THE

Emperial Magazine;

OR, COMPENDIUM OF

RELIGIOUS, MORAL, & PHILOSOPHICAL KNOWLEDGE.

THE TORCH OF LITERATURE ILLUMINATES THE PATHS OF WISDOM.

MEMOIR OF GRANVILLE SHARP, ESQ.

(With a Portrait.)

BIOGRAPHY is never more beneficially employed than in recording the active services of men who have been remarkable for their exertions in correcting abuses, which custom and interest have suffered to accumulate, till the work of reform has proved a labour not inferior to those which are fabled of Hercules. In this class of philanthropists, few have equalled, and none exceeded, the subject of the present memoir. His father, Dr. Thomas Sharp, who died in 1758, was prebendary of Durham, and archdeacon of Northumberland; and his grandfather, Dr. John Sharp, had the honour of standing in the front rank of Protestant champions, who opposed the design of the infatuated king James to introduce popery and arbitrary power. The doctor was then rector of St. Giles in the Fields, where he preached with such power against the errors of the church of Rome, that the bigoted monarch caused him to be suspended; but in the succeeding reign he was remunerated, first with the deanery of Canterbury, and next with the archbishopric of York. This great prelate died at Bath, in 1714.

[1826. voted his leisure hours to study, and, by his own application, completely made up for the want of academic instruction. With the elementary principles of the Latin language he was indeed well acquainted; but of the Greek he knew nothing. Being of an inquisitive and serious turn, he resolved to supply the deficiencies which he lamented; and accordingly, with the ordinary means of a grammar and lexicon, he was soon enabled to read the New Testament in the original; after which, he undertook the Hebrew with the same means and

success.

At the expiration of his apprenticeship, he obtained a situation in the ordnance office of the Tower, which he held till the commencement of the American war, when he resigned the place, purely because he did not think it right to contribute in any way to the support of a measure which he thoroughly condemned. This was carrying conscientious scruples to an extremity, and it may be doubted perhaps whether a like instance of voluntary abnegation has ever occurred, even among those who have objected to all war on the ground of religious principle.

By living so long near the river, and GRANVILLE SHARP, the youngest in the very heart of maritime concerns, son of the archdeacon, was born at the attention of Mr. Sharp was freDurham, November 10th, 1735. Con- quently drawn to two descriptions of sidering his descent, the circumstances persons, whose unmerited sufferings of his family, and the penetrating could not fail to affect his benevolent mind which he possessed, it was natu- mind. The first were the African ral to expect that his education would blacks, who, though in a land of freehave been extended, with a view to dom, were still considered and treated one of the liberal professions. This, by the owners and masters of the ships however, was not the case; for, while to which they belonged, as their slaves; his elder brother, John, was bred to and the others were the common seathe church, and became the successor men, who, after a long and perilous to his father's dignities; and his next voyage, were dragged away inhumanly brother, William, acquired eminence by pressgangs, and hurried on board as surgeon of St. Bartholomew's Hos- a tender, to be sent off again on expepital; Granville, who ultimately out-ditions to distant parts of the globe, shone them both, was placed, at an early age, in a linen warehouse on Tower Hill. In this situation, he de94.-VOL. VITI,

without being suffered to see and embrace their inconsolable friends. Scenes of this distressing nature were

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very common during the seven years' war, which comprised almost the whole period of Mr. Sharp's residence at the east end of the metropolis; and, therefore, he could not avoid witnessing many cases of cruelty and oppression. But the tear of sympathy was all that he had then to bestow on the sufferers, for as law and custom appeared to sanction these evils, the idea of removing or redressing them by individual application was too romantic to be indulged. When, however, the mind is strongly impressed with a sense of duty, and a lively feeling for human misery, nothing more is wanted to bring the generous sentiment into active operation, than some casual incident, in which the union of charity and zeal shall so energize the mind as to render it capable of accomplishing what, under other circumstances, it would shrink from as impracticable.

legally adjudicated; and in fact, the opinion of the lawyers, as well as of the public, ran in favour of the position, that because merchants and planters possessed a right of property in those persons abroad, that right continued when they came to England.

This was, it must be admitted, a very dubious question, at a time when slave-dealing itself was carried on, like every other traffic, not merely with the cognizance, but under the express sanction, of the legislature. In addition to all this, as far back as the year 1729, the law officers of the crown, Yorke and Talbot, then attorney and solicitor general, and subsequently chancellors of England, decidedly gave it as their judgment, that negroes coming from the colonies to the parent country were still slaves, and at the disposal of their owners, who might compel them to return to the plantations.

