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30

Moral Deficiency of Methodism.

instead of being lessened, have of late years become more abundant; my mind cannot but feel an emotion of surprise at the indications of a tainted system where such extraordinary pretensions are set up to virtue and piety. The multiplication of convictions, and the reports that have been made upon the depravity of the lower orders of the community, are as little to the credit of the religious associations upon which we pride ourselves, as to the legislative assembly to whose united wisdom and exertions the people are ever eager to turn in all cases of difficulty. Yet in spite of penal laws on the one hand, and of benevolent establishments on the other, the population continues to be vitiated in a most alarming degree, and one generation only leaves a worse behind it, with the prospect of another still more depraved to follow. This is no exaggerated sketch, for the records at the Old Bailey, and the walls of our prisons and penitentiary houses, to say nothing of the streets at large, bear dreadful evidence to the fact. Now were this a nation just emerging from barbarism, or escaped from the fiery ordeal of a revolution, much allowance might be made for the awful anomaly. But when it is considered that for the space of one hundred and fifty years, England has enjoyed the benefit of a restored constitution, and that for full a century past liberty has spread its wings over all her borders, may it not well excite wonder to behold a mass of licentiousness bidding defiance to all moral application and legal enactments? A field of enquiry here presents itself which calls for the most diligent aud scrutinizing examination; and that not so much into the ramifications of an evil which seems to have gained a fixed root in our soil, as to the inadequacy of the various means employed for its eradication or correction. It requires no extraordinary skill in political science to perceive that defective laws and inefficient institutions, serve but to strengthen and render more injurious what they were designed to remove or prevent. The inquiry therefore should be directed to the state of our penal code and the inoperative efforts of those instruments which have received public encouragement under a persuasion that they were calculated to improve the manners and principles of the people. Much has been done in the investigation of particular sources of moral corruption, and some good no doubt has been accomplished; but after all, this is scarcely any thing better than lopping off a few

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straggling shoots, or cutting up some of the underwood in the entangling maze of mischief. Visionary schemes are continually obtruded upon public attention by men ambitious of fame, or needy adventurers seeking employment; but experience shews that all such devices are only productive of private advantage, and that after imposing upon the credulous for a short time, they end in smoke, or leave the state of the body politic worse than it was before these empirical experiments were made to better its condition.

The public encouragement of new projects in whatever concerns the morals of the people has a natural tendency to weaken the influence of old establishments, and to beget a spirit of disobedience where it did not previously exist. Considering, therefore, how fashionable the rage for novelty has become in matters where it would have been better to have "sought for the old paths of experience and to have walked therein;" may we not without offence demand of the zealous promoters of innovation what are the fruits of the religious changes that have already taken place?

Methodism, for instance, has now subsisted, and been in active exercise for the space of four score years, a time surely of sufficient length to have warranted the expectation of an abundant harvest, But can it be said that after the multiplication of meetings, the accumulation of immense funds, establishments for foreign missions, and the passing of new protecting statutes in their favour, these sectaries have contributed in any perceptible degree to the improvement of the morals of the people? It will be no satisfactory answer to say that many sinners have been turned from darkness to light, and that the face of things has undergone a great alteration in this or that village, through the instrumentality of the licensed itinerant teachers. All this may be very true, and yet the flattering changes upon which such expectations were formed, may have been as evanescent as the mist of the morning, which is absorbed by the solar heat and leaves no trace of fructification behind.

Within half the period that Methodism has occupied in our history, the face of the Roman empire in the east and west was materially affected by the progress of Christianity, and that too in the midst of the severest trials which the hand of tyranny could inflict upon the preachers of the gospel and those who

1818.1 Sir F. Bourgeois-Observations on a Letter to Lord Byron. 31

SIR,

BYRON.

EXALTED genius, like exalted virtue, however duly it may be honoured by those who are capable either of appreciating its worth, or emulating its example, is, nevertheless proportionably exposed to the bitterest shafts of envy and detraction. It occupies an elevated situation in the world, but

confessed it. Yet in this enlightened OBSERVATIONS ON A LETTER TO LORD country where toleration protects every religious denomination, an immense engine has been in exercise for more than two generations, under the direction of no ordinary hands, and avowed ly employed in reforming the people without having wrought an effect correspondent to to its professions and means. On the contrary while every village has its meeting-house, a universal outery is heard upon the vitiation of manners and the increase of crimes. This question, therefore, forces itself upon the mind, whence is it that under such circumstances and with so vast an influence methodism has not succeeded in an equal proportion in depopulating gaols, as in founding and filling conventicles?

