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world by auction. If that fprightly author was deiftical, I hope it cannot be truly affirmed that he was atheistical. If his Candide feems to bear hard on the goodness of Providence, it may be attributed to the reverberation of extremes propagated by others, and to his impatience of Pope's fatalifm, differing from that of others in imputing the diforders of the world to the Supreme Being; whereas other fatalists annul his Providence, by fubftituting nature in its place; but each system alike cuts up morality and virtue by the roots. Whatever is, is right, without qualification, is directly contradictory to the fact that evil ever entered the world at all, and of which truth nobody was more fenfible than Pope himself, who was fo fond of dealing out the appellations of knave and villain, words, I apprehend, without meaning, if wrong had never been committed; fo that the axiom renders Johnfon's culpable representation of Pope's epiftolary fatires, that he could not hope to mend the world, true indeed, as it could want no mending. Nevertheless, every person of found piety and religion hopes and believes, that through the controlling providence of God, which faid to the fea, Thus far fhalt thou go and no farther,' all disorders will be at length rectified, and that all will finally be right. Indeed Johnfon's morality, interfperfed through his biography, is of an indifferent, vulgar, worldly, and warped into a fufpicious caft, that feemed to confute Pope's pofition. But indeed, as fays Shakespeare's Timon, those who hastily blame perfons for being captivated with the blandifhments of pleafure, are fuch as never experienced it. So it may be alledged that Johnson wrote his rigid precepts of morality when a bulk, not a fopha, was his feat of reft; that he had been a flave whom Fortune's tender art with favour never clasped.' For as adverfity is excellently denominated a school, fo is profperity a fnare. However, a man of his understanding should at all times have reserved amo meliora for an apology, and not have left the heathen ftoics, men who, on account of their felf-denial, deferve the appellation of natural Christians, the palm of moral philofophy.

Of paradoxes, the former part of the twenty-fecond verfe of the third chapter of Genefis, And the Lord God faid, behold the man (the woman is not mentioned) is become as one of us, to know good and evil'-feems to prefent one. Yet may it not be refolved in this manner? That before their fall, Adam and Eve knew not, were unacquainted with the mixed condition enfuing to the world, having experienced nothing but good, unfophifticated with evil. As to the latter part of this verfe, and now left he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever,' it is beyond my refolution; for to interpret it that mankind, how brutal foever they are, and like the beasts that perish, will not be immortal; or that the wicked will not be fo, though a feemingly defirable thing, and that many are called, but few are chosen,' with fome few other texts, are to be understood in fuch a fenfe, feems rafh and heterodox. And that Mrs. Piozzi, in her expreffion that our author's excellence was beyond that of perifhable beings, alluded to that of Scripture, like the beafts that perifh,' is a prefumption ftill lefs juftifiable, I may here obferve that one Francis Ofborn has a curious remark on the

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words, The feed of the woman fhall bruise the ferpent's head;'that the meaning might be, that he who should do it, would be born of a woman only.'

To fave our readers the trouble of gueffing, we acquaint them the above is extracted from a critique on the life of Waller. After this we have a few more lines, in which the name of Waller appears; these introduce Cromwell-fanaticifm-Pope's axiom, that mankind are always fools-the Irish propofitionsthe dragon in the Revelations--and the French king. Then Waller again ventures to fhew himself, but is foon drove from the field by Cromwell, Cefar, Sylla, Diogenes, Alexander, and Pompey. Then for a moment behold a race of puritans, and catholics, and priests, for whose numerous tricks, which, by Divine Providence, are made to produce their own cure, we refer our reader to the paffage itfelf; where he will find many merry conceits extracted from the writings of that queer dog Francis Ofborn. In the life of Dryden is the following pithy little paragraph:

There is an odd relation that Dryden should think a fit of the gripes neceffary to defcribe a hero in love. Indeed a metaphysician, or a methodist, might benefit the spirit by purging off the grofs parts. Soon after we find our author calling his father an old bookfeller. He was hardly always old;-though perfons have been faid to have been born drunk.'

