they confefs it in all it's circumftances, to be beyond all hu◄ man probability.'

With the general acknowledgment of his Providence, let us learn a decent fubmiffion to his will, and a difpofition to own God, to ferve him, as well in his chaftifements as his mercies. Though fummoned to an act of thanksgiving, we have matter enough of humility before us; affuredly no national advantages, no national profperity can be the theme of our acknowledgment. But there is an elevated piety, which may mix with, and give a dignity to our humiliation, a fublimer thankfulness, which refpects the difpenfations of the great and wife God, which contemplates the benignity of a Father in the correction of a Father, in the hope of recovery to his favour, and in the consciousness of those bleffings, which he is pleafed still to preferve to us.'

When Mr. Walker comes to exhort his audience to a proper improvement of the goodness of God, and to their contributing as individuals to the national welfare, he obferves that the path of the many is much circumfcribed," and in a patriot view, confined almoft to one fingle line, integrity in the choice of thofe who reprefent us all, and to whom all our deareft interefts are committed.

'This' continues he is the great palladium of England; this is our glorious diftinction from every nation of the earth; this is onr treasure, which he, who bafely and wickedly abandons to the deftroyer, is accurfed both of God and man. From this all our religion, law, and liberty fprung; on this they fill reft; and when this is gone, we are numbered with the flaves of other nations, who have neither their property, their bodies, nor their minds at their difpofal. I am no republican, no enemy to monarchy; fuch as the conftitution of the British government has adopted, and fubfervient to the views of this government; I revere the prince, who is willing to be the inftrument of public happiness, and wishes not to move beyond the line, in which power may fafely and ufefully be confided to a poor mortal. But kings are no gods of my adoration; they weigh not a feather in my scale against the public good; I do think the democratic or popular part of the conftitution, to be the effence, the foul of the whole; I do think the fafety of the people to be the fupreme law, the fupreme object; and that if kings, or whatever exalted individuals, will not enter, chearfully enter, into this bene volent view; they ought to be confidered and treated, as mere expedients of public good, and be made fubfervient thereto.

It is in the abuse of this glorious distinction, as from their immediate, though not their primary fource, are found all the misfortunes and difgraces, which darken the face of this once happy island; it is not the change of minifters which can bring back the days of England's peace and glory; minifters are men, and in proportion to the rank from which they are taken, partake in a higher degree of the national corruption; but minifters are of that pliant ftuff, that they will be what you pleate to have them; teach them to defpife you, and they will fport with the national interefts, as with their own; fearing and refpecting you, their very vices will bow to the national expectation

expectation. A virtuous parliament is the fecurity for a virtuous administration".

Have your eye, therefore, on the reprefentatives of the people, afk yourselves every moment, if their conduct be fuch as every man of you would act for himself, for his child, for his friend, for his neighbour. There is no other rule; honefty and integrity are univerial and immutable; the fame in all relations of life; nor does any relation claim peculiar indulgencies; the rule is plain and decifive; and if they cannot answer to this fimple teft, they are not your reprefentatives, every moment of their truft is dangerous, and though the peace of the community may forbid the inftant effects of an honest indignation, yet affuredly, they ought no more to receive the renewal of your truft, than you would confide every thing that is dear to you into the hands of the worft of villains and affaffins. When I think on what is involved in it, the ruin of what the richeft bounty of God has bleffed us with, the humbling every thing that religion and liberty, and law, make facred to man, at the feet of luftful power, or precipitating every thing in ruins, to gratify weaknefs and obftinacy, and wickednefs; I would not act this crime for the treasury of a nation; I would not go with fuch a load of deliberate guilt into the prefence of my God, whenever he shall be pleafed to call me, for all that this world has to promife, Yet it is done for the poor draught of intemperance; for the wages, of a day; for the hypocritical flattery of a drefied-out fuperior; for a promife; for a place of dependance and fervility. In the hour of public misfortune, you can all cry out, you are fold, you are be trayed. I tell you, You have fold, You have betrayed yourselves; and until every man can lay his hand upon his heart, and say, in the most important act of a citizen and a Briton, I have done what my confcience directs me, what I can answer for, to my child, and to my God; the crime is your's alfo.'

Nemo vir magnus, fays Cicero, fine aliquo divino afflatu unquam fuit. We will not now enter into the truth of this maxipr in its religious meaning. In the academical fense, (and Cicero was of that fect of philofophers) we believe we should be liable to few exceptions, fhould we lay it down as an axiom, that no one was ever a truly great man without fome portion of enthusiasm.' The man that does not talk with peculiar eagerness of his favourite fubject, that does not in a manner lofe all felf-control, whenever it is brought upon the tapis, we should fufpect not to be fufficiently animated with his theme, to make a first rate figure.-But enthusiasm rifes fuperior to the narrow bounds of investigation, and at least treads upon the heels of error.

If we be right in what we have now advanced; this mark of "a great man" will fcarcley be refufed to Mr. Walker. He is a patriot, in the old Roman fenfe of the word. The milder genius of Chriftianity every where breathes the spirit of univerfal benevolence. "The irruption of the northern_nations," and the introduction of the feudal fyftem, (and we

beg

beg leave to add this to the inftances our author has adduced of the co-operation of the two great events), has alfo without doubt contributed to banish the overpowering and extravagant love of country, which prevailed in ancient times. But the paffion of Mr. Walker bids defiance to the influence of both events. Every thing British he beholds through the magnifying glafs of this ardent attachment; and the original character of our ifland appears in his writings, to have been all that was excellent and all that was venerable..

