"Can this be my Jenny?" cries poor Amelia, who runs forward to meet her old friend, and finds a pompous, frigid-looking personage in an enormous hoop, the very pink of the fashion; to which Mrs. James answers, "Madam, I believe I have done what was genteel," and wonders how any mortal can live up three pair of stairs. "Is there," says the enthusiastic for the first time in her life, "so delightful a sight in the world as the four honors in one's own hand, unless it be the three natural aces at brag?" Can comedy be finer than this? Has not every person some Matthews and James in their acquaintance—one all passion, and the other all indifference and vapid self-complacency? James, the good-natured fellow, with passions and without principles: Bath, with his magnificent notions of throat-cutting and the Christian religion, what admirable knowledge of the world do all these characters display: what good moral may be drawn from them by those who will take the trouble to think! This, however, is not a task that the generality of novel-readers are disposed to take upon them, and prefer that their favorite works should contain as little reflection as possible; indeed, it is very probable that Mrs. James, or Miss Matthews might read their own characters as here described, and pronounce such writing vastly low and unnatural.

But what is especially worthy of remark is the masterly manner in which the author paints the good part of those equivocal characters that he brings upon his stage: James has his generosity, and his silly wife her good nature; Matthews her starts of kindness; and Old Bath, in his sister's dressing-gown, cooking possets for her, is really an amiable object, whom we like while we laugh at him. A great deal of tenderness and love goes along with this kind of laughter, and it was this mixed feeling that our author liked so to indulge himself in, and knew so well how to excite in others. Whenever he has to relate an action of benevolence, honest Fielding kindles as he writes it: some writers of fiction have been accused of falling in a passion with their bad characters: these our author treats with a philosophic calmness: it is when he comes to the good that he grows enthusiastic: you fancy that you see the tears in his manly eyes; nor does he care to disguise any of the affectionate sympathies of his great, simple heart. This is a defect in art perhaps, but a very charming one.

For further particulars of Fielding's life, we recommend the reader to consult Mr. Roscoe's biography. Indeed, as much as any of his romances, his own history illustrates the maxim we have just quoted from Amelia.

Want, sorrow, and pain subdued his body at last, but his great and noble humor rode buoyant over them all, and his frank and manly philosophy overcame them. His generous attachment to his family comforted him to the last; and though all the labors of the poor fellow were only sufficient to keep him and them in a bare competence, yet it must be remembered, to his credit, that he left behind him a friend who valued him so much as to provide for the family he had left destitute, and to place them beyond the reach of want. It is some credit to a man to have been the friend of Ralph Allen; and Fielding before his death raised a monument to his friend a great deal more lasting than bronze or marble, placing his figure in the romance of Tom Jones under the name of Allworthy. "There is a day, sir," says Fielding in one of his dedications to Mr. Allen, "which no man in the kingdom can think of without fear, but yourself—the day of your death." Can there he a finer compliment? Nor was Fielding the man to pay it to one whom he thought was undeserving of it.

Never do Fielding's courage, cheerfulness, and affection forsake him; up to the last days of his life he is laboring still for his children. He dies, and is beholden to the admiration of a foreigner, Monsieur de Meryionnet, French consul at Lisbon, for a decent grave and tombstone. There he lies, sleeping after life's fitful fever. No more care, no more duns, no more racking pain, no more wild midnight orgies and jovial laughter. Of the women who are weeping for him a pious friend takes care. Here, indeed, it seems as if his sorrow ended; and one hopes and fancies that the poor but noble fellow's spirit is at last pure and serene.

FOOTNOTES:

[H] The Works of Henry Fielding, in two volumes, octavo. With a Life, Portrait, and Autograph. London: Henry G. Bohn, Covent Garden. [New-York: Stringer and Townsend. 1851.]



From "Recollections of a Police Officer" in Chambers's Edinburgh Journal.

FLINT JACKSON.

Farnham hops are world-famous, or at least famous in that huge portion of the world where English ale is drunk, and whereon, I have a thousand times heard and read, the sun never sets. The name, therefore, of the pleasant Surrey village, in and about which the events I am about to relate occurred, is, I may fairly presume, known to many of my readers. I was ordered to Farnham, to investigate a case of burglary, committed in the house of a gentleman of the name of Hursley, during the temporary absence of the family, which had completely nonplussed the unpractised Dogberrys of the place, albeit it was not a riddle at all difficult to read. The premises, it was quickly plain to me, had been broken, not into, but out of; and a watch being set upon the motions of the very specious and clever person left in charge of the house and property, it was speedily discovered that the robbery had been effected by herself and a confederate of the name of Dawkins, her brother-in-law. Some of the stolen goods were found secreted at his lodgings; but the most valuable portion, consisting of plate, and a small quantity of jewelry, had disappeared: it had questionless been converted into money, as considerable sums, in sovereigns, were found upon both Dawkins and the woman, Sarah Purday. Now, as it had been clearly ascertained that neither of the prisoners had left Farnham since the burglary, it was manifest there was a receiver near at hand who had purchased the missing articles. Dawkins and Purday were, however, dumb as stones upon the subject; and nothing occurred to point suspicion till early in the evening previous to the second examination of the prisoners before the magistrates, when Sarah Purday asked for pen, ink, and paper for the purpose of writing to one Mr. Jackson, in whose service she had formerly lived. I happened to be at the prison, and of course took the liberty of carefully unsealing her note and reading it. It revealed nothing; and save by its extremely cautious wording, and abrupt, peremptory tone, coming from a servant to her former master, suggested nothing. I had carefully reckoned the number of sheets of paper sent into the cell, and now on recounting them found that three were missing. The turnkey returned immediately, and asked for the two other letters she had written. The woman denied having written any other, and for proof pointed to the torn fragments of the missing sheets lying on the floor. These were gathered up and brought to me, but I could make nothing out of them, every word having been carefully run through with the pen, and converted into an unintelligible blot. The request contained in the actually-written letter was one simple enough in itself, merely, "that Mr. Jackson would not on any account fail to provide her, in consideration of past services, with legal assistance on the morrow." The first nine words were strongly underlined; and I made out after a good deal of trouble that the word "pretence" had been partially effaced, and "account" substituted for it.

"She need not have wasted three sheets of paper upon such a nonsensical request as that," observed the turnkey. "Old Jackson wouldn't shell out sixpence to save her or anybody else from the gallows."

"I am of a different opinion; but tell me, what sort of a person is this former master of hers?"

"All I know about him is that he's a cross-grained, old curmudgeon, living about a mile out of Farnham, who scrapes money together by lending small sums upon notes-of-hand at short dates, and at a thundering interest. Flint Jackson folk about here call him."

"At all events, forward the letter at once, and to-morrow we shall see—what we shall see. Good-evening."

It turned out as I anticipated. A few minutes after the prisoners were brought into the justice-room, a Guilford solicitor of much local celebrity arrived, and announced that he appeared for both the inculpated parties. He was allowed a private conference with them, at the close of which he stated that his clients would reserve their defence. They were at once committed for trial, and I overheard the solicitor assure the woman that the ablest counsel on the circuit would be retained in their behalf.

I had no longer a doubt that it was my duty to know something further of this suddenly-generous Flint Jackson, though how to set about it was a matter of considerable difficulty. There was no legal pretence for a search-warrant, and I doubted the prudence of proceeding upon my own responsibility with so astute an old fox as Jackson was represented to be; for, supposing him to be a confederate with the burglars, he had by this time in all probability sent the stolen property away—to London in all likelihood; and should I find nothing, the consequences of ransacking his house merely because he had provided a former servant with legal assistance would be serious. Under these circumstances I wrote to headquarters for instructions, and by return of post received orders to prosecute the inquiry thoroughly, but cautiously, and to consider time as nothing so long as there appeared a chance of fixing Jackson with the guilt of receiving the plunder. Another suspicious circumstance that I have omitted to notice in its place was that the Guilford solicitor tendered bail for the prisoners to any reasonable amount, and named Enoch Jackson as one of the securities. Bail was, however, refused.

There was no need for over-hurrying the business, as the prisoners were committed to the Surrey Spring Assizes, and it was now the season of the hop-harvest—a delightful and hilarious period about Farnham when the weather is fine and the yield abundant. I, however, lost no time in making diligent and minute inquiry as to the character and habits of Jackson, and the result was a full conviction that nothing but the fear of being denounced as an accomplice could have induced such a miserly, iron-hearted rogue to put himself to charges in defence of the imprisoned burglars.

One afternoon, whilst pondering the matter, and at the same time enjoying the prettiest and cheerfulest of rural sights, that of hop-picking, the apothecary at whose house I was lodging—we will call him Mr. Morgan; he was a Welshmann—tapped me suddenly on the shoulder, and looking sharply round, I perceived he had something he deemed of importance to communicate.

"What is it?" I said quickly.

"The oddest thing in the world. There's Flint Jackson, his deaf old woman, and the young people lodging with him, all drinking and boozing away at yon alehouse."

"Show them to me, if you please."

