Page images
PDF
EPUB

honour. If we might be permitted to address one word, in conclusion, to the London Committee, it would be to warn them how they take the next step towards concession. Union is not always strength: a forced combination at all events will issue in weakness. We should presume that the fundamental law of the Society will not be amended, without ascertaining the extent of the sacrifice of patronage and co-operation which it may cost to propitiate the malcontents. Dissenters as we are, we would not part with a prelate, nor even a dean, to regain the services of Dr. Andrew Thomson himself. Let the Apo crypha be given up, and we shall unfeignedly rejoice at it, if it can be done without affecting the catholic character, narrowing the basis, contracting the sphere, or obstructing the further progress of the Institution either as a British or a Foreign Society.

NOTE.

We had intended to enter more at large into the subject of the Canon, but our limits forbid. We must, however, briefly advert to the statements made in our former article, for the purpose of repelling some fresh calumnies brought against the Eclectic Reviewer by Mr. Gorham. In a Letter addressed to the Editor of the Christian Guardian, he says: The hackneyed nature of this Writer's objections ' does not merit a reply: every one of them (in almost the identical 'words of the Reviewer) was advanced so long ago as 1685, by that ingenious but unsound Author, Le Clerc, from whose Letters concerning the Inspiration of the Holy Scriptures, these stale arguments have found their way into the Eclectic of 1825. Le Clerc, and "therefore the Eclectic Reviewer, was well answered in 1692 by Mr.

[ocr errors]

'Lowth.'

Le Clerc's book we have never seen, but Lowth's Answer we have since obtained; and it enables us to detect the utter faithlessness of this representation. We transcribe a few sentences from this Answer to Le Clerc, which bear on the subject of inspiration.

[ocr errors]

6

[ocr errors]

As to the historical writings, I agree with him thus far, that the sacred His⚫torians were not usually inspired with the things themselves which they relate, nor with the words by which they expressed the things. But I think I have proved, that a book may be written by God's 'direction, and yet, not without the use of human means.........It is highly probable, that the Prophets usually writ the histories of their kings, and those books which are so often quoted under the name of the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah and Israel, and were annals whence the substance of the Books of Chronicles are taken. .........If we lay all these things together, the character of the compilers of these historical books, the matter and design of them, the authority of the Jewish Canon, and above all, that of Christ and his Apostles, these are sufficient inducements to believe these books to be written by God's direction for the benefit of the • church And this, I think, is enough to give Divine Authority to an historical book, though neither the matter nor words of it be indited by Inspiration.' pp. 195-200.

[ocr errors]

With regard to the Book of Esther, in common with every

[ocr errors][ocr errors]

judicious Expositor that we are acquainted with, Mr. Lowth contents himself with defending its authenticity as a true history; and as to the book of Job, he takes lower ground than the Eclectic Reviewer has done, resolving its inspiration into its being written by God's direction for the use of the Church.

6

[ocr errors]

Dr. Andrew Thomson is, we suspect, better informed on the subject than Mr. Gorham; for, though he flourishes about our pro'fane dogmas concerning Inspiration and our heretical sentiments,' he seems to betray a consciousness that our sentiments have been held by men whom it is not very creditable to any scholar or any man of true piety to speak lightly of. Mr. Gorham's want of information is his best apology for every thing but his bad temper. We cannot admit even of that apology, however, for his reiterated mis-statements. Following this gentleman, Dr. Thomson is anxious to proclaim, that our doubts extend to no fewer than ten books or three hundred and forty chapters of the Holy Scriptures.' Much reason as we have to complain of this gentleman's treatment of the Bible Society, we believe that he will regret having inadvertently lent himself to the proclamation of a gross untruth. Our doubts related to the inspiration (by which we understand more than mere superintendence or general direction, authority or truth) of the Book of Chronicles, Ezra and Nehemiah, Esther, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Solomon's Song, sir books of the hagiographa, or eight according to the modern arrangement, including one hundred and forty-nine chapters. That all these books were written under the highest kind of inspiration, no expositor or biblical critic who ranks as an authority, will be found to maintain. Many writers appear to have used the term inspired in a loose sense, as implying little more than sacred and authentic. In this sense, we believe every book in the Canon to have an equal claim to rank there; but objecting as we do to this application of the term inspiration, we repeat our assertion (and challenge Dr. Thomson to prove it to be heretical), that it is possible that some of these may not be inspired. That they would not have been received into the Jewish canon, had they not been dic. tated by immediate inspiration, is a gratuitous assumption. That they are there, is a proof that they ought to be there, sanctioned as that Canon is by our Lord and his apostles; but it does not form a proof that they were prophetical writings, which, in the judgement of the Jews themselves, they were not. How the Law and the Prophets can be considered as adulterated by the annexation of so invaluable a document as Esther, for example, even though uninspired, surpasses our discernment.

