now adopted, of his own accord, the very identical usages which he forsook the Church for imposing. It will be the same with a newer and not less dangerous sect. The next generation will perceive that conscience cannot call upon them to quarrel with the words of the Bible-and when they hear from those who are learned in the Journals of Parliament, that a Bill was introduced into the House of Commons, in 1822, for the purpose of compelling a Clergyman to curtail the rites of his Church, they will say that the Unitarians of such early times had more zeal than discretion, and strained at a gnat while they swallowed a camel.

GLEANINGS; OR, SELECTIONS AND REFLECTIONS MADE IN A COURSE OF GENERAL READING.

No. CCCLXXXVII.

He will perceive that at the moment when a multitude of particular solutions, and of insulated facts, begin to distract the attention and to overcharge the memory, the former gradually lose themselves in one general method, and the latter unite in one general law; and that these generalizations, continually succeeding one to another, like the successive multiplications of a number by itself, have no other limit than that infinity which the human faculties are unable to comprehend.

No. CCCLXXXVIII. Osorius on the Persecution of the Jews in Portugal.

Jerome Osorius, Bishop of Sylves, in his History of Emanuel, King of Portugal, speaks of that King's cruel

kind.

To such of my readers (says Condorcet) as may be slow in admitting the possibility of this progressive improvement in the human race, allow me to state, as an example, the history of that science in which the advances of discovery are the most certain, and in which they may be measured with the greatest precision. Those elementary truths of geometry and of astronomy, which in India and Egypt formed an occult science, upon which an ambitious priesthood founded its influence, were become, in the times of Archimedes and Hipparchus, the subjects of common education in the public schools of Greece. In the last century, a few years of study were sufficient for comprehending all that Archimedes and Hipparchus knew; and, at present, two years employed under an able teacher, carry the student beyond those conclusions which limited the inquiries of Leibnitz and of Newton. Let any person reflect on these facts: let him follow the immense chain which connects the inquiries of Euler with those of a priest of Memphis; let him observe at each epoch how genius outstrips the present age, and how it is overtaken by mediocrity in the next; he will perceive that nature has furnished us with the means of abridging and facilitating our intellectual labour, and that there is no reason for apprehending that such simplifications can ever have an end.

ing generous and exalted language, particularly remarkable from a Portuguese Bishop: "Fuit quidem hoc nec ex lege nec ex religione factum. Quid enim? Tu rebelles animos nulla que ad id suscepta religione constrictos, adigas ad credendum ea, quæ summa contentione aspernantur et respuunt? Idque tibi assumas, ut libertatem voluntatis impedias, et vincula mentibus effrænatis injicias? At id neque fieri potest, neque Christi sanctissimum numen approbat. Voluntarium enim sacrificium, non vi et malo coactum ab hominibus expetit, neque vim mentibus inferri sed voluntates ad studium veræ religionis allici et invitari jubet. Postremo quis non videt ita religionem per religionis simulationem indignissime violari?""This was neither lawful nor religious. Dost thou compel men hostile to Christianity to believe those things which they most vehemently reject? Do you assume to yourself the right of hindering the freedom of the will, and casting chains upon minds which are free from bonds? But that is not possible, nor does the most holy divinity of Christ approve it. He seeks a voluntary sacrifice, not one forced from men by violence, nor does he command us to do violence to the minds of others, but to attract and invite their will to the study and love of true religion. Who does not see that by persecution, religion, through the pretence of religion, suffers the most unworthy violence?"

ART. I.-Ecclesiastical Sketches. By William Wordsworth. Longman. pp. 123. 1822.

ART. II.-Memorials of a Tour on the Continent, 1820. By Willian Wordsworth. Longman. pp. 103.

1822.

F

Wordsworth is most attached to the composition of Sonnets, and though our admiration of his writings is of the warmest and most enthusiastic character, we think he has had little success in that particular form of poetry which he has so frequently chosen, The Sonnet should be the develop ment of a single thought-it may be adorned with other associations, but they should all bear upon the one emotion which it is designed to convey or to illustrate. That thought should be conducted onwards gently and eloquently, till it bursts in all its splendour at the close. "The Sonnet," says the Spanish proverb, "should be opened with a key of silver and be shut with a key of gold." Wordsworth-who, touched by an habitual sense of beauty and melody, seldom fails to communicate their influence to the expression of his thoughts and feelings too eager and enthusiastic to follow the gradual workings of the mind, usually breaks forth in the strength and impetuosity of his genius, and becomes exhausted in the first fervour of his song.

