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Upon the whole of this affair, we think, that the exertions of Mr. Marsh have not succeeded in diminishing the evidence, that Justin Martyr quoted from the four gospels which we now possess; and much less do we consider our enterprizing critic as having established a claim to the honour, from which he would dismiss those gospels, in favour either of the apocryphal gospel according to the Hebrews, or of his own fictitious original document.

CLXXVI. The Fashionable World displayed. By THEOPHILUS CHRIS TIAN, Esq. London, Hatchard. 1804. 18mo. pp. 81. price 3s. 6d.

THIS ingenious and entertaining work, we understand to be the production of a gentleman who has already distinguished himself by his writings on the side of morality and religion. In the volume before us, he has aimed a blow which, we trust, will be widely felt, against the follies and vices which characterize the fashionable world. He well knew that most of those for whose benefit his book is designed, would be wholly inaccessible to laboured argumentation or grave rebuke. He has, therefore, prudently adopted a different course: and by the help of the serio-comic air which he has assumed, we doubt not that he will be instrumental in conveying some useful lessons to many of the votaries of fashion, who would shrink from his approach, were he to appear among them in the suspicious character of a moralist or a divine.

The plan of the work is well conceived, and both the design and the execution reflect great credit on the ingenuity, penetration, and ability of the author. The first chapter conveys much valuable topographical information respecting the situation,

boundaries, climate, and seasons of the fashionable world, to which it is scarcely possible to do justice by a quotation. The second exhibits a view of its government and laws. Under the latter head the author gives a particular account of that extraordinary code, which is known by the name of "the law of honour," and which Dr. Paley, though he admits it to be defective and even bad, inasmuch as it makes no provision for the duties to God and to inferiors, and allows of fornication, adultery, drunkenness, prodigality, duelling, &c., has nevertheless, by classing it with the law of the land and the scriptures, afforded some ground for considering "as a moral rule to which men owe a qualified obedience."

"This law," observes our author, "overlooks, if it does not even encourage, a variety of actions which in the mouth of a mera ist would be absolute vices; and which, to say the truth, are scarcely deserving of a much better name. Thus, a man may debauch his tenant's daughter, seduce the wife of his friend, and be faithless and even brutal to his own, and yet be esteemed a man of honour (which is the same as a man of Fashion), and have a right to make any man fight him who says he is not. In like manner, a man may blaspheme God, and encourage his children and servants to do the same; he may neglect the interests and squander tyrant in his house and a bully in the the property of his family, he may be a streets; he may lie abed all day, and drink and game all night; and yet be a most dutiful subject of the law of honour, and a shining character in the seciety of Fashion." (p. 18.)

Duelling, that opprobrium of civilized society, is next reprobated with the severity which it deserves. It is scarcely possible to read what is said upon it, without being convinced of the extreme folly and absurdity, as well as of the awful criminality, of that most unchristian practice.

The third chapter, on "Religion and Morality;" and the fourth on "Education," are entitled to distipguished notice. Our limits will only admit of our selecting a few passages, which, we hope, may serve to exoite a desire in the reader to peruse the whole work. In discussing the creed of the Fashionable World, he observes,

"I was for a long time of opinion that these people were believers in Christ; for I had observed that his name was found 1 their formularies of devotion, associated

with their baptismal designation, and frequently appealed to in their conversation with each other. There were, I confess, many things at the time which staggered me. Having taken up my ideas of the Saviour from those Scriptures which they profess equally to receive, I was not a little astonished at the ultimate difference be tween us. Their belief of a God was, I knew, inevitable, and forced upon them by every thing in nature and experience; 1 could therefore conceive, without much difficulty, how they could subscribe to his being, and yet not hallow his name: but I could not with equal facility conceive that people should go out of their way to embrace a solemn article of revealed religion, only that they might have an opportunity of trifling with the holy name of Him who was the author and the object of that revelation. I had besides, occasion to remark that this name was seldom appealed to but by the ladies; and it did not appear in the first instance probable, that the gentlemen would leave them in exclusive possession of a mode of imprecation by which any thing was meant. These and other circumstances excited in my mind a great deal of speculation. I will not, however, trouble my readers with the many conclusions which I drew from them, since an event has occurred which affords no indifferent evidence that belief in a Saviour does not form an article of fashionable religion. The event to which I refer, is the publication of a Memoir of the late Lord Camelford, by the Rex. W. Cockburne. In this Memoir the author professes to acquaint the world with the last moments of a fashionable young man, who had received a mortal wound in an affair of honour. In perusing this extraordinary nar rative, I was much surprised at finding that neither the dying penitent (for such he is represented to have been) nor his spiritual confessor, ever once mentioned the name of Christ. But when, on further attention, I found his Lordship expressing a hope that his own dying sufferings would expiate his sins, and placing his dependance upon the mercy of his Creator, I had only to conclude that the divine was deterred from mentioning a name with which his office must make him familiar, out of respect for that fashionable ereed from which it is excluded." (pp. 30-32.)

