form a tenth part of the number assembled. The friends of liberty, generally, a little outweighed the Tory party; but the only Dissenter who spoke on this occasion, was Mr. W. Hollick. No Dissenting minister took any part: Mr. Hall was present, a deeply interested, but silent spectator. Several clergymen also were present, and two of them spoke; Dr. Mansel on the Tory side, who was rewarded for his speech with the bishopric of Bristol, and, on the Whig side, the Reverend Mr. Whiter, author of the Etymologicum Magnum, whose only recompense of course was misrepresentation and abuse. After the meeting, a paltry mob of the lowest description drew Lord Hardwick and Dr. Mansel to Trinity College in a higler's cart, which Mr. Hall witnessed with much amusement; and this must be what Mr. Green calls his escorting and defending a party whom he was literally laughing at. The dinner which followed the meeting, Mr. Hall did not go near. He received an invitation, which he declined upon the same principle that imposed silence upon him at the meeting. Though at that time an ardent politician, he dis approved so strongly of Dissenting Ministers' speaking at political meetings, that he never adverted to the practice of the late Rev. Mark Wilks of Norwich in that respect, but with grief and censure, regarding it as wholly incompatible with the functions of a minister of the Gospel. We have deemed it worth while to enter thus into detail, in exposing Mr. Green's inaccuracy, because it affords a fair specimen of his treacherous Reminiscences, and may put those readers into whose hands his volume may fall, upon their guard against the gross blunders with which it abounds. To persons acquainted with Mr. Hall, the caricature daub of his character may recal traits of likeness, and they will not be misled by the vulgar limning; but to all others, those Reminiscences will present him in a distorted light, the officiousness of friendship having the effect of the most malignant detraction.

When Mr. Hall again took up his pen on a political topic, it was to address the public on a subject connected with the renewal of the East India Charter, and to plead for the propriety of inserting a clause in the new charter, authorizing the peaceable dissemination of Christian principles in India. In this publication, it cannot be thought that the Writer deviated in the slightest degree from the strict line of professional propriety; and it affords a proof that there may be occasions which demand the interference of Christian ministers in political questions. The Address was composed with great care, and is a finished specimen of argumentative eloquence.

The Appeal on the subject of the Frame-work Knitter's Fund, published in 1819, was occasioned by distresses of which Mr. Hall was an eye-witness, and dictated by feelings of kindness towards the depressed and suffering mechanics of Leicestershire. It ap

6

peared anonymously; the Writer giving it as his reason for suppressing his name, that it might possibly create prejudice in some quarters, while he was not aware it would bestow additional weight in any. Though principally adapted to local purposes, it embraced general considerations of the highest interest, which are presented with equal simplicity, distinctness, and force, but without the slightest attempt at fine writing. Among other topics, that very delicate and intricate one, the regulation of wages, is briefly touched upon. The personal industry of the labourer, it is remarked, is the kind of property above all others the most defenceless, and which most needs protection. And with regard to the vaunted maxim of leaving every kind of property and labour to find its own level, Mr. Hall inquires, why a philosophical ⚫ theory which is violated with impunity every moment, should then only be deemed sacred, when it stands opposed to the ' claims of a starving and industrious population?" Other local tracts appeared in reference to the same subject, and advocating the same protective system. Upon one of these, not the most distinguished by strong reasoning or vigorous composition, Cobbett fastened with his accustomed violence, and made it the occasion of a fierce attack upon the system and its defenders. Under these circumstances, Mr. Hall was induced again to come forward; and in his "Reply to the principal objections advanced by Cobbett and others," he seems evidently to have been roused to a more energetic display of logical skill: the indignant philippic which, towards the conclusion, he launches at the head of the old political incendiary, is in the highest style of eloquent declamation. We must indulge ourselves in citing a few sentences.

