trivance the tread-wheel, when lightly loaded with work and heavily loaded with majorities, would run round with ruinous speed, and endanger the limbs and lives of its occupants. Now it was the wisdom of our ancestors to provide fly-wheels and governors in abundance: in modern days we prefer speed and high pressure each has its benefits and its inconveniences, and between them both I hope we shall go on safely, if not smoothly. I see not how, on the principles of some of our divines and statesmen, we could ever have emerged from the slough of Popery: I see not, on the principles-I use the word by courtesy-of others, we could have avoided the utter rejection of every form and recognition of religion. I am thankful, therefore, to those who, when they see us rushing down hill, have the prudence to offer a curb and drag, while others are clamouring only for spurs and oil. We are thus at least allowed time to pause and breathe; and if, after all, the vehicle is permitted to proceed, it will probably be with more safety than if no such precaution had been employed. Apply all this, my good friend, to certain pending matters respecting our venerable Church, and you will fully comprehend the moral which I would wish to elicit. A large part of the public, including some of our statesmen, under the name of ecclesiastical reform, would precipitate us into utter ruin the Church of England could not survive their plans an hour, and with it would perish not a little that is religious and holy among us; and I fear no instrument of equal moral and spiritual benefit would take its place. To prevent this acknowledged and most serious evil, ought good men, and especially ought our bishops and clergy, to become merely a drag upon the wheels? Ought they to countenance abuses, and to resist salutary amendments, lest what is good should perish with what is evil? I think not. They ought, I conceive, to be the foremost to discover and propose

remedies for our defects; and, happily, some of them are now doing so with great propriety and wisdom. But others fear changes, even useful changes: and so must we all; for in this changeful world even what is useful in itself may by accident be dangerous; schools may be dangerous, and reading, and mechanics' institutes, and political privilege, and alms-houses, and hospitals, and Bible societies, and even the ministry of the Gospel itself may become a savour of death unto death instead of life unto life: but all this ought not to deter a good man from doing his duty in each particular instance as it arises, leaving the result in faith and submission to an all-wise Director. Out of the nettle Danger we are to pluck the flower Safety; and I pray that it may please God, in his infinite mercy, at this serious juncture to guide our rulers in church and state how to do so.

I was speaking of the devastations which have happened to the good city of Winchester; some of them of modern infliction. Bishop Mant, in his Life and Works of Thomas Warton, thirty years ago lamented some of the ravages which had occurred even in his then young memory. "I was much disappointed," he says, when I paid a visit to the King's House, lately converted into barracks, at being able to discover scarcely any traces of those vast masses of ruin which had often astonished and delighted me when a boy: and at finding, instead of the craggy hill on which they stood, a spacious and level area, capable of parading three thousand men." "Surely," adds he, "it is but reasonable to regret, that in the conduct of modern improvements regard is not always had to the monuments of ancient art, which, independently of other considerations to recommend them, are peculiarly valuable as the best, and as it were living, historians of ancient manners." Every person of warm feelings will echo this sentiment; and yet the utilitarian may not unfairly ask in return, Why re

tain heaps of cumbersome rubbish, "vast masses of ruins," which occupy space and absorb materials that might be converted to valuable purposes? Are not the modern dwellings which have been erected where stood the no longer needed walls of this city, and for which these massy ruins furnished an ample quarry, a considerable addition to human convenience; and ought this to have been foregone for the sake of a mere indulgence of curiosity, as "historians of ancient manners?" There must, in truth, be a fair compromise between antiquarianism and utility. I would not scruple, in spite of all the venerable heroes of the Gentleman's Magazine, to pull down an old, awkward, insufficient church, if the religious wants of the people required a larger and more commodious structure; or to get rid even of a cumbersome city-gate, which, though very useful to quarrelsome Normans or Saxons, happened to be an hourly annoyance to thousands of the loyal lieges of King William the Fourth. But the evil is, that the decision in these matters seldom falls to persons both disinterested and qualified to pronounce a wise judgment. There was a grievous disturbance a few years since, in this very city of Winchester, by the licence given by a Paving Act, under the ample powers of which the Vandals of commissioners sold the venerable market-cross, that curious specimen of the style of architecture of the reign of Henry the Sixth, to a neighbouring gentleman, to pull down to adorn his garden. The workmen had actually begun the attack, and in a few days nothing would have been left of that long-boasted ornament of the city, with its three stories, canopied niches, arches, pinnacles, crosses, effigy of St. Laurence, the Roman deacon, and patron of the parish in which it stands, had not the citizens risen in a body, and by force of arms expelled the invaders, and obliged the commissioners to revoke the grant. Many other

