charities of the grave. He has waited until not only Dr. Whitehead himself, but the friends under whose counsel and sanction he acted, are no longer in being; and now, secure that there is none to answer, and that the minute particulars of so distant a transaction have passed into oblivion, so far as the adverse side is concerned, he brings forward his own ex parte statement. We believe, however, that it would still be possible to find documents illustrative of the facts in question,-sed non est tanti; Mr. Moore's indictment sufficiently supplies its own refutation Soon after Mr. Wesley's death, it was determined by his friends, to publish a life of him, for the benefit of that charity to which he had bequeathed all his literary property.' In other words, it was resolved by the Preachers to publish it for their own benefit;' since the charity' to which such general reference is made, has for its object, if we mistake not, the extension of a fund destined to provide for the destitute families of deceased ministers in the Wesleyan connexion.

At a Meeting held by the Preachers for the purpose of giving effect to this determination, at which Mr. Wesley's executors and other friends were present, it was proposed by Mr. Rogers, that Dr. Whitehead should compile a Life of Mr. Wesley from his published journals and other documents in print and manuscript, for which he should receive one hundred guineas, as a remuneration for his trouble and loss of time. To this proposal Dr. Whitehead cheerfully acceded, and it was unanimously adopted as the resolution of the Meeting. The manuscripts were also deposited with him, under an express stipulation that they should be examined according to the will of the Testator, previously to any of them being published. At the following conference this agreement was confirmed in every particular, and Dr. Whitehead was appointed a member of the Book Committee in London.

'He had now an opportunity of proving the sincerity of his attachment to his old friends, and to the cause which, with various changes, he had first and last espoused. This opportunity he lost. His reputed friends considered his engagement respecting the life of Mr. Wesley, as the effect of weakness: and he was told," that he ought not to regard it; that the work would produce a great sum of money; that he might realize Two Thousand Pounds by it; and that to be thus employed for so small a sum as One Hundred, would be an act of injustice to himself and his family." The Doctor unhappily listened to this advice, and fell into the temptation. To the astonishment of those who were immediately concerned in this affair, he declared, " that he would write the Life of Mr. Wesley as an independent man; that the copy-right should be solely his own; and that if it should be printed at the Office of the Conference, he would have half of the clear profits." But that which constituted his indelible dishonour, was his absolute refusal to suffer the manuscripts with which he had been intrusted, to be examined according to the will of the Testator.

The effrontery and injustice of the man utterly confounded those with whom he had entered into the former engagements.'

6

Cheerfully acceded old friends' reputed friends'— unhappily listened '-indelible dishonour'effrontery and injustice-prejudiced members'-Let these gratuitous expressions, this phraseology of colour, be taken away, and what remains? Simply, that the old friends' of Dr. Whitehead had obtained from him a reluctant consent to a bargain in which all the sacrifices and inconveniences were on his side, all the advantages on theirs. On which side effrontery and injustice' lay, in this matter, we shall not decide; but it seems obvious enough, that the friends who persuaded him to reject an engagement which would have bound him to write the Life of Wesley, under tutelage, and for a day-labourer's pay, were not merely reputed, but real. There is something inexpressibly absurd in the complacency with which Mr. Moore assigns wrong motives to the advisers of Dr. W.; and to us, who knew the men, it is something worse than absurd. They were indeed offended,' but were they therefore prejudiced?' We are satisfied that they were not. But we have no personal interest in the discussion,and shall interfere in it no further than to say, that among the individuals who supported Dr. Whitehead with their advice and with their property, there were men who, for intellectual and moral energy, might have held front with the best and ablest among Mr. Moore's coadjutors. A larger share of delicacy and discretion would have made Mr. M. aware, that, in his impartial eulogy of the Preachers for just and benevolent views,' he was complimenting himself. In fact, the whole of his Preface is written in a spirit and temper not to be mistaken, and we are compelled to say, that it would have been far more creditable to his own character, to have abstained from ineffective attempts to depreciate others. The esprit de corps and the selfishness of authorship were temptations against which he should have been scrupulously on his guard, especially when they were urging him to a cowardly violation of the truce of the dead.

The Life itself, were it not disfigured by the intrusion of this petulant and cavilling disposition, and by a special determination that all shall be right in which either Mr. Wesley or his system is in any way interested, is a respectable production. Without being distinguished by any peculiar excellence in composition, and certainly without pretension to much skill in reasoning, Mr. Moore has the very important qualification of a long personal acquaintance with the subject of his book. We have no very distant recollection of the former volume, but, as far as our reminiscences extend, he has succeeded much better in his sole venture than in his copartnery transactions.

Art. IV. Memoirs and Poetical Remains of the late Jane Taylor: with Extracts from her Correspondence. By Isaac Taylor. 2 vols. small 8vo. Price 16s. London. 1825.

IN N the brief notice of Miss Taylor's various publications, which we gave in reviewing her " Contributions of Q Q.," we have partly anticipated the pleasing task which now devolves upon us in reviewing this memorial of fraternal affection. The history of her life cannot be expected to furnish either marking events or variety of incident. Her education and early friendships, her literary engagements and domestic habits, a few changes of residence, the development of her religious character, and the closing scene, comprise the whole of the simple but interesting record. It is as a portrait of character, as an attempt to fix on the canvas the cherished lineaments which memory retains of the original, that such a memoir will chiefly interest: its value consisting in its fidelity. The Correspondence and other Remains now given to the public will delight all readers of sensibility or taste, by the unaffected gracefulness, playful humour, and glow of sentiment by which they are characterised, while a large portion of the volumes is of that instructive cast that will especially recommend them to religious persons. The personal history must be considered as of a more private character, and is introduced with the following remarks, conveyed in the Dedication.

