is able at the distance of more than a hundred years to so possess our minds with his own emotion, that we never cease to see amid the skirts of these dim woodlands his retreating figure!-NADAL, E. S., 1876, Two Poems of Collins, Scribner's Monthly, vol. 12, p. 220. Without making odious comparisons, it may be fair to say that Collins's odes are more liked than Gray's. They have less the air of artificiality, and they have less the form of a mosaic, which is naturally suggested to us by Gray's borrowing from his predecessors. Where there are traces of labored elegance in Gray, we have often in Collins the apparently swift choice of the right epithet, for he certainly conceals his art. Col lins, however, mastered his instrument, and his odes survive to show that, even in a dreary period of literary history, the man may arise who proves that the poetical tradition, though obscured, is not wholly lost. PERRY, THOMAS S., 1880, Gray, Collins and Beattie, Atlantic Monthly, vol. 46, p. 815. Living both in the age and after an age of critical poetry, Collins, always alien alike from the better and from the worse influences of his day, has shown at least as plentiful a lack of any slightest critical instinct or training as ever did any poet on record, in his epistle to Hanmer on that worthy knight's "inqualifiable" edition of Shakespeare. But his couplets, though incomparably inferior to Gray's, are generally spirited and competent as well as fluent and smooth. The direct sincerity and purity of their positive and straightforward inspiration will always keep his poems fresh and sweet to the senses of all men. He was a solitary song-bird among many more or less excellent pipers and pianists. He could put more spirit of colour into a single stroke, more breath of music into a single note, than could all the rest of his generation into all the labours of their lives. And the sweet name and the lucid memory of his genius could only pass away with all relics and all records of lyric poetry in England. SWINBURNE, ALGERNON CHARLES, 1880, The English Poets, ed. Ward, vol. III, p. 282. There are very few poets from whose wheat so little chaff has been win*Richmond Churchyard. His nowed as from that of Collins. entire existing work does not extend to much more than fifteen hundred lines, at least two-thirds of which must live with the best poetry of the century. Collins has the touch of a sculptor; his verse is clearly-cut and direct; it is marble-pure, but also marble-cold. Each phrase is a wonder of felicitous workmanship, without emphasis, without sense of strain. His best strophes possess an extraordinary quiet melody, a soft harmonious. smoothness as of some divine and aerial creature singing in artless, perfect, numbers for its own delight. . The intellectual quality of Collins is not so strongly marked as his pure and polished art; but he had sympathy with fine things unpopular in his own lifetime. He was a republican and a Hellenist and a collector of black-letter poetry, in an age that equally despised what was Greek and what was Gothic. It may perhaps be allowed to be an almost infallible criterion of a man's taste for the highest forms of poetic art to inquire whether he has or has not a genuine love for the verses of William Collins.-GOSSE, EDMUND, 1888, A History of Eighteenth Century Literature, pp. 253, 235. There is the chink of true and rare poetic metal in his verse, and it is fused by an imagination capable of intense heat and wonderful flame.-MITCHELL, DONALD G., 1895, English Lands Letters and Kings, Queen Anne and the Georges, P. 161. Men like Thomas Gray and William Collins attempted to "revive the just designs. of Greece," not only in fitness of language, but in perfection of form. They are commonly placed together, but the genius of each was essentially different. What they had in common belonged to the age in which they lived, and one of these elements was a certain artificial phrasing from which they found it difficult to escape. Both sought beauty more than their fellows, but Collins found it more than Gray. He had the greater grace and the sweeter simplicity, and his "Ode to Simplicity" tells us the direction in which poetry was going. His best work, like "The Ode to Evening," is near to Keats, and recalls that poet's imaginative way. His inferior work is often rude and his style sometimes obscure, but when he is touched by joy in "ecstatic trial," or when he sits with Melancholy in love of peace and gentle musing, he is indeed inspired by truth and loveliness.