character of the God of redemption; nor is such a sentiment in accordance with any of the declarations of this inspired book. We are here taught that the death of Christ for our redemption was not the cause, but the consequence of the love of God to sinners. It did not make God merciful, it only manifested his mercy, and rendered its exercise consistent with claims of purity and justice; for God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.' And herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins."-pp. 27, 28.

If the enemies of the doctrine of the atonement are to be silenced, it must be by sentiments such as these.

Some sermons in this volume rise far above their fellows; but as specification may in this case be deemed invidious, we cheerfully commend the whole to the attention of our readers.

Mr. Oram's Discourses" form a modest and an unpretending, but a very excellent little volume. Its language and its thoughts are simple, but the mind is instructed, and the attention is sustained; whilst the whole is exceedingly well adapted to the purposes for which it is professedly designed. The author is, we apprehend, of the Baptist denomination, to which, as well as to the Pædobaptist Congregationalists, the remarks contained in the foregoing strictures may be considered as generally applicable.

The Christian Legacy, by Mr. Hough, consists of Discourses on our Lord's bequest, "Peace I leave with you; my peace I give unto you," and several kindred subjects: the whole being terminated by a funeral sermon, containing a sketch of the character of a deceased lady, the wife of the Rev. T. W. Carr, minister of Teddington. This is an interesting and an acceptable Discourse. The retiring, often unseen, but useful exertions of the class of persons to which Mrs. Carr belonged, the wives of the ministers of Christ, how lightly soever they may sometimes be esteemed on earth, will receive an appropriate reward in heaven. As a sermon writer Mr. Hough is distinguished by simplicity and sincerity. His views are lucid, because his mind is simple; and his expressions are sober, because his spirit is devout. One combined purpose, a desire to promote the glory of his Master and the good of his flock, is happily apparent throughout the whole of this little volume.

Dr. Povah's Sermons on the History of the Church of Christ appears to us a somewhat heavy, and, to adopt a convenient but illegitimate phraseology, an unreadable volume. So far as we examined it, for we honestly confess, that neither the thought nor the expression encouraged us to proceed to the end, the doctrinal statements are unexceptionable, and the general tendency good. Whatever may be the opinion which shall be formed of Dr. P.'s volume, the long and respectable list of subscribers, nearly all of them orthodox churchmen, will secure him from pecuniary loss.

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The Miscellaneous Sermons of the late Rev. Hugh Stowell, is a posthumous publication. We are informed in an advertisement, that though most of the sermons comprised in this volume had been set apart by their venerable author with a view to publication, none of them had received the finishing touches of his experienced hand." It is added, that "it was suggested that a brief memoir

should accompany these discourses, but as a more extended memoir is in progress, the suggestion has not been adopted." These sermons are the faithful, earnest, and affectionate addresses of a devoted pastor, "determined," like the great apostle, "not to know any thing among" the flock, "but Jesus Christ and him crucified." As they were heard with deep interest, they will doubtless be read with extensive profit, and thus extend the direct usefulness of the venerable preacher long beyond the period which his great Master allotted him on earth.

The discourses which have occupied our attention indicate some diversity of talent, but more diversity of cultivation. And when the paramount importance of the Christian ministry is recollected, no effort consistent with the maintenance of health will be deemed too great to fit the ministerial candidate for the duties which he has to discharge. The success of secular effort to benefit mankind is problematical; that of the Christian ministry, faithfully and intelligently conducted, is certain. Success of the former kind may be impeded by the course of events; events, which, even when in the most favourable position, may disappoint the calculations of the sanguine; but no reverse of events can render useless the labours of the Christian ministry. Success of the former kind depends on a universal providence; that of the latter is secured by peculiar promises, and by the especial patronage of him, who owns that ministry as his. Labour of the former description, supposing it to achieve spiritual good, effects that good indirectly; but the Christian ministry effects it immediately. The secular office is the creation of human prudence; the spiritual, of a divine appointment. The responsibility of the one is for the due discharge of a commission received from man; that of the other for a similar discharge of a commission received from Jesus Christ. The reward connected with the one, is merged in the general recompense of the just; that connected with the other, is the subject of especial divine promises. He who is invested with this employment may magnify his office, while he lightly esteems himself. Indeed, a sense of the magnitude of his office, while exciting to its diligent discharge, will, in a devout and well ordered mind, become a powerful engine in the production, not merely of humility, but also of abasement.

Early Recollections, chiefly relating to the late Samuel Taylor Coleridge, during his long residence in Bristol. By Joseph Cottle. 2 vols. small 8vo., with six Portraits. pp. 326, 346. London: Longman and Co. 1837.

BOOKSELLERS and publishers stand in such a relation to young and needy aspirants after literary honours and emoluments, as commands an accurate, and too often a humiliating, view of their personal habits and private characters. From the days of John Dunton to those of John Nichols, the public have been amused and instructed by the personal and literary anecdotes which learned, curious, or mercenary booksellers have published of contemporary authors.

