evening by the fervant who yielded me his place. They farther afked me, how many fteps led to the judgment feat on which fat the Eternal to adminifter juftice. I anfwered, thirty; for I recollected that to be the number I counted. you know upon what occafion, and which I had been obliged to afcend with fuch feelings of horror. They fhook their heads, blindfolded me, and let me pafs. The number thirty faved my life. I wandered in the dark: I had neither fupporter nor guide. I counted the steps, and, having afcended thirty, the way became level. My eyes were then uncovered.

I found myself in a place fimilar to what you have perhaps feen. The fignal was given, and the feffion commenced. Accufations were read and fome witneffes depofed against a prince, whom they charged with being the murderer of duke Frederic. Immediately one of the judges role and fwore that he was innocent. An oath of this nature, you know, once faved the life of an innocent perfon; why might it not be equally capable of faving that of a guilty one?

To these accufations, to thefe witneffes, others fucceeded. Your name, Herman, your name was pronounced! But no one would fwear for you. I was going to advance, when the man with one hand, whom I then first observed by my fide, held me back, threatening me with his finger. In fhort, you were accufed and condemned. "Let vengeance, fecret as the night, purfue his fteps! Let punichment invisibly await him!" cried a voice from the throne. "When awake, deceive him by falfe pretences, and draw him into fome fnare that may facilitate the execution of his fentence. Let the poignard watch the moment of his fleep. Let him be put to death wherever he be found alone. Let his bofom-friend become his executioner; let him entice him into fome folitary place, and maffacre him in open day, in the face of that heaven which he has offended by the fight of innocent blood. Frederic loft his life in fecret, and without any warning fo perifh, with all his fins upon his head, Herman of Unna!"

As the laft words were uttered I fhould certainly have screamed with terror, had not my protector stopped my mouth. It was he alfo. I believe, who conveyed me more dead than alive out of this affembly of demons. He had discovered me notwithstanding my difguife. He loaded me with reproaches on my imprudence; and left me at the gate of my father's houfe, after having exacted a promife of filence, which I have kept as faithfully as was poffible.

What was I now to do? Efcape and fly to you; or wait the return of my father, and abide his wrath? Already by the light of the moon I saw him at a distance accompanied by his domeftic. I adopted the most ready expedient: I knocked at the door; it was opened; and I rushed to my apartment. Cunegunda was aftonished at my having fo completely deceived her vigilance, and that, while the believed me afleep. . . . But what am I doing? ... Is it not, however, a dream.... Yet again I charge you to fly. Fly, Herman, fly! The fecret avengers purfue you: they thirft for your blood!....

I ought

I ought not to warn you of this; but furely I may relate a dream.'

These volumes have internal marks of being properly tranflated but we were unwilling to defer announcing them until we fhould procure the original. The hiftorical part is fcarcely fo far accurate as not to endanger the inconvenient confufion of fact and fiction in the reader's mind;-and, in general, it may be remarked of this clafs of ftories, that, by familiarizing characters of a ftronger finew than are common, crimes of a bolder enormity, and modes of coercion which the tolerance of a polished age had renounced, they tend to fuggeft a revival of the heroic in virtue and in vice, and to prepare the general mind for contemplating, with complacence, a fort of characters, the influence of which may not prove very compatible with the "monotonous tranquillity of modern ftates."

ART. IV. The Life of the Rev. John Wesley, A. M. Including an Account of the great Revival of Religion, in Europe and America, of which he was the first and chief Inftrument. By Dr. Coke and Mr. Moore. 8vo. pp. 542. 5s. Boards. Whitfield. 1792. T was not to be fuppofed that the fame of John Wesley would be fuffered to depend on the details of ordinary biography, nor that his ardent admirers would reft fatisfied with the cold and qualified praife which may be affigned to him by writers who are Some of his numerous unanimated by religious enthufiafm.

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difciples would doubtless ftep forward to rescue his reputation from the affaults of prejudice and malice; to throw around his honoured name a holy perfume; to gratify their own feelings by the warmest expreffions of love and admiration; and, by exhibiting his virtues at their full length and in their juft proportions, to extend their utility beyond the term of his natural life. Such, we believe, were the motives which induced the authors of this work to affume the pen; and motives, which originate in a refpect for virtue, and in a defire of promoting the practice of it, must be pronounced highly laudable.

John Wesley unquestionably merits a place in the catalogue of illuftrious men; and pofterity, when they reflect on his indefatigable and benevolent labours, will with for an authentic account of him. To learn what he was, and what he did, they will have recourfe to the narratives of his friends, and of those who lived in connection with him. His prefent biographers come under this defeription; and, though we fhall have occafion hereafter to notice a life of him given more at length, we apprehend that every important and interesting fact is related in the prefent volume. The authors obferve, in the preface, that

• There

• There is nothing material respecting him that is not given in this volume. All his private papers were open to our infpection for feveral years. He himself alfo informed us of many important paffages of his life, which he never inferted in his journals, and are known to few but ourselves. Some of thefe it would have been dangerous or uncharitable for him to have published to the world. But we are under no fuch difficulty.-We are fenfible that history is a narrative of facts properly connected and elucidated. Such we truft the following will be found. Mr. Wefley needs no panegyrift. His own works fall praise him in the gates. We have therefore ftated thofe facts as they arofe-.