Yet this life contains much serious and juft reafoning, a difplay of true tafte, and more candour than we geuerally meet with. The life of Addifon has fimilar claims; it is befides well-connected and interefting. We might fay the fame of many others; and perhaps impartiality may expect an extract of a different kind from those we have produced; but the use of extracts is to give a specimen of the character of a work; and we conceive what we have offered fufficient for that purpose, as far as relates to the critique on the lives. A conclufion is added, in which Johnson and his works are alternately cenfured and praised, and this in the true ftyle of antithefis, our author's favourite figure. After accufingpofthumous editors of making the world the confeffor of Johnson's weaknesses, of his 'methodism, commixed as they were with literary butchery and favagenefs,' he clofes with the following eulogium or apology, or whatever name the reader chooses:

Of his works; though they have little of originality, and his style has a certain atrabiliousness, and his tiffue of paragraphs an unpleafing quaintnefs, it must be confessed that his Dictionary, Rambler, and the two imitative translations of Juvenal, &c. are very excellent; and that these Lives of the English Poets contain a fund of very valuable general criticism, and that his remarks on Pope's Epitaphs are fingularly

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fingularly acute, and for the most part juft. But the coarfenefs of his conftitution, his vigorous mind being perhaps vitiated or degraded by the groffness of his body, vibrated not to the delicate touches of a Shenstone and a Hammond, nor even to the ftronger hand of a Gray, but gravitated by the weight of that in which it was inclofed to earth. Johnfon's feelings were more ordinary than fine, which indeed accounts for his popularity; more nervous than elevated ; and I take Hawkefworth to have been at least his equal in fublimity; and that the author of the Adventurer deferves one hiftory of his life.'

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Johnfon feldom writes to fupply the fancy; nor vifibly ironically fo as to difcover fuch a purpose to the reader; but in a continual jog trot of didactic, allowing no holiday He conftantly addreffes himself to the understanding, makes no excurfions into the regions of fpirits, beyond this vifible diurnal sphere,' nor effays knowledge denied to ears of flesh and blood;' nor even wishes to ftray beyond the walks of mere modern life, back to the regions of Gothic fancy. His timid, impalpable, dreary religion permitted him not to expatiate in the field of hypothefis and conjecture; reveries, vain perhaps, yet amufing; the food of the foul, and a refuge from the miferies and calamities of life. Terribly afraid of free-thinking, though not hoftile to free-eating, he immersed in dogma and superftition, fearing to make ufe of reafon as a mediator between extremes. He had the anxiety and yearning of the Pfalmift without the joy and exultation: fuch as repel from a pleafant contemplation of the Deity, and inftead of imparting delight, make men fhrink back from eternity, and exhibit the idea of death terrible; fuch as pluck away the rofe buds of ideal hope from the hour of the feparation of foul and body, and point it only with thorns. But thefe maladies, and his other defects and faults, candour will partially fet down to his frame of body, ill adapted to a perfect mind, and acknowledge him, with whofe anecdotes the prefs teemed, to have been no inconfiderable perfon, but a great author, notwithstanding his Dictionary is imperfect, his Rambler pompous, his Idler inane, his lives unjust, his poetry inconfiderable, his learning common, his ideas vulgar, his Irene a child of mediocrity, his genius and wit moderate, his precepts worldly, his politics narrow, and his religion bigotted.'

After the conclufion the author, perhaps fufpecting fome of his readers might be afleep, treats them with a dream. In this, laying afide all regard to unities and times, and affuming the privilege of a fituation in which inconfiftencies and inaccuracies become natural,' he appears perfectly at home. Johnfon and Warton converse together, the one alive the other dead, with much pleasantry, fome ftrong traits of character, plenty of farcafm, and fome genuine wit. On the whole, though we have ufed great liberties with this performance, partly we apprehend from having caught the author's manner by reading him, yet it is but juftice to admit we have perufed the greater part of

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the work with pleafure; and would recommend it to all fuch who have leisure to perufe an unconnected performance as an useful appendage to Dr. Johnson's Lives.

ART. X. Twelve Sermons, preached on particular Occafions. By the Rev. Edward Barry, A. M. and M. D. Chaplain to the Right Rev. Lord Bishop of Kildare. 8vo. 6s. boards. Bew. London, 1789.

