partiality which it cannot justify, and the author returns to that obscurity which is the ultimate destiny of all empiricism.

Amidst this censure, however, it is far from our wish to see theology stripped of its ornaments, or morality without the allurements of studied composition. We well know that the close reasoning of Hooker comes recommended by the chastised richness of his language, and we acknowledge in Sherlock and Atterbury the highest powers of the mind, and the most unaffected eloquence from the study of such models in our own time we have borne testimony to the success of Horsley; and some are still living of whom we may boast as the followers of such masters. If we have been led into these remarks by the volume before us, it is because we are of opinion that it is composed in a vitiated style, with attractions to induce, and with inducements from extraordinary success to recommend the same path of perishable renown; we are farther apprehensive of the same captivating eloquence with other views and on other subjects, when Christian benevolence may be the least distinguished of an author's principles, and the passions of a generous people be inflamed to enthusiasm with a far different purpose than the establishment of a national charity.

From the memoir which is prefixed to this volume, and which is as scanty in matter as overloaded in expression, we learn that the late Dean Kirwan was born in 1754, became a convert from the Roman Catholic to the Established Church in 1787, and was successively preferred by the Archbishop of Dublin to the prebend of Howth in 1788, and to the parish of St. Nicholas Without in 1789, of which the joint income amounted to £400 a year, and, lastly by Lord Cornwallis, in 1800, to the Deanery of Killala, worth about the same sum; at which time he resigned the prebend of Howth. He was married in 1798, and died in 1805, leaving (besides sons) a widow and two daughters without any adequate maintenance. A pension of £300 a year was granted to the mother, with a reversion to the daughters; but for the sons no provision has been made beyond the profits of the present volume.

Such a conversion from a faith so bigotted to its tenets, and at an age when the mind is in full possession of its faculties, necessarily forces itself on our attention. To rise superior to those prejudices which have been engrafted on our infancy, and nurtured by subsequent education, discovers a most dispassionate exercise of reason; but to break from the grasp of a superstition of which the reverential observance has been associated with our eternal salvation, must belong to the intrepidity of truth: farther, to renounce a profession, and, as a consence, to estrange from us the endearments of relative affection, is a sacrifice which nature can make only to princi

ple. This important determination, after two years of deliberation, was publicly announced in 1787. But although the conversion of such a proselyte might naturally be accounted amongst the triumphs of the Established Chusch, it

any irritated feelings against the commun was unattended with

which he had relinquished. No exposition of abjured errors, no indecent controversy, interrupted the true humility of a Christian convert. He acted, it was evident, from the conviction of conscience, and he was strengthened in his purpose by the prospect of more extensive opportunities to benefit his fellow-creatures. His first sermon as a protestant minister, naturally attracted an overflowing congregation; and if among them there were evil spirits who hoped for the growth of irreligion from the discords of the Christian community, they were disappointed in the selection of a subject entirely unconnected with controversy; nor was this forbearance the effect of only an occasional liberality, it regulated the intercourse of his private life, and contributed to the unoffending boldness of his public exertions. The powerful effect of these exertions is

thus described :

For some time after his conformity he preached every Sunday in St. Peter's Church, and the collections for the poor on every occasion rose four or five-fold above their usual amount. Before the expiration of his first year he was wholly reserved for the distinguished and difficult task of preaching charity sermons; and on the 5th of November, 1788, the governors of the general daily schools of several parishes entered into a resolution,-" That from the effects which the discourses of the Rev. Walter Blake Kirwan from the pulpit have had, his officiating in the metropolis was considered a peculiar national advantage, and that vestries should be called to consider the most effectual method to secure to the city an instrument under Providence of so much public benefit."" -p. 8.

