their country, by their foppish vanities, and affected patriotic contempt for all that is American.

We have thought that it would conduce to a further mutual acquaintance between the religious part of the community in both worlds, if we were occasionally to publish interesting biographical notices of Transatlantic divines, whose names and virtues (with a comparatively few exceptions) are scarcely known in England; whereas, our eminent men are as familiarly known, and as highly valued in America, as in their native land. The following passages from the American Quarterly Review, relative to some of the New-England divines, may serve to introduce our notices; and we shall be thankful to any of our American friends, who will occasionally furnish us with interesting and useful memorials.

gentleman, who was travelling in England, addressed to the conductors of that publication. We omit several passages containing personal allusions, the republication of which might not only be open to the law of libel, but is unnecessary to our purpose, as we have nothing to do with the authoress, but only with her book; and this we find to be full of vulgar party-prejudices, illiberality, scandal, and sneers at religion and decorum. The following is all that we think it requisite to extract of the "Yankee" comment; and we envy not the Quarterly critic the castigation which he has drawn down upon himself and his ally. The Fanny Wright alluded to is the Mary Woolstoncraft of America, a goddess of reason, lecturer on moral philosophy, a mother, says the Quarterly, though not a wife, and the would-be founder of a new sect.

"We, Americans, as they call us here, have received another scurrilous attack in the Quarterly Review, as you will see, and doubtless hear-as it must be likely to make some little talk. One Mrs. Trollope............has found it convenient to make an excursion of two or three years through our country, and has had the cleverness to make a clever book, 2 vols. on The Domestic Manners of the Americans. The long fasting of the Quarterly, having created a most voracious appetite of this particular kind, had prepared them well to pounce on the offer of such prey. And here is their first sentence: This is exactly the title-page we had long wished to see.'

"And who do you imagine this Mrs. Trollope is, that is in such high credit and authority with the Quarterly, and into whose fellowship and sympathies they have so cordially entered? A companion and fellow-labourer with Fanny Wright. And yet such are the kennels into which the Quarterly Reviewers stoop to descend, that they may rake up and gather materials for abusing a community, which they have resolved, in despite of all evidence, and pledged themselves, to hate and persecute. "And really what apology can be found for such an ungracious assault, sustained by such authority, at this particular juncture? It would seem at first glance to be wanton; a mere love of dealing in scandal; a malice, or at least an ill humour, so highly charged with unhappy ingredients, as to be utterly blind to reputation in the choice and employment of the instruments of its gratification. For surely, nothing could have been more unworthy, or more disreputable, than the selection of such authority."

"Basil Hall happened to have some accidental connexions in life, and some accidental accomplishments, to save his lack of correct moral principle, and to rescue him from the infamy of ingratitude for hospitality, and of slander returned in reward for politeness. And it was not so barefaced an outrage done to morality and decency, that his abuse of the American States and of American society should be adopted and commended in the Quarterly Review. But here-here is a daring of public opinion, which savours strongly of mere malice.

"Is the secret of this gratuitous and unprovoked assault, of this bold thrust, to be looked for in the present critical condition of the great political party, to whose interests this prominent British Quarterly is known to be devoted? Is it indeed true, that the example of the American government, of American society, and of American prosperity, has presented such an imposing and attractive spectacle to the world, as gradually to have kindled and stirred up to action such a spirit of emulation in the bosom of this mighty people, resolved to be free, that those, whose interest it is to hold them enslaved, are compelled to resort to such defamation; to a chapter of defamation, originating in such authority, and sustained by such authority and infamous means? I confess that when I look at the facts which have given occasion for these queries, and at the probabilities which they suggest, and at the consequent necessity of sustaining such a cause by such means, my disgust and indignation at this base slander are gradually attempered down into a feeling of pity, mingled with contempt."

"The hosts of the northern divines have been abundantly celebrated by their colleagues, disciples, or friends. They supply curious and animating specimens of a numerous race of theologians and godly pastors; men who preached unweariedly' with acceptance,' and wrote with fulness and power; who rendered themselves, by indefatigable application, towering scholarsbiblical, classical, and oriental. A number of them won, by their books and domestic renown, the highest academical honours from European universities. The various toils of the pastors and teachers, seem to have been favourable to longevity; for the proportion of them is not small, who passed forty or fifty years in the ministry, and never suffered themselves to lie fallow for a day. Increase Mather was a preacher sixty-six years; he commonly spent sixteen hours a day in his study; and his sermons and other publi

