by a desire of applause than of doing good, and of which, perhaps, he is vainer than he suspects, he is NOBODY, seeming to be something, when he is nothing; for,' what has he said,' that he did not receive from one author or another?

"See him in company, and you cannot hesitate to pronounce him NOBODY. His very countenance bewrays it: he is shy, awkward, silent, neither profiting others by his conversation, nor to appearance, profiting by theirs; and, probably, ascribing to humility that behaviour which may be the effect of pride.

"As a member of society, he is NOBODY; neither father, husband, uncle, brother; he sits solitary, wrapt up in thick gloom, musing on his own insignificance, yet absurdly shrinking from all the duties of active life. A melancholy cast, sometimes, leads him to the habitations of the afflicted; and being too indolent to withhold his money, he suffers it to be taken from him on the slightest pretence, mistaking it is to be feared, vice for virtue, self-indulgence for charity.

"In one respect he seems to be somebody, being blest above most men in friends, eminently wise, learned, pious; but alas! not to make suitable improvements with such advantages, he must indeed be NOBODY.

"One who, from long acquaintance, may be supposed to know him and who would be happy to testify better things, bears this testimony, and is sorry such testimony is true."

But how, it will be asked, is this account," that in company he is shy, awkward, silent, neither profiting others by his conversation, nor, to appearance, profiting by their's," consistent with what has been so frequently advanced of his great playfulness of wit, and cheerfulness of manner? I answer, it is perfectly true; and it is no uncommon case. Among strangers, or in mixed company, he

was silent and reserved; and it was very difficult to discover that he knew more than other menmaking no ostentatious parade of what he did know-he, upon such occasions, could scarcely be prevailed upon to give his opinion upon subjects, on which he was most competent to form and to pronounce a judgment. This did not proceed from pride or ill nature, but from true humility and lowliness of mind. But when in a small company, or with those he loved, or with good young people, he was open and communicative-by his jokes and mirth he first gained attention and conciliated esteem, and then would discourse upon subjects useful and instructive to his hearers.

From the date of the last publication, in 1777, Mr. Stevens does not seem to have appeared again in the character of an author, till the year 1800, when he was induced to re-enter the fields of controversy. Mr. Jones, in the year 1795, had published the life of that most amiable prelate, Bishop Horne, and dedicated it to Mr. Stevens: and, in the course of his narration, had stated very fully the origin and circumstances of that most excellent man's early acquaintance with the writings of Hutchinson, and his perseverance in his favourable opinion of that gentleman's writings till the conclusion of his inestimable life. Before a second edition of this life was wanted, some writers had attacked the character of Bishop Horne, as an Hutchinsonian; others asserted; that the Bishop had, before his death, renounced all those opinions which he had formed at an early period at the University, in common with the other learned and very exemplary persons mentioned in the work itself, as the companions of his early studies.-Mr. Jones, accordingly, took the opportunity of a new edition of the life of his dear and much-lamented friend in the year 1799, to introduce a new preface containing about thirty pages, to vindicate the

Bishop against the charge of relinquishing former opinions; and to enter into a neat and concise statement of the Hutchinsonian doctrines themselves, to shew how consistent they were with the Holy Scriptures. Without presuming to decide upon the merits of those opinions, a task which I profess myself not qualified to undertake, this preface to the second edition of the life of Bishop Horne, certainly gives a very complete summary of Hutchinson's opinions; and whether adopted or not, they are so clearly explained, as to make them level to the most ordinary capacity.

It is but due to this most learned and most exemplary man, Mr. Jones, to introduce a passage from this preface, in which he declares, as I believe the fact to be, that in the notions, which he and the great and good Bishop, whose life he was then republishing, entertained, there was nothing that tends to make men troublesome, as heretics, fanatics, sectaries, rebels, or corrupters of any kind of useful learning. All which Hutchinson taught (and which he endeavours to shew the soundest divines of the Church of England virtually taught before him) a man may believe, and still be a good subject, a devout Christian, and a sound member of the Church of England; perhaps more sound, and more useful, than he would have been without them. "For myself," says this truly pious man, "I may say (as I do in great humility) that by following these doctrines through the course of a long life, I have found myself much enlightened, much assisted in evidence and argument, and never corrupted; as I hope my writings, if they last, will long bear me witness. If these principles should come into use with other people, I am confident they would turn Christians into scholars, and scholars into Christians; enabling them to demonstrate how shallow infidels are in their learning, and how greatly every man is a loser by his ignorance of

Revelation. When we are describing Hutchinsonians, it would be unjust to forget, that they are true Churchmen and Loyalists, steady in the fellowship of the Apostles, and faithful to the monarchy under which they live. This however, is not from what they find in Hutchinson, though it is to be found in him, but from what he has taught them to find by taking their principles from the Scriptures." This Preface was reviewed in the British Critic, in February, 1800, and in such a manner, as by no means to give satisfaction to the supporters of those opinions, or to the friends on Mr. Jones; and accordingly, in the year after the death of that venerable man, which took place on the day of the Epiphany, 1800, Mr. Stevens with all the ardour of friendship, and with all the ability and spirit which had distinguished him in his earlier years, published, under the name of AIN, the Hebrew word for Nobody, "A Review of the Review of a New Preface to the Second Edition of Mr. Jones's Life of Bishop Horne." And he also afterwards published a Postscript to the Review of the Review.

The last literary work, in which he engaged, was an uniform edition of the works of Mr. Jones, of Nayland, in twelve volumes, octavo; to which he prefixed a life of that faithful and venerable servant of God, (enlarged from a sketch previously published by him in the Anti-Jacobin Review) composed in such a style of artless and pathetic religious eloquence, as did no less honour to the deceased, than to the head and heart of the affectionate writer. Mr. Jones was well worthy of such a biographer; for he was a man who by constant unwearied diligence, had attained unto a perfection in all the learned languages, by the help of which, and his unremitted studies, he had made the subtilty of all the arts easy and familiar to himself; and who is described by the great Bishop Horsley, in a charge to his clergy, in 1800, soon after Mr.

Jones's decease," as a faithful servant of God, of whom he could speak both from his personal knowledge and from his writings. He was (said Bishop Horsley) a man of quick penetration, of extensive learning, and the soundest piety; and had, beyond any other man he ever knew, the talent of writing upon the deepest subjects to the plainest understandings."

Mr. Stevens was a great admirer, as every reader of true taste ever must be, of the biographical works of the truly eminent Isaac Walton; and I am quite sure that he had greatly profited by the frequent perusal of his inimitable writings: for no man can read the beautiful life of Mr. Jones, and not see a striking resemblance between it and those lives which were written by Isaac Walton. The same sweet simplicity of sentiment, the same natural eloquence, the same unaffected language, the same vivid descriptions, similar allusions to the most striking passages in Scripture, shine out in every page. The comparison may, with great propriety, be extended further: Isaac Walton and Mr. Stevens were both tradesmen; they were both men of reading, and personally acquired learning; of considerable theological knowledge-well versed in that book, which is the only legitimate source of all theology, the Bible. Both were the companions and friends of the most eminent prelates and divines that adorned the Church of England; both were profound masters in the art of holy living, and of the same cheerfulness of disposition, thus proving, by their faith and practice, that true religion had in each of them had her perfect work. Both of them wrote at an advanced period of life-and, considering that Mr. Stevens was arrived at the 70th year of his age, his life of Mr. Jones is a work of great intellectual ability; and he may justly be denominated the Isaac Walton of the 18th century.