tures. We accordingly find it in Christ's promise to the Apostles, that He would send the Holy Ghost from the Father; in St. Paul's declaration that we have access through Christ by one Spirit to the Father; and in the Apostolical benediction, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Ghost, be with you all.' What can mark personality more strongly than grace, love, and fellowship? or than the means of access to the Father? or than Christ's sending the Holy Ghost from the Father? And can persons so united with the Almighty be other than God? than one God? for we know from the whole tenour of Scripture, that there is only one God. It appears therefore from the baptismal ordinance, and from the other passages, that the great purpose of the Gospel was to make known the unity of the Godhead in the three divine Persons, the merciful and gracious authors of man's salvation. Tertullian calls the revelation of this faith, the work of the Gospel, and substance of the New Testament.' P, 3. ART. 8. Thanksgiving Sermon, preached in the Episcopal Chapel, Edinburgh, by the Rev. J. Walker, A. M. Minister of that Chapel. Rivingtons. 1814. We are ever ready to hail the exertions of our brethren in Scotland, as to that portion of our primitive and apostolical English Church we feel the most cordial attachment. The labours of such men as Bishops Gleig and Sandford would adorn any age, and to Mr. Allison we are now paying our merited respect. To these and other names we should add, not among the last, that of the reverend author whose sermon is now before us. There is a freedom of conception, and a peculiar copiousness in the language, which is always accompanied with energy, and sometimes rises into eloquence. The author has defended with much vigour the controuling power of Providence over all human affairs, and particularly as it has appeared in the late awful events, to which even the most hardened infidel cannot look back without a humble recognition of the arm of the Almighty directing the storm. "That all nature is under his control, all nature asserts in language which is universally understood. The order and beauty of the universe point out his creative hand; the preservation of that order and beauty proves his sustaining care. The laws of the whole material world were established by his wisdom, and are administered by his constant agency. Nothing is left to chance. There is nothing in the system which we can justly call accident. Even the conduct of moral agents, of angels and of men, both good and bad, though to a certain extent it is free, is yet under the special guidance of Providence. Their conduct is never irre sistibly sistibly controlled. They are permitted to act as their nature, their circumstances, and their disposition of virtue or of vice, direct them. But the consequences are not in their own power. These consequences are ultimately controlled and directed, not always as the agent intended, but as it seemeth best to the sovereign Disposer of all things, and as it shall ultimately be best for the purposes of his moral government. The history of man exhibits this consolatory truth in copious detail. The power and policy of men are frequently baffled, we know not how, and turned, in the most marvellous manner, to their utter contempt and confusion. The weakest means of a good cause, when its utmost strength has been successively tried in vain, are often at length successful, when hope has almost been subjected to despair. The proud expectations and insolent designs of bad men, resting apparently on the most powerful combinations of temporal force, and public opinion, and artful policy, have frequently been blasted in the midst of absolute security, and by means which no human sagacity could imagine or anticipate. The numerous tremendous judgments, and the no less numerous and merciful deliverances, which have visited nations and men, in their respective courses of vice and virtue, cannot, on any principle of science or religion, be justly attributed to accident, or a blind course of events, nor justly or morally understood, without respect to a particular Providence. We may not be able to mark the process in detail; but the general conclusion is irresistible, that they are the Lord's doing, and marvellous in our eyes; that they are examples of the particular providence of God disposing the affairs of men; and proofs that he holds in his own hand the complete superintendence and direct disposal of all things, of time and chance, of human policy and power." P. 8. We are sorry that our limits will not allow a larger extract from this very able discourse; we can only recommend our readers to supply the deficiency by a perusal of the whole, and we can assure them that their expectations will not be disappointed. The notes upon this sermon, which are chiefly of a political tendency, shew the author to be a man of a strong and fertile mind, who has passed a life of much practical observation, no less than deep reflection, who, with all the opportunities afforded him, has neither travelled nor thought in vain. We were much pleased with the substance of the following note:- "It is really amusing, perhaps instructive, to observe the earnestness and emphasis with which it is asserted in conversation, in print, and even in the pulpit, that we owe the blessings in which wẹ now rejoice, to no particular set of men, to no particular train of measures. I readily grant the position, but would qualify its import. I have endeavoured to shew, that we owe these blessings to the mercy of God, and to the marvellous agency of his providence. But i But providence acts through the medium of means. The men and measures which have guided the councils of Great Britain for the last twenty years with little interruption, have, as means, contributed essentially to the result in which we