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To the volume, called by him Oudevos epya, he added his letter signed Ain-and the sketch of Mr. Jones, as first published in the Anti-Jacobin Review; and having in the blank sheet at the beginning of the volume, written in his own hand the account of nobody, which has been already copied *, he in the leaf at the end wrote what follows:

"After a lapse of twenty years, in which NOBOBY maintained the character he had done for near half a century before, of being NOBODY, and doing nothing, he once more listened to the Devil's temptation of making a book, by which he was to get as much money as fame, and as much fame as money; and having, with no small ado, taken up the old pen, worn to the stump, and past mending, he made the other struggle, and wrote the preceding letter signed AIN, as well as the biographical sketch to the memory of an old friend, and his own folly, which, if they prove nothing else, prove this one point, that he is no changeling, but as the signature of the letter imports, the same NOBODY he

ever was.

"Of the many excellent friends, with which he was blessed at the former period, several are now fallen asleep, and he has to deplore, not only his loss, but his extreme dulness in not profiting more by their conversation and example, while they were continued to him.

"A kind indulgent Providence, however, has raised up other friends of distinguished merit and agreeable manners in their stead, to be a comfort to him in his declining years. Whether he laments sincerely his neglect of the past opportunities afforded him for improvement will best appear by the use he makes of the advantages he now enjoys; though it is to be apprehended, redeeming the time,

* See p. 80.

at the eleventh hour of the day, will be with him a hopeless task.

66

The old acquaintance, his watchful attendant hitherto through life, who bore his testimony in time past, and knowing him, intus et in cute, has little reliance on his exertions, and is afraid, that to him may be applied, in their full extent, the words of the poet :

"At thirty man suspects himself a fool;
Knows it at forty, and reforms his plan;
At fifty chides his infamous delay,
Pushes his prudent purpose to resolve,
In all the magnanimity of thought;
Resolves, and re-resolves; then dies the same.

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"W. S."

But though Mr. Stevens never published any other that can be called his own works, except those that have been mentioned, yet he was always considering how the world might be benefited by the literary labours of others and, therefore, he was a great encourager of his most learned and able friend, Mr. Jones, in the publication of his various works, which he himself, as we have just seen, afterwards lived to collect. Nor was he always idle himself. At the beginning of the year 1792, Mr. Stevens, and the Christian world, were deprived of that illustrious ornament and pillar of the Church of England, Bishop Horne, having been advanced to the mitre only about two years; and though his worthy and pious relation was too religious and too much resigned to the will of God, to sorrow as one without hope; yet, I well remember, it required all the tender and affectionate solicitude of his surviv

ing friend to fill up that void, which the death of this his earliest and dearest friend created in his heart. Accordingly, under this severe loss, he consoled himself, and soothed his afflicted mind, by presenting to the world the third and fourth volumes of the sermons, and the volume of occasional discourses of this venerable departed prelate. A more acceptable gift to the pious and devout Christian could not be presented. There are in all the writings of Bishop Horne such a sweetness of diction, such a persuasive and complacent manner, and at the same time such powerful descriptions of futurity, as cannot but produce the intended effect upon the mind. A man may read many works of divinity, and be greatly pleased and edified by them; but I will venture to say, that if he be possessed of the true Christian spirit, he will always return to the writings of this great teacher with a keener zest; and, to use his own emphatic language, in his preface to the Commentary on the Psalms, "he that tastes them oftenest will relish them the most." It is much to be lamented, and Mr. Stevens used frequently to lament, that the Bishop had not prepared for the press some sermons he had written on the 11th chapter of the Hebrews, mentioned in page 121 of Horne's life: for all who have had the good fortune to see the manuscript of the three first of them, as I have, would have rejoiced at the whole being completed, so as to meet the public eye, in the perfect statethe Bishop himself wished.

But it is not only for three volumes of Horne's Discourses that we are indebted to Mr. Stevens; for to his hints also we are obliged for the celebrated Letters on Infidelity, written by the Bishop, and which are addressed to Mr. Stevens, under the initials of W. S. Esq. The history of these letters is this-Soon after the death of Mr. David Hume, Dr. Adam Smith had published a letter respecting

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him, which the Bishop calls the employment of embalming a philosopher, and therefore the Bishop, then Dr. Horne, thinking that Dr. Smith's letter might be of very dangerous consequence, addressed an anonymous answer to him, of which the argument is convincing, and the humour most easy, natural, and admirable. This production of Dr. Horne was so well received, that Mr. Stevens suggested the idea of the Letters on infidelity; for in the introductory letter the Bishop thus writes :"Dear Sir, you express your surprise, that after the favourable manner in which the letter to Dr. Smith was received by the public, and the service, which, as you are pleased to say, was effected by it, nothing further should have been attempted; especially as An Apology for the Life and Writings of David Hume, Esq. made its appearance soon afterwards, and some posthumous tracts of that philosopher have been since published, to complete the good work he had so much at heart, not to mention other productions on the side of infidelity. A few strictures on the nature and tendency, the principles and reasonings of such performances, thrown out from time to time, in a concise and lively way, you observe, are better calculated to suit the taste and turn of the present age, than long and elaborate dissertations: and you see no reason why a method practised by Voltaire (and so much commended by D'Alembert) against religion, should not be adopted by those who write for it. In compliance with these hints, and that you may not think me desirous of leading an idle life, when there is so much work to be done, I have a resolution to look over my papers, and address what I may happen to find among them to yourself, in a series of letters." It is quite manifest then from this letter, that to Mr. Stevens's hints and suggestions to Dr. Horne the world is indebted for the production of those inimitable letters, in

which the infidels of that day were held up to deserved ridicule and contempt. To the same source the world is much indebted for many of the materials of which Mr. Jones composed the life of Bishop Horne, as is manifest from the Prefatory Epistle to the life addressed to William Stevens, Esq. I have already mentioned in a former part of this work, that the fourth edition of the Hebrew and English Lexicon was addressed to him and three other gentlemen by the Rev. John Parkhurst. Such were the literary compositions of Mr. Stevens, and such the labours of others, in which he took an active and zealous part.

It is well known to the readers of history, that from the time of the Reformation till the year 1610, the state of Church Government in Scotland was in a very fluctuating condition; but in that year James the First of England, and of Scotland the Sixth, after his accession to the English throne, established Episcopacy in Scotland, which, however, again fell a sacrifice to the troubles in the reign of Charles the First, when all order, civil and ecclesiastical, became a prey to the tyrannical government of puritanism and Cromwell. As soon

as the restoration of the royal family took place in the person of Charles the Second, Episcopacy also was restored in Scotland, and continued to be the established government of the Scottish Church till the Revolution of 1688. When that happened I believe the fact to be, that King William applied to the Scotch Bishops to exert their influence

* See a curious letter on this subject from Bishop Rose, Bishop of Edinburgh, at the time of the Revolution, in the Gentleman's Magazine for April, 1774, which he had addressed to Bishop Campbell, another Scottish Bishop, author of a celebrated work on the Intermediate State. See also Skinner's Ecclesiastical History of Scotland, 2d vol. p. 523.

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