—BROOKE, STOPFORD A., 1896, English Literature, p. 214. Johnson, a good and true friend of Collins, and though an untrustworthy critic. of purely romantic poetry, likely to be conciliated rather than revolted by the classical form of the odes, broke the truth bluntly when he said that Collins's inversion of phrase savoured of the mistake that "if you do not write prose you will write poetry." In no true poet known to me, not in Rossetti, not in Donne, is the drawback of artificial poetic diction so obnoxious as in Collins. And the reason is clear. He was a true poet, a poet of the truest, who, unluckily for him, was singing in the spirit of one age with the tongue of another. He is trying to say Shibboleth, His Collins is among the choicest of English lyrical poets. There is a flute-like music in his best odes-such as the one "To Evening," and the one written in 1746— "How sleep the brave," which are sweeter, more natural, and more spontaneous than Gray's. BEERS, HENRY A., 1898, A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century, p. 168. Benjamin Hoadly 1676-1761 Born at Westerham, Kent, in 1697 became a fellow of Catherine Hall, Cambridge, in 1701 lecturer of St. Mildred in the Poultry, and in 1703 rector of St. Peter-le-Poer. Hoadly figures amongst the principal controversial writers of the 18th century, defending the cause of civil and religious liberty against both crown and clergy, and carrying on a controversy with Dr. Atterbury on the obedience due to the civil power by ecclesiastics. In 1710 he was presented to the rectory of Streatham, and in 1715 was made Bishop of Bangor. In 1717 he preached before the king a sermon on "My kingdom is not of this world," in which he sought to show that Christ had not delegated His powers to any ecclesiastical authorities. This originated the Bangorian Controversy, which branched off into such a multiplicity of side-issues that the main question became lost. The dispute had, however, one important consequence-the indefinite prorogation of Convocation. In 1721 Hoadly was translated to Hereford, in 1723 to Salisbury, and in 1734 to Winchester. His son published his "Collected Works" in 1773, with Life.-PATRICK AND GROOME, eds., 1897, Chambers's Biographical Dictionary, p. 492. PERSONAL Calling at Bull's on Ludgate Hill, he forced me to his house at Hampstead to dinner among a great deal of ill company; among the rest Mr. Hoadly, the Whig clergyman, so famous for acting the contrary part to Sacheverell.-SWIFT, JONATHAN, 1710, Journal to Stella, Sept. 13. O nurse of Freedom, Albion, say, We attend thy reverend length of days Benjamin Hoadly was probably the best hated clergyman of the century amongst his own order. His titles to the antipathy of his brethren were many and indisputable. A clergyman who opposes sacerdotal privileges is naturally the object of a sentiment such as would be provoked by a trades-unionist who should defend the masters, or a country squire who should protect poachers. STEPHEN, LESLIE, 1876, History of English Thought in the Eighteenth Century, vol. II, p. 152. As a preacher, where the subject was not one of a purely argumentative character, Hoadly was not successful. He said of his lectureship in the City, which he held between 1694 and 1704, that he preached it down to 30£ a year and then resigned. To stir the soul and warm the feelings was quite beyond his reach; and though, in his calm, dispassionate manner, he could reason with force upon the blessing of a life of Christian principle, this of itself can never sway the heart of a great congregation. Moreover, his style, though frequently rising into impressive dignity, was often diffuse and involved. In private life he possessed a genial and happy temperament. Easy in Easy in manner and not wanting in humour, he was fond of society, but never so content as in the midst of his own family. Milner speaks of the "incongruous association of emblems" on his tomb at Winchester the pastoral crosier and the democratic pike and cap-the Scriptures and Magna Charta. The pike, if it is indeed there, is incongruous enough; and the pastoral staff is suggestive of Hoadly's grossest defect. But the rest may well represent those elements in the bishop's character which make up for much that was wanting in it-his love of liberty, his love of justice, his reverence--exclusive to a fault for the authority of Holy Writ. -ABBEY, CHARLES J., 1887, The English Church and Its Bishops, 1700-1800, vol. II, pp. 3, 19. GENERAL Mr. Hoadly, the Bishop of Bangor, has, in the Sermon for which he is so illtreated, done like an Apostle, and asserted the true dominion established by our Blessed Saviour.-STEELE, RICHARD, 1717, Letter to Lady Steele, June 21. Verily Benjamin, thou hast done well in that thou hast openly declared the iniquity of those who have armed themselves with unlawful power, and have exercised tyranny over their brethren, saying, ye must join with us, otherwise ye shall go to prison; or otherwise you shall have no honour, or part or lot among us: Whereas King Jesus never left any such commandment. But it remaineth as a difficulty, or doubt unto us who are Friends, how thou canst lay a confederacy with these men! Verily, Benjamin, if thou come not out from among them, thou wilt give occasion to wicked men to say of thee, that thou hast said that in thy teaching office which thou wilt not put in practice in thy person. Wherefore, friend Benjamin, as I know that the truth hath been spoken by thee, I warn thee for thy good, that thou come out speedily from among them; lay down thy painted vestments and profane trinkets, the ensigns of that usurpation upon thy Lord and Master's kingdom, which thou hast so faithfully borne thy testimony against.