Great events, we are told, sometimes spring from little causes; and occurrences, apparently unconnected Thus stood this important subject; with any general question of public when Mr. Sharp received a letter from import, prove in the result the means the Poultry compter, entreating his of bringing about mighty and bene- interference to save the writer from a ficial changes in the condition of thou- greater calamity than the death from sands and millions of the human race. which he had before rescued him by Of the truth of this, we have now to his benevolence. Mr. Sharp could adduce a striking instance. In the not recognize the writing, or recollect year 1765, a negro, named Jonathan the circumstance alluded to; but Strong, was brought from Barbadoes without hesitation he repaired to the by a planter named Lisle; but while prison, where he found the African in London, the poor black was seized whom he had before relieved and with an illness, which the master be- settled. On hearing the cause of his lieved to be incurable, and on that confinement, and finding that it was account he resolved to leave him be- not for any crime, he went immedihind as useless, at his own departure ately to the lord mayor, and obtained for the West Indies. He did so; and a warrant to bring the parties before the unfortunate creature must have that magistrate. The master perempperished in the streets, had not Provi, torily insisted upon his right in the dence brought the circumstance under slave, whose identity was not denied ; the notice of Mr. Sharp, who, actu- but Mr. Sharp contended, that the ated by principles of humanity, imme- laws did not admit of slavery within, diately procured the admission of whatever they might out of the kingStrong into Bartholomew's Hospital, dom. This distinction was admitted where, by the attention of Mr. Wil- by the chief magistrate to be constiliam Sharp, a complete cure was ef- tutional, and he discharged the black, fected. After this, our philanthropist who was, however, again seized by recommended the object of his bene- his master; but Mr. Sharp intervolence to a lady, with whom he lived posed, and exhibited articles of peace about two years, when his old master for an assault and battery against the returned from Barbadoes, and on meet-planter, who was held to bail, and the ing the black in good condition, and well dressed, he seized him, and had him conveyed to the Poultry compter, on the charge of being a runaway slave. Till this time, the question of slavery in England had never been

negro dismissed.

Legal proceedings now ensued upon this momentous question; but Mr. Sharp, at a great expense, obtained a decision in favour of this slave, who was declared to be free. One or

and indeed promised, a distinct treatise on the subject of demonology; but though composed, and in part printed, thirty years elapsed before it made its appearance, under the title of "The Case of Saul, shewing that his disorder was a real possession, and proving that actual possessions of spirits were generally acknowledged by the ancient writers, among the heathens, as well as among the Jews and Christians." To this ingenious piece Mr. Sharp subjoined "A Tract on the Influence of Demons in Remarks on 1 Timothy iv. 1-3." and soon after he published a small pamphlet on the two last petitions in the Lord's Prayer, proving that the EVIL from which we are taught to pray for deliverance, means the EVIL ONE, and that rovnoos ought always to have been so translated. On the pub

his mind to be taken up wholly in the study of the law. The sacred volume was his principal delight; and in order to understand it thoroughly, he made himself master of the various Oriental dialects, that he might compare the respective versions with each other. In 1775 he republished his “Remarks on several very important Prophecies;" the first edition of which had been printed seven years before, and met with the general approbation of biblical scholars, particularly his learned friend Dr. Gregory Sharpe, master of the Temple. This valuable little book, which is now extremely scarce, contains, " 1. Remarks on the Prophecy of Isaiah, vii. 13-16. that a virgin should conceive and bear a son. 2. Remarks on the nature and style of the prophetical writings. 3. Remarks on the accomplishment of Isaiah's Prophecy, (vii. 8.) With-lication of this valuable disquisition, in threescore and five years shall Ephraim be broken, that it be not a people.' 4. On the departure of the sceptre and lawgiver from Judah. 5. A confirmation of the above re-vations. marks."

the late learned Mr. Dunster addressed a letter to the author, confirming bis criticism by a variety of classical authorities, and grammatical obser

But the most important of Mr. Sharpe's philological disquisitions was communicated to the world in the "Museum Oxoniense," for the year 1797, by Mr. Burgess, now bishop of Salisbury. This tract was entitled "Remarks on the Uses of the Definitive Article in the Greek of the New Testament; containing many new proofs of the divinity of Christ, from passages which are wrongly translated in the common English version." The principal object in this essay is to deduce from the New Testament an important rule, with regard to the structure of what we may be allowed to call evangelical Greek, as forming a peculiarity in the writings of the inspired penmen, but one so uniform throughout the sacred volume as obviously to carry the evidence of being purposely designed for the establishment of a doctrinal truth. The rule in question is briefly this, “Whenever two personal nouns, excepting proper names, come together, connected by the particle rat, and having the defi

