upon the same principle, with regard to the books you review. I can tell you, there are some people in your line whò are not very particular in this matter.

Editor. I know it, brother; I know it. And it must make an author sick, I should think, even to have his book commended by reviewers of this sort; because he must see that they are only laying on a dab of whitewash at hap-hazard, with no more taste than a man who paints by the square yard. Now, then, not for your particular, but for your general opinion, as to the first two numbers.

Friend. Well, then, my general opinion is, that your objects are excellent, and your plan a good one; but that you come short in the execution.

Editor. What do you think of the first article in the first number, and that on Bishop Hobart ?

Friend. I think you asked, not for my particular, but for my general opinion. I feel really obliged to you for undertaking such a work, for the thing was wanted. But you must take à far higher tone. You must speak out, my dear friend; you must speak out.

Editor. What do you think of the first article of the second number?

Friend. The first article of the second number? Let me see I read it, but I now forget all about it. What was it upon?

Editor. Upon? Why, it was upon that volume of neologian sermons, which we were talking about when we met at that committee. Don't you remember I repeated a sentence to you, and you exclaimed " Atrocious?"

Friend. Yes, I recollect the book, but I have forgot all about the article.

Editor. Forgot all about it? Why, I consider that, now, a very strong article.

Friend. So does my aunt.

Editor. I have a great regard and esteem for the man whô wrote that article.

Friend. I have a regard for him, too; but I question whether he deserves it.

Editor. Oh, then, you know the man.

Friend. Yes, I think I know something of him: but I am sorry to say, he does not improve upon acquaintance.

Editor. To tell you the truth, several of my friends have advised me to have nothing more to do with him, and to carry on the work without his assistance. They say I shall give great offence.

Friend. I should not wonder.-But, to return to my general opinion of your work. I tell you again and again, there is nothing in it, yet, half strong or plain enough. I see some things, which encourage me to hope that you will mend as you advance you mean them for hard hits: but, at present, we must take the will for the deed.

Editor. People complain, already, of some parts of the work, and say the style is vulgar, coarse, ungrammatical, &c.

Friend. That arises from their ignorance of the English language. The public religion and the public taste are corrupted together, and you should aim at reforming both. The language now used amongst us is not English, but Scotch. Men are afraid to employ vernacular phrases. Murray's Grammar has quite tongue-tied us. Murray was a man, who, for a considerable part of his life, lived always in one room, of a regulated temperature. I never could account for his fancies, and his restrictions, and his nice distinctions, till I learnt this. But it is easy to conceive how a man, living always in one room, and with one eye constantly fixed on the thermometer, would go on refining and refining; till at length he came, so far at least as grammar was concerned, to lose all power of distinguishing between right and wrong, and to devise all sorts of fanciful regulations. Talk of a reformation in our national religion! Why, if ever we get back to the doctrines of the Church of England, it would be next to impossible to express them, in the puny, formal, affected, tight-laced dialect, that is now called English. We must return to the language of the Reformers, as well as to their doctrines. Not long ago I met with an English grammar, in dialogues, for the use of young ladies and how do you think it disposed of the interjections?

Editor. I have no idea.

Friend. The learner asks the teacher, What are interjections? The teacher answers to this effect (for I quote from memory): "Interjections, my dear, are words expressive of some sudden emotion or affection of the mind. You seldom hear them used in polite company, because affection and emotion are very vulgar things. In fact, the best advice I can give you is, to abstain from using interjections at all. They are these (I mention them, not that you may employ, but that you may shun them)— Ah, Oh, Alas, &c. &c."-Thus one, out of the eight parts of speech, was actually expunged, without mercy, from the young lady's vocabulary!

Editor. I never heard of any thing more bare-faced. But in a work like mine, you know, one wishes to avoid vulgarity. Friend. True. But remember one thing. The national

standard of taste, of principle, of morality, of religion, has fallen; and it is the object of your work to raise it. You, then, must give the tone, not take it from your readers. You will never do

them any good, if you are afraid of what they say of you :-I mean, upon your present plan. There is one way of doing good, indeed, by courting people's prejudices, by striving to win them, by becoming all things to all men and in its proper sphere it is an excellent one. But there is another way of doing good, by standing up in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, and testifying against them that their deeds are evil; proclaiming in their ears the strange things of the Gospel; denouncing their common apostasy from God; and warning them to flee from the wrath to come. This is a work, also, which now requires to be done and I hope to see it done, sooner or later, in the Christian Review.

:

Editor. It is what I mean to do.

Friend. People will find fault. Your own friends will find fault. We have been so accustomed, some of us, to round-about ways of going to work, that when you begin to proceed in a straight-forward manner, even your well-wishers, at first, will stand aghast. If ever you go to work as you ought, depend upon it, in the beginning, as to any earthly help, you will be left alone. The thing, when it is done, being quite new, will appear strange, even to the very men who say it ought to be done. Setting aside the vulgarity aforesaid, what do your friends in general say of your work?

