examples of Greece and Rome. Add to the glory of the good actions which are so common in your country the merit, perhaps no less honourable, of knowing how to celebrate them.

I mean to set bounds to myself in this discussion. I shall not speak of the BOYLE discourses,* which are

same nice observer, referring to the eminently skilful way in which he balanced his phrases, sailed near the wind, and seemed to disclose much while he kept the greater part of his meaning to himself, declared that he verily believed that Mr. Pitt could speak a king's speech off-hand. His declamation was admirable, mingling with and clothing the argument, as to be good for anything it always must, and no more separable from the reasoning than the heat is from the metal in a stream of lava. Yet, with all this excellence, the last effect of the highest eloquence was for the most part wanting; we seldom forgot the speaker or lost the artist in the work. He was earnest enough; he seemed quite sincere; he was moved himself as he would move us; we even went along with him and forgot ourselves, but we hardly forgot him; and, while thrilled with the glow which his burning words diffused, or transfixed with wonder at so marvellous a display of skill, we yet felt that it was admiration of a consummate artist which filled us, and that, after all, we were present at an exhibition, gazing upon a wonderful performer indeed, but still a performer."-Am. Ed.

* Sermons preached by different able divines at the lecture founded by the Hon. Mr. BOYLE.

Concerning these Mr. Knox observes, that "they are among the best argued in our language. They have been the laboured productions of the most ingenious men. But

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entirely argumentative dissertations. I shall not detain myself with the sermons of CLARKE ;* they are written with such metaphysical abstraction, that it is difficult to comprehend in the retirement of the closet the discourses of this well-known rector of St. James's.†

SECTION XLVII.

OF TILLOTSON.

THE eloquence of TILLOTSON, archbishop of Canterbury, is highly esteemed. I have read his ser

the whole collection never did so much as a single practical discourse of Tillotson."-Knox's Essays, No. 168.

SAMUEL CLARKE, D.D., rector of St. James's, Westminster. Dr. Clarke's principal sermons were those preached at Boyle's lecture on "The Being and Attributes of God," and "The Evidences of Natural and Revealed Religion;" besides which, there are published many other sermons of his, preached on particular occasions. Dr. Clarke was born 1673, died 1729.

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Dr. BLAIR's character of this divine is as follows: "Dr. CLARKE everywhere abounds in good sense, and the most clear and accurate reasoning: his applications of Scripture are pertinent; his style is always perspicuous, and often elegant; he instructs, and he convinces in what, then, is he deficient? In nothing, except in the power of interesting and seizing the heart. He shows you what you ought to do, but excites not the desire of doing it he treats man as if he were a being of pure intellect, without imagination or passions."-BLAIR's Lectures, vol. ii., p. 223.

+ For brief notices of American Oratory, see Appendix.

mons with the strictest impartiality, and these are my sentiments of the works of this prelate, who is universally regarded as the first orator of England.

TILLOTSON is an excellent writer. His principal merit consists in the style. He must, therefore, be much injured by a translation, in which the vernacular expression is lost, and especially by such a translator as Barbeyrac, who was always deficient in sublimity, in embellishment, in energy, and in elegance. But while we acknowledge all the faults of this French version, the subject-matter of the Archbishop of Canterbury's sermons still remains far inferior to the discourses of Massillon and Bourdaloue.

ist.

TILLOTSON is more of a theologian than a moralHe scarcely ever discussed any other than controversial subjects. He employs the same dull modes of syllogism or dissertation, and merely habituates himself to an insipid uniformity of method.

I discover in his discourses no rhetorical movements, no great ideas, no sublime strokes: he generally divides every paragraph, and has thirty or forty subdivisions in each of his sermons. His particulars are insipid, futile, and often devoid of excellence. In short, Tillotson is so much a stranger to the art of eloquence, that he scarcely ever makes an exordium or a peroration. Is this, then, the orator whom they are bold enough to put in competition with our French preachers ?*

* MAURY had no good reason whatever to bring Archbishop Tillotson forward as the person generally esteemed

But, not to confine ourselves to indefinite criticism, let us hasten to substantiate the grounds of our opinion.

In his sermon “On Prejudices against Religion," Tillotson starts an objection, drawn from the opposition which man finds between his duty and his inclinations.* This objection he copies from the tragedy of Mustapha, by Fulke, lord Brooke, from which he recites in the pulpit a series of verses. Is a quotation of this sort worthy of the majesty of a church?† the first orator among English divines. For soundness and strength of argument, few of his own country have exceeded, and none of the French divines have equalled, the celebrated and worthy archbishop. His warmest admirers have never esteemed him as a first-rate orator, but have agreed with the general opinion in placing him in rather an inferior situation of that class. He is, however, a great favourite among his countrymen, who attend so much to the sapere from the pulpit as to neglect the fari to a faulty degree. Let it be recollected that he has been the most powerful, the unanswerable opponent of the Romish Church, and that Maury has indulged himself in attacking the Protestant Church on the weakest side of its most formidable champion, while he has affected to overlook many others less obnoxious, whose claim to oratory he dared not to controvert. * Vol. iv., p. 35.

+ Maury has thought it inexpedient to recollect that some of the writers of the Holy Scripture, that Arnobius, Lactantius, and the generality of the ancient fathers, and the most learned writers in every age of the Church, have embellished their composition, supported their arguments, and elucidated their observations by quotations from clas

"The passions," he adds, "are a kind of glue, fastening us to things low and terrestrial.*† Scarcely

"The

sic authors of every description, from tragedians and comedians, as well as poets, historians, and philosophers. To adduce no more instances, has not St. Paul, in his very sublime argument on the resurrection, 1 Cor., xv., 33, made a quotation from the comic Menander, "Evil communications corrupt good manners?" Has he not, in his epistle to Titus, i., 12, quoted from Epimenides, Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, slow bellies?" Has not St. Luke, in his memoirs of the Acts of the Apostles, xvii., 28, informed us that St. Paul made a quotation, which was from Aratus, "For we are also his offspring?" And has not St. Peter, 2d epistle, ii., 22, quoted two proverbs, which the learned generally suppose to have been from some comic writer whose works are lost, "The dog is turned to his own vomit again, and the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire?" Did not Maury recollect these and many others; or had rancour benumbed his faculties, and obliterated every impression of memory; or did prejudice warp him, with his eyes open, from the region of truth? * Vol. i., p. 168.

+ Tillotson's expressions are, "The lusts and passions of men do sully and darken their minds, even by a natural influence. Intemperance, and sensuality, and fleshly lusts debase men's minds and clog their spirits, make them gross and foul, listless and inactive; they sink us down into sense, and glue us to these low and inferior things: like bird-lime, they hamper and entangle our souls, and hinder our flight upward; they indispose and unfit our minds for the most noble and intellectual considerations." -TILLOTSON, Vol. i., serm. iv., 7th ed., 8vo, p. 153.