form you, that the first of them, Richard Baxter, was not educated at either of these illustrious seminaries, and that he had no university education at all; which is one striking instance to shew, that an education either in the Scotch or English universities is not necessary to the production of truly "great men." I will give you my authority for the fact I have asserted, which is no other than a letter of this great man himself, in answer to one addressed to him by the famous Anthony Wood, the author of Athene Oxonienses, in order to obtain information concerning the place of his education, that he might duly honour him in that work. Wood, in his second volume, page 1125, second edition, under the article "Writers of New Inn Hall," has the following passage, in which he has done himself more honour than in several others in his elaborate work. 66 Whereas there hath been a report that Mr. Richard Baxter, the pride of the Presbyterian party, was bred at New Inn*. I did therefore send a letter to him, to know the truth of the matter; upon the receipt of which he very civilly returned me this answer.-As to myself, my faults are no disgrace to any university, for I was of none, and have little but what I had out of books, and inconsiderable helps of country tutors. Weakness and pain helped me to study how to die; that set me on studying how to live; and that, on studying the doctrine from which I must fetch my motives and comforts. And beginning with necessaries, I proceeded by degrees, and now am going to see that which I have lived and studied for,' &c. +" *The mistake probably arose from the circumstance of Stephen Baxter, his cousin, being there educated, to one of whose books Richard wrote a preface. It is entitled Nonconformity to the World." It is rather singular, though this Anthony Wood most shamefully abuses Dr. Owen among others, he in several places mentions This letter, I doubt not, you and your readers will esteem a curiosity worth preserving, not merely as it ascertains a singular fact, but as it tends to exalt our ideas of this good man's greatness and humility, of whom, in the course of your work, you have repeatedly expressed a high idea. I am, Sir, Very respectfully yours, A BAXTERIAN. P. S. It has often struck me as rather extraordinary, that we have never had a work similar to Wood's, entitled Athena Cantabridgienses. I once suggested this to a Cambridge professor, who, to my great surprise, had never seen or heard of Wood's famous publication. I could wish you to suggest it to some able Cambridge man to undertake such a desideratum in ecclesiastical literature. To the Editor of the Christian Observer. I DON'T know how it is, but I feel a persuasion that, whoever you are, you are such a plain, blunt sort of a man, that I, who am pretty much of the same character (though perhaps somewhat corrupted by my late associations), have determined to state my case to you. In the first place then, Sir, you must understand, that I have lived almost entirely out of the world. My father was a solicitor in Lincoln's Inn Fields, who endeavoured to make a great shew, though he had a large family and little money. My sisters, for I had two, were older than I, and had been at a boarding-school, a few years before I remember much of my own history. But when I was about ten years of age, an old Quaker, my uncle by my mother's side, begged my father to let him take me into a distant county and bring me up as his Baxter in terms of respect. See the Index, in which reference is made to four or five places where Baxter's name occurs; but, which is very strange, the above most inte resting passage is not referred to. have learned a looser phraseology own child. My father, who knew, that the old gentleman had plenty of money and no heir, readily consented. And having stipulated that I should be exempted from thouing and thecing any but his own fraternity, he packed me into my uncle's drab "one-horse sbay," and down we went to Ebenezer Hall in Northum-, berland. I could tell you, Sir, a number of strange things which happened in the course of my training under my good uncle. But this is not my object, as I have a particular grievance to state to you, and one of the things I have learned of my uncle is, not to be too talkative, when no good is to come of it. To proceed directly to the point therefore. My uncle was a most excellent man. To be sure, Nature meant him for a Quaker. He was stiff, erect, formal; with the slowest pulse, the doctor said, he ever felt; and certainly the most articulate enunciation I ever beard. His person was roundness and smoothness itself; and he looked always as if he were come out of a band-box. But he had a large heart, and loved God and his fellow creatures. One distinguishing feature in his character was, the love of truth; on this he could not bear the slightest infringe ment. In conversation, as far as be could, he told the precise hour and minute at which every thing happened. He never coloured high; used his epithets very sparingly; hated exclamations; shuddered at a superlative; thought excess in language a capital crime; and curiously ared and fitted every word to the subject on which he used it.