'Towards Mr. Gorham, we had no other than a kind feeling, till he met our courtesy with ill-breeding, and our statements with calumnies and gross misrepresentations. As an excuse for his own ungentlemanly conduct, he now pretends to doubt the sincerity of those expressions of respect which he has so ill-justified. But we. cannot enter into a war of personalities, and though, by the publication of his own note, we could expose him, we refrain. We admit that his conduct has excited our scorn, but we regard him still as a well-meaning, pious, though ill-tempered man; and if he will publish another topographical work equal to his History of St. Neots, we will not withhold from it our cordial praise.

THE

ECLECTIC REVIEW,

FOR MAY, 1826.

Art. I. Alexander I. Emperor of Russia: or a Sketch of his Life, and of the most important Events of his Reign. By H. E. Lloyd, Esq. 8vo. pp. 350. Price 15s. London. 1826.

F it be at all times, and under all circumstances, far from easy to form a correct estimate of the character of monarchs, the difficulty increases in a tenfold degree when the qualities of a Russian autocrat are subjected to the investigation of his contemporaries. We are too apt to imagine that a despotic sovereign is perfectly unshackled; that his counsels are free from the distraction of conflicting, or the embarrassment of overbearing interests; that his measures, whether for good or for evil, are self-originated and unimpeded; that his choice of instruments depends entirely on his own judgement; and that the principles of his rule may be fairly inferred from the moral aspect of his reign, the effects of his political system, and the general condition of his people. It may be true, that these are the only materials within our reach, and equally so, that they shall prove quite insufficient for the specific purpose. The veriest tyrant is more or less under restraint. There are considerations of inevasible urgency, impulses and resistances that set arbitrary power at defiance, controlling influences to which the most absolute will must yield; and no history can exemplify the operation of these circumstances more emphatically than that of Russia. There are three tremendous agencies, of which the Tsar must be in continual dread, the nobility, the army, and the people. Among the first, there has hitherto been no difficulty in finding conspirators and assassins; the second is a two-edged weapon, as dangerous to the unskilful wielder as to the enemy; and for the third, no mob is so irritable and sanguinary as a rabble of slaves. It is vastly easy to sit down in the safety and quietness of private life in a free country, and define the canons of policy and morality by which VOL. XXV. N.S. 2 L

a ruler thus situated shall regulate his conduct; but it would-we do not say that it should-become a very different affair, were we personally concerned in the matter. Commanding intellect, unyielding firmness, consummate intrepidity and selfpossession, above all, stern and uncompromising moral principle must combine with kind and beneficent feelings, to make up a temper equal to the full requisitions of so trying an ele

vation.