A few minutes brought us to the place of boisterous entertainment, the lower room of which was suffocatingly full of tipplers and tobacco-smoke. We nevertheless contrived to edge ourselves in; and my companion stealthily pointed out the group, who were seated together near the farther window, and then left me to myself.

The appearance of Jackson entirely answered to the popular prefix of Flint attached to his name. He was a wiry, gnarled, heavy-browed, iron-jawed fellow of about sixty, with deep-set eyes aglow with sinister and greedy instincts. His wife, older than he, and as deaf apparently as the door of a dungeon, wore a simpering, imbecile look of wonderment, it seemed to me, at the presence of such unusual and abundant cheer. The young people who lodged with Jackson were really a very frank, honest, good-looking couple, though not then appearing to advantage—the countenance of Henry Rogers being flushed and inflamed with drink, and that of his wife's clouded with frowns, at the situation in which she found herself, and the riotous conduct of her husband. Their brief history was this: They had both been servants in a family living not far distant from Farnham—Sir Thomas Lethbridge's, I understood—when about three or four months previous to the present time Flint Jackson, who had once been in an attorney's office, discovered that Henry Rogers, in consequence of the death of a distant relative in London, was entitled to property worth something like L1500. There were, however, some law difficulties in the way, which Jackson offered, if the business were placed in his hands, to overcome for a consideration, and in the mean time to supply board and lodging and such necessary sums of money as Henry Rogers might require. With this brilliant prospect in view service became at once utterly distasteful. The fortunate legatee had for some time courted Mary Elkins, one of the ladies' maids, a pretty, bright-eyed brunette; and they were both united in the bonds of holy matrimony on the very day the "warnings" they had given expired. Since then they had lived at Jackson's house in daily expectation of their "fortune," with which they proposed to start in the public line.

Finding myself unrecognized, I called boldly for a pot and a pipe, and after some manoeuvring contrived to seat myself within earshot of Jackson and his party. They presented a strange study. Henry Rogers was boisterously excited, and not only drinking freely himself, but treating a dozen fellows round him, the cost of which he from time to time called upon "Old Flint," as he courteously styled his ancient friend, to discharge.

"Come, fork out, Old Flint!" he cried again and again. "It'll be all right, you know, in a day or two, and a few halfpence over. Shell out, old fellow! What signifies, so you're happy?"

Jackson complied with an affectation of acquiescent gayety ludicrous to behold. It was evident that each successive pull at his purse was like wrenching a tooth out of his head, and yet while the dismallest of smiles wrinkled his wolfish mouth, he kept exclaiming: "A fine lad—a fine lad! generous as a prince—generous as a prince! Good Lord, another round! He minds money no more than as if gold was as plentiful as gravel! But a fine generous lad for all that!"

Jackson, I perceived, drank considerably, as if incited thereto by compressed savageness. The pretty young wife would not taste a drop, but tears frequently filled her eyes, and bitterness pointed her words as she vainly implored her husband to leave the place and go home with her. To all her remonstrances the maudlin drunkard replied only by foolery, varied occasionally by an attempt at a line or two of the song of "The Thorn."

"But you will plant thorns, Henry," rejoined the provoked wife in a louder and angrier tone than she ought perhaps to have used—"not only in my bosom, but your own, if you go on in this sottish, disgraceful way."

"Always quarrelling, always quarrelling!" remarked Jackson, pointedly, towards the bystanders—"always quarrelling!"

"Who is always quarrelling?" demanded the young wife sharply. "Do you mean me and Henry?"

"I was only saying, my dear, that you don't like your husband to be so generous and free-hearted—that's all," replied Jackson, with a confidential wink at the persons near him.

"Free-hearted and generous! Fool-hearted and crazy, you mean!" rejoined the wife, who was much excited. "And you ought to be ashamed of yourself to give him money for such brutish purposes."

"Always quarrelling, always quarrelling!" iterated Jackson, but this time unheard by Mrs. Rogers—"always, perpetually quarrelling!"

I could not quite comprehend all this. If so large a sum as L1500 was really coming to the young man, why should Jackson wince as he did at disbursing small amounts which he could repay himself with abundant interest? If otherwise—and it was probable he should not be repaid—what meant his eternal, "fine generous lad!" "spirited young man!" and so on? What, above all, meant that look of diabolical hate which shot out from his cavernous eyes towards Henry Rogers when he thought himself unobserved, just after satisfying a fresh claim on his purse? Much practice in reading the faces and deportment of such men made it pretty clear to me that Jackson's course of action respecting the young man and his money was not yet decided upon in his own mind; that he was still perplexed and irresolute; and hence the apparent contradiction in his words and acts.

Henry Rogers at length dropped asleep with his head upon one of the settle-tables; Jackson sank into sullen silence; the noisy room grew quiet; and I came away.

I was impressed with a belief that Jackson entertained some sinister design against his youthful and inexperienced lodgers, and I determined to acquaint them with my suspicions. For this purpose Mr. Morgan, who had a patient living near Jackson's house, undertook to invite them to tea on some early evening, on the pretence that he had heard of a tavern that might suit them when they should receive their fortune. Let me confess, too, that I had another design besides putting the young people on their guard against Jackson. I thought it very probable that it would not be difficult to glean from them some interesting and suggestive particulars concerning the ways, means, practices, outgoings and incomings, of their worthy landlord's household.

Four more days passed unprofitably away, and I was becoming weary of the business, when about five o'clock in the afternoon the apothecary galloped up to his door on a borrowed horse, jumped off with surprising celerity, and with a face as white as his own magnesia, burst out as he hurried into the room where I was sitting: "Here's a pretty kettle of fish! Henry Rogers has been poisoned, and by his wife!"

"Poisoned!"

"Yes, poisoned; although, thanks to my being on the spot, I think he will recover. But I must instantly to Dr. Edwards: I will tell you all when I return."

The promised "all" was this: Morgan was passing slowly by Jackson's house, in the hope of seeing either Mr. or Mrs. Rogers, when the servant-woman, Jane Riddet, ran out and begged him to come in, as their lodger had been taken suddenly ill. Ill indeed! The surface of his body was cold as death, and the apothecary quickly discovered that he had been poisoned with sulphuric acid (oil of vitriol), a quantity of which he, Morgan, had sold a few days previously to Mrs. Rogers, who, when purchasing it, said Mr. Jackson wanted it to apply to some warts that annoyed him. Morgan fortunately knew the proper remedy, and desired Jackson, who was in the room, and seemingly very anxious and flurried, to bring some soap instantly, a solution of which he proposed to give immediately to the seemingly dying man. The woman-servant was gone to find Mrs. Rogers, who had left about ten minutes before, having first made the tea in which the poison had been taken. Jackson hurried out of the apartment, but was gone so long that Morgan, becoming impatient, scraped a quantity of plaster off the wall, and administered it with the best effect. At last Jackson came back, and said there was unfortunately not a particle of soap in the house. A few minutes afterwards the young wife, alarmed at the woman-servant's tidings, flew into the room in an agony of alarm and grief. Simulated alarm, crocodile grief, Mr. Morgan said; for there could, in his opinion, be no doubt that she had attempted to destroy her husband. Mr. Jackson, on being questioned, peremptorily denied that he had ever desired Mrs. Rogers to procure sulphuric acid for him, or had received any from her—a statement which so confounded the young woman that she instantly fainted. The upshot was that Mrs. Rogers was taken into custody and lodged in prison.

This terrible news flew through Farnham like wildfire. In a few minutes it was upon every body's tongue: the hints of the quarrelsome life the young couple led, artfully spread by Jackson, were recalled, and no doubt appeared to be entertained of the truth of the dreadful charge. I had no doubt either, but my conviction was not that of the Farnham folk. This, then, was the solution of the struggle I had seen going on in Jackson's mind; this the realization of the dark thought which I had imperfectly read in the sinister glances of his restless eyes. He had intended to destroy both the husband and wife—the one by poison, and the other by the law! Doubtless, then, the L1500 had been obtained, and this was the wretched man's infernal device for retaining it! I went over with Morgan early the next morning to see the patient, and found that, thanks to the prompt antidote administered, and Dr. Edwards's subsequent active treatment, he was rapidly recovering. The still-suffering young man, I was glad to find, would not believe for a moment in his wife's guilt. I watched the looks and movements of Jackson attentively—a scrutiny which he, now aware of my vocation, by no means appeared to relish.

"Pray," said I, suddenly addressing Riddet, the woman-servant—"pray, how did it happen that you had no soap in such a house as this yesterday evening?"

"No soap!" echoed the woman with a stare of surprise. "Why"—

"No—no soap," hastily broke in her master with loud and menacing emphasis. "There was not a morsel in the house. I bought some afterwards in Farnham."

The cowed and bewildered woman slunk away. I was more than satisfied; and judging by Jackson's countenance, which changed beneath my look to the color of the lime-washed wall against which he stood, he surmised that I was.

