orthodox profession only in persons who were plainly destitute of practical belief; while, in characters so distinguished as Dr. Jebb and Mr. Tyrwhitt, he was presented with an avowed preference of Socinianism. To these circumstances may be added, his warmth of temper; strong confidence in his own powers; his eager promptitude of decision; and his tenacity in maintaining his determinations :---qualities which these memoirs shew him to have possessed in a very predominant manner.

If, in spite of the pernicious tendencies of what is termed, the unitarian system, so many and resplendent excellencies adorned this distinguished and lamented man; what might not have been expected, had he enjoyed the happy effects of a purer and sounder faith? To the professors of such evangelical and scriptural purity, we are persuaded that we shall render an essential piece of service, by holding up, for their incitement and emulation, the many great and noble qualities, both of the understanding and of the heart, which displayed themselves in the subject of the memoirs before us.

In 1792, Mr. Wakefield published" Memoirs of his own Life." A re-publication of this work, with many considerable improvements by himself, and with additional notes, a commodious distribution into chapters, and a large appendix by the editors, compose the first volume. It is rich in entertainment and instruction. The personal concerns of Mr. Wakefield are by no means the perpetual subject of narration. Information on many interesting topics, the facts relative to which are not commonly known, characteristic anecdotes of eminent scholars and other individuals, and public bodies, attractive to just curiosity, maxims and reflections on education, study, and morals, occupy the largest portion of these pages.

Gilbert Wakefield was born at Nottingham, in 1756. His father was rector of St. Nicholas's, in that town; but was afterwards presented to the vicarage of Kingston in Surry, with the chapelry of Richmond, where he died in 1776. Young Wakefield had the infelicity to be put under the pedagogical tuition of men faithless to their trust, or injudicious in the discharge of it. To his first Latin master, Dr. Berdmore, afterwards of the Charter-house, he protested that he owed no obligations.

At the age of nine, he was removed to the school of a worthy and scrupulous clergyman, who, " from a pure excess of conscientiousness, and a religious anxiety of doing justice to his scholars," kept them confined in his school from five in the morning till six at night, with very small intermissions for meals. On this great practical error, and on the opposite vices, the negligence, churlish severity of his former, and of a succeeding tutor, Mr.

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Wakefield

Wakefield makes many important reflections, which merit the very serious consideration of every parent and of all concerned in the business of education.

Ardent as was his attachment to liberty, Mr. Wakefield even wished to see some efficient legal restrictions as to the qualifications of schoolmasters. Such a mode of redress is not very likely to be resorted to; and, if it were adopted, who could ensure the purity and impartiality of its operation? So long as more encouragement is given to a principal clerk, to a genteel butler, or to a fashionable dancing master, than opulent parents will offer to induce men of integrity, taste and learning, to become the preceptors of their sons; this most pernicions and prevalent plague will not be extirpated.

At last, however, our depressed aspirant to literary honours was placed under the inestimable tuition of the truly venerable and Rev. Richard Wooddeson, of Kingston-upon-Thames, the father of the late Vinerian Professor at Oxford. His affectionate and well-merited tribute to the excellence of this gentleman, cannot but be highly grateful to the survivors among the many good scholars trained by his talents and assiduity. The following anecdote is so pleasing and so truly honourable to the parties, that we cannot forbear transcribing it.

When I was present,' says Mr. Wakefield, a few years ago, at the sale of the great Dr. Bentley's library, in Leicestershire, Dr. Jackson, a venerable clergyman of that county, and formerly of Magdalen College, Oxford, (who died in October 1796, aged 88) was there at the same time. On hearing him mention his college, it instantly occurred to me that he must be a contemporary with my old master at the University, and I accordingly asked him, if he remembered Mr. Wooddeson at College.' Remember him!' said this amiable person, with eager accents and eyes sparkling with benevolence: remember him! We were nearly of the same age and standing. I had a great respect for him indeed, and often visited him at Kingston. But you shall judge of my friendship and affection for his memory from a single circumstance. When his son was a candidate for the Vinerian Professorship, and the contest was likely to be severe, I came over at once from Germany, where I then was, to Oxford, merely to give my vote, and returned to the Continent immediately after the close of the election.' A specimen of regard which very sensibly affected my feelings, and was highly honourable to both parties! Happy the one to deserve such friendship! Happy the other thus to sacrifice his own ease to the memory of a friend who was no more! Death had severed their intercourse, but not disunited their affection.'

In our opinion, the most interesting and important part of this volume, is that which comprises the author's residence at Cambridge, with the many entertaining anecdotes and sensible reflections interwoven, by very natural and just connection, with

the

the narrative. This period, from 1772 to 1778, occupies five chapters. The student of human nature will here find well-pourtrayed many interesting features of character; and the thirsting scholar will be gratified with much excellent counsel, on the conduct of his studies, and the improvement of his opportunities. The remarks of Mr. W. on the remediable defects of the university, are temperate, judicious, and deserving of the deepest attention from the meinbers and chiefs of the venerable Cantabrigian body. They are written, not in the unreasonable petulance of a querulous censor, but with all the affectionate respect of a dutiful and grateful son of Alma Mater. We are very glad to observe the strong disapprobation expressed against the prevailing practice of late dinners, as exceedingly prejudicial both to learning and morals.' We, also, heartily join Mr. W. in recommending to the serious attention of the young in particular, his three favourite maxims of Horace; nor less his illustration of them. The first is a representation of the vain and silly affectation of extolling the importance of that particular branch of learning in which we happen to delight; the second inculcates temperance; and the third early rising.

