the conduct either of the State or of the subjects, of the governors or the governed, nor are attended with any useful consequences to either; that in times of tranquillity they are not wanted; in times of confusion they are never heard. This representation, however, in my opinion, is not just. Times of tumult, it is true, are not the times to learn; but the choice which men make of their side and party, in the most critical occasions of the commonwealth, may nevertheless depend upon the lessons they have received, the books they have read, and the opinions they have imbibed, in seasons of leisure and quietness. Some judicious persons, who were present at Geneva during the troubles which lately convulsed that city, thought they perceived, in the contentions there carrying on, the operation of that political theory which the writings of Rousseau, and the unbounded esteem in which these writiugs are holden by his countrymen, had diffused among the people. Throughout the political disputes that have within these few years taken place in Great Britain, in her sister kingdom, and in her foreign dependencies, it was impossible not to observe, in the language of party, in the resolutions of public meetings, in debate, in conversation, in the general strain of those fugitive and diurnal addresses to the public which such occasions call forth, the prevalency of those ideas of civil authority, which are displayed in the works of Mr Locke."

He was not the man to rush into every controversy affecting the Church; but, once aroused, he was an able champion of his cause. His paper on 'Subscription to Articles of Faith,' written in defence of his patron, Bishop Law, against some animadversions, is a model of cool and thorough refutation. An extract or two will show how vigorously he argues, and how carefully he has mastered his opponent's positions:

"The author of the 'Considerations' (the title of Bishop Law's work) "contends very properly that it is one of the first duties a Christian owes to his Master 'to keep his mind open and unbiassed' in religious inquiries. Can a man be said to do this who must bring himself to assent to opinions proposed by another? who enters into a profession where both his subsistence and success depend upon his continuance in a particular persuasion? In answer to this we are informed that these articles are no rule of faith (what! not to those who subscribe them?); that 'the Church deprives no man of his right of private judgment' (she cannot; she hangs, however, a dead weight upon it); that it is a very unfair state of the case to call subscription a declaration of our full and final persuasion in matters of faith; though if it be not a 'full' persuasion, what is it? and ten to one it will be 'final,' when such consequences attend a change. That no man is hereby tied up from impartially examining the Word of God,' i.e., with the 'impartiality' of a man who must eat' or 'starve,' according as the examination turns out; an impartiality' so suspected that a court of justice would not receive his evidence under half of the same influence: nor from altering his opinion if he finds reason so to do; which few, I conceive, will find, when the alteration must cost them so dear. If one could give credit to our author in what he says here, and in some other passages of his Answer, one would suppose that, in his judgment at least, subscription restrained no man from adopting what opinion he pleased, provided he does not think himself bound openly to maintain it;' that men may retain their preferments, if they will but keep their opinions to themselves." If this be what the Church of England means, let her say so.

"It seemed to add strength to this objection that the judgment of most

thinking men, being in a progressive state, their opinions of course must many of them change; the evil and iniquity of which the answerer sets forth with great pleasantry, but has forgot at the same time to give us any remedy for the misfortune, except the old woman's receipt, to leave off thinking for fear of thinking wrong.

"Our author, good man, 'is well persuaded that the generality of the clergy, when they offer themselves for ordination, consider seriously what office they take upon them, and firmly believe what they subscribe to.' I am persuaded much otherwise. But as this is a 'fact,' the reader, if he be wise, will neither take the answerer's word for it nor mine, but form his own judgment from his own observation. Bishop Burnet complained above sixty years ago, that the greater part,' even then, 'subscribed the Articles without ever examining them, and others did it because they must do it.' Is it probable that, in point either of seriousness or orthodoxy, the clergy have much mended since?"

ROBERT HALL, 1764-1831.

One of the most eminent preachers of his generation, if not the most eminent. He was the son of a Baptist minister at Arnsby, near Leicester, the youngest of fourteen children. He seems to have been a very precocious boy: he is related to have been a great talker at the age of three, to have told amusing stories at six, to have studied Butler's 'Analogy' and Jonathan Edwards 'On the Will' at nine, and to have learnt all that his schoolmaster could teach him at eleven. He received his higher education at a Baptist academy in Bristol, and at King's College, Aberdeen, where he passed through the regular course of study and took the degree of M.A. At Aberdeen he was the class-fellow and intimate companion of Sir James Mackintosh-the two young men often walking together and debating questions in metaphysics and general literature. For five years he officiate l at Broadmead, near Bristol, as assistant-minister to a Baptist congregation, acting at the same time as classical tutor in the Baptist Academy. In 1790 he received a call from a congregation in Cambridge, and remained there for fifteen years, acquiring great fame as a preacher. While there he published some tracts and sermons, Christianity Consistent with the Love of Freedom' (1791); ‘Apology for the Freedom of the Press' (1793); Modern Infidelity considered with respect to its Influence on Society' (1799); 'Reflections on War' (1802); The Sentiments Proper to the Present Crisis' (1803). What with hard study, and what with the excitement of preaching and talking, he overtaxed his strength: in 1804, and again in 1805, he had an attack of insanity. When his health was reestablished, he became associated with a congregation in Leicester, and preached there with such acceptance that the church had to be enlarged. He remained at Leicester for nearly twenty years. In 1826 he removed to Bristol, upon an invitation from the church where he had been assistant nearly forty years before. He died at

Bristol in 1831. His collected works, edited with a Life by Dr Olinthus Gregory, contain the pieces above inentioned; 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.

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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 ou 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 peremptory 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 ecclesiastical and 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