office it was to prosecute for our Lady the Queen,' that she would have the form altered, and that her Attorney-General should prosecute for our Lady Truth!'

It was in this union of ferocity and servility that Coke stood almost alone. In his fulsome flattery of his Sovereigns,—of the roseate beauty of Elizabeth, and of James as the only true Beauclerc, he had many rivals. The bigotry of his aversion to Roman Catholics and Jews was nothing more than one man's share in a general epidemic. All that he could claim as peculiarly his own was the preverse ingenuity in which his intemperance was displayed. The reason why, upon this circuit, he refused to swear Jews as witnesses, could have occurred to nobody but Coke; for that they are alien enemies, being the Subjects of the Devil, who is at perpetual enmity with Christ, whose subjects we are.

The object which we have had principally before us in the course which our observations have taken has been the character of Coke. A comparison between him and Bacon would have been very interesting;-men all their lives, so near and yet so opposite, and who exercised so vast an influence upon the fortunes of each other. We had wished to have represented Coke more at length in his quieter intermediate parts of Judge and Reporter, as well as in the more ambitious ones of Crown Lawyer, to which he enslaved his manhood, and of Constitutional Lawyer, to which he dedicated so much of his old age. We should have liked, too, to have shown him in the House of Commons with his colleagues, ' rejoicing in his Progress like a Parliament man of Queen Elizabeth's time, bringing them to ancient orders :' and Sir Dudley Digges reporting upon the general thanks to Coke for his conduct on the conference of Monopolies, that Prince Charles (who constantly attended in the Lords to awe the patriots) had said, that he was never weary of hearing Sir Edward Coke, he so 'mixed mirth and gravity together.' The whole might have made an amusing and instructive picture. Although he was no true law reformer, his views for the criminal law are curious, as contrasted with his conduct; and are in singular advance of the intelligence and humanity of his age. But we must conclude, and we certainly cannot do so more favourably for Coke, than in the words with which himself sums up his life of labour-committing his writings and his actions to the care and censure of after times. 'Whilst we were in hand with these four parts of the Institutes, we often having occasion to go into the city, ' and from thence into the country, did in some sort envy the 'state of the honest ploughman, and other mechanics; for the one, 'when he was at his work, would merrily sing, and the ploughman 'whistle some self-pleasing tune, and yet their work both pro

'ceeded and succeeded: but he that takes upon him to write, 'doth captivate all the faculties and powers both of his mind and 'body, and must be only intentive to that which he collecteth, 'without any expression of joy or cheerfulnesse, whilst he is in 'his work.

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'Throughout all this treatise, we have dealt clearly and plainly concerning some pretended courts, which either are no courts ' warrantable by law, as we conceive them, or which without war'rant have encroached more jurisdiction than they ought. Qui non liberè veritatem pronuntial, proditor veritatis est. Wherein, if any of our honourable friends shall take offence, our apology shall be, amicus Plato, amicus Socrates, sed magis amica Veritas. Having ever in memory that saying of the kingly prophet, Keep innocency, and take heed to the thing 'that is right, and that will bring a man peace at the last. And you honourable and reverend judges and justices, that 'do or shall sit in the high tribunals and courts or seats of justice, as aforesaid, fear not to do right to all, and to deliver your opi'nions justly, according to the laws; for fear is nothing but a betraying of the succours that reason should afford. And if you 'shall sincerely execute justice, be assured of three things:-First, ' though some may malign you, yet God will give you his bless'ing. Secondly, that though thereby you may offend great men ' and favourites, yet you shall have the favourable kindness of the Almighty, and be his favourites. And, lastly, that in so doing, ' against all scandalous complaints and pragmatical devices against · you, God will defend you as with a shield: "For thou, Lord, wilt give a blessing unto the righteous, and with thy favourable • kindness wilt thou defend him as with a shield."

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'And for that we have broken the ice, and out of our own in'dustry and observation framed this high and honourable building of the jurisdiction of courts, withont the help or furtherance ' of any that hath written of this argument before, I shall heartily ' desire the wise-hearted and expert builders (justice being archi' tectonica virtus), to amend both the method or uniformity, and 'the structure itself, wherein they shall find either want of windows, or sufficient lights, or other deficiency in the architecture 'whatsoever. And we will conclude with the aphorism of that 'great lawyer and sage of the law, Master Plowden (which we ' have heard him often say)-Blessed be the ameNDING HAND.'

ART. X.-1. The Life and Times of the Rev. George Whitfield, M.A. By ROBERT PHILIP. 8vo. London: 1838. 2. Remains of the Rev. Richard Hurrell Froude, M.A., Fellow of Oriel College, Oxford. 2 vols. 8vo. London :1838.