The remaining parts of this volume, contain descriptions of the author's various employments, changes and removals, at Stockport and Liverpool, Warrington and Richmond, Nottingham and Hackney; accompanied with remarkable anecdotes. The occasional theological observations, which occur principally during this part of the narrative, are, in our view, sometimes exceptionable; but they are very few. Mr. W's. ample reflections on the literary part of academical education, with a view to the exercise of the christian ministry among dissenters, are just and sound.

The letters which form the appendix to this volume, are numerous and interesting. By far the greater number of them were written by Mr. Wakefield to Dr. Gregory, the author of Essays Historical and Moral, the Economy of Nature, and other works. Among the rest, we find some to and from Dr. Law, late Bishop of Carlisle; Dr. Watson, the present Bishop of Llandaff; Dr. John Jebb, Dr. Enfield, &c. In the small number of theological questions and criticisms which we meet in these epistolary effusions, we perceive traces of that unhappy rashness of decision which we have noted as a quality strongly inherent in Mr. W's. mental constitution. How, else, can we account for the confounding of two passages of scripture (Gen. vi. 5. with ch. viii. 21.) and the duction of an important inference from that confusion? Low, otherwise, could a mind, so perspicacious in the detection of inconclusive argument on ordinary topics, have considered the self-repugnant

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and sophistical reasonings of Dr. Taylor's book on Original Sin, to be evidence as clear and cogent as can be offered to the human mind!'

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In that part of the work in which Mr. W. gives his descriptive catalogue of the gentlemen who were, or had been, tutors at Warrington, he observes of Dr. Taylor, that even the meekness of christianity itself is exhibited' in his writings; but he was in reality, a very peevish and angry disputant in conversation, and dictatorial even to intolerance. So imperfect a judgement may be formed of the mildness or asperity, of an author from the correspondent quality of his writings! The soft gentleness of Dr. T's. style, and his dextrous adoption of orthodox phraseology, might both arise from the same source, the desire of disseminating socinianism in the least suspected manner.

(To be concluded in our next.)

Art. XII. The Powers of Genius. A Poem. in Three Cantos. By John Blair Linn, D. D. Small 8vo. pp. 170. Price 5s. bds. Williams and Hurst.

THE HE literature of America has met with a very unfavourable reception, at some of our courts of periodical criticism. It has not been duly considered, that, although, in many respects, she must now be regarded as a sister state; she is still, as to literature, in her infancy. Recently extricated from the tumult and embarrassments of a revolution, and deeply engaged from necessity in agricultural and mercantile pursuits, she has not yet had leisure or ability to patronise the exertions of indigenous genius: it is therefore illiberal to treat her rising efforts with rigour and contempt and premature, to reproach the climate as ungenial, or the inhabitants as inadequate, to the attainment of intellectual excellence. With some indignation at such aspersions, Dr. Linn has introduced a panegyric on the statesmen, the lawyers, the divines, and the philosophers, of America; in which, under some restrictions, we are happy to acquiesce. "The fire of poetry," says he, "is kindled by our storms: amid our plains, on the banks of our waters, and on our mountains, dwells the spirit of inventive enthusiasm." p. 83. There certainly does not appear to be in the United States, any physical impediment to literary greatness; which, in fact, seems to depend principally on moral and political circumstances. In almost every part of the Northern temperate Zone, genius has alternately flourished and decayed, according to the changes of government and manners: and, from the energy which the Americans

Americans have displayed, and the freedom which they possess, there is little reason to doubt that, ere long, their country will attain as high a rank in the lettered world, as it now holds in the natural and the political.

It may not be improper to remark, that the name of Dr. Linn has become known in England, chiefly through his controversy with the late celebrated Dr. Priestley, on the characters of Socrates and Christ; and it is probably owing, in some measure, to the favourable opinion which Dr. Priestley expressed of this poem in the course of the dispute, that it has been reprinted in England.

In addition to a short preface, containing remarks on didactic poetry, and on authors of different ages who have excelled in it, Dr. Linn attempts, in " the design," to give a correct idea of genius; and agreeably to the prescriptive right of authors, extols the dignity and importance of his subject. He represents genius as a mysterious and ineffable power, or faculty, which is best known by its effects, and is more easily conceived than defined. This is also the idea conveyed at the opening of the poem; where its powers and effects are described, and it is considered as intimately allied to fancy and memory, guided by judgment, and improved by sympathy. After a description of the growth and decay of the mental powers in general, which, though judicious in itself, is rather wide of the subject; Dr. L. observes, that taste is much inferior to genius; that the greatest works have been composed without regard to the directions of any critic; that Milton nobly despised the rules of Aristotle; and that imposing laws on genius, is like hoppling an Arabian From these, and other passages, the Dr. seems to have formed a very low idea of critics: Perhaps his feelings may have been irritated, or his apprehensions excited, by the treatment his literary countrymen have sometimes received in Europe. He introduces as peculiar favourites of genius, Shakespeare, Ercilla, Ossian, and Ariosto; of the first and greatest of whom, he speaks in raptures. An account, in which are several mistakes, is given of the Spanish poet, who, about the year 1560, commanded a body of troops in Arauco (not as Dr. L. calls it Auracauna), a province of Chili, and who usually employed part of the night, after a day of danger and fatigue, in composing a poem on his own exploits, which discovers great copiousness and strength of imagination. Of this poet, and his principal work, Mr. Hayley has furnished a 'much more ample relation, in the notes to his Essay on Epic Poetry. Our author is an advocate for the authenticity of Ossian, whom he introduces in the following lines p. 18.

courser.