specting self, heightens the interest of so many passages in Milton; which keeps the ear suspended on Lord Erskine's oratory; which compels maiden ladies to read Don Juan in spite of their blushes; and which secures extensive circulation to last dying speeches at the gallows. It is this which we shall attempt to collect from Lady Morgan's work; and we know not how we can better aid the progress of illumination, the downfal of political and superstitious despotism, the propagation of illegitimacy, (for which the Lady seems particularly anxious,) the march of reason, the cause of civil and religious liberty all over the world, or the countless other similar benefits which her pen seeks to render to mankind. Our Review, therefore, will be rather synthetic than analytic. We shall put together a mosaic work of dogmas, which otherwise must be sought for in detached portions; and rejecting all superfluous ornament, all the arabesque of anecdote on the best authority, piquant bon-mot, private memoir, confidential disclosure, and rhetorical flourish, we shall endeavour to embody a valuable corpus of sound and solemn OPINION.

At Florence "the ministerial doors of embassy flew open to guests, whose known political opinions elsewhere would have barred their entrance." Sir Thomas frequently enjoyed the choice society of spirits, professionally or constitutionally congenial to his own; for he informs us, that the apothecaries in the north of Italy have their medical "attainment mixed with no inconsiderable portion of philosophy and general information." One gentleman, indeed, at Naples, must particularly have delighted him, as the writer of an interesting work of some apparent and perhaps real paradox :" it is an Essay on the inutility of History. This excellent Signor has also "made himself acquainted with the leading facts of physiology, as a means of studying to greater advantage the moral and social nature of the species, and for ascertaining the physical basis of those abstract notions which have most divided philosophers." (Vol. I. p. 333.)-In other words, we suppose, he is employed in the grand work of infidelity, and engaged like the ingenious author of "Sketches of the Philosophy of Life," in proving that man has no more than a theological soul.” We trust that he will labour with equal success, and acquire as much praise and profit.

4. [The Quarterly Review has just added its strictures upon Lady Morgan, which appear to complete the justification of all that she says of her ministerial reviewers.]

[Quarterly Review-October, 1821.]

It may be expected that we should say something of this book, we shall take the liberty of explaining why we shall say very

little. When criticism partakes of the nature of punishment, (as criticism on such a work as this would do,) it should be limited, as other punishments ought to be, to one of three objects-the reformation of the offender-the deterring others from offending -or, the correction of mischief caused by the offence. Now although Lady Morgan's 'Italy' is a series of offences against good morals, good politics, good sense, and good taste, we do not think that her arraignment would conduce to any of the three objects to which we have just limited the propriety of a penal visitation. In the first place, we are convinced that this woman is utterly incorrigible; secondly, we hope that her indelicacy, ignorance, vanity, and malignity, are inimitable, and that, therefore, her example is very little dangerous-and thirdly, though every page teems with errors of all kinds, from the most disgusting down to the most ludicrous, they are smothered in such Boeotian dulness, that they can do no harm. Extracts could afford no idea of the general and homogeneous stupidity which pervades the work; and if our review should happen to give any interest to the subject, we should be liable to the double charge of deceiving our friends and puffing Lady Morgan. We therefore decline drawing her frailties from their dread abode.' Buried in the lead of her ponderous quartos, the corruption is inoffensive-any examination would only serve to let the effluvia escape, and in some degree endanger the public health.

We, indeed, have been obliged to labour through these tomes, because our duty imposes that task upon us: but we have not heard of any voluntary reader who has been able to contend against the narcotic influence of her prating, prosing, and plagiarism, and get through even the first volume-This, however, is not the only criterion we can adduce that the work, notwithstanding the obstetric skill of Sir Charles Morgan, (who, we believe, is a man-midwife,) dropt all but still-born from the press :' we have another, less liable to the suspicion of partiality than any opinion of our's; we mean the advertisements of her own publishers and worthless as the occasion is, we think that the exposure of the system of puffing in a case so flagrant as this, may not be unamusing, or unimportant to the real dignity of -criticism.

Our readers-who are also, we presume, readers of newspapers —must remember that it is at least a year since 'Lady Morgan's Italy' was formally advertised-we even suspect that the intended publication of the Travels was announced before the journey itself was begun-and that the price of the embryo MS. paid the expenses of the travellers.

*

*

*

*

*

*

Just as this sheet was going to the press, we received the puff final-the forlorn hope of puffing, in a letter from Lady Morgan to her Reviewers.' We shall make but two remarks on it; first,

that it is as dull (we had almost said as unintelligible) as the great work itself, and as clumsy as the series of shifts which we have already exposed: and secondly, that we find Lady Morgan adopts the argumentum à crumena, of which even we supposed she would be ashamed;-for, says this disinterested philosopher and logical reasoner, 'the price given for my last venture from Italy is the best answer to those who endeavoured to undervalue the cargo. No doubt Lady Morgan thinks this proof very satisfactory; but what is it to the publisher, who paid for the work before it was written, or to the public, who will not buy it?

ART. IV. The Life of Wesley; and the Rise and Progress of Methodism. By ROBERT SOUTHEY, Esq. Poet-Laureate, &c. 8vo. 2 vols. 11. 8s. Boards. Longman and Co. 1820.

[Monthly Review-September, 1821.]