My conviction, however, was not evidence, and I felt that I should need even more than my wonted good fortune to bring the black crime home to the real perpetrator. For the present, at all events, I must keep silence—a resolve I found hard to persist in at the examination of the accused wife, an hour or two afterwards, before the county magistrates. Jackson had hardened himself to iron, and gave his lying evidence with ruthless self-possession. He had not desired Mrs. Rogers to purchase sulphuric acid; had not received any from her. In addition also to his testimony that she and her husband were always quarrelling, it was proved by a respectable person that high words had passed between them on the evening previous to the day the criminal offence was committed, and that foolish, passionate expressions had escaped her about wishing to be rid of such a drunken wretch. This evidence, combined with the medical testimony, appeared so conclusive to the magistrates that spite of the unfortunate woman's wild protestations of innocence, and the rending agony which convulsed her frame, and almost choked her utterance, she was remanded to prison till that day week, when, the magistrates informed her, she would be again brought up for the merely formal completion of the depositions, and be then fully committed on the capital charge.

I was greatly disturbed, and walked for two or three hours about the quiet neighborhood of Farnham, revolving a hundred fragments of schemes for bringing the truth to light, without arriving at any feasible conclusion. One only mode of procedure seemed to offer, and that but dimly, a hope of success. It was, however, the best I could hit upon, and I directed my steps towards the Farnham orison. Sarah Purday had not yet, I remembered, been removed to the county jail at Guilford.

"Is Sarah Purday," I asked the turnkey, "more reconciled to her position than she was?"

"She's just the same—bitter as gall, and venomous as a viper."

This woman, I should state, was a person of fierce will and strong passions, and in early life had been respectably situated.

"Just step into her cell," I continued, "upon some excuse or other, and carelessly drop a hint that if she could prevail upon Jackson to get her brought by habeas before a judge in London, there could be no doubt of her being bailed."

The man stared, but after a few words of pretended explanation, went off to do as I requested. He was not long gone. "She's all in a twitteration at the thoughts of it," he said; "and must have pen, ink, and paper without a moment's delay, bless her consequence!"

These were supplied; and I was soon in possession of her letter, couched cautiously, but more peremptorily than the former one. I need hardly say it did not reach its destination. She passed the next day in a state of feverish impatience; and no answer returning, wrote again, her words this time conveying an evident though indistinct threat. I refrained from visiting her till two days had thus passed, and found her, as I expected, eaten up with fury. She glared at me as I entered the cell like a chained tigress.

"You appear vexed," I said, "no doubt because Jackson declines to get you bailed. He ought not to refuse you such a trifling service, considering all things."

"All what things?" replied the woman, eyeing me fiercely.

"That you know best, though I have a shrewd guess."

"What do you guess? and what are you driving at?"

"I will deal frankly with you, Sarah Purday. In the first place, you must plainly perceive that your friend Jackson has cast you off—abandoned you to your fate; and that fate will, there can be no doubt, be transportation."

"Well," she impatiently snarled, "suppose so; what then?"

"This—that you can help yourself in this difficulty by helping me."

"As how?"

"In the first place, give me the means of convicting Jackson of having received the stolen property."

"Ha! How do you know that?"

"Oh, I know it very well—as well almost as you do. But this is not my chief object; there is another, far more important one," and I ran over the incidents relative to the attempt at poisoning. "Now," I resumed, "tell me, if you will, your opinion on this matter."

"That it was Jackson administered the poison, and certainly not the young woman," she replied, with vengeful promptness.

"My own conviction! This, then, is my proposition: you are sharp-witted, and know this fellow's ways, habits, and propensities thoroughly—I, too, have heard something of them—and it strikes me that you could suggest some plan, some device grounded on that knowledge, whereby the truth might come to light."

The woman looked fixedly at me for some time without speaking. As I meant fairly and honestly by her I could bear her gaze without shrinking.

"Supposing I could assist you," she at last said, "how would that help me?"

"It would help you greatly. You would no doubt be still convicted of the burglary, for the evidence is irresistible; but if in the mean time you should have been instrumental in saving the life of an innocent person, and of bringing a great criminal to justice, there cannot be a question that the Queen's mercy would be extended to you, and the punishment be merely a nominal one."

"If I were sure of that!" she murmured, with a burning scrutiny in her eyes, which were still fixed upon my countenance; "if I were sure of that! But you are misleading me."

"Believe me, I am not. I speak in perfect sincerity. Take time to consider the matter. I will look in again in about an hour; and pray, do not forget that it is your sole and last chance."

I left her, and did not return till more than three hours had passed away. Sarah Purday was pacing the cell in a frenzy of inquietude.

"I thought you had forgotten me. Now," she continued with rapid vehemence, "tell me, on your word and honor as a man, do you truly believe that if I can effectually assist you it will avail me with Her Majesty?"

"I am as positive it will as I am of my own life."

"Well, then, I will assist you. First, then, Jackson was a confederate with Dawkins and myself, and received the plate and jewelry, for which he paid us less than one-third of the value."

"Rogers and his wife were not, I hope, cognizant of this?"

"Certainly not; but Jackson's wife and the woman-servant, Riddet, were. I have been turning the other business over in my mind," she continued, speaking with increasing emotion and rapidity; "and oh, believe me, Mr. Waters, if you can, that it is not solely a selfish motive which induces me to aid in saving Mary Rogers from destruction. I was once myself—Ah God!"

Tears welled up to the fierce eyes, but they were quickly brushed away, and she continued somewhat more calmly: "You have heard, I dare say, that Jackson has a strange habit of talking in his sleep?"

"I have, and that he once consulted Morgan as to whether there was any cure for it. It was that which partly suggested—"

"It is, I believe, a mere fancy of his," she interrupted; "or at any rate the habit is not so frequent, nor what he says so intelligible, as he thoroughly believes and fears it, from some former circumstances, to be. His deaf wife cannot undeceive him, and he takes care never even to doze except in her presence only."

"This is not, then, so promising as I hoped."

"Have patience. It is full of promise, as we will manage. Every evening Jackson frequents a low gambling-house, where he almost invariably wins small sums at cards—by craft, no doubt, as he never drinks there. When he returns home at about ten o'clock, his constant habit is to go into the front parlor, where his wife is sure to be sitting at that hour. He carefully locks the door, helps himself to brandy and water—plentifully of late—and falls asleep in his arm-chair; and there they both doze away, sometimes till one o'clock—always till past twelve."

"Well; but I do not see how—"

"Hear me out, if you please. Jackson never wastes a candle to drink or sleep by, and at this time of the year there will be no fire. If he speaks to his wife he does not expect her, from her wooden deafness, to answer him. Do you begin to perceive my drift?"

"Upon my word, I do not."

"What; if upon awaking, Jackson finds that his wife is Mr. Waters, and that Mr. Waters relates to him all that he has disclosed in his sleep: that Mr. Hursley's plate is buried in the garden near the lilac-tree; that he, Jackson, received a thousand pounds six weeks ago of Henry Rogers's fortune, and that the money is now in the recess on the top-landing, the key of which is in his breast-pocket; that he was the receiver of the plate stolen from a house in the close at Salisbury a twelvemonth ago, and sold in London for four hundred and fifty pounds. All this hurled at him," continued the woman with wild energy and flashing eyes, "what else might not a bold, quick-witted man make him believe he had confessed, revealed in his brief sleep?"

I had been sitting on a bench; but as these rapid disclosures burst from her lips, and I saw the use to which they might be turned, I rose slowly and in some sort involuntarily to my feet, lifted up, as it were, by the energy of her fiery words.

"God reward you," I exclaimed, shaking both her hands in mine. "You have, unless I blunder, rescued an innocent woman from the scaffold. I see it all. Farewell!"

"Mr. Waters," she exclaimed, in a changed, palpitating voice, as I was passing forth; "when all is done, you will not forget me?"

"That I will not, by my own hopes of mercy in the hereafter. Adieu!"

At a quarter past nine that evening I, accompanied by two Farnham constables, knocked at the door of Jackson's house. Henry Rogers, I should state, had been removed to the village. The door was opened by the woman servant, and we went in. "I have a warrant for your arrest, Jane Riddet," I said, "as an accomplice in the plate-stealing the other day. There, don't scream, but listen to me." I then intimated the terms upon which alone she could expect favor. She tremblingly promised compliance; and after placing the constables outside, in concealment, but within hearing, I proceeded to the parlor, secured the terrified old woman, and confined her safely in a distant out-house.

"Now, Riddet," I said, "quick with one of the old lady's gowns, a shawl, cap, et cetera." These were brought, and I returned to the parlor. It was a roomy apartment, with small, diamond-paned windows, and just then but very faintly illuminated by the star-light. There were two large high-backed easy-chairs, and I prepared to take possession of the one recently vacated by Jackson's wife. "You must perfectly understand," were my parting words to the trembling servant, "that we intend standing no nonsense with either you or your master. You cannot escape; but if you let Mr. Jackson in as usual, and he enters this room as usual, no harm will befall you: if otherwise, you will be unquestionably transported. Now, go."

