him of his own defects, and as thefe qualities were frequently employed with fuccefs against his favourite meafures. We rather fufpect, that his duplicity is more confpicuous in the duke of Monmouth's journal, than his versatility in the prefent tranfaction. There can be little' doubt of the revengeful malice of the unfeeling James; yet he muft have felt, when he received the anfwer from the father of lord Ruffel, to whom he had applied in his diftrefs. I am too old and feeble to affift your majefty; but I once had a fon who could have affited you, but he is no more,' Revenge could fearcely have wifhed for any thing more.complete. The fubject has rather drawn us from the play; we muft now return to it.

We have already obferved, that it is nearly an exact narration of the hiftorical facts: the 'characters too are drawn from history with fidelity. Perhaps that of Cavendish is adorned with.brighter colours than it deferved. We perceive only the warm admirer, the zealous friend, the active difinterested affiftant of Ruffel; the infidel and the libertine fcarcely appear, except from the dying advice of the hero, which is copied, we believe, from the Journal in the General Dictionary. The fact is certainly mentioned by Burnet. As our author has willingly put on the fetters of hiftory, it is not furprising that he fometimes feels their weight. Historical tragedies are feldom generally interefting. They want the charm of novelty, and are frequently incapable of the ornaments of fiction. Perhaps too the enthufiafm of patriotifm is not fo generally diffused, as to bring the diftrefs home to our own business and bofoms.' The events of other times, in which we are only remotely connected in appearance, though our dearest interefts may be really involved in them, are feldom objects which particularly affect us. If we cannot make the diftrefs our own, or if it do not approach ourselves, we cry indeed that it is pitiful, wondrous pitiful, and fall afleep. This has been the general confequence: the fault is too deeply rooted in our natures to be eafily eradicated; fo that the prefent play may fhare the fame fate. We remarked too, in the former tragedy, that the language, though polifhed, was not highly poetical: in the prefent play it is lefs fo; our author feems to have trufted to the genuine diftrefs which the events might occafion.

We fhall felect a portion of the parting feene between ford and lady Ruffel. The magnanimity which the lady difplays is fupported by hiftory; yet we learn, from the fame fource, that her feelings were too fwelling to permit fo long, and fo particular a dialogue. The fcene is however in many refpects exquisitely written, and deferves particular attention.

• Raffel. My love! I will not to thy care commend
Thy little orphans; for an angel's fight.
Cannot in tender vigilance furpafs

The anxious mother, who furvives to fhield.
The infant pledges of our chafte affection!
No, let me prefs a charge upon thy memory,
Where I most fear thy failure, thy dear felt ;
Regard thy precious health, as the poffeffion
That I enjoin thee to preferve and cherish.

་་

Lady Ruffel. Thou guide and guardian of thy Rachel's

life!

Though the dark grave muft hide thee from my eyes,

Thy gentleness, thy love, thy truth, thy virtues,
Will till, like faithful and protecting spirits,

Be ever prefent to my thought, and give
My grief-dejected mind new power to rear
The little idols of my widow'd heart.

Ruffel. They will have all, that youth requites, in thee;

The gentle friend, the fond, yet firm director,
Whofe fteady kindness, and rever'd perfection, .
Makes difcipline delight: their minds from thine
May copy all the virtues; chiefly two,

Of prime diftinétion, Truth and Fortitude,
The pillars of all human excellence!

I blefs thee now for many years of fondness;

But moft for that fublimity of love,

Which has difdain'd to make my fate more bitter

By abject vain complaints and weak'ning tears.

Lady Ruffel. Refrain, I pray you, from this tender praise;

It will o'erthrow the firmness you commend,

And 'waken all the woman in my bofom.

Ruffel. Dear Rachel! as my boy approaches manhood,

Teach him to look upon his father's death

Rather as noble than unfortunate!

Tell him, that, dying by no juft decree,
I deem'd it ftill a happinefs that Heaven
Made me a native of this generous ifle,

Which, though now darken'd by a tranfient cloud,
Is doom'd, I truft, to be the radiant throne,
Of fettled Liberty and stedfast Faith;
Early infufe into his youthful fpirit,

As the fare ground-work of all manly virtue,
A fenfe of civil and religious freedom;
Give to his pliant mind true English temper,
Teach him to fear no Being but his God,

And to love nothing earthly more than England.
Enter an Attendant.

" Lady Ruffel. Inhuman hafte !-Do thou, great God!
proportion

The patience of thy fervants in distress
To the infernal malice of their foes!
Since thy unquestionable will permits
Such innocence to perifh on the scaffold,
Send the most foothing of thy heavenly spirits
To wait, unfeen, upon the dying martyr!
Take from this hideous form of Violent Death
His horrible attendants, Pain and Anguish!

Ruffel. Or my kind love! that quick undreaded stroke
So foon to fever this frail mortal frame,

Is but a feather's printless touch, compar'd
To this my deepest wound, which now I feel
In tearing thus my faithful heart from thine!
Each moment that we linger but increases
Our mutual pangs; then take in this embrace
My latest benediction!

Lady Ruffel.

O, farewell!

Ruffel. Yet a laft kifs !-and for our little ones, Bear thou to each this legacy of love!

Now we must part !-Farewell!

'Lady Ruffel.

Farewell for ever!"

To the account we have given of these plays, we need not add any general remarks. If they do not establish Mr. Hayley's character as a dramatic writer, yet we ought not to decide from the prefent fpecimen, for reafons which we have already given. They certainly fix his claim to a correct judgment, and a polifhed tafte; to a feeling heart, pure patriotism, and extensive benevolence.

