Monster of iniquity! are you not afraid that the bolt of heaven will strike you dead in your impiety? Yet mark how, in spite of, and unknown to, himself, he abjures the dearest principles in the choicest language of Cockneydom! He curses the coffee that he drew in with his mother's milk, in language that proves his lineal descent from King Lud; and avows his preference of poison, in terms redolent of saloop, the most innoxious of liquids that gurgle from the fountains of Cheapside. A tun!-a tun! We much fear that Mr Hunt never was drunk; and if we are right in our apprehension, pray what right has he to enact Bacchus in Tuscany? Is he not, Adjutant, shamming Abraham, pretending to be bouzy, in the following dismal chaunt of merriment ? "Ciccio d'Andrea himself one day, 'Mid his thunders of eloquence bursting away, Sweet in his gravity, Dared in my own proper presence to talk, Of that stuff of Aversa, half acid and chalk, Which, whether it's verjuice, or whether it's wine, Far surpasses, Iown, any science of mine. With his proud friend, Fasano there, at Who with a horrible impiety wears Nothing is so tiresome in criticism as dwelling too long on one key. Let us therefore change the key, and strike a different note. What think you, gentle reader, of Leigh Hunt, who so long enacted the character of "Apollar Let him indulge in his strange tipples in Cockaigne," undertaking that of "Bacchus in Tuscany?" Must he not be a perfect Jack of all trades? In good truth, Leigh Hunt is never in his proper element, unless he be a Heathen God. We remember he once performed Jupiter Tonans, but his thunder was so poor that it would not have soured small beer. As he shook his locks, his wig fell off, a disaster which convulsed Olympus. His mode of handling the eagle betrayed a most ungodlike timidity of his talons, and his behaviour to Hebe, " with such an air," was about as celestial as that of a natty Bagman to the barmaid of the Hen and Chickens. As he swore by Styx, his face was as prim as that of an apprentice to a button-maker making an affidavy, and in the character of Cloud-compeller, he could not have been backed against ODoherty with a cigar. In Bacchus he is equally droll. Instead of rolling on in a car drawn by tigers, or lions, or panthers, Leigh makes his entrée in a sort of shandry-dan, lugged along by a brace of donkeys. What a conqueror of India! Lord have mercy upon him, he could with difficulty cross the kennel. As well might the poor starved apothecary assert himself to be Sir John Falstaff. Why, he cannot even look rosy about the gills. He cannot show an "honest face." That is a most ineffectual stagger. But, hear! hear! With vines that fatten in those genial airs; But I withhold at present,and endure him : "God's my life, what glorious claret! Under a tun there's no having one's fill: One day, perhaps, on the Sebetus, I come, Offering devoutly, to avert his doom, Peace with him, and will booze like Hans After the usage German: There shall be present at our tasks Thou pimpled spirit of Drunken Barnaby! What thinkest thou of this Bacchanal, nay, of this Bacchus? Is he not enough to set the table in a snore? However, let him drivel on, and then sconce him in a tumbler of salt and water. "Let me purify my mouth Head and ears for comfort get me, And drink of the wine of the vine benign, That sparkles warm in Sansovine; Or of that vermilion charmer And heart warmer, Which brought up in Tregonzano Blooms so bright and lifts the head so Which engoldens and empurples Come now, Hunt, off with your salt and water.-What! will you rebel against the chair? you have been sconced for an hour's consummate and unprovoked drivelling, which you are pleased to call drunkenness; but that won't go down in such a company as this-so-that's a good boy-a little wider that will do! See how it runs down his gizzern, Now that you have submitted yourself with a tolerably good grace to lawful authority, O Bacchus in Tuscany, another strain! "What wine is that I see? Ah, Bravo! Bravissimo! Encore! Encore! still a small smell of saloopbut very fair-very fair for a novice. Go on, my dear Leigh. Never mind the Aspirates. Come, be classical. "To the sound of the cymbal, And sound of the crotalus, Girt with your Nebrides, Ho, ye Bassarides, Up, up, and mingle me These my dry viscera, Bear a loud burden. From the hill before us Let the villagers raise o'er us Talabalács, tamburins, and horns, That cry out Ho-boys!" Bacchus! my worthy fellow, have you forgot Ariadne? "The ruby dew that stills Upon Valdarno's hills, Touches the sense with odour so divine, That not the violet, With lips with morning wet, Utters such sweetness from her little shrine. When I drink of it, I rise Over the hill that makes poets wise, I'll sing songs of love! Songs will I sing more moving and fine, Than the bubbling and quaffing of Ger sole wine. Then the rote shall go round, The fervour, the boiling and venemous bliss." Hush-halt. You are bringing the blush into the virgin cheek of ODoherty. Change the measure into something more