Editor. They like it very well.

Friend. I am sorry for it. I would rather hear that they found fault with it. What says? (whispering).

Editor. He is very much pleased.

Friend. And? (whispering).

Editor. He is very much pleased too.

Friend. And? (whispering).

Editor. He sent me a very kind note.

Friend. And? (whispering).

Editor. He told me to go on just in the same way.
Friend. And? (whispering).

Editor. He gave me exactly the same advice, only that he recommended my dismissing the contributor we just now spoke about.

Friend. All good men and true. Nevertheless, I hope you will not advance many numbers further, without making some of them change their note. Depend upon it, as long as all approve, you are under the mark. What said? (whispering.) Editor. I sent him a copy, but he took no notice.

Friend. That's well, at any rate. When once your work gets into full vigour, one of the first effects will be, probably, TO SWEEP AWAY THE SUMMER FLIES. I hope, in the midst of your attacks on the infidelity and corruption of the age, you will not forget, from time to time, to give us direct and full statements of Christian doctrine.

Editor. I hope not. How shall I begin?

Friend. Suppose you begin with the Thirty-nine Articles. Few people are acquainted with them. I wish they occupied part of the space of that letter on briefs, in your first number. What have you to do with briefs? You might get every abuse of this sort set right, and yet the apostasy of our church and nation might be what it is.-After the Thirty-nine Articles, you might go on with some of the other Confessions of the Reformed churches. This would serve to shew those, who now call themselves orthodox, where they really are.-Is it true that you mean to say any thing against the Evangelical part of the church? Editor. Who told you so?

Friend. It is whispered, I can assure you.

Editor. Believe it not. I leave that to the Sicarii.

Friend. To whom? Explain yourself.

Editor. The zealots. You have read Josephus?

Friend. It is a long time since.

Editor. They are at present few in number, and I heartily hope the sect may not increase. For my own part, I have drawn my sword against the Philistines; and it is no part of my plan to turn round, and cut the throats of my fellowsoldiers.

Friend. I am heartily glad to hear you say so: for I had begun to tremble for my own. But I had heard quite an opposite report.

Editor. I say again, believe it not. And, the next time you hear it, have the goodness to contradict it flatly, on my authority.

Friend. But we have thought you hit us rather hard already. Editor. That's because we live in such a namby-pamby age, that you do not know the difference between play and earnest. You tell me to write stronger; but if I only touch you with the feather-end of my pen, you call it a hard hit. When I call modern liberality a lie; when I denounce self-named highchurchmen as unworthy of the name; when I say that the nation has apostatized; when I expose the corruption and tyranny of the press; when I assert that the literature of the day is wretched and polluted; I am in earnest. But when I throw out a hint or two for the consideration of my brethren, in

the spirit of respect and esteem, and not without the kindest feelings towards them in my heart, I mean them to be taken only as hints; well knowing that a single word, of this sort, enters more into a wise man, “than an hundred stripes into a fool." I heartily believe that they are right in the main, and that their opponents are wrong in the main. I stand with them, I think with them, I feel with them; I serve the same Master; in one word, I am on their side. If, at the same time, they are not disposed to stand with me, this I am prepared for. In justice to them it should be declared, that they are in no way responsible for every thing, or indeed for any thing, which I advance. I know I shall frighten them at first, but the time is at length come for speaking out.

Friend. Now I think I understand you, and our views coincide. I'll tell you what would be a good plan. Could you not, for variety's sake, have something less in the form of a set treatise or article?

Editor. I have been thinking of that very thing. There are a number of passing events, both in the world, and in the church, which require, as they pass, to be just noticed; and one cannot write an essay upon them all.

Friend. Besides which, if you did, nobody would read it. Nothing but light reading will please the public now.

Editor. True: and this is one very remarkable indication of the depressed state of the public intellect. The infidels of the Continent deny that there is any beauty in Homer. What a proof, that, wherever irreligion gains ground, fatuity soon follows!

once heard a Unitarian absolutely turning some lines of Shakespeare into ridicule. He protested that he saw nothing at all in them to admire, but that, on the contrary, he thought them very vulgar, low, coarse, and inelegant: and I really believe he spoke as he felt. Spiritual excellence and beauty are no doubt far higher things, than poetical elegance and propriety. But when a man has looked upon and rejected the former, it sometimes happens, by way of setting a mark upon him, that in time he becomes incapable of appreciating the latter.

Friend. When any particular vice prevails in society, it generally makes its appearance, at the same time, though in a modified degree, within the church. A bookseller in the Row told me (would you believe it?)that in writing for the religious world, nothing will do, now, but works of imagination!

Editor. Not so, exactly, neither. I think we have some little solidity amongst us, at least comparatively speaking. There are people who read their Bibles. There are others, who