and particularly to succeed Dr. Sprat as bishop of Rochester and dean of Westminster, in 1713; but he replied, that such a chair "would be too uneasy for an old, infirm man to sit in." The death of the queen was regarded by him as an indication of the approach of his own; as he told one of his most familiar friends and visitors," that it was time for him to prepare for his journey to a blessed immortality; since all that was good and gracious, and the very breath of his nostrils, had taken its departure to the regions of bliss." One of the last acts of his life demonstrated the constancy of his attachments. The duke of Ormond had, by a bill of attainder in parliament, forfeited his title, and with it his place of high-steward of Westminster. Dr. South felt much regard for this family; and the earl of Arran, only brother of the late duke, being one of the two candidates to succeed him, he caused himself, though in a manner bed-ridden, to be brought in a chair to the new election. He made the voice of the prebendaries equal, by saying very briskly, when asked for whom he would vote, "Heart and hand for my Lord Arran." The choice was determined in his lordship's favour by the dean, who had the casting vote. This was the last time he went abroad; and exhausted, no doubt, by the interest he had shown, he made quick advances towards his dissolution; closing a long and laborious life, 8th of July, 1716.

He was buried, with many attendant circumstances of pomp and respect, in Westminster Abbey, near the tomb of Busby. The funeral service, at his own request, was read by Atterbury, for whom he had a great regard, and on whom the dignities had been conferred which himself had declined. His eloge is contained in the Latin epitaph written by Dr. Friend, then head-master of Westminster school, and inscribed on the sumptuous marble monument erected to his memory. This, which will be regarded by most as sufficiently complimentary, but which surely is less disproportioned to its subject than many, describes him "as uniting at once all those extraordinary talents that were divided among the greatest masters of antiquity; the sound, distinct, comprehensive knowledge of Aristotle, with all the beautiful lights, graces, and embellishments of Cicero. One knows not which most to admire in his writings, the strength of reason, force of style, or brightness of imagination." And further, "that while he was possessed of Tertullian's oratory and force of persuasion, he was clothed with St. Cyprian's devotion

and humility." It is not easy to suppress a smile at the last grace with which the writer has endowed him; but in which he manifests, at least, the warmth and partiality of his friendship.

The praise, however liberal, which, in strict justice, is due to the intellect and the writings of South, will indeed very possibly be thought by some, outweighed by the faults of his character. He has laid this open, without disguise, in his sermons; and the picture, which some of his biographers have drawn of it, is little else than one of unmingled shade. The epithets of "sour," "morose," "peevish," "unamiable," "intolerant," and "unforgiving," make up most of the delineation of Rees and Tooke; while that of Antony Wood is written in gall. This estimate, unreasonably severe, will be softened, as it ought, by reference to other sources. South's was, what is called, a strongly marked character; and none who came often in contact with him, could view such a man with indifference. His prejudices, extreme in all points, acting upon an ardent, ingenuous, and frequently indiscreet temper, would naturally create enemies enough to blacken his name and memory; while, in the same cast of mind, as often is seen in other instances, many of his best qualities had their rise. Of his generous friendship, one or two examples have appeared in the sketch of his life; his charities to the poor were said to have been both liberal and secret; while for his curates he made as large provision as is often shown towards that unfortunate portion of the church. But having no anxiety to magnify his personal character, it is readily allowed, that these laudable traits might consist with the constitutional want of any very winning qualities; and, according to a generally admitted maxim, he was too witty a man to be much loved.

The reproach of being a time-server, is that which is most frequently cast upon his memory; by some, no doubt, who have heard nothing of his history beside. The versatility of his early life speaks too plausibly indeed to this charge. Nor is it meant to palliate it in saying, that the consciousness of such powers, fed by the most lavish encomiums, must at that season of life have worked strongly on an ambition, not naturally very torpid; till it was quite carried away by the prospects of distinction, which those times of confusion encouraged. These circumstances of his life too, it must not be forgotten, belong to a period which did not, either within the church or among his seniors, superabound in examples of inflexible prin

ciple. Dr. South lived long enough to see the political faith which he cherished, again subverted; yet he did not dishonour his mature judgment by deserting it. This, it rests with those who impeach his integrity, to explain. If his steadfastness at the revolution of 1688 be weighed in the balance with his youthful levity during the interregnum, he will not perhaps be found wanting.

