If soldiers or

have fashioned fit instruments for his work. sailors were wanted, must not men be trained for the service? And is not education as well adopted to bring out those qualities, by which the warriors of the Church militant must be characterized? Had Mr. Pitt himself believed in the doctrines which the Church Prayer-Book expresses, had he opened it to learn, and not as men do too commonly, to criticize, he would have seen that it implies certain habits of self-denial and devotion, a certain fixed course of life, the addiction of the whole powers to certain specific objects, which reflection must at once have shown him would never be sought save by those who were accustomed from youth to honour and pursue them. But if he looked back on his own University-and Lord Malmesbury would have told the same of Oxford-he must have discerned that it was not from such a system that he could expect the virtue and self-devotion of saints. Was it reasonable that men who had given their younger years to the hunting-field, or the convivial party, should turn out men of God? Was the card-playing combinationroom a meet preparation for the self-denying labours of the country village? As we sow we must reap.

'Non his juventus orta parentibus.'

It must be to other sources that he must have recourse, if he would have a priesthood trained to make God's services their main work. He must have seminaries, in which prayer and teaching must take the place of wine-parties, in which a deep and reverential study of our ancient authors must be substituted for skill in cards, or dexterity at tennis; he must bring men up in the Church's laws, if he would expect them to be her faithful ministers. He did this for the Romanists. He endowed a seminary in which their priesthood were to be taught those peculiar lessons which their system needed. Was the Church of England of less value? Were her sons less numerous? the growth of her institutions less near his heart?

We speak of things which unhappily yet remain to be done, and which will be done, so soon as zeal and orthodoxy are found united in high places. And for the attainment of these objects, far more has been done by the humble labours of a few pale students, unseen beyond the narrow limits of a University, than by all the power of the great minister, who with boundless resources and unquestionable patriotism, was yet powerless, because he was without Faith. To him we impute no blame beyond that which attached to his generation; but, had his eye been opened to discern the true principles of things, the result, we are confident, had been different. But thus is it ever in the order of God's will: He has chosen the weak things of

the earth to confound the mighty. Certainly it cannot be wondered that Mr. Pitt should have left such matters in the hands of those leaders of the Church, whose office it was to regard them. And yet to worse hands they could not have been committed. The probates of their wills are a sufficient condemnation of Mr. Pitt's prelates. The Bishop who saves £300,000 can have little thought that he has anything else to save. In these journals we have a repetition of the old story, that it was to the natural instinct of the good old King that we owe our escape from seeing Mr. Pitts' tutor at Lambeth: The King refused to make him Archbishop of Canterbury, on Moore's death;' alleging for reason, that if a private secretary of a first minister was put at the head of the Church, it would make all his Bishops party-men and politicians.'-Vol. iv. 375.

However well founded his Majesty's objection, we cannot but think that there existed still more obvious reasons against Tomline's promotion. To say nothing of his disgraceful covetousness, we must attribute to him more than any man, the low estimate which Mr. Pitt evidently entertained of all religious doctrines, and which influenced him so fatally in selecting men for those momentous situations to which he recommended. Let it be remembered, that Mr. Pitt seldom attended Church, never the Lord's Supper; and then let us ask how a Christian Prelate could tell him, in the dedication of a work designed for the use of young students in divinity,' that he had evinced himself the zealous friend of religion,' and that, under the influence of religious principle,' his conduct has afforded an eminent example of private, as well as of public virtue.'

And yet, this is not all. The first edition of that meagre book, the Elements of Christian Theology,' is dated July 1st, 1799; and exactly one year before, the individual, whose religious character is thus highly lauded, had employed the afternoon of one of the highest Christian Festivals (Whitsunday) in fighting a duel. Can we wonder, that with this sample of Church-of-England theology immediately before him, the great Minister should have looked elsewhere for power to controul the world? Enthusiasm has its warmth, and superstition has its mystery; but an unbelieving orthodoxy can never rise above the wearisome routine of a powerless decency. If the men of this world are to look to the Church for aid, it must be to the living spectacle of an earnest devotion.

Such a spectacle Mr. Pitt had not the advantage of beholding among any of those divines with whom he was most familiar. No wonder then, that it was not to his choice that we owe even that little modicum of zeal which was to be found at the end of the last century in the rulers of the Church. Porteous, incom

parably the best Bishop of the day, was preferred through the Queen's favour. The theological acquirements of Horsley recommended him to the notice of the rugged Thurlow. Barrington was put forward by the king; another party had been named, but George the Third objected: he would never make a man Bishop of Durham, who would put all its revenues in his pocket.' But no appointment of Pitt was half so creditable as that of Burgess by Addington,-a choice solely dictated—almost the first within late memory-by the merits of the party.' In this course Addington was followed by Lord Liverpool. But Mr. Pitt had not sufficient appreciation of the Church's moment to care for the selection of its rulers; and in his days there was no public opinion to direct the choice. It was not that the public mind was not influenced, as it ever must be, by a regard to merit; but the absolute want of fit men had induced an insensibility to the nature of the necessary qualifications. "Cucullus

facit monachum,' may be a good rule, when a strict and systematic education subordinates a whole class to one rigid discipline; but it is fatal when preparation is left to chance, and yet occupancy is the test of fitness.

We have dwelt at length on this subject, convinced that our readers, at all events, will not run over history like an old almanack, but will desire to trace God's dealings, and to learn wisdom from the infatuation of preceding times. What can show more clearly how shortsighted is the wisdom of this world than the following letters, in which the practised courtier, three years before that fearful retribution which God inflicted on the Bourbon race, expressed his confidence in the stability of their power?

