Bristol in 1831. His collected works, edited with a Life by Dr Olinthus Gregory, contain the pieces above mentioned; two small volumes of sermons (among which may be singled out the 'Funeral Sermon for the Princess Charlotte,' and 'The Glory of God in Concealing'); 'Terms of Communion' (an attempt to promote free communion among Christian Churches); and other pieces of minor importance.

Hall had a large-built, robust-looking figure. When in repose, his features wore a stern expression, his large mouth having a peculiarly formidable appearance; but when he was engaged in friendly talk, the lines were soft and winning.

With so much of the appearance of robust health, his constitution was far from being strong in all its parts. All his life through he suffered from acute pains in the side and loins; and when he died, the cause of his sufferings was found to be extensive disease of the heart and the right kidney. The other vital organs were found to be quite healthy; and this probably explains why he was able to endure his acute pains so long, and to enjoy life, to maintain even a buoyant flow of spirits, in the intervals of the keener paroxysms. He supported nature further by large doses of stimulants and narcotics, drinking enormous quantities of tea (as many as thirty cups in an afternoon), smoking hard, and in his later years, when his pains increased, taking as much as a thousand drops of laudanum in a night.

As in the case of Johnson, still more in the case of Hall, it would be unfair to estimate his intellectual powers by his published writings. These contain much clear and vigorous argument, copiousness of expression, and here and there passages of splendid declamation; but they do not bear out the reputation he held among his contemporaries, both in his peculiar brotherhood and out of it. He never concentrated his powers long upon any one theme. He was very unlike the steady, sagacious Paley, who threw the greater part of his energy into his books. He was ready to spend himself upon "labour that profiteth not," at least for posthumous reputation. He went through a laborious course of reading in Latin and Greek authors, "because he thought himself especially defective in a tasteful and critical acquaintance with them;" sparing not even "the best treatises on the Greek metres then extant." He went through a similarly laborious course of reading in mathematics, in order to comprehend Sir Isaac Newton's philosophical discoveries. When Macaulay wrote his celebrated article on Milton, Hall set to work at Italian, that he might be able to verify the comparison between Milton and Dante. A man so discursive could not be expected to write much at a high standard of excellence. Nearly all his published writings were composed rather hastily. He prepared only one or two of his

sermons for publication: most of them were published after his death from notes taken by hearers. The intellectual power displayed in what he has written is very unequal; but there are passages that show us what he was capable of, and entitle him to a high rank in literature.

Like Jeremy Taylor, Hall was at once a hard student and a man of warm feelings. He had, as we have said, in spite of all his acute sufferings, a keen enjoyment of life. He said of himself that he "enjoyed everything." He liked company extremely'Don't let us go yet," he was often heard to say; "the present place is the best place.' He took pleasure in the dry treatises of Jonathan Edwards, and spoke with enthusiasm of Chillingworth's 'Religion of Protestants "It is just," he said, "like reading a novel." His likes, dislikes, and admirations were numerous, and expressed with vehemence. In argument he was excitable, and often lost his temper: when his companions differed from him on a point that he had considered well, he closed the debate with a peremp tory deliverance of his opinion. When excited, he indulged freely in personal sarcasms. In genial company he was the gayest of companions; uttering his opinions without reserve, playing on his friends with affectionate raillery, and showing a grateful sense of the regard paid to his talents. With unaffected piety he often took himself to task for not making his conversation more spiritually edifying, and made good resolutions to amend; but though he entered a company with the best intentions, his genial impulses were too strong.

For active life he was eminently unqualified. He was tolerably methodical in his studies, and there is no record of his being diverted by other interests from the due preparation of his weekly discourses. But in the matter of active duties he needed constant supervision. He became absorbed in his books, and forgot his engagements. His deacons often had to look for him in his study. He was sometimes ignorant of the day of the week and if he went to London, and engaged to deliver letters for his friends, the chances were that he brought them back in his pocket.

Opinions.-Hall caused some suspicion and anxiety among his graver brethren by the liberality of his views, and his free remarks on names venerable in the Church. There was no moroseness, no austerity, in his religious opinions: as we have seen, he was by nature lively and full of gay spirits. He was latitudinarian in his views of Church government, inclining to Pope's epigram, "Whate'er is best administered is best." In his 'Terms of Communion,' he advocated the admission of every denomination of Christians to the communion-tables of every other. There his indulgence stopped. He had Johnson's hatred of infidelity and infidels.

He wrote with great spirit against the ecclesiastical and the political intolerance to Dissenters. He took little part in political controversies. His first work, Christianity consistent with a Love of Freedom,' was designed to vindicate the exertions of Christian ministers in the cause of political freedom; but though he defended the principle, he himself had no natural turn for the work. In his 'Apology for the Freedom of the Press and for General Liberty,' he appears as one of the earliest advocates for Parliamentary Reform.

ELEMENTS OF STYLE.

Vocabulary. His command of language is sufficiently copious, though not by any means of the first order. This is perhaps due in no small measure to the course of his reading. He spent comparatively little time upon the masters of the English language. His favourite authors were the writers of systematic and controversial theology and metaphysics. From this circumstance his command of the great popular body of the language is limited in comparison with what might be expected with his powers of verbal memory. And from the same circumstance his diction is Latinised and heavily encumbered with the technical phrases of argumentation.

Sentences.-In the structure of his sentences he is a close imitator of Johnson. He acknowledged that in his youth he "aped Johnson, and preached Johnson," but said that he found the diction too cumbrous, and abandoned all attempts to make it a model. His sentences, however, although shorter, bear unmistakable traces of Johnson. He has not the same abrupt way of introducing generalities, but he imitates all the arts of balance, from the ponderous swing to the sharp emphatic point.

QUALITIES OF STYLE.