"when the mean

There was a time" fays our Author, eft Englishman could judge of his country's welfare, and fteadily and confcientioufly purfue it. The glorious inheritance, which you have received, can only be preserved by recurring to the fame ftern inflexibility, the fame well-prin-. cipled integrity, in every act, on which your country's good depends," Again. "And why! I pray, have we been thus marked out by Providence for its moft awful punishments? but because, as a nation, we had miferably turned our face from God, and thrown back to him as ufelefs or disgustful, that religious character, that fobriety, that juffice, that mercy, which our ancestors tranfmitted to us, together with that generous fympathy with the rights of human nature, that virtuous zeal in the caufe of equal liberty and law, which their honeft and magnanimous example had fet us."

Upon reading fuch periods as thefe, we endeavoured to recollect in what far-diftant golden age, this character belonged to us. Indeed our Author feems to intimate that we,: as well as certain other European nations, have been "upheld by Providence" fomewhat longer than we had reason to expect," to cherish a new nation of Britons in the other world. We triumphed over the foes of Britain, while we were profecuting the quarrel of British America; and, having placed it on a folid foundation of independence and power, we are fuffered to fall under the weight of our corruptions and crimes. Providence will bring on the fate of our enemies in their turn; and, having anfwered the views of Providence to us, and to our defcendants in America, they will pay the punishment of their equal or greater iniquities."

Thefe fentimens taught us to look back into remoter ages for the period defcribed. Mr. Walker however, we prefume, would fcarcely lead us beyond the wars of York and Lancaster; and upon that term, as we had no better ground of quarrel than who fhould be our tyrant, he would hardly think proper to fix. The age of Queen Elizabeth has been much vaunted, but not to mention in how rude and uncivilized

3

uncivilized a state we then appear to have been*, that monarch was certainly too defpotic, and her people too tame to obtain the approbation of our Author. It has been obferved by the profoundest and moft liberal philofophers that ever exifted, that in the period of Cromwel, and more efpecially upon his death we had every opportunity for building the fabric of a pure republic, and loft the opportunity, and. were driven to the wretched neceffity of applying once more, to the exiled monarch, merely from the want of public virtue. The revolution was the nobleft event, built upon the flightest foundation of generous and manly fentiment that hiftory records. And we are afraid that it can forcely be contended with the fhow of plaufibility, that, in public virtue, we are much amended fince. Where then shall we feek the glorious æra?

Alas! in Mr. Walker's eftimation, we know not whether it may not extend through all thefe periods. Certain it is however, that it comes down much lower than the last fentence we extracted feemed to intimate. "There was a gallant virtuous fpirit which but yesterday would have been pained to hear from any quarter of the globe of violated rights, and the cruel triumphs of power; but which the difgrace, the prostitution of our country's honour would have roufed to madness".

I have lived in the day, when an Englishman was more proud of his country's honour, than of his country's profperity; when the betrayer of it would have roufed the general indignation, nor appeafed it, but with his life. Rejoicing in our liberty, as the best boon of heaven to us, Englishmen pitied every wretch who had it not; and if they could not restore this bleffing to all of their kind, would as foon have met the Devil in their walk, as be the inftruments of oppreffing it in any. How this fpirit hath departed from us, let Corfica, St. Vincents, America tell, and the very feeble voice of indignation, which fo novel a conduct of this once glorious nation, has excited. It was our pride that, in the road to commerce and greatnefs, we trod not over the carcafes of flaughtered millions: this was left to Spaniards, to Portuguese, to Hollanders; but this virtuous, this dear diftinction, is gone; we are now upon the records of hiftory, among the merciless destroyers of our fpe

cies.'

Amazing! There are in our corps of Reviewers more perfons than one, who have probably lived as many years as Mr. Walker, and, we believe, the writer of this article can anfwer for them all, that they cannot charge their memory with this fpotless innocence, this generous fympathy, which" but yefterday" informed every English breaft. What does Mr.

* Vide Review for May laft. vol. 3. p. 371,

Walker

Walker think of our generous fympathy for the poor Irith, which Swift has fo admirably displayed in his Drapier's Letters? What does he think of the fupremacy of this country over America, fo favourite à tenet of Englishmen, fo strenuously afferted by the hero of "yefterday," the celebrated Lord Chatham?

The patriotifm however, or, to fpeak more properly perhaps, the nationality of our Author, does not ftop even here. Having made the panegyric of the British nation, he tells us of the French, that they are our "implacable foc; " "an invader, whom a long-foftered enmity and jealoufy will “teach to riot in our mifery." This is theer mifrepresentation. Without attributing to them a very elevated degree of virtue it may be obferved, that, not being like ourfelves, broken off from the reft of the world, and confined as it were to one enemy, that being placed in the midst of powers, all of whom they have been called in turn to encounter, they are incapable of that infulated and perpetual enmity, which "fympathy and the love of juftice" have permitted to the English. But to have done.

Whatever be the imperfections of our Author, quas humana parum cavit natura, he is certainly a moft extraordinary man. He is regarded by fome of the moft competent judges in this country, as, at leaft, one of its beft mathematicians. We do not recollect another inftance in the annals of literature, of the junction of this talent with that vigorous and fublime imagination that diftinguishes Mr. Walker. But this is not all. His ftyle is the most unmathematical, that can be conceived. From a mathematician we fhould at least expect accuracy, regularity and precifion. But the vigour of our author's genius continually betrays him into a neglect of the rules of analogy; and he fometimes lofes himself so completely in the exuberance of his ideas, as to become even unintelligible.

The fermon is prefaced with a dedication to Mr. Pitt, full of fpirited and manly advice. "Try," fays Mr. Walker, the ways of plain fenfe and fimple honefty; truft to public judgment, and public gratitude for fupport; court not parliamentary faction; nor fuffer the last refources of the nation to be wafted on the hirelings of office, whofe importance fprings only out of the weaknefs, or the wickednefs of the minifter". Whether this advice will be attended to by the chancellor of the Exchequer we pretend not here to decide.

R

ART.