Speech respecting the Reform Bill....... 374 The Judge that smites contrary to the

416 Peter Plymley's Letters....

WORKS

OF THE

REV. SYDNEY SMITH

DR. PARR.*

[EDINBURGH REVIEW, 1802.]

and he is only erroneous in excluding the particular affections, because, in so doing, he deprives us of our most powerful means of promoting his own principle of universal good; for it is as much as to say, that all the crew ought to have the general welfare of the ship so much at heart that no sailor should ever pull any particular rope, or hand any individual sail. By universal benevolence, we mean, and understand Dr. Parr to mean, not a barren affection for the species, but a desire to promote their real happiness; and of this principle, he thus speaks:

"I admit, and I approve of it, as an emotion of which general happiness is the cause, but not as a passion, of which, according to the usual order of human affairs, it could often be the object. I approve of it as a disposition to wish, and, as opportunity may occur, to desire and do good, rather than harm, to those with whom we are quite unconnected."

"The stoics, it has been said, were more successful in weakening the tender affections, than in animating men to the stronger virtues of fortitude and self-command; and possible it is, that the influence of our modern reformers may be greater, in furnishing their disciples with pleas for the neglect of their ordinary duties, than in stimulating their endeavours for the performance of those which are extraordinary, and perhaps ideal. If, indeed, the representations we have lately heard of universal philanthropy served only to amuse the fancy of those who approve of them, and to communicate that pleasure which arises from contemplating the magnitude and grandeur of a favourite subject, we might be tempted to smile at them as groundless and harmless. But they tend to debase the dignity, and to weaken the efficacy of those particular affections, for which we have daily and hourly occasion in the events of real life. They tempt us to substitute the ease of speculation, It would appear, from this kind of lanand the pride of dogmatism, for the toil of prac-guage, that a desire of promoting the universal tice. To a class of artificial and ostentatious good were a pardonable weakness, rather than sentiments, they give the most dangerous a fundamental principle of ethics; that the triumph over the genuine and salutary dictates particular affections were incapable of excess; of nature. They delude and inflame our minds and that they never wanted the corrective of a with pharisaical notions of superior wisdom more generous and exalted feeling. In a suband superior virtue; and, what is the worst of sequent part of his sermon, Dr. Parr atones a all, they may be used as a cloke to us' for little for this over-zealous depreciation of the insensibility, where other men feel; and for principle of universal benevolence; but he negligence, where other men act with visible nowhere states the particular affections to and useful, though limited, effect." derive their value and their limits from their subservience to a more extensive philanthropy. He does not show us that they exist only as virtues, from their instrumentality in promoting the general good; and that, to preserve their true character, they should be frequently referred to that principle as their proper crite

In attempting to show the connection between particular and universal benevolence, Dr. Parr does not appear to us to have taken a clear and satisfactory view of the subject. Nature impels us both to good and bad actions; and, even in the former, gives us no measure by which we may prevent them from degenerat-rion. ing into excess. Rapine and revenge are not less natural than parental and filial affection; which latter class of feelings may themselves be a source of crimes, if they overpower (as they frequently do) the sense of justice. It is not, therefore, a sufficient justification of our actions, that they are natural. We must seek, from our reason, some principle which will enable us to determine what impulses of nature we are to obey, and what we are to resist such is that of general utility, or, what is the same thing, of universal good; a principle which sanctifies and limits the more particular affections. The duty of a son to a parent, or a parent to a son, is not an ultimate principle of morals, but depends on the principle of universal good, and is only praiseworthy because it is found to promote it. At the same time, our spheres of action and intelligence are so confined, that it is better, in a great majority of instances, to suffer our conduct to be guided by those affections which have been long sanctioned by the approbation of mankind, than to enter into a process of reasoning, and investigate the relation which every trifling event might bear to the general interests of the world. In his principle of universal benevolence, Mr. Godwin is unquestionably right. That it is the grand principle on which all morals rest-that it is the corrective for the excess of all particular affections, we believe to be undeniable:

In the latter part of his sermon, Dr. Parr combats the general objections of Mr. Turgot to all charitable institutions, with considerable vigour and success. To say that an institution is necessarily bad, because it will not always be administered with the same zeal, proves a little too much; for it is an objection to political and religious, as well as to charitable institutions; and, from a lively apprehension of the fluctuating characters of those who govern, would leave the world without any government at all. It is better there should be an asylum for the mad, and a hospital for the wounded, if they were to squander away 50 per cent. of their income, than that we should be disgusted with sore limbs, and shocked by straw-crowned monarchs in the streets. All institutions of this kind must suffer the risk of being governed by more or less of probity and talents. The good which one active cha racter effects, and the wise order which h establishes, may outlive him for a long period and we all hate each other's crimes, by which we gain nothing, so much, that in proportion as public opinion acquires ascendency in any particular country, every public institution becomes more and more guarantied from abuse.

