bequest. The annotations of Warburton upon Pope, perverting the author's meaning in numberless instances, and full of malignity against the learned men of the age, were a disgrace to contemporary literature.

The latter years of Warburton's life were passed in a melancholy state of mental weakness, occasioned partly by grief for the loss of a son, but chiefly by the recollection of the unhallowed means by which he had reached his exalted position in the church. He died in his palace at Gloucester, on the seventh of June, 1779, in the eighty-second year of his age. From the 'Divine Legation' we select the following passage, as a specimen of the author's style :

THE VARIOUS LIGHTS IN WHICH GRECIAN MYTHOLOGY WAS

REGARDED.

Here matters rested: and the vulgar faith seems to have remained a long time undisturbed. But as the age grew refined, and the Greeks became inquisitive and learned, the common mythology began to give offence. The speculative and more delicate were shocked at the absurd and immoral stories of their gods, and scandalized to find such things make an authentic part of their story. It may, indeed, be thought matter of wonder how such tales, taken up in a barbarous age, came not to sink into oblivion as the age grew more knowing, from mere abhorrence of their indecencies and shame of their absurdities. Without doubt this had been their fortune, but for an unlucky circumstance. The great poets of Greece, who had most contributed to refine the public taste and manners, and were now grown into a kind of sacred authority, had sanctified these silly legends by their writings, which time had now consigned to immortality.

Vulgar paganism, therefore, in such an age as this, lying open to the attacks of curious and inquisitive men, would not, we may well think, be long at rest. It is true, freethinking men lay under great difficulties and discouragements. To insult the religion of one's country, which is now the mark of learned distinction, was branded in the ancient world with public infamy. Yet freethinkers there were, who, as is their wont, together with the public worship of their country, throw off all reverence for religion in general. Amongst these was Euhemerus, the Messenian, and, by what we can learn, the most distinguished of this tribe. This man, in mere wantonness of heart, began his attacks on religion by divulging the secret of the mysteries. But as it was capital to do this directly and professedly, he contrived to cover his perfidy and malice by the intervention of a kind of Utopian romance. He pretended, 'that in a certain city, which he came to in his travels, he found this grand secret, that the gods were dead men deified, preserved in their sacred writings, and confirmed by monumental records inscribed to the gods themselves, who were there said to be interred.' So far was not amiss; but then, in the genuine spirit of his class, who never cultivate a truth but in order to graft a lie upon it, he pretended 'that dead mortals were the first gods, and that an imaginary divinity in these early heroes and conquerors created the idea of a superior power, and introduced the practice of religious worship amongst men.' The learned reader sees below [note in Greek omitted,] that our freethinker is true to his cause, and endeavours to verify the fundamental principle of his sect, that fear first made gods, even in that very instance where the contrary passion seems to have been at its height, the time when men made gods of their deceased benefactors. A little matter of address hides the shame of so perverse a piece of malice. He represents those founders of society and fathers of their country under the idea of destructive conquerors, who by mere force and fear had brought men into subjection and slavery. On this

account it was that indignant antiquity oncurred in giving Euhemerus the proper name of atheist, which, however, he would hardly have escaped, though he had done no more than divulge the secret of the mysteries, and had not poisoned his discovery with this impious and forcing addition, so contrary to the true spirit of that secret. This detection had been long dreaded by the orthodox protectors of pagan worship; and they were provided of a temporary defence in their intricate and properly perplexed system of symbolic adoration. But this would do only to stop a breach for the present, till a better could be provided, and was too weak to stand alone against so violent an attack. The philosophers, therefore, now took up the defence of paganism where the priests had left it, and to the others' symbols added their own allegories, for a second cover to the absurdities of the ancient mythology; for all the genuine sects of philosophy, as we have observed, were steady patriots, legislation making one essential part of their philosophy; and to legislate without the foundation of a natural religion, was, in their opinion, building castles in the air. So that we are not to wonder they took alarm, and opposed these insulters of the public worship with all their vigour. But as they never lost sight of their proper character, they so contrived that the defence of the national religion should terminate in a recommendation of their philosophic speculations. Hence, their support of the public worship, and their evasions of Euhemerus's charge, turned upon this proposition, 'That the whole ancient mythology was no other than the vehicle of physical, moral, and divine knowledge.' And to this it is the learned Eusebius refers, where he says, 'That a new race of men refined their old gross theology, and gave it in an honester look, and brought it nearer to the truth of things.'

However, this proved a troublesome work, and, after all, ineffectuel for the security of men's private morals, which the example of the licentious story, according to the latter, would not fail to influence, how well soever the allegoric interpretation was calculated to cover the public honour of religion; so that the more ethical of the philosophers grew peevish with what gave them so much trouble, and answered so little to the interior of religious practice. This made them break out, from time to time, into hasty resentments against their capital poets; unsuitable, one would think, to the dignity of the authors of such noble recondite truths as they would persuade us to believe were treasured up in their writings. Hence it was that Plato banished Homer from his republic, and that Pythagoras, in one of his extramundane adventures, saw both Homer and Hesiod doing penance in hell, and hung up there for examples, to be bleached and purified from the grossness and pollution of their ideas.