"The world are gravely told by these reviewers, in proof of the savage condition of the United States, that they have no king and no court, and nothing to supply their place! Alas, for the United States! And they have no aristocracy, and no national religious establishment! Alas for such a state of things! And alas for them here-as they are likely soon to be deprived of such a blessing. And do you think I am not serious in these allusions? Look into the Quarterly, and read for yourselves. And they (Americans) have no national debt of 800,000,000 to bind them together; which is all proved a real and undoubted calamity. They have no literature, but a storm of newspapers; no scholars, no artists, no public libraries, except at Philadelphia, and one or two other places; no private libraries; no steam-boats, except a few miserable things upon the rivers; the climate of their vast country is deadly for six and eight months of the year, except the regions of a small district, far above New-York; four-fifths of the settled portion of the country is cultivated by slaves, and the slaves are necessarily constituted lords during the long unhealthy season; they have no Botany Bay for their rogues; and, being averse to hanging, they are likely soon to become a nation of rogues; and even now, such is the popular ascendency of this portion of the community, that most of those condemned to capital punishment, receive pardon, &c. and as to their state of society, consult Mrs. Trollope, who is most worthy of credit, and exceedingly graphic in all her descriptions. And moreover, if a man of genius happens to be born in America, as may happen in the freaks of nature in any part of the world, he is sure to expatriate himself, and come over to England, where alone genius is patronized. And as for the poor Cincinnations, on whom especially Mrs. Trollope has wreaked her vengeance, how they will ever rise from the blighting of her hand, I know not. It is true I have been at Cincinnati, and have never seen the things, nor experienced the evils she describes; but of what avail is this merely negative evidence, when opposed by so credible a witness?

"And now, what do you think of all this, and much more of the same kind? Have we not great reason to be edified by the criticism of these reviewers? That we have no king, no nobles, no church united with the state, is our misfortune, visited upon us in reward of our crime, for having once in a pet rejected these advantages. All these benefits, however, I suppose, we might create at any time, when we get wise enough to see it best. And a national debt, too, we might manage to bring about at any time, by borrowing a few hundred millions, and spending it in supporting a race of idlers at an enormous expense, or in some other prodigality. It is much easier, as all the world knows, to create a debt, than to liquidate it. It is quite comfortable indeed, to make a virtue of necessity, and a still higher attainment to be so happy under the burden, as to pity those who are exempt from it.

"Reviewers are supposed, at least they generally claim to be, wise and knowing. And it is not to be presumed that they, who in the majesty of their character, say 'We,' in the discharge of their episcopal functions over the Quarterly Review, are so ignorant of the United States of America, as to imagine, that some five-sixths, or nine-tenths of their terriory is overhung by a deadly malaria the greatest portion of the year; that the sickly influences of all the valleys created by their boasted rivers are uniformly fatal to the human constitution; that 'four-fifths' of their cultivated territory is worked by slaves; that they have not a steamboat upon all their waters which could buffet an ocean wave for ten minutes;' that they have no literature of their own, and no books, except a little light reading imported from England; that they have no arts, no men of genius, no spur to human improvement; no progress in things of value, and withal no society worthy of the name; in a word, that all the freedom' and all the privileges enjoyed in America above what is enjoyed in England, is enjoyed by the disorderly at the expense of the orderly.' In all these, and many other statements of this description, originated by these reviewers, or subscribed to by them, they are honest or they are dishonest. If they are honest, what

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cations bore a rational ratio to that allotment.-His son, Cotton Mather, was even more laborious and prolific. His biographers aver, that no person in America had read so much as he and it is recorded in his diary, that in one year he preached seventy-two sermons, kept sixty fasts and twenty vigils, and wrote fourteen books. His pulpit discourses were 'equal in length to those of his brethren,' which, as he himself informs us, usually went a good way into the second hour. His publications amounted to three hundred and twenty-two; some of them being of huge dimensions. John Higginson boasts that no less than ten of the Mathers were serving the Lord and his people in the ministry of the Gospel of Christ.