Simplicity. Hall's diction is not suited for a popular style. Not only does it want pictorial embellishments, except in the more highly wrought passages: it is positively dry; he has a preference for heavy Latin derivatives, and for abstract forms of expression-the result, as we have said, in some measure, of his favourite studies. Such expressions as-"The author knows not with certainty to whom to ascribe it. He believes it fell from the pen of an illustrious female, Mrs More"-belong to a stilted order of composition very shocking to modern advocates of the Queen's English. Apart from the occasional use of stilted and unfamiliar words, the general cast of the expression is excessively abstract. Any passage will illustrate this: let us take (from the 'Sentiments

proper to the Present Crisis') some remarks upon our reasons for expecting to be victorious over the French :

"They appear to entertain mistaken sentiments, who rely with too much confidence for success on our supposed superiority in virtue to our enemies. Such a confidence betrays inattention to the actual conduct of Providence. Wherever there is conscious guilt, there is room to apprehend punishment; nor is it for the criminal to decide where the merited punishment shall first fall. The cup of divine displeasure is, indeed, presented successively to guilty nations, but it by no means invariably begins with those who have run the greatest career in guilt. On the contrary, judgment often begins at the house of God;' and He frequently chastises His servants with severity before He proceeds to the destruction of His enemies. He assured Abraham his seed should be afflicted in Egypt for four hundred years, and that after their expiration, 'the nation that afflicted them He would judge.'

There is undeniably a certain dignity in this mode of expres sion, but it is very much unsuited to the easy apprehension of people generally. A simple writer would probably prefer some such beginning as this:--

"We do wrong to trust in our being more virtuous than our enemies. Even though we are more virtuous, that is no reason for believing that Providence, in the first instance at least, will fight on our side. We may be better than our enemies, yet we cannot pretend to be perfect if we are guilty, we deserve to be punished, and we have no right to complain if we are punished before others more guilty than ourselves. Consider the dealings of Providence in past times. Have the most wicked nations always been the first to receive punishment? No; on the contrary, 'judgment often begins at the house of God,'" &c.

Clearness.-Hall's mind had a natural craving for broad comprehensive views, and he usually states his case with great perspicuity. His pursuit of abstract argumentative literature also, while it confirmed him in the use of unfamiliar language, accustomed him to a certain exactness of expression. In his controversial works he makes copious use of logical formalities, and gives evidence of a concentrated effort to be clear in his phrases of reference and in the general conduct of his discourse, as well as precise and discriminate in the employment of doubtful terms.

Strength. The distinguishing excellence of Hall's style consists in general vigour and elevation of language. His astonishing popularity was probably due to the occasional bursts of splendid eloquence.

His 'Apology for the Freedom of the Press' is written with great spirit. The following bears out what we say as regards general vigour and elevation :

"Between the period of national honour and complete degeneracy, there is usually an interval of national vanity, during which examples of virtue are recounted and admired without being imitated. The Romans were never more proud of their ancestors than when they ceased to resemble

them. From being the freest and most high-spirited people in the world, they suddenly fell into the tamest and most abject submission. Let not the name of Britons, my countrymen, too much elate you; nor even think yourselves safe while you abate one jot of that holy jealousy by which your liberties have hitherto been secured. The richer the inheritance bequeathed you, the more it merits your care for its preservation. The possession must be continued by that spirit with which it was at first acquired; and as it was gained by vigilance, it will be lost by supineness. A degenerate race repose on the merits of their forefathers; the virtuous create a fund of their own. The former look back to their ancestors to hide their shame; the latter look forward to posterity, to levy a tribute of admiration. In vain will you confide in the forms of a free constitution. Unless you reanimate these forms with fresh vigour, they will be melancholy memorials of what you once were, and haunt you with the shade of departed liberty. A silent stream of corruption poured over the whole land, has tainted every branch of the administration with decay. On your temperate but manly exertions depend the happiness and freedom of the latest posterity. That Assembly which sits by right of representation, will be little inclined to oppose your will, expressed in a firm, decisive manner. You may be deafened by clamour, misled by sophistry, or weakened by division, but you cannot be despised with impunity. A vindictive ministry may hang the terrors of criminal prosecution over the heads of a few with success; but at their peril will they attempt to intimidate a nation. The trick of associations, of pretended plots, and silent insurrections, will oppose a feeble barrier to the impression of the popular mind."

The concluding expression is an example of our author's peculiar failing, the introduction here and there of an incongruous meanness of expression, of a word or phrase out of tune as it were. "The impression of the popular mind" is a feeble ending; "the will of a whole people," or some such phrase, would have been more in keeping. These occasional lapses are probably the results of his chronic malady; when an acute paroxysm came upon him, he must often have ended off a sentence with the first form that occurred, having no patience to see that it harmonised.

A good example of his loftiest flights is the animated address at the close of Sentiments proper to the Present Crisis.' The passage is often quoted :—

"By a series of criminal enterprises, by the successes of guilty ambition, the liberties of Europe have been gradually extinguished: the subjugation of Holland, Switzerland, and the free towns of Germany, has completed that catastrophe; and we are the only people in the eastern hemisphere who are in possession of equal laws and a free constitution. Freedom, driven from every spot on the Continent, has sought an asylum in a country which she always chose for her favourite abode; but she is pursued even here, and threatened with destruction. The inundation of lawless power, after covering the whole earth, threatens to follow us here; and we are most exactly, most critically placed, in the only aperture where it can be successfully repelled, in the Thermoplyæ of the universe. As far as the interests of freedom are concerned, the most important by far of sublunary interests, you, my countrymen, stand in the capacity of the federal representatives of the human race; for with you it is to determine (under God) in what condition the latest posterity shall be born; their fortunes are entrusted to your care,