Letters from the Archdeacon of St. Albans', in Reply to Dr. Priestley. With an Appendix, containing port Strictures on Dr. Priestley's Letters by an unknown Hand. 8vo. 350 Robfon.

TH

HE principal fubject of Dr. Horfley's charge was a criticalreview of that part of the Hiftory of the Corruptions of Christianity, which relates to the doctrine of the Trinity in the three first ages. The review confifted of two parts; a fummary of Dr. Priestley's account of the rife and progrefs of the trinitarian doctrine; and a view of the evidence by which his narrative is fupported, confiiting of nine felect fpecimens of the particular proofs of which the body of that evidence is compofed. By thefe nine fpecimens the archdeacon fupported his general charge of the inaccuracy of the doctor's narrative, and, as he is pleafed to exprefs himself, his fufficiency in these fubjects.' Dr. Priestley, in a series of

in

letters,

letters *, endeavoured to vindicate his arguments and affertions against the animadverfions of his opponent; but, in this publication, the latter fupports his allegatious, redoubles his accufations, and maintains his ground with additional zeal. In the following paffage he states the doctrine, or the creed, which he embraces.

I maintain that the three Perfons are one Being; one by mutual relation, indiffoluble connection, and gradual fubordination: so strictly one, that any individual thing in the whole world of matter and of fpirit, prefents but a faint shadow of their unity. I maintain that each perfon by himself is God; because each poffeffes fully every attribute of the divine nature. But I maintain that thefe Perfons are all included in the very idea of a God; and that for that reafon, as well as for the identity of the attributes in each, it were impious and abfurd to say, there are three Gods. For to fay there are three Gods, were to fay there are three Fathers, three Sons, and three Holy Ghofts. I maintain the equality of the three Perfons in all the attributes of the divine nature. I maintain their equality in rank and authority, with respect to all created things, whatever relations or differences may fubfift between themselves. Differences there must be, left we confound the Perfons; which was the error of Sabellius. But the differ ences can only confift in the perfonal properties, left we divide the fubftance, and make a plurality of independent Gods. It will not put me out of conceit with the arguments, which I have brought to fupport thefe facred truths, or with the illuf trations which I have attempted, that you pronounce them equal in abfurdity to any thing in the Jewish cabala (of which I fufpect you hardly know enough to judge with certainty of this pretended refemblance) or that you imagine, when you read me, that you are reading Peter Lombard, Thomas Aquinas, or Duns Scotus. Perhaps, fir, though a proteftant divine, may fometimes condescend to look into the Summa, and may be lefs mortified, than you conceive, with this comparison. It was well meant, however, and is one of thofe general depreciatory infinuations, which are apt to catch the vulgar, and may ferve the purpose of a reply upon any occafion, when a real reply is not to be framed.'

I

It has been generally prefumed and afferted by unitarian writers, that Chriftians for upwards of three hundred years after Christ, till the council of Nice, were generally unita. rians, that is, held a fyftem of doctrine, refpecting the Deity, agreeable to what is now called either the Arian or Socinian hypothefis.

But among a variety of other arguments, in opposition to this prefumption, our learned author has produced what he

Crit. Rev. Jan. 1784.

calls

calls a pofitive proof, that the divinity of Chrift was the belief of the firft Chriftians.' We fhall lay it before our readers at full length.

I am to produce a pofitive proof, that the divinity of our Lord was the belief of the very first Christians. Give me leave then to ask your opinion of that book, which hath been current in the church from the very firft ages, under the title of The Epistle of St. Barnabas. It is quoted you know by Clemens Alexandrinus, not to mention later writers, as the compofition of Barnabas the apoftle. Take no alarm, fir-I fhall not claim a place for it in the canon. I fhall not contend that any apoftle was its author. I am well perfuaded of the contrary. But the reafons which perfuade me, are fuch as ought to have no weight with you, if you will be true to your own principles. The ftyle is indeed embarraffed and undignified; the reafoning is often unnatural and weak. Texts of the Old Teftament are drawn by violence to allegorical fenfes, which are inadmiffible; as when Mofes, encouraging the Ifraelites to take poffeffion of the promised land, is fuppofed to exhort the Jews to embrace the Chriftian religion; and in the defcription of Canaan, as a land flowing with milk and honey, the land is our Saviour's body, the milk and honey are the doctrines and promises of the Gofpel. The attempt to find evangelical types in the Jewish rites is injudicioufly conducted. The effential part of a rite, which was of divine appointment, is often fuperficially treated; and the fuppofed fenfe of fubordinate ceremonies, and thofe very often of human inftitution, and of no fignificance, is purfued with a trifling exactness: thus in the expofition of the red heifer, and in that of the fcape goat, the ftrefs is principally laid upon circumftances about which the divine law is filent. But what may least of all be reconciled with the apoftolic fpirit, is that ftrange cabaliftic procefs, by which the name of Jefus and the cross are drawn from the number of Abraham's armed domeftics; and the great credit which the author gives himself for fuch difcoveries. My notion of inspiration will not allow me to believe, that an inspired apostle could be the writer of such a book, and be vain of having written it. Your principles leave you at liberty to be lefs fcrupulous. You, who have convicted St. Paul of reafoning to precarious conclufions, may eafily admit that St. Barnabas, the companion of St. Paul, might reafon from false premifes. You, who think that one apostle" has trained his imagination very much" to find analogies between the rites of Judaifm and fomething in Christianity, may eafily fuppofe that another apoftle from the fame motive, a defire of reconciling the Jews to Chriftianity, may have ftrained much more to make the analogy much more complete. I can therefore fee no reason why you should not receive what is called the Epistle of St. Barnabas, extravagant and nonfenfical as it is in many parts, for the genuine work of Barnabas the apostle.

But