My toilet was not so easily accomplished as I thought it would be. The gown did not meet at the back by about a foot; that, however, was of little consequence, as the high chair concealed the deficiency; neither did the shortness of the sleeves matter much, as the ample shawl could be made to hide my too great length of arm; but the skirt was scarcely lower than a Highlander's, and how the deuce I was to crook my booted legs up out of view, even in that gloomy starlight, I could hardly imagine. The cap also was far too small; still, with an ample kerchief in my hand, my whiskers might, I thought, be concealed. I was still fidgeting with these arrangements when Jackson knocked at his door. The servant admitted him without remark, and he presently entered the room, carefully locked the door, and jolted down, so to speak, in the fellow easy-chair to mine.

He was silent for a few moments, and then he bawled out: "She'll swing for it, they say—swing for it, d'ye hear, dame? But no, of course she don't—deafer and deafer, deafer and deafer every day. It'll be a precious good job when the parson says his last prayers over her, as well as others."

He then got up, and went to a cupboard. I could hear—for I dared not look up—by the jingling of glasses and the outpouring of liquids that he was helping himself to his spirituous sleeping-draughts. He reseated himself, and drank in moody silence, except now and then mumbling drowsily to himself, but in so low a tone that I could make nothing out of it save an occasional curse or blasphemy. It was nearly eleven o'clock before the muttered self-communing ceased, and his heavy head sank upon the back of the easy-chair. He was very restless, and it was evident that even his sleeping brain labored with affrighting and oppressive images; but the mutterings, as before he slept, were confused and indistinct. At length—half an hour had perhaps thus passed—the troubled meanings became for a few moments clearly audible. "Ha—ha—ha!" he burst out, "how are you off for soap? Ho—ho! done there, my boy; ha—ha! But no—no. Wall plaster! Who could have thought it? But for that I—I—What do you stare at me so for, you infernal blue-bottle? You—you—" Again the dream-utterance sank into indistinctness, and I comprehended nothing more.

About half-past twelve o'clock he awoke, rose, stretched himself, and said: "Come, dame, let's to bed; it's getting chilly here."

"Dame" did not answer, and he again went towards the cupboard. "Here's a candle-end will do for us," he muttered. A lucifer-match was drawn across the wall, he lit the candle, and stumbled towards me, for he was scarcely yet awake. "Come, dame, come! Why, thee beest sleeping like a dead un! Wake up, will thee—Ah! murder! thieves! mur"—

My grasp was on the wretch's throat; but there was no occasion to use force: he recognized me, and nerveless, paralyzed, sank on the floor incapable of motion much less of resistance, and could only gaze in my face in dumb affright and horror.

"Give me the key of the recess up stairs, which you carry in your breast pocket. In your sleep, unhappy man, you have revealed every thing."

An inarticulate shriek of terror replied to me. I was silent; and presently he gasped: "Wha—at, what have I said?"

"That Mr. Hursley's plate is buried in the garden by the lilac-tree; that you have received a thousand pounds belonging to the man you tried to poison; that you netted four hundred and fifty pounds by the plate stolen at Salisbury; that you dexterously contrived, to slip the sulphuric acid into the tea unseen by Henry Rogers's wife."

The shriek or scream was repeated, and he was for several moments speechless with consternation. A ray of hope gleamed suddenly in his flaming eyes. "It is true—it is true!" he hurriedly ejaculated; "useless—useless—useless to deny it. But you are alone, and poor, poor, no doubt. A thousand pounds!—more, more than that: two thousand pounds in gold—gold, all in gold—I will give you to spare me, to let me escape!"

"Where did you hide the soap on the day when you confess you tried to poison Henry Rogers?"

"In the recess you spoke of. But think! Two thousand pounds in gold—all in gold—"

As he spoke, I suddenly grasped the villain's hands, pressed them together, and in another instant the snapping of a handcuff pronounced my answer. A yell of anguish burst from the miserable man, so loud and piercing, that the constables outside hurried to the outer-door, and knocked hastily for admittance. They were let in by the servant-woman; and in half an hour afterwards the three prisoners—Jackson, his wife, and Jane Riddet—were safe in Farnham prison.

A few sentences will conclude this narrative. Mary Rogers was brought up on the following day, and, on my evidence, discharged. Her husband, I have heard, has since proved a better and a wiser man. Jackson was convicted at the Guilford assize of guiltily receiving the Hursley plate, and sentenced to transportation for life. This being so, the graver charge of attempting to poison was not pressed. There was no moral doubt of his guilt; but the legal proof of it rested solely on his own hurried confession, which counsel would no doubt have contended ought not to be received. His wife and the servant were leniently dealt with.

Sarah Purday was convicted, and sentenced to transportation. I did not forget my promise; and a statement of the previously-narrated circumstances having been drawn up and forwarded to the Queen and the Home Secretary, a pardon, after some delay, was issued. There were painful circumstances in her history which, after strict inquiry, told favorably for her. Several benevolent persons interested themselves in her behalf, and she was sent out to Canada, where she had some relatives, and has, I believe, prospered there.

This affair caused considerable hubbub at the time, and much admiration was expressed by the country people at the boldness and dexterity of the London "runner;" whereas, in fact, the successful result was entirely attributable to the opportune revelations of Sarah Purday.



From the North British Review.

JOHN OWEN AT OXFORD.[I]

Two hundred years ago the Puritan dwelt in Oxford; but, before his arrival, both Cavalier and Roundhead soldiers had encamped in its Colleges. Sad was the trace of their sojourn. From the dining-halls the silver tankards had vanished, and the golden candlesticks of the cathedral lay buried in a neighboring field. Stained windows were smashed, and the shrines of Bernard and Frideswide lay open to the storm. And whilst the heads of marble apostles, mingling with cannonballs and founders' coffins, formed a melancholy rubbish in many a corner, straw heaps on the pavement and staples in the wall, reminded the spectator that it was not long since dragoons had quartered in All-Souls, and horses crunched their oats beneath the tower of St. Mary Magdalene.

However, matters again are mending. Broken windows are repaired; lost revenues are recovered; and the sons of Crispin have evacuated chambers once more consecrated to syntax and the syllogism. Through these spacious courts we recognize the progress of the man who has accomplished the arduous restoration. Tall, and in the prime of life, with cocked-hat and powdered hair, with lawn tops to his morocco boots, and with ribbons luxuriant at his knee, there is nothing to mark the Puritan,—whilst in his easy unembarrassed movements and kindly-assuring air, there is all which bespeaks the gentleman; but, were it not for the reverences of obsequious beadles and the recognitions of respectful students, you would scarce surmise the academic dignitary. That old-fashioned divine,—his square cap and ruff surmounting the doctor's gown,—with whom he shakes hands so cordially, is a Royalist and Prelatist, but withal the Hebrew Professor, and the most famous Orientalist in England, Dr. Edward Pocock. From his little parish of Childry, where he passes for "no Latiner," and is little prized, he has come up to deliver his Arabic lecture, and collate some Syriac manuscript, and observe the progress of the fig-tree which he fetched from the Levant; and he feels not a little beholden to the Vice-Chancellor, who, when the Parliamentary triers had pronounced him incompetent, interfered and retained him in his living. Passing the gate of Wadham he meets the upbreaking of a little conventicle. That no treason has been transacting nor any dangerous doctrine propounded, the guardian of the University has ample assurance in the presence of his very good friends, Dr. Wallis the Savilian Professor, and Dr. Wilkins the Protector's brother-in-law. The latter has published a dissertation on the Moon and its Inhabitants, "with a discourse concerning the possibility of a passage thither;" and the former, a mighty mathematician, during the recent war had displayed a terrible ingenuity in deciphering the intercepted letters of the Royalists. Their companion is the famous physician Dr. Willis, in whose house, opposite the Vice-Chancellor's own door, the Oxford Prelatists daily assemble to enjoy the forbidden Prayer-Book; and the youth who follows, building castles in the air, is Christopher Wren. This evening they had met to witness some experiments which the tall, sickly gentleman in the velvet cloak had promised to show them. The tall sickly gentleman is the Honorable Robert Boyle, and the instrument with which he has been amusing his brother sages, in their embryo Royal Society, is the newly invented air-pump. Little versant in their pursuits, though respectful to their genius, after mutual salutations, the divine passes on and pays an evening visit to his illustrious neighbor, Dr. Thomas Goodwin. In his embroidered night-cap, and deep in the recesses of his dusky study, he finds the recluse old President of Magdalene; and they sit and talk together, and they pray together, till it strikes the hour of nine; and from the great Tom Tower a summons begins to sound calling to Christ Church cloisters the hundred and one students of the old foundation. And returning to the Deanery, which Mary's cheerful management has brightened into a pleasant home, albeit her own and her little daughter's weeds are suggestive of recent sorrows, the doctor dives into his library.

For the old misers it was pleasant to go down into their bullion vaults and feel that they were rich enough to buy up all the town, with the proud Earl in his mortgaged castle. And to many people there is a peculiar satisfaction in the society of the great and learned; nor can they forget the time when they talked to the great poet, or had a moment's monopoly of Royalty. But—

"That place that doth contain My books, the best companions, is to me A glorious court, where hourly I converse With the old sages and philosophers; And sometimes for variety I confer With kings and emperors, and weigh their counsels."

