pye; and trulye hee hath leeste Paines that hath not most Bokes. Hee is your Berkshire or Hampshire manne with a harde Head and a long Stomack. Which is a Hogge amongst Wittes, but a Witte amongst Hogges: and when hee sleepes, you wot not which can grunt loudeste. For why? Hee beares no care on hys Head; excepte hys Hatte: and that hee hath not much care withall, except a-Sundayes. One maye rede in hys Vysage that he wots not to write: but hee maketh hys Marke; and soe hath one to ten chaunces againste the Gallowes. Hys Haire is unkempte; and soe is hys Intellecte: but betwixt both hee saveth a World of Trouble. Hys Head itches: it doth not ake. It is as emptye as a drye Bowle; but his Belly is crammede to the fulle; for hee is no author. You maye write him downe a Manne with one Idea: but hee is more blessede than anye with two; for hee hath nonne of their feverishe Deliriums. How can hys Minde wander? Now look you to our Schollar. Hee cryes in hys verye Birthe: for hee is stryped into hys A, B. C. Most of hys Wordes doe end in O, and hys Whyppinges have many Syllables. Hee hateth hys Boke fulle sore: and noe Marvel! For hee wotteth, to the Sorrowe of hys Bottom, that Learning is at the Bottom of hys Sorrowe. There is a naturall Hyphen betwixt them. A connexion of Minde and Matter. One cometh not without the other and hee curseth them both in hys Waye. Hys Grammar bringes him freshe Annoye for hee onlye weepeth in another Tense. But hee gets the Interjections by Harte. Figures are a great Greefe unto him; and onlye multiplie hys Paines. The dead Tongues doe bringe him a lively sorrowe: hee gettes them at hys Finger's endes. And soe hee waxeth in Growth: into a Quarto or Folio, as maye bee. A greater Bulke of Learning and Heavinesse; and belike hee goeth madde with Study overmuch. Alsoe, hee betaketh him to write: and letts his Braines be suckede forthe through a Quill. If hee seeke to gette Monneye hys Boke is unsolde; and if hee wolde have of the Worlde's Fame, hee is praysde of those that studye not hys Rimes: or is scornde and mockede of those that will not understande hys Conceites. Which is a great Sorrowe: for Poesie hath made hys Harte tender; and a little Worde is a greate Paine. Soe he getts noe Substance; but looses Fleshe. Lastlye he dyeth a pitifull Death: the kindlye Creditour of an unkindlye Worlde; and then hee is weepede for; and it is askde: "Why will hee not write again ?" And the Parishe Clarke hys witte sufficeth to hys Epitaph: which runnes: Alake! alake! that studye colde not save Soe great a Witte out of so small a grave But Learning must decaye and Letters both And Studye too. Death is a dreadfull Goth Which spareth nonne. Unfortunately, I could neither read further, nor turn over the leaf through the glass; and, still more unfortunately, I did not go in and purchase the book. However, I had read enough to lead me to a decision, that the ignorant are most happy; and, as I walked away from the window, I repeated the lines: No more: where Ignorance is bliss 'Tis folly to be wise. As this was the second great ques tion that I had decided, I walked onward to Waterloo Bridge, without any doubt of being able to determine the third; viz. as to the merits and demerits of the bridge, and its archi tect. But here an unforeseen difficulty presented itself; for owing to the lateness of my arrival, and the sudden fall of a very dense fog, I was unable to do any thing more than determine to come again. I accordingly walked back into the Strand, and finding a stage at Somerset House, I took my seat in it, and turned towards home. I had three travelling companions, two males and one female, and after we had discussed the usual topics, and paid tion dwindled away into a profound the usual compliments, the conversasilence: I therefore employed myself in the arrangement of my travels, and in recollecting the various incidents and reflections to which they had given rise. I must request, Mr. Editor, your utmost indulgence towards one so inexperienced as a traveller, and if you should find that the style of my that the incidents and reflections are narration is rugged and uneven, and abrupt and unconnected, I beg that you will attribute it to the unpleasant jolting of the stage, and the frequent interruptions and stoppages that it met with. INCOG. WARNER'S CHURCH OF ENGLAND THEOLOGY.* MOCK MANUSCRIPT SERMONS. The hungry sheep look up and are not fed.