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    do foT the &rst time , that though a saint in the closet , he was a man among men . A devout man , a heavenly-minded man , for the most part ; but still a man : suffering from importunate desires and fair-seeming temptations as we suffer ; feeling disappointment as we feel it ; indulging in innocent mirth , sported with by roving affections , overcome by failings like ours , and ^ wounded by unkind ness as deeply as ourselves . All these discoveries are

    • astonishing at first , and to those who have been accustomed to see him exactly as he has been presented , without forming a guess as to what might be behind the picture , such a revelation causes no little dismay ; but there may have been some more quick-sighted , who having discerned touches of sprightliness and lively wit in his sayings , remembering that he was the author of the best epigram in the English language , and recognizing in his intellectual character those qualities which are usually related to an exuberant fancy , will be more charmed than surprised at the new light in which

    the pious divine appears in the volume before us : and they will not wonder that a spirit so affectionate should be peculiarly susceptible of the passion of love . No one , perhaps , could so confidently anticip ate this last fact as not to be somewhat shocked at the display here afforded ; and none , we imagine , will approve the extent to which it has been carried ; but as we have been finding fault with partial representations , and with the suppression so common in these cases , we are far from complaining that a very full light has been cast upon the important years of Doddridge ' s life which are comprehended in the correspondence now published .

    It was his custom ( and to us it seems a very strange one ) to keep a copy of every letter he wrote , of business or friendship , trivial or important . His present editor has not suppressed a line , and we are thus presented with as perfect a picture of his mind , from his twentieth to his twenty-eighth year , as an extensive and remarkably copious correspondence can give . We cannot honestly or consistently wish that any material fact should have been suppressed , whether creditable or discreditable , or that any thing should have been added or taken away which could vary the lights and shades of a character which we wish to see as it is . But we cannot admit

    the necessity of publishing every line of every letter , as the editor prides himself on having done ; as a multiplicity of these lines contain fatiguing repetitions , perfectly natural and proper in a varied correspondence , but wearisome to a reader at the distance of more than a hundred years . Not a remembrance to an acquaintance , not a trifling commission is omitted ; and the bulk of the volumes is thus swelled to an extent which must injure their usefulness as much as their interest . Some of the love-letters might also

    have been kept back with great advantage , as two or three would answer the purpose of shewing how apt the Doctor was to fall in love , as well as a dozen . We are anxious , at the same time , to acknowledge that it is a great privilege to discover , on the most unquestionable authority and by adequate means , the perfect purity and soundness of a heart and mind thus laid open in the confidence of friendship . It is very delightful to recover from the painful surprise attendant on the exhibition of frailties and follies , by remembering

    . that we know all , and are released from the fear that something worse than frailty and folly was behind . Once having brought ourselves to be reconciled to them as attendants upon youth and humanity , we are at liberty to be charmed with the grace , the sprightliness , the innocent mirth which appear in most of the letters , the affectionate respect for his correspondents in others , and the rational appreciation of the objects of human pursuit , the depth of affectionate sympathy , the dignity of religious principle , which are

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    20 Doddridge ' s Correspondence and Dairy ,

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Jan. 2, 1830, page 20, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2580/page/20/