-Blessed art thou, O Benjamin, in that thou hast borne thy testimony against these things. Wherefore I know, that leaving behind thee all these wicked and erroneous opinions, and bearing witness to the truth, thou will at length join thyself unto us, and I rejoice over thee in this, that thou art enlightened to know the truth. Friend Timothy greeteth thee in like manner; as also James the aged, a lover of those who forsake the errors of the wicked. In a word, all Friends greet thee, and speak well of thee. Fare thee well.DEFOE, DANIEL, 1717, A Declaration of Truth to Benjamin Hoadly. I see no reason for such a prodigious outcry upon the "Plain Account." I really think it a very good book, as orthodox as Archbishop Tillotson. His prayers are very long, but in my opinion some of the best compositions of the sort that ever I read; and if I could bring my mind to that steady frame of thinking with regard to the Deity that is presented by him, I believe I should be so far as happy as my nature is, perhaps, capable of being. -HERRING, THOMAS, 1735, Letter to Duncombe, Nov. 17. The object of Whig Idolatry and Tory abhorrence; and at every weapon of attack and defence, the Nonjuror, on the ground which is common to both, approves himself at least equal to the Prelate.*-GIBBON, EDWARD, 1793, Autobiography, Memoirs of my Life and Writings. The style of Hoadly's controversial treatises is strong and logical, but without any of the graces of composition; and hence they have fallen into comparative oblivion. There can be no doubt, however, that the independent and liberal position that he maintained, aided by his station in the church, tended materially to stem the torrent of slavish submission *Berkeley. Was a prelate of great controversial ability, who threw the weight of his talents and learning into the scale of Whig politics, at that time fiercely attacked by the Tory and Jacobite parties. There can be no doubt that the independent and liberal mind of Hoadly, aided by his station in the church, tended materially to stem the torrent of slavish submission which then prevailed in the church of England.-CHAMBERS, ROBERT, 1876, Cyclopædia of English Literature, ed. Carruthers. His style is the style of a bore; he is slovenly, awkward, intensely pertinacious, often indistinct, and, apparently at least, evasive; and occasionally (I am thinking especially of his arguments with his old enemy Atterbury) not free from a tinge of personal rancour. He preached his first lectureship down to 30l. a year, as he candidly reports, and then thought it time to resign. A perusal of his writings renders the statement easily credible. The three huge folios which contain his ponderous wranglings are a dreary wilderness of now profitless discussion. owe, however, a vast debt of gratitude to the bores who have defended good causes, and in his pachydermatous fashion Hoadly did some service, by helping to trample down certain relics of the old spirit of bigotry. STEPHEN, LESLIE, 1876, History of English Thought in the Eighteenth Century, vol. II, p. 153. We LECKY, WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE, 1877, A History of England in the Eighteenth Century, vol. 1, p. 270. As a writer, he is both furious and tiresome, and almost the only purely literary interest we have in him centres around his friendship for Steele.-GOSSE, EDMUND, 1888, A History of Eighteenth Century Literature, p. 196. Hoadly, so dexterous as a controversialist, does not shine as a teacher of positive theology. There is a coldness and heaviness about his utterances, and his style is sometimes so involved that we can appreciate Pope's satirical description of "Hoadly with his periods of a mile." His dogmatic theological writings have no great merit. His political essays are clear and forcible, but they are disfigured by frequent adulation of the king and royal family. The letters to Lady Sundon show that he was well able to flatter influential personages in the state. PERRY, G. G., 1891, Dictionary of National Biography, vol. XXVII, p. 20. His sermons are well-constructed and lucid. There is in them no tedious splitting of texts nor minute casuistry. He expounds the general principles of religion forcibly and earnestly, without dwelling on doctrinal minutiæ. They are clear, vigorous, and brief. Without being rhetorical or brilliant they are pleasant reading; calm, well-sustained and logical. He attacks the Church of Rome with severity, but without asperity, recognising her as the acme of the ecclesiasticism against which he was constantly at war. In controversy he is temperate, controlled, and dignified. He never stoops to petty personalities, but holds to the point at issue without flinching. Bishop Hoadly is not a star of the first magnitude. His writings are not among the classics of English literature. He does not rank with Hooker, Jeremy Taylor, and Taylor, and Baxter. Nevertheless he deserves an honourable place among English men of letters. Possibly had he been a high churchman like Warburton he would have enjoyed his literary deserts and more. As it is, he suffers like others of his school of theological thought, and finds himself passed over for inferior writers who better adapted themselves to the dominant. views.