-Milton's Lycidas. We thought it right, in a late Number, to expose in rather plain terms, an infamous invasion attempted to be made by the country dances upon our churches. We endeavoured to point out the hypocrisy of that attempt, by which it was sought to build a Hymn Book, the frame-work of which should be - Neil Gow stuccoed over with the sa-cred cement of Whitefield and Wesley. -Our readers will hardly believe that this species of religious craft has not confined itself to the organ-loft and the pews; but has cunningly crept its way up the steps, and seated itself in the Pulpit. The Rev. R. Warner, rector of Great Chalfield, Wilts. has accomplished a great invention for those indolent and cautious pastors, who would fain have their flocks believe that the Sabbath words that float from their lips, floated originally from their pens. Sir Roger De Coverley made it his boast, that his curate delivered sound discourses from the pages of Tillotson and Barrow; and the curate himself had no inclination to disguise the source from which the sacred waters ran. But the Rev. R. Warner is a very different person from either Sir Roger De Coverley or his curate: he thinks that idle pastors had better retail his little parcels of Theology, made up like packets of gout specifics, or Seidlitz powders, for ready use and infallible relief: it is not his opinion that the clergy should let the congregation into the secrets of the cushion, and therefore his "Series of Ten Sermons" is "printed in a beautiful Manuscript Character, stitched in black covers." We almost expect to see the advertisement conclude with the earnest advice, "Be sure to ask for Warner's Blacking." Many of our readers have seen a set of Skeleton Sermons, qualified for the use of young divines, whose abi lities for composition might not be altogether of the highest or the clearest order. These bladders and corks for young dabblers, these theological pick-locks for opening the pews of the heart, were bought up eagerly, and the most difficult passages of old divinity were opened by them. Sermons composed from these skeletons were doubly didactic, for they taught not only the congregation but the teacher. By the help of these leading-strings the most timid person might wander safely through all the tangled mazes of Scripture controversy, and perhaps be enabled ultimately to walk alone. There might be some deceit, it is true, in passing off such cast-iron discourses as though they were hammered and wrought out of the malleable ore of the preacher's brain; but as some trouble was really necessary to render the articles fit for use, it was the less culpable to endeavour to put them forth as original. We wish we could speak as tenderly of the series of ten sermons now before us; but the hypocrisy of the endeavour to foist a limited number of packets of very indifferent and common-place prose upon a church congregation, as the patient labours of the week, by means of a manuscript character and a "black cover," is so offensive in our eyes, that we should hold ourselves to be poor advocates of honesty and decorum, if we were to pass by so gross an infringement of the candour and decency of the church. If a printed sermon is to be selected, why should there be any disguise? Is there any peculiar virtue in a manuscript character? Any superior holiness in a black_cover? None:-but the ready-made homily, thus clothed, is an apparent assurance to the flock, that the shepherd has been watching and toiling all the week for its safety and its welfare. It is intended that this "manuscript * Church of England Theology, a Series of Ten Sermons. By the Rev. R. Warner, Rector of Great Chalfield, Wilts. Longman and Co. London, 1821. character" should give a colourable history of nights and days of intense reading and severe application, of deep and holy thought, and serious writing; and that it should be a guarantee for continual exertion. Would some unruly churchwarden, or pestilent overseer, insinuate that the curate was a lover of loo, or a worshipper of double-barrelled guns, is it not sufficient for him to reply by inquiring how, in such case, his sermons could be so beautifully composed and so fairly copied? Would any one say he was an idle and a negligent man,-is not the constant discourse, in its neat black cover, an ample answer? The subjects of these sermons, too, are the most important on which a minister can discourse, and thus prove, in a still stronger manner, his erudition, zeal, and ability. That congregation would be an ungrateful congregation indeed, that could suspect a clergyman of negligence or want of power, who should descant learnedly upon 1st. The Scriptural Doctrine of the Fall and Corruption of Man.-2d. Do. of Repentance.-3d. Do. of Faith.-4th. Do. of Good Works-5th. Do. of Conversion and Atonement through Christ.-6th. Do. of Regeneration by Baptism.-7th. Do. of the Gifts of the Holy Spirit; for Whitsunday. -8th. Do. of the Holy Trinity.-9th. Do. of the Holy Sacrament.