-To such an extent was this exactness carried, that having discovered, at the end of four months, that the undertaker had put the wrong date upon his wife's coffin, he dug her up to correct the error. Of course, Sir, as I loved my uncle, and thought every thing which belonged to him Venerable, except his monstrous hat, caught a good deal of his precision of speech. And, although I may CHRIST. OBSERV. No. 110. N emotion with which they would offended him; and found, to my utter have received an offer; saw in every man an angel or an imp; were hysterical with joy and sorrow in the same hour; and scolded or hugged one another all day long. Dictionaries were ransacked for intensitives. Common language indeed was too weak for their sensations. I have heard them denounce a poor kitten in terms which would have suited the ban of the empire, and roll at the head of a house - maid thunders which would not have disgraced the Vatican. They dealt much in the vast, the sublime, the delicious, the ravishing, the immortal. In short, Sir, the vocabulary, and even the world, seemed almost too small for them; and if I may venture to employ the hyperbole of one poet in describing another, they Exhausted worlds, and then imagin'd new; Existence saw them spurn her bounded reign, And panting time toil'd after them in vain.” Now, Sir, you can well conceive my amazement on joining this vehement party. It seemed a new world to me. It was like the change of moving from the pole to the equator, or of quitting the Catacombs of Egypt to visit her gayest palaces. There was as much life and emotion here in a day, as in a calendar month at my uncle's. All around me seemed to be hung upon wires, or to be a bundle of nerves. But, Sir, to say I was merely amazed (which, how ever, my uncle always taught me to consider as no small misfortune) at the state of my family, will give you a very faint notion of my condition. I have been in a succession of scrapes from the first moment I entered the house till the present hour. You shall hear some of them. One day, when my father was pressing one of the girls to play a sonata, which to be sure was tedious enough to exhaust a burgomaster, I heard "she had rather die than play it." I, at once, supposed the poor girl had strong conscientious scruples against playing it. I ventured therefore to defend her, even against my father's command; justly her say confusion the next day, that she was was an or "ravishing." Every day is "delicious" or "intolerable."As for sermons, Sir, the fiery controversialists of the 17th century did not coin words strong enough to give utterance to the judgments of these impetuous damsels. And if it were not that my ears are regaled pretty often with the mild epithet "dull," I should be led to conclude, that all their preachers were either Gabriels I ought to observe, however, that there is no epithet of a more emphatic import in their whole vocabulary than the quiet monosyllable I have just mentioned. In their auto da fes, heresy would not more certainly conduct a man to the stake than dullness. Now, Sir, as to the effect of this excess in language and sentiment upon myself, I have little to say. As the shepherd's boy in the fable, who cried "the wolf, the wolf," for his own amusement, and to cheat his neighbours, at last could not rouze them to his help even when the wolf really came; so I am learning to be wonderfully composed, even when the quivering couple are almost in convulsions. I have taken a new measure of their conversation. I know that scarlet with them means pink; swans, sparrows; infinite, not small; delicious, not unpleasant; dull, sensible; quakerish, respectable; odious, quiet; methodistical, decent, &c. &c. &c; so that, Sir, I can now listen even to an intensitive that might almost break the drum of an ordinary ear, with no more emotion than a gunner hears a pistol. I can watch the progress of an hysteric with as little sensation as a stranger would hear a sigh; and epithets, which, in untutored ears, would uncanonize a saint, leave the uninjured subject of them in full possession of my good opinion. Strong sayings are now to me, like French snuff to men accustomed to "blackguard;" or French wines to the drinkers of brandy. Thus, as I said, I am not likely, except indeed by my past misapprehensions, to suffer from the emphases of my sisters. From habit I can pretty well judge how far the strength of the expression is suited to the subject; and water down as I see occasion.