Soon after the commencement of the American war, Mr. Sharp, who had made such a noble sacrifice of his interest to conscience, embarked in the controversy excited by that contest respecting the right of resistance. In a tract entitled, "The Law of Passive Obedience; or Christian Submission to Personal Injuries," published in 1776, he carefully examines all those texts of scripture which seem to favour the absolute authority of governors over subjects, and masters over slaves; from which he infers, that the passages adduced by no means warrant the common construction put upon them. But one of the most original and ingenious of his disquisitions at this period is, a small volume bearing the title of " A Tract on the Law of Nature and principles of action in Man.” In this work the author shews that the true dignity and high privileges of human nature cannot properly be known and understood, without a right faith in the Redeemer and the Holy Spirit, nor benitive article prefixed to the first, duly maintained without a continual warfare and opposition to the influence of spiritual enemies. As in this book much stress is laid upon the agency of evil spirits in human actions, the worthy author intended,

both are invariably to be understood as expressing the same object. Thus, to cite one proof out of many, in the epistle to Titus (ii. 13.) the common version reads, "Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appear

ing of the great God, and our Saviour | systems; yet only two writers took Jesus Christ," as if two persons were the field in opposition to this new ar intended. The original, however, gument for the catholic doctrine of the literally rendered, is this, "Expect- divinity of Christ. The first champion ing the blessed hope and appearance for Unitarianism, as it is called, apof the glory of our great God and peared with his visor closed, and, Saviour Jesus Christ." Numerous under the assumed name of Gregory instances to the same purport might Blunt, assailed Mr. Sharp in a series be adduced, all confirming the prin- of letters, replete with scurrility and ciple laid down by Mr. Sharp, and ridicule, but destitute of all argument. effectually, to use his own words, cut- The other polemic, Mr. Calvin Winting up the system of Socinianism by stanley, was of a different character, the roots. but his "Vindication of certain Passages in the common English Version of the New Testament," though intended to overthrow the rule of Mr. Sharp, actually confirmed the gram

This was demonstrated by the late learned Dr. Middleton, bishop of Calcutta, in a volume entitled "The Doc trine of the Greek Article applied to the Criticism and Illustration of the New Testament;" which invaluable treatise completely fixed the canon of Mr. Sharp upon a permanent basis, and set the question for ever at rest.

Such was the impression made upon the learned world by this new discovery, that the editor was induced to reprint the Remarks at Durham in the following year, with some addi-matical principle to the fullest extent, tions, partly his own, and partly the communications of the author. In 1802, another edition came out at the same place, with a letter from Dr. Burgess to Mr. Sharp, in which he says, "That you have very happily and decisively applied your rule of construction to the correction of the common English version of the New Testament, and to the perfect establishment of the great doctrine of the divinity of Christ, no impartial reader, I think, can doubt, who is at all acquainted with the original language of the New Testament. I say, decisively applied, because I suppose, in all remote and written testimony, the weight of evidence must ultimately depend on the grammatical analogy of the language in which it is recorded. I call the rule your's; for though it was acknowledged and applied, by Beza and others, to some of the texts alleged by you, yet never so prominently, because singly, or so effectually, as in your Remarks."

Soon after the appearance of this little work in a separate form, the present master of Trinity College, in the university of Cambridge, Dr. Wordsworth, pursued the same inquiry thro' the writings of the Greek and Latin fathers; the consequence of which was a farther confirmation of the grammatical principle so happily elicited by Mr. Sharp, to whom this learned divine addressed "Six Letters respecting his Remarks on the Uses of the Definitive Article in the Greek Text of the New Testament."

It was not to be supposed that the shock thus given to the Arian and Socinian bypotheses should remain unnoticed by the advocates of those

The next literary performance of Mr. Sharp was entitled “Three Tracts on the Syntax and Pronunciation of the Hebrew Tongue; with an Appendix, addressed to the Jews." In this little work, he rendered almost the same service to biblical students for the right understanding of the Hebrew scriptures, that he had before done in regard to an undoubted idiom of the Greek language. To explain this, it may be sufficient to state, that the letter vau, often prefixed to Hebrew verbs, has a power which is called conversive, or of changing the signification of preterites into futures, and the contrary. These changes, however, were not known to follow any certain principle, till Mr. Sharp, by a close application to the genius of the language, discovered four invariable rules for the conversions, by which the sense of the passages where the mutations occur is at once determined.

After this, our indefatigable author published two treatises, one proving the church of Rome to be the Babylon of prophetic scripture, and the other an illustration of the sixty-eighth Psalm, in which he treated of the restoration of the Jews. Besides the works here enumerated, Mr. Sharp published several tracts, some with, and more without, his name; but all