Not only is there the pleasant sense of property,—the rare editions, and the wonderful bargains, and the acquisitions of some memorable self-denial,—but there are grateful memories, and the feeling of a high companionship. When it first arrived, yon volume kept its owner up all night, and its neighbor introduced him to realms more delightful and more strange than if he had taken Dr. Wilkins's lunarian journey. In this biography, as in a magician's mirror, he was awed and startled by foreshadowings of his own career; and, ever since he sat at the feet of yonder sacred sage, he walks through the world with a consciousness, blessed and not vainglorious, that his being contains an element shared by few besides. And even those heretics inside the wires—like caged wolves or bottled vipers—their keeper has come to entertain a certain fondness for them, and whilst he detests the species, he would feel a pang in parting with his own exemplars.

Now that the evening lamp is lit, let us survey the Doctor's library. Like most of its coeval collections, its foundations are laid with massive folios. These stately tomes are the Polyglotts of Antwerp and Paris, the Critici Sacri and Poli Synopsis. The colossal theologians who flank them, are Augustine and Jerome, Anselm and Aquinas, Calvin and Episcopius, Ballarmine and Jansenius, Baronius and the Magdeburg Centuriators,—natural enemies, here bound over to their good behavior. These dark veterans are Jewish Rabbis,—Kimchi, Abarbanel, and, like a row of rag-collectors, a whole Monmouth Street of rubbish,—behold the entire Babylonian Talmud. These tall Socinians are the Polish brethren, and the dumpy vellums overhead are Dutch divines. The cupboard contains Greek and Latin manuscripts, and those spruce fashionables are Spencer, and Cowley, and Sir William Davenant. And the new books which crown the upper shelves, still uncut and fresh from the publisher, are the last brochures of Mr. Jeremy Taylor and Mr. Richard Baxter.[J]

This night, however, the Doctor is intent on a new book nowise to his mind. It is the "Redemption Redeemed" of John Goodwin. Its hydra-headed errors have already drawn from the scabbard the sword of many an orthodox Hercules on either side of the Tweed; and now, after a conference with the other Goodwin, the Dean takes up a ream of manuscript, and adds a finishing touch to his refutation.

At this period Dr. Owen would be forty years of age, for he was born in 1616. His father was minister of a little parish in Oxfordshire, and his ancestors were princes in Wales; indeed, the genealogists claimed for him a descent from King Caractacus. He himself was educated at Queen's College, and, under the impulse of an ardent ambition, the young student had fully availed himself of his academic privileges. For several years he took no more sleep than four hours a-night, and in his eagerness for future distinction he mastered all attainable knowledge, from mathematics to music. But about the time of his reaching majority, all his ambitious projects were suspended by a visitation of religious earnestness. In much ignorance of the divine specific, his conscience grew tender, and sin appeared exceeding sinful. It was at this conjuncture that Archbishop Laud imposed on Oxford a new code of statutes which scared away from the University the now scrupulous scholar. Years of anxious thoughtfulness followed, partly filled up by his duties as chaplain successively to Sir Robert Dormer and Lord Lovelace, when about the year 1641 he had occasion to reside in London. Whilst there he went one day to hear Edward Calamy; but instead of the famous preacher there entered the pulpit a country minister, who, after a fervent prayer, gave out for his text—"Why are ye fearful, O ye of little faith?" The sermon was a very plain one, and Owen never ascertained the preacher's name; but the perplexities with which he had long been harassed disappeared, and in the joy of a discovered gospel and an ascertained salvation, the natural energy of his character and the vigor of his constitution found again their wonted play.

Soon after this happy change, his first publication appeared. It was a "Display of Arminianism," and, attracting the attention of the Parliamentary "Committee for purging the Church of Scandalous Ministers," it procured for its author a presentation to the living of Fordham, in Essex. This was followed by his translation to the more important charge of Coggeshall, in the same county; and so rapidly did his reputation rise, that besides being frequently called to preach before the Parliament, he was, in 1649, selected by Cromwell as the associate of his expedition to Ireland, and was employed in re-modelling and resuscitating Trinity College, Dublin. Most likely it was owing to the ability with which he discharged this service that he was appointed Dean of Christ Church in 1651, and in the following year Vice-Chancellor of Oxford. It was a striking incident to find himself thus brought back to scenes which, fourteen years before, he had quitted amidst contempt and poverty, and a little mind would have been apt to signalize the event by a vainglorious ovation, or a vindictive retribution. But Owen returned to Oxford in all the grandeur of a God-fearing magnanimity, and his only solicitude was to fulfil the duties of his office. Although himself an Independent, he promoted well qualified men to responsible posts, notwithstanding their Presbyterianism or their Prelacy; and although the law gave him ample powers to disperse them, he never molested the liturgical meetings of his Episcopalian neighbors. From anxiety to promote the spiritual welfare of the students, in addition to his engagements as a Divinity lecturer and the resident head of the University, along with Dr. Goodwin he undertook to preach, on alternate Sabbaths, to the great congregation in St. Mary's. And such was the zeal which he brought to bear on the studies and the secular interests of the place, that the deserted courts were once more populous with ardent and accomplished students, and in alumni like Sprat, and South, and Ken, and Richard Cumberland, the Church of England received from Owen's Oxford some of its most distinguished ornaments; whilst men like Philip Henry and Joseph Alleine, went forth to perpetuate Owen's principles; and in founding the English schools of metaphysics, architecture, and medicine, Locke and Wren, and Sydenham taught the world that it was no misfortune to have been the pupils of the Puritan. It would be pleasant to record that Owen's generosity was reciprocated, and that if Oxford could not recognize the Non-conformist, neither did she forget the Republican who patronized the Royalists, and the Independent who befriended the Prelatists. According to the unsuspected testimony of Grainger, and Burnet, and Clarendon, the University was in a most flourishing condition when it passed from under his control; but on the principle which excludes Cromwell's statue from Westminster Palace, the picture-gallery at Christ Church finds no place for the greatest of its Deans.

The retirement into which he was forced by the Restoration was attended with most of the hardships incident to an ejected minister, to which were added sufferings and sorrows of his own. He never was in prison, but he knew what it was to lead the life of a fugitive; and after making a narrow escape from dragoons sent to arrest him, he was compelled to quit his rural retreat, and seek a precarious refuge in the capital. In 1676 he lost his wife, but before this they had mingled their tears over the coffins of ten out of their eleven children; and the only survivor, a pious daughter, returned from the house of an unkind husband, to seek beside her father all that was left of the home of her childhood. Soon after he married again; but though the lady was good, and affectionate, and rich withal, no comforts and no kind tending could countervail the effects of bygone toils and privations, and from the brief remainder of his days, weakness and anguish made many a mournful deduction. Still the busy mind worked on. To the congregation, which had already shown at once its patience and its piety, by listening to Caryl's ten quartos on Job, and which was afterwards to have its patience farther tried and rewarded, in the long but invalid incumbency of Isaac Watts, Dr. Owen ministered as long as he was able; and, being a preacher who had "something to say," it was cheering to him to recognize among his constant attendants persons so intelligent and influential as the late Protector's brother-in-law and son-in-law, Colonel Desborough and Lord Charles Fleetwood, Sir John Hartopp, the Hon. Roger Boyle, Lady Abney, and the Countess of Anglesea, and many other hearers who adorned the doctrine which their pastor expounded, and whose expectant eagerness gave zest to his studies, and animation to his public addresses. Besides during all this interval, and to the number of more than thirty volumes, he was giving to the world those masterly works which have invigorated the theology and sustained the devotion of unnumbered readers in either hemisphere. Amongst others, folio by folio, came forth that Exposition of the Hebrews, which, amidst all its digressive prolixity, and with its frequent excess of erudition, is an enduring monument of its author's robust understanding and spiritual insight, as well as his astonishing industry. At last the pen dropped from his band, and on the 23d of August, 1683, he dedicated a note to his likeminded friend, Charles Fleetwood: "I am going to him whom my soul has loved, or rather who has loved me, with an everlasting love, which is the whole ground of all my consolation. I am leaving the ship of the Church in a storm; but while the great pilot is in it, the loss of a poor under-rower will be inconsiderable. Live, and pray, and hope, and wait patiently, and do not despond; the promise stands invincible—that he will never leave us nor forsake us. My affectionate respects to your lady, and to the rest of your relations, who are so dear to me in the Lord, remember your dying friend with all fervency." The morrow after he had sent this touching message to the representative of a beloved family was Bartholomew day, the anniversary of the ejection of his two thousand brethren. That morning a friend called to tell him that he had put to the press his "Meditations on the Glory of Christ." There was a moment's gleam in his languid eye, as he answered, "I am glad to hear it: but, O brother Payne! the long wished for day is come at last, in which I shall see that glory in another manner than I have ever done, or was capable of doing in this world." A few hours of silence followed, and then that glory was revealed. On the fourth of September, a vast funeral procession, including the carriages of sixty-seven noblemen and gentlemen, with long trains of mourning coaches and horsemen, took the road to Finsbury; and there, in a new burying-ground, within a few paces of Goodwin's grave, and near the spot where, five years later, John Bunyan was interred, they laid the dust of Dr. Owen. His grave is with us to this day; but in the crowded Golgotha, surrounded with undertakers' sheds, and blind brick walls, with London cabs and omnibuses whirling past the gate, few pilgrims can distinguish the obliterated stone which marks the resting-place of the mighty Non-conformist.[K]

