I will now invite your readers, Mr. Editor, to quit the rough and thorny road of polemic theology and to accompany this author, who was no partial scholar, into one of the paths of science and even to wander into a delightful region of In this hymn, the worship of the searching it backwards, because inFather of Mercies, the God and deed the first times were the youngFather of our Lord Jesus Christ est, especially in points of natural is presently discarded for the wor- discovery and experience." p. 299. ship of another Being who could He adds, "I owe your lordship quench the ire of the former and even by promise (which you are disponge the sinner's score, and pleased to remember, thereby thus acquired the first claim to doubly binding me,) the commerce his grateful adoration. I may be of philosophical experiments, which gravely told by some soi-disant surely of all others is the most inevangelical Christian that the wor- genuous traffic. Therefore, for a ship of the God-Man, of the As- beginning, let me tell your lordsembly's Catechism, does not pre- ship of a pretty thing which I saw clude the worship of the One God, coming down the Danube, though even the Father, of the New Tes- more remarkable for the applica tament. Yet the scriptures direct tion than for the theory. I lay me to one being alone on whom a night at Lintz, the metropolis to depend as my life, my strength, of the higher Austria.-There I my joy, my all. found Kepler, a man famous in the sciences, as your lordship knows, to whom I purpose to convey from hence one of your books. In this man's study, I was much taken with the draught of a landskip on a piece of paper, methought masterly done. Where of inquiring the author, he bewrayed, with a Sir H. Wotton has probably smile, it was himself, adding he given the first description in our had done it non tanquam pictor, language of that entertaining, and sed tanquam mathematicus. This now common, apparatus, the Ca. set me on fire. At last he told mera Obscura, though I have not me how. He hath a little black found this circumstance mentioned tent (of what stuff is not much im.. in any dictionary of science. The porting) which he can suddenly invention is ascribed to Baptista set up where he will, in a field, Porta, who died in 1519, but and it is convertible (like a windwhose Magia Naturalis, where it mill) to all quarters at pleasure, is described, was not published capable of not much more than till about 1590. Wotton is writ- one man, as I conceive, and per. ing to Lord Bacon, probably from haps at no great ease, exactly Venice, where he was embassador. close and dark, save at one hole, The letter has no date but is an about an inch and a half in the answer to one from the Chancellor, diameter, to which he applies a dated Oct. 20, 1620, which ap- long perspective trunk, with a conpears to have accompanied a pre- vex glass fitted to the said hole, sent of his Novum Organum. Of and the concave taken out at the that work Wotton says, i have other end, which extendeth to learned thus much by it already, that we are extremely mistaken in the computation of antiquity, by taste. about the middle of this erected tent, through which the visible ra. diations of all the objects without, are intromitted, falling upon a vation of both the essayist and his paper, which is accomodated to critic. It is in the "Elements of receive them, and so he traceth Architecture," where speaking of them with his pen in their natural "Ornaments without, as gardens, appearance, turning his little tent fountains, groves, conservatories round by degrees, till he hath des of rare beasts, birds and fishes,” signed the whole aspect of the Sir H. W. thus proceeds :field. This I have described to "I must note a certain contrayour lordship, because I think there riety between building and gardenmight be good use made of it for ing. For as fabricks should be chorography: for otherwise to regular, so gardens should be irmake landskips by them were illi- regular, or at least cast into a beral; though surely no painter very wild regularity. To exeincan do them so precisely." (p. plifie my conceit, I have seen a 300.) garden, for the manner perchance The other passage to which I incomparable, into which the first referred is quite as distant from access was a high walk like a the road of theology as that just terrace, from whence might be quoted, unless as it may be con- taken a general view of the whole nected with the poetic theology plot below, but rather in a deof Paradise Lost. Lord Orford, lightful confusion, than with any in an essay 66 on modern garden- plain distinction of the pieces. ing," (Works. ii. 527) celebrates From this the beholder descending one man, one great man, on many stops, was afterwards conwhom nor education nor custom veyed again by several mountings could impose their prejudices. and valings, to various entertainWho seems with the prophetic eye ments of his scent and sight: of taste to have conceived, to have which I shall not need to describe, foreseen, modern gardening, as for that were poetical. Let me Lord Bacon announced the dis- only note this that every one of coveries since made by experimen- these diversities was as if he had tal philosophy." Lord O. pro- been magically transported into ceeds to quote, as instances, the a new garden." p. 64. well-known descriptions, in Mil Nothing can shew the superiorton's fourth book, of the garden of Eden and the bounds of Paradise. Dr. Aikin, in his "Letters from a Father to his Son," has a criticism (v. ii. 1. 