It so happened that the city of Bristol, in which these scenes occurred, was more than usually fortunate at that period, in possessing great preachers. But this fact added much to my annoyance, for I well knew that whilst I was listening to prosy sermons, within a few streets' length, several of England's most gifted men, and one who was on all hands acknowledged to be the "prince of modern preachers," were delighting and edifying their hearers. That time, indeed, constituted the Augustan age of Bristol; the city was a positive reservoir of ministerial talent, and to it, as unto a centre of attraction, were drawn those who, either from feelings born of piety, or from motives of mere curiosity, desired to hear the "outpourings" of pulpit magnates.

From a volume of mine, recently published in London, I may perhaps be permitted to extract the following, which will afford some idea of those palmy days of dissent in my native city:

Men, universally acknowledged by their contemporaries to be "arbiters of taste, and masters of opinion,” thought it not beneath them to resort to Broadmead Chapel, to hear the pure streams of "English, undefiled," which every Sabbath day flowed from the eloquent lips of Robert Hall. In a pew of that meetinghouse, which has been rendered famous by its pastors, might often have been seen Sir James Mackintosh and Henry Brougham-Plunket, too, was a visitor there; and he declared that, until he heard Hall, the prince of preachers, he did not know what preaching really was.

Besides Hall, there were at that time other ministers

of mark; men who, though they did not shine with a brilliance equal to that of the great luminary, were not extinguished by its flood of splendor. Little disparagement is it to the present occupants of the pulpits of Bristol to assert, that the palmy days of preaching in that ancient city have passed away. An Augustan age comes not twice. Estimable and talented are the men of whom we shall presently speak; and possibly they may be more useful preachers than the departed worthies, so far as relates to "the million," but that the mantles of Hall and some of his contemporaries have fallen on their shoulders, no one, we imagine, will be inclined to assert.

Well do we remember Robert Hall. As we write these memorials, the living man seems to stand before us just as he appeared in the pulpit in old times. The grand and capacious forehead — bare, on its lofty summit; the sparkling, yet solemn eyes, lighted up as he gives utterance to the splendid creations of his powerful intellect; the rather short nose, the large mouth, the broad lower portion of the face, and the double chin, are vividly apparent, as is the broad and ample chest, pressed against the pulpit; and the hands-one gently raised from the Bible, the other resting on the page. The whole man, indeed, is depictured in our memory. Our ear also receives anew echoes of tones long since uttered; the weak voice, the hesitating sentences at the commencement of the sermon, the continuous flow of musical language as it proceeded, and the almost jubilant tones with which it ceased.

Another of the Bristol " celebrities" was John Foster, the well known author of the "Essays," and one of the most profound thinkers of modern times. An eminent minister recently said to us, when we introduced his name in the course of conversation "Ah! sir, Foster was a man without a heart." We do not agree with him. A heartless man would not have written as the great Essayest wrote. A heartless man would not have shunned hollow popularity, and found his chief delight in preaching in the cottages of the poor, as Foster did. It is true, that owing to the peculiar constitution of his mind, he was prone to look at most things through gloomy media, and that his imagination was almost always morbidly tinged; but the few who knew him best, and loved him most, agree in declaring that no man possessed more generous sympathies, or kindlier impulses. Mr. Foster seldom preached in Bristol, but when he did, it was an "event." Every one went to hear him, impelled by the same sort of curiosity as that which made the literary people of eighty years since throng Mrs. Thrales's rooms, in order to hear Dr. Johnson talk. Church people and dissenters, clergymen and Methodist parsons, Unitarians and Baptists, sat side by side, presenting a rather startling spectacle, especially in a city where considerable animosity then existed between the members of different sects. The personal appearance of the preacher was singular enough; he resembled rather a country farmer, than a minister of the gospel and an eminent writer. As he mounted the pulpit stairs, you saw before you a stout personage, in an un

mistakable wig, which the renowned Truefit never could have turned out of his establishment; a wig, pointed at its summit, the shape of the forehead being rather pyramidal. The eyebrows were large, black, and bushy, and the eyes beneath, dark, bright, and keen. These, however, were half concealed by a pair of huge circularrimmed silver spectacles, which rested on a long nose. From the partial absence of teeth, the mouth was somewhat retracted, but its angles had what John Keats calls, a "downward drag austere." A blue, old-fashioned coat, with huge skirts and ample pockets outside, and decorated with large brass buttons; a black waistcoat; drab small-clothes, and top boots, with a thicklyrolled neckcloth, completed John Foster's costume; and, certainly, anything more unprofessional could scarcely be imagined. But all this singularity of appearance was forgotten when the great man commenced his prayer, which itself was, as a lady once observed, "one of Mr. Foster's essays which we stand up to;" and then his sermons! At first the text was mumbled out, and one was apt to feel something like disappointment; but that feeling quickly passed away as the preacher proceeded. To give anything like a verbal description of Foster's style would be next to an impossibility, and, therefore, we shall not attempt the almost hopeless task.

William Thorpe was, literally and figuratively, another great Bristol preacher. Of Elephantine dimensions, he literally filled the pulpit of Castle Green. His forte was the exposition of mystical texts; and on certain occasions, where time was allowed him for preparation, he

was highly impressive. He was, however, far from being an original preacher. To compensate for this, his memory, like his person, was "prodigious," and this constituted the great and unfailing bank on which he drew. Robert Hall said of him that he was a reservoir, not a fountain; and he was right. This fact renders his few published works all but valueless, there being little in them which may not be found in previously published standard works. His name lives in the affectionate remembrance of many friends; but his fame as an orator perished, when for the last time he quitted the pulpit.

In the neighboring city of Bath, too, there was another great attraction, for a young and enthusiastic mind such as mine. There William Jay preached, and few have not heard of that remarkable man, who yet survives, the last unquenched star of the constellation of sacred orators who shone in all their brilliance twenty years ago. Very often did he visit Bristol for the purpose of preaching Anniversary Sermons, and never did. I fail to hear him on such occasions. His personal appearance was very striking; but let me again quote from my London volume:

"There is something in the massive head of Mr. Jay, which reminds one, at times, of the grand old head of some ancient statue of Jupiter; it is large, and abundantly covered with silvery hair which, sweeping from one of the temples, discloses a splendid forehead. The eyes are peculiar, being dark, extremely bright and lively, and of a most searching expression. Eyebrows large,