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viving documents (meaning the contemporary documents) are pretty nearly all ex parte."

In the History of Rome, indeed, Thomas De Quincey appears to be much more in his native element than when dealing with the facts of modern history, for he has not only a thorough knowledge of all the general and particular facts under his view, but he seizes with a masculine grasp upon all the public and secret motives that actuated the leading actors in them. His searching analytical intellect leaves no details uncanvassed, and he generally presents to his readers such a picture as completely satisfies the most scrupulous and fastidious reason. Hence, though his writings are sometimes marred by over-much subtlety, yet in general his conclusions are so clear and simple as deduced from the transparent facts of the case, that they are always effective and telling. The following is a sketch of Pompey :—

"The position of Pompey, as an old invalid, from whom his party exacted the services of youth, is worthy of separate notice. There is not, perhaps, a more pitiable situation than that of a veteran reposing upon his past laurels, who is summoned from beds of down, and from the elaborate system of comforts engrafted upon a princely establishment, suddenly to re-assume his armour-to prepare for personal hardships of every kind-to renew his youthful anxieties, without support from youthful energies-once again to dispute sword in hand the title to his own honours-to pay back into the chancery of war, as into some fund of abeyance, all his own prizes, and palms of every kind-to re-open every decision or award by which he had ever benefited-and to view his own national distinctions of name, trophy, laurel crown, as all but so many stakes provisionally resumed, which must be redeemed by services tenfold more difficult than those by which originally they had been earned.

"Here was a trial, painful, unexpected, sudden; such as any man, at any age, might have honourably declined. The very best contingency in such a struggle was, that nothing might be lost; whilst, along with this doubtful hope, ran the certainty-that nothing could be gained. More glorious in the popular estimate of his countrymen Pompey could not become, for his honours were already historical, and touched with the autumnal hues of antiquity, having been won in a generation now gone by; but, on the other hand he might lose everything; for, in a contest with so dreadful an antagonist as Cæsar, he could not hope to come off unscorched; and whatever might be the final event, one result must have struck him as inevitable— viz., that a new generation of men, who had come forward into the arena of life within the last twenty years, would watch the approaching collision with Cæsar as putting to the test a question much canvassed of late, with regard to the soundness and legitimacy of Pompey's military exploits. As a commander-in-chief, Pompey was known to have been inequitably fortunate. The bloody contests of Marius, Cinna, Sylla, and their vindictive, but perhaps unavoidable, proscription, had thinned the ranks of natural competitors, at the very opening of Pompey's career. That interval of about eight years, by which he was senior to Cæsar, happened to make the whole difference between a crowded list of candidates for offices of trust, and no list at all. Even more lucky had Pompey found himself in the character of his appointments, and in the quality of his antagonists. All his wars had been of that class which yield great splendour of external show, but impose small exertion and less risk. In the war with Mithridates he succeeded to great eaptains who had sapped the whole stamina and resistance of the contest; besides

that, after all the varnishings of Cicero, when speaking for the Manilian law, the enemy was too notoriously effeminate. The by-battle with the Cicilian pirates is more obscure; but it is certain that the extraordinary powers conferred on Pompey by the Gabinian law, gave to him, as compared with his predecessors in the same effort at cleansing the Levant from a nuisance, something like the unfair superiority above their brethren enjoyed by some of Charlemagne's paladins, in the possession of enchanted weapons. The success was insured by the great armament placed at Pompey's disposal ; and still more by his unlimited commission, which enabled him to force these water-rats out of their holes, and to bring them all into one focus; whilst the pompous name of Bellum Piraticum exaggerated to all after years a success which had been at the moment too partially facilitated. Finally, in his triumph over Sertorius, where only he would have found a great Roman enemy capable of applying some measure of power to himself, by the energies of resistance, although the transaction is circumstantially involved in much darkness, enough remains to show that Pompey shrank from open contest:passively, how far co-operatively it is hard to say, Pompey owed his triumph to mere acts of decoy and subsequent assassination."

