affectation of the orthodox preachers, the puritans opposed emphatic scriptural allusions, and simple but powerful eloquence, whose energetic persuasiveness produced its effect on the minds of those to whom it was addressed. Taylor and Barrow both supported the doctrines of the established church. Taylor, by clothing his poetic ideas in the liveliest colours, dazzled his hearers by the brilliancy of his varied fancy, or won their hearts by his fervent enthusiasm, which bordered on mysticism. Barrow, who was more precise, more rapid, and more restrained in the expression of his feelings, appealed more directly to the judgment of his auditors.

The English are indebted to Charles II. for the revolution which his return from France produced in the pulpit. That prince, whose rank condemned him to hear a sermon once every week,* resigned his conscience to the precepts of the ministers of the English church, while he required them to observe the rules which his taste

words, pedantic quotations, and bad epigrams. The propounders of the Gospel scrupled not to employ even the language of burlesque.

* One day, when South, the king's chaplain, was preaching a sermon, the whole court fell asleep. South stopped short in his discourse, and three times called out to the Earl of Lauderdale, who suddenly awoke, as did also some of the other courtiers. "Excuse me, my lord," said the preacher, "but you snore so loud, that I fear you will wake his majesty."

A methodist preacher, who had probably read the above anecdote of Dr. South, remarking that some of his congregation had fallen asleep during his sermon, suddenly called out-" Fire! fire!". "Where? where?" exclaimed the faithful, who were roused by this unexpected alarm: "In hell," added the preacher, "for those who sleep while their minister preaches the word of God!"

prescribed. The didactic style was the given form for orthodox sermons, and enthusiasm was left to the Dissenters. Before I speak of puritanical eloquence, I must say a few words on Bishop Taylor.

Those who are acquainted with the vast and irregular genius, the noble conception, and the style, by turns sublime and fantastic, which distinguish the compositions of Taylor, will the more readily understand certain literary opinions adopted by the lake school of poets. Milton's prose, which was long neglected, at length suddenly shared the admiration which his sublime poetry universally excites. It is so difficult to separate Milton's opinions from his eloquence, that the lake school, which adopts the ministerial side in politics, has some difficulty in reconciling its admiration of the apostle of regicide with its worship of the prelate who shared the exile of the monarchy.

Coleridge observes, that Milton and Taylor were all their lives in direct opposition to each other, though, in the course of their controversies, they never once mentioned one another by name. Milton commenced his career, by attacking the liturgy and the principles of the English church, and Taylor commenced by defending them. Milton gradually became an austere republican, or rather the advocate of that moral and religious aristocracy, which was in his time called republicanism. Taylor, persuaded that the majority of mankind were unfit for power, became more and

more attached to the prerogatives of royalty. Milton, divesting himself of all respect for the fathers and the councils, looked with contempt on every form of ecclesiastical government, and was guided solely by the light of his own understanding. Taylor, conscious of the insufficiency of the scripture, unaided by tradition and lawful interpretation, approached more nearly to catholicism than any minister of the English church, though Coleridge will not admit this to have been the fact.

LETTER XLVII.

TO MADEMOISELLE TH. F -D.

THE foundation of the powerful, two-fold sect of Wesley and Whitfield, the Luther and Calvin of the Methodists, must not be attributed to the influence of their eloquence alone. It is curious to trace, in the history of methodism, the details of an absolute ecclesiastical government, quite as surprising as that of the Jesuits at Paraguay, while it was of course much more difficult to be established in Europe, than among savages. Southey's life of Wesley gives an able and interesting account of the doctrines and institutions of

his sect, which, in less than a century, has been propagated through a large portion of the population of England, North America, the South Sea Islands, &c. forming every where a distinct set of men, with a hierarchy, a religious creed, manners, and literature, peculiar to themselves, and regarding the members of every other sect as profane, or, at least, as but half-christians. The evidently encreasing depravity of society, particularly among the lower classes, called for a reform, and if the methodists may be said to have multiplied the masks of hypocrisy, they must, at the same time, be allowed to have been the means of rescuing numbers from the continually extending influence of demoralization. The new hierarchy of the methodists, and their mode of preaching, multiply the links of connection between pastors and their flocks, and are a sort of indirect return to the police of the catholic church. The itinerant preachers of the methodists, their conferences, their right of censure, their confession, and their veneration for the saints of their sect, all bear a strange affinity to catholicism.

In spite of Hogarth's caricatures, and Johnstone's satires,* Wesley and Whitfield are no longer viewed as burlesque preachers, in the history of the variations of protestantism. Whitfield himself informs us, with the bitterest regret, that he was an actor in his youth; he even performed in comedy, with a degree of talent which was

See the life of Johnstone, by Sir Walter Scott.

afterwards not without its advantage to him in the pulpit. In addition to graceful action, he possessed a regular set of features, and a voice at once powerful and melodious. Southey mentions, that one of his ignorant auditors once characterised his eloquence in an odd, though expressive manner, by saying that Whitfield preached like a lion. This strange comparison very well expressed the impassioned vehemence of his oratory, which seized upon the minds of his congregation, and made them tremble like Felix before the apostle.

Whitfield and Wesley preached in the open air, for the chapels were found to be too small to contain the multitudes who flocked to hear them. Franklin, whose authority is unquestionable, calculated geometrically the extent of Whitfield's sonorous voice, and proved that it was sufficiently powerful to be heard by a congregation of twenty thousand people. The Roman amphitheatres would scarcely have held such an assembly. The preacher himself describes the sensations he experienced, on beholding the crowds who assembled to hear him, and who were composed, for the most part, of the colliers from Kingswood, near Bristol. He observes, that he was powerfully affected by their profound silence, and the tears which bathed their blackened countenances.

Whitfield, however, possessed neither the talents, the knowledge, nor the ambitious fervour of Wesley. His sermons are distinguished by no very striking feature. Wesley's eloquence violently agitated those who heard him; he threat