and haunted by presaging visions of despair and horror. Particular results will follow with almost unvarying certainty particular actions and modes of life; the science of human nature, which displays them, is as perfect as that of physics, and furnishes us with the most accurate instructions for determining and foreseeing our condition in the preparatory state of mortality, and our destiny in the ulterior and invisible world. Reflections of this kind will strongly influ ence a considerate mind to prefer the study which is conver sant with individual character, to that which contemplates the vicissitudes of national affairs. History, so far as it is distinct from biography, and employs itself in developing the nature and the causes of those changes which political communities have undergone, must yield to biography, both in usefulness and in grandeur: in usefulness, because its deductions are of no practical value, except to the small number of students who may be empowered to administer the public concerns; in grandeur, because the largest aggregation of mortal interests is incomparably less precious than one single interest of infinite duration.

Highly desirable as it is, for the perfection of our acquaintance with human nature, that every species of character should be illustrated, there are doubtless some characters which will most generally repay the attention of the student. And these are, as Mr. Jay observes, not those of the most elevated individuals, or persons who are distinguished by the most extraordinary achievements, or of those whose course has been the most surprising and eccentric.

For the purposes of biography, those lives are the most eligible that are the most imitable; and these are derived from characters that belong to our own community, that are found in the same relations and conditions with ourselves; whose circumstances make us feel for the time the emotions which would be excited by the same good or evil happening to ourselves; whose attainments, while they resulted from the divine blessing, appear not to have been preternatural, but were made under no greater advantages than our own; whose progress was not less owing to the stroke of the oar, than the favourableness of the wind; whose excel. lences, while they do not discourage us by their perfection, animate us by their degree; whose success teaches us not how to be great, but how to be good and happy; whose piety is not fluctuating, but steady; not visionary, but producing a beautiful correspondence to all the claims of the stations in which they are placed.' Pref. pp. xiv. XV,

A life, moreover, is especially worthy of remark, in which the character is exhibited in diversified circumstances and relations, and in which the subject is also the biographer. All these peculiarities, it is justly observed, confer interest on the volume now before us. We cannot avoid introducing the

concluding sentences of Mr. Jay's preface, in which he ob. viates the charge which the jealousy and envy of the preju diced, or even the scepticism of the intelligent, might bring against him, of exaggerating the virtues of his friend.

• In commendation of this servant of God, this benefactor of man, I am in no hazard of contradiction from those who knew him : for per. haps seldom, if ever, was there such a harmony of sentiment concerning any individual before. "That good man," was the manner in which he was always introduced, and the preface to every thing that was said of

him.

The work ought to have been better: and probably would have been if more time had been allowed by the importunity of friendship; but I have done what I could in a very few weeks of frequent interruption and indisposition. I have laboured with pleasure, and rejoice in the enter prise, from a persuasion that what I have written from the warmest affec tion, and the highest regard, will at the same time be ratified by a large proportion of the public voice; and that I am doing good to others, while I have an opportunity to indulge my own feelings, and to acknowledge the obligations to my dear and honoured friend and benefactor, which I shall never be able to discharge. To him I owe all my respectability in life, and all my opportunities of public usefulness. Though not a child by birth, I have been one by adoption; and close this preface by a line borrowed from Homer, which our admired Cowper, with some little vas riation, inscribed on a bust of his Grecian favourite ;

« Ως τε πατὴρ ᾧ παιδί, καὶ ἔποτε λήσομαι αὐτά.

Lov'd as his son, in him I early found,

A father, such as I will ne'er forget.' pp. xx. xxi.

The glowing expression of grateful and lamenting affection, which captivates the reader in this preface, diffuses itself over the whole of Mr. Jay's description of his friend, and imparts to it a peculiarly tender and endearing charm, like that with which a beautiful scene is invested by the warm and solemn colouring of sunset, when its minute blemishes and defectsare involved in a slight indistinctness, while its prominent and noble features are well defined and richly illuminated. To have excited such an affection in the mind of so estimable a person as Mr. Jay, and in the minds of so many other excellent men who intimately knew and deeply deplore their beloved associate or tutor, is a circumstance in itself sufficient, without direct testimony, to establish a conviction of the uncommon worth of his character. And few readers of this interesting volume will be surprised at the prevalence of such an affection among the connexions of Mr. Winter, or be insensible to a feeling of regret, if they have lived in the same country, at the same time, without sharing his friendship or meeting with a similar friend. They will be impressed with a persuasion, that his mind was of superior

rank, if not of transcendent stature; that if he had not the intellect of an archangel, yet he possessed the animated benevolence that we attribute to a seraph; and that to retire from an association with him to the company of superior geniuses of terrestrial dispositions and pursuits, would be rather a descent than an elevation, like the approach to a mountain on earth from a plain in Paradise. We are pleased with the exhibition of such a character, as dignifying our common nature, and as illustrating the excellence of our common Christianity,-as displaying the moral worth which our degenerate race is still capable of attaining, and pointing to that holy religion through which it is to be attained. When we reflect, indeed, on the disgrace in which a volume like this must involve the enemies and revilers of evangelical religion, it is with an exultation that pity itself cannot wholly repress. According to the opinions that have lately insulted the common sense of our countrymen, this evangelical preacher, this believer in the atonement of Christ, this expectant of salvation from the mercy of God, this maintainer of justification by faith, should have been one of the most profligate and licentious of men, an arrogant pretender to the peculiar favour of heaven, and a rigid uncharitable biget; yet in defiance of all such opinions, he presumed to be irreproachably pure, devoutly grateful and humble, comprehensively affectionate and beneficent. His labours ought certainly to have filled the gaols, and occupied the gibbets, of the counties in which he dwelt; the eminently useful ministers, his pupils, who are now blessings in the Established Church, or ornaments to the Dissenting interest, should certainly have been arraigned long ago as desolators of the public morals, and traitors to the happiness and prosperity of the realm. Truly, it is extraor dinary, that no other evidence can be brought against these men and their adherents, but that they are neither swearers nor drunkards, that they avoid the playhouse, the raceground, and the gaming table, that they are habituated to pray, and that they keep the sabbath; truly extraordinary is it, that on such evidence, exclusively, the whole collective effrontery of vice should ever dare to question the morality of their conduct, and impeach the tendency of their creed.