-10th. On the Figurative Language of Scripture. All which Do's are printed in a neat MS. character, and stitched in black covers; so that it is next to impossible that even the persons in the galleries should detect the pious and erudite fraud. But we have consumed all the space we can afford for this unseemly publication, and shall content ourselves with once for all protesting against the hypocrisy which blackens more than the covers of this pitiful series of sermons. We are quite sure that no ingenuous mind would knowingly second these contrivances; and we therefore hope that the few observations we have hastily made, will have some effect in showing them in their true (and not their manuscript) character. When the heads of our Establishment every where raise the cry that the Church is in danger," when the land is acknowledged to be full of Dissenters, against whom accusation is preferred that their teachers are not intelligent, scholastic, profound-like the clergy of the Church of England, is the justice of our charge, the strength of our cause, to be rested on the "Ten Sermons of the Rev. R. Warner?" Infidelity is said to be more active now than ever, and in its ingenuity more subtle:--but what need we fear, since the essence of "Church of England Theology" is contained in ten magical packets, one packet a dose, which can be sent by return of coach to any part of the infected kingdom? Alas! Leviathan is not so tamed. It remains to be said, in justice to the Rev. Richard Warner, that he is not the original discoverer of this ingenious plan for a machine to abridge the labours of his clerical brethren. Dr. Trusler of Bath, his predecessor, was the renowned inventor; and his fame in this, and similar undertakings, is thus immortalized by the pen of Cowper: But hark-the doctor's voice!-fast wedged LIFE OF HÖLTY.. LEWIS HENRY CHRISTOPHER HÖLTY was born on the 21st of December, 1748, at Mariensee in the Electorate of Hanover, where his father, Philip Ernest Hölty, had officiated as a clergyman from the year 1742. His mother, Elizabeth Juliana Gössel, who was his father's second wife, was the daughter of a solicitor at Celle. She also dying young, his father in 1758 married his third wife, who became a widow in 1775. According to the testimony of his step-mother, who had known him from his tenderest infancy, Hölty was exceedingly handsome until his ninth year, in which the small-pox effaced his beauty. He early manifested a sprightliness of disposition and a desire of knowledge which were very remarkable. As soon as he could manage a pen, he began to write down whatever had struck his fancy in the course of recital, or in ordinary conversation. His deportment towards every person was affectionate and winning; and he let no opportunity pass of defending those whom he esteemed, when any thing to their prejudice was uttered in his presence. He was consequently a universal favourite, as well on account of his personal beauty, as of his droll sallies and observations. His mother died of a consumption, and he was, in the week of her decease, attacked by an inveterate small-pox, which, added to the effects of grief, for a long time threatened him with the loss of sight, and deprived him of that sprightliness which was natural to him. After the lapse, however, of two years, he recovered the use of his eyes, and redoubled his ardour and diligence in learning. His father, who was a member of the German Society of Göttingen, was well versed both in sciences and languages, and also imbued with a taste for poetry. Under his superintendance, young Hölty became instructed in the Latin, French, Greek, and Hebrew, as well as the German language,-in Geography, History, and all the other branches of a school education. His diligence was so intense, that he would not suspend his application even during breakfast; he never appeared at dinner or supper without being summoned, and secretly stayed up every night until three o'clock. This last practice, when discovered by his father, was prohibited by him, and Hölty's mother allowed him only a scanty light when he withdrew to his bed-chamber at eleven o'clock, the hour at which the family usually retired. However, all the care that was taken to remove lamps and candles out of his reach proved ineffectual, for it was found out a considerable time after, that he used to provide himself with oil during the day, and to scoop lamps out of turnips. In order, besides, to awaken early for the purpose of reading the books which he huddled together from all quarters, he used to tie a string round his arm, to which a stone was attached, and this he laid on a chair by his bed-side, that when about morning he should turn in the bed, the stone might fall and the chuck upon his arm arouse him. Notwithstanding all this eagerness, he was far from being either morose or haughty on the contrary, his cheerful, mild, obliging, and tender disposition, rendered him the joy of his family before he became their pride. Out of school-hours, he found a pleasure in wandering through a shady wood, with books in his pockets, which he used to read aloud, and in contemplating the