6) on this passage of Lord Orford's essay, disputing Milton's claim to originali. And now, Mr. Editor, lest ty, by quoting Claudian, and Itali- you should judge the topics in this an poems which preceded Para- paper to be rather glaringly undise Lost. I am suprised that connected, let me remind you of the following passage, written pro- two examples which may excuse bably before Milton was born, pub- me. Dr. Young wrote his "Essay lished in 1624, and scarely unseen on Original Composition," to inby the poet, before the formation of. troduce the death-bed of Addison, his poem, has escaped the obser. and Bishop Berkeley defended the ity of taste in Sir H. Wotton, or be a fairer illustration by contrast, than the receipt to make a square garden given by his friend and cotemporary, Lord Bacon, in his well-known Essays. No. 46. Trinity against the Arians in his Siris, or a Treatise on Tar Water. The latter occasioned an epigram, the words of which I forget, but it turned on this conceit, that those heretics should be enjoined to take large potations of that salutary, if not pleasant, beverage. Being fond, in search of mental provender, of making my way through old books, I beg leave to name my paper the Book.Worm, and am, Yours, VERMICULUS. May 7, 1811. at cards. Only Louis de Dieu submitted to his reproof. The rest derided him. Calvin, finding De Dieu alone, was inclined to talk with him on religion, and so converted him, that the young man wrote to his relations, that nothing should ever separate him from the faith of John Calvin. Bayle quotes this as a fact extraordinary, and unknown to all those who had written the life of Calvin, no one having remarked that he had made a voyage to England. The authority which Bayle gives is Leydecker, professor of divinity at Utrecht in his Latin preface to the theological aphorisms of Louis de Dieu, who died at Leyden in 1642. Leydecker appears to have taken the account from a funeral sermon for Louis de Dieu (the elder) preach. ed in Dutch, by Abraham Heidan. It must have been when Calvin was a young man, probably before his first settlement at Geneva in 1536, and towards the latter part of Henry the Eighth's reign, that he visited England. It is surprising that this fact should have escaped Burnett in his researches for the history of the Reformation. If known to him, he could scarcely have omitted the circumstance. Calvin in England. SIR, In your 5th vol. p. 170, you have brought Lelius Socinus into England. I was suprised to find by a passage in one of Bayle's notes, that Calvin had also visited this country. The passage occurs in the life of Louis De Dieu. Of his grandfather, of the same name, a domestic of Charles 5th, and a secret favourer of the Reformati. on, the following account is given. "Il passoit en Angleterre avec d'autres jeunes gens: Calvin faisoit le trajet sur le meme bâtiment, et représenta à cette jeunesse qu'il ne faloit pas jurer en jouant aux cartes. Il n'y eut que Louis de Dieu qui aquiesçât à cette censure: tous les autres s'en moque. rent. Cela fit que Calvin le trou. vant à part, sur le Vaisseau lui Epigram and Epitaph by Samuel parla de Dieu, et le convertit de telle sorte, que ce jeune homme écrivit a ses parens que rien ne le sépareroitjamais de la foi de Jean Calvin," Bayle, ed. 1740, ii. 289, Note A. He was going over to England with some other young people; Calvin, taking his passage in the same ves sel, expostulated with this young party for swearing, while playing SIR, Wesley. J. 0. Oct: 9, 1811. Reading the "Epitaph on King Theodore," (p. 547,) it occurred to me that the hint of the last line might be taken from the following justly admired epigram, written by Samuel Wesley, (mentioned' in your v. iii. p. 374.) on occasion of Butler's monument being erected in Westminster Abbey, in 1721, for ty years after the poet's death, in the savage state; who suffer an extreme penury, if not in absolute want. (See Biog. Brit, 2d ed. iii. 91.") While Butler, needy wretch, was yet alive No generous patron would a dinner give: turned to dust, Presented with a monumental Bust. The Poet's fate is here, in emblem, shown, almost entire privation of every comfort or refinement of life; and who, amid the storms of the surrounding sea, scek, in their little boats, the provision on which alone their families can scarcely depend: among whom however, the traveller often finds an intimate knowledge of the classical writings of antiquity, a taste formed upon the purest models of Greece and Rome, and a susceptibility to all the beauties I am tempted to add, from which those models disclose. While