His remarks on the mode of worship which prevails among people of fashion, and on the pains which they take to remove from their minds any impressions which the offices of religion may have happened to make, are conceived in the same strain of appropriate irony. The great defectiveness of their morality is also happily exposed.

"Pleasure being the object upon which a life of fashion terminates, it was saga

ciously enough foreseen that an unbending morality would be utterly incompatible with the modes, and habits, and plans of such a career; there remained, therefore, no alternative but that of frittering away the strength and substance of the morality of the gospel till it became sufficiently tame and pliable for the sphere of accommodation in which it was to act. The consequence has been, that while they employ the same terms to denote their moral ideas, as are in use among Christians in general, yet they limit or enlarge their signification as expediency requires. Thus modesty, honesty, humanity, and sobriety, -names, with stricter moralists, for the purest virtues-are so modified and liberalized by fashionable casuists, as to be capable of an alliance with a low degree of every vice to which they stand opposed. A woman may expose her bosom, paint her face, assume a forward air, gaze without emotion, and laugh without restraint at the loosest scenes of theatrical licentiousness, and yet be after all-a modest woman. A mau may detain the money which he owes his tradesinan, and contract new debts for ostentatious superfluities, while he has neither the means nor the inclination to pay his old ones, and yet be after all a very honest fellow. A woman of fashion may disturb the repose of her family every night, abandon her children to mercenary nurses, and keep her horses and her servants in the streets till daybreak, without any impeachment of her humanity so the gentleman of Fashion may swallow his two or three bottles aday, and do all his friends the kindness to lay them under the table as often as they dine with him; yet if constitution or habit secure him against the same ignominious effects, he claims to be considered a sober

man.

There would be no end of going over all the eccentricities of fashionable morality To those who exact that truth which allows of no duplicity, that honour which scorns all baseness, and that virtue which wars with every vice, I question but every thing in the morals of this people would appear anomalous and extraordinary. But to those who consider how necessary a certain portion of wickedness is to such a life of sense as these people must necessarily lead, it will not be matter of surprise that there should be so little genuine morality among them: the wonder will rather be that there should be any at all." (pp. 40--42.)

The following observations, introduced in the chapter on education, are just and important:

"It is worthy of attention how much ingenuity is displayed in bringing about that moral temperament which is necessary for the meridian of Fashion. The rake who is debauching innocente, squan

dering away property, and extending the influence of licentiousness to the utmost of his power, would (if fairly represented) excite spontaneous and universal abhorrence. But this would be extremely inconvenient, since raking, seduction, and prodigality, make half the business and almost all the reputation of men of Fashion. What then must be done -Some qualities of acknowledged excellence must be associated with these vicious propensities, in order to prevent them from occasioning unmingled disgust. We may, I presume, refer it to the same policy, that, in dramas of the greatest popularity, the worthless libertine is represented as having at the bottom some of those properties which reflect most honour upon human nature: while as if to throw the balance still more in favour of vice-the man of professed virtue is delineated as being in the main a sneaking and hypocritical villain. Lessons such as these are not likely to be lost upon the ingenuous feelings of a young girl. For, besides the fascinations of an elegant address and an artful manner, the whole conduct of the plot is an insidious appeal to the simplicity of her heart. She is taught to believe by these representations, that profligacy is the exuberance of a generous nature, and decorum the veil of a bad heart so that having learnt, in the outset of her career, to associate frankness with vice, and duplicity with virtue, she will not be likely to separate these combi nations during the remainder of her life.

To enter further into the minute details of a fashionable education, would only be to travel over ground which has been often and ingeniously explored by writers of the greatest eminence. Enough has been said to show, that their system of education, like every other branch of their economy, is adapted to qualify the parties for that polite intercourse with each other, which seems to constitute the very end of their being. And if it be considered of what nature that intercourse is, it will occasion no surprise, that the education which prepares for it should confound the distinctions of virtue and vice, and inculcate duplicity in religion, and prevarication in morals." (pp. 50-52.)

We shall not detain our readers by any extracts from the fifth chapter, in which the manners, dress, amusements, and language of this extraordinary people are graphically described: but proceed to the sixth and last chapter, in which the happiness of fashionable life is estimated, we believe justly, at a very low rate; and plans of reform are suggested. The great cause of their misery our author considers to be their inconsistency. To remove this defect, he proposes one of two plans.

1. The first plan of melioration is, to

renounce the Christian religion: This turns upon the supposition, that the government, laws, and manners which now prevail, must at all events be retained. For if duels must be fought, what can be so preposterous as to swear allegiance to a law, which says, Thou shalt not kill? If injuries must not be forgiven, where is the propriety of employing a prayer in which the petitioner declares that he does forgive them? If the passions are to be gratified, what end is answered by doing homage to those Scriptures which so peremptorily declare that they must be mortified? In a word, if swearing, prevarication, and sensuality, if a neglect of the duties to God and inferiors, be necessary, or even allowable parts, of a fashionable character; where is the policy, the virtue, or even the decency of connecting it with a religion, which stamps these several qualities with the deepest guilt, and threatens them with the severest retribution? If a religion of some sort be absolutely necessary, let such an one be chosen as may possess a correspondence with the other parts of that system with which it is to be associated: let it be a religion in which pride, and resentment, and lust, may have their necessary scope; a religion, in short, in which the god of this world may be the idol, and the men of this world the worshippers. Such an arrangement will go a great way towards establishing consistency: it will dissolve an union in which both parties are sufferers; and liberate at once the man of Fashion from a profession which involves him in contradiction, and Christianity from a connexion which covers her with disgrace.