The last paper occupies something like a third of the entire volume, and is devoted to the subject of Secret Societies. This paper is marked by all the defects as well as by many of the beauties of De Quincey's style. At its outset we have a painfully minute account of the manner in which the author first became acquainted with the subject,-his discussions with a lady five times his age, which, after innumerable bickerings, ended in a complete break up and estrangement. But as the paper proceeds the interest increases, until he evolves the spirit and philosophy of all secret societies. The great moving principle of all such institutions, according to De Quincey, seems to be to preserve their principles from contact with the surrounding world,-to hand them down unchanged and unchangeable from generation to generation, thus suggesting the stupendous idea that men have lived, in sympathy and brotherhood, who are removed from each other by a period probably of two thousand years. The entire spirit and moving principle of all secret societies emanate from this central idea, without which their existence is not susceptible of an hour's duration. It is this simple idea that imparts to them a sort of hallowed and time-honoured veneration, and sustains them through all the fluctuations of revolutions in empire and in thought. We had wished that Thomas De Quincey had devoted more of his time to the investigation of this subject, and given us in a continuous series of articles an analysis of all the secret societies that have to any extent affected or influenced mankind. It would, verily, have formed not only an interesting historical treatise, but underlying it we would have had the spirit and philosophy by which such societies have been guided and directed. But throughout the brief treatise he has furnished us, there is a great deficit of those broad characteristic facts that distinguish each secret society. Mr De Quincey contents himself with indicating their spirit, without troubling himself with such an amount of detail as is absolutely necessary to enchain the imagination and reason of his readers. But, as we pointed out in our former article, this appears to be the leading defect in Mr De Quincey's style-a lack of vividness in the

more salient and striking features of his subject. There is certainly no lack of detail, but then that given is often not of the most relevant or effective sort. Mr De Quincey, in the midst of the most interesting portion of his enquiry, occasionally diverges to the right and to the left without apparent rhyme or reason, and leaves his readers in the hopeless uncertainty whether he is playing fast and loose with his subject, or making an ineffectual attempt of imposing upon their reason by a collocation of details that have no bearing on the enquiry in hand. It seems to be that our author's mind is led away for the time being by some insubstantial and ill-defined association of the facts he is furnishing with the subject in hand, for he never returns to the natural channel of his profound and acute reasoning, until he has strung together as many loose and unconnected details as completely breaks in upon the unity of the enquiry. It may be that Mr De Quincey may regard these as episodes. But there should be no such episodes in a process of reasoning; and in some of Mr De Quincey's happiest efforts they never appear or only occur at remote intervals. It is verily like the master of a Christmas feast stuffing his rich goose with mashed hay or other unpalatable garbage, and pressing his guests to partake of the latter as anxiously as if it was composed of the richest and rarest viands.

SERMONS BY THE LATE REV. W. B. SHAW,
MINISTER OF LANGHOLM.

THE author of these sermons was held in much esteem by those who, for the long period of forty-four years, formed his ministerial charge. As a man, he was worthy, we believe, of the eulogium which was uttered by his friend and co-presbyter, the Rev. Mr Stathern of Eskdalemuir, in that portion of the funeral sermon which forms the bulk of the preface to this volume. Much respected in his life, many felt themselves bereaved in his death. To be other than eulogistic upon these sermons may be felt by those who loved and admired their author to be cold-hearted and almost profane. Justice, no less than respect for their feelings, demands the concession, that these, as is said in the preface, have been "composed with the greatest care." Unquestionably they are vigorously written. They bear marks of having been composed with scrupulous nicety, and as mere compositions, must be ranked above the ordinary run of sermons.

They nevertheless challenge criticism in no ordinary degree. They are, in fact, extraordinary sermons, so extraordinary as to be unique, we would hope, as productions of the modern Scottish Pulpit. In truth, however, though only now published, most of them were written at an early period of the author's ministry,-one of them having been composed while he was yet a licentiate, and another having formed his first sermon, whether after ordination at Roberton, his first charge, or after his induction to the charge at Langholm, does not clearly appear. They seem to have undergone revision at so late a period as 1838; but

from various indications we gather that almost all of them were prepared in the earlier part of the century, or even before its commencement. Internal evidence inclines us to assign a later date to the last in the volume, which, as a whole, runs so much counter to the theological views that are maintained throughout the others, as to induce us to hope that it stands there as the product of riper years, and that it thus forms the expression of the more matured and better sentiments of their author. Be that, however, as it may, and there is nothing in the volume to determine the point, these posthumous discourses have been published in terms of his will or written wish, having imposed the obligation on his executors to publish them after his death" without any alteration, as being, in his opinion, calculated, through the divine blessing, to promote the interests of Christian truth and virtue." It is not unjustifiably to arraign the proceedings of one who is now among the dead, to characterise the terms in which this obligation was imposed as peculiar and remarkable. If our supposition regarding the last sermon is correct, we would be curious to know when this injunction was penned, or whether it stood originally among the number selected for publication. But be that also as it may, it would seem to have been feared that the legatees might be disposed to exercise some discretion in disposing of the manuscripts. That piety which rarely fails to do honour to the wishes of departed friends, has secured their faithful adherence to the letter of the injunction. And yet perhaps the law of relative duty in this case would have been more honoured in the breach than in the observance. Such an observation may seem strange to any one who has not looked through the volume, but it can hardly fail to be the conviction of all who, with a mind free from prejudice, have read any of the more prominent

sermons.