chaste. "He who drinks water, I wish to observe, Gets nothing from me; He may eat it and starve, Whether it's well, or whether it's fountain, Or whether it comes foaming white from the mountain, I cannot admire it, Nor ever desire it : 'Tis a fool, and a madman, and impudent wretch, Who now will live in a nasty ditch, And then grow proud, and full of his whims, Comes playing the devil and cursing his brims, And swells, and tumbles, and bothers his margins, And ruins the flowers, although they be virgins. Moles and piers, were it not for him, If they're built clever ; But no-it's all one with him-sink or swim. Let the people yclept Mameluke Dares so far forget his wine, As to drink an atom of water, Here's the hand should devote him to slaughter. Let your meagre doctorlings Petrify their sculls profound, And make 'em all so thick and so round, That Viviani, with all his mathematics, Would fail to square the circle of their attics. Away with all water, I forbid it ye, gentlemen, Lemonade water, Jessamine water, Our tavern knows none of 'em, Jessamine makes a pretty crown; Why, Bacchus, your enemy Somnus has been in the room all the time you were singing. He has this mo ment gone to the door; but give us another stave, and there can be no doubt of his speedy return. "Hallo! What phenomenon's this, A turning of the ground! If that's your mirth, It may not, I think, be amiss for me As large as can float, As large as can float, and stock'd plenteously; For that's the ballast, boys, for the salt sea. Here, here, here, here's one of glass; Yet through a storm it can dance with a lass. I'll embark, I will, For my gentle sport, And drink as I'm used 'Till I settle in Port Rock, rock, wine is my stock, Wine is my stock, and will bring us to Row, brothers, row, We'll all go sailing and rowing to Port- 'Tis for you and for me, To the tune of the waters, and tremulous glee, They strike up a dance to people at sea. Row, brothers, row, We'll sail and we'll go, We'll sail and we'll go, till we settle in Ariadne, in Por-in Port. No gallants grow tired, but think it a sport, To feather their oars till they settle in Ariadne, in Por-in Port. And then, you know, you, Arianeeny, my beauty, my queeny, A long pull, and strong pull, and pull al together! The coocooroocoo, The coocooroocoo. Gallants and boaters, who know how to On the viòla, the coocooroocoo." feather, Never get tired, but think it a sport, To feather their oars, till they settle in port Ariadne, in Por-Port; I'll give thee a toas Enter Mr AMBROSE. Mr Ambrose. I beg pardon, sir,didn't you ring the bell? North. Yes, Ambrose. Take Bacchus in Tuscany to the Cherry Cham I'll give thee a toast-and then, you know, ber. You see that he has reached an era of the highest civilation. Bac. On the viòla, the coocooroocoo ! The coocooroocoo, On the viola, the coocooroocoo ! ODoherty. Damn the ninny-more oysters. A LECTURE, &c.* By W. Ellery Channing, D.D. Boston, New England. THIS is an unassuming little work, of six-and-forty pages, thrown upon the world, unrecommended by any pompous display of deep learning or metaphysical subtlety. We had scarcely read half-a-dozen pages, however, before we were quite convinced that the author was a man of sound judgment and clear understanding, and the remainder of the work proved that he was equally correct in feeling, and refined in taste. We think that it unites all the requisites of a standard treatise on the Christian religion. In the first place, it is SHORT. In the next, there is much for the head, good plain common sense, intelligible to all; and, in the third place, there is very much for the heart. to the peasant as well as to the philosopher. Its evidences, therefore, should be accessible to the one as well as to the other. There is nothing incompatible in the idea, the best works are those which are always most popular. Leslie's most excellent work contains irrefutable arguments in favour of Christianity, but it is rather too logical, requiring more attention than men in general are willing to afford any subject, however important. Paley's Evidences, excellent as it is as a work, is much too long. Not one man in twenty thousand has a command over his attention sufficient to sit down doggedly to understand his two propositions, each of which, if we remember right, requires eight or ten chapters to develope it entirely. The distance between the first and last links of the chain of reasoning, is too great to allow us to retain all the intermediate connexions. Then the style is as uninviting as it could be, at least to us. Addison is too diffuse. Grotius, which in our opinion is by far the most satisfactory work upon the subject, is too dry and learned for the generality. Christianity is preached A treatise on the evidences of Christianity should be deeply imbued with the spirit of Saint Paul. It should be, "All things to all men." The reasoning should be plain, manly, and profound, for the logician. The style should be elegant for the man of taste and the man of feeling should be moved by the