F the enemies of Christianity in the commencement of the last

I century failed to accomplish its overthrow, they were at least

successful in producing what at present appears to have been a strange and unreasonable panic. Middleton, Bolingbroke, and Mandeville, have now lost their terrors; and (in common with the heroes of the Dunciad) Chubb, Toland, Collins, and Woolston, are remembered only on account of the brilliancy of the Auto-da-fe at which they suffered. To these writers, however, belongs the credit of having suggested to Clarke his enquiries into the elementary truth on which all religion depends; and by them Warburton was provoked to 'demonstrate' the Divine legation of Moses. They excited Newton to explore the fulfilment of Prophecy, and Lardner to accumulate the proofs of the Credibility of the Gospels. A greater than any of these, Joseph Butler, was induced, by the same adversaries, to investigate the analogy of natural and revealed religion; and Berkeley and Sherlock, with a long catalogue of more obscure names, crowded to the rescue of the menaced citadel of the Faith. But in this anxiety to strengthen its defences the garrison not only declined to attempt new conquests, but withdrew from much of their ancient dominion. In this its apologetic age, English Theology was distinguished by an unwonted timidity and coldness. The alliance which it had maintained from the days of Jewel to those of Leighton, with philosophy and eloquence, with wit and poetry, was dissolved. Taylor and Hall, Donne and Hooker, Baxter and Howe, had spoken as men having authority, and with an unclouded faith in their Divine Mission. In that confidence they had grappled with every difficulty, and had wielded with equal energy and ease all the resources of genius and of learning. Alternately searching the depths of the heart, and playing over the mere surface of the mind, they relieved the subtleties of logic by a quibble or a pun, and illuminated, by intense flashes of wit, the metaphysical abysses which it was their delight to tread. Even when directing the spiritual affections to their highest exercise, they hazarded any quaint conceit which crossed their path, and yielded to every impulse of fancy or of passion. Divinity was no longer to retain the foremost place in English literature. The Tillotsons and Seckers of a later age were alike

But

distrustful of their readers and of themselves. Tame, cautious, and correct, they rose above the Tatlers and Spectators of their times, because on such themes it was impossible to be frivolous; but they can be hardly said to have contributed as largely as Steele and Addison to guide the opinions, or to form the character of their generation.

This depression of theology was aided by the state of political parties under the two first princes of the House of Brunswick. Low and High Church were but other names for Whigs and Tories; and while Hoadly and Atterbury wrangled about the principles of the Revolution, the sacred subjects which formed the pretext of their disputes were desecrated in the feelings of the multitude, who witnessed and enjoyed the controversy. Secure from further persecution, and deeply attached to the new order of things, the Dissenters were no longer roused to religious zeal by invidious secular distinctions; and Doddington and Watts lamented the decline of their congregations from the standard of their ancient piety. The former victims of bigotry had become its proselytes, and anathemas were directed against the Pope and the Pretender, with still greater acrimony than against the Evil One, with whom good Protestants of all denominations associated them.

The theology of any age at once ascertains and regulates its moral stature; and at the period of which we speak, the austere virtues of the Puritans, and the more meek and social, though not less devout spirit of the Worthies of the Church of England, if still to be detected in the recesses of private life, were discountenanced by the general habits of society. The departure of the more pure and generous influences of earlier times may be traced nowhere more clearly than in those works of fiction, in which the prevailing profligacy of manners was illustrated by Fielding, Sterne, and Smollett; and proved, though with more honest purposes, by Richardson and Defoe.

It was at this period that the Alma Mater of Laud and Sacheverel was nourishing in her bosom a little band of pupils, destined to accomplish a momentous revolution in the national character. Wesley had already attained the dawn of manhood when, in 1714, his future rival and coadjutor, George Whitfield, was born at a tavern in Gloucester, of which his father was the host. The death of the elder Whitfield within two years from that time, left the child to the care of his mother, who took upon herself the management of the 'Bell Inn'; though, as her son has gratefully recorded, she ‘prudently kept him, in his tender years, from intermeddling with the tavern business. In such a situation he almost inevitably fell into vices and follies, which have been exag

gerated as much by the vehemence of his own confessions, as by the malignity of his enemies. They exhibit some curious indications of his future character. He robbed his mother, but part of the money was given to the poor. He stole books, but they were books of devotion. Irritated by the unlucky tricks of his playfellows, who, he says, in the language of David, 'compassed him about like bees,' he converted into a prayer the prophetic imprecation of the Psalmist In the name of the Lord I will destroy them.' The mind in which devotional feelings and bad passions were thus strongly knit together, was consigned, in early youth, to the culture of the master of the grammar-school of St Mary de Crypt, in his native city; and there were given the first auspices of his future eminence. He studied the English dramatic writers, and represented their female characters with applause ; and when the mayor and aldermen were to be harangued by one of the scholars, the embryo field-peacher was selected to extol the merits, and to gratify the taste of their worships. His erratic propensities were developed almost as soon as his powers of elocution. Wearied with the studies of the grammar-school, he extorted his mother's reluctant consent to return to the tavern; and there, he says, 'I put on my blue apron and my snuffers, washed 'mops, cleaned rooms, and, in one word, became professed and common Drawer for nigh a year and a half.' The Tapster was, of course, occasionally tipsy, and always in request; but as even the flow of the tap may not be perennial, he found leisure to compose sermons, and stole from the night some hours for the study of the Bible.

At the Bell Inn there dwelt a sister-in-law of Whitfield's, with whom it was his fortune or his fault to quarrel; and to soothe his troubled spirit he would retire and weep before the Lord as 'Hagar when flying from Sarah.' From the presence of this Sarah he accordingly fled to Bristol, and betook himself to the study of Thomas à Kempis; but returning once more to Gloucester, exchanged Divinity for the drama, and then abandoned the dramatists for his long neglected school-books. For now had opened a prospect inviting him to the worthy use of those talents which might otherwise have been consumed in sordid occupations, or in some obscure and fruitless efforts to assert his native superiority to other men. Intelligence had reached his mother that admission might be obtained at Pembroke College, Oxford, for her capricious and thoughtful boy; and the intuitive wisdom of a mother's love assured her that through this avenue he might advance to distinction, if not to fortune. A few more oscillations between dissolute tastes and heavenward desires, and the youth finally gained the mastery over his lower appetites. From his