These and such like extravagancies will be quite sufficient to satisfy the reader, that he (Cobbett) is a popular declaimer, not a philosopher; a firebrand, not a luminary. He emits fire and smoke in abundance, like a volcano; but the whole effect is to desolate, not to enlighten. His principal artifice consists in the exhibition of a few specious and bold generalities, which he illustrates and confirms by a few prominent facts, culled for his purpose, without the slightest attempt at that patient induction and inquiry which alone lead to solid and useful results. Shrewd, intemperate, presumptuous, careless of the truth of his representations, and indifferent to their consequences, provided they make an impression, he is well qualified, it must be confessed, by his faults no less than his talents, by his inflammatory style and incendiary spirit, for the office he assumes; to scatter delusion, to excite insurrection, the Polyphemus of the Mob, "the oneeyed monarch of the blind". Vol. III. pp. 287, 8.

He then goes on to animadvert upon the ferocious delight with which Cobbett was anticipating the commencement of that tempest which he boasts of having crossed the Atlantic to wit

ness, which is to shake all that is stable, to prostrate all that is

VOL. VII.-N.S.

X X

great, and to accumulate a pile for the elevation of future demagogues. Rome trembled when Catiline rejoiced. Towards the conclusion of the pamphlet, Mr. Hall re-asserts his unfaltering attachment to his early political opinions.

If he should be thought to have treated Mr. Cobbett with too much severity, he wishes it to be clearly understood, that his censure is in no degree founded on the professed attachment of that writer to the cause of Reform. Educated in the principles of Mr. Fox, and in those of the earliest and best days of Mr. Pitt, to which advancing years and experience have increased his attachment, it is impossible he should entertain a doubt that an important reform in our representation is essentially connected with the freedom, the glory, and the happiness of the British empire. But he sees in Mr. Cobbett, what the intelligent part of the public will at once discern, a design to push the industrious classes of the community to despair, and to aggravate their distresses, in order to accelerate the catastrophe he contemplates: whether it involves the preservation of the constitution, or a total subversion of the existing order of things, must be left to the judgement of the reader. On the most favourable supposition, "to do evil that good may come", to wish to see the industrious part of the population couched under a supernumerary weight, that they may become instrumental in effecting some great and undefined revolution in public affairs, is a policy which he shall ever detest.' Ib. pp. 292, 3.

The next tract in the volume is, An Address on the subject of the West India Slavery, published in 1824, and every way worthy of the Writer; but we pass it over, intending to make use of its eloquent statements on a future occasion. We now come to the Fragment on Village Preaching, the first fifty pages of which appear to have been written in the years 1801 and 1802, and ought, in order of time, to have been noticed after the Apology. About that time, Bishop Horsley, as if anxious to justify the portrait that our Author had drawn of the Bonner of his day, endeavoured to alarm and inflame the Legislature, by representing Sunday-schools as a mere stratagem of Atheists and Jacobins, and the exertions of the Dissenters and Methodists in introducing the gospel into the villages, as part of an organised conspiracy against the Lord and against his Christ. The necessity of some legislative measures for the prevention of these alleged encroachments upon the functions of the established clergy, was repeatedly urged, in the same spirit of violence and intolerance, in several of the daily papers and periodical publications; so that considerable apprehensions were entertained, that these exertions of Christian zeal and benevolence would be altogether checked or greatly restricted. In such a state of things, Mr. Hall commenced this Essay; but, the public ebullition subsiding, he relinquished his design, and even destroyed a portion of what he had written. This circumstance, every reader of this

Fragment must deeply regret, since, of all Mr. Hall's polemical writings, it bade fair to have been the most masterly; and it is almost mortifying to reflect that the haughty and turbulent defamer of the Dissenters escaped the severe rebuke of his calumnies. How alive Mr. Hall was, at the time of engaging in this Vindication, to the incompatibility between the spirit of devotion and the spirit of political or theological controversy, (and of the two, polemics, rather than politics, perhaps, has the more deadening influence,) will be seen from the following extract.