His adulation towards those who held the high places of church and state, it must be frankly owned, is inexcusably gross, in an age when adulation made near approaches to idolatry. Here, if he yields to any one the first place, it can only be to the dedications of Dryden. While lavishing his panegyric on the memory of the first, or the person of the second Charles, he seems to labour with the greatness of his theme; nor did the profligate character of the latter, for aught that appears, create any conscientious scruples to check the freedom of his pen. But devoted as he was to royalty, in whomsoever it might chance to reside; it is grateful to see that he was not wholly blind to the gross licentiousness of his times. As evidence of this, it is enough to refer to the last paragraphs of the tenth discourse of this Selection. This discourse, of which the general spirit is more bitter, perhaps, than that of any other from his pen, at once passes at its close into a strain of melancholy reflection, such as the moral aspect of society prompted, the more impressive and striking from the contrast. Another pa

ragraph of the same tenor is found in one of his posthumous discourses, from which nothing has been taken in the body of this volume; and rather than lose a passage at once so eloquent, and so redeeming to the character of the subject of this notice, it is subjoined below.*

*"God neither dried up the sea, to bring the Israelites into a land flowing with milk and honey, that they might debauch, revel, and surfeit upon that mercy; nor did he, by a miracle as great, reinstate a company of poor, distressed exiles in the possession of their native country, that they should live at that rate of vanity and superfluity, that the world now-a-days cries out upon them for. God did not work wonders, to clothe and feed a few worthless parasites with the riches of a kingdom, to fill their cups with the blood of orphans, and the tears of widows. God did not intend that so universal a blessing, big enough for us all, should be diverted under-ground into the obscure, narrow channel of a few private purses; leaving so many loyal, suffering, undone persons, to sigh and mourn over their destitute condition, in the day of a public joy. God did not restore us to scoff at religion, and to malign his church, as if the nation and the government might stand

It is certainly much to the honour of South, that he has borne this decided testimony,—in language not less explicit, so far as my knowledge extends, than any contemporary preacher, certainly any court chaplain,-to the prevailing licentiousness of manners. Still, one could have wished that he had not been so strangely blind to its true source; or, to come perhaps nearer the truth, that he had been less fearful of even hinting at it, however indirectly. But of the character of his royal master, South was not tender only: he might, from some parts of this volume, be thought almost enamoured of it; and he who should first become acquainted with Charles through these sermons, might well need a guide to recognise him again in history. We cannot therefore, in this particular, render the same tribute to South as to Evelyn; one, whose loyalty was no way inferior to his own.

The intolerant spirit, which was continually venting itself in such asperity of language, as shocks the gentleness and refinement of modern times, is no slight blemish in the character of South. Of this temper, it is mortifying to say, that there are few sermons that do not afford more or less evidence. It breaks forth when the Socinians or Papists, but much oftener, when the Puritans are his theme; and though it takes sometimes the form of sportive humour and wit, yet more frequently still, that of bitter and envenomed satire. "His humour indeed, in too many instances, borders on grossness and indelicacy, and his wit betrayed him into expressions certainly improper, if not profane." Both the above faults, the violation of good temper and the offence against decorum in language, have sometimes occasioned concern and hesitancy in the editor of this volume. But to omit such passages has not always been easy without injury to the sermon, and in his view any attempt to soften them, would be an unwarrantable liberty. They have therefore been suffered to pass, in the hope, so far as they admit of apology, that the reader would remember when they were written; an allowance, which South needs much more for the temof his productions, than for their style and taste.

per

It is one of the least favourable circumstances in the character of this remarkable man, that there seemed to be so little cordial

well enough without a church, but not without plays. No; surely, this was not the intent of this miraculous deliverance, whatsoever has been made the event of it."

regard between him and his eminent contemporaries. The sarcasms in one of the last discourses in this volume (seventeenth of the "Selections," p. 438.) are very obviously levelled at Jeremy Taylor; on which an English journal has pronounced so accurate a judgment, that its language may be adopted without variation. "The criticism of this passage is perfectly sound; and is a just exposure of Taylor's defects; but it is neither a fair nor an honourable representation of his general manner. It is not character, but caricature; the expressions themselves are singled out in malice, without any regard to the redeeming beauties of Taylor's language and conception. There can be no question that these fantastic phrases and 'starched similitudes' were really offensive to the sound taste and finer ear of South; but we are persuaded that the real gravamen was to be found in the greater reputation of his illustrious rival."* What rendered this reflection the more unkind, is, that after being kept back during the life of Taylor, it was spoken on the very year succeeding his decease. Nor does he appear to have been on a more friendly footing with Tillotson. The liberal encomium which the latter bestowed on the Socinians of his time, in his sermons "" on the Divinity of our Blessed Lord," was wholly unpalatable to South, and he has given vent to his spleen on this account, probably, in one discourse, (third of the "Selections,") and still more undisguisedly in the close of his "Animadversions on Sherlock's Vindication." It has been said, that he was curious to know the archbishop's opinion of the execution of his part of that controversy, and the rather, on account of this oblique thrust at himself. This he contrived to obtain through a common friend, to whom his Grace said, that the Doctor wrote like a man, but bit like a dog; to which the repartee of South was, that he had rather bite like a dog than fawn like one; and the archbishop rejoined, that for his own part, he should choose to be a spaniel rather than a cur.†

Eclectic Rev. for Feb. 1818.

+ This keen encounter of wits rests wholly on the authority of Birch, who, in his Life of Tillotson, produces it in order to show that his hero was not deficient in this particular faculty. He bears little good will to South, whom he represents ፡፡ as among Protestants, one of the most forward and petulant assailants of his Grace's writings; whose learning and genius were accompanied with an unrestrained acrimony of temper, and a boundless severity of language, mixed with the lowest and falsest, as well as truest wit, both in his conversations and writings."