Upon the whole, this sermon is rather the production of what is called a sensible, than of a very acute man; of a man certainly

more remarkable for his learning than his ori- | sidered as great an honour, as for a commoner ginality. It refutes the very refutable positions to be elevated to the peerage. A line of Greek, of Mr. Godwin, without placing the doctrine of a line of Latin, or no line at all, subsequent to benevolence in a clear light; and it almost each name, will distinguish, with sufficient acleaves us to suppose, that the particular affec-curacy, the shades of merit, and the degree of tions are themselves ultimate principles of ac- immortality conferred. tion, instead of convenient instruments of a more general principle.

Why should Dr. Parr confine this eulogomania to the literary characters of this island The style is such as to give a general im- alone? In the university of Benares, in the pression of heaviness to the whole sermon. lettered kingdom of Ava, among the Mandarins The Doctor is never simple and natural for a at Pekin, there must, doubtless, be many men single instant. Every thing smells of the rhe- who have the eloquence of Baggos, the feeltorician. He never appears to forget himself, ing of Tangos, and the judgment of Nunges, of or to be hurried by his subject into obvious whom Dr. Parr might be happy to say, that language. Every expression seems to be the they have profundity without obscurity-perresult of artifice and intention; and as to the spicuity without prolixity-ornament without worthy dedicatees, the Lord Mayor and Alder-glare-terseness without barrenness-penetramen, unless the sermon be done into English by tion without subtlety-comprehensiveness witha person of honour, they may perhaps be flatter-out digression-and a great number of other ed by the Doctor's politeness, but they can things without a great number of other things. never be much edified by his meaning. Dr. In spite of 32 pages of very close printing, Parr seems to think, that eloquence consists in defence of the University of Oxford, is it, or not in exuberance of beautiful images-not in is it not true, that very many of its Professors simple and sublime conceptions-not in the enjoy ample salaries, without reading any lecfeelings of the passions; but in a studious ar-tures at all? The character of particular colrangement of sonorous, exotic, and sesquipedal leges will certainly vary with the character of words: a very ancient error, which corrupts their governors; but the University of Oxford the style of young, and wearies the patience so far differs from Dr. Parr in the commendaof sensible men. In some of his combinations of words the Doctor is singularly unhappy. We have the din of superficial cavillers, the prancings of giddy ostentation, flattering vanity, hissing scorn, dank clod, &c. &c. &c. The following intrusion of a technical word into a pathetic description renders the whole passage almost ludicrous.

In page 16, Dr. Parr, in speaking of the indentures of the hospital, a subject (as we should have thought) little calculated for rhetorical panegyric, says of them

"If the writer of whom I am speaking had perused, as I have, your indentures, and your rules, he would have found in them seriousness without austerity, earnestness without extravagance, good sense without the trickeries of art, good language without the trappings of rhetoric, and the firmness of conscious worth, rather than the prancings of giddy ostenta

tion."

The latter member of this eloge would not be wholly unintelligible, if applied to a spirited coach horse; but we have never yet witnessed the phenomenon of a prancing indenture.

It is not our intention to follow Dr. Parr through the copious and varied learning of his notes; in the perusal of which we have been as much delighted with the richness of his acquisitions, the vigour of his understanding, and the genuine goodness of his heart, as we have been amused with his ludicrous self-importance, and the miraculous simplicity of his character. We would rather recommend it to the Doctor to publish an annual list of worthies, as a kind of stimulus to literary men; to be inIcluded in which, will unquestionably be con

tion he has bestowed upon its state of public education, that they have, since the publication of his book, we believe, and forty years after Mr. Gibbon's residence, completely abolished their very ludicrous and disgraceful exercises for degrees, and have substituted in their place a system of exertion, and a scale of academical honours, calculated (we are willing to hope) to produce the happiest effects.

We were very sorry, in reading Dr. Parr's note on the Universities, to meet with the following passage :—

"Ill would it become me tamely and silently to acquiesce in the strictures of this formidable accuser upon a seminary to which I owe many obligations, though I left it, as must not be dissembled, before the usual time, and, in truth. had been almost compelled to leave it, not by the want of proper education, for I had arrived at the first place in the first form of Harrow School, when I was not quite fourteen-not by the want of useful tutors, for mine were eminently able, and to me had been uniformly kind-not by the want of ambition, for I had begun to look up ardently and anxiously to academical distinctions-not by the want of attachment to the place, for I regarded it then, as I continue to regard it now, with the fondest and most unfeigned affection-but by another want, which it were unnecessary to name, and for the supply of which, after some hesitation, I determined to provide by patient toil and resolute self-denial, when I had not completed my twentieth year. I ceased, therefore, to reside, with an aching heart: I looked back with mingled feelings of regret and humiliation to advantages of which I could no longer partake, and honours to which I could no longer aspire."