The only shadow of argument on which Bishop Horsley founds his accusation, that village preaching has a political object, is, that it has been chiefly prevalent since the Pitt and Grenville bills, as they are styled, were passed; which put a stop to political meetings. Hence he infers that it is only a new channel into which the old stream is directed. Here, however, he is entirely mistaken. The true source of this increased activity is to be found in the missions, the first of which was established some years before the Grenville bills were passed. The attention of the religious public was strongly excited on that occasion to the indispensable necessity of "preaching the gospel to every creature"; and the result was a resolution to exert more zealous and extensive efforts to diffuse the knowledge of saving truth at home than had before been employed. Agreeable to this, it will be found, on inquiry, that those who most distinguished themselves in political debates, have had the least share (if they have had any) in promoting these measures; and that the invariable effect of engaging in these plans has been, to diminish the attention bestowed on political objects. This indeed could not fail to be the consequence: for as the mind is too limited to be very deeply impressed with more than one object at a time, a solicitude to promote the interests of piety, must insensibly diminish the ardour for every thing that is not necessarily involved in it; not to say that the spirit of devotion, which such designs imply and promote, is peculiarly incompatible with the violence and acrimony of political passions. He who is truly intent on promoting the eternal happiness of mankind, must look on futurity with so steady an eye, that he is in more danger of falling into indifference to the spectacle that is passing before him, than of suffering himself to be too much inflamed by it. He is under more temptation to desert his proper rank in society, to undervalue the importance of worldly activity, and to let opportunities of exertion slide through his hands, than to indulge turbulent and ambitious views.

Hence we find, in the first ages of the church, heathens made frequent complaints of the inactivity of Christians, but never accused them of turbulence; and that while many fled into deserts, from austerity and devotion, not one, during the prevalence of Paganism, endured the chastisement of the laws for sedition or treason. The pious of every age have been among the quiet of the land.

If our legislators are aware (as I hope they are) of the inconceivable benefits which are derived, in a political view, from the diffusion of pure and undefiled religion, no fascination of great talents or of

high rank, no fear of misrepresentation or calumny, will tempt them to be guilty of a legislative suicide, by exerting their authority to suppress it; since nothing can ever give equal efficacy to the laws, or stability to the government. The law, of itself, can only address fears: religion speaks to the conscience, and commands it to respect that justice on which the law is founded. Human law can only arm itself with penalties which may be averted, despised, or endured: religion presents, in the displeasure of our Maker, an evil that can have no bounds. Human laws can only take cognizance of disorders in their last stage, proposing only the punishment of the delinquent, without attempting to prevent the crime: religion establishes a tribunal in our own breast, where that which is concealed from every other eye is arraigned, and the very embryo of crime detected and destroyed.

If we examine the sources of crimes, we shall perceive, the chief temptation to violate the principle of justice and humanity, arises from a discontent with the allotments of Providence; men are apt to attach an importance to what they see another possesses. But what can be so sovereign a cure for this discontent as religion, which teaches that all things are under the disposal of infinite wisdom; that life is but a passage to an eternal condition of being; that every thing the world admires is passing away, and that he only who "doeth the will of God abideth for ever"?

Religion must infallibly promote obedience to the laws, by subduing those violent passions which give birth to crimes. As our hopes and fears must all turn on the present scene, or on futurity, it is plain, that a principle which throws an infinite weight into the latter scale, must greatly diminish the influence of the former. On this account, real piety must ever be an enemy to intemperate enjoyments, and to extravagant hopes. In addition to this, Christianity enforces obedience to civil rulers with the utmost clearness and under the most solemn sanction, adopting the duties of a citizen into the family of religion, and commanding its disciples to revere civil government as the ordin ance of God; and to be subject, not chiefly for wrath, but for conscience sake". Who are so likely to be loyal subjects as those who consider lawful princes, in the exercise of their functions, as the representatives of the Supreme Ruler, and judges as the dispensers of the portion confided to them of eternal justice? The public may be assured, that as nothing is more remote from the views of those who are most active in promoting village preaching, than an intention to promote political discontent, so nothing is more removed from the practice of the preachers. That there may be an imprudent or an unprincipled individual who profanes the function of a preacher by introducing political remarks, (a practice too common with those who are loudest in the condemnation of Dissenters,) is possible; though it has never been my lot to hear of any among our village preachers; but that such instances are extremely rare, and when they occur never fail to be discountenanced in the strongest manner, both by Dissenters and Methodists, may be affirmed with the utmost confidence. There is no maxim more constantly inculcated by all who have any influence in these measures, than that of scrupulously abstaining from every, even the remotest, allusion to politics. They have preached liberty indeed,