gives the following sketch of the Dramatis Personæ in an introduction:.bow sni .bas ns ACROSUS: amiable, hospitable, virtuous, and brave: but vain of his wealth, elate with his prosperity, and self-gloriousən£azio zebucona var 9in aguilest ATYS: frank, candid, highly susceptible of friendship and amiable feelings, not subject to painful passions. ADRASTUS mild and susceptible, deeply suffering grief, virtuous, driefe virtuous, and noble ADA of violent passions, but not abandoned.75 9512 36 mon Taemi What ingredients for a tragedy! and yet there is talent and poetry here too. It is very extraordinary. MR. IRVING, AND "THE CALEDONIAN." It is possible to have too much even of a good thing; but as we do not think this proposition has yet been proved in respect to the criticisms which have been hitherto called forth by Mr. Irving's preaching, we too shall contribute our mite towards the mountain which this gentleman has to bear as a check-weight to his unrivalled popularity: And if our readers do not complain of the addition, we are pretty sure that he will not-for he evidently thinks his shoulders even broader and more atlantean than they are, and courts the whole world of criticism to leap upon them as if 1 f they were made for the loads as to sueupsenos ai The remarks that we now propose to offer, on the person whose nime is placed at the head of this paper, are intended to be purely critical and descriptive. With creeds and opinions we profess not to meddle, as it regards others. And indeed, in the present instance, this would be quite uncalled-for; as the remarkable person who is the subjects of this notice seldom thinks it necessary to do so himself, in a way that can call forth the especial animadversion of any particular class or sect of Christians, He preaches the Christian Religion in a Christian land; and it is with his mode of doing this, and the powers-natural, accidental, and acquired which he brings to his task, that we shall alone concern ourselves. . Before proceeding to do this, however, it may not be uninteresting to many of our readers if we describe the scene in which takes place what و towe are afterwards to speak of more especially; for London has witnessed nothing like it, of a similar kind, for many years. } vize. If th the reader “ knows the town," and is disposed to betake himself 30 leisurely, about the hour of half-past ten o'clock on a Sunday morning, in towards a little obscure street in Hatton-garden, named Cross-street, he may chance to see, on his way thither, the most splendid equipages of the day rolling past him, filled with the flower of the land's, nobility, the elite of her statesmen and governors, the wisest of her law-givers 10. and her law expounders, the most successful and wealthiest of her lo, merchants and speculators; and, if it were the custom for them to ride in carriages, he might also recognise the most accomplished of her poets I and scholars, the sagest of her men of science, the most fastidious of her critics, the acutest of her reasoners, the deepest and subtlest of her thinkers, and (not included in any of the above classes) the most contented and loyal, as well as the most discontented and reforming of her politicians. Thinking, as he sees all these pass by him, on where he is going, and the object of his errand-to hear what is called a " Popu adieu to the scene of riot which he has hitherto been regarding with mingled feelings of surprise and indignation. That, and everything else that may hav have been Occupying his thoughts till now will vanish from them and be forgotten in a moment, and they will be seized, fixed, , and rivetted by the extraordinary P person sent who stands before him. In fact, we will at I at once unequivocally state our opini our opinion, that it is his personal appearance 15 and mannano Mr. Irving owes at de at least half tion; an an acute judgment; a lively imagination; considerable knowledge of human nature, and a perfect willingness s to a adapt himself to the dictates of that knowledge; an entire self-possession and self-controul; a perfect acquaintance with the e weapons he employs, and an entire Sure mastery over over them, and a total absence of fall scruples about turning those of of his adversary his own advantage, great skill in ing where it must be pressing a point where it will bear to be pressed, and great, tact in see- him to say and do things that other men, not so gifted, would either shrink from altogether, or spoil in the attempting, bas انت t The only points that we have observed in Mr. Irving, to set off against these advantages, are, a somewhat narrow fund of scholastic knowledge; a very limited share of taste; a mingled poverty and affecta- ed tion of style, arising from a confined phraseology; an indifferent ear; and a Scotch accent. " But there is nothing in all the above (the reader remarks) to account for the extraordinary effect which Mr. Irving produces. Others have possessed, upon the whole, at least equal claims to attention with him, who have preached their way quietly to their graves, unknown, and unsought-for out of the pale of their own flock. It is true and this brings us to the other half of the secret of Mr. Irving's popularity. We have ventured to attribute a great portion of it to his personal appearance and manner. We will confidently refer the rest to the mode in which he applies the intellectual advantages he possesses. In the first place, he is a very clear, shrewd, and accomplished disputant; as far as it is his cue to reason, a most close and clever reasoner; and to reason and be reasoned with is the forte-or the foible (whichever you please) of Englishmen of a certain class of mind. The proverb which