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REVIEW. "Still pleased to praise, yet not afraid to blame."—Pope."-
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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.
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Art . I . —A Memoir of the Rev . T * N . Toller . By Robert Hall , MA . London . Published by Holdsworth . 8 vo . pp . 71 . 1824 . [ Concluded from p . 179 . ] IT may generally be expected , and indeed is not a little desirable , that
a biographer shall feel a cordial interest in the subject of his memoir . At the same time , he comes under a literary , and even a moral , obligation to abstain from needless ,
irrelevant and ill-considered digressions : nor should he so mingle his own prejudices and attachments , his own passions and opinions , with the events which he records , as to interrupt the current of his narrative . Let our
readers determine , whether , in the following paragraphs , this caution has been exercised : " — at the time of Mr . Toller ' s admission into the Daventry Academy , the
literary reputation of that seminary was higher than that of any among the Dissenters : but partly owing to a laxness in the terms of admission , and partly to the admixture of lay and divinity students , combined with the mode in which theology was taught , erroneous
principles prevailed much ; and the majority of such as were educated there , became more distinguished for their learning than for the fervour of their piety , or the purity of their doctrine . The celebrated Priestley speaks of the state of the academy , while he resided there , with great
complacency : nothing , he assures us , could be more favourable to the progress of free inquiry ; since both the tutors and students were about equally divided between the Orthodox and Arian systems . The arguments by which every possible modification of error is attempted
to be supported , were carefully marshalled in hostile array against the principles generally embraced ; while the Theological Professor prided himself on the steady impartiality with which he held the balance betwixt the contending systems , seldom or never interposing his
own opinion , and still less betraying the slightest emotion of antipathy to error , or predilection to truth . Thus a spirit of indifference to all religious principles was generated in the first instance , which naturally paved t \\ e way for the prompt reception of doctrines indulgent to the
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corruption and flattering to the pride of & depraved and fallen nature . " To affirm that Mr . Toller derived nc * injury from being exposed at so tender an age to this vortex of unsanctified spe- ? culation and debate , would be affirming
too much ; since it probably gave rise to a certain general manner of stating the peculiar doctrines of the gospel which attached chiefly to the earlier part of his ministry ; though it is equally certain that his mind , even when he left the academy ,
was so far imbued with the grand peculiarities of the gospel , that he never allowed himself to lose sight of the doctrine of the cross , as the only basis of human hope . "—Pp . 4—6 .
It is not often that in the same number of sentences we meet with so much inaccuracy of statement and conclusion . t € The literary reputation" of "the Daventry Academy , at the time of Mr . Toller ' s admission , " was not " higher than that of any among the Dissenters : " it was inferior to the
reputation of Warrington . ? Truth and candour require this concession . * ' In the course of our academical studies , " writes the celebrated Priestley , " there was then no provision made for teaching * the learned languages . Our course of lectures was
also defective in containing no lectures on the Scriptures , or on ecclesiastical history / ' ^ After Dr . Ashworth had presided , for a few years , over the academy , these defects were , in a certain degree , remedied ; so that its " literary reputation ' was , no doubt .
better , " at the time of Mr . Toller ' s admission . " Even , however , at that period , it was not such as to warrant the unqualified encomium passed by the biographer . If languages and
science form the constituent branches of a literary , or learned , education , the fame of Daventry must be placed on other ground . The institution was not , so far , pre-eminent even * among Dissenting academies : we
? See the instructive account of the fVarrington Academy , in the Eighth and Ninth Volume of the Monthly Repository . f Memoirs of Dr . Priestley . Written by himself . 8 vO . Vol . I . p . 21 .
Review. "Still Pleased To Praise, Yet Not Afraid To Blame."—Pope."-
REVIEW . " Still pleased to praise , yet not afraid to blame . "—Pope . " -
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), April 2, 1824, page 229, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2523/page/37/
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