His ardour was not abated by promotion, nor his meekness corrupted by admiration; though whenever he preached, such multitudes assembled that it was necessary to defend the entrance of the church by guards and palisadoes. He was presented with addresses and pieces of plate, from every parish, and the freedom of various corporations; his portrait was painted and engraved by the most eminent artists; and (what was infinitely more grateful to his feelings) the collections at his sermons far exceeded any that ever were known in a country distinguished for unmeasured benevolence. Even in times of public calamity and distress, his irresistible powers of persuasion repeatedly produced contributions exceeding a thousand or twelve hundred pounds at a sermon; and his hearers, not content with emptying their purses into the plate, sometimes threw in jewels or watches,as earnest of further benefactions." -p. 9.

To this testimony we may add the panegyric of Mr. Grattan in the Irish parliament, on the 19th of June, 1792.

And what has the church to expect? what is the case of Dr. Kirwan? This man preferred our country and our religion, and brought to both genius superior to what he found in either. He called forth the latent virtues of the human heart, and taught men to discover in themselves a mine of charity, of which the proprietors had been unconscious. In feeding the lamp of charity, he has almost exhausted the lamp of life. He came to interrupt the repose of the pulpit, and shakes one world with the thunder of the other. The preacher's desk becomes the throne of light. Round Him a train, not such as crouch and swagger at the levee of princes; not such as attend the procession of the viceroy, horse, foot, and dragoons; but that wherewith a great genius peoples his own state -charity in extasy, and vice in humiliation; vanity, arrogance, and saucy empty pride, appalled by the rebuke of the preacher, and cheated for a moment of their native improbity and insolence. What reward? St. Nicholas within, or St. Nicholas without! The curse of Swift is upon him: to have been born an Irishman and a man of genius, and to have used it for the good of his country.'-p. xiii.

To the countrymen of Dr. Kirwan, who are in the habit of adopting, as their own, opinions which circulate under the sanction of their great authorities, and more particularly to those, who have formed a part of his audience, we are apprehensive that we shall offer no very acceptable criticism. For the man, for his enlarged liberality of mind, for his zealous and unwearied benevolence we join in the general admiration, and acknowledge his superior claim to the gratitude of his country: but these predilections it is our present duty to dismiss, and considering him as an author, to examine how far he is fairly to be recommended to imitation.

:

The volume consists of thirteen discourses, all on charitable subjects, and the greater number on the same occasion: they do not at all constitute a series, but are the effusions of the moment,desultory, and to appearance unpremeditated, although in parts, discovering traces of laboured composition-the language strong, but unpolished, is made up of words that present images to the eye rather than ideas to the mind, and adapted more to affect than to inform the sentiments, of high and exalted morality, are drest in figurative allusions, sometimes beautiful and appropriate, but too frequently carried beyond the limits of grace and elegance, Altogether they are compositions, which present a blaze of bril liant but ill-assorted colouring, with no regard to the disposition of light and shade, no attention to the inferiorniceties of art, which are as indispensable as genius. In justification of these remarks, we will present to our readers a slight outline of the first sermon. Let no man seek his ery man another's wealth,' but own, every 1 Cor. x. 24. The principle of happiness is supposed to be the motive of all our actions; and after a laboured display of its uni

versal influence, it settles into this conclusion-In a word, from the people that inhabit the most civilized cities to the savage that prowls in the bosom of the wilderness; from the throne of the monarch to the hut of the most abject peasant, the world is in labour to bring forth true peace and tranquillity of soul,' p. 1. We then pass on rather abruptly to the wisdom of the Gospel, which is illustrated by the character of a true Christian, whose conduct is regulated by his views of eternity.

No interest can possess or transport his heart, but those to which he is invited from above. No, not a desire in his breast, not a movement in his life; no evil in his apprehension, or happiness in his conception, that refers not to eternity; he is all immensity of views and projects: and hence that true nobility of spirit, that calm majestic indifference which looks down on the visionary enterprises of man, sees them, unstable and fleeting as the waves of a torrent, pressed and precipitated by those that pursue, and scarce tell you where they are, when you behold them no more: hence likewise that equality of soul, which is troubled at no reverse or vicissitude of life, which knows not those tormenting successions, those rapid alternations of pleasure and pain, so fre quent in the breast of worldlings: to be elevated by the slightest success, depressed by the slightest reverse, intoxicated at a puff of praise, inconsolable at the least appearance of contempt, reanimated at a gleam of respect, tortured by an air of coldness and indifference.'-p. 4.

