heretofore a full admission into the Church and the Library, and the lowest scenes I have ever yet visited have been those of the book-shop or stall; but now I am admitted into cottages-even the meanest garrets and night-cellars receive me. But be not distressed at this my apparent degradation: indeed, I consider it as a higher privilege than any to which I have ever yet been admitted, even in the days of my early glory. I have appeared before kings, I have been commended by prelates, I have been consulted by divines; but the most gratifying and affectionate reception I have ever found, has been in these places, so contemptible to the eye of the world. I am especially acceptable to the poor, the humble, the unlearned. I am just after his taste: he can understand me when a sermon has been heard in vain; and when lying on the bed of sickness and death, I have often shed on his drooping spirits the radiance of Divine consolation and hope.

These good friends have not only made me acceptable to the cottages, but they have introduced me into the family circle of middle life *; and I now make a respectable appearance at the breakfast table, even by the side of my grandfather. Oh sir! what a privilege is this! and how foreibly does it remind me of the happy days of my youth! To see the whole family assembled, with one consent, in the presence of that gracious God, whose past mercies engage their gratitude and are hailed as earnests of mercies yet to come, listening to the words of my grandfather, which I am sometimes permitted to explain, and closing the whole with prayer and praise! These are scenes which light up my dear mother's eyes with heavenly comfort, and give her reason to anticipate the arrival of better days.

But do not suppose, that, because

The first twelve Homilies have been bound in one 'neat volume, and have been introduced at family prayer.

I am become admissible to scenes, of more private life, I am necessarily degraded from that respectable appearance which I formerly maintained in public. My kind friends have also provided for me most amply in this respect. Through their assistance, I have been presented to the world both in a more correct and a more splendid form than I have ever yet assumed. Every parish has been invited again to receive me, and many have accepted the invitation; and I anticipate the time with plea sure, when a particular spot shall be assigned me in each church, as well as to all the other branches of our family, and I shall again unite with them in conducing to the instruction and improvement of the people.

I must also add, sir, that through the recommendation of these friends I have again been admitted into many pulpits. I must indeed confess, that these favours have usually been conferred on me in country congregations; but if my friends will not relax their efforts in my cause, I do not see why I may not resume my old place before the more polished audience of the town: nay, pardon my presumption, sir, I am not altogether without hope of being again admitted to my yet more dignified station in the cathe dral.

Such, sir, have been the more direct benefits I have received. But I should be wanting in gratitude if I did not mention one or two advan tages of a more indirect kind which have accrued to me through the medium of the same exertions,

The first of these is, that one of the great Universities of the land is again ushering me into notice der its sanctiont. This favour it has often conferred on me before,

un

* A handsome Folio Edition of the

Homilies has been published by the Society.

+ A new edition of the Homilies has just proceeded from the Clarendon press.

and especially about twelve years since: I cannot, however, but befieve, that the present renewed instance of attention has been caused by that more extensive knowledge of my claims which the exertions of my kind friends have produced.

Another indirect advantage, which I have received from this celebrity, is, that I have attracted the notice of a certain venerable lady, who for the last century has professed to promote Christian Knowledge, more especially among those who are attached to our famiTy. Could you suppose it possible, sir, that this venerable matron, professing the most devoted attachment to my mother, should have, till lately, wholly excluded me from her notice? Is it not singular, that I should be the only one of our family thus contemptuously rejected by one whose long and loud professions of attachment to our house I believe, after all, to be sincere? My grandfather, as well as my eldest sister, have received her marked attention. My second sister, indeed, though she had usually appeared in my eldest sister's train, has sometimes been severed from her without any apology or compensation. But you know not how sorely these dear relatives have mourned my entire separation from them; and this, sir, with but too much reason: for as they were not the exclusive objects of the old lady's regard, she compelled them sometimes to associate with those who were most unworthy substitutes for me. Would that I might hope that she would permit me to supersede that swarm of aliens who have usurped my place in her esteem, by giving me the appearance and the celebrity which others have done! This would gladden every member of our house.

The last ground, sir, on which I shall felicitate both you and my self is, the general attention which is now paid to me. I challenge attention, nor is that attention de

nied: indeed, I enjoy it in a degree of which, sir, neither you, nor my good friends whose aim it is to recommend me to notice, are perhaps fully aware. Many now consult me who never thought of me before, as I am of easy access, and appear in such a variety of forms; many find me unexpectedly in their company, to whom I was before a stranger; and many, becoming slightly acquainted with me, are induced to solicit a more intimate fellowship. Only three years have elapsed since I have as it were risen from the tomb of oblivion, and surely what has been already done during that period is no unfavourable earnest of what may yet be done. Let me entreat you, then, to continue to advocate my cause. Look back on the days of my youth, and consider the holy fruits I then produced. Reflect on the blessed barmony which then subsisted in our family, and which the prevailing neglect of me has interrupted and destroyed; and while you reflect, recommend to your numerous friends the case of Your still aggrieved, but

not hopeless servant,'

THE BOOK OF HOMILIES.