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WE have heard a worthy bishop fay, with much regret, that popular preachers are very feldom good preachers; and, in the course of our experience, we have found fufficient reason to induce us to subscribe to this opinion. Nor is this to be wondered at; on the flightest examination the cause and effect will be found equally obvious. The few who are bleffed with judgment and tafte, are pleafed only with what is excellent, while the multitude are caught with what is merely extraordinary. With the latter, the whine of tragedy is the true pathetic, and indecent rant the genuine fublime; the extravagant tones and geftures of the theatre the quinteffence of pulpit oratory. Few materials are therefore neceffary, and thofe too not of the most cious kind, to compofe this idol of the many; a plentiful lack of modefty, a tolerable figure, and a voice ftrong and flexible, are all that is requifite to form a popular preacher. No wonder then that the adventurers in this line are fo numerous, when fo little stock is required, when a thriving trade can be carried on at so easy a rate. To the younger clergy the temptation is irrefiftible; they pant after crowded churches, and are intoxicated with baftard fame. They are in due time called upon to preach charity fermons, &c. where the object is to collect a numerous audience, are hence led to confider their own merits as of the highest order, and with confidence to fubmit their productions to the ordeal of the prefs. Here the delufion ends-the verdict of the bearers is reversed-the popular preacher dwindles before the reader to his natural littleness and infignificancy.

The perufal of the Sermons now before us has given rise to these reflections. The author must have been confidered as a popular preacher by his being employed on the feveral public occafions when these fermons were delivered. Let us see then how far they juftify our remarks on this fpecies of preachers. A clergyman, as the teacher of his brethren, fhould be a theologian, fhould be a tolerable reafoner; and if he frequently attempts metaphor, and all the embellishments of rhetoric, he must have taste and judgment to guide him in that dangerous path, otherwise what he conceives to be grand and pathetic,

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will be abfurd and ridiculous. The following extracts will enable the public to form an opinion of Dr. Barry as a divine, as a reafoner, and as an orator.

As a divine he thus fpeaks of our Saviour's crucifixion :

Thus was the dear Immanuel fixed. See the tender Saviour pierced with nails in thofe parts of his body which are so very nervous, and fo fufceptible of torture, and yet delaying death! Bitter cup indeed he drank before; well might he pray his Father, if it were poffible, to pafs it from him. Here he is left racking and weltering in his blood-none to pity, none to condole him; but all reviling-even a thief who fuffered with him. Alas! how keen must have been his torture! how acute his pangs! Picture to yourselves the affecting exhibition-What will you think of fweating great drops of blood with pain? See the mangled Deity worried thus to death, till human nature funk down beyond description! Gored thus barbarously, he groans in the fevereft moment, Eli, Eli, lama fabachthani?'

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In the above extract, the expreffion fee the mangled Deity worried thus to death,' muft ftrike every reader with astonishment, and they will be ready to afk the preacher where he had difcovered that God died upon the crofs, or how it is poffible to mangle a deity? It is true he does not long adhere to this extraordinary herefy, but foon recants, and tells us, Thus ended the human nature of this divine and glorious character.' But we are afraid that, in renouncing one theological error, Dr. Barry has fallen into another; for the human nature of Christ did not end with his death on the cross, but was for ever united with the divine nature. At least fo faith the New Testament, and fo likewife faith the Church of England in the following words: The godhead and manhood were joined together in one perfon, never to be divided.' Against fuch opponents we fufpect the doctor will hardly be able to keep the field.

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We fhall next lay before the public a fpecimen of the doctor's reafoning. In a fermon preached to the convicts in Newgate, he thus addreffes them:

See the loving Saviour longing to embrace his long-loft children! Behold his flowing tears! hearken to his expiring groans! it was all for you!

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Fly to his expanded arms; he longs, he waits to be gracious! Go, contrite beggars, to the riches of his grace, and take every fupply for glory! Stand off, thou proud-ftrutting pharifee, and make room for that poor dejected publican; that Mary Magdalen, that wicked Manaffeh, that perfecuting Saul, that poor convicted criminal, and even that thief, fhall this day be with me in paradise ! What a noble defence is this to put up at the bar of heaven! what a glorious fubject is this to speak on, That the blood of Chrift cleanfeth

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