ally cleanfed his Augean Stable. It is faid that the amotion of a Vice Principal is a difficult undertaking, but the admiflion of Members is certainly difcretionary: and fo alfo is the retention of them when admitted. That queftion has been fet at reft, both in the Court of Chancery and in the King's Bench. The Principal may alfo appoint another Tutor or Lecturer, and if any difpute arife, the Vice Chancellor, as Acting Vifitor, can decide. Let certain purchafers of advowfons provide for Mr. Crouch.

As the old Prefbyter's pamphlet may not be in the hands of many of your Readers, it may not be amifs to give a fpecimen of his candour, meeknefs, and charity, p. 9, of Plain Truths.

"If men are bred to the miniftry as a genteel profeffion, if their object be to obtain worldly advantages or diftinctions-if the value of the fouls of the people and their Redeemer's glory form no part in the confideration of thole who confer or receive their preferment, if the one considers mere political intereft or family connexions, and the other eyes the fum of advantage or honour as the principal object of his purfuit, if in the bare traffic the fmallness of the duty or labour and the improveableness of the revenue are ftated as the eligible circumftances, it is evident fo far as men entering the Miniftry, are acting under fuch motives, it cannot be from the inward motion of the Holy Ghost, but from the influence of the God of this world. Is it then any wonder, nay, is it poffible it fhould be otherwife, that all these feek their own, not the things that are of Jefus Chrift: The worldly minded will mind earthly things; the indolent flumber over books or in their tall, the literary devote their talents to mathematics, metaphyfics, the claffics inftead of the Bible, unless in the way of criticism, and the gay and volatile amuse themselves just like other men. I mean nothing perfonal, nothing invidious, I merely ftate facts glaringly obvious." Indeed, Sir! If you do not mean to be a railer, you are, to ufe Dr. Johnfon's expreffion on another occafion, the beft counterfeit I ever faw. I fhall not trouble the Reader with more of this abuse, but shall only repeat that fome of my most valuable friends are refiding upon purchafed livings without the charge of fimoney in them or in their friends, and as confcientioufly attentive to the clerical duties as any of the pretended fons of purity and perfection. Nor is it to be prefumed, that a great number of the clergy fquander their time in rural fports merely becaufe a vender chufes to advertite that his living is in a fine fporting country. It is only excess in thofe diverfions which renders them criminal. The Prefbyters nugatory enquiry how far wealth and fplendor meliorate the progrefs of re

gion deferves not a ferious anfwer? The examples of many Prelates, both living and dead, might convince him, if any thing would, that learning and piety united with dignity, become more extenfively beneficial. After giving proof of the old Prefbyter's candour, I fhall perhaps gratify your Readers with a fpecimen of his oratory, which may have drawn tears from dunces, and of which its brevity is its greatest beauty." Pride is the native inmate of every bofom; even martyrs may feel its workings. It is well for them as well as for us that there is one who bears the iniquity of our holy things. The blood of atonement must be sprinkled on the expiring corpfe of the martyr in flames, and but for that, he would perih, and they would be eternal," that is from earthly would be turned into hellish flames. Such is the drawcanfir who holds out terror and defiance to the Hoft of Anti-Calvinifts. His motto is,

Ruerem, agerem, zaperem, funderem, profternerēm.

And

And while we are on the subject of mottos, I have one at hand for a brother champion in the fame caufe.

Nullum memorabile nomen

Fœmineâ in pœnâ eft, nec habet victoria laudem.

J

I have always found a habit in the e enthufiafts of difparaging human learning, and for the best of reasons, because they have few literary men amongst them. If Archbishop Leighton be a favourite author, why do they not follow his example? But it will interfere with their religious studies. Have they never feen difcourfes where the alliance of all ftudies in the fupport of revelation is fully ftated? The Oxford Act and the Cambridge Commencement, bring the interefting fubject into difcuffion every year. Yet, whatever may be faid, they are ready in perverting the Apoftle's language, and in faying that they are become fools for Chrift's fake.

If all mankind were judges of compofition, nothing could be a more effectual cure against fanaticism than to hear the tautology, flang, and goffip of their preachers. Indeed, how can found fenfe be expected from the extemporaneous effufions of men, fome of whom cannot write well, and others can neither write nor fpeak good English? But were they to ule notes, it would be going upon crutches, it would be quenching the spirit.-Of course, they have a gift which implies that they are infpired. How shocking is it, that the name of the blefed fpirit fhould be thus blafphemed ? What defperate examples does every year produce, fufficient to make an intelligent hearer cry out, Unde mihi lapidein? I need not go out of this place to point out abfurd.ties and nonfenfe. But one man's meat is another man's poifon, and what fome call perfumes others call ftinks.

