In all these greater histories, the Laureate has been much the worse for some unhappy notion he has got into his head, of writing à la Clarendon. Clarendon is one of the first English classics, and one of the first historical authors the world can boast; but nobody can deny that he is, nevertheless, a most prolix penman. The things that carry him through, in spite of all his prolixity, are, first, the amazing abstract interest of his subject matter; secondly, his own prodigious knowledge of human nature; and, thirdly, the admirable opportunities he had for applying this knowledge to the individual characters he has to treat of, in the course of a long life spent in the most important offices of the state, and during the most important series of changes that the state has ever witnessed. Now, the Doctor, to balance a caricature of the Chancellor's tediousness, brings really but a slender image of the Chancellor's qualifications. He writes not about things and persons that he has seen, and if he did, he has extremely little insight into human character, and a turn of mind altogether different from that which is necessary for either transacting or comprehending the affairs of active life. He has the prolixity-without the graphic touches, the intense knowledge, the profound individual feeling, of a writer of me moirs. He reads five or six piles of old books, and picks up a hazy enough view of some odd character there, and then he thinks he is entitled to favour us with this view of his, at the same length which we could only have pardoned from some chosen friend, and life-long familiar associate of the hero himself.

Perhaps Southey's Life of Wesley is the most remarkable instance extant, of the ridiculous extremities to which vanity of this kind can carry a man of great talents and acquirements. Who but Southey would ever have dreamt that it was possible for a man that was not a Methodist, and that had never seen John Wesley's face, nor even conversed with any one of his disciples, to write two thumping volumes under the name of a Life of Wesley, without turning the stomach of the Public? For whom did he really suppose he was writing this book? Men of calm sense and rational religion, were certainly not at all

likely to take their notion of the Founder of the Methodists, from any man who could really suppose that Founder's life to be worthy of occupying one thousand pages of close print. The Methodists themselves would, of course, be horrified with the very name of such a book, on such a subject, by one of the uninitiated. Probably, few of them have looked into it at all; and, most certainly, those that have done so, must have done so with continual pain, loathing, and disgust. But our friend, from the moment he takes up any subject, no matter what it is, seems to be quite certain, first, that that subject is the only one in the world worth writing about; and, secondly, that he is the only man who has any right to meddle with it. On he drives-ream after ream is covered with his beautiful, distinct, and print-like autograph. We have sometimes thought it possible that the very beauty of this hand-writing of his, may have been one of his chief curses. One would think, now, that writing out, in any hand, dull and long-winded quotations from Wesley's Sermons, Whitefield's Sermons, their Journals, their Magazines, &c. &c. &c., would be but poor amusement in the eyes of such a man as Southey-more especially as it must be quite obvious, that they who really think these people worthy of being studied like so many Julius Cæsars, will, of course, study them in their own works, and in the works of their own ardent admirers; and that, as to mankind in general, they will still say, after reading all that the Laureate has heaped together, "Did this man never read Hume's one chapter on the Puritan Sects ?"

The truth is, that a real historian, either a Hume, or a Clarendon, or a Du Retz, or a Tacitus, would have found no difficulty in concentrating all that really can be said, to any purpose, about Wesley, Zinzendorf, Whitefield, and all the rest of these people, in, at the most, fifty pages. And then the world would have read the thing and been the better for it. At present, the Methodists stick to their own absurd Lives of Wesley, and there exists no Life of him adapted for the purposes of the general reader, or composed with any reference to the ideas of any extensive body of educated men whatever.

Nevertheless, who will deny, that

in these two thick volumes a great deal both of instruction and amusement is to be found? The hero being what he was, it was indeed quite impossible that this should be otherwise. And the complaint is not of the materials, nor of the manner in which the most interesting part of them is made use of, but of the wearisome mass of superfluous stuff with which the Laureate has contrived to overlay his admirable materials, and to make his fine passages the mere oases in a desart; and of that portentous garrulity, for the sake of indulging in which, he has not drawn the extraordinary man's cha

racter.