From thence we are conducted by an observation, that selflove is the most active principle of the human soul, and that neither reason nor religion discourage a reasonable attention to our temporal interests,' to the consideration of self-love degenerating into selfishness and the consequent passion of avarice, exemplified in the miser.

The maxim of the Roman satirist will be his rule of life," money at any rate." If the plain and beaten paths of the world, diligence, and frugality, will conduct him to that end, it is well: but if not, rather than fail of his object, I will be bold to say, he will plunge without scruple or remorse into the most serpentine labyrinths of fraud and iniquity. Whilst his schemes are unaccomplished, fretfulness and discontent will lower upon his brow; when favourable, and even most prosperous, his unslaked and unsatisfied soul still thirsts for more.'-p. 7.

We give the conclusion of this character, as it altogether affords no unfavourable specimen of our author's most striking manner.

Who will say that he is at any time vulnerable by reproach, or, I had almost added, even convertible by grace! No, through every stage and revolution of life, he remains invariably the same: or if any difference, it is only this, that as he advances into the shade of a long evening, he clings closer and closer to the object of his idolatry: and while

ΙΑ

every other passion lies dead and blasted in his heart, his desire for more pelf increases with renewed eagerness, and he holds by a sinking world with an agonising grasp,till he drops into the earth with the increased curses of wretchedness on his head, without the tribute of a tear from child or parent, or any inscription on his memory, but that he lived to counteract the distributive justice of Providence, and died without hope or title to a blessed immortality.'-p. 8.

Selfishness is then traced to its origin in splendid luxury, which begets an attachment to money as the means of gratifying that passion:' at this point, the eighteenth of thirty pages, we return to the tex and the application to the charity in question makes up the remainder of the sermon, in a desultory, but certainly eloquent peroration. Prejudiced, as perhaps we may be in favour of the philosophical reasoning, and the quiet, though not unornamented language of the divines of the last century, we have occasionally fancied ourselves amidst the sparkling morality of a modern novel, where, at the touch of a magician's wand, the fairy land of fable vanishes, and pages grow upon pages of digressive ethics. The author we are told, cautiously abstained from polishing too highly to blend with such extemporaneous effusions as occasional circumstances suggested:' this may account for many of the defects which it remains for us to notice. An idea captivating by its brilliancy, is hastily adopted; and to render it attractive to the audience, meretricious and overloaded ornament usurps the place of that simplicity which is the best recommendation of pure sentiment. From the dread of too feeble an impression, the figures which illustrate are repeated to satiety, or thrown into such inextricable confusion, as to perplex the mind, and interrupt the pursuit of the attention. But if this exuberance is frequently lost in obscurity, it sometimes transgresses the modesty of the pulpit, and, hurried away by invective against manners and fashions, descends into satire and irreverent sarcasm. Allusions to the Augean stable, and to Achilles; to the history of George Barnwell, and the Rambler, we cannot approve; the following terms of colloquial vulgarity are surely beneath the dignity of the occasion: Money, any how! money.' The God help you of a gaping world;'-nor is it exactly the opportunity to introduce expressions patched up from Shakespeare. The comparison of Christianity to a Colossus is derogatory, and not in the least atoned for by the inflated phraseology that follows: Christianity, that mighty Colossus, which still rears its head amidst the ruins of empires, the revolutions of ages, and the torrent of human passions!' We shall conclude this catalogue of minor faults with an instance of turgid and puerile declamation.

Great God! what havoc does ambition make among thy work! I see it sitting at this moment in ghastly triumph, on a throne still wet