But we are to pray them down, preach them down, labour them down, and live them down. Suppofe this was faid to regular practitioners in mcdicine in reference to fuccefsful that is rich empiricks. Would they not, pronounce the individual a proper candidate for Bedlam? In defiance of Mr. Overton's fneers, and the old Prefbyter's boafted fulness of Schifm fhops and Quaci Schism Shops, I truft that the English clergy, while they omit no part of the Chriftian fyftem, while the feveral feafons bring every fubject in fucceffion, will difdain to be what Bishop Warburton calls mobpreachers, and that they will endeavour to imitate the fimplicity as well as the fublimity of thofe writings, which are the ftandard of elegance as well as of truth, which abound with illuftrations taken from the fcenes and tranfactions of common life without ever producing a fingle idea or expreffion which is vulgar, coarfe, or conceited. What degree of aid will be given to the well meant endeavours of man cannot be known, but we may fafely affirm that the husbandman may fooner expect a plentiful harveft without cultivation and without feed, than an illiterate and weak man can become a good compofer. Enthufiafm either finds men foolish or makes them fo; it paralyfes every manly power of the mind, annihilates good fenfe in matters of religion, rendering it odious, difgufting, or contemptible, when it is avowedly not only the fource of happinefs, but the grand object of veneration and love.

I am, Sir, your obedient fervant,
G. CROFT.

Birmingham, Jan. 10, 1806.

P. S. In common with them, most of the clergy refpect the names of Bishop Horne, and his biographer, Mr. Jones. Have they ever read the LI 2 Sermon

Sermon on Juflification, by the former? Poor Bishop Tomline, in common with the rest of us, is condemned as no true churchman. But let them all know that we have nothing to do with the latitudinarian notions, unhappily chargeable on fome otherwife refpectable perfons. I endeavoured twenty years ago to vindicate even the damnatory claufes in the Athanafian Creed, and to divest them of all their terror. In this respect, and in not admitting Elohim to imply a Trinity, I differ from many good men, and hope for their indulgence. As to Elohim, I always doubted; and Limborch made me a perfect convert. I feel a fatisfaction, at this distance of time, that at no period of my life fince I began to study the Scriptures at all, have I put any other construction upon the articles than the compilers intended, and I may be excufed for expreffing a fincere with that Dr. Lawrence would condense his matter into a smaller compass, for the use of the people at large.

The old Presbyter's fcraps of Latin remind me of Partridge's quotations from Lilly's Grammar, and his non perfuadebis ehamfi perfuaderis of a divine, who ordered (as he thought, under the authority of the Spectator) the following infcription upon his monument:

Qualis erat fupremus ille dies ostendebit.

Defence of the Essay on the English Elements, Accents, and Prosody, c. reviewed in our 21st Volume, P. 416.

TO THE EDITOR.

Sia,

ESIDING in a remote part of His Majesty's dominions, it was not till

received

month of Auguft, in which you have noticed an Effay on the English Elequents, Accents, and Profody. The author of this Effay, confcious of its numerous imperfections, has declared his motive to the publication to have been" the hope of inducing fome perfon of more leifure and ability to give every part of the fubject a thorough inveftigation." But this hope, he has reason to fear, may in part at least, be already defeated; for, in the opinion of the Anti-Jacobin reviewers, which has long been highly and defervedly refpected, that part of his work, in which he has attempted to treat of tone, accent and emphafis, is delivered in language mysterious and unintelligible; and whoever takes this to be its true character, must be expected to pass it by, as unworthy of either difcuffion or enquiry. Of this formidable objection, he confefles that he had no anticipation. On the contrary, he had flattered himself that, however defective his work muft, in other refpects, appear, his meaning was every where expreffed with precifion and perfpicuity. He therefore hopes you will not think him unreasonable in requesting a place in your Review for the following fhort extracts, from which your Readers may have an opportunity of judging for themselves, how far the book may, in this refpect, be intitled to a favorable reception.

Having defcribed the ancient accents, as inflexions of the voice, acute or grave, or both combined, he gives the following explanation, derived from ancient authorities-“ that an acute accent was an elevation, and a

66.

"c

grave accent a depreffion of the voice, but that, in this elevation and depreffion, the tone of the voice was varied, not, as in finging, by distinct intervals, but by a continued motion, gliding up and down, in a kind

*r of

"of undulation, from à graver to a fharper, or from a fharper to a graver "tone." On this he obferves that, “in fuch a movement, whatever be

66

the interval from lone to tone, through which the voice may glide, it "can never dwell for an instant on any tone whatever ;"--and here he points out that ambiguity of term, by which he fappofes Commentators and others have been led to deny the exiftence of any thing like the ancient accents in modern languages. "The words cut and Bapurns, acute"nefs and gravity, when applied to the accents of fpeech, denote indeed a change of tone, but a change of a peculiar kind. An acute accent, for "inftance, began in a certain tone (to be taken, ad libituin, any where "within the compass of the voice) and ended in a higher; the voice "paffing, always rapidly though not always with the fame velocity, from "the one tone to the other, not perfaltum, but in one continued found, which might be compared to a waving line, commenfurate with the length of "the fyllable and generated by the flowing of a point. This motion of "the voice was accordingly defignated by a very expreffive term, pos