Wesley, was, no doubt, a man of ardent piety; and, no doubt, with much evil, he has also done much good in the world. He was mad from his youth up, and vanity, and selfishness of the most extravagant sort, were at least as discernible in every important step he took in life, as any of those better motives, the existence of which it is impossible to deny. His father was a most reverend, holy, devout, and affectionate old clergyman, who educated a large family upon a very slender income, and spent his whole strength in the spiritual labours of a poor parish, full of ignorant and rude people. When he found himself near death, he saw his wife and a number of daughters likely to be left destitute. He had influence, as he thought, to get his living for his son John; and he called upon him to say that he would take it when he should be no more, and give his mother and sisters a right to keep their home. John Wesley, then in holy orders, and residing at Oxford, said, his spiritual interests were incompatible with his acceptance of his father's benefice, and he allowed the old man to die without comfort, and left his other parent and sisters to face the world as they might.

John Wesley, in America, flirted

with a fine lass, a Miss Causton, and offered her marriage; suspecting, however, that she was not sufficiently religious for him, he consulted a committee of six Moravian elders, whether he should, or should not, marry her, as he had told her he would do. They deciding in the negative, by the truly Christian method of casting lots, he drew back. Miss Causton married another man. Mr Wesley upon this

commenced a long series of priestly admonitions and inquisitions, and at length, when she was some months gone with child, the jealous, envious Monk refused her admission to the sacramental table; the consequence of which was a miscarriage, and the great danger of her life.

This was the behaviour of Wesley to his father and his mistress. What wonder that such a man saw no evil in creating a schism in the church? He always determined what he was to do when in any difficulty, by opening the Bible, and obeying what he conceived to be the meaning of the first text his eye fell on. But we have no intention to go into the details of his life and character here. We shall rather quote, from Mr Southey, a few passages about his most eminent rival and disciple, the far more interesting George Whitefield.

George Whitefield was born at the Bell Inn, in the city of Gloucester, at the close of the year 1714. He describes himself as froward from his mother's womb; so brutish as to hate instruction; stealing from his mother's pocket, and frequently appropriating to his own use the money that he took in the house. If I trace myself,' he says, 'from my cradle to my manhood, I can see nothing in me but a fitness to be damned; and if the Almighty had not prevented me by his grace, I had now either been sitting in darkness and in the shadow of death, or condemned, as the due reward of my crimes, to be forever lifting up my eyes in torments.' Yet Whitefield could recollect early movings of the heart, which satisfied him in after

life, that God loved him with an everlasting love, and had separated him even

from his mother's womb, for the work to which he afterwards was pleased to call him.' He had a devout disposition, and a tender heart. When he was about ten marriage; it proved an unhappy one. years old, his mother made a second During the affliction to which this led,

his brother used to read aloud Bishop Ken's Manual for Winchester Scholars. This book affected George Whitefield greatly; and when the corporation, at their annual visitation of St Mary de Crypt's school, where he was educated, gave him, according to custom, money for the speeches which he was chosen to deliver, he purchased the book, and found it, he says, of great benefit to his soul.

"Whitefield's talents for elocution, which made him afterwards so great a

performer in the pulpit, were at this time in some danger of receiving a theatrical direction. The boys at the grammarschool were fond of acting plays: the master, seeing how their vein ran,' encouraged it, and composed a dramatic piece himself, which they represented before the corporation, and in which Whitefield enacted a woman's part, and appeared in girl's clothes. The remembrance of this, he says, had often covered him with confusion of face, and he hoped it would do so even to the end of his life! Before he was fifteen, he persuaded his mother to take him from school, saying, that she could not place him at the university, and more learning would only spoil him for a tradesman. Her own circumstances, indeed, were by this time so much on the decline, that his menial services were required: he began occasionally to assist her in the public-house, till at length he put on his blue apron and his snuffers,* washed mops, cleaned rooms, and became a professed and common drawer.' In the little leisure which such employments allowed, this strange boy composed two or three sermons; and the romances, which had been his heart's delight, gave place for awhile to Thomas à Kempis.

"When he had been about a year in this servile occupation, the inn was made over to a married brother, and George, being accustomed to the house, continued there as an assistant; but he could not agree with his sister-in-law, and after much uneasiness gave up the situation.