-But, Sir, it is on their account I write to you; upon them the effects of all this are very severe. In the first place, when any really great occasions arise, they are sore distressed indeed. Having used up all the strong words of the language upon weaker topics, as they cannot swear, they are obliged to be silent; and having expended their strong emotions in the same prodigal manner, they have no resource but an hysteric. One limit and corrective indeed I perceive to this, is, that sensibility exercised upon small things seems to exhaust itself upon them, and to find no strength for great ones; so that these poor girls, who scream when a moth singes his wing, saw the footman actually break his leg last week with truly stoical, composure. They feel it, however, a real grievance to want words commensurate to their occasions; for that does not look sentimental. Although they account you "horribly dull," yet you would greatly rise in their estimation if you would either supply them direct with some Patagonian phrases, or recommend the formation of a new dictionary to some of your learned correspondents: but in this last case, Sir, your lexicographer must be a sort of literary perfumer, and have all his words in "essences." Another of their misfortunes is this. Though I, by dint of habit, have come to understand them, and, through brotherly love, cannot fail to feel for them; yet the world are not all so knowing and so affectionate as myself. The fact is then, that one half of their acquaintance believe them, and the other half do not. The first take them at their word; and accordingly are tossed in all the "hurly burly," and whirlwinds of passion, which these young witches excite. The half of their acquaintance who do not believe them are a good deal tempted to despise them, which, as they are really worth loving but for this single fault, grieves them and me not a little. Now, Sir, as I conceive, to this case one or two remedies must be applied you must either teach the world a new language, or teach my sisters that of their own country and common sense. Teach them the accurate use of their five senses, 'so that they may see, hear, taste, smell, feel, in about the same proportions with the rest of the world. Preach them a short sermon upon that short but important text, "be sober."Keep their pulse, if possible, by prescribing a cooling diet and regimen, below fever heat. And beg them, among other things, no longer to call me the little stiff Quaker, OBADIAH. REVIEW OF NEW PUBLICATIONS. History of Dissenters, from the Revolution in 1688, to the Year 1808. In Four Volumes. By DAVID BOGUE and JAMES BENNETT. London; Williams and Smith, &c. 8vo. Vol. I. pp. xliv. 435; Vol. II. PP. 472. WHATEVER may be our opinion of the personal character of Dissenters from the ecclesiastical establishment in this country, or of the cause which they have espoused, we are ready to admit, that they have the best right to give their own account both of themselves and of their principles. We are as little disposed to deny, that such an account, whether grate ful or not to a churchman's feelings, would be instructive and interesting in a high degree. Nor would it detract very considerably from the judgment here expressed, were the work, although generally just and candid, bleurished by some undue partialities to the subject. We should consider, that it was the work of men, and that we might ourselves be overtaken with the same fault. The history, which we now undertake to review, is professedly a continuation of the celebrated history of the Puritans, by Neale; and it is really a parallel of the less known Abridgment of Baxter's Life and Times, by Calamy, for about the period now given to the public in the History of Mess. Bogue and Bennett. To the work of Calamy, which in fact contains the best ac count we have ever seen of the esta blished church during the reigns of William III. and Anne, we are willing to award all the praise of general candour and restrained partiality, which has just been expressed; and had the present historians, in the undisturbed enjoyment of a liberty and security which they both acknow. ledge and celebrate, exhibited the same fidelity and moderation which characterize the performance of their predecessor and exemplar, while un der the visitation of injuries, as he must have esteemed them, of no trifling severity, they would have given to the public a work creditable to themselves, and not unacceptable to us, or, we apprehend, to the generality of our readers. Even then, there would doubtless have been many points, on which we should have differed from the authors, and on which we should perhaps have felt it our duty, although, we trust, with Christian arms, to contend with them. But it is with real regret we are obliged to declare our opinion, that the present history does by no means equal that just mentioned, either in candour or a Christian spirit; and that, in both these qualities, it is often, and very criminally, deficient. The points of dif ference between these writers and ourselves must therefore, of course, be prodigiously multiplied. This circumstance, although it may seem |