To those who know the truly honourable

Bápovov Kai pew Tailpov. See Lucian in Vita * Πάντες μὲν σοφοί· ἐλὼ δε Ωκηρον μὲν σέβω, θαυμάζω Damonact. vol. ii. p. 394.-(Dr, Parr's note.)

and respectable character of Dr. Parr, the vast | minister, a strenuous defender of the church extent of his learning, and the unadulterated establishment, and by far the most learned benevolence of his nature, such an account man of his day, should be permitted to languish cannot but be very affecting, in spite of the bad on a little paltry curacy in Warwickshire! taste in which it is communicated. How painDii meliora, &c. &c.* ful to reflect, that a truly devout and attentive

DR. RENNEL.†

[EDINBURGH REVIEW, 1802.]

We have no modern sermons in the English language that can be considered as very eloquent. The merits of Blair (by far the most popular writer of sermons within the last century) are plain good sense, a happy application of scriptural quotation, and a clear harmonious style, richly tinged with scriptural language. He generally leaves his readers pleased with his judgment, and his just observations on human conduct, without ever rising so high as to touch the great passions, or kindle any enthusiasm in favour of virtue. For eloquence, we must ascend as high as the days of Barrow and Jeremy Taylor: and even there, while we are delighted with their energy, their copiousness, and their fancy, we are in danger of being suffocated by a redundance which abhors all discrimination; which compares till it perplexes, and illustrates till it confounds. To the Oases of Tillotson, Sherlock, and Atterbury, we must wade through many a barren page, in which the weary Christian can descry nothing all around him but a dreary expanse of trite sentiments and languid words.

public instruction; an evil so general, that no individual patron would dream of sacrificing to it his particular interest. The clergy are generally appointed to their situations by those who have no interest that they should please the audience before whom they speak; while the very reverse is the case in the eloquence of the Bar, and of Parliament. We by no means would be understood to say, that the clergy should owe their promotion principally to their eloquence, or that eloquence ever could consistently with the constitution of the English Church, be made out a common cause of pre ferment. In pointing out the total want of connection between the privilege of preaching, and the power of preaching well, we are giving no opinion as to whether it might, or might not be remedied; but merely stating a fact. Pulpit discourses have insensibly dwindled from speaking to reading; a practice, of itself, sufficient to stifle every germ of eloquence. It is only by the fresh feelings of the heart, that mankind can be very powerfully affected. What can be more ludicrous, than an orator delivering stale indignation, and fervour of a week old; turning over whole pages of violent passions, written out in German text; reading the tropes and apostrophes into which he is hurried by the ardour of his mind; and so affected at a preconcerted line, and page, that he is unable to proceed any farther!

The great object of modern sermons is to hazard nothing: their characteristic is, decent debility; which alike guards their authors from ludicrous errors, and precludes them from striking beauties. Every man of sense, in taking up an English sermon, expects to find it a tedious essay, full of commonplace morality; and if the fulfilment of such expectations The prejudices of the English nation have be meritorious, the clergy have certainly the proceeded a good deal from their hatred to the merit of not disappointing their readers. Yet French; and because that country is the na it is curious to consider, how a body of men so tive soil of elegance, animation, and grace, a well educated, and so magnificently endowed certain patriotic solidity, and loyal awkwardas the English clergy, should distinguish them-ness, have become the characteristics of this; selves so little in a species of composition to which it is their peculiar duty, as well as their ordinary habit, to attend. To solve this difficulty, it should be remembered, that the eloquence of the Bar and of the Senate force themselves into notice, power, and wealth-that the Of British education, the study of eloquence penalty which an individual client pays for makes little or no part. The exterior graces choosing a bad advocate, is the loss of his of a speaker are despised; and debating sociecause that a prime minister must infallibly ties (admirable institutions, under proper regusuffer in the estimation of the public, who neg-lations) would hardly be tolerated either at Oxlects to conciliate the eloquent men, and trusts the defence of his measures to those who have not adequate talents for that purpose: whereas the only evil which accrues from the promotion of a clergyman to the pulpit, which he has no ability to fili as he ought, is the fatigue of the audience, and the discredit of that species of

so that an adventurous preacher is afraid of violating the ancient tranquillity of the pulpit; and the audience are commonly apt to consider the man who tires them less than usual, as a trifler, or a charlatan.

ford or Cambridge. It is commonly answered to any animadversions upon the eloquence of

*The courtly phrase was, that Dr. Parr was not a producible man. The same phrase was used for the neglect of Paley.

Discourses on Various Subjects. By THOMAS RENNEL, D.D. Master of the Temple. Rivington, London.