therefore, by this bill, to put upon his majesty's lord-chamberlain ! an office which can no way contribute to his honour or profit, and yet such a one as must necessarily gain him a great deal of ill-will, and create him a number of enemies. The last reason I shall trouble your lordships with, for my being against the bill, is, that, in my opinion, it will no way answer the end proposed, I mean the end openly proposed; and I am sure the only end which your lordships proposed. To prevent the acting of a play which has any tendency to blasphemy, immorality, sedition, or private scandal, can signify nothing, unless you can likewise prevent its being printed and published. On the contrary, if you prevent its being acted, and admit of its being printed and published, you will propagate the mischief; your prohibition will prove a bellows, which will blow up the fire you intend to extinguish. This bill can, therefore, be of no use for preventing either the public or the private injury intended by such a play, and, consequently, can be of no manner of use, unless it be designed as a precedent, as a leading step towards another, for subjecting the press likewise to a license; for such a wicked purpose it may indeed be of great use; and, in that light, it may most properly be called a step towards arbitrary power. Let us consider, my lords, that arbitrary power has seldom or never been introduced into any country at once; it must be introduced by slow de grees, and as it were step by step, lest the people should perceive its approach. The barriers and fences of the people's liberty must be plucked up one by one, and some plausible pretences must be found for removing or hoodwinking, one after another, those sentries who are posted by the constitution of every free country for warning the people of their danger. When these preparatory steps are once made, the people may then indeed, with regret, see slavery and arbitrary power making long strides over their land; but it will then be too late to think of preventing or avoiding the impending ruin. The stage, my lords, and the press, are two of our out-sentries; if we remove them. if we hoodwink them, if we throw them into fetters, the enemy may surprise us. Therefore, I must look upon the bill, now before us, as a step, and a most necessary step too, for introducing arbitrary power into this kingdom. It is a step so necessary, that if any future ambitious king, or guilty minister, should form to himself so wicked a design, he will have reason to thank us for having done so much of the work to his hand; but such thanks, or thanks from such a man, I am convinced every one of your lordships would blush to receive, and scorn to deserve."

On

Lord Chesterfield's eloquence did not prevent the house of peers from passing this unconstitutional and peruicious bill. From this time, until the year 1744, he was constantly in opposition, not only to Walpole, but to whatever party happened to be in office, his animosity being, it seems, directed not against men or their measures so much as against government itself, by whomsoever it happened to be conducted. the union of parties taking place in 1744, he connected himself with the administration; and, in the following year, obtained his old office of ambassador to the Hague, whence he proceeded to Ireland, of which, while in Holland, he had been appointed lord-lieutenant. His administration in that country gave such general satisfaction at that critical juncture, that most of the counties and chief cities exceeded the warmest

expectations of the ministry at home, by entering into voluntary associations for the support of his majesty's person and government against the designs of the pretender. In April, 1746, he left Ireland, to the general regret of the whole nation, having had the address to make himself equally esteemed by the Roman catholics and the protestants.

On the 29th of October this year, he succeeded the earl of Harrington in the office of one of the principal secretaries of state, and he held the seals till February, 1748; when, his health being greatly impaired, he was allowed to resign. In 1751, however, he delivered a speech in favour of the proposed alteration of the style, which procured him considerable applause. On this occasion he stated, that every one complimented him, and said, that he had made the whole matter very clear to them; "when, God knows," continued he, "I had not even attempted it. I could as soon have talked Celtic or Sclavonian to them, as astronomy; and they would have understood me full as well. Lord Macclesfield, who is one of the greatest mathematicians and astronomers in Europe, spoke afterwards, with infinite knowledge, and all the clearness that so intricate a matter would admit of; but as his words, his periods, and his utterance, were not near so good as mine, the preference was most unanimously, though most unjustly, given to me."

Being seized with a deafness in the year 1752, he amused himself with his pen and his books, and at this time contributed largely to the admired papers, intituled 'The World,' conducted and published by Edward Moore and his literary associates.