The following Memoir of my late sister, I have aimed to compose as if it had been intended especially for your perusal :-to you, then, it is dedicated. In keeping this idea before me, I have hoped to execute my task in a manner the most acceptable to the class of readers whom I would chiefly wish to please; I mean persons like yourself, to whom, through her writings, the name of Jane Taylor has been associated with some of their earliest intellectual pleasures, and perhaps with their first impressions of virtue and piety..... But while I am endeavouring to give as much explicitness to my narrative as shall satisfy your wishes, and as much, especially, as may render the subjoined Extracts from the Correspondence fully intelligible,. you will perceive that I shall be embarrassed with a considerable difficulty in having to separate the personal history of my sister from that of her family. To do so as completely as I could wish, is plainly impracticable; especially as her character and habits were such as united her most closely in every thing with those she loved. I must, therefore, in many instances, dismiss the fear of being charged with egotism; and, rather than omit particulars which, to you and to readers like-minded with yourself, may seem interesting and instructive, shall use ingenuousness, and claim the candour that the peculiarity of the case demands.'

The indifferent reader will be prepared by this explanation to meet with details in the early chapters, relating to the infancy and childhood of the subject of the memoir, which are not meant for his eye. Many young persons, indeed, who have known Miss Taylor only through her writings, may feel a curiosity to know what she was as a child; and to them it may be satisfactory information, that, if she did not lisp in numbers, her first essays in versification and tale-writing date from her eighth year. Even from her third or fourth year,' we are told, the little Jane inhabited a fairy land, and was 'perpetually occupied with the imaginary interests of her teeming fancy.' This early and unusual activity of the imagination, however, she afterwards, with her characteristic good sense, lamented. The most healthful and natural exercise of the opening faculties in childhood consists in habits of attention and observation, and infant reveries are romances in miniature. I do believe,' Miss Taylor says, that this habit of castle-building is very injurious to the mind. I know I have sometimes lived so much in a castle, as almost to forget that I lived in a house.' Together with this early activity of fancy, she possessed an uncommon share of vivacity and spirit; but these were counterbalanced by her constitutional timidity and a diffidence which neither a wider intercourse with the world, nor the measure of public favour she obtained, ever entirely conquered ;-we might say overbalanced, for the discouraging estimate she long entertained of her own talents, and a feeling of inferiority produced by a secret reference to a high ideal standard, rendered a stimulus necessary to call forth the powers of her mind. Speaking of her when in her: fifteenth year, her brother says:

• Jane was then, and indeed long after that time, afraid to believe that she had any talent; and it is known that a belief of the possession, is necessary to the full exercise of intellectual endowment.'

And again, describing the stimulus supplied by the success of her first attempt to write for the public, about the year 1804, when she was in her twenty-first year, her Biographer says:

The sound good sense which has recommended the latter productions of her pen, began then to temper the sprightliness of her fancy; and the letters of each succeeding year exhibit a marked progression in this respect. For not only did her understanding ripen, but the false diffidence by which it had been shackled, was gradually removed by the successful exercise of her talents. In some young persons, self-confidence occasions a precocious development of the reasoning powers; while, in others, a morbid diffidence

retards the expansion of them, and even protracts a certain jejuneness of style in writing, long after the substance of thought has become worthy of mature years. This was very much the case with Jane.'

The same constitutional timidity retarded the development of her religious character; and the following admirable remarks on this subject, from her Brother, explain a case which we believe to be not by any means uncommon.

Being reserved and timid by disposition and peculiarly distrustful of herself, little was known of the state of her mind. Her imagination, susceptible as it was in the highest degree to impressions of fear, rendered her liable at times to those deep and painful emotions which belong to a conscience that is enlightened, but not fully pacified. And these feelings, when blended with the pensiveness of her tender heart, gave a character of mournfulness and distress to her religious feelings during several years. Religious principles, if thus clouded, must always be less influential than when the mind is in a happier state; for the heart cannot be favourably ruled by fear?

Another circumstance is adverted to by herself as having had an unfavourable influence, not on her religious principles, but on her state of feeling. Our early friendships, though they must ever be remembered with interest and fond affection, were little adapted to promote our truest welfare.' Although the subject of early piety, and, in the latter years of her life, of an unembarrassed faith and peace in believing, her dread of self-deception and her abhorrence of display concurred with the circumstances above referred to, to keep her back from the open profession and unclouded enjoyment of religion. It is difficult, however, to explain this state of her mind without conveying an erroneous impression; and we shall therefore introduce in this place a few detached extracts from her Correspondence, which will shew that her views of religion were at this time neither those of a pharisee, nor of an ascetic, nor were they diseased by scepticism: they borrowed their sombre cast from constitutional feelings, which, as her Biographer remarks, are long in admitting meliora

tion.'

لو

In a certain sense, I may say with you, that my views of life are dark and melancholy; yet, I believe, when you say so, you mean something more than I do. You do not permit yourself to receive the comforts and delights that are offered you by Providence with "a merry heart, giving God thanks." Now I think that though, when compared with heavenly happiness, the best joys of earth should appear mean and trifling in our eyes; yet, considered in themselves, as they were given for our enjoyment, surely a cheerful and grateful delight in them must even be acceptable to our all-bountiful Father. When we survey all our comforts a happy home, affec