memory, an Epitaph on an Infant, traversing the country, he is often by Samuel Wesley, in which the attended by guides, who can com. poet appears to have prevailed municate with him in Latin; and, over the priest, and done violence arriving at his place of nightly to the article of his church, of rest, he not unfrequently draws original or birth sin. He ask'd for bread, and he receiv'd a stone. Beneath, a sleeping infant lies, And souls and bodies join, forth, from the labours of his little smithy, a man who addresses him in that language with fluency and elegance." Among the causes of this general diffusion of literature, (next to the great name of their ances What crowds shall wish their lives be- tors) Dr. H. assigns "the long low Had been as short as thine. SELECTOR. Parish Priests of Iceland. period of leisure they enjoy, during the protracted winter of their northern region. This leisure, those who have acquired in their youth the habits of literary pursuit, will naturally devote to a conti March 3, 1812. nuance in occupations so well I have lately perused with great adapted to relieve the weariness of pleasure the "Travels in Iceland," the passing time."-" Among the performed during the summer of class of priests, another motive is, 1810, by Sir G. Mackenzie, and the desire of maintaining an influ. his companions and coadjutors, ence, which cannot be derived Dr. Holland and Mr. Bright. from any difference of external With the disertations of the former circumstances. The pastor must of these on the history and litera- undergo the same labours and ture of the natives, and on their hardships as the meanest of his present state in respect of literature and religion, I have been particularly interested. They exhibit the singular phænomenon of a people, whose habitations bespeak a condition little removed from flock; and, but for the superiority of his intellectual attainments, he would lose the station in society which it is so necessary he should retain. It forms, too, an impor. tant part of his duty to superin. tend the business of domestic edu rior. The sitting-room, which is cation, in the families placed small and ill-lighted, is furnished under his pastoral care. This with a stove, an article not com office is founded upon a sense of mon in the houses of the Iceland. the necessity for such a superin- ers, and possesses a considerable tendance, in a country where the collection of books. In the course means of education are so greatly of the evening, we had much conlimited by the poverty of the peo- versation with our worthy host, ple, and the dispersion of their who spoke Latin exceedingly well. numbers." An interesting in. We obtained from him, some instance of the attention with which teresting particulars relative to his this duty is exercised in Iceland, parish, and had much reason to is given by Sir G. M. in the jour- admire his paternal care of the nal, p. 143, in the case of Mr. flock committed to his charge. In Hialtalin, pastor of the parish of a population, varying, in different Saurbar, adjoining to one of the years, from two hundred to two Fiords, or Friths, near the west- hundred and ten, there are fifteen ern extremity of the island; and I married couples. The average wish to solicit for the whole ac. annual number of births is seven, count a place in your useful mis- and of deaths, six or seven; of cellany, not only that your pages marriages, below one. The exmay have the honour of recording tent of the parish is sixteen miles the name and merits of a most ex- in length and ten in breadth, so emplary character, but that I may that the population does not exhave the opportunity of exhibiting ceed 14 to a square mile. to your readers a specimen of a more complete register of a minis. ter's congregation, than I had an idea of, when I wrote the Letter to a young Minister, which you indulged with a place in your last volume, p. 472. "At a short distance from the shore of Hval Fiord (Whale Frith) is the residence of the parish priest of Saurbar, Mr. Hialtalin. He has been settled at this place twenty. four years, with a stipend of thirty dollars, and as much land as maintains a small stock of cows and sheep. Upon this slender provision he has contrived to sup. port a very numerous family. His habitation entirely resembles the common farm-houses of Iceland, except that it is somewhat cleaner and more comfortable in the inte "We were gratified with a sight of Mr. Hialtalin's parish register; a very interesting book, in which, for his own satisfaction, he makes an annual record of the state of each family within the district of which he has the pastoral charge. He permitted us to copy part of this book; and the following is a translation made by his assistance, of the first page of the register for 1805." (I have only copied one example.) "This example of the attention and pious care with which the duties of a country priest are performed, in so remote a corner of the Christian world, may excite a blush in many of his brethren of more for. tunate countries and more opu. lent establishments. |