Smooth the rough path to adjectives and nouns,

Make Commentators of our very clowns,

Inform all ranks, and wake to second birth

415

The soul that slumbers in each mass of earth!
Yet, ere thy splendour have dispell'd the night,
And cleans'd the,film from ev'ry mortal sight,
Stay the rude clamour which denies thee praise,
Impedes thy progress and thy hope delays;

Which bids thee even friendly aid reject,

That might, perchance, add influence to a sect,
And, too desirous to reform the nation,

Make Quakers of the rising generation.

420

For such the cry, which, feebly rais'd at first, 425 On Cam's smooth side from stern Professors burst;

NOTES.

* Dr. Herbert Marsh, F. R. S. and Margaret Professor of Divinity at Cambridge, the firm opposer of Joseph Lancaster, and all who have the misfortune to differ from the Professor in opinion. He is an able controversialist, but rather too fond of

Then, as its echo, faintly borne along,

Swell'd by the voices of a mitred throng,

With the warm impulse of mistaken zeal

Would clog with party, what the world should feel.

While these the mists of prejudice explore,

Few "scent the tainted gale from Gallia's shore*.”

NOTES.

the "distinction without a difference." (See his Pamphlets on the Bible Societies.)

* The circumstances here alluded to are so atrocious, that I can hardly mention them with any degree of temper; but

I will not be myself, nor have cognition

Of what I feel, I am all patience.

TROIL. and CRESS.

Pierre le Courayer, a Foreigner of the Romish Church, inclining in some points to Protestantism, is denounced by the Ecclesiastical Authorities of his Country, and, with the tremendous

Reviewers, fond of dubious knowledge grown,

Add to the sceptics' arguments, their own.

Bell, too, Socinus' free disciple loves,

And madly edits what he disapproves ;

435

NOTES.

ban of excommunication upon his head, takes refuge in England. He is there received "with great kindness and hospitality," and finally admitted into the highest circles, with the warmest spirit of liberality. In habits of intimacy with many respectable characters, and beneath the protecting shadow of the Throne, he meditates an attack upon the sacred truths of the Gospel. His work is received, without distrust, by a Princess of the Blood Royal, and (hear it, Posterity!) a Dignitary of the Church gives the sanction of his name to a production, which appears to be a libel upon the Articles of his Faith, and an insult to that Church of which he is a member! Still more:-The Critical Reviewers defend the arguments of the Work, and the character of its Author; and add their "all-sufficient suffrage" to the cause of Unitarianism. But, Courayer still remains unanswered, Dr. Bell meets with no reproof, and the sale of the Critical Review is in nowise decreased by this open avowal of Deistical sentiments. O tempora!

With fatal candour saves the latest breath
Of hoary Arians, on the verge of death,
To blast th' eternity that Hope design'd,
And ward the arm of mercy from mankind!

440

Yet, 'tis but just, -a pious, grave divine,
May surely now and then his cares resign;
May leave of souls th' unprofitable cure,
For tasks more sweet, and profits far more sure.

Or grant the Public's superstitious fears
Forbid to pay the Printer's "long arrears,"
The Doctor's kindness yet more strongly shows,
Who ventures thus these tenets to disclose,
And risks at once the censure of the Town,
The loss of Friends, of Benefice, of Gown.

Thus far I've wander'd from my gen'ral plan,
Rose, from the follies, to the faults of Man,

445

450

And shall I then recede; nor raise th' alarm*

Against the efforts of an impious arm,

NOTES.

* It had been supposed, and perhaps with some reason, that the

age of Infidelity had passed away; that the virulent attacks of a Volney and a Paine had perished with the insidious attempts of a Voltaire and a Rousseau; that Religion had no longer any enemies to fear but her own children; and that her danger now arose, not so much from sceptics as from sectarians. It was reserved for Sir W. Drummond and his precursor in the paths of doubt and danger, (M. Dupuis,) to rouse once more the dormant embers to a flame, that, but for them, had died comparatively harmless and unknown.

M. Dupuis published, at Paris, in 1795, "Origine de tous les Cultes, ou Religion universelle," and "Memoire explicatif du Zodiaque Chronologique et Mythologique;" both of which have been fortunately but little read in this country. I say fortunately; for it is the tendency of the mind, however glaring the errors, or absurd the arguments to which it may be exposed in the examination of an attack upon long-received truths, to imbibe a forcible remembrance of the assertions that have tended to ridicule or controvert those truths; and which, although they may have