Many of our readers will remember Robert Baillie's description of Dr. Twiss, the Prolocutor of the Westminister Assembly: "The man, as the world knows, is very learned in the questions he has studied, and very good—beloved of all, and highly esteemed—but merely bookish ... and among the unfittest of all the company for any action." In this respect Dr. Owen was a great contrast to his studious contemporary; for he was as eminent for business talent as most ministers are conspicuous for the want of it. It was on this account that he was selected for the task of reorganizing the universities of Dublin and Oxford; and the success with which he fulfilled his commission, whilst it justified his patron's sagacity, showed that he was sufficiently master of himself to become the master of other minds. Of all his brethren few were so "fit for action." To the same cause to which he owed this practical ascendency, we are disposed to ascribe his popularity as a preacher; for we agree with Dr. Thompson, (Life of Owen, p. cvi.,) in thinking that Owen's power in the pulpit must have been greater than is usually surmised by his modern readers. Those who knew him describe him as a singularly fluent and persuasive speaker; and they also represent his social intercourse as peculiarly vivacious and cheerful. From all which our inference is, that Owen was one of those happy people who, whether for business or study, whether for conversation or public speaking, can concentrate all their faculties on the immediate occasion, and who do justice to themselves and the world, by doing justice to each matter as it successively comes to their hand.

A well-informed and earnest speaker will always be popular, if he be tolerably fluent, and if he "shew himself friendly;" but no reputation and no talent will secure an audience to the automaton who is unconscious of his hearers, or to the misanthrope, who despises or dislikes them. And if, as Anthony a Wood informs us, "the persuasion of his oratory could move and wind the affections of his admiring auditory almost as he pleased," we can well believe that he possessed the "proper and comely personage, the graceful behavior in the pulpit, the eloquent elocution, and the winning and insinuating deportment," which this reluctant witness ascribes to him. With such advantages, we can understand how, dissolved into a stream of continuous discourse, the doctrines which we only know in their crystallized form of heads and particulars, became a gladsome river; and how the man who spoke them with sparkling eye and shining face was not shunned as a buckram pedant, but run after as a popular preacher.

And yet, to his written style Owen is less indebted for his fame than almost any of the Puritans. Not to mention that his works have never been condensed into fresh pith and modern portableness by any congenial Fawcett, they never did exhibit the pathetic importunity and Demosthenic fervor of Baxter. In his Platonic loftiness Howe always dwelt apart; and there have been no glorious dreams since Bunyan woke amidst the beatific vision. Like a soft valley, where every turn reveals a cascade or a castle, or at least a picturesque cottage, Flavel lures us along by the vivid succession of his curious analogies and interesting stories; whilst all the way the path is green with kind humanity, and bright with Gospel blessedness. And like some sheltered cove, where the shells are all so brilliant, and the sea-plants all so curious, that the young naturalist can never leave off collecting, so profuse are the quaint sayings and the nice little anecdotes which Thomas Brooks showers from his "Golden Treasury," from his "Box," and his "Cabinet," that the reader needs must follow where all the road is so radiant. But Owen has no adventitious attractions. His books lack the extempore felicities and the reflected fellow-feeling which lent a charm to his spoken sermons; and on the table-land of his controversial treatises, sentence follows sentence like a file of ironsides, in buff and rusty steel, a sturdy procession, but a dingy uniform; and it is only here and there where a son of Anak has burst his rags, that you glimpse a thought of uncommon stature or wonderful proportions. Like candidates for the modern ministry, in his youth Owen had learned to write Latin, Greek, and Hebrew; but then, as now, English had no place in the academic curriculum. And had he been urged in maturer life to study the art of composition, most likely he would have frowned on his adviser. He would have urged the "haste" which "the King's business" requires, and might have reminded us that viands are as wholesome on a wooden trencher as on a plate of gold. He would have told us that truth needs no tinsel, and that the road over a bare heath may be more direct than the pretty windings of the valley. Or, rather, he would have said, as he has written—"Know that you have to do with a person who, provided his words but clearly express the sentiments of his mind, entertains a fixed and absolute disregard of all elegance and ornaments of speech."

True: gold is welcome even in a purse of the coarsest canvas; and, although it is not in such caskets that people look for gems, no man would despise a diamond because he found it in an earthen porringer. In the treatises of Owen there is many a sentence which, set in a sermon, would shine like a brilliant; and there are ingots enough to make the fortune of a theological faculty. For instance, we open the first treatise in this new collection of his works, and we read:—"It carrieth in it a great condecency unto Divine wisdom, that man should be restored unto the image of God, by Him who was the essential image of the Father; and that He was made like unto us, that we might be made like unto Him, and unto God through him;" and we are immediately reminded of a recent treatise on the Incarnation, and all its beautiful speculation regarding the "Pattern-Man." We read again till we come to the following remark:—"It is the nature of sincere goodness to give a delight and complacency unto the mind in the exercise of itself, and communication of its effects. A good man doth both delight in doing good, and hath an abundant reward for the doing it, in the doing of it;" and how can we help recalling a memorable sermon "On the Immediate Reward of Obedience," and a no less memorable chapter in a Bridgewater treatise, "On the Inherent Pleasure of the Virtuous Affections?" And we read the chapter on "The Person of Christ the great Representative of God," and are startled by its foreshadowings of the sermons and the spiritual history of a remarkably honest and vigorous thinker, who, from doubting the doctrine of the Trinity, was led to recognize in the person of Jesus Christ the Alpha and Omega of his theology. It is possible that Archdeacon Wilberforce, and Chalmers, and Arnold, may never have perused the treatise in question; and it is equally possible that under the soporific influence of a heavy style, they may never have noticed passages for which their own minds possessed such a powerful affinity. But by the legitimate expedient of appropriate language—perhaps by means of some "ornament or elegance"—Jeremy Taylor or Barrow would have arrested attention to such important thoughts; and the cause of truth would have gained, had the better divine been at least an equal orator.

However, there are "masters in Israel," whose style has been remarkably meagre; and perhaps "Edwards on the Will" and "Butler's Analogy," would not have numbered many more readers, although they had been composed in the language of Addison. We must, therefore, notice another obstacle which has hindered our author's popularity, and it is a fault of which the world is daily becoming more and more intolerant. That fault is prolixity. Dr. Owen did not take time to be brief; and in his polemical writings, he was so anxious to leave no cavil unanswered, that he spent, in closing loop-holes, the strength which would have crushed the foe in open battle. No misgiving as to the champion's powers will ever cross the mind of the spectators; but movements more rapid would render the conflict more interesting, and the victory not less conclusive.[L] In the same way, that the effectiveness of his controversial works is injured by this excursive tendency, so the practical impression of his other works is too often suspended by inopportune digressions; whilst every treatise would have commanded a wider circulation if divested of its irrelevant incumbrances. Within the entire range of British authorship there exists no grander contributions toward a systematic Christology than the Exposition of the Hebrews, with its dissertations on the Saviour's priesthood; but whilst there are few theologians who have not occasionally consulted it, those are still fewer who have mastered its ponderous contents; and we have frequently known valiant students who addressed themselves to the "Perseverance of the Saints," or the "Justification," but like settlers put ashore in a cane-brake, or in a jungle of prickly pears, after struggling for hours through the Preface or the General Considerations, they were glad to regain the water's edge, and take to their boat once more.

It was their own loss, however, that they did not reach the interior; for there they would have found themselves in the presence of one of the greatest of Theological intellects. Black and Cavendish were born ready-made chemists, and Linnaeus and Cuvier were naturalists, in spite of themselves; and so, there is a mental conformation which almost necessitated Augustine and Athanasius, Calvin and Arminius, to be dogmatists and systematic divines. With the opposite aptitudes for large generalization and subtile distinction, as soon as some master-principle had gained possession of their devout understandings, they had no greater joy than to develop its all-embracing applications, and they sought to subjugate Christendom to its imperial ascendency. By itself, the habit of lofty contemplation would have made them pietists or Christian psalmists, and a mere turn for definition would have made them quibblers or schoolmen; but the two united, and together animated by a strenuous faith, made them theologians. In such intellects the seventeenth century abounded, but we question if in dialectic skill, guided by sober judgment, and in extensive acquirements, mellowed by a deep spirituality, it yielded an equivalent to Dr. Owen.