rejoice. The combination by which this result was ultimately obtained, no human foresight could possibly arrange, because the elements were not within the control of human policy or power. But the example of Britain was visible, and her aid was ready; it was known to be ready, because it was repeatedly granted, even when the hazard was great and the effect every way doubtful. By the opposite system, so long and so obstinately urged, the stimulus so strongly felt, so strikingly acknowledged, so obviously and so eminently useful, would have been wanting. The result I have now no wish to conjecture. It is vain to deny the fact, with the admiration of which Europe at this moment resounds; and it is unjust to deny the merit, which belongs to it." P. 20. POETRY. ART. 9. The Condemned Vestal: a Poem, in Three Booką 8vo. 76 pp. 1814. Notwithstanding the seriousness of its subject, this is one of the most comical poems that we have ever seen. It is like the old tragedy of King Cambyses," mixed full of pleasant mirth.” Before, however, we say any thing more on the poem, we think it our duty to censure that irreverent familiarity with which, in his dedication, the author alludes to the Deity. "To M. W. H. S., of friends the most sincere and affectionate; of society the ornament and admiration; of kindred the delight; blessed of the Supreme Almighty, and favoured by the world: to M. W. H. S. this poem, as a trifling memorial of early friendship, is inscribed, by the author." At this goodly dedication we should feel much inclined to laugh, and particularly at the complete anticlimax of its close, were we not too much shocked by the writer's want of reverential feeling. As to his poem, it is as miserable an abortion of the brain as can possibly be conceived. In the sixteen hundred and fifty lines which he has poured forth, there is not one which can be praised. He sets sense, graminar, metre, and rhyme, at utter defiance. A single specimen, and that by no means the worst which could be found, our readers will, perhaps, consider as abundantly sufficient to prove his demerits. "Now echo'ing heav'n in shatt'ring thunders rang, The The sharp-prong'd lightnings shiver as they graze, And ART. 10. Long Ashton: a Poem, in Two Parts; descriptive of the local Scenery of that Village and its Environs, including St. Vincent's Rocks, Bristol, &c. By William Morgan, of Bower Ashton, late of Bristol. 8vo. 53 pp. 1814. To write a good descriptive poem, is a task of not quite such easy achievement as many persons seem to imagine. For its accomplishment, something more is required than to chuse a picturesque subject, and to fill the paper with the common places of purling streams, whispering zephyrs, distant hamlets, shady woods, grazing herds, and verdant plains. That something we do not find in the composition before us. The scenery described by Mr. Morgan offers, as we can bear witness, a noble theme to a poet: but, unfortunately, he is nothing more than a versitier. His lines have, indeed, no gross faults; saving and excepting the unforgivable fault of being devoid of beauties. The reader toils on to the conclusion, and, when he has reached it, his memory retains not even a solitary sentence or image. Such being our opinion, we cannot flatter Mr. Morgan with the hope that his poem will be so "well received," as to induce him to 'publish "a quarto edition, embellished with views." ART. 11. An Ode to his Grace the Duke of Wellington, &c. &c. &c. By Irenæus. 8vo. 35 pp. 1814. Friends as we are to the liberty of the press, we sometimes, when in an angry mood, are almost disposed to wish that, as far as regards the multitudinous productions of those who aspire to be thought poets, the previous censorship of the press, about which our Gallic neighbours are now hotly disputing, might be established in this country. How many fits of yawning and of nausea, and how many attacks of dizziness and head-ach, would not the luckless tribe of critics escape, if such a censorship ex isted, and the censors were men of taste! Mr. Irenæus, for instance, would not be allowed to torment us, and our brother reviewers, by the publication of a hundred and thirty stanzas of the veriest trash that ever gathered dust on a bookseller's shelf. That our readers may not imagine that we deal too harshly with this modern Pindar, we will gratify them with a brace of bis best stanzas: "And Oh! could verse tell all he feels, The wise design that silent steals, To Wellesley, large the debt is true, That lofty wish a Statesman drew, Give home to slaves, no dwelling knew; "Twas sought-'tis gain'd-the prize." ART. 12. Selections from the popular Poetry of the Hindoos. Arranged and translated by Thomas Duer Broughton, EsqMajor of the Hon. East India Company's Service in Bengal, and Author of "Letters from a Mahratta Camp." Svo. 156 pp. 1814. Small However rude it may be, the popular poetry of any country cannot but be an object of interest to a philosophical observer, as affording no small insight into the manners, feelings, and character of the people, among whom it has obtained a currency. So many circumstances, of various kinds, have, of late years, called our attention to Hindostan, and so singular a race is that of the Hindoos, that a collection of popular Hindoo poetry could scarcely fail to be favourably received, even had the productions themselves less intrinsic merit than is really possessed by those which Major Broughton has translated. With respect to the language of the Hindoos, the translator tells us that "We are very apt to contemn it, as illiterate and vulgar; and as one used only by the lowest classes of the people; whereas, in fact, it is simply rustic, and not vulgar; can boast of many admirable literary productions; and is spoken by every description of Hindoos, in all the western provinces of our extensive empire." He |