Page images
PDF
EPUB

that "the author of the Confessional has distinguished Laud with the epithet of malicious;" and then Lord Clarendon's portrait of his character is introduced. Now the term malicious implies a temper so depraved and debased, so much under the influence of a wicked being, that I should not venture to apply it to any person of whose total corruption of mind I was not thoroughly convinced. Would it not have been more commendable in the author of the Confessional, to have abstained from the term? Would the energy of his argument have been less efficacious, or the cause which he defended less powerfully supported? Mr. Archdeacon Blackburne, in the inscription of his monument, is called a caustic writer. Be it so; no one will esteem him the more for it. Nothing is more hostile to the investigation of truth, than the use of harsh language and illiberal appellations.

66

3. In Walton's Lives, p. 180. Mr. Hooker is introduced as declaring " that he did not beg a long life of God for any other reason but to live to finish his three remaining books of Polity; and then, Lord, let thy servant depart in peace, which was his usual expression." On this passage Mr. Z. remarks; "How different this from the application of the same words by Hugh Peters, and by an advocate for political reform in later times!" This remark incurs censure from the author

of the letter already noticed. When Dr. Price, who is here alluded to, preached his celebrated sermon at the Old Jewry, the French Revolution had already commenced with circumstances of the most atrocious nature. Orthophilus owns, that his judgement concerning this revolution was premature and over-sanguine. * Would

it not, then, have been more prudent to have suspended that judgement, and not to have anticipated the event; but to have waited patiently and coolly for the accomplishment of those designs of Providence, which yet lie concealed in the bosom of futurity? Mr. Burke's sentiments on this subject are such, as will obviously occur to every candid reader. "I find," saith he, "a preacher of the gospel profaning the beautiful and prophetic ejaculation (commonly called Nunc Dimittis) made on the first presentation of our Saviour in the Temple, and applying it with an

*The passage alluded to in Dr. Price's Discourse is the following: "What an eventful period is this! I am thankful that I have lived to it. I could almost say, Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, for mine eyes have seen thy salvation. I have lived to see a diffusion of knowledge, which has undermined superstition and error. I have lived to see the rights of men better understood than ever; and nations panting for liberty, which seemed to have lost the idea of it. I have lived to see thirty millions of people indignant and resolute, spurning at slavery, and demanding liberty with an irresistible voice; their King led in triumph, and an arbitrary Monarch surrendering himself to his subjects."

inhuman and unnatural rapture to the most horrid, atrocious, and afflicting spectacle, that perhaps ever was exhibited to the pity and indignation of mankind. This leading in triumph, a thing in it's best form unmanly and irreligious, which fills a preacher with such unhallowed transports, must shock, I believe, the moral taste of every well-born mind. Several English were the stupified and indignant spectators of that triumph. It was (unless we have been strangely deceived) a spectacle more resembling a procession of American savages entering into Onondaga after some of their murthers called victories,' and leading into hovels hung round with scalps their captives overpowered with the scoffs and buffets of women as ferocious as themselves, much more than it resembled the triumphal pomp of a civilised martial nation-if a civilised nation, or any men who had a sense of generosity, were capable of a personal triumph over the fallen and afflicted.” * A. U.

6

* Burke's Works, V. 184. The signature of this communication, consisting of the last two vowels of Dr. Zouch's christian and sur-name, will remind the reader of the A. E. A. O. said to have been adopted, upon similar principles, by our most illustrious surviving scholar in one of his learned publications.

II.

As Dr. Zouch, in his Life of Walton, has given what he justly calls a "classic" version, by Mr. Tate, of Duport's Iambics, beginning Magister Artis, &c. (Musæ Subsecivæ, seu Poetica Stromata, p. 101.) addressed' Ad Virum optimum et Piscatorem peritissimum, Isaacum Waltonum;' perhaps the reader will pardon the introduction of a second copy of verses from the same pen, in the same metre, and on the same subject. They will show, at least, that all the scholars of Cambridge did not adopt the sentiment of Gilbert Wakefield, as stated in No. I.

ISACE, macte hac arte piscatoria:

*

Hác arte PETRUs Principi censum dedit ;
Hác arte Princeps, nec PETRO multò prior,
Tranquillus ille, teste TRANQUILLO Pater
Patria, solebat recreare se lubens
AUGUSTUS, hamo instructus ac arundine.
Tu nunc, Amice, proximum clari es decus
Post Cæsarem hami, gentis ac Halieuticæ.
Euge 6 Professor artis haud ingloriæ,
Doctor Cathedræ, prælegens Piscariam!
Næ tu Magister, et ego discipulus tuus
(Nam candidatum et me ferunt arundinis)
Socium hac in arte nobilem nacti sumus.
Quid amplius, WALTONE, dici nam potest?
Ipse hamiota Dominus en orbis fuit.

IMITATED.

Hail, Walton, with that fisher-skill,
Which whilom Peter's tribute paid;
And cheer'd Augustus, earlier still,
'Mid empire's toils in Tibur's shade!

*Suet. Aug. 83.

Thee, friend, next Cæsar now we deem
Of fishing rod and race the boast;
Reading, on no inglorious theme,

Deep lectures to a listening host.

And master thou, and scholar I,
A dread associate may record

(For I, too, watch the mimic fly)

-A fisher was great nature's Lord.

(F. W.)

III.

Upon the subject of the "Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Sir Philip Sidney," the following communications are preserved among Dr. Zouch's Papers. The first is addressed to a Nephew of his, the other to a Friend.

DEAR SIR,

I.

8th July, 1809.

I HAVE read the Life of Sir Philip Sidney with much care, and as I expected, with much pleasure. I found in it nothing to blame, but much to admire. It is an highly interesting piece of biography, and a curious picture of the age. The stile is sweetly simple, and the arrangement of the materials clear. It is, in fact, a valuable accession to our stock of elegant liteI beg you may offer my best thanks to your learned Uncle for the pleasure and information, which his work afforded me. The intimacy, which subsisted between Tasso and Sir

rature.

« PreviousContinue »