The first of these allegorizers, as we learn from Laertius, was Anaxagoras, who, with his friend Metrodorus, turned Homer's mythology into a system of ethics. Next came Hereclides Ponticus, and of the same fables made as good a system of physics ; which, to show us with what kind of spirit it was composed, he entitled Antirresis ton kat autou [Homerou] blasphemesanton. And last of all, when the necessity became more pressing, Proclus undertook to show that all Homer's fables were no other than physical, ethical, and moral allegories.

*

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DR. DODDRIDGE, a distinguished non-conformist divine, and successful author, presents a remarkable contrast to the unhappy prelate whom we have just noticed. His grandfather had been ejected from the living of Shipperton, in Middlesex, by the act of uniformity, in 1662; and his father being engaged in mercantile pursuits in London, there married the only daughter of a German who had fled from Prague to escape the persecution which raged in Bohemia, after the expulsion of Frederick, the Elector Pala, when, to abjure or emigrate, were the only alternatives.

Philip Doddridge was born in London, on the twenty-sixth of June, 1702; and that his pious parents early instructed him in religious knowledge, Orton, his biographer, bears the following testimony:-' I have heard him relate that his mother taught him the history of the Old and New Testaments before he could read, by the assistance of some Dutch tiles in the chimney in the room where they commonly sat; and her wise and pious reflections upon the stories there represented, were the means of making some good impressions upon his heart, which never wore out; and therefore this method of instruction he frequently recommended to parents.'

In 1712, Doddridge was sent to school at Kingston-upon-Thames; bu both his parents dying within three years afterwards, he was removed to St. Albans, and whilst there, was solemnly admitted, in his sixteenth year, a member of the non-conforming congregation. His religious impressions were deep and sincere; and when, in 1718, the Duchess of Bedford offered to educate him for the ministry in the church of England, Doddridge declined, from conscientious scruples, to avail himself of the advantage. A generous friend, Dr. Clarke of St. Albans, now stepped forward to patronize the studious youth; and in 1719, he was placed at an academy established at Kibworth, in Leicestershire, for the education of dissenters. Here he resided three years, pursuing his studies for the ministry, and cultivating a taste for general literature. To one of his fellow-pupils who had condoled with him on being buried alive, Doddridge writes in the following happy strain:

'Here I stick close to those delightful studies which a favourable providence has made the business of my life. One day passeth away after another, and I only know that it passeth pleasantly with me. As for the world about me, I have very little concern with it. I live almost like a tortoise shut up in its shell, almost always in the same town, the same house, the same chamber; yet I live like a prince-not, indeed, in the pomp of greatness, but the pride of liberty; master of my books, master of my time, and, I hope I may add, master of myself. I can willingly give up the charms of London, the luxury, the company, the popularity of it, for the secret pleasures of rational employment and self-approbation; retired from applause and reproach, from envy and contempt, and the destructive baits of avarice and ambition. So that, instead of lamenting it as my misfortune, you should congratulate me upon it as my happiness, that I am confined in an obscure village, seeing it gives me so many valuable advantages to the most important purposes of devotion and philosophy, and, I hope I may add, usefulness too.'

From his first sermon, which was delivered before he had reached the twentieth year of his age, Doddridge became a popular preacher among the dissenters, and had calls to various congregations. In 1729, he settled at Northampton, and was thenceforth celebrated for his abilities, diligence, and zeal. Here he opened a school, and was so successful, that in a few years he engaged an assistant, to whom he assigned the care of the junior pupils, and the direction of the academy during his absence from home. He first appeared as an author in 1730, when he published a pamphlet on the Means of Reviving the Dissenting Interest. He afterwards applied himself

to the composition of practical religious works, and in the course of the four following years sent forth his Sermons on the Education of Children, Sermons to Young People, and Ten Sermons on the Power and Grace of Christ, and the Evidences of his Glorious Gospel, all of which were well received by the public. In 1741, appeared his Practical Discourses on Regeneration, and in 1745, The Rise and Progress of Religion in the Soul. The latter is the author's most profound work, and forms a body of practical divinity and Christian experience, which has never been surpassed by any work of a similar nature.

