they should be relished by others, he presents in his criticisms, a continued series of censures-censures which, in the taste and judgement of most readers, find no response. One touching anecdote, indeed, he relates on his personal knowledge. When Collins, who was sinking under a morbid melancholy, similar to that of Cowper, had withdrawn from study, and had commenced travelling, he was visited by Johnson, who finding that he had with him but a single book- an ordinary copy of the New Testament--and anxious to know what companion a man of letters had chosen, took it in his hand: "I have but one book," said Collins, "but that is the best."

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The biography of DR. YOUNG was committed by Johnson to a friend, Mr. Herbert Croft. In the opinion of some readers, Mr. Croft has accomplished a somewhat successful imitation of the style of Johnson. But not so thought Edmund Burke. Being questioned on the subject; "No, no," said he; "it is not a good imitation of Johnson. It has all his pomp, without his force; it has all the nodosities of the oak, without its strength." And setting his mind again at work, he added: "It has all the contortions of the sybil, without the inspiration."

Of the poetry of Young, Johnson has given an account as candid and just as could be expected. He acknowledges some beauties, and detects many faults. Of his principal work, Johnson remarks; "In his Night Thoughts, he has exhibited a very wide display of original poetry, variegated with deep reflections and striking allusions; a wilderness of thought, in which the fertility of fancy scatters flowers of every hue, and of every odour. This is one of the few poems in which blank verse could not be changed for rhyme, but with disadvantage. The wild diffusion of the sentiments, and the digressive sallies of the imagination, would have been compressed and restrained by confinement to rhyme. The excellence of this work is not exactness, but copiousness; particular lines are not to be regarded; the power is in the whole; and in the whole there is a magnificence like that ascribed to Chinese plantations, the magnificence of vast extent, and endless diversity."

"with

When, in conclusion, Johnson declares of Young, all his defects, he was a man of genius, and a poet," he does but give expression to the judgement of every reader who is either candid or just.

Among the poets whose ardour in the praise of liberty has incurred the severity of Johnson, is AKENside. That he was a man of genius, and a genuine poet, none will deny. His great work, the Pleasures of the Imagination, being seen by Pope in manuscript, he passed a handsome encomium on it, the author being unknown. Of the same work, Johnson speaks, as "an example of great felicity of genius, and uncommon amplitude of acquisitions; of a young mind stored with images, and much exercised in combining and comparing them." But he more than repays for this modicum of eulogy, by his severity on the lyric poetry of Akenside. "When he lays," says Johnson, "his ill-fated hand upon his harp, his former powers seem to desert him; he has no longer his luxuriance of expression, nor variety of images. His thoughts are cold, and his words inelegant."

We have room but for one poet more-GRAY; a man of genius and learning, and, though he wrote but little, a true poet. Johnson allows great merit (and how could he deny it, without impeaching his own understanding and taste?) to the elegy written in a country church-yard. But here his encomiums end. In his criticism on the rest of Gray's poetry, there is such obvious ill humour and superciliousness; such a determined inattention to beauties; such a keen detection and studious aggravation of faults, as amounts almost to persecution. In the whole, there is something unaccountable, unless Boswell has explained the mystery, by letting us know that Gray was one of those who did not bow to the superiority of Johnson, but rather dissented from the idolatrous homage which was so extensively paid him by the literary world. Could we for a moment suppose that it was this independence on the part of Gray, that brought down upon him the wrath of the great Critic, we should be constrained to exclaim, "Alas poor human nature!"

My design is now executed; but I am constrained to confess, most imperfectly. It has been with me a considerable object to vindicate the fame of some valued poets, and to rescue them from a censure, or a disregard which they seemed not to merit. If, while this point has been pursued, the Critic himself has been treated with some degree of severity, my apology must be found in the nature and necessity of the case.

On the whole, I have no reluctance to hazard the opinion,

that the work thus briefly reviewed, exhibits a combination of excellencies and defects, of wisdom and weakness, of sober judgement and caprice, of power of mind and power of prejudice-such as the world has rarely seen, and will not soon see again.

ART. IV. DEFECTS in the RELIGIOUS CHAracter of thIS AGE.

BY REV. NICHOLAS MURRAY, Elizabethtown, N. J.

In the religious and moral world, as in the astronomical, there are what may be called cycles, or circles of time, within whose limits the same events substantially recur. There is, for instance, an age of revolution, when old foundations are broken up-when holy and reverend errour is discarded-and when, as with the violence of the tornado, the rubbish collected by the laborious industry of centuries, is scattered to the winds. This is usually followed by an age of calm consideration, when the elements of civil and social order are collected, arranged, and consolidated-when truth is selected from the great mass promiscuously piled together, and arranged according to its relations and importance. And this is again succeeded by an age of stirring enterprise, when great principles are carried out to their results.