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GALLERY OF SIR FRANCIS BOURGEOIS.
MR. EDITOR,

IN reply to your correspondent who enquires for some particulars respecting the picture gallery founded at Dulwich College, I send you the following brief information. Sir Francis Bourgeois, a Swiss by birth, who had long resided in this country, and acquired both fortune and reputation by his profession as an historical painter, became desirous of securing his valuable collection of pictures for the benefit of the art. With this view he made an offer of the same to the British Museum, the trustees of which threw such obstacles in his way as induced him to transfer his proposal to other quarters. Strange to say he met with a cold reception also from the heads of other institutions in the metropolis on which he tendered his collection to the master, warden and fellows of the College of God's gift at Dulwich by whom it was accepted, and whose building is now enriched by this bequest in addition to the pictures of Mr. William Cartwright formerly given to the same society. Sir Francis, besides his donation of paintings, gave 10,000l. to keep them in preservation, 2000l. for the fitting up of the gallery, and legacies of 10001. each to the principal and chaplain of the college.*

G.S.

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"To be the mark where wrong Aims with her poisoned arrows;" and whilst it is an object of admiration to such as have sense to discern, and liberality enough to allow its merits, elicits also the hatred and malevolence of those who, destitute of virtue, and barren in understanding, would sully the purity of the spring they are not permitted to taste. I am led to offer these observations, from the perusal of a letter in Blackwood's magazine of last month to Lord Byron, in which the writer puts forth as much bitterness and malignity against that noble bard, as ever disgraced the annals of the press. Indeed I should scarcely have thought it necessary to notice so vile a superfetation of "envy, hatred, and uncharitableness," had it not occurred to me, that were such calumnies suffered to pass. with impunity, their author might possibly delude himself into a belief, that his extravagant and unmanly insinuations had been received, and in some measure tolerated by the public.

It should then appear from the poetical "notices to correspondents," which Mr. Blackwood has prefixed to what he is pleased to term his "peerless magazine," that he has in his employ certain furbishers of falsehood for his pages, who amuse themselves by doing into-letters-if we may be allowed the termthe characters of individuals justly entitled to the highest consideration and respect, and infusing into these compositions as much personality and abuse as they may deem necessary, either to round their periods with becoming effect, or produce what may be mistaken for originality of thought and energy of style. The traducer towards whom these observations are particularly directed, has undertaken to supply this publication with what, in the cant phrase of the day, is denominated "sauce piquante, and under the occasional signatures of "Idoloclastes," "Presbyter Anglicanus," &c., to calumniate all the authors of the day, whose writings shall have obtained for

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Observations on a Letter to Lord Byron.

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It seems, therefore, from these extracts, that a batch of letters has been received"breathing the very soul of bile," against five gentlemen, who, however objectionable their political principles, must be allowed to occupy a very high situation in this Augustan age of literature; but the bard of Lalla Rookh- a production which will be read with delight as long as the language in which it is written shall exist--the translator of Anacreon, "the poet of all circles, and the idol of his own," is to be carped at, his intentions misrepresented, and his character traduced, and all this because, in the first place, his splendid talents have procured for him a degree of public favour which renders every thing said of him of more than common interest to the world; and in the next to gratify the depraved appetites of some few creatures of idleness and dissipation, who, too feeble to contest with genius, are gratified only by the dark and malignant whisperings of its enemies. I have been led imperceptibly into this slight tribute of admiration for Mr. Moore, being well assured that no opinion of mine can raise him higher in public estimation than he at present stands; but there is an individual from whom, by the vilest and most unjustifiable calumnies, the tide of popular applause has been in some measure turned: one who has been elevated by fame to the loftiest pinnacle of her temple but to render him the more liable to the shafts of envy and

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malignity. It is almost needless to observe that this "man of many sorrows" is Lord Byron. Foiled in their impotent attacks upon his poetic reputation, his enemies would fain blacken and deform him in his character and conduct as a man. Well and truly has he said: "From mighty wrongs to petty perfidy

Have 1 not seen what human things
could do?

From the loud roar of foaming calumny
To the small whisper of the as paltry few,
And subtler venom of the reptile crew.

The Janus glance of whose significant

eye,

Learning to lie with silence, would seem true,

And without utterance save the shrug or sigh,

Deal round to happy fools its speechless obloquy."

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Lord Byron has had to defend himself, not so much" from the arrow that flieth at noon day," as from the pestilence that walketh in darkness." He has been the mark

For blight and desolation compassed round With hatred and contention;" but bursting through the crude deformity of his enemies with redoubled splendour on each assault, he has driven them to a state of roaring idiotcy, which occasionally finds vent in that description of general invective and execration on which I now beg leave to offer some remarks.