His lordship had no issue by his lady; but he had a natural son by Madame du Bouchet, a French lady, with whom he carried on intercourse for some years, chiefly during his residence at the Hague. This son, whose name was Philip Stanhope, as he grew up, became the chief object of his attention; and one cause of his lordship's resignation of all public employments was, that he might have the more leisure to correspond with him while he was on his travels. He could not leave his real estate to this youth, on account of his illegitimacy, and therefore he adhered to a plain strict economy, in order to raise him a fortune. The great pains he took to cultivate and improve his mind, and to form his manners, had not the desired effect; however, his lordship had interest to procure him the honourable employment of British resident at the court of Dresden; but all his labour and concern for this young gentleman became fruitless by his premature death in 1768. Lord Chesterfield could not get over this severe blow, but from this time grew feeble and languid; yet those flashes of wit and humour for which he had been celebrated by all who knew him, at times broke forth from the clouds of melancholy in which he seemed enveloped. His old friend, Sir Thomas Robinson, who was above six feet high, telling him one day, that if he did not go abroad and take exercise, he would die by inches; the earl drolly replied, "If that must be the case, then I am very glad I am not so tall as you, Sir Thomas."

About the latter end of the year 1772, his son's widow was ordered to visit him, and to bring with her his two grandsons. His lordship, upon this occasion, laid aside his crutch, with which he used to support himself, being then very lame, and attempted to advance to embrace the children; but he was no longer able to stand alone, and would have fallen, if a servant had not instantly succoured him. This

affected him much; but presently recollecting himself, he said, smiling:-"This is a fresh proof of my declension; I am not able to crawl without my three legs; the last part of the Sphynx's riddle approaches, and I shall soon end as I began, upon all fours." His prediction was but too soon verified, for he lost the use of his limbs in a short time after; but he retained his senses almost to the last hour of his life. ship died on the 24th of March, 1773.

His lord

His conversational wit was much applauded by his cotemporaries. Walpole says of him, "Chesterfield's entrance into the world was announced by his bon mots; and his closing lips dropped repartees, that sparkled with his juvenile fire." One night being asked, in the Haymarket theatre, if he had been to the other house, in Lincoln's-inn Fields, which, although preferred by their majesties, was not so fashionably attended as its rival, Chesterfield replied in the affirmative; "but,” added he, "there was nobody there but the king and queen; and, as I thought they might be talking about business, I came away." His style as a writer was easy, pure, and brilliant. Pope once borrowed his diamond ring, and wrote the following extemporaneous couplet, in compliment to his literary abilities, on the window of an inn :

Accept a miracle instead of wit,

See two dull lines by Stanhope's pencil writ!

His collected works occupy several quarto volumes; but they have lost much of their interest, in consequence of the subjects on which he wrote being for the most part of a temporary nature. His biographer, Dr Maty, describes him as having been a nobleman unequalled, in his time, for variety of talents, brilliancy of wit, politeness, and elegance of conversation; at once a man of pleasure and business, yet never suffering the former to encroach upon the latter; an able statesman; a first rate orator; in public life upright, conscientious, and steady; in private, friendly and affectionate; in both, pleasant, amiable, and conciliating. "Lord Chesterfield's eloquence," says the same author, "though the fruit of study and imitation, was in a great measure his own. Equal to most of his cotemporaries in eloquence and perspicuity, perhaps surpassed by some in extensiveness and strength, he could have no competitors in choice of imagery, taste, urbanity, and graceful irony. This turn might have originally arisen from the delicacy of his frame; which, as on the one hand, it deprived him of the power of working forcibly upon the passions of his hearers, enabled him, on the other, to affect their finer sensations by nice touches of raillery and humour. His strokes, however poignant, were always under the control of decency and good sense. He reasoned best when he appeared most witty; and while he gained the affections of his hearers, he turned the laugh to his opposers, and often forced them to join in it."

II. ECCLESIASTICAL SERIES.

Thomas Woolston.

BORN A. D. 1669.-DIED A. D. 1733.