valuable relics of antiquity, which might like this have been spared, not only without inconvenience but with the general concurrence, have not been so fortunate. The public taste or benefit is seldom any match for private intrigue or cupidity. I almost believe, were it not for the public press, which prematurely lets out secrets, that if some wealthy goldsmith of London coveted the Monument to adorn his peach garden, he might secure it by only adroitly contriving his machinery, grounded on a pliable surveyor's report that the edifice was insecurethe dry rot in the timbers, if it had any-the ground valuable for a crane or warehouse-and the purchase-money convenient for the purposes of the Corporation. Jobbing runs throughout our public transactions; we are a nation of jobbers; and hence the public, constantly over-reached, are always, and often very unjustly, suspicious. Churchbuilding, that necessary and important object, is popularly considered as mere jobbing: the parson, or the patron, or a select vestryman, it is supposed, has a clerical friend to oblige; or the churchwarden has a cousin a builder, or an acquaintance an architect or surveyor: and thus the best things get a bad name. I wish that the promoters of new churches had in every instance taken the most effectual means of repelling these charges of private intrigue or interest, by a disinterested attention to every meritorious claim, never making what was meant for public utility a source of private patronage. Take, for example, the purchase of the advowson by Government of Mary-le-bone parish for nearly fifty thousand pounds, and the appointment to the new churches erected in it of persons wholly unknown to the parish. Dr. Hume Spry was, indeed, a public man, as having written zealously against the Bible Society; and Dr. Dibden, as having diligently illustrated bibliomania and black-letter; but what

was this to the inhabitants of Maryle-bone? I mention this particular parish, because it is the largest, and perhaps the most wealthy, in the kingdom; and not from any disrespect to individuals: their personal recommendations might be great; they perhaps were so, and in some instances I know they were-I mean no disparagement to any ;-but even if the parties concerned were the best parish priests in England, would any thing persuade the people of Mary-lebone that there was no favouritism in setting over them strangers, whose friends happened to be powerful with the Cabinet of the day, while those who had solid local claims, and the parochial suffrage, were passed over as unworthy of notice? Our new churches ought more especially to be free from all interested patronage, since they are built by the public for public purposes, and chiefly in dense neighbourhoods, where the very circumstance of their erection proves that the people needed instructors known as men of piety, and active zeal, and diligent pastoral habits. The plan pursued in most of these new churches, of making the payment of the clergyman's stipend depend in whole or in part upon the pew rents, though in many respects a very undesirable mode of clerical remuneration, has, however, this advantage, that it renders these appointments no sinecure, and by no means an eligible incumbency to any clergyman who does not intend to devote himself to the duties of his profession.

The King's House, or palace, and the adjoining ruins, suggest those affecting lessons of the mutations of every thing human which are so impressively exhibited in our ancient cities, and which add so greatly to the emotions with which we behold them. Our American friends are much struck with this, in visiting England. New York or Boston is a thing of to-day: we gaze at it only as we gaze at Manchester or Brighton, or as we admire the terraces in

the Regent's Park; but they generate no mental associations; none, at least, of a picturesque order, though many of far more important and fearfully tremendous interest, especially in relation to the immortal beings who inhabit them. But, still, all is modern; it scents of the varnish, and the gloss is fresh upon it. The American revolution itself is not old enough to raise the kind of emotions of which I write; and I question whether Bishop Hobart, zealous republican as he was, did not feel more when the Archbishop of Canterbury told him at Lambeth Palace that they were walking in the avenue where Archbishop Laud was wont to converse and meditate on the affairs of church and state, than when he mounted Bunker's Hill, or boarded a steam-boat on the Brandywine. Mr. Utilitarian Hume might perhaps evince livelier sympathy on seeing a real working Lancashire power-loom than if he discovered a fac-simile of one amidst the ruins of Persepolis; and the philosopher would in one sense be right; but why should not the amenities of life and literature also have their place? If the roof of Westminster Abbey were in danger of falling in, and a hundred pounds would repair it, Mr. Hunt would weary his parliamentary auditors, and Mr. Cobbett inflame his town and country radical readers, with tirades on the profligacy of such a grant, and its inhumanity, when the sum to be voted would furnish a meal to thousands of starving Irishmen. And that is true; and if either a hundred families, or a single individual, would be famished in consequence of such a vote, or the world really be one particle the worse, barbarous and unchristian would it be; but who does not see the fallacy of the whole objection? I need not pursue it, otherwise I might even go so far as to reduce the whole to utilitarianism itself, and thus meet our philosophers on their own ground. If I advance to higher ground, the argument rises with it; as you see

in the case of the temple at Jerusalem, and the tabernacle in the wilderness, and all the mementos and relics of antiquity so often referred to in the sacred writings.

Let philosophers philosophize; but why are not moral philosophizings as reasonable as those that are merely physical? And no man more needs them than a frigid utilitarian. Let him come, with his short-sighted matterof-fact speculations, and here, in these very ruins, is another plain matter-of-fact which throws a sombre hue over them all; for they who devised and completed what are now the wrecks around us, were perhaps also in their day utilitarians. Yonder King's House was the work of that sensual utilitarian Charles the Second, who meant it for the scene of all he cared to know of utility-pleasure; and ordered it to be completed without regard to cost; and Wren planned the magnificent fabric, which was to range from north to south three hundred and twenty-six feet; and marble pillars were in readiness, the gift of the Grand Duke of Tuscany; and there was every convenience, even to that of two chapels as the queen, a Papist, could not worship with her worthy husband, in courtesy called a Protestant;—and nothing, in short, was wanting to render it all he wished, but that human life should be certain, and human affairs unchangeable, and human pleasures without alloy. But, alas! none of these desiderata were procurable; and after two years, during which the work proceeded with ardour, a stop was put to it by the death of its projector; who, amidst all his calculations, seems to have forgotten that most certain of all events-death, and after death the judgment. And thus, amidst his fond schemes of princely enjoyment, surrounded by flatterers, and the ministers of his debasing gratifications, and the enriched and be-titled victims of his licentiousness, perished this mighty master of the art of happiness-making. But did he never think, when, to make room for his

