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others, and was himself so chargeable with absurdity and inconsistency? Who railed so much against dogmatism, and was himself so great a dogmatist? A professed enemy to furious zeal and an uncharitable spirit, yet devoid himself of every sentiment of candour and humanity: A specious recommender of morality, yet fundamentally subverting every moral obligation :-Acknowledging the powerful and proper influence of religion, on the private and publick happiness of mankind, yet making it the business of his life and labours, to deface every principle of religion from the human mind ;-applauding the excellency, and subverting, as far as he was well able, the authority of christianity; affecting to adore the wisdom and goodness, yet attempting to destroy all government, and the very being of Providence; confessing the happiness and advantage of immortal hopes, yet contending with the zeal of a martyr, for destruction and eternal death; reasoning with the pride of a superior spirit, and I had almost said the faculties of an angel, to prove himself a brute; and whilst he affects to do honour to the nature and attributes of God against dogmatists and divines, has cancelled all the motives of reverence to his name, and of obedience to his authority.

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However, we must allow, that Lord Bolingbroke has dignity, has eloquence, wit, memory, spirit and sagacity in a very high degree. But if he has dignity, he has vanity; he has more eloquence than energy; his energy is sometimes rage, and he has more spirit than strength: His wit is unchastised and licentious: His memory is greater than his judgment--or his judgment is over-born by passion and prejudice, and his sagacity appears more distinguished than his sincerity. He is more a dogmatist than a reasoner-more a wit than a sage--an orator more than a philosopher, and a politician more than a moralist. His genuine profession was indeed politicks :-His pride made him a philosopher and his manners an infidel. His conversation had influenced his principles, as these were fostered by his pride; and through both you will see his poli tical sagacity, busy in deducing effects from their causes, and tracing the growing corruptions of christianity, through the successive intrigues of emperors and popes.

In our noble philosopher you observe not only the genius of the politician, but the form, the spirit, the tone, the ambition

of the minister of state, or more than the statesman.-When Antoninus condescended to visit the Portick, he brought not his quality and the imperial purple along with him, but shews himself in his speculations every where decent, modest, composed, resigned and humble. Lord Bolingbroke's quality gave him not confidence, but arrogance: the philosopher appears still in his robe of state; you see him proudly seated, or seating himself on a throne; far above the level of the vulgar world, dispensing his dictates in literature, in criticism, in philosophy and theology, with the tone of a master, or the haughtiness of a tyrant, and pouring scorn and contempt upon the learned of all ages, as no better than fools, knaves or madmen. However on the subject of politicks, we must allow, that addressing himself to his noble friends, and the publick, he has preserved more sobriety, decency, and dignity, than in his` other writings.-His wit, on other occasions, and in general, is strong rather than fine, and daring and rash, rather than polite or delicate. It fears nothing, and spares nothing, however sacred in the estimation of other men. It enters not the mind gently, and like light without noise, and with calmness and silence, but like a whirlwind, or a clap of thunder, which startles and affrights you. It is short and smart, rather than weighty, and has generally both the turn and conciseness of an epigram, after the manner and style of his favourite historian.—It is devoid of humour, pleasantry, and delicacy, and consists mainly in a magisterial sneer, a blunt, a frank and jolly rudeness, bordering upon, or of the same stamp with the bawdry of Montaigne, or a coarse and unsavoury joke, by which he shocks the modest, distastes the elegant, offends the virtuous, and scandalizes the religious.

Lord Bolingbroke was a genius and a wit: The different parts he sustained of a statesman and a scholar, of a politician and a philosopher-the various branches of knowledge he attempted, and made so considerable a proficiency in, can leave us no room to doubt of his abilities; and it is more a wonder, that he performed so much, than that he understood no more in the literary way: His attempt at general knowledge led him, as it must do every man, into gross ignorance of particulars. As the traveller, who would, within the short space of human life, give us a perfect description of all the parts of the

world, their inhabitants, and various productions, must give but a very imperfect account of any; Where he has staid the longest, and employed the greatest industry and accuracy, there we may expect he will be best qualified for a teacher; and for this reason we justly prefer lord Bolingbroke's politi cal, to his philosophical writings. The politician preached well, because he had been versed in practice, and knew by expe, rience, as well as theory, the principles of his science. The philosopher never practised, or his practice was such, as led him into prejudices against the best philosophy. He makes many a just observation on men and manners; for these, especially of the worst sort, he had studied. But religious truth and spiritual enjoyment seem to have been out of his province; and here he frequently censures what he does not understand, and condemns in the lump, what he had never experienced, or impartially examined. What contradicted his passions and prejudices, revolted his reason; and the real foundation of his mortal averson to morality and religion, and of his preferring naturalism to both, was their excellency, which far transcend, ed his conceptions, and were of a note too high for a corporeal philosopher to relish; and what had no effect upon himself, he would not allow to have any existence.-Experiment was the test of natural, and thence lord Bolingbroke's experience was made the test of moral and religious truth, which as he could neither see nor feel, he would not know or believe. He could find no appearance of consistency in an author, who had pub, lished a "Commentary on the Epistles of St. Paul," and a treatise of the "Reasonableness of Christianity :"* The cause is obvious: he had pre-conceived an opinion of the inconsistency of the master Christ and his Apostles. An inconsistency indeed there was, not in the notions or writings of either, which he does not so much as attempt to prove, but with his own prejudices and passions.