'From Sir James Harris to the Marquis of Carmarthen.

" Hague, 21st Nov. 1786. 'MY DEAR LORD,-Through a private but authorized channel, I learn that in a few days his Prussian Majesty will have a declared mistress: her name is De Voss, Maid of Honour to the Queen Dowager, niece to the Mareschal de la Cour of the late Princess of Prussia, and daughter to a person known at Berlin by the name of Mons. de Voss et de Havelberg. She was a favourite during the life of the late King, and all the ordinary means of seduction employed to lead her astray. Too wise, too cold, or too virtuous to give way to them, she by repeated refusals has worked up a passion to its height, and an offer has been made to make her the Pompadour of Berlin. Some hesitation, from a difference of opinion among her relations, has shown itself: but as the lady now is on the yielding side, and as his majesty is bent on success,

1 Vide Harford's Life of Bishop Burgess, p. 204. NO. XLIX.-N.S.

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there is little doubt of this event very soon taking place. She is a niece of Count Fink's-of course may raise his sinking influences. She is more handsome than clever, probably more artful than either.

'A Madame de Pompadour, or even a Madame de Barri, will never effectually diminish or hurt the grandeur of the French monarchy, which is settled on a foundation beyond the reach of the follies of the Court to shake; but at Potzdam the case is widely different: the whole mass of power is concentrated in the person of the king, and if his shoulders are unequal to bear the burthen, the edifice falls.'—Vol. ii. p. 249.

We have referred before to the numerous indications which these volumes offer of the gross immorality which prevailed on the Continent. Surely the Corsican was the rod of God's anger:-'I will send him against an hypocritical nation, and against the people of My wrath will I give him a charge.' The whole tissue of foreign society appears to have been demoralized; and perhaps the business-like tone of our ambassador in alluding to such scenes, says but little for his, or our, Christian sense of shame. To say nothing of the gross impurities of Catharine,' which may be attributed to the barbarism of the Muscovite court, we read such extracts as the following:

'You receive a very extraordinary despatch to-day from Berlin. The late king had Solomon's wisdom: this seems disposed to have only his concubines.'-Vol. ii. p. 259.

The same was the state of things at Brunswick.

In the evening with Mademoiselle de Hertzfeldt-old Berlin acquaintance-now Duke's mistress-much altered, but still clever and agreeable... her apartment elegantly furnished-and she herself, with all the appareil of her situation. She was, at first, rather ashamed to see me, but soon got over it.'-Vol. iii. p. 156.

We have concluded what it seems to us most important to say on these volumes; we will present our readers, however, with a short notice of their contents. There is much in them to interest, and not a little to amuse; but we cannot refrain from saying that they contain much which delicacy and even good faith should have prevented a grandson of the king's minister from submitting to the public eye. The remarks of an unofficial statesman may be unjust or indecent, but they violate no understood compact of secrecy. The king's paid servants owe him the same reserve as those who are employed as agents by men in private situations. These remarks apply, especially, both to the notices of Queen Caroline's first introduction to this country, and to some very unpleasant statements respecting the

At vol. ii. p. 58, is a curious list of Catharine's presents to her favourites.

alienation between George the Fourth and his father. It is impossible not to feel that George the Third might have the gravest reasons for showing his displeasurse with his son; and that to stigmatise his letters, as does this writer, as 'void of any expression of parental kindness and affection,' (vol. ii. p. 129,) while the causes which produced them are unknown or unnoticed, is to do virtual injustice to the parent.

But we proceed to our statement.

The first volume consists mainly of letters from Spain and Russia. In his negotiations in Spain Mr. Harris was successful (nearly his only successful attempt,) in procuring the restoration of the Falkland Islands-he was signally unsuccessful in Russia, where his desire-often his hope-was to induce the Empress to declare on our side during the American war. Her interest was clearly on the side of the armed neutrality, by which the Northern powers hoped to destroy our naval empire.

The second volume continues the Diary in Prussia, and then, after a few letters written during the ineffectual struggle of the coalition party against Mr. Pitt, the scene changes to the Hague. A few curious notices occur respecting the Prince's debts.

The close of this volume contains some very interesting details respecting the accession of part of the Whig party to Mr. Pitt's politics in 1792-3. The difficulty here shown in changing parties, even after principles have long been altered, may account for our finding Sir Robert Peel in office in June 1845, rather than Lord John Russell.

The third volume contains an account of Lord Malmesbury's public services during the revolutionary war. These were first at Berlin, whither he went to induce the King of Prussia to take part against France;-and he succeeded in inducing Frederic William to take our money, but without giving us any effectual aid:-then at Brunswick, and subsequently at Paris and Lisle. We should quote his journal while in Brunswick, whither he went to conduct the Princess of Wales to England, had it not been quoted in extenso in every journal in the country. We presume our readers to have had curiosity enough to run over this strange story, while they were looking through the columns of the Times to see what was the last express which 'our own Correspondent' transmitted of the state of the surplice-war from Ware or Exeter.

The report of Lord Malmesbury's visits to Paris and Lisle is full of interest. His letters are, as usual, sensible, and at times amusing; but as we have sought in vain for a single piece of sparkling ore in this extensive quarry, we will pick out a letter of George Canning's, which has been stuck in among the rest like a broken bit of looking-glass in a citizen's grotto.