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The "Letter to the author of Beppo" is ushered in by an affected "Note to the Editor," wherein the writer kindly expresses his concern, that all the critics who have ever commented upon Lord Byron's poetry should have been led away by a (pardonable) enthusiasın in favor of his genius, to award to him a greater degree of fame as a poet than agreed with the notions which he (Presbyter Anglicanus) had long ago formed of the talents and character of that illustrious bard." He goes on to state that Lord Byron has no where so fully de-, veloped the "baseness of his principles" as in his "Venetian Story," and that "he has degraded his genius by a series of cool sarcasms, in ridicule of the fidelity of English wives," and after besmearing the editor of the "Edinburgh Review" with his awkward flattery, this qualified critic finishes his "Note" and introduces his "Letter."

Your limits will not allow me to make such quotations from the poem of Beppo as would exhibit the falsehood of this assertion in its fullest light; yet surely the

1818.]

Observations on a Letter to Lord Byron.

testimony of all the periodical critics of the day is to be depended upon. It would be singular enough, if what has been pronounced by all who have seen it as an ingenious and lively satire on the vices of an Italian metropolis, should turn out to be a series of cool sarcasms against the fidelity of English wives! But mark the inconsistency of this sneaking malignant: he takes occasion frequently in the course of his letter to abuse Lord Byron for the deep and melancholy tone of his writings, calls him "the most lugubrious of mortals," affects to "disbelieve that he had ever any real cause for sorrow," and states that "he howled by day upon the house top, and called upon the world to admire his song of lamentation, and join in its doleful chorus," and after having expressed that "these have been his notions of Lord Byron's poetry for some years,' as soon as ever his Lordship publishes a harmless jeu d'esprit-in the words of one of the first critics of the day, "with as little serious meaning as can well be imagined, except that of being a lively and playful satire"-he immediately breaks forth into the most furious and insane invectives against him, and deplores "that he should have thrown from him the harp of the mighty, which, when he dashed his fingers over the strings, faded as was the harmony, and harsh the execution, were still made for their listening, who had loved the solemn music of the departed!" What rational readers will be enabled to comprehend of such bathos as this I know not, but their risible faculties will doubtless be affected, when they are told that this stupendous critic takes the Devil in one hand and lord Byron in the other, and after having paced up and down 16 columns of Mr. Blackwood's Edinburgh magazine, and made various comparisons between them, in which the "Prince of Darkness has always the advantage of his Lordship, he settles the point by declaring it to be his conviction that Satan is by far the noblest character of the two; for that our poet "has all the malevolence of a demon without the generosity of the superior fiend!"

Of the opinions of all critics who have ever spoken favourably of Lord Byron's genius, this "Presbyter Anglicanus" has an utter contempt; he considers their praise as "sneaking adulation," and the "shouts of the vulgar" &c. so that out

Probably ever since the appearance of the English bards and Scotch reviewers.

NEW MONTHLY MAC.-No. 55.

of the thousands of all nations, who have descanted upon his Lordship's poetry, this person would fain delude himself into a belief, that he alone has exhibited the slightest perception, either in appreciating its merits, or exhibiting its defects. He would endeavour to persuade the public that the opinions of such men as Moore, Gifford, Rogers, Scott, Southey, Campbell, &c. sink into comparative nothingness as soon as he puts forth his sentiments upon the point in question. Yet these, the most illustrious names of which this age can boast, have all and each expressed the most exalted eulogiums on the bard who, according to the statement made by this pettyfogging traducer, “has, with wanton hypocrisy, tortured their feelings, and, with cool contemptuousness, insulted their' principles." The noblest poets and critics of the age have admitted to their most intimate friendship and association the man "who is the enemy of his species, and whose poetry need not to have been different from what it is, although he had lived and died in the midst of a generation of heartless and unbelieving demons." They have shewn themselves proud in publicly testifying their esteem for the Being "whose heroism is lunacy, whose philosophy is folly, whose virtue is a cheat, and whose religion is a bubble !"-Yet such are the conclusions which must be drawn, if any credit is to be attached to the assertions of this base vituperator of genius. He further states that it is not his purpose to describe, or attempt to describe, wherein Lord Byron differs from other great poets who have preceded him, "but when he expresses an opinion which he acknowledges to be different from that of the world at large, it is incumbent on him to offer something like a valid testimony; some proof in support of that opinion, unless, as in the present instance," he is conscious of having offered to the public, a tissue of glaring and indefensible falsehoods.

I should not have condescended to honour, with this particular notice, a production, so entirely divested of all manly sentiment and liberality, as the "letter to the author of Beppo," had I not felt it my duty to express my decided reprehension that a petty scribbler should continue to pour forth the vile and paltry ebullitions of his malice, merely because he imagines that his insignificance will secure him from the chastisement to which he is so justly entitled.

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