Although there is only one door to the kingdom of heaven, there is many an entrance to scientific divinity. There is the gate of Free Inquiry as well as the gate of Spiritual Wistfulness. And although there are exceptional instances, on the whole we can predict what school the new-comer will join, by knowing the door through which he entered. If from the wide fields of speculation he has sauntered inside the sacred inclosure; if he is an historian who has been carried captive by the documentary demonstration—or a poet who has been arrested by the spiritual sentiment—or a philosopher who has been won over by the Christian theory, and who has thus made a hale-hearted entrance within the precincts of the faith,—he is apt to patronize that gospel to which he has given his accession, and like Clemens Alexandrinus, or Hugo Grotius, or Alphonse de Lamartine, he will join that school where Taste and Reason alternate with Revelation, and where ancient classics and modern sages are scarcely subordinate to the "men who spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost." On the other hand, if "fleeing from the wrath to come," through the crevice of some "faithful saying," he has struggled into enough of knowledge to calm his conscience and give him peace with Heaven, the oracle which assured his spirit will be to him unique in its nature and supreme in its authority, and, a debtor to that scheme to which he owes his very self, like Augustine, and Cowper, and Chalmers, he will join that school where Revelation is absolute, and where "Thus saith the Lord" makes an end of every matter. And without alleging that a long process of personal solicitude is the only right commencement of the Christian life, it is worthy of remark that the converts whose Christianity has thus commenced have usually joined that theological school which, in "salvation-work," makes least account of man and most account of God. Jeremy Taylor, and Hammond, and Barrow, were men who made religion their business; but still they were men who regarded religion as a life for God rather than a life from God, and in whose writings recognitions of Divine mercy and atonement and strengthening grace are comparatively faint and rare. But Bolton, and Bunyan, and Thomas Goodwin, were men who from a region of carelessness or ignorance were conducted through a long and darkling labyrinth of self-reproach and inward misery, and by a way which they knew not were brought out at last on a bright landing-place of assurance and praise; and, like Luther in the previous century, and like Halyburton, and Whitefield, and Jonathan Edwards, in the age succeeding, the strong sense of their own demerit led them to ascribe the happy change from first to last to the sovereign grace and good Spirit of God. It was in deep contrition and much anguish of soul that Owen's career began; and that creed, which is pre-eminently the religion of "broken hearts," became his system of theology.

"Children, live like Christians; I leave you the covenant to feed upon." Such was the dying exhortation of him who protected so well England and the Albigenses; and "the convenant" was the food with which the devout heroic lives of that godly time were nourished. This covenant was the sublime staple of Owen's theology. It suggested topics for his parliamentary sermons;—"A Vision of Unchangeable Mercy," and "The Steadfastness of Promises." It attracted him to that book of the Bible in which the federal economy is especially unfolded. And, whether discoursing on the eternal purposes, or the extent of redemption—whether expounding the Mediatorial office, or the work of the sanctifying Spirit—branches of this tree of life re-appear in every treatise. In such discussions some may imagine that there can be nothing but barren speculation, or, at the best, an arduous and transcendental theosophy. However, when they come to examine for themselves they will be astonished at the mass of Scriptural authority on which they are based; and, unless we greatly err, they will find them peculiarly subservient to correction and instruction in righteousness. Many writers have done more for the details of Christian conduct; but for purposes of heart-discipline and for the nurture of devout affections, there is little uninspired authorship equal to the more practical publications of Owen. In the Life of that noble-hearted Christian philosopher, the late Dr. Welsh, it is mentioned that in his latter days, besides the Bible, he read nothing but "Owen on Spiritual-Mindedness," and the "Olney Hymns;" and we shall never despair of the Christianity of a country which finds numerous readers for his "Meditations on the Glory of Christ," and his "Exposition of the hundred and thirtieth Psalm."

And here we may notice a peculiarity of Owen's treatises, which is at once an excellence and a main cause of their redundancies. So systematic was his mind that he could only discuss a special topic with reference to the entire scheme of truth; and so constructive was his mind, that, not content with the confutation of his adversary, he loved to state and establish positively the truth impugned: to which we may add, so devout was his disposition, that, instead of leaving his thesis a dry demonstration, he was anxious to suffuse its doctrine with those spiritual charms which it wore to his own contemplation. All this adds to the bulk of his polemical writings. At the same time it adds to their value. Dr. Owen makes his reader feel that the point in debate is not an isolated dogma, but a part of the "whole counsel of God;" and by the positive as well as practical form in which he presents it, he does all which a disputant can to counteract the skeptical and pragmatical tendencies of religious controversy. Hence, too, it comes to pass that, with one of the commonplaces of Protestantism or Calvinism for a nucleus, his works are most of them virtual systems of doctrino-practical divinity.

The alluvial surface of a country takes its complexion from the prevailing rock-formation. The Essays of Foster, and the Sermons of Chalmers excepted, the evangelical theology of the last hundred years has been chiefly alluvial; and in its miscellaneous composition the element which we chiefly recognize is a detritus from Mount Owen. To be sure, a good deal of it is the decomposition of a more recent conglomerate, but a conglomerate in which larger boulders of the original formation are still discernible. The sermon-makers of the present day may read Cecil and Romaine and Andrew Fuller; and in doing this they are studying the men who studied Owen. But why not study the original? It does good to an ordinary understanding to hold fellowship with a master mind; and it would greatly freshen the ministrations of our pulpits, if, with the electric eye of modern culture, and with minds alive to our modern exigency, preachers held converse direct with the prime sources of British theology. We could imagine the reader of Boston producing a sermon as good as Robert Walker's, and the reader of Henry producing a commentary as good as Thomas Scott's, and the reader of Bishop Hall producing sketches as good as the "Horae Homileticae:" but we grow sleepy when we try to imagine Scott diluted or Walker desiccated, and from a congregation top-dressed with bone-dust from the "Skeletons," the crop we should expect would be neither fervent Christians nor enlightened Churchmen. And, even so, a reproduction of the men who have repeated or translated Owen, is sure to be commonplace and feeble; but from warm hearts and active intellects employed on Owen himself, we could expect a multitude of new Cecils and Romaines and Fullers.

As North British Reviewers, we congratulate our country on having produced this beautiful reprint of the illustrious Puritan; and from the fact that they have offered it at a price which has introduced it to four thousand libraries, we must regard the publishers as benefactors to modern theology. The editor has consecrated all his learning and all his industry to his labor of love; and, by all accounts, the previous copies needed a reviser as careful and as competent as Mr. Goold. Dr. Thompson's memoir of the author we have read with singular pleasure. It exhibits much research, and a fine appreciation of Dr. Owen's characteristic excellencies, and its tone is kind and catholic. Such reprints, rightly used, will be a new era in our Christian literature. They can scarcely fail to intensify the devotion and invigorate the faculties of such as read them. And if these readers be chiefly professed divines, the people will in the long-run reap the benefit. Let taste and scholarship and eloquence by all means do their utmost; but it is little which these can do without materials. The works of Owen are an exhaustless magazine; and, without forgetting the source whence they were themselves supplied, there is many an empty mill which their garner could put into productive motion. Like the gardens of Malta, many a region, now bald and barren, might be rendered fair and profitable with loam imported from their Holy Land; and many is the fair structure which might be reared from a single block of their cyclopean masonry.

FOOTNOTES:

[I] The Works of John Owen, D.D. Edited by the Rev. WILLIAM H. GOOLD, Edinburgh. Vols. 1, 2, 5, 6, 8, 9, 14, (to be completed in Fifteen Volumes.) London and Edinburgh. 1850-51. New-York, Carter & Brother, 1852.

[J] In his elaborate "Memoirs of Dr. Owen," (p. 345.) Mr. Orme mentions that "his library was sold in May, 1684, by Millington, one of the earliest of our book auctioneers;" and adds, "considering the doctor's taste as a reader, his age as a minister, and his circumstances as a man, his library, in all probability, would be both extensive and valuable." Then, in a foot note, he gives some interesting particulars as to the extent of the early No-conformist libraries, viz., Dr. Lazarus Seaman's, which sold for L700; Dr. Jacomb's, which sold for L1300; Dr. Bates's, which was bought for five or six hundred pounds by Dr. Williams, in order to lay the foundation of Red Cross Street library; and Dr. Evans's, which contained 10,000 volumes; again subjoining, "It is probable Dr. Owen's was not inferior to some of these." It would have gratified the biographer had he known that a catalogue of Owen's library is still in existence. Bound up with other sale-catalogues in the Bodleian, is the "Bibliotheca Oweniana; sive catalogus librorum plurimis facultatibus insignium, instructissimae Bibliothecae Rev. Doct. Viri D. Joan. Oweni (quondam Vice-Cancellarii et Decani AEdis Christi in Academia Oxoniensi) nuperrime defuncti; cum variis manuscriptis Graecis Latinis, &c., propria manu Doct. Patricii Junii aliorumq. conscriptis: quorum auctio habebitur Londini apud domum auctionariam, adverso Nigri Cygni in vico vulgo dicto Ave Mary Lane, prope Ludgate Street, vicesimo sexto die Maii, 1684. Per Eduardum Millington, Bibliopolam." In the Preface, the auctioneer speaks of Dr. Owen as "a person so generally known as a generous buyer and great collector of the best books;" and after adverting to his copies of Fathers, Councils, Church Histories, and Rabbinical Authors, he adds, "all which considered together, perhaps for their number are not to be paralleled, or upon any terms to be procured, when gentlemen are desirous of, or have a real occasion for the perusal of them." The number of volumes is 2889. For the knowledge of the existence of this catalogue, and for a variety of curious particulars regarding it, the Reviewer is indebted to one of the dignitaries of Oxford, whose bibliographical information is only exceeded by the obligingness with which he puts it at the command of others, the Rev. Dr. Macbride, Principal of Magdalene Hall.