Yet religion, if it could not reform, served to reproach him ; Revenge was natural: he would discredit and destroy that, which, if admitted, would discredit and destroy him. Hence the philosopher's unrelenting malice against the Bible, in the room of which, he presents the world with the first philosophy;

VOL. X.

* Philosophical Works, Vol. II. p. 132.

21

But the remarkable difference between the sacred writers and lord Bolingbroke, whom it is no injustice to class in the foremost rank of those, whom we literally style profane, will, I hope, still preserve the credit of the one, and repay with just contempt the other.

The more I read lord Bolingbroke, the more I find myself convinced of the futility of his reasoning, the ostentation of his learning, the vanity of his head, and the corruption of his heart. His falsehoods are sometimes so bold and plain, that you admire his effrontery :-His paradoxes are so novel, that you smile at his vanity ;-though his fraudulent chicane and sophistry are sometimes so palpable, that we cannot restrain our indignation and contempt for the man, who could so wilfully, or easily impose upon himself, and attempt so grossly to impose upon others.

In pretence he is modest,-in fact more confident and assuming, than any author he has censured: No man has affected more to humble human pride,-no man ever gave greater proofs of human vanity :-In words indeed he expresses a diffidence of himself, but he has at the same time shewn a thorough contempt of all mankind :-He professes his zeal for truth, whereas he had plainly nothing so much in view, as victory; and he has displayed his learning, and extended his reading, as other conquerors have done their arms, with no other view, but to deck himself with the spoils of the vanquished.

His style and manner are his peculiar glory: it is here indeed he triumphs; he is generally elegânt, splendid and happy in his diction; he may seem only too ambitious of ornament for a philosopher, whose dress should be his least concern or recommendation: and after all the applause that has been given, or can be demanded to his excellencies, as a writer, it must be insisted upon, that he frequently dilates so much, that he is confused; he explains till he is obscure, he repeats till he is odious, he blackens till he is infamous,-he is inconsistent to the most palpable absurdity, and pompous to a most ridiculous vanity.

In short, more affected modesty, more real assurance ;more shew of knowledge, more instances of ignorance ;—more slender premises, more positive conclusions-more assumption

1811.]

REMARKS ON ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS, &C.

16.3

and less proof-more declamation against fraud and imposition, more real imposture-more vehement invectives againt prejudice, more glaring proofs of passion;-more easy credulity, more daring infidelity-more pretence to precision and accuracy, more chicane and sophistry ;-more parade of argument, more inconsistency;-more affectation to defend God's laws, more real impiety;-more genius, more wit, more futility and folly, I never met with united in one writer, pagan or christian.

REMARKS ON ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS OF THE ROMAN POETS.

No. XIII.

JUVENAL.

Quicquid agunt homines, votum, timor, ira, voluptas,
Gaudia, discursus, nostri est farrago libelli.

Juv. Sat. I. 85.

HUMILITY does not appear to have been a pre-eminent virtue among the poets and orators of Rome. It is probable that Juvenal had his share of vanity, and did not intend that others should form a mean estimate of the work of his own hands, when, after describing its contents, he figuratively concludes, nostri est farrago libelli. More than ordinary assurance and heroism were manifested in seizing that high ground of satire, which he took and occupied ; and in contending with such firmness and perseverance against the reigning vices of his age and country.* In his description of the excesses that were prevalent in the weak and wicked reign of Domitian, he has kept nothing back. His reader would almost assert that he had been a spectator, though a disgusted one, of the most disgraceful scenes at the games, and the stews, and the baths; that he had his spies and informers, by night and by day, in every family and street, and in every place of publick resort. Whether his freedom of description is calculated to drive wickedness from ·· its secret holds, or to reform publick lewdness and indecency,

* Juvenal, as well as Persius, is thought to have leaned towards the severe doctrines of the stoicks. He cites Zeno as the author of true philophy, and contrasts the pure instructions of the stoick, with the enormities which he describes: Melius nos Zenonis praecepta monent.

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