new palace, he pulled down the ancient castle which occupied its site, how many like him had there sported and trifled life away; how many had rendered it terrific with wars and bloodshed; and how many, in the varied forms of self-seeking worldly utilitarianism, under its tripartite division of the lusts of the flesh, the lusts of the eye, and the pride of life, had there filled up their measure, both of good and evil, and gone to their account? The massy walls which he subverted had been heaped together by William the Conqueror, to keep in subjection his metropolis of Winchester. There Stephen and Maud had fiercely contended; and there for successive ages was exhibited every scene that chequers the history of a semi-barbarous court. Every stone in its walls might have read, to a worse antiquary than Charles, such monitory lessons as it were well for him to have learned; in order that, surrounded with the wreck of all that had gone before him-the ruins of earthly pomp and glory, of beauty and chivalry, of whatever was splendid in the magnificence of princely state or pontifical devotion-he might so number his days as to apply his heart to heavenly wisdom. But he learned not the lesson: he had his day of probation, and will have his day of final account: he tried much the same experiments as Solomon tried before him, and probably found, like him, that the result was vanity and vexation of spirit. I would earnestly hope, what, however, I fear history does not allow me to believe, that he had come to the same practical conclusion: "Fear God, and keep his commandments, for that is the whole" [our translators supply the word duty,' but privilege and happiness would do as well, and should at least be added]" of man."- -It would have mortified Charles to have foreseen the fate of his luxurious palace. I do not know what became of it till the Seven Years' War last century, when it was made a depôt for French

prisoners. It was afterwards converted into barracks; then given up to the emigrant French priests; and again relapsed into barracks; for which it seems well adapted, being lofty, and spacious, and airy, and suburban, and furnished with every convenience for military practice. As an object in the landscape, just look at it on its steep ascent, studded with its innumerable windows, and crowning with its conspicuous range the horizon of the city. But it was only to notice its moralities that I reminded you of it. Its halls are now silent; it is not occupied even as barracks: grass grows on its parade, except where a solitary centinel with monotonous pace wears away a narrow track. When my little ones climbed with me its serene altitudes, I could not but bless God that their infancy and youth had not been cradled, like ours, in an era of blood, when, though the sword passed not through our land, its gleamings flashed on us from afar; it pierced our widows and orphans through those they most loved: even our rural retreats echoed with martial clangour; every roof covered a warrior, and on every side were seen the dreadful preparatives for desolation and death. Our younger men and women scarcely recollect this; may they never witness its recurrence! Oh, my friend, what do we owe to the Author of all our mercies for this present breathing of peace! Alas, how little have we improved it! and how lightly do some among us speak of it! as if they almost sighed again for the "confused noise of the warrior and garments rolled in blood." When will nations calling themselves Christian cease to be led away with that glaring meteor falsely called glory! Is it no glory to make peace, to preserve peace, and even to sacrifice much for peace? I think that our generation was sufficiently sickened with the horrors and the entailed results of war; the next generation, I fear, may be less in terror of so great a calamity. But

I have hopes, grounded supremely upon the mercy of God, and subordinately, as a means of prevention, upon the calamities which all the nations of Europe, more or less, feel in consequence of so many years of hostility, and on the knowledge, now widely diffused, of the best interests of states, and the incompatibility of war with human happiness. I augur something also from free trade and political economy. Great Britain at least, I am sure, ought to be one vast Peace Society; and, were it from no better motive than worldly interest, to echo both temporally and spiritually the anthem of the nativity, "Glory to God in the highest ; and on earth peace, good will towards men."

On the south side of the King's House were seen, till of late, the proud masses, noticed by Bishop Mant, of the Norman Conqueror's castle, while even now its fosse and mound exhibit somewhat of its onceboasted strength and security. Northward is St. Stephen's Chapel, now the County hall, and far-famed for its pseudo Arthur's Round Table; but, though certainly not king Arthur's, it can boast of age sufficient to satisfy a somewhat voracious antiquary, for it cannot be many centuries short of a thousand years old; and Henry the Eighth exhibited it to the Emperor Charles as undoubtedly Arthur's. There is a panegyric on this table by Thomas Warton, who celebrated every thing Wintonensian, from Mons Catherine(Aerii Catherina jugi quà vertice summo Danarum veteres fossas, immania castra, Et circumducti servat vestigia valli, Wiccamicæ mos est pubi, celebrare palæstras, &c. &c. )—

to the city play-house and shambles

both under one roof-where, Divided only by one flight of stairs The monarch swaggers and the butcher

swears.

Laureate Warton's poetry, and the poetry of other admired writers of his day, will not bear inspection side by side with the poetry of our own age. Who now-a-days would