On this page
-
Text (1)
-
Untitled Article
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
-
-
Transcript
-
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
Untitled Article
works of genius ; one opinion , on all productions really worthy of remembrance , will be transmitted to the most distant periods of time . Thus , true merit , though originally perceived by few , necessarily outlives the successive idols of the crowd . Long duration consecrates the sentiment
which arose , at first , in the hearts of a small number , and forces acquiescence even from the unthinking . This assent , after all ,, is the mere natural deference of the weak to the strongthe respect paid by those of " the ignorant present time" to the voice of ages . The real lovers of those great
poets of our country , whose names all profess to revere , have not perhaps very greatly increased since the days when they were themselves candidates for public applause . * How few among the ** reading public" of the present " enlightened age , " know more than the names of Chaucer , of Spenser , and of our elder dramatists ! How small
a number of the admirers of Dr . Chalmers have given even a fair reading to the works of that immortal poet to whom they have dared to compare him ! They may have looked through Paradise Lost , because it seems to support tlieir religious system ; but did they ever luxuriate in the natural loveliness of Comus , or
inuse with a sobered joy over the classic melancholy of Lycidas ? The world in general profess to idolize Shakspeare ; but how small is the number who know any more of him than they gather from the exhibition of his plays ! Thus the applause conferred by the mass of mankind on the
most celebrated authors , arises from little more than the magic of a name * But while the real immortality 6 f a poet is in the hearts and affections of a few , the multitude will , at last , be compelled to profess a sympathy with the wise and great of other times . Thus real excellence is almost sure to
be lasting . It has a deep root in the feelings of its admirers , while the successive favourites of the populace pass away like the kings of BanquoV issue . It keeps its steady progress , undisturbed by the fluctuations of opinion and the caprices of fashion , until authority hae pronounced it sacred . It appeals to natural beauty and grandeur , vrftidh are the same in every age 5 and
Untitled Article
it must , therefore , live while these shall endure , and there shall remain hearts to love and revere them . Successive generations only add to its
fame an additional tribute , and shed over it a more venerable sanctitywhile numberless idols of the public have had their praises successively pronounced immortal , and successively forgotten .
We shall , therefore , proceed to examine the merits of the author before us , unbiassed by the amazing popularity which he at present enjoys . And this we shall endeavour to do by
inquiring first , what additional support he has given by his reasoning to our common faith ; and secondl y ^ what new stores of beauty and grandeur his imagination has beet * able to unfold .
1 . It is to be remembered , that the professed object of these Discourses is to defend the Christian religion * against an objection which the discoveries of modern astronomy have been supposed : to countenance . Since it has beet *
established that this world is but a small part of the universe ; that there are millions of spheres superior to it in size , which even we are able , by the assistance of art to discern ; it may have struck the contemplative mind , as something almost too marvellous toi
believe , that the Maker of these innu * merable globes , and all which inherit them , should , in order to save one of the least of them , take the nature o £ its guilty inhabitants , become bone 0 $ their bone , and flesh of their fleshy be tempted like as they are , live ;
among them in fashion an a man , in poverty and in suffering for thirty years ; be beaten , and reviled , and pufc . to death by his creatures in this com- , paratively insignificant portion of his >
own creation , and finally wear their nature united to his own through thewhole of his eternal existence : —now , T such as this objection is , it manifestly applies only to Christianity in its Tri ^ nitarian form * No one who admits thief
being of a God , and that he continues , to sustain the works of his hands * could * ever make the vastuess of the universe 1 an objection to Divine revelation ^ except on the supposition that it tau ght * the absolute Deity of Jeaufi . Sunel # it could excite no surprise that ha , in / whose hand are " - the issues of } ife ' - ^—» without whose Providence not a spar * -
Untitled Article
Review- —^ Chalmers ' s Astronomical Discourses . 419
-
-
Citation
-
Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), July 2, 1817, page 419, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2466/page/43/
-