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of his intellect . - Unhappily , his ill-regulated , fancy betrayed him Hot seldom into paradoxes while sin excessive self confidence , which perhaps took its vise , in part , irom the peculiarities , if we may not
pronounce them the defects , of his education , made him absolutely impatient of contradiction . These qualities are visible enough in his works « as they likewise are in his
correspondence ; nor have they feeen redeenied even by his very superior erudition , sagacity and independence . With such qualities , it was neither possible nor ( it that he should be a favourite , in
general ,, with his contemporaries ; &nd ? for the same reason , he can-Dot be a favourite with posterity . Such were his faculties and attainments ,, that his name and
writings can scarcely die : but both have sunk in estimation ; and it is at least problematical , whether t&e&e letters < 4 to one of . hrs
ficiPTwis * avjII enhance his fame * . » If we have suffered any disappointment in reading this volume , it is because we meet with fewer specimens of the writer ' s characteristic ability and eloquence than of his literary contemptuousness and insolence . We shall select
or refer to some passages which do not disgrace him , previously to our bringing together instances of the abuse which he so plentifully dispenses . The following extract relates to the earthquake at Lisbon :
• The affair of Lisbon has made men tremble , as well as the continent shake from one end of Europe * to another ; from Gibraltar to the Highlands of Scotland . To suppose these desolations the scourge of Heaven for human impieties , is a dreadful reflection ; and yet to suppose ourselves in a forlorn and fatherless world , i *> ten times a more fri ghtful
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consideration . In the first case , we may reasonably hope to avoid our destruction by the amendment of our manner ! ix * the latter , we are kept incessantl y a-1 armed by the blind rage of warring elements . " The relation of the captain of a vessel , to the Admiralty , as Mr . Yorke
told me the story , has something very striking in it . He lay off Lisbon on this fatal -first of November , preparing to hoist sail for England . He looked towards the city in the morning , -which
gave the promise of a fine day , and saw that proud metropolis rise above the waves , flourishing in wealth and plenty , and founded on a rock that promised a port * s eternity , at least , to its grandeur . He looked an hour after , and saw thr
city involved in flames , attd sinking in thunder . A sight more awful mortal e } r es could not behold on this side the day of doom /* ( pp ^ 2 O 3 > ^ 04 . ) We should also copjirfram pp . 152 , 153-, a paragrap h * on foreign , travel ^ bad it not been inserted ii > Bishop Kurd ' s dialogues on the
same subject . In an observation which he makes on dramatic poets , he furnishes an example of criticism , at once just lind exquisite : * '* " Amongst the several sophisms of Plutarch ' s compaiison between atheism
and superstition , this is . one : where he speaks of the actual ( not potential ) effects of each , instead of considering what atheistical and superstitious men have ever done since there were two such characters , he only tells us what are the natural effects of two such passions in
the abstract , simple and unmixed , whicft they never are in the carfcrete ; and would persuade us that what such simple passions naturally produce , they do produce in those men in whom they ar « found to be th , e reigning passions . In this consists the sophistry ; but I rather suppose he imposed unknowingly on
himself , than designedly on his reader . And this I propose to illustrate , in a note , by the conduct of dramatic poets , who , instead of drawing the covetous m&h > the extravagant man , draw simp le avarice and extravagance unmixed ; a ' mi there being no such thing in nature , their drawings become unnatural ; monsters
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333 jRetffcw .: —Warburtoris Letters *
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), July 2, 1809, page 392, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1738/page/38/
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