His mother, though her means were scanty, permitted him to have a bed upon the ground in her house, and live with her, till Providence should point out a place for him. The way was soon indicated. A servitor at Pembroke College called upon his mother, and in the course of conversation told her, that after all his college expenses for that quarter were discharged, he had received a penny. She immediately cried out, this will do for my son; and turning to him said, Will you go to Oxford, George? Happening to have the same friends as this young man, she waited on them without delay; they promised their interest to obtain a servitor's place in the same college, and in reliance upon this George returned to the grammar-school. Here he applied closely to his books, and shaking off, by the strong effort of a religious mind, all evil and idle courses,

produced, by the influence of his talents and example, some reformation among his school-fellows. He attended public service constantly, received the sacrament monthly, fasted often, and prayed often, more than twice a day in private. At the age of eighteen he was removed to Oxford; the recommendation of his friends was successful; another friend borrowed for him ten pounds, to defray the expense of entering; and with a good fortune beyond his hopes, he was admitted servitor immediately.

"Servitorships are more in the spirit of a Roman Catholic than of an English establishment. Among the Catholics, religious poverty is made respectable, because it is accounted a virtue; and humiliation is an essential part of monastic discipline. But in our state of things it cannot be wise to brand men with the mark of inferiority; the line is already broad enough. Oxford would do well if, in this respect, it imitated Cambridge, abolished an invidious distinction of dress, and dispensed with services which, even when they are not mortifying to those who perform them, are painful to those to whom they are performed. Whitefield found the advantage of having been used to a public-house; many who could choose their servitor preferred him, because of his diligent and alert attendance; and thus, by help of the profits of the place, and some little presents made him by a kind-hearted tutor, he was enabled to live without being beholden to his relations for more than four-and-twenty pounds, in the course of three years. Little as this is, it shews, when compared with the ways and means of the elder Wesley at College, that half a century had greatly enhanced the expenses of Oxford. At first he was rendered uncomfortable by the society into which he was thrown; he had several chamberfellows, who would fain have made him join them in their riotous mode of life; and as he could only escape from their persecutions by sitting alone in his study, he was sometimes benumbed with cold; but when they perceived the strength as well as the singularity of his character, they suffered him to take his own way in peace.

"Before Whitefield went to Oxford, he had heard of the young men there who lived by rule and method,' and were therefore called Methodists. They were now much talked of, and generally de

:

"The man who produced this extraordinary effect, had many natural advantages. He was something above the middle stature, well-proportioned, though at that time slender, and remarkable for a native gracefulness of manner. His complexion was very fair, his features regular, his eyes small and lively, of a dark blue colour in recovering from the measles, he had contracted a squint with one of them; but this peculiarity rather rendered the expression of his countenance more rememberable, than any degree lessened the effect of its uncommon sweetness. His voice excelled both in melody and compass, and its fine modulations were happily accompanied by that grace of action which he possessed in an eminent degree, and which has been said to be the chief requisite of an orator. An ignorart man described his eloquence oddly but strikingly, when he said, that Mr Whitefield preached like a lion. So strange a comparison conveyed no unapt a notion of the force, and vehemence, and passion of that oratory which awed the hearers, and made them tremble like Felix before the apostle. For believing himself to be the messenger of God, commissioned to call sinners to repentance, he spoke as one conscious of his high credentials, with authority and power; yet in all his discourses there was a fervent and melting charity-an earnestness of VOL. XV.

persuasion-an out-pouring of redundant love, partaking the virtue of that faith from which it flowed, inasmuch as it seemed to enter the heart which it pierced, and to heal it as with balm."

Of his maturer powers, he thus collects the testimony of the most unquestionable witnesses.

"Dr Franklin has justly observed, that it would have been fortunate for his reputation if he had left no written works; his talents would then have been estimated by the effect which they are known to have produced; for, on this point, there is the evidence of witnesses whose credibility cannot be disputed. Whitefield's writings, of every kind, are certainly below mediocrity. They afford the measure of his knowledge and of his intellect, but not of his genius as a preacher. His printed sermons, instead of being, as is usual, the most elaborate and finished discourses of their author, have indeed the disadvantage of being precisely those upon which the least care had been bestowed. This may be easily explained.