beauties of nature. At Göttingen he afterwards perused the best authors in this manner. His propensity also for the terrific early displayed itself. He used to visit the church-yard, and other appalling places, at all hours without fear, and even weaned some grown persons from their apprehensions by exhibiting them in a diculous light. He often dressed himself out like a ghost, and glided alone among the graves in the evening, merely for his pleasure, and without intending to frighten any one. At the age of eleven he made his first From a life of him written in German, by Voss. essay in poetry, and became so attached to the pursuit, that even while in church rhymes occurred to his mind, which he used to write upon the wall when he happened to have no paper. Of the concerns of the body he was quite regardless, and it required no small persuasion to induce him, upon arriving at Göttingen, to exchange his dusty woollen coat for the grave brown suit with gilt buttons which he was obliged to wear. After some time spent at a public school in Celle, he in 1769 commenced, at Göttingen, as a student of theology, where he was to remain for three years. To his other studies he here added that of the Italian language. In the third year he made the acquaintance of Bürger and Miller, and afterwards of Voss, Boie, Hahn, Leisewitz, Cramer, and Count Stollberg. Having been permitted to remain another half year at the University, he laboured assiduously until he obtained an exhibition which was in the gift of two ladies, and commons free, in addition. He was also appointed to a situation in the Philological Seminary, and signified to his father that he intended to supply all his remaining wants by the profits arising from tuition. Those who saw Hölty for the first time did not readily discover his character. He was robust, roundshouldered, and awkward, unwieldy in his gait, and of a deathy paleness, silent, and inattentive to those about him. Notwithstanding his simple air, however, his laughing eye, which was of the clearest blue, sparkled with an expression of sincerity and archness, which diffused itself over his entire countenance, when he was enjoying his books, rambling through a beautiful country, or lying on his back under a blooming tree. His feelings, which were intense, he usually suppressed, and whenever he gave them vent it was almost invariably in some characteristic manner. He was in the company of a few friends at Hahn's, when the news was brought that Klopstock was to pass through Göttingen. He had been hitherto rocking himself very composedly in his seat, with his bread and butter in his hand, but, upon hearing this, he stood up, and began to whirl himself about on the heel of his left foot, with a very slow and awkward motion. "What are you about there?" inquired one of the friends. "Enjoying myself!" replied he, smiling. Of little confidential parties he was particularly fond, especially where the board was crowned with Rhenish wine. He would recline upon rose leaves, anoint his beard like Anacreon, and make such solemn preparations for drinking, as if he were about to realize the termination of his own song, written in praise of that genial beverage; but the matter ended there. Voss never saw him weep but twice. One day Hölty avowed, as if accidentally, that he used to spit blood in the morning; but it was not, until after many repeated and ineffectual remonstrances, that he was at length persuaded to consult Richter. This physician, after inquiring into the case, gave him consolation, but in such a manner that Hölty understood him, and on returning home he wept bitterly. The other occasion, was his hearing of the death of his father. He entered Voss's room with a troubled countenance. "How goes it, Hölty?" inquired the latter. "Very well," answered he, smiling, "but my father is dead," and tears gushed along his pallid cheeks. He He spoke little or nothing, even among friends, when the company was numerous. When he did, it was only to interrupt the conversation by some droll sally, rendered still more laughable by the dryness with which it was uttered, and the serious countenance of the speaker. often visited Leisewitz without exchanging a word with him, until at last by some chance they entered into conversation: however, his oddities did not prevent him from being loved and revered by his companions, who esteemed him as it were something sacred. To this appearance of indifference he joined an ardent curiosity. He had the earliest intelligence of the new works which appeared at the fairs, and rummaged through all the reviews which contained either praise or blame of himself, or his friends, although he equally disregarded both, as issuing for the most part from the pens of inexperienced or venal critics. He often sat during whole days, and the greater part of the night, poring over |