Having allowed Meffrs. Coke and Moore to speak for themfelves as to their advantages and qualifications, we fhall likewife quote their own words refpecting the divifion of their work :

We have divided our work into three books. In the firft we treat of his Relatives, and of his own Hiftory till his full converfion to God: in the fecond, of his labours in England, including an account of the Societies raised from time to time, and of the rules of difcipline obferved in them: and in the third, we give a relation of the labours both of himself and of thofe connected with him, in Ireland, Scotland, the British Isles, the Continent of America, and the Weft-Indies. We conclude with a review of his Writings; with an account of several incidents in the three last years of his Life, and of his laft Illness, Death, and Character; and with a fhort retrospect of the great Revival of Religion, in which he was the first and chief inftrument. In the courfe of the Hiftory we have alfo given our readers a sketch of the state of Christianity in those different parts of the world, in which he, or the Preachers in connection with him, have laboured.'

From this abftract of the contents, our readers may perceive what they are to expect from the prefent volume. It is not written fo much for the light and fashionable as for the religious reader. It is drawn up in what may be called the methodistic ftyle, and is intended to make John Wesley, though dead, yet to fpeak to that fect of which he was the founder, and over which he exercised all the authority and functions of a bishop.

In our account of Mr. Hampfon's Memoirs of Mr. Wefley, (see our New Series, vol. vi. p. 389.) we mentioned feveral particulars in the life of this author of Methodifm + but these memoirs were not fatisfactory to his friends; nor can they be

* We read of overwhelming fhowers of faving grace,'-of the power of God falling down upon the people,'-of their devouring the word,'-and of the whole foul being engaged with God for an anfwer.'

+ In this volume, the origin of the title of Methodifts is thus related: This title was given them in the first inftance by a Fellow of Merton College in allufion to an antient College of Physicians at Rome, who were remarkable for putting their patients under regimen, and were therefore called Methodistic.' p.59.

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fuppofed

fuppofed to be fo authentic and copious as the volume now before us.

From this work, we find that he was not only impreffed with fentiments of religion at a very early age, but that he partook of the facrament when he was only eight years old. We have a long account of his converfion; and the very hour in which it took place, according to his own relation, is recorded to be May 24, 1738, about five o'clock in the morning. His religious views at Oxford are particularly explained; and the reason of his exchanging Oxford for America, or of his miffion to Georgia, which puzzled the writer of the "Memoirs," is here given. Speaking of field preaching (ludicrously called by Mr. Hampfon taking the field,) Dr. C. and Mr. M. tell us that it was a thing rather fubmitted to than chofen.' How far this may be true, we prefume not to determine.

Mr. Wefley's marriage, an aukward circumftance in such a life, produces the following obfervations:

Mr. Wefley had hitherto preferred a fingle life, because, as he himself obferves, he believed he could be more useful in a single than in a married state: " and I praise God," fays he, "who enabled me fo to do." He now as fully believed, that in his present circumstances he might be more useful in a married state: into which, upon this clear conviction, and by the advice of his friends, he entered fome time after.

• Previous to this ftep, he had published a small tract entitled "Thoughts on a Single Life." He therein advised all unmarried perfons, who were able to receive it, to follow the counfel of our Lord and St. Paul, and "remain fingle for the kingdom of heaven's fake." But in the fame tract he pronounces after St. Paul, the “ forbidding to marry, to be a doctrine of devils," and declares" it cannot be doubted but a man may be as holy in a married as in a fingle ftate." Nor did he ever fuppofe that this precept was defigned of God for the many. Several years after his marriage he mentions in his Journal his again reading over that Tract, and obferves, " I am of the fame mind still: and I must be so till I give up my Bible."

• We should not have faid fo much on the prefent occafion, if it was not for the many fleers that have been caft at Mr. Wefley on this account. The beft excufe that can be made for thofe gentlemen who have indulged their wit on this subject, is that they knew nothing of the matter that they had never feriously confidered thofe paffages of the Bible alluded to, nor ever read over what Mr. Wesley had faid upon it. It was quite enough for them to hear that he had recommended celibacy, and had afterwards married; which all candid men, who believe the Scriptures, must be fenfible, involves neither blame nor contradiction.

• But it is certain, Mr. Wesley's marriage was not what is commonly called a happy one. We cannot take upon us to ftate in every refpect what were the causes of that inquietude, which for fome years lay fo heavy upon him. It might arife, in fome degree, from his

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peculiar