The character of Wordsworth's genius is such as to give a charm to whatever he touches; to "the vast and the minute""the meanest flower that lives," as well as the mightiest orb that rolls. He is the true alchemist, the discoverer of that genuine stone of philosophy which turns all things into gold-extracts good out of evil-wisdom out of ignorance strength out of weakness. Every soil becomes fertile under his husbandry. His spirit can wake the rose in the wilderness, and call forth the fresh waters from the barren rock.

To a mind less poetic than Wordsworth's, the contemplation of the

to spare and no words to spend upon the interests of the lowly. History, prostituted to the service of those alone who could purchase its servility, has been but too often the blazoner and the burnisher of triumphant_attrocity; her pages have been lent to kings and courtiers, to conquerors and tyrants, while she has generally crushed with her anathema the uprising of heroic poverty against oppression, or passed over with silent scorn the great mass of suffering man. Not in what she has recorded, but in what she has neglected to record, must we look for virtue. She is not to be trusted when she praises, and still less when she condemns. The peoplethe many-have as yet found no advocate in the chronicles of departed days. When shall some virtuous, some generous philosopher arise, strong in eloquence and bold in patriotism, to rescue from the ruins of servile and despotic ages, the heroes and the martyrs of truth and freedom, buried till now amidst the darkness and the desolation of tyranny? O yes! the friends of liberty have an ancestry of which they too may be proud-in every struggle, though unsuccessful in every resistance, though untriumphing-in every word and deed of selfsacrifice is the spirit of their forefathers.

But whither are we tending? We meant only to say, that the events connected with religious changes are amongst the most interesting monuments of other times. The wild, awful, but all-poetic associations connected with Druidical rites; the splendour of the Pantheon of Roman conquerors; the Teutonic mythology; the strange introduction of his Christianity, and its tortuous march, as if

;

leagued itself with corruption and tyranny; the fall of the Papal power; the uprooting of monastic superstitions; the regular, yet obvious development of the spirit of reform; what a variety of thoughts to dwell upon! What virtues, whether gentle or heroic; what vices, whether timid or daring, are not to be found among the actors in the great moral combat spread over so many generations-a combat between the usurping strength of the few, and the suffering patience, or the indignant restlessness, of the many-between improvement and the sinister interests which are opposed to all improvement? That combat still rages; and we may say, in perfect security, that Wordsworth's sympathies are not now where they would have been, had the events passing around us at this moment been the events of centuries gone by.

In truth, since Wordsworth changed his politics, his writings have lost much of their charm. When he goes far back into other days, and moves out of the influence of present prejudices, he can be led by all the glowing inspiration of his genius; but when he approaches modern times, he dares not-he dares not give vent to the thoughts that must intrude on him. He would hurl no denunciations like these at the clergy of his day, however richly deserved, or obviously invited:

"Woe to you, Prelates! rioting in ease And cumbrous wealth-the shame of

and the will." In justice we must notice here, that the Bishops of the Catholic Church (especially in the Peninsula) form a singular contrast to the Episcopal bench at home; they are unaffected, enlightened, accessible; they leave no vast wealth accumulated "in the church's service" to their heirs; and be it remembered, their authority is of a much higher character than any that is claimed by the mitred prelates of the Anglican Church.

We stumble at the very threshold. Here is a poet that tells us, in these our "evil days," that "Liberty has found its natural resting-place in victory" (p. 3). What! when Europe is filled with one indignant cry,-though smothered, not less indignant-that a horde of despots have dared, and, alas, too successfully dared, to stem the progress of "the noble stream" of freedom; when hundreds of thousands of hired and brutal soldiery are leagued against the progress of human right and human happiness; when Finland and Poland and Italy and Holland and Greece-not to speak of France and Germany-are writhing under an accursed yoke; and every colour of the map marks some region enslaved or enslaving;-in such a moment are we taunted with the triumphs of liberty? But what cares Wordsworth for liberty? Yes! while its influence was employed against that illegitimate robber who betrayed again and again the cause of which he ought to have been the foremost champion, Wordsworth had sympathy and poetry, with which to hallow it; but where is his when tyranny is no longer grounded anger, where are his execrations now, on the horrible and execrable plea of on the tangible principle of force, but divine and legitimate right? He visits Holland-her glories are in the dust, her people are in sackcloth and ashes, -has he breathed a thought of indignation? He crosses Germany-her citizens have been cozened and be trayed by their tyrants, has he one anathema in store? He passes the Alps and sings the Jung-frau. He sees Switzerland crowded with the persecuted heroes of freedom,-has he one tone of pity? He treads the land of Alfieri and Fillacaja,-he knows it is crushed and trampled on by the savages of Hungary, by Croates and the barbarians of the Danube,

But we have no commissionerships of stamps and taxes to give.