[K] A copious Latin epitaph was inscribed on his tombstone, of which Mr. Orme speaks, in 1826, as "still in fine preservation." (Memoirs, p. 346.) We are sorry to say that three letters, faintly traceable, are all that can now be deciphered. The tomb of his illustrious colleague, Goodwin, is in a still more deplorable condition: not only is the inscription effaced, but the marble slab, having been split with lightning, has never been repaired.

[L] In his delightful reminiscences of Dr. Chalmers, Mr. J. J. Gurney says, "I often think that particular men bear about with them an analogy to particular animals: Chalmers is like a good-tempered lion; Wilberforce is like a bee." Dr. Owen often reminds us of an elephant; the same ponderous movements—the same gentle sagacity—the same vast but unobtrusive powers. With a logical proboscis able to handle the heavy guns of Hugo Grotius, and to untwist withal the tangled threads of Richard Baxter, in his encounters with John Goodwin he resembles his prototype in a leopard-hunt, where sheer strength is on the one side, and brisk ability on the other. And, to push our conceit no further, they say that this wary animal will never venture over a bridge till he has tried its strength, and is assured that it can bear him; and if we except the solitary break-down in the Waltonian controversy, our disputant was as cautious in choosing his ground as he was formidable when once he took up his position.



JESSE LEE AND THE LAWYERS.

Jesse Lee, one of the first Methodist preachers in New England, combined unresting energy, and sensibility, with an extraordinary propensity to wit. Mr. Stephens, in his new work on the Memorials of Methodism, gives the following specimen of Lee's bonhommie:

As he was riding on horseback one day, between Boston and Lynn, he was overtaken by two young lawyers, who knew that he was a Methodist preacher, and were disposed to amuse themselves somewhat at his expense. Saluting him, and ranging their horses one on each side of him, they entered in a conversation something like the following:—First Lawyer. I believe you are a preacher, sir? Lee. Yes; I generally pass for one. First lawyer. You preach very often, I suppose? Lee. Generally every day, frequently twice, or more. Second Lawyer. How do you find time to study, when you preach so often? Lee. I study when riding, and read when resting. First Lawyer. But you do not write your sermons? Lee. No; not very often. Second Lawyer. Do you not often make mistakes in preaching extemporaneously? Lee. I do, sometimes. Second Lawyer. How do you do then? Do you correct them? Lee. That depends upon the character of the mistake. I was preaching the other day, and I went to quote the text: "All liars shall have their part in the lake that burneth with fire and brimstone;" and, by mistake, I said, "All lawyers shall have their part"—Second Lawyer (interrupting him). "What did you do with that? Did you correct it?" Lee. "Oh, no, indeed! It was so nearly true, I didn't think it worth while to correct it." "Humph!" said one of them, with a hasty and impatient glance at the other; "I don't know whether you are the more knave or fool!" "Neither," he quietly replied, turning at the same time his mischievous eyes from one to the other; "I believe I am just between the two!"

Finding they were measuring wit with a master, and mortified at their discomfiture, the knights of the green bag drove on, leaving the victor to solitude and his own reflections.



ANNUARIES,

BY ALICE CAREY.

I.

A year has gone down silently To the dark bosom of the Past, Since I beneath this very tree Sat hoping, fearing, dreaming, last. Its waning glories, like a flame, Are trembling to the wind's light touch— All just a year ago the same, And I—oh! I am changed so much!

The beauty of a wildering dream Hung softly round declining day; A star of all too sweet a beam In Eve's flushed bosom trembling lay. Changed in its aspect, yet the same, Still climbs that star from sunset's glow, But its embraces of pale flame Clasp not the weary world from wo!

Another year shall I return, And cross this solemn chapel floor, While round me memory's shrine-lamps burn— Or shall this pilgrimage be o'er? One that I loved, grown faint with strife, When drooped and died the tenderer bloom, Folded the white tent of young life For the pale army of the tomb.

The dry seeds dropping from their pods, The hawthorn apples bright as dawn, And the pale mullen's starless rods, Were just as now a year agone. But changed is every thing to me, From the small flower to sunset's glow, Since last I sat beneath this tree, A year—a little year—ago.

I leaned against this broken bough, This faded turf my footstep pressed; But glad hopes that are not there now, Lay softly trembling in my breast: Trembling, for though the golden haze, Rose, as the dead leaves drifted by, As from the Vala of old days, The mournful voice of prophecy.

Give woman's heart one triumph hour, Even on the borders of the grave, And thou hast given her strength and power The saddest ills of life to brave. Crush that far hope down, thou dost bring To the poor bird the tempest's wrath, Without the petrel's stormy wing To beat the darkness from its path.

Once knowing mortal hope and fear, Whate'er in heaven's sweet clime thou art, Bend, pitying mother, softly near, And save, O save me from my heart! Be still pale-handed memory, My knee is trembling on the sod, The heir of immortality, A child of the eternal God.

II.

When last year took her mournful flight, With all her train of wo and ill, As pale processions sweep at night Across some lonesome burial hill— My soul with sorrow for its mate, And bowed with unrequited wrong, Stood knocking at the starry gate Of the wild wondrous realm of song.

For hope from my poor hert was gone, With all the sheltering peace it gave, And a dim twilight, stealing on, Foretold the night-time of the grave. Past is that time of dim unrest, Hope reillumes its faded track, And the soft hand of love has prest Death's deep and awful shadows back.

A year agone, when wildly shrill The wind sat singing on this bough, The churchyard on the neighboring hill Had not so many graves as now. When the May-morn, with hand of light, The clouds above her bosom drew, And o'er the blue, cold steeps of night Went treading out the stars like dew—

One, whose dear joy it had been ours Two little summer times to keep, Folded his white hands from the flowers, And, softly smiling, fell asleep. And when the northern light streamed cold Across October's moaning blast, One whose brief tarriance was foretold All the sweet summer that was past,

Meekly unlocked from her young arms The scarcely faded bridal crown, And in death's fearful night of storms The dim day of her life went down. While still beneath the golden hours, That like a roof the woods o'erspread, Among the few and faded flowers, Musing this idle rhyme I tread.

Above yon reach of level mist Bright shines the cross-crowned spire afar, As in the sky's clear amethyst The splendor of some steadfast star. And still beneath its steady light The waves of time heave to and fro, From night to day, from day to night, As the dim seasons come and go.

Some eager for ambition's strife, Some to love's banquet hurrying on, Like pilgrims on the hills of life We cross each other, and are gone. But though our lives are little drops, Welled from the infinite fount above, Our deaths are but the mystic stops In the great melody of love.

III.

Burying the basement of the skies October's mists hang dull and red, And with each wild gust's fall and rise, The yellow leaves are round me spread. 'Tis the third autumn, ay, so long, Since memory 'neath this very bough, Thrilled my sad lyre strings into song— What shall unlock their music now?

Then sang I of a sweet hope changed, Of pale hands beckoning, glad health fled, Of hearts grown careless or estranged, Of friends, or living, lost, or dead. O living lost, forever lost, Your light still lingers, faint and far, As if an awful shadow crossed The bright disk of the morning star.

Blow, autumn, in thy wildest wrath, Down from the northern woodlands, blow! Drift the last wild-flowers from my path— What care I for the summer now? Yet shrink I, trembling and afraid, From searching glances inward thrown; What deep foundation have I laid, For any joyance, not my own?

While with my poor, unskilful hands, Half hopeful, half in vague alarm, Building up walls of shining sands That fell and faded with the storm, E'en now my bosom shakes with fear, Like the last leaflets of this bough, For through the silence I can hear, "Unprofitable servant, thou!"

Yet have there been, there are to-day In spite of health, or hope's decline, Fountains of beauty sealed away From every mortal eye but mine. Even dreams have filled my soul with light, and on my way their beauty left, As if the darkness of the night Were by some planet's rising cleft.

And peace hath in my heart been born, That shut from memory all life's ills, In walking with the blue-eyed morn Among the white mists of the hills. And joyous, I have heard the wails That heave the wild woods to and fro, When autumn's crown of crimson pales Beneath the winter's hand of snow.

Once, leaving all its lovely mates, On yonder lightning-withered tree, That vainly for the springtime waits, A wild bird perched and sang for me. And listening to the clear sweet strain That came like sunshine o'er the day My forehead's hot and burning pain, Fell like a crown of thorns away.