To the Editor of the Christian Observer. My attention has lately been so much occupied by the bad effects of the present universal and most ruinous practice of novel reading, that I take the medium of your excellent miscellany to give my sentiments on the subject, in hopes that they may influence some to consider or to desist from so dangerous an amusement. Novels have been reprobated by the moralist, and ridiculed by the satirist; but with how little success may be estimated by the increasing numbers both of books and of readers. The small effect, however, of the means employed against them, is greatly owing to the slightness of the reprobation, and the general nature of the ridicule employed,

The mania for novel reading is become so universal, that (so far from disavowing the practice) our ignorance of these productions of the day would almost disqualify us for general conversation. The satirists of this species of composition have, therefore, confined themselves too much to those extravagant, outward effects of romance, which might, indeed, appear, were there no previous notions, no customs of society, and no desire of estimation in the human mind; but the young are so effectually guarded by circumstances from the extravagant display of their feelings, that they are apt to fancy, when they can acquit themselves of such effects, that their line of reading has had no pernicions effects at all. And here the moralist has erred as widely as the satirist, from the same cause: he states only generalities, and reprebends only faults from which novel readers are debarred both by interest and opinion; instead of appealing to the heart and conscience, which would, I am convinced, give a clear verdict in his favour. We may find many plausible arguments to defend a pursuit which we wish not to relinquish; and as it is difficult to point out or to prove any individual instance of their mischievous effects, the novel reader stands undaunted, and even boasts of the pure morality and exalted sentiments inculcated in his -favourite publications. But when a direct appeal is made to the human heart, when their fatal effect in enervating the mind is felt to be what is described, the question assumes a different aspect. l'appeal, then, to my fair countrywomen themselves for an answer. I appeal to the answer which their own hearts will make, when I state it, not as a question of argument, but of experience; not to shew the ingenuity of their defence, but the truth of their confessions. I would ask, then, what moral sentiment has been strengthened, what duty

better performed, what object of their life has been favourably influenced, by these productions? On the contrary, have not even those finer sensibilities, which yet linger in fallen humanity, been perverted from their moral tendency; and, by a polluting and mortifying process, changed to that selfish and morbid irritability of character so agonizing to the possessor, so intolerable to those around him? Were I called upon to name at once the most fruitful source both of individual and national vice, and the most convincing evidence of both, I should name novels, as at once cause and effect. Nor is it merely the immoral and irreligious romance I would stigmatize-these soon procure their own condemnation ;—but it is the attempt to pourtray common life, which preserves the likeness, but divests it of all its sorrows, or, rather, of all that dull mediocrity so disgusting to the young, instead of which they would willingly encounter all the elegant distress and interesting misfortunes of the heroine. It is this continual feeding of the imagination in which the great danger of novels consists; for thousands have fallen, or been rendered miserable through life, from the silent, unsuspected influence of a raised imagination and perverted affections, for one whose understanding has been convinced by the most ingenious sophistry. The imagination, once deceived, becomes itseif the deceiver; and instead of embellishing life, as it is falsely represented to do, it heightens only imaginary and unattainable enjoyments, and transforms life itself into a dream, the realities of which are all made painful and disgusting, from our false expectations and erroneous notions of happiness. By feeding continually this craving imagination, novels become a constant, solitary source of enjoyment,→→a private dissipation, which in some measure supplies that vacuum in the mind and heart which the dead

mess of all the better faculties and feelings occasions. They preoccupy the mind, and provide a substitute for that internal peace and enjoyment which arises from a true knowledge of ourselves and of the world, and give us, instead, a fictitious acquaintance with both. Virtue, religion itself, becomes a mere play of the imagination, influencing neither the heart nor conduct. I have seldom known or heard of persons with a strong imagination wholly sceptical in religion; but yet are they rarely, if ever, deeply influenced by its doctrines and precepts. The imagination, accustomed to act, substitutes itself, and its vain schemes, for sober experience and practical duty; and religious impressions either rest there, or painful will be the realities and the mental distresses which must dislodge such a guest. An eminent philosophical writer ascribes to works of fiction the power of exciting talents in early youth, whicirin after-life ripen into all the higher powers of the understanding: but this supposes our na ture to be one which extracts all the good from every thing, and leaves the dross behind. That exciting strongly so dangerous a faculty as imagination, is neither favourable to human happiness nor virtue, may be proved from the examples of those poets, and of those females, who are most under its influence; and even the illustration of his own remarks which this writer adopts, is fortunately a most forci ble confutation of his theory. The emotions of admiration which Sir Joshua Reynolds might be expected to feel on first beholding the Vatican, le both imagines himself, and enforces by a quotation from the poet. But here the philosopher has been equally fanciful with the poet; as, from Sir Joshua's own testimony, we know that his pre-conceived notions, that is, imagination, having exercised itself previously upon these great works, his first emotions were those of