SCARCELY had the latest of the illustrious band of Christian advocates, who so nobly maintained the fight against irreligion, intolerance, and infidelity, in the seventeenth century, ceased from their labours and entered into rest, when a melancholy reaction took place. "The outward condition of the church was tranquil, and to a mere cursory observer might even seem prosperous. Liberty of conscience, under the name of religious toleration, was conceded to the various denominations of protestant dissenters, though under restriction which neither sound policy nor impartial justice could approve. Some liberal and enlightened churchmen-among whom were included several distinguished members of the hierarchy-were prompted by a spirit of liberality and forbearance, that did them the highest credit, to attempt the removal of the causes of separation by a measure of general comprehension: on the other hand, some influential members of the dissenting body manifested a disposition to meet the wishes and second the exertions of their brethren of the established church by at least equal concessions on their part. A hope began to be cherished by the moderate and liberal of both parties, that the period was not far distant in which former divisions would be effectually healed, and unity and peace restored to the protestant church. Yet, amidst these circumstances of external prosperity, it soon became but too evident that the glory had departed from our British churches; and that, instead of the spiritual vigour by which they were formerly characterized, a moral decay preyed upon their vitals. The truly pious both within and without the pale of the national church, could not but perceive that the internal symptoms were most alarming. Religious apathy and indifference, under the specious names of liberality and candour, pervaded and paralysed the far greater portion of the community. A cold system of ethics, scarcely superior to the morality of the pagan world, superseded the faithful and energetic preaching of former times. A spirit of daring speculation betrayed many into pernicious errors, or disposed them to universal scepticism. The watchmen on the walls of Zion,' instead of sounding an alarm at this peculiar crisis, for the most part either slumbered at their posts or basely deserted them; and even where the trumpet of alarm was heard, it gave but an uncertain sound. The congregations which had been accustomed to listen with devout attention to the evangelical doctrine and truly Christian eloquence of their late pastors, were now either scattered and broken up as sheep having no shepherd. or they also, being infected with the moral contagion of the time, yielded to the same spiritual torpor and deadly lethargy of soul. While this cold and heartless semblance of Christianity was substituted by the great majority of its professors for vital and spiritual religion, there were others who, justly apprehensive of danger from the latitudinarian

Ca

spirit which then prevailed, rushed to the contrary extreme, wh ́' proved in its results scarcely less injurious. They cherished a diffused around them a controversial spirit; they contended wi' equal zeal and bitterness for the circumstantials as for the essentils of the Christian faith, for dogmas of human invention, and the distinguishing peculiarities of human systems, as for the great principles of revealed truth. The war of words was fiercely carried on both in the pulpit and from the press; whilst, in the meantime, the spirit of Christianity, which is that of meekness and love, deserted the combatants on either side." The truth and accuracy of these remarks, for which we are indebted to the judicious essay prefixed by Mr Morell to a recent edition of the Miscellaneous works of Doddridge,' will be frequently made apparent to the reader in the hasty sketches which follow of the ecclesiastical men of the period now under review. At the same time, an age adorned with such names as Waterland, and Doddridge, and Butler, and Berkeley, and Lardner,— -an age whose master-minds had received an impulse at one extreme by a Bentley, and at the other by a Warburton, an age too, in which a Chubb, and a Tindal, and a Collins, laboured to destroy the foundations of the Christian creed, and a Woolston, a Whiston, a Sykes, and a Clarke, eagerly maintained tenets at variance with some of the most essential doctrines of revelation, such an age, we say, must be one of more than ordinary interest to the student of ecclesiastical history.

Thomas Woolston, one of the most stirring if not the most powerful spirits of his age, was born at Northampton in 1669. He was entered of Sidney college, Cambridge, in 1685; and became a fellow on that foundation, after taking the usual degrees.

His first appearance as an author was in 1705, when he published a work, entitled The old Apology for the Truth of the Christian Religion against the Jews and Gentiles revived.' The design of this work is to prove that all the actions of Moses were typical of Christ, and many of them not real but merely typical relations of what was afterwards to take place. Whiston gives this account of the progress of his mind towards error:-" He was in his younger days a clergyman of very good reputation,—a scholar, and well-esteemed as a preacher,charitable to the poor, and beloved by all good men that knew him. Now it happened, that after some time he most unfortunately fell into Origen's allegorical works, and poring hard upon them, without communicating his studies to any body, he became so fanciful in that matter that he thought the allegorical way of interpretation of the scriptures of the Old Testament had been unjustly neglected by the moderns, and that it might be useful for an additional proof of Christianity; insomuch that he preached this doctrine first in the collegechapel, to the great surprise of his audience, though (his intentions being known to be good, and his person beloved,) no discouragement was showed him there. His notions appeared to be so wild,

that a report went about that he was under a disorder of mind, which, when he heard, instead of that applause which he thought he had deserved by retrieving a long forgotten argument for the truth of Christianity, he grew really disordered; and, as I have been informed, he was accordingly confined for about a quarter of a year; after which, though his notions were esteemed in part the effect of some such dis