portraiture of the most exalted characters that ever sojourned on this earth. For our own part, we must own that our Saviour's character, considered as that of a man only, affords one of the strongest proofs of his being a God, that we can imagine. And yet how rarely is this view of the subject ever brought forward! The saints may talk as they will of our depravity, but we assert, that it is out of our power not to be moved with the good and the beautiful, and equally so, not to detest the vicious and the deformed. Who ever rejoiced in the successful villainy of Iago-(this, by the way, should be a sufficient answer * A Discourse on the Evidences of Revealed Religion, delivered before the University in Cambridge, at the Dudleian Lecture, March 14, 1821. By William Ellery Channing, D.D. Minister of the Congregational Church in Federal-Street, Bosdon, New England. R. Hunter, St Paul's Church-yard, London, 1824. ̧ to the modern cant against play-going,) or who does not feel his detestation of vice strengthened, rather than weakened by such a display? It is a principle of the mind, as stable as the mind itself, to venerate the good, and detest the bad; and no man, however depraved, fails to acknowledge the force of this power-where did the ancients find their gods? In their heroes-for such was the strength of this instinctive feeling, that they could not but people the heavens with those beings, who had been the benefactors of the human race while on earth. And yet, if they deserved the veneration of enlightened nations, how much more so the "man Jesus!" This view of our Saviour's character has many advantages, we were almost saying over every other-we are all of us capable of appreciating the social and kindred affections, of recognizing the sacrifices that one man makes for another. These touch the heart, and for them we have a human sympathy. But place before us a long train of intricate reasoning, to prove that there is a wonderful Being, at whose command the elements are congregated into form, and whose powers are illimitable-we may fear, we may wonder-but we shall rarely love. We, who are laymen, and who do not trouble ourselves much with controversial divinity, must confess that it was in the sublimity of its precepts, and in the loveliness of the conduct of its founder, that we felt the truth of the Christian religion. Tell any person unacquainted with Christianity, that there was such a character as Jesus, and he must venerate him. Tell him that he was possessed of so wonderful a mind, that even as a boy the most learned of his nation hearkened unto him, and were amazed at his doctrines; and yet, withal, that his character, too, was so simple, mild, unaffected, and kind, that little children loved to approach and be near him—that his whole life was dedicated to the good of others-that he was so disinterested, that when consulted by the rich, he bade them divide their fortunes with the poor and needy, although he himself" had not where to lay his head"-that he was so tender a son, that even in the pangs of an agonizing death, he enjoined the friend whom he loved to take his mother home, and be the support of her old VOL. XVIII. age- so warm a patriot, that he wept bitterly when he thought on his country's downfall-so patient and meek of spirit, that when hanging on the cross, and pierced, he uttered not a single complaint-so forgiving, that amid the ten thousand curses of his enemies who had crucified him, one solitary prayer broke from his lips, alone, and mingling with them, ascended to the footstool of the Almighty, "Father, forgive them, they know not what they do!" In a popular work on the evidences of Christianity, therefore, this view should not, in our opinion, be lost sight of,-Let all the overwhelming reasons, too, which the talent and industry of our divines have collected, be mingled with those deductions from Scripture, which, from their innate beauty, have furnished innumerable subjects for the poet and the painter, and we will venture to say, that such a work, so executed, will ensure the gratitude of all mankind. Such a work is really wanted. Atheism is not so rare a blindness of intellect as is generally thought. We ourselves are acquainted with more than one who retain such opinions-men of exemplary conduct, too. So far from abhorring, we consider them as objects of our sincere commiseration. We were told of one old gentleman, who, at the age of eighty, wrote down the grounds of his dissent, in the hopes that the friend to whom he showed the manuscript, might answer them satisfactorily. He would have given half his fortune to have been. convinced of the truth of Christianity. A work of the nature we mean might have effected the desirable change, for he was a man who had been reasoning all his life. To write such a work requires a combination of excellencies which rarely co-exist. Dr Channing might probably attempt it himself; a very little enlargement of the plan, and a little more attention to the detail of his "lecture," would embrace all that |