The writer belonged to a theological school which, let us hope, is now nearly extinct. He was the early friend of Chalmers. It was through his earnest endeavours that Chalmers became assistant at Cavers; and it was under his roof in the manse of Roberton, that his friend resided during a considerable portion of his stay in Roxburghshire. Every body knows what then formed the theological views of the man who, in his more mature years, out-shone all others as the eloquent and powerful defender of genuine orthodoxy. Chalmers began life as a rank moderate,-impetuously, as was ever his wont, denouncing and decrying evangelical religion. It is far from being unprofitable, while, as giving us the key to these posthumous discourses, it is important, to go back upon the earlier stages of that remarkable man's career, and to set the views which he then held in contrast with those which he afterwards maintained, and which now form the received theology of the Scottish pulpit. Chalmers was not prevented by any fear of unpopularity, says his biographer, "from publicly and vehemently decrying that evangelism which he then nauseated and despised." He did not hesitate to characterize the views that he denounced as 66 fanatical vagaries,"" the cant of enthusiasm,"-" the unintelligible jargon of pretended knowledge;" and to stigmatise those who held them as "mystical theologians,"" men of gloomy and un

enlarged minds," and as those who, shrouded under "deceitful appearances," entirely overlooked "the duties of justice, charity, and merey." It was with such teaching that he sought, in the earlier years of his ministry at Kilmany, to guide his hearers into all truth,—but all his eloquent denunciations of the peculiar doctrines of Christianity, failed to secure their regard, or even to engage their attention. Doing nothing by halves, he had his Index Expurgatorius for such books as Newton's Sermons, Baxter's Saints' Rest, Doddridge's Rise and Progress, the pulpit itself being made the place for visiting upon the readers of these and such works bis ministerial anathema. He divided

the year between St Andrews and Kilmany,-prelections on mathematics and chemistry occupying by far the larger share of his thoughts and time, and at that period of his history he did not hesitate to assert in his first attempt as an author, "that after the satisfactory discharge of his parish duties, a minister may enjoy five days in the week of uninterrupted leisure for the prosecution of any science in which his taste may dispose him to enjoy." He was satisfied with himself when he accomplished the visitation, first of the parish of Cavers and then of Kilmany, in a fortnight,-and a couple of hours on the Saturday evening, or the hasty effort of a Sabbath morning, formed the period or amount of his study for the benefit of souls in his public ministrations.

The change came, and all this was reversed. The doctrines formerly derided were maintained and advocated with all his characteristic zeal. Newton, Baxter, Doddridge, became his favourite authors. He recanted his errors on the floor of the General Assembly itself. "Strangely blinded that I was," he exclaimed. "What, sir, is the object of mathematical science? Magnitude and the proportions of magnitude? But then, sir, I had forgotten two magnitudes-I thought not of the littleness of time-I recklessly thought not of the greatness of eternity!" Mathematics and all the sciences were given up "in his heroic passion," to use the satirical words of Shaftesbury, "for saving souls." Then the whole week was too short for the work of preparing for the Sabbath; the whole year was occupied in visiting his parish. According to his own changed creed, all his time, all his talents, all his energy, were devoted to the work which he had formerly done his best, or rather, his worst to destroy. Old John Bonthron expressed a great deal in a few pithy words when, during the early stages of his minister's career, he one day said to him, "I find you aye busy, sir, with one thing or another; but, come when I may, I never find you at your studies for the Sabbath." "Oh, an hour or two on the Saturday evening is quite enough for that," was the minister's answer. The change came, and then John often found his minister poring eagerly over the pages of the Bible. John was not slow to mark the contrast ;— "I never come in now, sir, but I find you aye at your Bible.” “All too little, John, all too little," was the significant reply.

Now we shall not venture to say that his early friend, who died minister of the town and parish of Langholm, remained throughout his whole course in the state of mind in regard to evangelical doctrines

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