Mr. Joseph Cottle once belonged to that venerable fraternity,

having been a bookseller in Bristol from the year 1791 to 1793. His tastes and interests alike disposed him to seek the society of men of cultivated minds, and through the friendship of a youthful poet he was introduced to those eminent men whose names figure in these volumes, and became for years the friend and associate of Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

As that eminent man, in his "Biographia Literaria," passed over in silence all distinct reference to Bristol, "the cradle of his literature, and for many years his favourite abode," Mr. Cottle, at the suggestion of "an influential friend," has published these "Recollections," and thus fills up an hiatus which he supposes could not otherwise be supplied.

Now, as these volumes describe but an act or two in the drama of Coleridge's life, his friends will have just cause to complain of the injury done to his memory, if his whole character is to be estimated by the temporary and accidental circumstances of this period of his ardent, heedless youth.

The objects which brought Coleridge and his friends to Bristol are thus explained by Mr. Cottle:

"At the close of the year 1794, a clever young quaker, of the name of Robert Lovell, who had married a Miss Fricker, informed me, that a few friends of his from Oxford and Cambridge, with himself, were about to sail to America, and on the banks of the Susquehannah, to form a Social Colony;' in which there was to be a community of property, and where all that was selfish was to be proscribed. None, he said, were to be admitted into their number, but tried and incorruptible characters; and he felt quite assured, that he and his friends would be able to realize a state of society, free from the evils and turmoils that then agitated the world, and present an example of the eminence to which men might arrive under the unrestrained influence of sound principles. He now paid me the compliment of saying, they would be happy to include me in this select assemblage, who, under a state, which he called PANTISOCRACY, were, he hoped, to regenerate the whole complexion of society, and that not by establishing formal laws, but by excluding all the little deteriorating passions; injustice, wrath, anger, clamour, and evil speaking,' and thereby setting an example of 'Human Perfectability.'

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Young as I was, I suspected there was an old and intractable leaven in human nature, that would eventually frustrate these airy schemes of happiness which had been projected in every age, and always with the same result. At first the disclosure so confounded my understanding, that I almost fancied myself transported to some new state of things, while images of patriarchal and pristine felicity stood thick around, decked in the rainbow's colours. A moment's reflection, however, dissolved the unsubstantial vision, when I asked him a few plain questions.

"How do you go?' said I. My young and ardent quaker friend, instantly replied, We freight a ship, carrying out with us, ploughs, and all other implements of husbandry.' The thought occurred to me that it might be more economical, to purchase such articles in America; but not too much to discourage the enthusiastic aspirant after happiness, I forbore all reference to the prolific accumulation of difficulties to be surmounted, and merely inquired, who were to compose his company? He said that only four had, as yet, absolutely engaged in the enterprise; Samuel Taylor Coleridge, from Cambridge; (in whom I understood the plan to have originated;) Kobert Southey, and George Burnet, from Oxford, and himself. Well,' I replied, when do you set sail?' He answered, Very shortly. I soon expect my friends from the Universities, when all the preliminaries will be adjusted, and we shall joyfully cross the blue waves of the Atlantic.' 'But,' said I' to freight a ship, and sail out in the high style

of gentlemen agriculturists, will require funds. How do you manage this? We all contribute what we can,' said he, and I shall introduce all my dear friends to you, immediately on their arrival in Bristol.'

"Robert Lovell (though inexperienced, and constitutionally sanguine) was a good specimen of the open frankness which characterizes well-informed quakers; and he excited in me an additional interest, from a warmth of feeling, and an extent of reading, above the ordinary standard of the estimable class to which he belonged. He now read me some of the MS. poems of his two unknown friends, which at once established their genius in my estimation.

an eye,

“One morning, shortly after, Robert Lovell called on me, and introduced Robert Southey. Never will the impression be effaced, produced on me by this young man. Tall, dignified, possessing great suavity of manners; piercing, with a countenance full of genius, kindliness, and intelligence. I gave him at once the right hand of fellowship, and, to the present moment, it has never, on either side, been withdrawn. I had read so much of poetry, and sympathized so much with poets in all their eccentricities and vicissitudes, that, to see before me the realization of a character, which, in the abstract, most absorbed my regards, gave me a degree of satisfaction, which it would be difficult to express.

"I must now make a brief reference to George Burnet, who, in this epidemic delusion, had given his sanction to, and embarked all his prospects in life, on this Pantisocratical scheme. He was a young man, about the age of twenty; the son of a respectable Somersetshire farmer, who had bestowed on him his portion, by giving him an University education, as an introduction to the Church, into which he would probably have entered, but for this his transatlantic pursuit of happiness. His talents were not conspicuous, but his manners were unpresuming, and honesty was depicted on his countenance. He possessed also that habitual good temper, and those accommodating manners, which would prove a desirable accession in any society; and it soon appeared without indicating any disrespect, that his was a subordinate part to act in the new drama, and not the less valuable, for its wanting splendour.