66

46

t

as distinguished from acua, the interval, by which fharper and "graver founds, in mufic, are always separated, For, in finging, the voice "does not glide, but leaps from tone to tone." To this he fubjoins Euclid's definition-6 κινησεις δυο, ἡ μὲν συνεχής και λογική ή δε διαστηματική τε και kadin-two kinds of motion, one continued and peculiar to fpeech, the other defultory and appropriate to fong,

The object here in view, and which is afterwards purfued in difcuffing feveral authorities and opinions, ancient and modern, was to give an accurate idea of that difference between the tones of speech and musical tones, which has always been univerfally felt, but feems not yet to be, well underflood. Among other explanatory remarks, it is ftated that " in the diaftematic "mufic, the intervals are paffed by a filent flight: that is, the found of "the voice or inftrument is heard only at those diftinct points of tone, which ̧ (i are the boundaries of thefe intervals. But in the mufic of fpeech, the "found of the voice is heard only in its paffage from one tone to another :"that the tone of every mufical found is immutable; for whenever it "becomes in the fmallett degree fharper or flatter, that is to fay, of a

" tone.

different tone, the found, as a mufical element, is no longer the fame. "But the effence of a Greek accent confifted in a continual rapid variation of This variation took place on every fyllable; for otherwise the "two genera of long and speech muft have been every inftant running the "one into the other, and producing a difcordant mixture, univerfally difgufting. Every fyllable, therefore, must have been uttered either "with an acute, a grave, or a circumflex accent."

་་

This explanation is also put to the teft of an experiment, firft made by Mr. Steele, and acknowledged by Lord Monboddo to be conclufive, no only as making the ancient defcriptions of accent perfectly intelligi ble, but as a proof that we have now, in our own and other modern languages, a melody of speech, confifting of accents in all refpects of a fimilar kind.

"With a finger on the 4th ftring of a violoncello, and a correfpond"ing motion of the bow, he (Mr. Steele) was able, by fliding the fingers rapidly up and down on the ftring, to imitate the tones of speech, in fuch "manner as not only to prove the fact, that we have accents, grave, acute "and circumflex, but alfo to afcertain their perfect agreement in every

66

L13

"particular,

particular, with the Greek dennitions and descriptions above referred to. "This experiment may with ease be repeated, in fuch manner as to re*move all doubt of the fact, that the tone of the voice, in speaking, is. "varied by the rapid undulations here defcribed: though to do this with "all the nice precifion neceffary for rendering the imitation perfect, would "require not only a quick and accurate ear, but the hand of a skilful per"former."

'This being then no longer a doubtful speculation, but a question of fact, confirmed by actual experiment, it will not be denied that the fubject is worthy of minute attention, and if this can be fo far excited as to give the. melody of our fpeech a chance not only of being understood, but of. receiving thofe practical improvements of which it may be fufceptible, the author's ambition will be fully gratified, in having contributed to bring the fubject into public notice and difcuffion.

He will now, Mr. Editor, prefume to trefpafs no further on your indulgence, than to inform you, that his book having been printed in his abfence, fome corrections which had been tranfmitted in a letter to the. Publisher, appear to have escaped his notice. In particular, the remarks which you have justly cenfured-that" every fyllable in fuch pofition is fhort and emphatic," was noted among the delenda. It may perhaps be thought that the comparison of voca found with a waving line ought also to have been fo noted and yet the ufual phrafes of vocal inflexion and flexi- . bility of voice do in fact imply fuch a comparison.

:

MR. EDITOR!

EXTEMPORE PREACHING.

made lamentable havock in the moral, political and religious establishments of fociety. Men affuming to themfelves the flattering title of philofopers; and, hungring and thirsting after the applaufe of the ignorant, and the fpoils of the rich, have endeavoured to perfuade us that our old and inflinctive habits of thinking concerning the duties of life are erroneous; that forms and establishments either of government or religion, are founded in prejudice and error, and ought therefore to be abolished. The experiment of reducing thefe mad theories to practice has been tried in our vicinage; and the refult is before us a nation without morals-without religion; alike contemners of the laws of man and of God! thefe calamities prefent to the difciples of innovation an awful and impreffive deffon of the neceffity of making a folemn paufe, when they are projecting the most trifling change even in the forms of government or religion. I have been led, Sir, to thefe reflectons, by obferving with much regret a moft daring innovation which has recently taken place in the practice of feverrl Clergymen of the Church of England. The innovation to which I allude is that of extempore preaching. It is a palpable defiance of authority; and which Ì feriously conceive is meant to be the precurfor of other changes of the most awful nature.

1

It may not be unneceffary in this place fuccinctly to ftate the reason by which the Church has been directed, in enjoiniug its fervants to preach from written difcourfes it was rightly prefumed to be the most effectual means of placing a bridle and curb on the unpremeditated effufions of igno

rant