"2. If, on the other hand, it should be thought material to retain Christianity, the plan of reform must be inverted, and the sacrifices taken from those maxims and habits, which interfere with the spirit and the injunctions of that holy religion. It is altogether out of the character of Christianity to act a subservient or an accommodating part. It will, therefore, be necessary to invest her with absolute authority, and to give her a commanding ju risdiction. The consequence of such a measure will necessarily be a complete revolution in the arrangements of Fashion. In the progress of this reform, certain inconveniencies will necessarily he encountered; but they will be speedily compensated by an influx of real and permanent advantages. Religion will then be known penalties; and it will then be found, that by something better than her pains and conscience can whisper peace, as well as utter reproach. All the details of life and conduct will then be made to harmonize with each other. Duty and pleasure will have their proper times, and places, and limits. Egery thing, in short, will be preserved in the system which can facilitato

intercourse without impairing virtue; and nothing be struck out but what administers to vanity, duplicity, and vice.

"Whether changes of such magnitude will ever take place, I cannot pretend to conjecture; but certain I am, that if ever they should, the world at large will be very

much the better for them. Greatly as I

wish the reformation of principles and the suppression of vice, I am not sanguine in my expectations of either event, while rank, and station, and wealth, throw their mighty influence into the opposite scale. Then, and not till then, will Christianity obtain the dominion she deserves, when

the makers of our manners' shall submit to her authority, and the PEOPLE OF FASHION become the PEOPLE OF GOD." (PP. 78-81.)

After such copious extracts our readers will be pretty well able to appreciate the value of this little vofume. Our own opinion of its importance and utility is sufficiently indicated by the space, which, considering its size, we have allotted to it. We have only to wish, that as the ingenious author has been at so much pains in investigating the constitution of fashionable society, and the character of those who compose it, they will not refuse to reward his labour by at least favouring the result of his researches with a place in their li brary, and deigning to read what he

has written for their benefit.

CLXXVII. Letters written by the late EARL OF CHATHAM to his Nephew, Thomas Pitt, Esq. (afterwards Lord Camelford) then at Cambridge. 12mo. London, Payne. 180. pp. xxix and 101.

THERE is, perhaps, scarcely any more general disposition among mankind than that which causes us to take pleasure in seeing, and still more in thoroughly and intimately knowing, persons of rank and eminence; those, especially, who, to use Mr. Burke's expressive language, have filled a large space in the eye of man. Rochefoucault, in his usual spirit, would have ascribed this universal taste to the desire of discovering, by a nearer approach, those infirmities, which may bring down to a level with ourselves, a character to which we cannot look up without a painful sense of our own inferiority. A more good-natured explainer of the phænomena of human nature would be satisfied with referCHRIST. OBSERV. No. 3.

ing the feeling to our natural admiration of excellence, and to a desire of contemplating more nearly, and viewing more in detail, the excellencies we admire. And much may, perhaps, be curiosity, which, especially when its justly ascribed to a natural principle of operation is heightened by sympathy, never fails to render every thing peculiarly interesting to us that respects the conduct, character, or fortunes, of a fellow-creature. But various other, and sometimes better, motives may often prompt us to explore with mi nute attention the lives and characters of those, whose wisdom or whose virtue, whose brilliant exploits or extraordinary fortunes, have attracted the of mankind. What we esteem we notice, and called forth the admiration naturally desire to imitate: our minds are warmed with emulation: and we inquire solicitously, by what felicities of nature, or exertions of industry; by what course of education, by what connections, by what studies and pursuits; he, who, at length, attained to some uncommon elevation, gained the slow ascent: what were his natural talents, and how were they cultivated: what were the openings by which op portunities for displaying those talents were afforded, and how were these openings produced? Men of a more philosophic cast, or of more tender natures, may desire still farther to be informed, whether greatness was not purchased at the price of happiness : and those whose love of virtue surPasses their desire of fame will inwhich had been so successfully run,, quire, whether the race of glory, did not too naturally multiply temptations and increase difficulties; call forth passions which it is the daily business of a good man to stifle ; and require sacrifices and concessions at which a man of strict rectitude cannot but hesitate. To satisfy these inqui ries, they desire to take down the statue from its pedestal, that they may view its features and lineaments a little more closely. They wish to follow the hero from the field, or the demagogue from the forum, into private life, into the social or family circle, to see what he is when withdrawn from the observation of men; what are his daily conduct and habits, what his favourite studies and pursuits; what are his recreations, who are the companions of his vacant hours. Here we discover the real character: the veil 4 C