Through a cycle like this the Church has passed within the last three hundred years, and the lines have fallen unto us within the last of these eras. The Reformation was the age of revolution, when the chains which ignorance forged, and which superstition riveted on the human mind, were broken. The considerate age was that which immediately succeeded it, and which continued onward to the close of the last century. It was an age of great renown, whose influence upon the Church and world will continue as long as either survive. Within it, the Westminster Assembly and the Synod of Dort, met and formed and published their almost inspired compends of Scriptural doctrine and Church order. Within it lived and wrote the brightest lights of the

Episcopal Church, in whose works the truth will live, even should that Church reject it. Within it lived and flourished the long and brilliant list of Puritan and Non-Conformist divines, who, after all is said, fought the battle of the reformation, and silenced the thunders of the Vatican, and placed high up beyond the reach of reasonable objection the doctrines of grace, and prevented the Church from settling down upon a foundation but a little less objectionable than that of the Roman Catholic from which it had been just removed. To this succeeded the age of stirring enterprise, which, commencing with the present century, has continued until now. Thus far it has been characterized by great and successful exertion in every department of benevolence. And the aggressive assaults of the Church on the empire of darkness have been so enthusiastic and successful as to induce many to believe that the empire of darkness is already subdued. Long may this age of action continue. But it is a delusion fatal to the triumphs of truth to think, amid the rejoicings over the capture of a small outpost of the enemy, that the entire army of the aliens is routed. Much remains to be done. The Church has no time for the languors of rejoicing, until the standard of the cross floats in triumph over the last strong hold of Satan in our world.

It is because human nature is prone to self-flattery, that we find the men of each succeeding age lauding their own at the expense of that which preceeded it. This is not just. It betrays both ignorance, and a biassed judgement. To exalt the considerate age above that of the reformation, is to exalt the effect at the expense of the cause. If there had been no Luther, there would have been no Owen, or Howe, or Charnock, or Flavel, or Henry. The same may be said of exalting the active above the considerate age. They stand to each other in the relation of cause and effect. And to exalt the one at the expense of the other, as is frequently done, is like exalting the active vegetation of summer at the expense of the glorious sun which produces it. For the zeal and enterprise of the present age we should be devoutly thankful; but we should be no less so for the calm reflection and sober inquiry of the preceding age. It is that which has given character to this. And this, is but using the well tempered weapons which that prepared for it. No person is heard praising the engineer of a steamboat, or the captain who commands her, at the expense of Watt or Fulton. Nor is

any person, amid the roar of the cannon and the constant vollies of musketry, heard praising the gunner and soldier at the expense of the discoverer of gunpowder. When we see the car of fire flying over the rails laid to guide it in its course, we think less about the engineer that conducts it than about the great genius that first contrived it. The battles which in this active age the Church has fought and won, she has fought clothed in the armour, and armed with the weapons formed to her hand by the great and good men of the preceding age. And as yet, at least, we must regard the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, next to the apostolic, as the golden age of the Church. With a certain class of men and mind, the glorious nineteenth century is so frequent a topic of eulogistic declamation, as to become not only common-place but disgusting. Surfeiting is one of the effects of profusion.

Each age has its characteristic virtues and defects. Of no age, as of no man, can it be said that it is in every respect what it should be. God is not lavish in the bestowal of his favours. And if the great and incessant conflicts of the reformation gave but too little opportunity for the cultivation of spiritual religion-if the deep and persevering study, the laborious research, the continued and necessary controversy of the reflective age, gave but too little time for crossing the lines of the Church, and carrying the lamp of life amid the millions that lay in darkness beyond them; this age of stirring enterprise and bustling activity has its defects. It has many and prominent virtues, but these are proclaimed from the house-top. And it has many and prominent defects. And unless these defects are remedied, as the eloquent Hall expresses it, the extension of the Church can only be compared to the extension which the body acquires by death.

A primary defect in the religious character of this age is, the neglect of family religion. Too much importance cannot be given to the divine arrangement of dividing the race into families. Upon that arrangement hang suspended the dearest and the highest interests of man. Nor can the family arrangement be molested, or its duties neglected, but at the risk of those interests. The good citizen, and the good subject, are made in the family. Hence, all civilized governments have bestowed the utmost care to strengthen, confirm, and protect the family arrangement. As a general rule, the moral, benevolent, and upright citizen is made in