"The father of Jonathan Edwards, the Rev. Timothy, died in the 89th year of his age, having been a minister for sixty years. Jonathan rose at four o'clock every morning, spent thirteen hours every day in his study, indited his sermons in full for nearly twenty years after he began to preach, and reached the figures 1400 in numbering his miscellaneous writings. Eighty-two sermons are enumerated in the extensive list of his publications. He left, moreover, ‘a great number of volumes in manuscripts.' According to his biographers, he read with great avidity and delight, when he was not more than twelve years old, Locke on the Human Understanding. We have strong doubts whether he then comprehended this author; but he afterwards proved himself, in his celebrated treatise on the Freedom of the Human Will, as deep a thinker and close reasoner in metaphysics as the English philosopher. By this masterly work, he gained at once the highest reputation in Europe.-President Stiles, of Yale College, a man of low and small stature, and of very delicate structure,' died in a good old age, a prodigy of acquirements and faculties. He was an indefatigable preacher, an able professor of metaphysics, theology, jurisprudence, and history; a

becomes of their claims to be knowing?

The dilemma into which they are cast probably does not trouble their consciences. To be convicted of a defect of moral principle is a predicament, from which they can easily escape in a matter of this kind. To attain their object, the foul aspersion of a community, by whatever means, is the only thing for which they are solicitous: and this they are sure of accomplishing to a limited extent.

"It is possible, indeed, and to some extent it is probably true, that an habitual and bigoted adherence to the narrow policies of a selfish oligarchy-selfish not only in relation to its own degraded and oppressed subjects, but selfish in relation to all the world-has blinded their eyes to all worth beyond their own domestic circle, and Recessarily subjected them to the dominions of a contracted mind. And so far the plea of ignorance is some apology. Seeing they would not see and hearing they would not hear.'

"But you must not imagine that I hold the English community generally responsible for the sentiments expressed in the Quarterly Review. Be that far from me Although such slander always has its influence to the prejudice of those who are traduced; yet the circle in England is very limited, in which it is entertained either with satisfaction or credit. As I have before had occasion to remark to you, we have as much respect in this country, as we could reasonably expect or desire. And that estimation, ordinarily favourable and generous, has long been acquiring its slow and sure dominion in the public mind.

"All such attempts as those of the Quarterly Reviewers, are generally properly appreciated. The steady growth and unexampled prosperity of the United States, and the testimony that we are rapidly advancing in every species of improvement that is desirable to man and in human society, has been expressed and reiterated in so many and such credible forms, that all reasonable men feel and know the story to be true. And it is the amazing influence of this testimony and of this knowledge over the conditions and destinies of human society on this side of the Atlantic, which fills the possessors of unrighteous advantages with so much inquietude, and tempts them to such unworthy and desperate resorts as those which have been the occasion and subject of these strictures. And they are worthy of notice, only as it is important, in all proper ways, to rebuke the insolent, when their effrontery unchecked is likely to do mischief, and when a proper self-respect claims a vindication from the aspersions of the vile."

voluminous author in print, and unconscionable reader; an almost universal linguist; an adept in mathematics, natural philosophy, and astronomy; and his cabinet manuscripts, at his death, consisted of forty volumes, besides an unfinished Ecclesiastical History of New-England. His hobby was the discovery of the Ten Tribes of Israel; a pursuit in which he took incredible pains, and addressed voluminous epistles, in Latin, to Rabbis, Jesuits in Mexico, Greek Bishops in Palestine, Moravian Ministers in Astracan, and to Sir William Jones in Calcutta. The missive to Sir William consisted of more than seventy pages in quarto.-Dr. Samuel Johnson born in Connecticut, was another such omnivorous and omniscient divine; in learning not inferior to the Johnson in England, in temper and manners much his superior. He was the head and oracle of the Episcopal Church in Connecticut.-There was a Rev. Ivory Hovey of Massachusetts, long a principal physician of the body, who wore the robe of ninety years without the staff; preached sixty-five years; wrote so many sermons that they could scarcely be counted, and kept a journal in short hand, which finally occupied seven thousand octavo pages.-Samuel Hopkins, from whom the sect called Hopkinsians derive the name, reached the age of eighty-three, though he frequently devoted eighteen hours a day to his studies, and framed sermons and syntagmata without number. We observed among his works a dialogue, dated 1776, shewing it to be the duty and interest of the American States to get rid of their slaves.'-The Rev. Solomon Stoddard, of Northampton, Mass., who published a variety of polemical and other tracts, and plenty of sermons, wrote so fine a hand, that one hundred and fifty of his discourses are contained in a duodecimo volume which may be commodiously carried in the pocket.