-FITZROY, A. I., 1894, English Prose, ed. Craik, vol. III, p. 548. William Law William Law, born a grocer's son at Kingscliffe, Northamptonshire, in 1686, entered Emmanuel College, Cambridge, in 1705, and became a fellow in 1711. was unable to subscribe the oath of allegiance to George I., and forfeited his fellowship. About 1727 he became tutor to the father of Edward Gibbon, and for ten years was "the much-honoured friend and spiritual director of the whole family." The elder Gibbon died in 1737, and three years later Law retired to Kingscliffe, and was joined by his disciples, Miss Hester Gibbon, sister of his pupil, and Mrs. Hutcheson. The two ladies had a united income of about £3000 a-year, and most of this they spent in works of charity. About 1733 Law had begun to study Jacob Boehme, and most of his later works are expositions of his mysticism. He died April 9, 1761. Law won his first triumphs against Bishop Hoadly in the famous Bangorian controversy with his "Three Letters" (1717). His "Remarks on Mandeville's Fable of the Bees" (1723) is a masterpiece of caustic wit and vigorous English. Only less admirable is the "Case of Reason" (1732), in answer to Tindal the Deist. But his most famous work remains in the "Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life" (1729), which profoundly influenced Dr. Johnson and the Wesleys. There are two collected editions of his works -that of 1762 and that by Moreton (1893 et seq.). See Walton's "Notes and Materials for a Complete Biography" (1848), Overton's "William Law, Nonjuror and Mystic" (1881), and the Rev. Dr. A. Whyte's "Characters of William Law" (1892).PATRICK AND GROOME, eds., 1897, Chambers's Biographical Dictionary, p. 576. PERSONAL One Mr. Lawes, A. M., of Cambridge, was lately degraded by the means of Dr. Adams, head of King's College, who complained to the present lord-treasurer (who was zealous for his degradation) upon account of some queries in his speech called tripos speech, such as, Whether the sun shine when it is in an eclipse? Whether a controverted son be not better than a controverted successor? Whether a dubious successor be not in danger of being set aside? With other With other things of the same nature.-HEARNE, THOMAS, 1713, Diary, July 13. Mr. Law was in stature rather over than under the middle size; not corpulent, but stout made, with broad shoulders; his visage was round, his eyes grey; his features well proportioned, and not large; his complexion ruddy, and his countenance open and agreeable. He was naturally more inclined to be merry than sad. In his habit he was very regular and temperate. -TIGHE, RICHARD, 1813, Life and Writings of the late Rev. William Law, p. 30. A thorough man, full of human infirmities, but a grand specimen of humanity, and a noble monument of the power of divine grace in the soul.-OVERTON, JOHN HENRY, 1881, William Law, Nonjuror and Mystic, p. 4. Law rose at five for devotion and study; the household assembled for prayers at nine; dinner was at twelve in summer and at one in winter, and was followed by devotion. At tea-time Law joined the family, eating only a few raisins, and talking cheerfully, without sitting down. After tea the servants read a chapter of the Bible, which Law explained. He then took a brisk walk in the fields, and after another meal, again followed by prayers, he retired to his room, took one pipe and a glass of water, and went to bed at nine. They attended the church services on Wednesdays, Fridays, and Sundays; saw a few friends, and occasionally took an airing, Mrs. Hutcheson in her "coach," Law and Miss Gibbon riding on horseback. Law, in order to begin the day by an act of charity, distributed the milk of four cows to his poor neighbours. He tasted the soup which was daily prepared for the poor, and his only displays of irritability were on occasions of its being not well enough made. He loved music, and maintained that every one could be taught to sing well enough for devotional purposes. He was fond of dumb animals, and liked to free birds from their cages. He was a lover of children, and has devoted much space in his writings to advice upon their education. He had a small room for a study, which Canon Overton describes as part of "a most commodious bedroom," and altogether a "most convenient little smuggery." He had a large library, |