ALTHOUGH Mr. Southey seems of late to be very wilfully incurring the danger of being called a book-maker, and though the life of John Wesley is no new topic, it was to be expected that the extraordinary character of the subject, and the celebrity of the biographer, would secure a favourable reception for these volumes. They certainly form, on the whole, a very judicious compilation; and they include, in addition to the Wesleyan details, a complete account of the life of Whitefield, with sketches sufficiently extensive of the characters and exertions of the principal Methodist leaders, as well Calvinistic as Wesleyan, who have since appeared. Excepting that Mr. Southey seems to have a bias in favour of his hero's family, that he gives Mr. Wesley's mother more credit for sound judgment than her conduct can justify, that he attributes to Wesley himself more consistency and sincerity of heart than we can discover to have belonged to him habitually, and that he has perhaps even too mean an opinion of Whitefield's sense, the work before us strikes us as being remarkably impartial.

We have on former occasions adverted to the principal facts of Mr. Wesley's birth and life, and particularly to the circumstances of the early development of his extraordinary character, during his residence both at Oxford and in America. Soon after his arrival there, he gave the strongest indications of a perverse and intolerant spirit. He despised human learning too much to study any new languages, though with his English he could be of no service to the Choctaws:--he would baptize no children without immersion :-he would not admit persons as sponsors who had not communicated;-and he would neither receive Dissenters at the communion without their being rebaptized, nor read the burial-service over them under any circumstances. As soon as he was in a theatre where he could

act without restraint from a superior, he displayed in their native ugliness that love of power, and that spiritual pride, which under various disguises were his ruling passions through life. Where, according to the rubrics of the Church of England, though contrary to its practice, or where by a strained interpretation of those rubrics, he could domineer over the consciences of others under the pretext of clerical discipline, this he did; and, with the spirit of a Becket, he gloried in his own austerities, in bigotry, and in persecution. In the midst of his intolerance, however, his pride was humbled by a love-adventure, the details of which we do not deem it necessary to recapitulate; but we cannot help observing that the particulars are in the highest degree discreditable to Mr. Wesley's memory as a man of sincerity, or propriety, or humanity.

The review which Mr. Wesley took of the progress of his own religious life, during his voyage home from America, shows that his enthusiasm had been materially tamed, and we observe much sobriety and discretion in the remarks which it contains:

"For many years," says he, "I have been tossed about by various winds of doctrine. I asked long ago, 'What must I do to be saved? The Scripture answered, Keep the commandments, believe, hope, love.—I was early warned against laying, as the Papists do, too much stress on outward works, or on a faith without works, which as it does not include, so it will never lead to true hope or charity. Nor am I sensible that to this hour I have laid too much stress on either. But I fell among some Lutheran and Calvinist authors, who magnified faith to such an amazing size, that it hid all the rest of the commandments. I did not then see that this was the natural effect of their overgrown fear of popery, being so terrified with the cry of merit and good works, that they plunged at once into the other extreme; in this labyrinth I was utterly lost, not being able to find out what the error was, nor yet to reconcile this uncouth hypothesis either with Scripture or common sense. The English writers, such as Bishop Beveridge, Bishop Taylor, and Mr. Nelson, a little relieved me from these well-meaning, wrong-headed Germans. Only when they interpreted Scripture in different ways, I was often much at a loss. * * * I grew acquainted with the mystic writers, whose noble descriptions of union with God and internal religion made every thing else appear mean, flat, and insipid. But in truth, they made good works appear so too; yea, and faith itself, and what not? They gave me an entire new view of religion, nothing like any I had before. But, alas! it was nothing like that religion which Christ and his apostles loved and taught. I had a plenary dispensation from all the commands of God; the form was thus : Love is all; all the commands beside are only means of love: you must choose those which you feel are means to you, and usé

them as long as they are so. Thus were all the bands burst at once; and though I could never fully come into this, nor contentedly omit what God enjoined, yet, I know not how, I fluc tuated between obedience and disobedience. I had no heart, no vigour, no zeal in obeying, continually doubting whether I was right or wrong, and never out of perplexities and entanglements. Nor can I at this hour give a distinct account, how or when I came a little back toward the right way; only my present sense is this, all the other enemies of Christianity are triflers, the mystics are the most dangerous; they stab it in the vitals, and its most serious professors are most likely to fall by

On his return, he seems to have entered on the closest intimacy with the Moravian brethren in London, and his reason appears to have been speedily sunken in the deepest gulfs of mysticism. He wrote a curious letter to William Law, and received from him a judicious and friendly answer: but his delirium did not attain its acme till Wednesday the 24th of May in that year, (1738,) when he went to a society in AldersgateStreet, where one of the assembly was reading Luther's preface to the Epistle to the Romans.

"Here about a quarter before nine," says Wesley, "while he was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed; I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone for salvation: and an assurance was given me that He had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death. I began to pray with all my might for those who had in a more especial manner despitefully used me and persecuted me. I then testified openly to all there what I now first felt in my heart."

This assurance, which Wesley so received, led him to the greatest extravagancies. In the following year, commenced those strange fits, those "wrestlings with God," and "dislodgments of the evil one," which, after the manner of the French prophets, Wesley was able to excite in his congregations. They appear in some cases to have been the result of sensibility highly excited; in others, a sort of epileptic affection; in some, an hysterical disorder, highly infectious from sympathy; and in many cases they were the offspring of hypocrisy, and intended merely to create attention. Some, which were effected afterward by Wesley's followers, bear strong marks of a conspiracy between the preacher and the exhibitors. The injury which must be done to any person's senses by constantly aspiring and gasping for a visitation of grace, which was not to be procured by any good works or rational exertions, but was to be a sudden influx from "the pure love of the babe Jesus," might account for a great portion of these fancies: but a fervid or disordered imagination does not, except at the outset of these vagaries, seem to have had so much