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temptation and wretchedness which makers and enforcers of creeds ( which have a more deliberate awfulness of asseveration than oaths )
inflict on * persons of deeper thought and keener feelings . 6 perhaps we shalL Jbe told by the friend of Porson , on the authority of the biographer of that great scholar and divine , —for we think he will hardly dare to vouch the assertion by quoting his own acquaintance with the secret mind of Porson ,- ^—that the Cambridge professor , though he gave up the text of the three Heavenly Witnesses , held his orthodoxy with his professorship . The Bishop of London is by nature a dry joker , whatever he may be by high-church
policy and low-church feehng , and will relish that well-known ecclesiastical joke which says , ' * Hold your tongue , and you may hold any thing . " And respecting the hypothetical orthodoxy of Porson , even were the assertions of the biographer sanctioned by the assurance of the bishop , we would answer , pointing to the blotted pages of Porson ' s life , that though we cannot estimate Porson as a scholar quite as well as he is estimated by his episcopal friend , we know and feel that we can estimate Porson as a man much better than the biographer and the bishop have proved either that they can or that they will estimate him .
• Poor Porson ! it is impossible to speak of the three Heavenly Witnesses , of the Athanasian Creed , and of High-Church Orthodoxy , without thinking—and as we think so shall we speak—of that great scholar , that great divine , and that most unhappy man . Poor Porson ! the vastness of his learning and the acuteness of his judgement fitted him , so far as these qualifications could fit him , to lead men out of a second house of bondage , carrying with him all the wisdojn of the Egyptians , and leaving behind all their idolatries . This might Porson have at least laboured to accomplish , and made himself a happy man in the exercise of an energy adequate to hi 3 great powers . The letters to Archdeacon Travis prove that he was called to this service , and that he had heard and understood the call . But instead of undertaking : the duty his knowledge and talents and , we are convinced , his conscience imposed upon him , Porson consented to be " Greek Professor , " to edit * ' Greek Plays , " and so sank into a slave , with the locks of his knowledge shorn , and the eyes of his sincerity put out , making sport , exquisite sport it must be admitted , for the Philistine lords of orthodoxy , and their Delilah of worldly patronage . But even a delicate sense and deep feeling- of the beauties of the Greek theatre was not sufficient for such a mind as Porson's , ( what was Hecuba to him or he to Hecuba ?) and so he went on year after year producing some consummate specimen of scholarship , and sinking deeper into self-con tempt . *
* It will perhaps be said that the self-indulgence into which Porson sank during the latter part of his life argued a lowness of moral nature as remarkable as the splendour of hit * talents . Those who judge after this sort know nothing of the necessity of stimulus , which such natures as Porson ' s are subject to . If their craving of energy have no satisfactory indulgence , excitement of the senses will be resorted to as a pis alter . Is not the Edinburgh reviewer of Pellico ' a Narrative aware that the sympathy given to Lord Byron arises rather from an indignant conviction of the unsatisfactoriness of common principles than from a defect of fellow-feeling with human affections , or any contempt of brute indulgences ? Will the Edinburgh Review ever cease beginning at the middle , and wondering that others , whoso in-
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No . 83 . 3 L
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Churcncraft . 79 7
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Nov. 2, 1833, page 797, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2626/page/65/
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