Two years after 'The Rise and Progress' appeared, Doddridge published Some Remarkable Passages in the Life of Colonel James Gardner, who was slain by the Rebels at the Battle of Prestonpans, September 21, 1745, the popularity of which was almost unparalleled. Gardner was a brave Scottish officer who had served with distinction under Marlborough, and was aid-decamp to the Earl of Stair in his embassy to Paris. From a gay libertine life he was suddenly converted to one of the strictest piety, by what he conceived to be a supernatural interference, that is, a visible representation of Christ, suspended in the air, amidst an unusual blaze of light, and accompanied by a declaration of the words, 'Oh, sinner! did I suffer this for thee, and are these the returns? From the period of this vision till his death, twenty-six years afterwards, Colonel Gardner maintained the life and character of a sincere and zealous Christian, united with that of an intrepid and active offiThis industrious writer's last and most elaborate production, and the one on which his reputation as an author chiefly depends, is The Family Expositor, Containing a Version and Paraphrase of the New Testament, with Critical Notes, and a Practical Improvement of each Section. This compendium of Scriptural knowledge was received with the warmest approbation, both at home and abroad, and was translated into several languages. Doddridge continued his useful and laborious life at Northampton for many years; but his health failing, he was, in 1751, advised to remove to a warmer climate for the winter. In September of the same year, he, accordingly, sailed from Falmouth for Lisbon, where he arrived on the twentyfirst of October; but he survived the voyage only five days, dying on the twenty-sixth of the same month.

cer.

The solid learning, unquestioned piety, and truly Catholic liberality and benevolence of Dr. Doddridge, secured for him the warm respect and admiration of his contemporaries of all sects. He heartily wished and prayed for a greater union among Protestants, and longed for the happy time, when, to use his own words, the question would be, not how much we may lawfully impose, and how much we may lawfully dispute, but on the one side what we may waive, and on the other what we may acquiesce in, from a principle of mutual tenderness and respect, without displeasing our common Lord, and injuring that great cause of original Christianity which he hath appointed us to guard.' The following letter, written to Mrs. Doddridge

from Northampton, in August, 1740, will sufficiently exemplify our author's style :

THE DANGEROUS ILLNESS OF A DAUGHTER.

When I came down to prayer on Lord's day morning, at eight o'clock, immediately after the short prayer with which you know we begin family worship, Mrs. Wilson, (who has indeed showed a most prudent and tender care of the children, and managed her trust very well during your absence,) came to me in tears, and told me that Mr. Knott wanted to speak with me: I immediately guessed his errand, especially when I saw he was so overwhelmed with grief that he could scarcely utter it. It was natural to ask if my child were dead? He told me she was yet alive, but that the doctor had hardly any hopes at all, for she was seized at two in the morning with a chilliness, which was attended with convulsions. No one, my dear, can judge so well as yourself what I must feel on such an occasion; yet I found, as I had just before done in my secret retirements, a most lively sense of the love and care of God, and a calm sweet resignation to his will, though the surprise of the news was almost as great as if my child had been seized in full health; for every body before told me she was quite in a safe and comfortable way. I had now no refuge but prayer, in which the countenances of my pupils, when I told them the story, showed how much they were disposed to join with me. I had before me Mr. Clarke's book of the Promises; and though I had quite forgotten it, yet so it happened that I had left off, the Sabbath before, in the middle of a section, and at the beginning of the sixty-fifth page, so that the fresh words which came in course to be read were Matt. xxi. 22, 'And all things whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive;' the next, 'If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done to you;' then followed, 'Whatsoever ye shall ask my Father in my name, he will give it you;'Ask and receive, that your joy may be full;' 'Whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the son;' 'If ye ask any thing in my name I will do it ;' and at last, The prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up.' These scriptures falling thus undesignedly and unexpectedly in my way, at that moment, and thus directly following each other, in the order in which I have transcribed them, struck me and the whole family very sensibly; and I felt great encouragement earnestly to plead them in prayer, with a very firm persuasion that, one way or other, God would make this a very teaching circumstance to me and the family. Then Mr. Bunyan came, and pleaded strongly against blistering her; but I told him it was matter of conscience to me to follow the prescriptions of the doctor, though I left the issue entirely to God, and felt a dependence on him alone. I then wrote you the hasty lines which I hope you received by the last post, and renewed my application to God in secret, reviewing the promises which had so much astonished and revived me in the family, when those words, 'The prayer of faith shall save the sick,' came on my heart, as if it had been from the very mouth of God himself; so that I could not forbear replying, before I was well aware, 'then it shall;' and I was then enabled to pray with that penetrating sense of God's almighty power, and with that confidence in his love, which I think I never had before in an equal degree; and I thought I then felt myself much more desirous that the child might be spared, if it were but a little while, and from this illness, as in answer to prayer, than on account of her recovery simply, and in itself, or of my own enjoyment of her. I lay open all my heart before you, my dear, because it seems to me something of a singular experience. While I was thus employed, with an ardour of soul which, had it long continued, would have weakened and exhausted my spirits extremely, I was told that a gentleman wanted me: this grieved me exceedingly, till I found it was Mr. Hutton, now of the Moravian church, whose Christian exhortations and consolations were very reviving to me. He said, among