extreme disappointment. This ma terial difference between his own statement and the reality is noticed in a note; but it is added, that still the fact was even more favourable than the fiction to the argument, viz. that the higher the cultivation of the intellectual powers, the higher our enjoyment from the fairest works of nature and of art, I agree entirely in this; but cannot allow it to apply in the case described, as Sir Joshua's senti ments did not change from the improvement of his taste; but, merely as his former pre-conceived notions wore away, he became sensible of the excellence of what he behield. His taste might, and no doubt did improve, but not so rapidly as the philosopher sup poses, as he mentions his own disappointment, on seeing his earlier works, to find how little time and an improved taste had done. To the philosopher and man of science, whose ruling pursuit is fame, the use of imagination, which the work alluded to prescribed, may be agreeable, and can hardly be hurtful, as a relaxation from severe study; as an amusement, not an object. But with the bulk of mankind it is far otherwise. To them, imagination becomes their ruling object; it increases that tendency of the mind to look forward, to forecast its own lot, and so to provide for its own continual disappointment and misery. It is this very tendency of the human heart to expect and to embellish the future, which makes us receive all the blessings of life with the coldness of ingratitude: the understanding reluctantly assents, while the heart inwardly repines under its own disappointed expectations." It is not till a deep sense of our total unworthiness, till the heart truly utters "behold I am vile," that the bounties and long-suffering of God are truly felt and acknowledged. The book, therefore, or the preacher, which first attempts to convince us of this, acts upon

the truest principles of philosophy, and touches the true strings of the human heart. The pleasing retrospections of memory, enlivened and endowed by mental associations, and divested by time of all those painful little casualties or feelings which perhaps at the moment took much from that pleasure which we now feel, and which the degree of melancholy excited by reflecting on the past refines and exalts, is an enjoyment which I deem as salutary as pleasing. But it cannot, surely, be compared with the pleasures of imagination, whose province it is to forecast and combine ideal expectations with apparent realities; to divest the future of all those pangs which yet we must endure when we pass through this future. That power, therefore, of forgetting what is painful, which in memory constitutes our principal enjoyment, in imagination becomes the source of all our misery. But whilst the philosopher, the poet, and even the moralist, call us to the exercise of imagination, they seem to conceive it to be wholly employed on the external works of nature; to exercise itself in composing ideal landscapes; and the human mind to be a mere magic- lantern, through which those beautiful pic tures are to pass. This might be the case, were any one power of the understanding unconnected with those of the heart; but the imagination is so peculiarly blended with the heart and affections, that its illusions are powerfully, if not indelibly,transmitted and fixed there. And is it possible, that a vain and selfish creature like man, can so abstract his wishes and affections from himself, his own worldly wishes and anticipations, that he can contemplate those scenes as mere ornaments, those expectations as wholly visionary, which his fancy presents to him? Does he not, on the contrary, so identify himself with every imagination, that his hopes are too extravagant to

repeat; and his disappointments, however bitter to himself, yet he knows would appear almost insane to others. If Dr. Johnson could confess, that were his waking reveries told, they would appear little short of the extravagancies of Dou Quixote, what must be the intluence of imagination upon undisciplined minds, equally freed from the restraints of high principle, and of necessity, which often proves a good guardian when better motives are wanting? But the truth is, we are not so constituted as to be unaffected with any, even the simplest, influence; and however the contrary may be contended for in argument, the heart contradicts the doctrine. We cannot, nor would it be desirable that we should, read continually a display of human passions and feelings, and remain wholly exempt from their contagion: no; we cannot view the war of passion with the cold and critic eye of an artist, who views the dying agonies of his fallen men only to imitate them on canvas with nicer skill. Let not the analyser of human passions and vices imagine that he can rise uncontaminated from the contemplation: and if he could, would it not only prove that the frequent critical dissection had destroyed in himself every good, every sympathizing feeling? The whole of this universal mania for novels, has not yet fully developed itself. Wait till another generation rises, formed by the novel readers of the day, and the standard of morals will then be perceived decidedly to have fallen. At present, the good principles once instilled, in some degree yet influence, and are yet appealed to, in conduct and morals. But the standard is rapidly falling in the female world, and the value for mere talents rises in proportion as the solid respect for virtue declines. May we not even ascribe to the influence of those baneful productions the present degraded state of our stage, itself a species, and perhaps the worst species, of novels-4 Bi