It will be necessary, however, to give some account of this publication, before we pursue our comments on the character which it developes. It is arranged into three parts; the first consists of letters, addressed to Mr. Jay at his request, by Mr. Winter, in 1799, in which he gives a particular account of his own life to that time. The frankness of his communications, and the amiable character which they disclose,

render them exceedingly interesting; and they are also much more exempt, than we had expected, from those quaint and technical forms of expression into which good men and diligent students of the Holy Scriptures are liable to fall, especially if they have not been classically educated, and are accustomed to the society of the poor. Mr. Winter's style, however, is easy and perspicuous, and with a few exceptions, some of which are undoubtedly chargeable on the printer, it is correct and grammatical. The second part of the volume is chiefly furnished by Mr. Jay; it continues the narrative to Mr. Winter's decease, and draws out his character at considerable length. The third part contains extracts from his diary, and selections from his correspondence.

Mr. Winter's origin was obscure. He was born in Gray'sinn-lane, Oct. 9. 1742; before he was nine months old, he lost his father, who was a shoemaker, and head porter to Gray's Inn; and at the age of eight, he was left an orphan to the charge of his only sister. At this early period, his mind was impressed with solemn religious feelings, which he justly ascribes to the influence of a Superior Power.

* I have been informed by some who knew me before I knew myself, that it was hardly possible to keep me in the house after Gray's-inn chapel bell struck out, to summon people to the daily prayers at eleven in the morning and five in the evening. I well remember its powerful attraction, and also the first time wherein, after very earnest entreaty, I was intrusted to go by myself to St. Andrew's church. I can recollect the pious frame of my mind, the energy with which I could repeat prayers, and, according to my ability, read and hear the Scriptures read. I attended funerals till I could repeat the burial service by rote. My mind at times has been so elevated that I believe I could have received the summons of death with joy.' pp. 9, 10.

About this time he was admitted into the charity school of St. Andrew's Holborn, and shortly after, his sister being unable to provide for him, was received into the workhouse. Being taken from the workhouse on pretence of friendship, by a latio, who wished to turn him to account as a menial slave, he was intantly dismissed from the school.

On the committee-day I presented my petition for re-admission, begged access into the room. kneeled upon my knees and with crying and tears intreated for God's sake the learning of the school might be granted to me; but nothing was said to me; on the other hand, a haughty clergyman, dressed in his full suit of robes, ordered me instantly to be taken out. p 13.

By his ferocious and mercenary kinsman, he was treated with a cruelty barely inferior to that of a West Indian over seer; "to this very time," says Mr. W. "I frequently dream I am with him, under his displeasure, and feel uneasiness."

His health and faculties, however, withstood the barbarity, though his spirits were completely broken down. During this period he was regular in his attendance at church; he had common and very strong prejudices against Methodists and Dissenters," and was only driven among them occasionally by the disgraceful condition of his cloaths. He describes himself as having frequently been very devout, though insensible of the evil of sin and the depravity of his own heart. From the account he gives of his attendance on Mr. Whitefield's preaching, the growth of his religious sentiments and feelings appear to have been progressive, though he specifies the time at which, if we may adopt a scriptural figure, the blossom first broke forth, which afterwards evinced, by its unfolding beauty and ripening fruit, that the tree from which it sprung was neither barren nor corrupt. He continued to attend various preachers, whether at churches or meetings, in whom he found a piety corresponding to that of his revered minister. After reSorting for some time to a meeting instituted for religious conference, in which individuals were encouraged to deliver their sentiments, his diffidence yielded to his zeal; he addressed the assembly with a facility that he did not expect, and from that time became a frequent speaker. He mentions several respectable clergymen whose talents were first discovered and improved at the same institution, and for whose labours, and the labours of their eminent surviving pupils in the established church, the Christian world may look back with gratitude to a methodistical "experience meeting." The natural tendency of this and similar institutions, and of the habit of "free prayer" both in public and private, will serve to account for that extemporaneous fluency which is common among dissenting preachers; a faculty, which certain ignorant or malevolent persons accuse them of representing as a miraculous gift of the Spirit, and seem themselves to abhor as if they ascribed it to a compact with Beelzebub. After this time, Mr. Winter was frequently employed in visiting the sick, and exhorting in private societies, till at length he complied with repeated and pressing solicitations to address more public and larger auditories. His unwillingness to relinquish his business of water-gilder, and devote himself wholly to preaching, was with difficulty overcome by the advice of his religious friends, seconded at length by his expulsion from the workshop of his inhuman relative, and the disappointment hẹ met with in all his endeavours to find employment. He was shortly after introduced by Mr. Berridge, the venerable vicar of Everton, to the notice of Mr. Whitefield, as it was now his wish to procure ordination and be sent out to America. Mr. Whitefield employed him for some time, partly as a preacher