Have we aught to console us? Yes! even of those who have deserted us we have had the best services. The harps of recreants are "vain and voiceless" when they touch the wonted chords. The young enthusiasm of early and hallowed devotion is passed away. They sell their laurels, but they have been plucked from the tree on which they grew-they have lost their brightness and their beauty; the stem of the flower is broken: it may be held up once, but it fades swiftly, and for ever.

We will not dwell on thoughts like these. In speaking of Wordsworth we wish they could be exiled, we almost wish he could exile them-we would fain meet him in a sphere where they need not intrude. We will for

get them. The storm of our indigna

tion hath ceased:

The storm hath ceased, the birds regain

Their cheerfulness, and busily retrim Their nests, or chaunt a gratulating hymn

To the blue ether and bespangled plain."

P. 9. Many of the events of the early Church history are wrought up with touching beauty. We cannot do justice to the whole by any series of quotations. The sympathies of the poet, always eloquent, are not, however, dependent on facts or on convictions, but on prejudices and passions.

Wordsworth's Apology" may be quoted, for the Sonnet is an admirable

line

Shall draw, the limits of the power define,

That even imperfect faith to man af

fords ?"

P. 20.

frown.

Ease from this noble Miser of his time
No moment steals; pain narrows not
his cares.
P. 28.

There is little indignation expressed on the arrival of the Normans: though they broke up all popular institutions, and destroyed every vestige of liberty, though they introduced an hereditary aristocracy, founded on force and fraud, which sacrificed every thing to its unrestrained usurpations, we have the tame assurance that this thraldrom 56 brings to Religion no injurious change."-P. 33.

The Sonnet to Wickliffe is rich in poetry and beauty:

"Once more the Church is seized with sudden fear,

And at her call is Wicliffe disinhumed:

Yea, his dry bones to ashes are con

And

sumed,

flung into the brook that travels

Before her wain begins on heaven's blue coast. P. 60.

There are two Sonnets in laud of Edward the Sixth. We know nothing in that youth's conduct or character which could lead to the reasonable expectation that he would have been better than those who went before or those who followed him. If his intentions were good, his deeds were execrable. If his early tears can wash away the stains of his after errors, they have more virtue than the tears of meaner men. If Edward was not a cruel and a wicked young man, he was a miserably weak and silly one; but he was a monarch, and must have his portion of praise.

A noble Sonnet, (p. 75,) and repeated in the volume of Memorials, p. 14, meant to illustrate the "Gunpowder Plot," might with much more correctness be applied to the magnificent array of despotic power, which so often blinds and deludes the gazer and conceals the terrors which are linked to it:

"The Virgin Mountain, wearing like a

writhe,

Deafening the region in his ireful mood." P. 75,

Laud is one of our poet's heroesa saint and patriot." His death was, however, so fine and noble, that we would fain forget it was the last scene of such a life,

has done justice, (p. 83,) and to the To Charles the Second, Wordsworth Nonconformists too, if they can be discovered in the crowd under their new name.

"Nor shall the eternal roll of praise reject

Those Unconforming; whom ope rigorous day

Drives from their Cures, a voluntary prey
To poverty and grief, and disrespect,
And some to want as if by tempest
On a wild coast; how destitute! did
wreck'd
They

Feel

not that Conscience never can be.

tray,

That peace of mind is Virtue's sure effect. Their Altars they forego, their homes they quit,

Fields which they love, and paths they daily trod,

And cast the future upon Providence ;

As men the dictate of whose inward

There is no truth in the notion that the Revolution in 1688 was a popular one. Wordsworth calls William the Third

"Conqueror beloved! expected anxiously!"

P. 88.

Did he ever read the history of his early reception in the West of England? He was "anxiously expected," no doubt, by those placemen who had been dismissed by James, and who, for their selfish interests, plotted the overthrow of the Stuarts; but no

revolution was ever so worthless in its results as that which brought in the House of Orange.

Several of the Sonnets are dedicated to New Churches," Cathedrals," "College Chapels," &c.

"Bright ladders to the world above;" and the poet seems to consider their architectural beauties worthy of Him