"The great plurality of our clergy sided with their country in all the disputes with Great Britain: they prayed and preached in favour of independence; at the proper period some even took up arms. It was espe

cially natural and consistent in New-England ministers to be republican patriots: they were proclaimers of civil and religious liberty-sturdy Whigs, from the settlement.-Old President Stiles, with his puny body and large soul, preached a discourse on the occasion of the death of George II. and the accession of George III., in which he admonished the latter against suffering any retrenchments of the liberties of New-England. In the best known of his works, his History of the three Judges of Charles I., he is all for 'republican renovation;' he announced, before our Revolution, that the 30th of January, which was observed by the Episcopalians, in commemoration of the martyrdom of Charles I. ' ought to be celebrated as an anniversary thanksgiving, that one nation on earth had so much fortitude and public justice as to make a royal tyrant bow to the sovereignty of the people.'-Jonathan Mayhew, the famous leader in what was called the Episcopal controversy, was a republican of the boldest parts.-Such pastors contributed not a little to prepare the people for a prompt and inflexible resistance to every attack on their rights.

"It is unquestionable, that the lives of the American clergymen have been sound as to morals, and active as to the duties of the priesthood. Making every allowance for the prudence or partiality of biographers, it is yet most edifying to find such a proof, as these records afford, of domestic virtue, public exemplariness, devout diligence, combined with various talents, profound learning, scientific honours and personal ascendancy. The vices and the irregularities with which the ecclesiastical bodies of Europe and South America are reproached, have no place in the true history of ours: indolence, luxury, substitution, simony, licentiousness, horse. racing, cock-fighting, gambling, street-mendicancy; none of these things can be cast upon any portion worth mentioning of the dead or the living CHRIST. OBSERV. No. 367. 3 P

ministers of the Gospel in our country. This fact is, in part, one of the effects, and therefore one of the merits of our political system, and the order of our society."

We have not space to commence our notices at present; but we hope to avail ourselves of an early Number, to lay a specimen before our readers.

ALLEGED OMINOUS DREAM AND SUPERNATURAL APPEARANCE IN THE LANSDOWNE FAMILY.

To the Editor of the Christian Observer.

MR. EASTMENT's remarkable narrative, (see Christ. Observer for June, p. 391,) is peculiarly interesting in its bearings, and well deserves attentive consideration, by some pious and judicious correspondent. A primary point in all such statements is to obtain correctly the facts of the case; for want of which, innumerable supposed prodigies have been obtruded upon the world, which being at length discovered to be false, men acquire a habit of distrust and incredulity, which by its abuse becomes prejudicial to them in higher matters, and tends to injure the interests of what is irrefragable truth,-even of revealed truth itself. The doctrine of a Divine Providence which governs the affairs of men, and without which not a hair of our head falls to the ground, is most blessed and consoling to the mind of every true servant of God; but in proportion to its importance, should be our caution not to disparage it by light surmises and groundless narratives.

I am induced to urge this point of extreme accuracy in the detail of facts supposed to bear upon the doctrine of Divine Providence, from having recently perused in Mr. Warner's Literary Recollections a ghost story, which, if believed, would at once settle the question of modern supernatural appearances. With some persons Mr. Warner's opinion may stand very high; and as he has perseveringly assailed, in numerous publications, what he considers the enthusiasm and superstition of "Methodists" and "Evangelicals," it will of course be concluded that he is a peculiarly cool observer and accurate narrator. But such are the anomalies of human nature, that some men may think a fabulous ghost story or gossiping dream worth recording, who are mightily sensitive in other matters. Mr. Warner's narrative is as follows:

'My sincere respect for the memory of the Rev. Joseph Townsend, Rector of Pewsey, would, were I to follow its impulse, lead me into a length of remark upon his character and attainments, incompatible with the nature of my work: I will therefore close this biographical sketch with the communication of a very singular fact, related to me, in the first instance, by him; but which has since been confirmed, by a voucher scarcel to be resisted,- —an indisputably true report, of Dr. Alsop's viva voce declaration on his dying bed.

"Lord William Petty was the third son of the old Marquis of Lansdowne, and brother of the present highly gifted Lord of Bowood. He had attained the age of seven or eight years; as remarkable for the precocity of his understanding as he was unfortunate in the delicate state of his constitutional health. The Marquis, called to London by his parliamentary duties, had left the child at Bowood, for the winter, with Mr. Jervis his tutor, and suitable domestics. The late Dr. Priestley also, the Marquis's librarian, made one of the party. On an ill-omened day, beautiful and brilliant, but intensely cold, the gamekeeper, in compliance with Lord William's request, took the lad before him on horseback. His Lordship