Sic vovetque, Votumque suum apud Posteros sacratum esse voluit, Qui viro incomparabili posuit sepulchrale marmor, GEORGIUS DUX BUCKINGHAMIÆ. Excessit e vitâ Anno Ætatis suæ 49° et honorificâ pompâ elatus ex Ædibus Buckinghamianis, viris illustribus omnium ordinum exequias celebrantibus sepultus est die 3o M. Augusti, Anno Domini 1667." Oct. 1, 1808. No XLVI. Extracts from Kirke White. TO THE RUMINATOR. SIR, I EARNESTLY entreat for admission among your Ruminations of a few extracts from Kirke White. His Letters (as Mr. Southey well observes), show him to have possessed "as pure a heart, as ever it pleased the Almighty to warm with life.". How amiable is the following passage, though for reasons inscrutable to us, its pleasing anticipation was not permitted to be realized. "In contemplating my ministerial career, I regard myself as the father of a little flock; I wish to be happy with my people, like one family, and to love them as my children. I would strive to know them all, to deserve their confidence, and to become their intimate and associate; still I should wish to have much time for meditation, and to perform my duties in that calm and uniform series, which tranquillizes and lightens the spirit, and enables it to enjoy a close communion with its God; so that my instructions should extend beyond the sound of my voice, and the light of God's especial grace should be communicated in my writings to ages yet unborn." What praiseworthy fortitude is exhibited in the passage which follows: "Make me an outcast, a beggar; place me a barefooted pilgrim on the top of the Alps or the Pyrennees, and I should have wherewithal to sustain the spirit within me, in the reflection that all this was as but for a moment; that a period would come, when wrong and injury, and trouble, should be no more. Are we to be so utterly enslaved by habit and association, that we shall spend our lives in anxiety and bitter care, only that we may find a covering for our bodies, or the means of assuaging hunger? for what else is an anxiety after the world?" In his poetical pieces, is the following fine picture of genius in distress: Mark his dew'd temples, and his half-shut eye, O yes! that sunken eye with fire once gleam'd, And Hope's wild raptures thrill his breast no more." The penultimate line occurs again in the ode to Lord Carlisle, and it is to be feared was drawn too truly from the life. The following is an extract from the essays entitled "Melancholy Hours:" "If I am destined to make any progress in the world it will be by my own individual exertions. As I elbow my way through the crowded vale of life, I will never, in any emergency, call on my selfish neighbour for assistance. If my strength give way beneath the pressure of calamity, I shall sink without his whine of hyprocritical condolence: and if I do sink, let him kick me into a ditch, and go about his business. I asked not his assistance while living-it will be of no service to me when dead." P. J. Oct. 1, 1808. U N° XLVII. On the imperfect Morality of the Heathens, I CANNOT Occupy the present paper with more important matter than the following unpublished fragments of Archbishop Secker, which formed part of a correspondence with the learned translator of Epictetus, during the progress of that elaborate work. They obviously have relation to the topics discussed in the Introduction. No La "I must re-examine the Preface; and fear I cannot enter upon it, till after my Visitation, which ends June 21. "I approve highly of charity to the poor heathens. But is it not more charitable to think that they did not, and could not easily know so much of moral truth, as some would persuade us, ■ Both these papers are transcribed from the original MSS. in the Archbishop's own hand; which have been furnished by an intimate friend to whom I am under continual obligation. Editor. |