We have no inclination, certainly, to depreciate the character of the late Emperor Alexander, but we cannot take it even as approaching to our beau idéal in the present case. That he was a man of good intentions and respectable talents, we are quite willing to believe, but it must be kept in view, that a much higher order of faculty is required in the master of a realm of slaves, than will be efficient in the governor of a free and represented people. The former has no check to his caprice, but in the exercise of his own judgement; no aid to his administration in open and unrestrained counsel and rebuke: the latter has an adviser in every subject, through the different media of public discussion. The chief of a popular government is the president of a well ordered mechanism, and has little more to do than to watch over the regularity of its movements, and to provide for the maintenance of its integrity and activity; while an autocrat is himself the machine, if that can be rightly so termed, which is subject to no prescribed law of action, and of which the principles are altogether uncertain. Hence, if a despotic monarch be of a character distinguished by moral and intellectual excellence, his sway may have some advantages, in unity of counsel and promptitude of execution, over the administration of a constitutional chief. Happily, however, for mankind, the value and efficacy of government are not to be estimated by the exception, but by the rule: for one Titus, there are twenty Domitians; and were the proportion reversed, there would be more lost, on the despotic system, in stability, strength, and energy, than might be gained in less essential qualities of security and power.

From all, then, that we have ever heard of the Emperor Alexander, he appears to have been a striking instance of the incompetency of excellent dispositions and fair abilities to struggle with the inherent difficulties of an arbitrary government. We have not the smallest doubt of the purity of his intentions, nor of the sincerity of his earlier exertions in behalf of his degraded people. Had he been a free agent, or bad he possessed that higher order of faculty and determination which would have enabled him to trample upon impossibilities,' we have assurance that his plans for the intellectual, moral, and political

advancement of his people would have been triumphantly followed up, and that he would never have yielded to the fatal influences which suspended his career of glory. Nor were his deficiencies adequately supplied by his choice of a minister, although that choice reflected the highest honour on the motives and feelings that prompted it. The spirit of the amiable and excellent Gallitzin seems to have been better suited to the offices of that warm and sacred friendship which, as he never abused, so he never lost, than to the mastery of a turbulent nobility, a ferocious soldiery, a people ignorant and shackled, and, from those very circumstances, requiring the incessant vigilance of a jealous police. The following illustrations of Alexander's affectionate feelings are, we suppose, authentic; but, even if otherwise, they speak strongly in favour of the monarch respecting whom such anecdotes are circulated with acceptance.

From his earliest years, he was remarkable for his respect and attachment to the persons entrusted with his education, and for his exemplary conduct towards his mother, the Empress Maria, which truly deserved the name of filial piety, being in him a feeling next akin to religion, a holy flame which burnt with unvarying splendour from his childhood to his grave. So entirely innate in him was this feeling, that he beheld with abhorrence, and, when the occasion served, marked by his serious displeasure, any violation of the Divine precept, "Honour thy mother;" and it was but a few months before his death, that a young prince, who had treated his mother with disrespect, received orders to reside only in Moscow, under the special superintendence of Prince Golyzin, the military governor-general, and of the guardians appointed for him, who were at the same time commanded to take the administration of his property into their hands. He not only treated his tutors with respect while under their care, but continued through life to give them proofs of his gratitude and affection. For Count Soltikoff he shewed unabated veneration during his life, and in 1818, followed his corpse, on foot and bareheaded, to the grave. Of his regard for Colonel Laharpe, many instances are recorded, of which the following may find a place here.

'His attachment to Laharpe was rather filial than that of a pupil; his greatest delight was in his society, and he would cling round his neck in the most affectionate embraces, by which frequently his clothes were covered with powder. "See, my dear prince," Laharpe would say, "what a figure you have made yourself." "Oh, never mind it," Alexander replied; " no one will blame me for carrying away all I can from my dear preceptor." One day he went to visit Laharpe, as was his custom, alone; the porter was a new servant, and did not know him; he asked his name, and was answered Alexander. The porter then led him into the servants' hall, told him his master was at his studies, and could not be disturbed for an hour. The ser vants' homely meal was prepared, and the prince was invited to partake of it, which he did without affectation. When the hour was ex

« PreviousContinue »