"By hearing him often,' says Franklin, I came to distinguish easily between sermons newly composed, and those which he had often preached in the course of his travels. His delivery of the latter was so improved by frequent repetition, that every accent, every emphasis, every modulation of voice, was so perfectly well turned, and well placed, that, without being interested in the subject, one could not help being pleased with the discourse

a pleasure of much the same kind with that received from an excellent piece of music. This is an advantage itinerant preachers have over those who are stationary, as the latter cannot well improve their delivery of a sermon by so many rehearsals.' It was a great advantage, but it was not the only one, nor the greatest, which he derived from repeating his discourses, and reciting instead of reading them. Had they been delivered from a written copy, one delivery would have been like the last; the paper would have operated like a spell, from which he could not depart-invention sleeping, while the utterance followed the eye. But when he had nothing before him except the audience whom he was addressing, the judgment and the imagination, as well as the memory, were called forth. Those parts were omitted which had been felt to come feebly from the tongue, and fall heavily upon the ear, and their place was supplied by matter newly laid in in the course of his studies, or fresh from the feeling of the moment. They who lived with him could trace him in his sermons 2 E

to the book which he had last been reading, or the subject which had recently taken his attention. But the salient points of his oratory were not prepared passages, they were bursts of passion, like jets from a Geyser, when the spring is in full play.

"The theatrical talent which he displayed in boyhood, manifested itself strongly in his oratory. When he was about to preach, whether it was from a pulpit, or a table in the streets, or a rising ground, he appeared with a solemnity of manner, and an anxious expression of countenance, that seemed to shew how deeply he was possessed with a sense of the importance of what he was about to say. His elocution was perfect. They who heard him most frequently could not remember that he ever stumbled at a word, or hesitated for want of one. He never faultered, unless when the feeling to which he had wrought himself overcame him, and then his speech was interrupted by a flow of tears. Sometimes he would appear to lose all self-command, and weep exceedingly, and stamp loudly and passionately; and sometimes the emotion of his mind exhausted him, and the beholders felt a momentary apprehension even for his life. And, indeed, it is said, that the effect of this vehemence upon his bodily frame was tremendous; that he usually vomited after he had preached, and sometimes discharged in this manner, a considerable quantity of blood. But this was when the effort was over, and nature was left at leisure to relieve herself. While he was on duty, he controlled all sense of infirmity or pain, and made his advantage of the passion to which he had given way. You blame me for weeping,' he would say, but how can I help it, when you will not weep for yourselves, though your immortal souls are upon the verge of destruction, and, for aught I know, you are hearing your last sermon, and may never more have an opportunity to have Christ offered to you!'

"Sometimes he would set before his congregation the agony of our Saviour, as though the scene was actually before them. Look yonder!' he would say, stretching out his hand, and pointing while he spake, what is it that I see?

It is my agonizing Lord! Hark, hark! do you not hear?-O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me! nevertheless, not my will, but thine be done!" This he introduced frequently in his sermons; and one who lived with him says, the effect was not destroyed by repetition; even to those who knew what was coming, it came as forcibly as if they had never heard it before. In this respect it was like fine stage acting; and, indeed, Whitefield indulged in an histrionic manner of preaching, which would have been offensive if it had not been rendered admirable by his natural gracefulness and inimitable power. Sometimes, at the close of a sermon, he would personate a judge about to perform the last awful part of his office. With his eyes full of tears, and an emotion that made his speech faulter, after a pause which kept the whole audience in breathless expectation of what was to come, he would say, 'I am now going to put on my condemning cap. Sinner, I must do it: I must pronounce sentence upon you!' and then, in a tremendous strain of eloquence, describing the eternal punishment of the wicked, he recited the words of Christ, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels.' When he spoke of St Peter, how, after the cock crew, he went out and wept bitterly, he had a fold of his gown ready, in which he hid his face.

"Perfect as it was, histrionism like this would have produced no lasting effect upon the mind, had it not been for the unaffected earnestness and the indubitable sincerity of the preacher, which equally characterized his manner, whether he rose to the height of passion in his discourse, or won the attention of the motley crowd by the introduction of familiar stories, and illustrations adapted to the meanest capacity. To such digressions his disposition led him, which was naturally inclined to a comic playfulness. Minds of a certain power will sometimes express their strongest feelings with a levity at which formalists are shocked, and which dull men are wholly unable to understand. But language which, when coldly repeated, might seem to border upon irreverence and burlesque, has its effect in popular preaching, when the in