"After some considerable delay, it was at length announced that, on the coming morning, Samuel Taylor Coleridge would arrive in Bristol, as the nearest and most convenient port; and where he was to reside but a short time, before the favouring gales were to waft him and his friends, across the Atlantic. Robert Lovell, at length, introduced Mr. C. I instantly descried his intellectual character: exhibiting as he did, an eye, a brow, and a forehead, indicative of commanding genius. Interviews succeeded, and these increased the impression of respect. Each of my new friends read me his productions. Each accepted my invitations, and gave me those repeated proofs of good opinion, ripening fast into esteem, that I could not be insensible to the kindness of their manners, which, it may truly be affirmed, infused into my heart a brotherly feeling, that more than identified their interests with my own.

“I introduced them to several intelligent friends, and their own merits soon augmented the number, so that their acquaintance became progressively extended, and their society coveted. Bristol was now found a very pleasant residence; and though the ship was not engaged, nor the least preparation made for so long a voyage, still the delights and wide-spreading advantages of Pantisocracy, formed one of their everlasting themes of conversation; and, considering the barrenness of the subject, it was, in no common degree, amusing, to hear these young enthusiasts repel every objection to the practicability of their scheme, and magnify the condition to which it was to introduce them, where thorns and briars were, no doubt, to be expelled, and their couch to be strewed with down and roses.

"It will excite merely an innocent smile in the reader, at the extravagance of a youthful and ardent mind, when he learns that Robert Lovell stated, with great seriousness, that, after the minutest calculation and inquiry among practical men, the demand on their labour would not exceed two hours a day; that is for the production of absolute necessaries. The leisure still remaining, he said, might be

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devoted, in convenient fractions, to the extension of their domain, by prostrating the sturdy trees of the forest, where lop and top,' without cost, would supply their cheerful winter fire; and the trunks, when cut out into planks, without any other expense than their own pleasant labour, would form the sties for their pigs, and the linnies for their cattle, and the barns for their produce; reserving their choicest timbers for their own comfortable log-dwellings. But after every claim that might be made on their manual labour had been discharged, a large portion of time, he said, would still remain for their own individual pursuits, so that they might read, converse, and even write books.

"If any difficulties were now started, and many such there were, a profusion of words demonstrated the reasonableness of the whole design; impressing_all who heard with the conviction, that the citadel was too strong for assault. The Mercury, at these times, was generally Mr. Coleridge, who, as has been stated, ingeniously parried every adverse argument, and after silencing his hardy disputants, announced to them that he was about to write, and publish a quarto volume in defence of Pantisocracy, in which a variety of arguments would be advanced, in defence of his system, too subtle and recondite to comport with conversation. It would then, he said, become manifest that he was not a projector raw from his cloister, but a cool calculating reasoner, whose efforts and example, would secure to him and his friends, the permanent gratitude of mankind.”—Vol. i. pp. 2-11.

This wild, romantic scheme naturally excited the apprehension of Mr. Cottle and the other friends of the youthful bards, but which was happily dissipated by the following note:

"My dear Sir,

"Can you conveniently lend me five pounds, as we want a little more than four pounds to make up our lodging bill, which is indeed much higher than we expected; seven weeks, and Burnet's lodging for twelve weeks, amounting to eleven pounds.

"Yours affectionately,

"S. T. COLERIDGE."-p. 16.

Mr. Coleridge was now compelled, as many sons of genius have done before him, to write for bread; and in his pecuniary and other difficulties he found a kind and liberal friend in Mr. Cottle, who had, however, a strange habit, rather unusual amongst disinterested friends, of preserving every note, and entering every shilling that passed between them!

We cannot detain our readers among Mr. Coleridge's efforts as an author, a lecturer, and an editor, upon which most of Mr. Cottle's information is far too minute, but must make room for a description of poor Coleridge, in another and far less desirable character, that of a Unitarian preacher.

"When Mr. Coleridge first came to Bristol, he had evidently adopted, at least to some considerable extent, the sentiments of Socinus. By persons of that persuasion, therefore, he was hailed as a powerful accession to their cause. From Mr. C.'s voluble utterance, it was even believed that he might become a valuable Socinian minister, (of which class of divines, a great scarcity then existed, with a still more gloomy anticipation, from most of their young academicians, at their chief academy, having recently turned infidels.) But though this presumption in Mr. Coleridge's favour was confidently entertained, no certainty could exist without a trial, and how was this difficulty to be overcome? The Socinians in Bristol might have wished to see Mr. C. in their pulpit, expounding and enforcing their faith; but, as they said, the thing, in Bristol, was altogether impracticable,' from the conspicuous stand which he had taken in free politics, through the medium of his numerous lectures.