says that "Seeing is believing, and feeling is the naked truth," is not always true with respect to them. They will not always be convinced by the evidence of their senses, still less by that of their imagination, under the name of faith; but you may reason them into Cobbett nem into anything. is the most popular writer of the day because he is the clearest, shrewdest, strongest, and boldest reasoner; and he can, by means of this faculty, at any time convince half his readers that black is white one week, and that white is black the next. Mr. Irving is the most popular preacher of the day, in a great measure from the same cause. The rock on which his predecessors and his rivals have split is, the appealing, in too great a degree, to the faith of their hearers. may safely enough be trusted to as a strong-hold in the minds of women and of enthusiasts; but it is but a sandy and uncertain foundation on which to build a lofty and ponderous superstructure in minds which have been accustomed to exercise and depend on their reason. Now Mr. Irving has seen this; and, with an intellectual courage worthy of the cause which he is pleading, he steps boldly into the field, and professes to establish the Christian Religion on a footing of pure reason. We speak now, in particular, of the line which he has adopted in the course of his last few Sundays, during which time his popularity has increased to a pitch that it had never reached during any former period of his ministry here. He has the skill, too, to make use of his reasoning faculty, and that of his hearers, as an offensive as well as a defensive weapon. With the battering-ram of his arguments he first beats down all systems of Religion that are founded on natural evidences, and all systems of morals that would attempt to do without a religion; he then, magnanimously enough, flings himself for the moment out of the strong-hold of a future state of rewards and punishments, and professes to shew that, without the Christian Religion, as revealed from on high, we are, even here in our present finite state, not a whit better than the beasts that Faith easts that persealed on tian Religion has been revealed from on high. But that is no business of his. He, of course, assumes that, all along; because he professes to preach, and does preach, the religion of the Bible. Again He bidstid the Bible: "Again's He bidsid us look at what the Greeks and 1 Romans were, without a revealed da Religion. But if you ou were to ask him whether we, who have a revealed Religion, are better citizens, better subjects, better fathers, better sons, better husbands, better wives whether we are upon the whole wiser o and happier than they, who had it not? he would probably reply WE, who have it, are not so, you have it not whatever so, is its natural and necessary you may -if conseq Profeople so, But we are travelling somewhat beyond the limits of our proposed course. . We merely mention this, as one of the weak points necessarily involved in the line of teaching which Mr. Irving has thought proper to adopt, since our attention has been attracted towards him. If he makesu the Christian Religion an object of reason, he at the same time lays it open to be made the subject of reason; which it is evidently above, as well as beyond. And to part with Faith from a religion of whatever® denomination, is to part with its soul. Or rather, a Religion without faith is a contradiction in terms; for Religion is faith. To attempt to establish, in the minds and hearts of his audience, Religion without the aid of Faith, may gain him hearers, but it will never gain him converts. And, moreover, it is exactly equivalent to doing that which he himself" so delights to ridicule and vituperate; namely, to attempt to establish a morality without a Religion. bodas 1913 to conobive Mr. Irving's chusing to employ reason, then, as his chief weapon in favor of Christianity, as well as against infidelity, is one cause of his .is popularity. We conceive another to be his perpetual employment of a sarcastic and satirical vein, in reference to persons, subjects, and things which are at the present moment universally known and universally interesting. He flies at everything, and at every body Art, Science, Literature, Politics, Government, Fashion-all these as t they exist in all parts of civilized Europe, and all the persons and things that are publicly connected with them. "Nought is for him too high, or aught too low." And he treats of them all in the manner of a man sure of his mark, superior to all consequences, and out of the reach of all reply. He may find himself_mis taken in this. But, in the meantime, his end is atchieved. People like to hear their betters abused; and do not much object to fancying themselves included, provided it be done with a high hand, and not in too personal a manner. The first statesmen in the land go to hear Mr. Irving's philippics against statesmen who profess to govern a nation without the aid of Religion; because it is impossible he should mean them though he fixes his eye upon them as he speaks, and causes half his audience to do the same!-The poets and critics go to hear him insist that, though poetry and criticism are good things, all poets and critics are paltry fellows! And if he were to preach on any other day than Sunday, the ministers of the Gospel would flock to hear him declare that the stage is better served than the pulpit, and disprove his own assertion in his own person! In short, there is nothing in the world so attractive as personality; and there is no preacher a tenth part so personal as Mr. Irving. 2009192 1919 328 327 agin The third and last cause which we shall mention, as contributing to t |